It’s Appday Sunday and that means we’re back with more of our favorites to share. Every week we bring a handful of great apps to the table and share them with everyone. Sometimes they are new apps, sometimes old standards, but every time they are apps we love to use.
Give these a look and then take a minute to tell us all about the apps you are using and love so we can give them a try. We all find some of our favorites right in the comments on these posts!
Daniel Bader — TD MySpend
I get a sick satisfaction knowing where all of my money goes each month. From utility bills and mortgage payments to the less essential purchases like monthly Netflix, Spotify and Hulu subscriptions (I know, I have a problem), it’s sometimes difficult to gain a wide, step-back view of your finances.
TD Canada Trust, Canada’s second largest bank, recently released a solution to this problem in the form of TD MySpend, a companion app to the company’s existing Android offering. At its core, the app plugs into your TD chequing and savings accounts, as well as any credit cards on file, to form a category-specific view of your spending. Didn’t realize you were throwing away $200 on extra-whip, no-whip, double-whip lattes every month? MySpend makes it easy to get a sense of what you’re spending, where you’re spending it, and, best of all, whether it conforms to your average for each category.
While it is only available for TD Canada Trust customers, U.S.-based users can get a similar experience from Moven, the company that helped TD build the app.
Download: TD MySpend (Free)
Russell Holy — Minecraft for Gear VR
It’s Minecraft. For the Gear VR. What else really needs to be said here?
You get a fully immersed Minecraft experience, allowing you to move your head and see the world you’re creating in, and the controller in your hand does all the rest. It’s still Pocket Edition features, but the whole world is there for you to run around in.
If you have a Gear VR, you need this game. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to get a Gear VR, this might put you over the line.
Minecraft for Gear VR is $6.99 and available in the Oculus Store.
Andrew Martonik — Blendle
I appreciate good reporting and well-crafted stories written online, but I also equally dislike the number of subscriptions necessary to get the best journalism out there from the top websites and newspapers. Blendle is a new app trying to help you out with that by taking articles that would normally be behind monthly paywalls online and bring them to you on a per-article basis and paid for in very small amounts.
You tell Blendle what categories of information you want to read about, and can receive insights from what your friends are reading, and you get a somewhat-tailored list of stories to check out. The stories come from sources you know well: The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal … the list of big names just keeps going. When you read an article, it’ll cost you somewhere between $0.19 and $0.49. If you’re legitimately not happy with the amount you paid for an article, you can instantly be refunded with two taps — no issues. But if you do like it, you’re charged and you’ll move onto your next story. It’s likely far cheaper than having multiple $5 or $10 monthly subscriptions to see the same articles.
Blendle is still in beta right now so you’ll have to download the app and sign up, but it only took me a few days of waiting to get approved. And while I’m not quite sure yet if Blendle will be my go-to app for long-form and insightful stories, it sure beats paying for several monthly subscriptions to find out if I like the content from each provider.
Download: Blendle (Free)
Ara Wagoner —AMERICA
Android Wear had a lot of good faces out there, but one of my absolute favorite watches is coming back to my wrist yet again this week for a little thing called Captain America Civil War. This fave homages Cap’s famous shield in Day mode, but where I absolutely love it is in Night Mode. It’s sleek, it’s dark, it’s still patriotic, a bit like Cap’s shield from Winter Soldier. And it’s the face I reach for when I want a functional face that looks ready to kick some ass.
Download AMERICA watch face($1.99)
Alex Dobie — Apple Music Beta
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t expecting much from the Android version of Apple Music. After years of using iTunes on Windows in the pre-Android era — and Apple’s very public acrimony towards Google’s OS — I was ready for Apple Music on Android to be a second-class experience compared to its iOS counterpart. And yet I’ve bee pleasantly surprised so far. It’s still officially in beta, so there are a few bugs to watch out for. Nevertheless, Apple Music somehow manages to stay true to its own design language while also feeling like a native Android app.
You’ll start off the process by plugging in your Apple ID, tapping artists you like — or double-tapping ones you love — to build up a basic profile of what you’re into. From there, Apple’s curated playlists populate a “For You” section, which lives alongside sections for new music, radio (including the much-hyped Beats One) and tracks from your own library. Recent updates to the beta have brought a pretty slick home scree widget, as well as the option to save downloaded music to an SD card, not just internal storage.
The app itself is free, but you’ll need to sign up to a $9.99/£9.99 subscription plan to get involved. Fortunately, there’s also a free three-month trial.
Download: Apple Music (Free, subscription required)
Jerry Hildenbrand — Material Terminal
The most powerful tool on your Android doesn’t have to look ugly.
Material Terminal is a rewrite of the original open-source Android Terminal Emulator and brings a full Linux terminal emulation experience right to your phone. Extras like multiple windows, a customizable color scheme and full UTF-8 support make it usable as well as beautiful. Best of all, there are no ads and no functions behind a paywall — the app is free, but you can make an in-app donation.
Download: Material Terminal (Free)
