10 Useful iPhone Apps You Need To Have In 2023

In today's fast-paced world, our smartphones have become indispensable tools that help us navigate through the demands of everyday life. Among the various smartphone options available, the iPhone stands out for its exceptional user experience and the vast array of apps at our fingertips.

 Whether you're a productivity enthusiast, a photography aficionado, or someone seeking to enhance your overall well-being, the App Store offers a treasure trove of useful applications designed to make your life easier and more enjoyable.

 In this blog post, we will explore ten useful iPhone apps in 2023 that are bound to simplify your daily routine and take your iPhone experience to the next level.

1. Widgetpod

The WidgetPod app offers a dynamic widget experience for music playback on iOS 16, providing support for both Apple Music and Spotify. It presents customization options for various aspects, such as displaying specific buttons and altering icon visuals. Throughout my two-week usage, I encountered no issues, as the app performed smoothly without any noticeable impact on battery life.

It also has the Ability to play local music offline through third-party apps and also Support macOS, enabling the same widget design on desktop.

 Pros: The app's familiar design language facilitates effortless customization for users.

 Cons: The absence of an organized structure for different widget sizes within the app makes customization and discoverability less convenient.

2. Halide

I enjoy introducing new and updated apps that bring fresh and exciting functionalities. One such app is Halide, which provides manual control over your iPhone's camera and surpasses the capabilities of the default camera app.

You can rely on Halide's Macro feature to capture stunning close-up shots of unique subjects. Additionally, its exclusive portrait feature enhances object identification with captivating visual animations. For anyone seeking professional-level photography on an iPhone, Halide is an essential addition.

Pros: Unlike many apps that become cluttered with unnecessary features, Halide thoughtfully incorporates each functionality. The new updates showcase a minimalistic design, utilizing ample white space to deliver a unique user experience that aligns perfectly with the iPhone's aesthetic.

Cons: On smaller devices such as the iPhone 12 Mini, the interface may feel slightly dense.

 Also, Halide offers a useful option called "Prevent Facebook Spying," which removes location data from your photos when shared with any Facebook-owned apps. You can find this option in the app's Advanced section within the Settings menu.

3. Timing

There are instances when all-in-one apps prove to be highly practical, and the timing.is app is a perfect example. Productivity revolves around effective planning and adhering to schedules, which necessitates combining calendar events and tasks. With the timing.is app, you can accomplish precisely that.

This app presents an all-inclusive solution for planning tasks, offering a fresh perspective on using both tasks and calendar events to enhance productivity. It seamlessly synchronizes with your calendars and integrates with the Reminders app on your iPhone. Additionally, it provides customization options, and the best part is that you don't need to create any accounts to utilize its features.

Pros: The app's inclusion of features like time blocking and gap management elevates it to the status of a professional calendar and planner app.

Cons: Although I appreciate its unique design language, I do feel that it deviates slightly from Apple's HID guidelines, which creates a sense of disconnection from other iOS apps.

Additional info: Within the app's main user interface, you can swipe down from the middle of the screen to reveal a year progress bar. This bar displays a percentage to indicate how much of the year has already passed, providing you with a quick overview of the year's progress.

4. MindNode

MindNode stands out with its unique design, offering a native editor and capabilities that surpass initial expectations. Alongside the ability to add images, link nodes, outline documents, create tags, customize themes, and incorporate stickers, the app provides even more impressive features.

Here are the following enhancements to the MindNode app:

1. Dynamic Reordering: This feature intelligently rearranges nodes by pushing close nodes away and introducing negative space between them, optimizing the visual flow.

2. Redesigned macOS and iPadOS App: The app's toolbar and sidebar have undergone a visually appealing redesign, elevating the overall aesthetic experience.

3. Enhanced Notes and Themes: The addition of note functionality within the Outline feature, along with the introduction of numerous beautiful themes, further enhance the app's versatility.

Pros: MindNode's frequent updates have significantly amplified its usability, surpassing the offerings of many competitors, particularly as an exclusive app on iOS.

Pros: The app can be overwhelming for first-time users due to its initial UI appearing somewhat empty, making it easy to get lost while navigating.

Additional info: To efficiently create new main nodes or paste items, simply tap anywhere on the blank canvas. This action will bring up a context menu from which you can choose your desired action.

5. Outplayer

Video players are typically resource-intensive, but the Outplayer app stands out for its exceptional speed, providing a seamless experience similar to using a new iPhone.

While Outplayer may not have an extensive feature set like VLC, its performance more than compensates. It handles heavy, high-quality videos flawlessly, delivering top-notch playback.

