The five handiest smartphone apps ever. Technology advances so rapidly these days, it's easy to become jaded, to take for granted the minor miracles we can now accomplish using our phones.
For example, yesterday I met my wife for lunch in an unfamiliar area of town. We were both in the mood for Thai, so I pulled out my iPhone, fired up a certain app, and in seconds found several nearby Thai joints. Ah, but which ones were good and not so good? An abundance of user ratings answered that question. How amazing is that? 1. But last month, the app got an upgrade that makes it crazy-handy: you can now use Bump to quickly and easily transfer photos to your PC . How easily? 2. The app provides a shared calendar that's color-coded for each member of your family. There's also a shared shopping list, to-do list, and journal. 3. eWallet (Android | iOS) It's no longer possible to go through life without a password manager.
Even if you don't choose eWallet, start using a password manager immediately. Top streaming-radio apps for iOS and Android. There are tons of music-listening apps in both of the big app stores, but when you want to find new music, there's nothing better than a streaming-radio app.
These apps are set up for browsing through stations and genres so you can get a fresh dose of new options based on the music you like. The obvious choice here is an app like Pandora (free - iOS|Android), but there are a few I like that have other options that might appeal to different types of music listeners. This week's collection of apps is all about listening to streaming music on your smartphone. The first app gives you a huge number of live stations from around the globe you can listen to. The second lets you listen to streams as well, but with a subscription so you can pick and choose your music too. TuneIn Radio (free - iOS|Android) has an intuitive interface that makes it a snap to listen to streaming radio while you're on the move.
Apple iPhone iPod iPad and Mac App Giveaway. The ultimate iPhone app for finding free iPhone apps. Psst!
Don't look now, but the mega-popular AirMusic app -- which streams your iDevice's music library to other devices -- is free for today. It regularly sells for $2.99. Update: My apologies! AirMusic was free yesterday (Sunday), which is when I wrote this post. Unfortunately, it didn't go live until today, and the app is now back up to $2.99. How do I know? No, my information comes from Appsfire Deals, which is quite possibly the single best app for finding free apps. Appsfire serves up four main categories, all pretty self-explanatory: Now Free, Top Free, Price Drops, and Me. That's a really handy feature. Of course, half the fun of using Appsfire Deals is browsing the Now Free and Price Drops sections, each of which contains apps organized into various categories: games, productivity, sports, utilities, and so on.
The app can also compile a daily-deals newsletter (delivered via e-mail). Get a free iOS app every day from AppGratis. There are countless ways to find free apps for your iPhone, iPod, or iPad.
You can peruse the App Store. You can subscribe to a Twitter feed like 148Apps Now Free . Heck, you can even use an app; I continue to be a fan of Appsfire Deals , which serves up a huge helping of freebies every day, right on your iDevice. But here's the thing. Sometimes you don't want a seemingly endless list of unknown apps to wade through. That's the idea behind AppGratis, a free app that tells you about other free apps -- but only one per day. Today, for example, AppGratis has PicShop HD, a highly rated photo editor with lots of frames, filters, effects, and overlays. I should clarify that although AppGratis will deliver only one push notification per day, it actually lists a couple freebies (and/or discounted apps). And that's pretty much everything you need to know.