'Appy weekend everyone! Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Somehow it’s the weekend again already, and to help you celebrate we’ve combed through the week’s best apps to help you sort the wheat from the chaff.
Whether it’s a great retro-style zombie game or a superb productivity app gone free you’re looking for, we’re confident we’ve got what you’re hankering after!
Apple has completed a deal to acquire Workflow, the popular utility app for iPhone and iPad.
It’s unclear exactly how much the Cupertino company paid, though it was reportedly “a solid payday” for the team behind the app, which includes former iPhone jailbreaker Ari Weinstein.
Alloy is the iPhone app that ultimately wants you to spend less time using your iPhone. It lets you create automated tasks and workflows that you can launch with one tap. The automations can upload a selfie to Twitter, convert currency, save your parking location, perform a saved search on Amazon and just about anything else if you’re willing to get creative
Third-party apps are already jumping on board with 3D Touch and so should you. Photo: Apple
So, you’re one of 13 million people to get a brand new iPhone 6S over the launch weekend. Congratulations, you now have access to a faster phone — potentially a rose gold one, better cameras, stronger aluminum and of course, 3D Touch. The latter is actually extremely useful, but it’s only as useful as developers allow.
Since the feature is brand new, 3D Touch mostly works with Apple’s stock iOS apps for quick application shortcuts on the Home screen, plus Peek and Pop inside apps to preview different types of content. A few productive developers saw the light and quickly updated their apps to support this drastically new way to use an iPhone.
You can tell that the future is very bright for 3D Touch as developers are just getting started figuring out how to unlock all of its potential. Until we reach that 3D utopia, here are five terrific apps that already do Apple’s latest innovation plenty of justice.
Here are your 12 winners of this year's Apple Design Awards. Photo: Apple
The Apple Design Award winners are in, and they showcase the cutting edge of game and app design.
At a ceremony Monday at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple handed out 12 awards to the best apps of the past year. Games scored half of the nods, with some really cool productivity, finance and utility apps also taking honors.
Here are all of this year’s winning apps — and why they won.
Apple has really been upping its game with curated app collections, and today a slew of amazing productivity apps were put on sale as part of a new “Get Productive” roundup in the App Store.
It’s the most impressive collection of app deals we’ve ever seen in the store. Many of the included apps have been discounted by more than 50 percent.
A new app called Workflow aims to close the divide between the power of OS X and the convenience of iOS. By offering curated and custom workflows, the app can automate just about anything you’d want to do on the iPhone or iPad — along with actions you probably haven’t thought of before, like calling an Uber car to take you to your next meeting with one tap.
It’s an ambitious undertaking for any developer, but what makes Workflow even better is that it was created by two brilliant teenagers with great aspirations for making mobile devices as powerful as they can be.
There's a lot you can do with this tiny launch bar.
Alfred is a great shortcut and productivity tool for the Mac that received a huge update last week. In case you don’t know, Alfred allows you to quickly perform tasks with a series of keyboard shortcuts. If you’ve used similar tools like Quicksilver or LaunchBar, then you already have an understanding of how Alfred fundamentally works.
Over the past couple of years, Alfred has matured from a little app launcher into a full-fleged base station for getting things done on the Mac. Alfred 2.0 is a huge step forward with additional features like customizable themes, but the biggest addition is undoubtedly workflows. You can, for instance, hit a keyboard shortcut, type in the name of a new movie, and have related browser windows from IMDB, YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes instantly pop up.
Alfred has built up a community of users who have created some pretty cool Alfred 2.0 workflows you can download and use for free. Whether you’re a coder or a complete novice, it’s easy to get started with workflows and take control of your Mac.
I don’t know what I do without Dropbox. It is an essential part of my digital workflow. Dropbox allows me to have my files wherever I want at anytime I want, and that is something that is pretty much priceless.
If you’re not already using Dropbox, you need to start. But even if you are a Dropbox user like myself and so many others, Cult of Mac Deals has a giveaway that will take your Dropbox experience to a whole new level.
That’s right. We’re offering you a chance to win a Dropbox Pro account for life, valued at $9600!