Favourite Mobile Apps

Hello and welcome to inspect a podcast about design and development. My name is Ajay and with me as usual is Kay Hey, how's it going? I'm good. Thanks.

How are you? Yeah? Not too bad. Excellent.

Excellent. Cool in today's episode We're gonna be talking about our favorite mobile apps. So I'm an iPhone user. I currently use an iPhone 6s I was getting on a little bit, but still works fine.

So that's all good and okay. You're on Android easier Yeah, but the Samsung s9 plus which is yeah a bit old now as well But I think it's the best one out of all the bunch that come out. So yeah, that's the glitz Yeah, these ones they do they are built to last really so unless you're always looking for the you know the latest and greatest features I think they pretty much last as long as you need them to iPhone success I think this probably gonna be my final year with it that it's gonna actually get software updates because right yeah I was 13 which is new to come out pretty soon sometime in September I believe It does still support the success, but I don't think 14 will I think we're gonna get rid of that So I think by next year I'd probably definitely have to upgrade to something Yeah, yeah, did you watch the Apple event this week iPhone 11 11 pro? No, I caught some clips of it and sort of fall out on Social media.

Yeah, you know I love it and hate you at the same time. Yeah same old kind of stuff really I mean that is doing what everyone else is doing and you know the multiple lenses and things like that that's the biggest You know aesthetic feature that's on the phone right? Yeah, that's it. It's all about the camera now.

I think most phones are all about the camera Yeah, so yeah, they're gonna make a big deal about that I'll probably head out to that post or at some point to go and have a look at it But I think I'll hold off for a few months before I try and invest in something yeah one one new feature apparently I don't be sure not they've got the phone is that a portrait mode for your pet? Yeah, yeah, because in previously the portrait mode it would recognize human faces only but yeah the change in out So that it can work on not just pets it works on other objects as well So you can get some nice background blur on you know a vase for the flowers if you want it in I suppose Which is good, you know into your photography then that's one of the things you need Definitely. Yeah, okay. Well, let's get into this.

Let's get into apps. So I suppose what we can do is leave off some of the Some of the stock apps that come with the phone or what come with the platform should I say because um chances I'm you know, we're all gonna be using those anyway in some sort capacity And I think we should leave off some of the very common things like Facebook and Twitter. Oh, yeah I think it's fairly standard that people are using those apps and you know, all right you might be using a Twitter client So if you are you can't potentially talk about that, but I use stock one so I've really got much to say there Sure, so yeah, so we should take it by category by category. We've got some productivity apps with some media related ones and games utilities that we use Social if you want and then just like a mixed bag where they don't really fit into any sort of category.

Yeah, yeah So which one do you kick off with? Let's go with I think you might could start with productivity. All right, you go ahead. Okay, so I've got Three four five productivity apps done using and I think they go inside with like the desktop apps and websites as well Yeah, so just clarify these are you apps that you use the most and you use pretty much on a daily basis Not just any like exactly.

Yeah, so the first one I've got this Trello which I use for project management managing client work and also just managing my own life if you like day to day And this podcast and this podcast. Yeah, it's a brilliant app and when I do decline to Trello They just get the hang of it within minutes and they love it as well. So on the phone. It's really really easy to use It's literally a lot of swiping involved It's the case of creating a card and dropping a card into a column and you know setting your checklist of in that card and Do dates and things like that and you can also add people onto the card as well.

So they know what's going on Yeah, I've tried loads of project management tools out there I think I'll be trying everything I want that's out there even things like a to-doist and you know list it and all this kind of stuff But I think Trello works really well and mobile as well as a desktop and I'm constantly using it and referring to it Yeah, I think it's pretty impressive how they managed to get the same UX That you've got on the web into the mobile as well where you can drag cards around and sort of zoom out in your workspace and see all of your columns You know, there's a bit of a task to create that into a mobile interface, but they don't pull it off really well Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and Trello work wide by Atlassian. Was it about two years ago, maybe? I haven't noticed much change.

So I'm glad that they haven't ruined the product and they haven't made it into it like a They haven't corporate what's the word? They haven't put a corporate paintbrush to it. Yeah, which is nice But yeah, I wonder if they are going to do any sort of crossover between Atlassian which obviously creates a Giro Giro, yeah, that's a bit more complex, isn't it? Yeah, it's obviously a different one enterprise.

Yeah, yeah All right cool. Yeah, I mean I use Trello as well. I don't use Trello much on my phone I just literally have it there for notifications mainly just use on the desktop. Okay.

Yeah, my main property app I use is to-doist So I use that for work to do list for work. I think I mentioned it on the podcast as well before Yeah, some of the reasons why I like it and also use it from personally as well So we've got some shared lists that me and wife used and what it all wired up to the Amazon Echo and to Google Home as well So yeah, we use it around the house, you know shopping lists and to-do lists and reminders and all sorts It's really good really like to do this. Yeah, I used to use that It's a while ago now and I think it was probably one of the only ones that I actually started using on a regular basis It was really simple to use. I think it's all the same sort of layout hasn't changed much as it's about a year ago Not since I've been using it.

Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed using it. I've still got it integrated slack But yeah, I've just kind of just fallen off that and kind of stick to try and I just think the one yeah Yeah, it is pretty cool I do go through like to do loose apps and these sorts of note taking apps quite a lot to try and find you know The best to work for and to do is just taking almost all the boxes I haven't got a premium account with it And I think if I did get the premium account They may it may just unlock enough features for me to go you know to make it my number one app But the moment is it's just good enough. Yeah, that's cool Okay, so my next productivity and this one's kind of like a Nothing to do with Well, you could associate with working things like that but it's called loop habit tracker and I just started using it recently and what I'm trying to do with it is Track things that I want to be doing on a regular basis, which I associate with like good habits So for example, I play fiber cycle and I try and attend fiber cycle twice a week I go to the gym for five days a week Reading trying to do a little bit of reading here in there. There's another app that I use on mention later on So what I do is I just use a loop habit tracker to create a list of things of good habits that I'm doing that I want to be doing throughout the week And I simply just tap or tick off each time I do that particular thing and you can go back and have a look at your You know productivity and create chart for you and show you how consistent you are with your habits.

So It's a pretty good pretty good app is very lightweight as well Recommend it to anyone who wants to start building your habits around. Yeah, just a little bit search and look like it's Android only that one is I've used a different habit tracker in the past. It's literally just called habit habit daily tracker And it's also one of them. Yeah, yeah, but I found out I just wasn't doing it I wasn't actually one of you might have been actually doing the activity.

I was then forgetting to log it so was it was it prompting you when you It was prompts as well, but I'm the sort of person. I forget too many of the same prompt. They just Defade into the background. Right.

So then yeah, I did stop using it It'd be good to actually get back into that Yeah, this one's pretty cool. I mean, it's really like wait and it's not you know a true so it isn't getting your face So I've got a prompt and it'll remind me every day at some time Have you have you read something today? Have you been to the gym? Yeah, have you been football?

But I don't say for those days where I'm supposed to be doing those things. Okay, like reading will be every day and then football will be like Choose isn't there's days and Jim will be you know full five days a week. So yeah, you know, it's very very sort of like, you know Out of the way kind of thing. It's not like in your face and put you know one of those things that puts you off It's it's all so you can just you know, take it off and it reminds you as well like you might be going for half the day You're anything so crack.

Okay, let me read something and you know it works well like that. Okay, well Maybe I should get back on to one of these and pick up some. Yeah, yeah, maybe I'll I'll have a little word with you about how you've Confidials and what sort of what's up? How do you want to track as well?

I think that was the initial thing that put me off not put me off But stop me from using it because I didn't really know what to track and I didn't want to track things like drinking water and Standing up and stuff like that because I've got a fit as well Which reminds you to move around and get a bit exercise. So yeah, maybe we can talk about that This thing falls into think in a category where you've got I say you've got you got hobbies and things you like you'd like to do That you used to do and be just don't get a chance to do it But you'd really love to like one thing that I like doing is really comic books So that's part of my reading thing So, you know, I just I've got a collection of comic books which I bought recently and you know I read a couple of pages and they just immerse myself and it just lose myself, you know around the daily work and Life stuff and stuff, but you know, I think things like that pretty cool Yeah, yeah, my next one is Evan Oak which I use for everything pretty much I kind of stayed away from the stock notes app on iOS and Mac Because there was a point a few years ago where I had to use a Windows machine at work So I wanted to make sure that I've got a cross-platform notes tool and Evan Oak's tickles boxes there and then the main thing I do with Evan Oak actually is using it as a digital archive for paperwork Right. So anytime I get a port important letter through I will scan it using Evan O'odham like a companion app called Scanable. Okay, so I'll basically take a photo Multiple pages if I need to as well to create PDF scan those and then upload it to Evan Oak categorize it put it into a folder add tags give it a you know a reasonable name Scripted name, yeah, and then I'll get rid of the paper letter and I did this about a year and a half ago when I was back to move house I digitized all my paper that had spent like two days just going through all of it and now I've just gone into the habit now Keeping everything digital.

Yeah. Yeah, so try to go complete paperless wherever I can now Even that's pretty good like even like a product manuals if I buy a new product and the manual is in the box Then I'll have a look on the website See if they got a downloadable manuals instead. Yeah, yeah, save it Evan Oak and then just check the print it on away I never thought about that. The one thing that I've been doing is killing off my Paper like banking so any statements that come through you know, they just pile up and it's like you know where you put them Yeah, so I didn't think about that So the way you're doing it so that'd be interesting with very many kind of important letters that I'm getting through some looking to that Yeah, yeah, it's quite easy, especially with the scannable, which is one of my main used apps as well Scannable.

