Not every surfer can afford a video team. With Surfline Sessions, they don't need one. This clever feature of the surfing app's premium subscription uses its network of 500+ cameras and the Apple Watch to deliver personalized videos on demand. Surfers just need to connect the Watch to their account, hit "start" on their way out, and enjoy GPS-guided videos and insights like waves ridden and ride length, ready to share when they get back to shore.
Classic cars aren't the only non-financial investments that are likely to increase in value. Contemporary art, sneakers, and collectibles all fall into the same category. With Otis, you can buy fractional ownership in these types of assets, for as little as $25, letting you turn your knowledge into profit. All assets are stored in a museum-quality storage facility in Orangeburg, NY, and are fully insured.
One of many Tetris-like games released in the wake of that game's huge success, Dr. Mario gained many of its own fans thanks to great character design and, of course, the popularity of its titular hero. Now Nintendo is aiming to recapture some of that magic on your smartphone with Dr. Mario World. Far from a simple port, it literally turns the game upside down and adds new elements to the classic formula, while keeping the signature "viruses" and familiar upbeat music.
Shark sightings are up. If you plan on visiting the Atlantic coast this summer, help keep yourself safe with Sharktivity. Powered by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, it displays both satellite detections and surface sightings for the East Coast, with a particular focus on the Cape Cod area — you know, where Jaws lives. It also lets you submit your own sightings, and get alerts about confirmed sightings in your area.
For most people, email is a place of online bills and receipts; a digital junk drawer of sorts. For a select few, it's their job. Superhuman is a new startup focused on helping email power users. Currently invite only, the service's desktop app has a keyboard shortcut for everything, stores your data on-device for blazing fast response times, and ties in info from social media so you'll know more about the people you're talking to. It also offers undo send, uses AI to triage and bring your most important messages to the top, and has read statuses so you'll know when your recipients read your mail, click your links, and open your attachments. You can join the waiting list now, but be warned: there are at least 100,000 people ahead of you.
Previewed last fall under the codename Project Gemini, Adobe Fresco is a new drawing and painting app built from the ground-up for the iPad. It includes thousands of brushes, including a series of Live Brushes that use Sensei artificial intelligence to mimic the behavior of real-life oils and watercolors, as well as vector brushes that can be used to create infinitely scalable illustrations. The app will be available "soon", with versions for other stylus- and touch-based devices to follow.
Streaming has made finding and listening to your favorite songs on your daily commute much easier. It's also killed the humanity and warmth provided by the DJ at your local radio station. Your Daily Drive is a new Spotify feature meant to restore some of that. In between songs picked to match your tastes, it slips in news snippets from The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Public Radio International. You won't get weather or traffic updates, but you also won't hear any annoying ads.
To celebrate the brand's 10th anniversary, Aether is resurrecting a classic with the Space Hoodie 2.0. The reissue of their signature piece takes everything you loved about the original and tweaks it with a more modern aesthetic. Its matte ripstop shell and lining are insulated with 60 grams of PrimaLoft® GOLD, for lightweight protection from mild wind and cold. When the weather gets extreme, the jacket can transition to a solid middle layer. Functional and great looking, the updated Space Hoodie is a new go-to for both backcountry and urban explorers.
Presented by Aether.
Inspired by the iridescent wings of the Blue Morpho butterfly, this new jacket from Vollebak has over two billion microscopic blue glass spheres embedded in resin on the jacket's surface. The glass spheres create an entirely reflective jacket that is constantly changing color while you ski or snowboard. The Blue Morpho is engineered for a max range of motion with plenty of room for a hoodie underneath. The jacket also is fully seam-sealed, waterproof, and includes an ocean-racing style marine hood and high collar. The visibly stunning piece of outerwear acts like a mirror for whatever light conditions you're in, with a liquid metal appearance under the sun that shifts to a bionic blue at night with any camera flash, torch, or searchlight.
Presented by Vollebak.
Many people like to travel. Far fewer like planning out their trip before they arrive. With Welcome, they don't have to. It uses AI to automatically generate itineraries on the fly, adjusting as you spend more/less time in a place, and letting you easily skip stops that don't interest you while filling in the slot with something that might. The suggestions come from your past interests, local experts, and reviews, and also adjust based on location, available transit, and the weather — so you don't have to worry about it sending you to a park in a rainstorm.
Sizing shoes is tricky business — not all shoes run the same, nor are they meant to fit the same. Short of making a trip to the store to try them on yourself, it's a crapshoot. Nike Fit aims to do away with this. Coming this summer to the Nike app, it uses a combination of computer vision, data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and algorithms to recommend just the right size for each shoe style. To do this it maps your feet using 13 data points, storing your foot dimensions in your profile so you always get just the right fit, whether you're shopping in the app, online, or at a Nike store.
