Pacemaker Makes Your Heart Beat Faster with its Fine Music Mixes

Everyone likes music and with the modern day technological developments, one can get access to different shades and genres of music using various tools and platforms. Disk Jockeying has emerged to be an art performed by the most skillful and novices such as me wouldn’t have even imagined of trying their hands on the complex maneuvers pursued by these experts in another world. Pacemaker is a new iOS app that gives you this wonderful opportunity to carry a pocket DJ wherever you go. So, let’s just get to know the app a bit and discover what it has to offer to music junkies.

The app’s interface is nice and subtle as it blends seamlessly into the iOS aesthetics. With its dark colored backgrounds, your multi-colored album art is highlighted vibrantly. Overall, the app’s design is quite attractive and the developers seem to have put in a lot of hard yards in making the look and feel of the app fascinating. How does the app work? Well, it’s very simple and you wouldn’t have to do a lot of playing around with the app. Just choose a song of your liking from your iTunes song collection or from Spotify if you have a premium subscription available. The app then goes onto display a host of other songs (from among your collection) that could be added in the mix. Once, the mix is ready, off you go with your DJ mashup. As simple as that!

The app also allows you to add different sound effects via the “fx” button in the middle of the album artwork. Tapping onto it leads you to a circular dial where you can customize Bass, Middle and Treble frequencies. If you want additional effects, then you will have to purchase the pro version of the app. All in all, a nice app to have for your iOS. I enjoy listening to my music on Pacemaker. What about you?

Keep Your Time Tracked with Rewind!

It’s been a long time since my last post. Just been a bit busy with the hectic university schedules and my personal as well as family pursuits. Anyways here I am striving to review a new iOS app. My last post was for the weather enthusiasts (in search for the Best Weather App for iPad) such as me but considering my busy engagements, I thought it better to introduce you to a new app that I’ve been using lately to keep track of my time, where I tend to be spending most my time. This is a handy app that I found quite fascinating, so here’s its brief overview.

The app’s called Rewind and it’s user interface gels in quite nicely with iOS 8. White is the predominant theme of the app while the other objects and graphs including both the bar and pie graphs appear to be vibrantly colored against the white background. The gestures and transition animations are smooth and fluid. `As the app’s purpose would suggest, the user adds places giving them different names, colors and choosing between monitoring and or calendar export. Area radius can also be set up in metres which would let the app know when to start tracking time and when to stop.

There’s a slight downside to the app, however. With Rewind’s free version, the users can save up to just one place for which the app will track time. To add more places, the users are required to upgrade their app to Pro using the in-app upgrade feature. Monthly, weekly or yearly reports can also be extracted through the app can also export your time reports to iCal.  The time spent at every distinct location is shown as disparately colored blocks while diagonal lines appear on the block/bar currently being pursued.

I’ve quite liked the idea of the app as it helps me know the time distribution of my activities at various places. It’s minimalist design makes the app any easy-to-use product as well. It’s a definite YES from me for Rewind!

Weather Maps: A Handy Utility in WeatherMate

Sitting idly on my couch in my room, I was casually exploring the different features of the Best Weather App for iPad. The app is overloaded with such amazing features that never cease to amaze you. And it promises to offer a lot to a weather enthusiast like me. While I was rummaging through the app, I happened to find myself toying with the weather maps feature of the app. Like many of you, I haven’t quite enjoyed a lot of affinity for the weather maps because of their apparent complexities but the fluidity and smoothness in these maps somehow magically overpowered me into play with them.

Consequently, I decided to do a bit of research on what these maps could do and what sort of information could be extracted from them. Luckily, I ended up on a series of tutorials that comprehensively explained the might and capacity of the weather maps. The app allows the user to choose from a variety of maps such as standard, satellite and hybrid maps. Map layer settings enable you to get access to a wide range of information by selecting the appropriate overlays and customizing their various settings. The user can also set animation speeds, total number of frames and other relevant attributes.

What sort of information do these maps portray? The information regarding the weather conditions is quite diverse as the user can get to know about hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, active fires, sea surface temperatures, sea surface anomalies, radar detected storms along with severe weather alerts, advisories and statements. Using the pinch to zoom and other intuitive gestures, the users can explore the maps more deeply. These are some of the weather maps features that I was able to explore in my short sitting. However, I’m expecting to get a lot out of it in the time to come. The app has certainly ignited the urge to know more about weather maps and their usage in me. It’s time you tried out as well!

Forget Your Forgetfulness with Due

I remain so pre-occupied in my day-to-day pursuits that more often than not I happen to forget the one-off tasks that are not part of my daily routine. I am habitual of looking for the day’s temperature whenever I get up in the morning on my iPhone’s home screen. The Best Weather App for iPad helps me greatly in this regard as the temperature is available on the app’s icon and I do not even have to wait for the app to load and open. But that’s my habit guys and you kind of unintentionally tend to keep doing things you are habitual of without forgetting even once. Don’t you? It’s the things that aren’t a part of your daily calendar that you can forget. Do you get worried? Well, don’t be now!