Yeah, it's by Evan Oak I think you can do all this without the scannable app as well You could just use Evan at one but scannable has a really nice interface and The whole workflow of it is really good. Okay. Yeah, it's all really easy and Evan Oh gives you quite a lot of stories for free as well, so I haven't had to upgrade my account yet And I've got a lot of stuff in there I've got that on my list. I've got that on my list as well and yeah, it's all quick notes and That's what I really use it for really if I'm talking to a client on the phone And they just talking to me about certain things they want I'm ending on a website or things like that Then I'll just join in quickly never know yeah, and then from over no going to you know Trello say I was a proper task Yeah, that's how I use it.

Okay cool. Um you mentioned about you know going digital with your banking With my banking app So banking category now I use an Apple Monzo so that is my bank account is Monzo and With them you just don't get any statements anyway ever they they do generate a statement in the background So if you ever do need one you can go into your account settings And you can find a PDF statement which you can then from them from the mobile app You can either then email it to yourself or you can just save it save it to Dropbox or save it to you know Your files apples and other but yeah, nothing ever comes in the post completely all digital bank Yeah, I started using it was it was it six to eight months ago And then me and my wife just the recently got a joint account as well and it's amazing how seamless it all is It's so cool. I love it. Yeah, and it works really well, and you know you can see exactly what's going on with money's being spent Which would probably you know notifications when your wife spends something.

Yeah, which isn't a cool thing Yeah, but I'm out with the boys coming in doing Well, that shouldn't be for me to account. Yeah, but yeah happen sometimes when you've had a few Yeah, so I use Monzo as well The other one that I've just signed up to is tight. I don't know if you've heard about tight They've got a new business banking app Bank without a bank as there's no physical bank and it's just pretty much like Monzo, but it's for you know business users So I'll just start using that and yeah, it's brilliant. It's for business banking It's because I'm with HSPC with mine.

Well, I was with HSPC You know the business user and they were like 10 years behind everything You know you still got a fob and they're running just recently you got the whole fingerprint recognition set up now So and now it's becoming a bit more kind of like how you know how Tide works and how these banking apps should be working But they're you know their fees and their charges and interesting things are that it's ridiculous And I've been with them for over 10 years now, and it you know, it doesn't make any sense to stick with them So yeah, I just made the switch to tide and everything's just cheaper It's easier to monitor and manage and it sinks really well with my with the other At that I'm gonna mention as free agent for my accounting right and they work really well together with this they seem As so yeah, I've got a little package there now for my finance and business accounts and stuff. Yeah, okay great Yeah, yeah banking they do really live up to their stigma don't they of being backwards and you know these new these new sort of Banking companies that are shaking up the industry like Monzo tide even Apple Apple pay and yeah, there's so many of them now They're really changing the whole of landscape of mobile banking. It's brilliant Yeah, I think it's about time It had some disruption in the industry because they've you know big boys they've been running it for for how long now and Someone's got to come up with some really nifty kind of ways of allowing people to just manage their you know finances You know monzo things like that. I'm brilliant.

Starlings another one. I haven't used that one, but my wife swears Why it says is better than Monzo, but okay, you've got to just be honest liquid it as long as you can You can't be talking around banking apps like you can't anything else So I think they're all the same the UX and those things very very similar they all work the same way The difference is gonna be the fees that they charge obviously and that's about it. I think of anything else. Yeah, okay cool.

Right. What's the next category? I think utilities because I've got some utility one of the ones I've got which was kind of all so the utilities apps So these are things that are you know, they're to sort of assist in a certain task For me anyway, so they're not necessarily apps that you go to very often, but they're there to As a as a tool to get something quicker than with maybe a different app So I mentioned scannable already for digitalizing my documents the one I use pretty much every day multiple times a day is one password and also Orthy which is a 2-factor verification app similar to Google authenticator. That's the one I use.

Okay. Yeah, so that's cool. I really like Orthy because Firstly, it's got a desktop app on Mac anyway. It's also got a Chrome app So it's sitting there right in your browser So you don't you always get to your phone to get the code you can just sort of get it from your Chrome tab and obviously the phone app as Or one one issue I found with Google authentic is that if you ever were to change your phone or if you you know lose your phone Then it's actually a hell of a lot of work to to get those codes again to get things set up on your on your new device whereas with Orthy because you've got access to it via desktop as well If you lose your phone then you can still get get your codes and you can store you know Reconfigure all your different services I use So Google authenticator they do need to work on that so I don't know if you probably haven't experienced this yet But when it happens I did have it I had this problem with yeah exactly what you said and it was just a nightmare The whole thing is like you know, it crashed on my world crashed around me had to set everything again It was a nice.