Summer is just around the corner, and with it, plenty of opportunities to explore the US's many national parks. Chimani's National Park Guides make an ideal companion. Available for iOS and Android as well as from a browser, they're researched and written by local experts, covering each spot's history and highlights. For more in-depth coverage, a subscription gives access to 64 detailed guides, which offer a wealth of information including detailed, GPS-enabled topographic maps with the locations of all trails and facilities, shuttle bus and train schedules, sunrise and sunset times, audio tours, park-specific alerts and notifications, and more.
It's becoming increasingly clear that basically nothing you do online is private, but Jumbo can at least help you get a handle on what's readily available to prying eyes. This free app will automatically delete old tweets, clear out your Google search history, and get rid of any old Alexa recordings. In addition, it can go in and change your Facebook privacy settings so that you're the only one who can see most of your info while turning off creepy facial recognition and restricting ads. In short, it's the best thing you can do for your social media privacy, next to deleting your accounts altogether.
Drones afford unique photographic opportunities. They also present a unique set of challenges. AirMagic is an AI-based app built specifically to enhance drone photos. It automatically detects the drone and camera used to take the images, applying lens corrections and other optimizations specific to that model, while also removing haze, enhancing the sky, boosting colors, and revealing details that were hidden. It's available as a standalone app for both Mac and Windows, and can also be used as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or Apple Photos.
Long exposures are useful for lots of different shots. They're also one of the hardest shots to pull off on the iPhone. Spectre aims to make it easy. Developed by the team behind Halide, it uses AI to make capturing stunning long exposures, with or without a tripod. During the day, you can use it to get professional-looking soft water or make the people and cars in busy places effectively disappear. At night, it turns streams of cars into streams of light and lets you get creative with light painting. Its AI automatically switches modes for the best result, and also works to keep things steady, even when you're not.
There are thousands of mobile apps dedicated to making your photos better, but far fewer devoted to video. Among the latter, Nizo stands out. It has a refreshingly minimal, gesture-based interface that blurs the lines between non-linear editing and shooting. It can record 4K footage at a cinematic 24 or 60 fps, 1080p at 24 or 120 fps slow-mo, has real-time presets inspired by the colors and grains of real films, and allows for automatic or manual control over ISO, white balance, and shutter angle.
Paraphrasing Steve Jobs, remembering that you'll be dead soon is the most important tool you have for helping you make the big decisions in life. Progress Bar helps push you along by putting that reminder right in your Mac's menu bar. Set the times you start and stop your day, along with your birthdate and life expectancy — in the US it's dropped for the third year in a row — and it will tell you the percentage left of the day, month, year, and most importantly, your life, giving you a not-so-subtle reminder to live your best life right now.
Built for performance, the Apex Wedge Boot from 5.11 has all the benefits of an on-duty tactical boot built in a classic workwear design that can be worn for any occasion. Each pair is built with premium leather and a D3O support footbed for all-day comfort, support and top-notch shock absorption. It also has a lightweight resoleable Vibram Christy outsole for consistent stability and grip. This ensures that each pair is ready to last for the long haul.
Presented by 5.11 Tactical.
Keep your look light and crisp with these Laight Jeans from Mott & Bow. And they don't just look good, but they're built for comfort as well, made using high quality 16% stretch denim. And Mott & Bow have a great try-on program which sends you two pairs of jeans with a preprinted prepaid return label to send back the size that does not fit. Available in 32", 34", and now 30" length, they're hand-sanded, stone-washed, and treated for a just-right fade that pairs perfectly with bright spring and summer tops and requires no break-in.
Presented by Mott & Bow.
Instead of making you pick from a vague, spa-like list of background noises, Endel intelligently uses a range of factors to create its own. Its algorithm takes into account your location, time zone, weather, and heart rate to come up with sounds that are meant to help you focus, relax, sleep, or provide you with a tempo-based soundtrack when you're on the go. At the end of the week, it wraps all the data it's gathered into a nifty visualization, so you can see how you did, and where to improve going forward.
CloudFlare's 1.1.1.1 DNS service launched last year for desktops and laptops. We've been using it since launch, and it's rock-solid. The fastest public resolver, it's now available to speed up your mobile experience. For those unfamiliar, the Domain Name System, or DNS, works like a phone book for the Internet, resolving those easy-to-type addresses — like uncrate.com — into the IP addresses of their servers. 1.1.1.1 is built for speed, and as an added bonus prevents your carrier from tracking your browser history, which by itself is enough reason to use it.