Outplayer offers various methods to transfer videos from your PC or Mac. Essentially, any device with a web browser can connect to it. Additionally, it boasts the following great features:

- Picture-in-picture support

- Subtitle support

- Integration with SMB, external storage, and more

- Chapter and playlist navigation

Pros: The standout feature of Outplayer is its unmatched performance. It effortlessly handles 4K HDR videos without any issues.

Cons: The file management UI is limited and requires significant improvements to enhance the user experience.

Additional Info: Two-finger tap on the video UI plays or pauses the playback.

6. KDE Connect

With KDE Connect, you can effortlessly bridge the gap between your iPhone and PC, enabling seamless communication and synchronization. While this app may not boast a proprietary design or an extraordinary user experience, it serves as a utility to connect your devices.

I rely on KDE Connect to conveniently access my clipboard, share files, and control media playback on my PC. Over the past two weeks, I have experienced great stability with this app, encountering no issues.

Pros: One of the standout advantages of KDE Connect is its remarkable speed when sending files from my iPhone to PC over Wi-Fi 6. This method surpasses the efficiency of using a lightning cable or relying on AirDrop on Mac.

Cons: However, it's worth noting that the interface appears outdated, and there is room for improvement in terms of providing a clear user experience direction for initiating and concluding tasks.

Additional Info: If you encounter difficulties when initially connecting your iPhone to your PC, where it fails to detect the PC, try the following workaround. Tap on the "more" button located in the Devices tab and select "Configure Devices by IP." Add the IP address of your PC in this section. Following these steps helped me successfully establish a connection between my devices.

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7. Infuse 

If you rely on a network storage solution like a NAS or an external hard drive to store your movies and shows, then Infuse is the app you've been looking for.

Infuse is an exceptional media player that offers a plethora of features you didn't even know you needed. It's a lightweight and powerful multi-device software with a stunning interface.

With Infuse, you can synchronize your watch history with Trakt and stream videos from various sources such as NAS, Cloud Storage, Plex, and more. It supports Dolby and can play a wide range of video formats without requiring additional software.

Pros: Infuse provides a remarkable media center experience, complete with a beautiful interface and an array of valuable features that enhance your movie and show-watching experience.

Cons: However, it's important to note that despite its support for iCloud synchronization, there may be some instability issues when synchronizing NAS login credentials.

8. Cookie Blocker

The user experience (UX) of the web is often compromised as many companies prioritize short-term goals over providing a good user experience. This unfortunate trend has led to the proliferation of dark UX patterns on numerous websites. However, I am glad to have discovered utilities that help alleviate these annoyances.

One such utility is Cookie Blocker, a Safari extension designed specifically to hide those pesky cookie acceptance pop-ups that appear when visiting websites.

According to the developer, this extension is effective on over 2 million websites. In my personal experience, I have yet to encounter a website that displays a cookie banner when this extension is active.

Pros: Notably, Cookie Blocker boasts a lightweight app size, ensuring a snappy performance without causing any issues in Safari.

Cons: However, it's worth mentioning that there is no interface available to temporarily disable the extension. This can be problematic on websites that require the acceptance of their cookie banner, as they may not function properly if the extension is active. It's important to keep this in mind if you encounter any issues with a particular website.

9. Calendars

Calendars by Readdle has become a popular go-to calendar app on iPhone, thanks to its comprehensive handling of both calendar events and tasks. This app goes above and beyond by offering features like templates for repetitive events and seamless integration with popular apps like Zoom.

One standout feature that I personally adore is its natural language processing capability. I can effortlessly convert simple text, such as "Coaching session for tomorrow at noon with Andrew near Times Square," into a fully detailed event accurately placed in my calendar.

Pros: One of the major advantages of Calendars by Readdle is its adherence to design patterns seen in other productivity apps like Spark. This familiar UI design creates a comfortable and consistent experience across my productivity tools.

Cons: However, there is one notable challenge I've encountered. When creating a new event, swiping down on the event window doesn't automatically cancel it. Instead, you need to press the "Cancel" button to close the window, which can be a bit unintuitive.

10. ARC

Arc for iOS is a recently launched browser app that, despite being in its initial version, has provided a positive experience for me. One of its standout features is the ability to access all my spaces and tabs from the desktop app directly on my iPhone.

As a consumer, I appreciate healthy competition in the browser market, and it's great to see new options emerge. Arc distinguishes itself by prioritizing user experience and incorporating subtle animations for micro-interactions.

Pros: The instant synchronization of tabs across different spaces within the app, seamlessly transitioning from desktop to mobile, is a noteworthy advantage.

