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What are your favorite non-service apps?
Everyone uses and knows about social media, YouTube, Netflix etc. But what about the hidden gems on the App Store that aren’t trying to squeeze as much money and attention from you as possible?
I have a couple:
The NIOSH SLM is a handy little app for getting a ballpark value of how loud your environment is.
The HouseCurve app has popped up on my radar for doing room correction and tuning for home audio systems
The SoundPrint app is useful for submitting a noise measurement of a restaurant or bar. I tend to do this if a place is way too loud for the size/space.
I was also really considering this writing app iaWriter for writing Markdown. I opted for vsCode since I'm using it anyway for other things (and it runs on Linux), but I appreciate a good piece of software. Ultimately I think the iPad is just never going to be a productivity tool for me, but I did find the program pretty slick.
Is there a way to use SoundPrint without downloading and installing their app? I love the concept but hate it when interactions with services are only through their app.
Living Worlds
Android - Apple
This is a remake of some old 90s pixel art landscapes. They’re beautifully done by the same artist that brought you the originally Monkey Island game. There’s a different landscape for each month of the year, with a find and seek checklist. It’s a really soothing and beautiful experience.
Honestly all my favorite things about my phone are not apps, they're things that have been built into them.
The NFC capabilities of an iPhone can be almost magical. Need to pay for something? Tap a button twice, tap the phone to the reader, and you're done. Need to unlock a door? One tap and it's unlocked. I'm honestly kind of hoping my next car will support this feature because then I can basically throw my entire keyring away. But sadly it seems that only a few cars support it now.
The other category of things I like is the convergence features; my notes, calendar, email, and photos are all seamlessly synced with my computer. Though that's technically done with iCloud services so they aren't really what you're looking for.
I just saw my barber use his iPhone’s NFC sensor to charge my credit card. Had no idea that was possible but it’s pretty awesome.
I’ve been happily using Overcast as my podcatcher for several years. It has a clean, iOS-native UI and lots of configurability (on a global and per-podcast level). All around a fine piece of software that does one thing (podcasts) and does it well.
Here are a few of my favourites in no particular order:
On iOS, I use App Raven to discover new apps.
On Android, I use r/androidapps and Droid-ify for f-droid
Serial Reader looks awesome. I dont read books because I get way into stuff and lose sleep over them, which seems like an odd complaint. I have wondered if something existed to just chill with for a bit and read before bed and this looks perfect.
Thank you for this one, this is exactly what I needed. I even had the project of coding something myself one day just because I couldn't find that exact solution. Awesome.
I enjoy playing Lexica.
I really appreciate remote controlling various things in my house with Bootboi, Kore, Mercury-ssh, and Transdroid.
Finally, I'm not sure if this counts, but I have Change Detection monitoring a few targetted URLs for changes, so I get custom alerts right to my hip for certain things. e.g. I always know immediately when tickets go on sale for my favorite local shows. This means I don't need to sign up to spammy mailing lists or use twitter.
Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection is excellent.
Classic Solitaire Klondike (iOS, Android) -- as expected, no ads, no IAP.. its great.
hoopla (iOS, Android, Web)
If you live in the US or Canada, and have a library card, this app is an absolute godsend. It allows you to borrow ebooks, audiobooks, comics/graphic novels, magazines, movies/tv shows, and music albums from your local library, for free!
p.s. There is also libby (iOS, Android, Web) which essentially does the same thing, but can only lend ebooks, magazines, and audiobooks.
Hoopla is great, but a lot of their movies are in SD quality. I tried to watch Anastasia on there and it was in standard definition and fullscreen*.
"Well, it isn't available anywhere else, so I guess I'll use Hoopla..." is usually what I say before I end up watching something there.
I like iSh on iOS, it’s just an emulated alpine linux shell on iOS but it supports ssh out of the box which makes it pretty useful. You can also mount the iPhone’s application directories and use that to transfer files off your phone (but sadly, no photo access).
Readup
Removes distractions while reading articles, share them with other users, share your thoughts in the comment sections (and know that everyone who comments have actually read the articles!), and discover new articles to read recommended by other users (who, again, you know have actually read the articles!).
Sadly no Android version yet, but the Firefox extension works quite well, using the old add-on collection trick.
Anyone who uses MacOS, iOS/iPadOS, or an Apple TV and consumes a lot of media should absolutely pony up for Infuse.
It is by far the most polished and easy to video playback app I’ve ever used. It can handle basically every single media format I’ve ever thrown at it. It even handles Dolby Vision correctly! Even VLC can’t do that.
It automatically pulls metadata and can sync with Plex, Emby, Jellyfin, or just pull from an SMB/FTP share.
I honestly don’t even bother with the official Plex app and just use Infuse to access it.
It is pretty expensive (a lifetime license is like $90) but it is constantly updated and well worth it. It’s also only one purchase for the app across all platforms. I bought it like 5 years ago and use it daily, so I feel like I’ve more than gotten my money’s worth out of it.
On Android I mainly use my phone as a podcast player. I use Podcast Addict for that, it has so many configuration options and per podcast configuration, it's great. Some podcast I listen to when they come out and some I go through the backlog so it's useful to set it up initially and then just let the app handle downloading in the right order. I've had it for many years and the developer is very active adding nice features and QoL improvements. It's refreshing looking at the patch notes because it's either something that would help you or would help someone else, not just a service provider trying to shove something down your throat.
The secondary use for my phone is as alarm, I use Sleep as Android for that. Similar to the above it has so many configuration options.
I don't really know why so many people use Podcast Addict when an open-source no-ad no-bullshit app exists: Antenna Pod (available on F-droid too).
You seem to have specific UX needs so it might not be a 1:1 replacement, but the no-ad argument beats me to it anytime.
I can't speak for gco, but I bought Podcast Addict back when you still could do that, so no ads here. However, the reason I don't move to AntennaPod, despite my general libre principles, comes down to the inbox/queue playlist system and granularity in settings. With Podcast Addict, I can set general rules, modify them per-show, set up automatic prioritization and playlist sorting that distinguishes between newly-aired and new-to-me, download without queueing, queue without downloading, use context-sensitive jump forward/back, I can go on.
AntennaPod has most of these features, or I could adjust to those missing, but it doesn't really offer me anything but some morality (which is somewhat moot since I've already purchased the one I use) and a slightly nicer UI. For all that, I'd have to sacrifice my years of playback statistics and go through the painful process of setting "played" across the dozens of podcast with years of backlog I stay up on. I'd be shocked if that complex is why most people use Podcast Addict in favor of AntennaPod, but some of us don't have a good enough reason to switch away.
PS: If I didn't have years of cumulative data in and weren't used to Podcast Addict, I'd probably use AntennaPod. These features are really marginal, and I don't think it'll be too long before most of them are in the free project anyway, not many of them seem particularly challenging to implement. The queue system is one that I've seen other apps use, so while I find it fairly distasteful, there's really nothing wrong with it. Just saying, if someone stumbles on this looking for advice on which to pick, history is really 80% of my reason for using the one I do.
Couldn't have put it better myself, I also purchased it so I don't deal with ads.