Instead of wading through the massive amount of new app releases searching for a few diamonds in the rough, just let us be your guide. This is a collection of our favorite new apps for both iOS and Android for your downloading pleasure.
WOTSOPEN
It’s two o’clock in the morning, and last call just rang out through the bar. You might not be ready to go home, but the people working really don’t care. WOTSOPEN, as the name implies, will tell you all the places to eat, drink, shop and get cash that are still open when you’re operating outside of what most people consider regular hours. Using Google data on hours and location, you’ll get proximity based results in a list or a map with an interface that’s prettier and more easier to use than the alternatives you probably already have installed. Android iTunes
SOUNDS.
Sounds bills itself as a way to share music on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Messenger and every other social platform you probably use regularly, and it’s a perfectly fine way to do that. Launch the app. Find a tune you like. Click social network button. Type message. You get the idea. Once you’ve gone through the process, it posts a clip with the album art or artist photo and a link to listen to the whole song. But where SOUNDS. really excels, in our opinion, is as a music discovery app. With millions of songs from SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes, the SOUNDS. app gives you access to a cross-platform library of music that outperforms all the other’s individual radio options. Finding new music hasn’t been this much fun since Grooveshark got shut down. Android iTunes
Instant
How many minutes do you think you spend on your phone per day? What about per week? What about time at the office? Or device unlocks per day? Instant allows you to track your device usage time, unlocks, time spent within particular geo-fences, walking time, running time, the list goes on, across days and even weeks so you can have an updated dashboard on your daily activities. Who knows, you might even be able to use the data to negotiate a raise if you finally realize you’re spending too much time at the office. Android iTunes
Pop the Lock
The concept of Pop the Lock is simple enough–when the rotating pink line crosses the yellow dot you tap the screen. Repeat the aforementioned process until the number in the middle of the lock reaches zero, and then you’re on to the next level. Each level number corresponds to the correct number of taps you’ll need to advance, which is easy enough until you factor in the part where it resets the counter every time you miss. It’s a simple, addictive, frustrating and fun way to keep yourself mindlessly entertained for hours on end. Android iTunes
Drinkeasy
While not an app in the traditional sense because you don’t have to install anything–which also makes it completely device agnostic–Drinkeasy will quickly become one of your favorite reasons to unlock your phone. After you sign up, Drinkeasy will text you once a week with a small batch spirit (think rare or hard to find whiskies, gins and rums) that they’ve managed to find for their subscribers. If you want a bottle, you simply reply HELL YES to the text to have a bottle put in the mail to you. Link
Work Hard Anywhere
Heading to your local coffee shop to pound out some quick emails, update a website or finish that last deliverable isn’t an issue… until you’re traveling. Once you leave your comfort zone of cushy chairs, good Wi-Fi and plentiful power, finding a place to get some work done can be easier said than done–especially if you’re outside the US. Work Hard Anywhere is basically the Yelp of temporary office spaces and rates close to 5,000 venues from 70 countries on everything from Wi-Fi and power outlets to price and food availability. Trust us, the name is fitting. iTunes
Hodinkee
None of you need a primer on why Hodinkee is one of our favorite sites on the Internet, but you might not know that the team recently rolled their special brand of watch porn into a well-designed, quick and downright awesome iOS app. Browse and filter by column type or brand. View videos in app without having to launch YouTube. Pinch-zoom images for maximum detail. Bookmark articles for later. Shop the Hodinkee store. If you even have a passing interest in the types of watches that grace the pages of Hodinkee, their app is a much better alternative to another Facebook refresh when you have time to kill. iTunes
IceCream
At some point, everyone who uses an iPhone has received the dreaded “cannot take photo” message that pops up thanks to too many pictures of kids, cats, dogs, beers and pairs of sneakers. You might never have to see it again with the new app IceCream. The clever camera and photo app that has absolutely nothing to do with food uses a secure private cloud hosted on Amazon Web Services to backup hi-res versions of all your photos and then optimize or delete the photos on your device. With a few taps in the dashboard you can free up space for up to 5,000 more photos, or approx 1GB of space for apps, videos, etc. If you’re worried about your data disappearing, you can also download your entire collection of images right from the site to your computer in an easy to archive .zip file. iTunes