Yeah, so I'm looking to all see it doesn't obviously you're gonna have to go through the initial set up of supporting everything over to it But it's a lot more portable once once you ask that up in there and you know you can access it from multiple devices And so that's all the one password. I think it's very Self-explanatory what that's for so yeah, I've got that That's great your one master password that you need to remember and then all your other services or every all the websites are used One password creates these are highly secure Difficult to crack passwords and stores them all in there so you never have to remember a password again Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I used to be so bad like that. You know I stuff I knew the the apps of air I knew they were there for your browser as well.

I lost parts and things like that And but I just never go with Bobbitt to set him up But then you know just got into the habit of you know using it and yeah, it's just full proof now Everything just makes sense. You don't have to worry about you don't get to that situation where you forget your password Then you reset your password. Yeah, and you create a password and it's you know, and it's just a nightmare But these these little utilities are brilliant. So yeah one password Another one I started using more recently is obviously iOS only but shortcuts, so okay shortcuts They used to be an Apple workflow in fact still still exists and Apple acquired that company and basically created the shortcuts app in the iOS 12 and It just basically lets you do little automations So they've got a few quite a few shortcuts predefined in the app Most of them are very pointless the default ones, but there's a massive community There's a reddit a subreddit for shortcuts where people have created some really interesting Like utilities, so I'll just open mine and give you example of some of the ones that are used yeah a lot of the default ones that come with it are things like you know playing a certain playlist on iTunes or Apple music's or Quickly launching direct to get your home and stuff like that So they're not very complex things to do but then the community of create these things like give me the price history of an Amazon product Using the camel camel camel service And if you've ever used that look into that one as well You can there's one way it's called zip and share so you can select multiple photos and it creates a zip file and then Opens up the share sheet so that you can quickly email it or send it by a different app There's one about If you've got an Amazon referral link then you can from the Amazon app There's no way of getting your referral link at the moment So someone's great a shortcut where you can share share product from the Amazon app and that will create a referral link as well in a video link Which you can then just put someone that's pretty good You know getting random desktop all papers onto your phone every day.

There's just all sorts of things Expanding like shorting URLs before actually opening them so you can get preview of that handy one Yeah, that's a really good one so you can get preview of that URL before you actually decide to click on it It's always a risk with shorting URLs. It's done with it. Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff. It sounds very similar to Google's sweet on Android So what I've got on mine So I use Google Maps when I'm driving around going to be sometimes I'm Google Maps is sort of like my default go to all We've got ways but Google just works so well with the whole Android setup like I'll get up in the morning I'm getting ready to go to the office and then I'll get a notification from Google Maps telling me it's gonna take this long to get to the Office because you've got traffic it will say avoid this route try this route It'll take 15 minutes rather than half an hour and I think that's pretty cool that's you know kind of learn my whole you know my route my You know the frequency of the time I get up how often I go And it's just recently started to ping me football as well which is pretty crazy like it's kind of learn how often I go to football and It's kind of like telling me okay avoid this route take this route.

I can hour before I'm up with you to go It's scary, but it's helpful. It's helpful. It really helps exactly where you've been where you can go? Yeah, that's it and that's the other side of it can actually go through your history of your travel and it'll tell you exactly where you went How long you were there and your whole route and things like that, which is yes pre-made, but yeah, but that's what's that's part of Google Is this and then yeah, it's all part this sweet just yesterday.

I was talking to myself and my phone picked it up and Google Said why you said I might mention the word set in a sentence or something to myself I don't know and then it said it just ping that it just ping that because why you said and then there was some options to respond to it So I just said too much work And it said can I divert your attention for a few minutes and let's play a game kind of thing And it's like telling me riddles and jokes and yeah, I just fully got immersed for about five minutes and after that was happy And so it's all cool, but yeah, it's mad. It really is all right talking about being immersed. What about games? You want to a game?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I love my gaming man The thing with gaming for me is I need to be on the actual solid piece of kit to be enjoying my gaming So you know the PlayStation 4 is my my gaming machine I used to be a PC gamer years ago, but I've moved to PS4 before that was a Nintendo guy as well, so But on the mobile Mobile gaming I've got I'm so football manager. I love that game So I've got the mobile version of that and it's just really really addictive I mean you can have it on the background landscape mode and just just play casually while you're working and just you know refer back to it and if you like It's football managers like a proper tactical kind of thing So you can spend literally hours of days on doing like picking your team and setting up for your next opponent So that's so that's pretty cool. We play it on leisure sim cities another one Used to play on the PC and I just just love building these cities and watch you know the city grow on the computer But the mobile version is really cool You can battle other people with other cities and create natural disasters and you know get UFOs to like destroy this It's crazy It's just man I ain't played it in a while, but I do love that game and the other one I started playing was the new Formula one game car racing and With with Android you know you can project we can do most phones as long as your TV accepts it you can project onto the TV screen and Use your phone is a steering so you're in the car and just kind of move your phone to the right the left And it's pretty cool and it's very close up what I've heard is very very close to the f1 game that you get on the PlayStation Graphics, okay, so those are the main three that I'm playing on and off at the moment I'm not heavy gamer mobile. What I tend to do is I only if I find a game that I like I'll reverse myself in that one game for Just just exclusively play that one game until I Complete it basically and then I tend to just not touch it again And then get rid of it and then maybe come to a different game So like in the past like games that I've really gone full out on are things like I like like puzzles and platformers So things like Angry Birds I was well it went to that when it first came out And then like Super Mario run when that came out I guess been a few months just playing exclusively currently I'm on dr.

