Image by Rob Schultz/Macworld
The week’s roundup includes updates to two new apps that let you track your bills and manage your finances. Read on!
Image by Bill List
Bill List ($3, iPhone and iPad) helps you track all your bills—not just the easy-to-remember monthly stuff, but also more occasional expenses like your Amazon Prime membership. The app provides an overview of current month’s expenses including how much you’ve spent and how much is remaining, and you can budget your expenses up to a year out. A new update polishes the app’s interface and offers improved formatting for dates, so you always know when that next bill is due.
Image by Spendee
Spendee (free, iPhone and Apple Watch) is another venerable finance-tracking app—the new update syncs with your bank account and categorizes expenses automatically. You can add hasthags in expense descriptions for easy searching, and a revamped transaction screen now includes a calculator and support for 3D Touch.
Image by Hidden Folks
One thing that consistently impresses us about the iOS era is the quality and variety of artistry brought to creating games. Add Hidden Folks ($4, iPhone, iPad, and iMessage) to the roster of quirky-but-crafty offerings: It’s a “Where’s Waldo” sort of game, in which you hunt for specific objects in more than 15 hand-drawn settings. (The sounds effects were all produced by human mouths, as well.) The developers say more features are to come.
Image by Instagram
Instagram this week announced the ability to use more than one video or picture in a single post. “With this update, you no longer have to choose the single best photo or video from an experience you want to remember. Now, you can combine up to 10 photos and videos in one post.” Viewers will see blue dots at the bottom of posts to signal that more images of the same experience can been seen with a swipe of the finger.
Image by Overcast
Overcast (free, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch) has long been known as one of the best podcast players in the iOS-verse. The latest overhaul adds new queue management features, as well as a widget and 3D Touch support, and supports iOS 10’s rich notifications.
Image by Peanut
Peanut (free, iPhone and iPad) is social networking for young mothers, letting users connect with other nearby mothers with similar interests; you can chat and even create group chats to organize activities, playdates, and more.
Image by Signal
Signal (free, iPhone) has long enabled private, encrypted SMS messaging. The latest updated adds video calling and CallKit support—the latter allowing you to answer calls directly from your lock screen. Another new feature lets you converse with someone who is not in your contacts: Just type their phone number into the message screen’s search field to make contact.
Image by Xfinity
Xfinity Stream is a successor to Comcast’s Xfinity TV app; it launches next week and gives users the option to watch their entire TV line-up on phones, tablets, and laptops in the home. When they leave home, they’ll still be able to tune-to more than 200 live channels, access and program their DVR and watch 40,000 on-demand titles. The app is available February 28.
Image by Ballz
Newton Mail has added Wunderlist and Instapaper integration … Ballz plays like a mix of Tetris and Pong … Soul Knight is a “rogue-like” shooter game.
Author: Joel Mathis
Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.