It is what it says it is. Minimal Calendar is a phone calendar stripped down to its basics, rendered in gorgeous clean typography. The current year, month, and day are labeled with red type, while everything else is black, set against a white background. It supports basic functions like adding and editing of events, plus helpful reminders, and integrates with Apple iCloud, Google, Exchange, and all iOS supported calendars.
People with motor impairments may not have the easiest time controlling their phones with their fingers, and lord knows Siri can't do everything. Hawkeye Access is a new ARKit-based app that lets you control things using nothing but your eyes. After a brief calibration process, you'll be dropped into an interface with a cursor that moves around the screen with your gaze. Smile or blink to click, stare into the bottom, sides, and corners to navigate, and use your voice to enter search queries. Currently, the app contains a web browser with quick links to services like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, but given its utility, we wouldn't be surprised to see this functionality baked into iOS in the near future.
For image editors, Photoshop was one of the only things holding the iPad back from being a full-blown laptop replacement. Essential word being was. Adobe Photoshop CC for iPad will arrive next year, giving users access to all the retouching, compositing, and layering tools they enjoy on the desktop. It syncs all your .psd files via Creative Cloud and has a context-aware UI that gives you quick access to the tools you're most likely to need next.
Taking the place of a traditional film scanner, FilmLab adds to the list of photography tools replaced by your phone. Simply lay your slides or negatives on a light table or other backlight and open the app: it lets you check out negatives and proof sheets, with a live preview of what they'll look like as positives. Custom algorithms combine multiple photos to get the maximum detail from each shot, and built-in tools let you crop, rotate, flip, and adjust exposure and color balance before saving the digitally preserved shot out to your camera roll.
Exploring the great outdoors is fun, but it's even better when you've got a guide. Lyfx is an app that makes it easy to connect with local experts for more rewarding experiences. Options include photography hikes, snorkeling, kayaking, or just venturing to places that only those living nearby know about. Available in several outdoor hotspots across Colorado, Utah, and California.
Your local library likely has thousands of ebooks and audiobooks for you to borrow. Instead of making a trip in person, Libby lets you borrow them right from your phone. It makes finding your branch, signing up for a card, and checking out titles easy. When you find something you like, you can listen through the built-in player, use the built-in reader, or send your selection to your Kindle to read it there. All your holds and loans are placed on a single shelf, and returning an item is as simple as borrowing one, with notifications for due dates coming soon.
Many classic cars have reached the point where they're not just a means of transportation, but an investment. Rally Rd. lets you purchase equity in these valuable vehicles, just like you'd buy stock in a company. Each one is hand-selected by a team of experts and securitized so you can purchase a percentage of the car's value, now and in the future, with nothing more than a tap. The cars are stored in a protected, climate-controlled facility with on-site maintenance and closed-circuit cameras, live feeds from which will soon be available to owners inside the app.
Meditation can have a powerful positive effect on your wellbeing. Oak makes it easy to learn. It offers guided mindful and Metta meditations, as well as unguided options, all with peaceful background tracks. It also includes yogic breathing exercises with animated instructions, a calming interface, badges to earn as you progress, and HealthKit integration.
It won't have the resolution of a real screen, but Oculus TV does let you enjoy a virtual 180-inch portal anywhere you go. This new app for the Oculus Go works as a virtual streaming stick, so you can enjoy content from Netflix, Hulu, and other popular services, all displayed on the big screen in your virtual living room. More services are set to join in the near future, but don't expect it to replace your real-life set — your eyes probably wouldn't appreciate it.
Have the world in the palm of your hands with Earth. The augmented reality experience starts with a highly-detailed 3D-printed model of our planet. Once it's paired with the AstroReality app, just point your phone 's camera at the mini-Earth and you can travel around the globe exploring geological changes, wildlife, and weather patterns along the way. It's voice controlled, so simply ask any questions you have and find out how many gallons of water is in the Atlantic Ocean immediately. The data goes back through our home's entire 4.5 billion-year history, allowing you to take a walk through its complete evolution — the good and the bad.
Presented by AstroReality.
There are tons of camera apps to choose from in the iOS universe, but there aren't many that top the convenience of the built-in Apple app. Obscura 2 is a manual camera app that makes an excellent companion to your go-to camera with an intuitive design that puts the main controls on the bottom third of the screen for easy one-handed use. Obscura also provides exposure, focus, shutter speed, and ISO options along with a diverse set of filters and an integrated photo library browser.
You don't need to be transferring classified material or leaking internal memos to use Signal. But it's nice to know you could. Available on every major platform, it uses rock-solid end-to-end encryption to keep all of your communication private. It covers everything from document transfers to video calls. And it's remarkably free, without ads, tracking, or unnecessary add-ons.
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