“Apple wants to bring some of that excitement back to the iPhone of 2017, rebuilding the App Store from the ground up,” Alex Hern writes for The Guardian. “Gone is the focus on lists of top sellers, replaced with the new App (and Game) of the Day. The entries are drawn from across the spectrum, from huge developers with large marketing budgets to small utilities made by indie teams. The apps aren’t freebies – Apple expects you to be enthused enough to drop real money on the downloads.”‘
“So I did. For a month, I grabbed them all: from those laser targeted at me (productivity app Bear, and password manager 1Password, so good I already own it) to those laser targeted away from me (female fitness app Sweat, pregnancy guide The Wonder Weeks),” Hern writes. “My first surprise was rather more prosaic: it turns out it’s actually really expensive to buy apps every day.”
I also discovered that “there’s still life in apps. I haven’t even touched on a few of my other favourites from the first month, from detailed Apple Watch data-miner HeartWatch to auto-journaling app Memento, magic photo editor Retouch to password-manager-so-good-I’ve-already-been-using it-for-five-years 1Password. They’re not all new, obviously, but there are enough for me to realise I’ve been missing out,” Hern writes. “My stagnant habits meant I wasn’t getting the most out of my smartphone. For want of the odd £2 here and there, a device that costs many hundreds of times that was being wasted…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Take some time to peruse the best of the App Store. If you haven’t recently, it’s very likely you’re missing out on something that could be very useful/enjoyable to you!
I second the opinion on 1Password. It is probably the most useful program I own. And not just on iOS, but on the Mac as well.
Disclaimer: I do not work for AgileBits, I am just a long time happy customer.
Ditto, I’m a long time user & have recommended it to family & friends. Saves me time from support calls too.
1P is a great piece of software, and the dev’s are top-notch. It’s the most “Mac like” experience that doubles as a life-saver. If you value security, and ease of use, it’s worth every cent, x10.
It’s the first thing I install on any new hardware. Instantly, you have passwords, software licenses, social security numbers, credit cards at your fingertips. If you don’t have this, you’re missing out. Not in any way affiliated with Agile, but have been a customer since day one!
1Password is amazing. I remember reading an article about the developer (David Teare?) in Wired. This article was years ago. Maybe 8+
He said that his goal, of course, was to make an app that would enable you to use different passwords for every web site and service. However, he knew marketing the app as such was not going to work, because people just aren’t as concerned about security as they should be. So instead, he worked hard to make the app seemingly about convinience.
The fact that the app would auto inject the password into the site you were visiting with a single click. Then he hoped the real reason to own the program would occur to people.
Of course iCloud Keychain does a lot of what his app does now. But I’m telling you, this app is so much more. I have over 400 “items” in it. Ranging from medical info to financial data.
Too bad 1password is going the subscription route and wants to put your passwords on the cloud.
After using it for so many years and loving it, I no longer recommend it. Eventually, they’re going to force everyone on their subscription model.
Personally I refuse to buy-in to the subscription model for ANY software. If the company won’t sell me a stand-alone version I won’t use it.
Adobe and their business-model copiers can go pack sand.