Cons: However, being a version 1 release, there are several features that this app currently lacks, preventing it from becoming my primary browser on iOS. For instance, the absence of bookmarks is a notable limitation.

In conclusion, these ten iPhone apps offer a range of functionalities and utilities to enhance your daily life. Whether you're looking for productivity tools, media players, or utilities to simplify tasks, there's an app on this list to suit your needs. From the intuitive design of Halide to the seamless synchronization of Calendars by Readdle, each app brings its own unique strengths and benefits.

So go ahead and explore these apps, download them from the App Store, and unlock their full potential. Let them become valuable additions to your iPhone, helping you stay organized, entertained, and efficient. And don't forget to share your experiences and recommendations with others, spreading the word about these useful iPhone apps.

If you have any other favorite iPhone apps that you think should be on this list or any thoughts to share, feel free to leave a comment below. Happy app exploring and enjoy the incredible functionality that your iPhone has to offer!

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Xiaomi Beats Apple To Become The 3rd Biggest Smartphone In The World

Xiaomi Beats Apple To Become The 3rd Biggest Smartphone In The World

The worldwide smartphone market showed signs of improvement in the third quarter of 2020 (3Q20) with shipments declining just 1.3% year over year, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. In total, 353.6 million smartphones were shipped during 3Q20 and while the market declined, the results were stronger than IDC's previous forecast of a 9% year-over-year decline. This is largely attributed to the re-opening of economies around the globe as COVID-19 restrictions were gradually relaxed.

An important trend on the road to market recovery is a faster than expected rebound in some key emerging markets. India, which is the second largest market globally, witnessed very strong volumes during the quarter despite further concerns around the COVID pandemic. Other emerging markets, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia, which rank fourth, fifth, and sixth in the world, also experienced strong growth.

"Although there was an element of pent-up demand that fueled market growth, it was mainly the array of heavy promotions and discounts that accelerated growth in these markets," said Nabila Popal, research director with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "In India, distance learning has actually boosted the demand for low-end smartphones as they are a more affordable option compared to tablets. The increased low-end demand only further increases competition and adds pressure to the vendors' bottom line."

Larger, more developed markets like China, Western Europe, and North America all witnessed the largest declines in 3Q20. Given these are the largest markets for Apple, the month delay in the iPhone 12 launch contributed to the decline. However, across many of these markets 5G promotions are starting to heat up and a full array of products is quickly becoming available to consumers at all price points.

"While some of the topline numbers may not seem pretty, we are seeing a lot of improvement in the smartphone market both in terms of supply chains and consumer demand," said Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "In the large developed markets, it is very clear that 5G will be positioned to most consumers as their next phone regardless of which brand or price point they are focused on. Marketing has ramped up significantly. Products are widely available. Promotions are happening. And it's clear that the top sales initiative in these markets is to push 5G. Having said this, we still believe consumer demand for 5G is minimal at best, which only adds to the price pressure on channels and OEMs."

Smartphone Company Highlights

Samsung reclaimed the top position in 3Q20 with a market share of 22.7% after shipping 80.4 million smartphones, up 2.9% year over year. In India, the largest market for Samsung and accounting for 15% of total volume, the brand significantly improved its position with close to 40% growth year over year thanks to its strong performance in the under $250 price segment and the online channel where its M series models did quite well. In the U.S., Samsung's second largest market, momentum was strong for the A series with good performances from the Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra as well, which contributed to almost 20% of total volume in 3Q20.

Huawei lost the top spot and settled into the second position in 3Q20 with 51.9 million smartphones shipped and 14.7% share. The vendor suffered a large drop – down 22% year over year – with continued declines in international markets and a drop of more than 15% in China. The company continues to face challenges due to the ever increasing impact of the U.S. sanctions, which are taking a toll on its performance even in China as the brand is trying to pace out its shipments over a longer period.

Xiaomi shipped 46.5 million devices to grab the number 3 position globally, beating Apple for the first time with 13.1% share and 42.0% growth. This is due to strong gains in India and a continued strong presence in China, which accounted for 53% of the company's volume in 3Q20. In India, Xiaomi's production capacity recovered to nearly 85% of its pre-pandemic level, which helped it cater to strong demand. Xiaomi's low-end portfolio, particularly the Redmi 9 Series, did well in both India and China. Xiaomi also launched the mid-range Redmi K30 Ultra and high-end MI 10 Ultra in China, which further captured consumers' attention.