Mario Which is cool is it I suppose it's a little bit like it's not like the original dr. Mario game on the nest It's like different from that. It's a bit more like say candy crush now You know where you're sort of lining up color shapes. That's all game, but it's it's got a nice little Nintendo element to it So it's pretty fun That's the thing with these mobile phone games right they've all there's a certain number of formats of games and then a title Come out and it will just basically it's just a copy and paste of a previous game true And you know it's like a reskinned like version of a previous game on mobile.

That's what I said true true There've been a few like quite unique ones like there's one called Monument Valley Don't you ever heard of that one? It was basically like a what's the word an isometric grid So you have this little character and you have to get walk your character from point eight point B on this It's like a rotating map rotating building, but it's a 3d isometric one and so like you can move Let's say you've got a straight line that you're walking along and then there's a something blocking your path From one angle it might be blocking your path But if you rotate the camera you can all right you have to see something where it's not looking apart And you can walk through it then what was it? It's hard to explain obviously on audio, but it's a brilliant game And they released Monument Valley one and then two and both of the games They weren't very big because they must have put in so much effort into these levels Those could spend forever building this game, so they didn't have many levels They were fairly short-lived But I don't know if I'm on your level. Monument Valley three is coming out But if it is definitely working I'll look into that yeah again I'm not sure if it's on Android it's definitely on I was Another brilliant game which is definitely Ios only is called black box And basically what it is is It uses your phones features It's basically a puzzle game where you you use the features of your phone to unlock the puzzles So it's very cryptic So there's a level for example where the screen is completely blank and then where the mute switches on the phone Yeah, just on the screen next to that there might be like a little Like a dot glowing or something so to solve that level what you need to do is mute your phone and or I just click that switch basically And there'll be another one where you know There might just be a line on on the screen just a straight line and as you move your phone the gyroscope kicks in and then that line Is moving and to solve it you basically need to get your phone into a certain angle that needs to be perfectly horizontal perfectly portrayed That's interesting.

It's really good. Some of them are really difficult Yeah, again, it's got a limited amount of levels and one and they haven't been any new levels released on there for In the last year, I don't think so it's recent end of life So hopefully maybe it's just with the iPhone success is recent in the life I don't know if some of the newer phones might have gotten your features so they may get different levels Yeah, but I've completed all the levels available to me, but again brilliant brilliant game That's interesting. There's one more one to mention that I forgot about it I say it's a happy glass and you basically got empty glass at the bottom of the screen Yeah, and at the top you've got like a tap and water will come out the tap And what you've got to do is draw your finger like a line And then that line will probably sit on a shake or something and then it'll help the water into the glass Yeah, and yeah those kind of games are pretty cool. Yeah, I like games are used to play one called where's my water?

Which I think was a Disney Disney game I think and I guess the same sort of thing there was a water pipe At burst at the top of the screen and there was a crocodile It's all set on the ground and there was a crocodile at the bottom of the screen and you had to get the water to the crocodile Basically, yeah good game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I do I do play games on my phone I mean either you go. Yeah, exactly just don't play them very often like I said I just immersed myself in one game for four months school radio What about media like photo audio video? We mentioned at the start of the show that you know the phones are all about the camera these days So there's got to be some camera abs that you think yeah, exactly I think the main one I'm using is a Snapseed you know, I'm keen on photography as well.

Maybe that should go my habits actually take a interesting photograph every day I use snapseed to edit any kind of like photos that I've taken on my phone and it's really really powerful piece of kit It's probably as good as lightroom I think in terms of all the options available and the filters and different effects and You know graphs and charts you can use to manipulate your your images. I use I use that a lot I think every other day I'm using it and especially for like prepping an image for a social media post It's really powerful and I found out recently like literally everyone I know is using it Okay, I thought it was one of these sort of like you know, well kept secrets, but it's not everyone is not No, it's not no, no, I thought Snapseed was bought out by Google. Maybe I'm maybe I read that wrong So it could be that it's on the by default. No, it wasn't okay Definitely downloaded it is pretty powerful.