Due is an iOS app that has been designed to set reminders and help you to complete them well within the designated time slot. Due makes use of the uncanny snooze settings that make it next to impossible for you disregard any alert as unimportant. The distinct feature of the app is its alerts creation screen which includes a grid of varying time durations that you can simply tap to add/subtract time to/from your reminder. The time durations range from minutes and hours to even days. New reminders can be set as well as edits can be rendered to the old reminders by a simple tap while the newly created or edited reminders can be saved simply by swiping in any direction on the screen.

Due is a minimalist app not intended to perform a number of complex tasks simultaneously but does efficiently what it has been designed to do-remind you of your one-off tasks. If you are wary of yourself forgetting any stuff, then this is definitely the app you must try.

Edit Your Photos with Filters

My obsession with travels, adventures and photography makes me test every new image editing app in the market. Filters is yet another photo editor which is simple and avoids any complications. As the name would suggest, this application provides access to a range of overlays and filters that would add new dimensions to your photographs and would be hard to get with other paid apps in the market. As far as the user interface is concerned, Filters sports a minimalist clutter free interface which contains menu icons which are free of any labels and yet easily recognizable by the users. The menus are displayed against black backdrops which makes it comfortable to see the changes in the pictures when different filters are applied on them.

The application also provides an introductory tutorial of the simple procedures involved on being run for the first time. Photographs cannot be taken directly using Filters and have to be captured using the inherent camera app in your iPhone. The three main functions that this app furnishes include filters, overlays and adjustments. The various categories of filters present in the app are monochromatic, vintage, dramatic, cool and warm. Similarly, texture, color and light leaks overlays are available for the user in this app. Once you tap any category of filters or overlays, a preview pops up for you to decide whether this effect will suit your needs or not. On selecting the preferred tool, its’ strength can be enhanced or reduced using the intensity slider.

Filters also include basic picture adjustment tools such as brightness, contrast, temperature, exposure and saturation. Images can be zoomed in or out using multitouch gestures while the edited image can also be compared with the original one to gauge the extent of change. Overall, it is a pretty good app to have in your iOS and I would definitely recommend it.

Get Your Weather Robotified with Carrot Weather

The apps market has been littered with weather apps and we also have been discussing quite a few weather apps. My penchant for travel, exploration and weather drives towards using various weather apps and I’m back again with another weather app to scrutinize and review. Last month I told you how sharing weather conditions can do you a hell of good. This weeks’ app, Carrot Weather, literally robotifies your weather conditions. The app sports a beautiful clutter free user interface as the app backgrounds change to match the present weather conditions in the area. Animations are smooth and fluid and certainly possess the requisite intrigue.

The app determines the device’s location, on being launched, and then portrays the local weather. In addition to real life locations, the app has about 21 clandestine locations based on fiction and movies. The app shows information regarding a number of weather parameters such as wind speed, direction, precipitation, humidity, dew point etc. Moreover, the app also presents hourly, daily and weekly forecasts while the user can toggle in between them to choose the prediction of one’s own choice. Carrot Weather lacks detail oriented weather features such radar and satellite maps and graphs. Also, the app does not include effective and intuitive gestures much to the dismay of a lot of weather buffs.

The users can add and delete custom locations using the Settings tab in the top right corner of the home screen. Carrot actually has a female robotic voice for which more than 2000 phrases have been pre-recorded while the users can also make use of a custom widget in the app. Overall, the app has attractive features with a decent interface and fetches data from Forecast.io. However, it does not contain enough of credentials to topple Best weather iPad app from its place in my opinion.

Get Yourself Organized with Todoist: Your New Task manager App

Hey friends! It’s been a pretty hectic week yet I decided to take some time out of my busy schedule for my latest piece. Talking of schedule, I would like you to introduce you to this task manager app for iOS called Todoist. My daily schedules, tasks and goals have been greatly influenced by this app over the last few days. They say time flies and well Todoist is the best thing that can help you get grasp of this ruthless entity. 

The outlook of the app is quite cool as the developers have included 9 color themes in addition to the default white and red color. All your relevant information and tabs are presented in a non-cluttered fashion while the intuitive gestures add flamboyance to the app. The tasks are displayed with colored side bars to the left representing their priority levels while the colored dots to the right depict the project to which they belong. 

The app includes a “New Task” button which will let you quickly add your new task to your inbox. Intelligent Input feature has also been provided to facilitate the user in adding the new tasks without entering too much details albeit the user is asked to enter project, label and priority of the task. The users can also collaborate by assigning tasks, setting reminders and adding new projects. Another interesting feature of the app is the Karma system using which the app awards you points for completing the tasks in time and achieving your goals. 

Overall, Todoist is a very handy app to have in your armoury. If you are someone who wants to lead a structured and organized home and official life, then you will not be disappointed by what Todoist has to offer you.