Xiaomi grew 75% QoQ to grab 13% share for the quarter. Notably, this was also the first time when Xiaomi surpassed Apple to capture the third spot. Research Analyst Abhilash Kumar said, “Xiaomi reached its highest-ever shipments at 46.2 million units in Q3 2020. In China, Xiaomi’s struggle for growth ended and shipments were up 28% YoY and 35% QoQ. This impressive show by Xiaomi in China was driven by a series of campaigns and promotions during the brand’s decennial celebrations in August. Also, in new markets like LATAM, Europe and the MEA, Xiaomi’s share expanded rapidly at the expense of Huawei amid US-China trade sanctions. The brand is also performing well in Southeast Asian markets like Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.”

Apple shipped 41.6 million iPhones in 3Q20, down 10.6% year over year, which placed the company in fourth for the first time with 11.8% share. This drop was expected and is mainly due to the delay in the launch of the new iPhone 12 series, which is usually in the third quarter. Regardless, the iPhone 11 series did exceptionally well, contributing the majority of Apple's volume, followed by the SE device. Looking ahead, we expect Apple to grow in coming quarters with strong early demand for iPhone 12 paired with robust trade-in offers across major carriers, especially in the U.S.

vivo returned to the Top 5 this quarter with 31.5 million units shipped for 4.2% year-over-year growth and 8.9% market share. Although the company is trying to grow its presence in other markets, India delivered massive growth of nearly 30% year over year in its low-end models under $200. In China, the brand enhanced the market positions of its S, iQOO, and X series phones that helped continue its strong presence there.

Source: IDC

Why Airpods And Other Earbuds Are Bad For Your Hearing

 Why Airpods And Other Earbuds Are Bad For Your Hearing

AirPods are wireless Bluetooth earbuds created by Apple. They were first released on December 13, 2016, with a 2nd generation released in 2019. They are Apple's lower-end wireless earbuds, sold alongside the premium AirPods Pro. Within two years, they became Apple's most popular accessory, turning into a critical success and viral sensation.

AirPods are everywhere — even though they’re pretty awful at what they do.

This style of earbud, which rests next to your ear canal but not quite inside it, offers practically zero noise isolation. In other words, AirPods, by far the most popular wireless earbuds, do a poor job overpowering noise like chattering colleagues or teens on the subway. The natural response is to turn the volume louder to compensate — which can quickly turn dangerous for your hearing.

Headphones, in and of themselves, are not a risk. You could listen all day at a low-to-middle volume without health worries. It’s only once you start listening to loud volumes for sustained periods of time that they can start damaging your ears.

And the type of headphones that are the most likely to cause hearing problems are these earbuds. A 2007 study found that adults turn up their music louder when they’re wearing earbuds than over-the-ear headphones. It also discovered that users wearing earbuds were more likely to turn up their volume to compensate for background noise (in this case, street noise and “multi-talker babble”) than people wearing over-the-ear headphones. A further study, from 2011, expanded on that research, finding that teens wearing earbuds turn their volume up to overcome background noise, some to harmful levels, more than those wearing noise-isolating, over-the-ear headphones.

Brian Fligor, an audiologist who has studied the impact of earbuds on hearing damage, says that people typically listen to their earbuds about 13 decibels higher than the background noise. If you’re wearing headphones or earbuds in a school classroom, where the background noise usually runs at about 60 decibels, and you turn your music up to 73 decibels to compensate, that should be fine for most people’s ears. But if you’re in a noisy coffee shop, where background noise is usually about 70 decibels, or on an airplane, where the noise typically reaches 80 decibels, things get dicey. “When the background noise induces [people] to listen 13 decibels louder than the background and the background is 70 decibels, now we’re talking about potential to do damage,” he says.

Public transportation is “the number one time and place for you to be exposed,” says Fligor. Noise level on subway platforms and inside trains is 94 decibels, and 20 percent of those spaces exceed 100. Add 13 decibels from turning up your earbuds, and we’re at anywhere from 107 to 113 decibels, yet people can only safely be exposed to 100-plus decibels for 15 minutes a day.

You can see the problem.

It’s likely that earbuds are contributing to widespread hearing damage among younger people. According to the American Osteopathic Association, approximately one in five teens today suffer some form of hearing damage, a rate that’s 30 percent higher than it was 20 years ago. The World Health Organization estimates that over “1 billion young people” are at risk of hearing loss, primarily from listening to music on headphones or earbuds.

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Adults, meanwhile, have experienced a leveling out in hearing loss — but societal factors indicate that that rate should have gone down, not stayed the same. “We’ve outsourced a lot of our manufacturing jobs and that’s where a lot of noise-induced hearing loss was coming from,” Fligor says. Disregarding hearing loss among those serving in the military, which is on the increase, people are generally much healthier than they were in past decades, and therefore, “our rate of hearing loss should be going down, and we know that it’s not,” says Fligor.