Yeah, the one I use mainly is a dog room which I mentioned on previous episode Yeah, really powerful brilliant app is available on iPhone and iPad the iPad interface the tree nice I don't have an iPad though So I can't use it, but you know, it's looking at the screenshots and the cream nice and you know, it's called dark room It's very similar to lightroom, but without the subscription. I think I mentioned when I spoke away last time I mentioned that it was 99 to buy the app, but it's actually a free app. Okay It's just 99 to unlock all of the different filters and features So it gives you quite a lot for free it just locks certain tools like the the curve tool the tone tone curves And it locks a few of the pre-made filters But most of the app is actually unlocked for you anyway But it's worth playing for it because the tools that doesn't look pretty useful and yeah I use it beautifully everything integrates with the edit it's got an edit widget as well So on OS basically when you take a photo and then you click on edit So if you've got other editing tools Everything apps installed some of those will appear as your your options for everything so you don't have to use the iOS everything See options you can open you can basically open that image directly in another app edit it and then when you close it You can you take it back to your camera roll, right? Okay, that's something I need to figure out because I'm on my on Android When you open up an image and you edit it it uses a native editor.

Yeah, so I need to find a way of changing that It must be a way to use it. Yeah, if anyone knows maybe you can write in tweet us in specter fem let They know how to do it Yeah, because the native editing tools on iOS, they're pretty good But there's only like six filters in there and you can't edit those sorters So you know, you know, they don't always work with every photo and then the granular controls they They're fairly limited on the iPhone There's a lot more controls on the desktop app the photos up on the Mac But when the iPhone is limited it so I use dog room for almost thing all my photos Yeah, and then I use another app. It's not I don't use very often it's called annotate plus But I use that literally just to annotate images funny to look stick an arrow on there pointing to something or you know Draw a circle around something with a gradient or and all the other reason I use it It's got blur tools or in annotate plus where's the deep the the stock mark up? I've got a lot of blur option.

I don't think anyway, okay. Yeah, it's not a brilliant app annotate plus the interface is a bit Messy and it's not very polished, but it does the right job. Okay. Well that music what music service you using So I'm subscribed to Spotify and that's that's the main goal that I'm using and I only just recently subscribed to premium Yeah, and what difference it makes?

You know, it's all my playlists are on there If I'm playing on my playing anything my laptop I'll pop up my phone and I can continue listening to my phone if I walk away from my laptop Little things like that. Yeah, and it just makes sense. It just beats everything else out there. I think yeah Yeah, same spot if I use a got a spot for family account.

So got my my wife and brother and sister on it as well One thing I like about Spotify, which I don't think Apple music does is If it just finds devices on your network, so yeah, that's what I have on my TV I've got it on my my speaker dock. I've got my Amazon echoes in the house and Yeah, just find some if once I'm on the Wi-Fi You know, you don't need to put in any codes or anything like that I remember I went to my my sister-in-law's house a few months ago and she's got like one of these Like sound systems that's in every room in the house. It's not a son of us It's a similar sort of thing to a son of us, but it's some it's all sort of integrating this one control unit Which they've got in the kitchen and then it streams to the old house and um, yeah, because it's on the network So if I even found that so I could just without doing any sort of setup apart from getting on to their Wi-Fi network I was able to stream my whole music around the whole house Which is impressive. That's what if I do good things.

Yeah Right, you've got you've got Jim and health and stuff on here So you'll be a hell freak. I haven't got anything on there like that apart from my Fitbit app But yeah, I'll let you take this one. Yeah, I'll quickly go for the so I've got three main Jim and health in a related app So I'm using my gym apps called strong I think it's a really popular one because whenever I'm at the gym I can hear the countdown bell go off on everyone else's phones. So yeah, I know everyone's using it But it's really cool app.

It's got a massive catalog of workouts Already installed on there and you know, all you do is you just set up your workouts set up your sets your reps your weights You're using and also tell you how to perform the exercise as well So it has got a little gift animation in there and it was all like, you know, play back and show you how to you know properly use the equipment and things that I also monitors how often your training and your If you're increasing your weight during your sessions and you've obviously recording that or create a graph and show you or chart or show your progress So yeah, I think I've used quite a few of these sort of training apps and you know fitness apps. I think this would be the best one out there I think it's free. I remember paying up for premium subscription and I can't remember what it was for I think it might have been for It connects with a I think it's my fitness pal I think it connects with that so when you log all your calories on your Consuming your food and things it kind of connects with it and it tells you how much calories are consumed and then your workout will show you how much calories You've burnt so it kind of like works together with that package So strong is probably the best fitness app out there for you know, Avijin goes I'll highly recommend it for anyone out there going to Also log their workouts and the other one I just mentioned was my fitness pal And that I'm not really using it much anymore But I think it's good for anyone who wants to start monitoring what they're eating Just so they can break their macros down and they know exactly how much to consume every day And especially if you've got a personal trainer and your personal trainers kind of telling you this is how much you need to be consuming each day My fitness pal will actually log that for you. So you can actually scan a barcode off You know, say a bag of sweet potatoes or a tin of tuna or chicken or whatever And it will show you a list of the possible items that you could have purchased So if you've got a you know a chicken breast from Tesco for example, you can find that on there by weight And then you just tap that and it will tell you how much proteins in that carbs fat, etc And you add that onto your meal list that you eat and then that'll at the end of the day Or kind of give you a total of your calorie intake So my fitness pal is really powerful and I think again It's not another one of these apps that everyone who's you know going to gym and eat and clean and things are like is using And they work really well together.

