App stores are crowded places these days, and because storage space on your phone is often at a premium, you’ll want to fill it with not only the best, but also the most helpful apps out there. Because they come and go quicker than the latest fashion trends, and digging through Google Play, the iTunes App Store, or any of the others is such a mission; a little nudge in the right direction is often very welcome. Here are the apps we think you need to check out this week.
Podcasting blew in up the last few years, turning into a legitimate medium where entertainers go to let loose and have conversations that often can’t happen anywhere else. It’s the perfect format for both the broadcaster, who just has to talk, and the consumer, who just has to listen. But many shows already have huge back catalogues and with new content coming out every day, it can be hard to keep up and know what to listen to.
Fireside aims to solve this problem. Movies and TV shows have trailers, clips, and ads that give you a glimpse at what the full product is like. That’s what Fireside does for podcasting. People can clip their favorite shows and share the best parts, making it easy to get a bite-size morsel of an episode and help you decide if you want to hear more. Plus, it’s the perfect way to stay up to date on the biggest moments in podcasting, all without investing an hour or more of your time.
Music discovery is a big topic of discussion at the moment, especially after Apple’s Beats 1 Radio brought back the live DJ format as competition to the algorithm method made popular by Pandora. The Best Song app sits somewhere in between those two formats. Using a Tinder-style swipe interface, users can pick songs they like and build up their taste profile, or get suggestions from friends and even music labels or artists, as to what might be welcome coming through their earbuds.
Whether you work while on the road or are just in a new city and in need of a little connectivity, WHA has your back. The app crowdsources information about public locations so you never go into a coffee shop expecting Wi-Fi only to find out there is none. Users can rate internet speed, work space size, parking availability, price, and much more. If it’ll effect your work experience, you’ll be able to learn about it beforehand instead of when it’s too late.
The web is filled with video content and no real way to help discover it all. Videos from YouTube, Instagram, Vine, and the like don’t have a Netflix-style interface or algorithm to get the stuff you want. Minute Video Discovery hopes to fix that. It puts the best part of the web’s finest video offerings in front of you based on your taste and gives you a highlight reel so you can decide if you want to watch the whole thing.
Keeping a budget is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you have money coming and going from multiple accounts. You can regain control over your cashflow and see where all your money goes with the help of Balance. This handy app is perfect for anyone who has multiple financial plates spinning at any given time, and it strips out the pressure of alarms and bothersome notifications that put too much pressure on the user.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.