It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to take a look at some awesome apps for each platform: iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS. Today, we’re focusing on sleep, video content, and chatting with friends.
Ready? Let’s begin.
iPhone/iPod touch:
Sleep Cycle: Sleep is an essential part of life. Too bad most of us either get too little of it or none at all. Then there are those who have trained themselves into “shutting everything off,” but still end up waking up grumpy and tired. Sounds like you? Then it’s time to download sleep cycle. Here’s how it works: load the app, set a time period that you’d like be woken up between (ex: between 5:30am – 6:15am), lock the screen (don’t exit the app), and put the phone on the bed near you. It’s that simple. Now, the app will use the phone’s built-in accelerometer to analyze your sleep patterns and deduce what stage of sleep you’re in. When your time period comes around, the alarm will sound only when you’re in the lightest sleep phase. That way, you can wake up the “natural way” and feel rested. Give it a try!
iPad:
Frequency: Like videos? Then you’ll like Frequency – your personal video service. From frequency.com, this app allows you to create personalized channels from your favorite sources and topics like news, sports, entertainment, music, and technology. You can also see what video content your Twitter and Facebook friends are sharing, all in real-time. The app includes many more cool features like the ability to send video to your TV using AirPlay and even follow your favorite blog as its own video stream. If you already have a Frequency account via its website, all you have to do is login on the iPad and everything will sync automatically.
Mac:
Messages (beta): It wasn’t expected this soon, or in this way, but Apple announced Mountain Lion this past week. With it comes many new apps and features that will blur the gap between Mac and iOS. Such an app is Messages (formerly iChat), that essentially brings iMessage to the Mac. Send unlimited iMessages (text, photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations, and more) to any Mac or iOS device, launch FaceTime video calls, and use the app for your AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts. Although Mountain Lion isn’t coming until summer 2012 (unless you have a Mac OS developer account), the kind folks at Apple have released the beta version of Messages for those of you who lack patience. So go download it and chat away for free – yes, free.
Well, that’s it for this week folks! Like the apps we mentioned? Share the post with your friends. Have any suggestions? Email me at jerondu@macgasm.net or ping me @jarederondu and I’ll check them out. Until next Friday, have a great weekend.