So that's that one and the third one is called sleepo And what this one does is um, let me just load it up on my phone So what this one does it basically helps you to sleep that's all it does And it'll it's got one two three four five sorry four different Um sort of saying so you've got the first thing you've got is raining water But what I'm doing because this will already I'll be able to play something back on here Let's do Yeah That's brain Um, and then you can have like So it's pretty cool And then you can kind of like compose them so you can have more than one playing at the same time And um, so you've got rain you got nature and forest you got Yeah, that's the general idea behind it. Um, rain and forest you've got city and household I don't know why you'd want to fall asleep listening to city and household sounds Well, it's probably for people who are used to living the city have moved to the country true where they're used to having a hum of the city because I've experienced that because where I live now it's very quiet and um Yeah, your part of the world is but you know, I grew up in in quite busy areas. So um, you know, I can see why that would be in appeal Yeah, there's one here a keyboard as well Yeah, but yeah, that's it's a pretty cool app and every now and then I'll just because falling to sleep when you hear rain Um hitting your windows pretty soothing relaxing and if I've been working late and I'm having trouble sleeping which happens at times I'll just have that playing in the background and I'll just knock out with him in it's really cool. Yeah, check out I'd say look sleep was only on Android.

So, um, yeah, I look for an iOS alternative Yeah, have a look cool. Um, well, I think that's all of our categories that we've had listed So um, I've got a couple of random ones which generally fit some honorable mentions Um, yeah, so the first one is an app called sound Brenner which um, is basically a metronome for Playing music too. So I paid I'm learning piano at the moment and also play percussion So um, yeah, bigger to just sort of keep time now and then and the metronome that's built into my piano Uh, it's not it's not very good because uh, although you can change the time signature Um, you can't change the tone of the the down beats so when you've got four four times signature It's just like tick tick tick tick but then we need to change it to three four Or it just sounds the same, still sounds like tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick like that. So with Soundbrunner you can you can put accent on to whichever note you want whichever beat you want.

So you can get a rhythm going and it's visual as well so you can have the phone in front of you and the screen flashes slightly on the beat. So even if you're playing drums for example it's going to be too loud for you to hear the click you can have a visual click happening. So yeah it's good at Soundbrunner. Is that I always sound like?

I don't know I'd love to check that. Obviously in the show notes we're going to put links to all these apps in the show notes and if these apps have their own website I'll put a link just to the website. If not then I will put links to both iOS and Android if they're available. I just found it on Android yeah.

Okay cool. The Metro Burn. The Metro Burn by Soundbrunner. It's really good.

It's good app and they've got a few products as well. Soundbrunner. They've actually got this watch which links up to the Metro Burnham and it vibrates on your wrist along with the Metro Burnham beat. So again good if you can't hear it or can't see it then this way you can feel it.

Obviously I haven't invested anything like that but the phone the app itself is it's free. There are some premium options that you can unlock on there but you don't need it. It's got so many different configurations. It's got different sounds, different time signatures.

You can have different tempo. There's plenty of things you can prefer. So if you do play music it's really good. Cool.

Yeah another one I've got is DS Get which is Disk Station. So I've got Synology NAS in my house Synology Disk Station and the DS Get app is basically their bit torrent client. So if I ever want to download some files from anywhere then I can trigger that from my phone if I'm browsing and I find a link for something and it'll download straight to my Synology at Home which is quite handy. Yeah it's handy yeah.

Pretty good. And they've got a... Synology has a Chrome extension also and you can download files directly and they'll just download to the station at home. Cool.

Yeah and the third one I use is called Time Hop which is you basically input you connect it to your social media account so you can connect it to your Dropbox as well and you can connect it to your photo library I believe. And what it does it finds pictures from this day in previous years so it's just a... just brings up reminders of things in the past which is quite cool quite funny sometimes and then it gives you an opportunity to like if there's a photo of you from say five years ago you can do a then and now photo so it creates this frame where it puts that old photo on one side and then launches a camera to where you take a current photo on the other side and then it labels them then and now and then obviously lets you share them. So it's pretty cool.