It’s a whole lot cheaper to protect your hearing than it is to try to remediate your hearing,” says Fligor. “Hearing is outrageously precious. People take it for granted, they lose it, and then you can’t get it back.”

Dear readers, what do you think about this? 

Apple Plans To Release Its First Ever AR Smart Glasses

 

Apple Plans To Release It's First Ever AR Smart Glasses

Whether you like it or not, Apple is gearing up to release its first-ever AR smart glasses. Apple Glass, Apple’s elusive AR lens project is all set to debut soon. The AR and VR industry has matured over the past few years. Apple stepping in with a pair of Apple Glasses could be a gamechanger.

Apple has been exploring VR and AR (Argumented & Virtual Reality) technologies for more than 10 years now. The company has established a secret research division comprising of hundreds of employees in designing Apple’s next big thing. It was even rumored that organizations like NASA and Microsoft are involved in developing these smart glasses. Based on rumors, Apple has chosen to call its AR smart glasses as Apple Glass.

Here’s everything you need to know about Apple Glass.

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Design

The glasses are said to look similar to regular glasses, with both lenses to feature displays that can be interacted with using gestures. Recent leaks based on the prototypes suggest that the material used would be plastic. But in the release variant, Apple might use metal. The glasses might also come with a plastic stand with wireless chargers.

Apple glass at least the first edition of it could more or less work like Apple Watch Series 0. Apple Glass could be marketed as an iPhone accessory similar to what Apple did with Watch Series 0. Apple Glass will primarily take a display role offloading computing, networking, and positioning to the iPhone. This will allow Apple to reduce the weight and size of the glasses.

There is a rumor that Apple is working on a limited-edition “Steve Jobs Heritage” version of the smart glasses that are designed to look like the round, frameless glasses that Steve Jobs used to wear, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has called this rumor “complete fiction.”

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Hardware

As of now, there have been little to no leaks about the specs and hardware of the smartglasses. According to a few rumors, Apple glass will feature an 8K display for each eye. Apple glass will automatically adjust for people with poor eyesight.

Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst predicts that Apple Glass won’t have any kind of processor. He states that the first-gen Apple glasses will be heavily dependent on the iPhone, with the AR glasses essentially only providing the display.

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It could feature a LiDAR scanner similar to the iPad Pro 2020 variant. It is used to determine distance by measuring how long it takes light to reach an object and reflect. It’s an efficient way to get a much more accurate 3D representation of the scene in front of the camera, which is useful in computational photography and especially in augmented reality. Which eliminates the need for cameras in the smart glasses.

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Software

According to Bloomberg, Apple glasses will run on some version of OS based on iOS. Probably they will name it the glass OS to maintain similarity among their operating systems.

Apple Glass will bring information from your phone to your face. With Apple’s integration, the glasses will be able to synchronize with a wearer’s iPhone to display things such as texts, emails, and maps over the user’s field of vision.

The iPhone has Springboard, the set of icons that act as your home screen. Apple’s glasses have “Starboard.” No interface elements have leaked or even been described, but it is assumed that Apple will adapt its iconography and UI for an AR interface.

ARkit 4

ARKit 4 helps in creating a new way to access the detailed depth information gathered by the LiDAR Scanner. Location Anchoring leverages the higher resolution data in Apple Maps to place AR experiences at a specific point in the world in Apple Glass. This feature will allow more immersive AR experiences and give the application a better understanding of the environment for object placement and occlusion.

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Release date & Pricing

Though there were rumors that Apple could debut it’s AR glasses alongside iPhone 12 as “One More Thing.” As the 2020 lineup is completely stacked Apple might reconsider releasing it. Rumors predict that Apple might unveil Apple glass in 2021 and then release it for the masses in 2022.

According to Jon Prosser, a tech analyst Apple glass is priced at $499 without prescription lenses. The price of the Apple glass is quite low in comparison to Microsoft’s AR headsets priced at $3500. Apple Glass price is low because most of the computing, networking, and positioning are offloaded to the iPhone.

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From Google Glass and Snapchat spectacles to Microsoft Holo lens and Facebook’s upcoming AR glasses, many have tried and are trying to make this technology work. But so far there hasn’t been any mainstream success. With Apple Glass, Apple may very well change that.

Apple has always been great at making complex innovation more user-friendly and simpler. Apple Glass could very well be the Next Big Thing for Apple. What do you guys think about all this? Are you excited? Let me know in the comments section.