Time Hop. Yeah Android's got that built into a device with your photo gallery so it will pull out like an anniversary date and create an album for you there in any different... Yeah I use Google Photos as well on my phone and to back up my photos and yeah the Faculty of Tab I think it is. Well the Assistant Tab brings up some nice stuff.

The Time Hop is pretty cool because it gives you not just your photos in history it tells you some facts about you know on this day as well. I'll get you. It has some ads in between but it's good because it looks like your social accounts not just your camera so you can see old tweets and all Facebook posts that you made as well. Just quite interesting.

That's cool. Nice. Yeah how about you? You got any randoms?

I had it. It's called Blinkist. Oh yeah. And it's just I don't know if you look into it.

I mentioned it last time when we spoke but it's essentially just short non-fiction you know fact-based reading. Essentially what it is the Blinkist team they'll read books and then they'll identify like key insights and then explain them and easy to digest you know 15 minute reads if you like. And that's it. That's essentially it.

So we've got time to read our whole book. Blinkist I've found is very very good at taking the most important elements of the book that you want to read and just kind of give it to you in a condensed format. Yeah. Sign up.

I think you get a few. I'm not too sure how many you get free but you do get to read a few at no cost but then you need to subscribe to get the whole sort of catalog. If you like. Yes I've subscribed to it and it just gets me to have it reading.

That's all it is. Yeah on that topic just as a side what's your view on reading but reading just like an excerpt or a summary. Do you feel like you've read the book when you haven't and also like audio books as well? Would you class yourself as someone who's read that book if you listen to the audio version?

I think it depends on the type of book is. So if you're reading fiction you're going to want to read the book. This is more fact based kind of content which has been put together by authors all over the world. So it's not necessarily stuff that's been published that you're getting hard back or whatever in your bookshop.

Generally content that people have been creating online and it's obviously monetized for the authors and I think it's a great way of reading other people's stuff without having to troll for everything. You can imagine that you use medium right? Regimely. Yeah it's very similar to that in terms of the kind of content that's out there.

But this content was all vetted and it's all been checked thoroughly and these guys are actually reading it themselves so that the team are actually going through everything that's submitted and then they'll put their ideas together and get the best out of it and just give it to you. And I think it's down to the content. So back to what you're asking I think is purely down to the type of thing you're reading. If it's fiction you can't really condense it.

But this kind of stuff yeah it makes sense but it also makes me want to go and find the whole thing and read the whole book or the whole article and I guess that's a good thing. Hm okay. Especially when you're reading. Yeah I'll have to check it out.

Yeah have a look have a look have a look. It's just got me into reading again because I kind of fell off reading books and this is helping you get back into it. That's what it is. Cool.

Right well that covers all of our list. Just that we said that we're going to be picking our apps that we use the most often. Not necessarily just any of our apps. Do you all these apps that you mentioned do you keep these on your home screen or like at close to hand?

Yeah they're very easy to get to so there's no space I don't think there's any space in my home screen for all of them but there are ones that we use the most are on there. Yeah. So I'm going to take a screenshot of our home screens and put those in the show notes as well so if you want to upload you somewhere. I'll get an idea of how you lay your phone out.

Yeah my home screen is fine. Is everything else is a mess. You'll have a heart attack. Yeah well actually my home screen is a lot of these apps that I'm talking about they're not even on my home screen because I mainly got stock apps on my home screen which is the ones I use obviously a lot as well.

So I've left Safari the Notes app, reminders calendar. The ones I reach to the most office but a lot of these are just on my second page or within a folder. Right yeah. What's the most expensive app people?

Ooh the most expensive app. I'm not sure you know. I think it's got to be one of the games. It might be football manager.

I think it was like 12 pounds. I think I paid one off for it. Actually no I tell it away. It would be my fitness bell subscription.

Yeah. It's about 20 something quid. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah so that's probably the most expensive one. Yeah I think for me it's probably dark room although it wasn't a expensive video it's only $99. I think most of the apps are bought around that same price so I don't think there's anything much more than that. So I'd remember what actually was a paid app now because.

Yeah there's a lot in there which you got in at purchases as well which you know you feel to get about. Yeah exactly. It's hard to remember which ones you actually paid for. Like weighs, weighs is free isn't it?

I use weighs. Yeah weighs is free. Mostly just looking through my list of apps most of them are free so yeah you get a lot for free these days. It's be grateful.

Yeah. Alright brilliant well you know that's the end of our list so hopefully you know you'll find some inspiration and download some of these apps and give them a try and hopefully some of them will become your favorites as well and make it onto your home screen. Alright cool well that's it for the show. If you like the show do consider subscribing in your podcast left and leave us a review or rating on Apple Pukos.

You can follow us on Twitter at InspectorFem and you can check out the show notes for this episode and we'll be with episodes at inspect.fm and we'll catch you next time. Yeah see you then. See ya. Bye bye.