iOS Today 731 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
 

00:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Coming up on iOS Today. The App Store Award finalists have been announced. So Rosemary Orchard and I cover the entirety of the list. Stay tuned Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Twit. This is iOS Today, episode 731, with Rosemary Orchard and me, micah Sargent, recorded Tuesday November 26th 2024, for Thursday December 12th 2024. App Store Award finalists. Hello and welcome to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, ipados, tvos, visionos. Ios Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, ipados, tvos, visionos, that HomePod software, many, many OSs we cover here on the show and mostly this is our opportunity to help you make the most of those Apple devices you have purchased. I am one of your hosts. My name is Micah Sargent.

01:04 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
And I am your other host here today, and I am Rosemary Orchard.

01:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Hello Rosemary. How are you feeling today?

01:12 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Oh, I mean, I'm feeling like maybe I could accomplish more every day if I use some of these winners, because you know that is one of their taglines, but there's some really great apps that I would love to explore today.

01:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, so we have talked in the past about the winners at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and at that event Apple sort of showcases apps that make use of Apple's platforms in either novel ways or really impressive ways that really leverage those tools. This is not that these are the awards that take place at the end of the year. That come from the App Store editors, the people who are in charge of picking the apps that get featured on that kind of front page of the App Store every single day. So these are the finalists. There are 45. So we're definitely not going to be demoing all, if even most, of them. These are the 45 finalists for the App Store Awards. The winners will be announced in the coming weeks. But my larger point here is that sometimes these apps aren't going to be really leveraging Apple's platforms in novel or impressive ways. Sometimes these apps kind of fly in the face of the kind of base offerings that come from Apple, because it's more about the apps that the editors think are of interest to people and have kind of stood the test of time in some cases or are kind of new to the scene, and so, yeah, it's not necessarily going to be developers making the best use of the system, like we see at WWDC. But there are many finalists and so we should kind of kick things off.

03:10
The first category is iPhone app of the year. So this is the non-game category for the iPhone as a whole. The category is just the big overarching theme of iPhone app, and there are three apps that have made it to the finalist category. The first is I believe it's pronounced Kino, although it could be Kino, I'm not very good at that, but I think it's Kino, thank you.

03:41
And this is the actual video capturing app that will let you record video in log and use LUTs, which, for people who are versed in these terms, would be, you know, very interested in this. But essentially it lets you shoot cinematic video on your iPhone, given that the iPhone is capable of capturing cinematic video. It is the pro video camera from the makers of the Halide app, the very popular photo app that is in the App Store. So within the app you are able to grade your footage, meaning changing it from log, which we know is sort of a capturing mechanism that grabs as much information as possible by kind of neutralizing everything so that there's as much shadow and as much highlight as possible captured within, and then you make those changes after the fact. You also have special tools that filmmaking professionals use, like time codes and different viewfinders, that kind of a thing, and then there are also lessons that are built into this app, which is pretty cool as well. Is there anything you want to say about Kino before we move on to the next?

05:09 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
one. It's a great app and I've met the developers and they're lovely people and I think that's something that we will be repeating as we go through this. We've been lucky enough to meet developers of several of these apps and they're actually genuinely nice people, which is really great. When you're looking at these apps, sometimes you expect that they're all made by huge, big sort of anonymous corporations like EA Games or something, and no, a lot of these are very small dev shops who just work really, really hard at this, so I'm really pleased that they are being nominated for this.

05:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I agree Absolutely. Up. Next is Runa. Are you oh, I should mention that's available for $9.99 in the App Store Runa R-U-N-N-A running and training plans. So with Runa, as you might imagine, this app is able to help you figure out your running method. If you are trying to kind of improve your speeds over time, if you're trying to improve your distances over time, if you're working toward a marathon, all of that information is available in the app. It kind of customizes the training, tailors it to you. Working toward a marathon, all of that information is available in the app you can. It kind of customizes the training, tailors it to you. So if it's just a small run or a large, you know a very long run any of that is going to be available to you. You can sync your runs with your you know tracking and use it in other apps as well. So a lot of people like to use Strava as their sort of platform of fitness tracking. This integrates with that, and then it also offers some different strength and conditioning routines that you can use along with your running program. So this is basically an all-in-one tool for people who are trying to become better and longer-distance runners.

07:10
Giving you the. It's a finalist for the iPhone app of the year. It also does have a great Apple Watch version, which makes sense. If you're running along, just being able to look at your watch and see your progress is great. Yes, and then the final app in this category for iPhone app of the year. Very exciting to see TripSee make its way into this area, because there are some well-known and oft-used other options out there like TripIt. But if you look at the privacy policy for something like TripIt and you see everything that is shared and how it's shared and where it's shared, you may be hesitant to use something like that. Maybe you do know what you're sort of giving up and you're comfortable with that and that's totally fine. But if you have ever thought, I don't know, trip or the Tripsy is the choice for you.

08:26
Tripsy is a travel planner that works a lot like Tripit, but it will help you kind of keep track of everything all in one place. It's got those features that you would expect, like being able to organize all of your information your flights, your hotels, your restaurants, the tours. It gives you a weather forecast for the time that you're staying somewhere. It'll import reservations from 700 providers. It will sync your trip data. With your calendar app, you get access to all sorts of stuff and you can also email along your itinerary as well. It has been an editor's Choice app in the past and it is an app that I have used in the past when I am managing my trips, and it does a great job of helping you stay organized. When we took the trip to the podcast movement, I used TripSee as my travel planner and it was fantastic to have all of that information all in one place. Anything you want to say about TripSee I really like TripSee.

09:34 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
I use TripSee and TripIt. I use them for different things. Like TripSee is more for sort of like the fun side of the plans, whereas I tend to lean into TripIt for the logistics, just because I've been using it for so long. It's really difficult to break habits when something works. But yeah, tripsee is also just really nice and it looks pretty as well, which is always an advantage when you're doing something fun like travel planning. Tripit's great, but it's a very functional application, which is not anything against it, but it is nice to have something that is genuinely pretty to look at as well.

10:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Absolutely. There's a pro version with a subscription. They're running a deal right now, probably because of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so now might be the time to check it out and check out the pro version, while there's such a great deal available. Then we move on to iPhone game of the year. So you can see Apple's kind of breaking these down by device and it breaks it between apps and games.

10:36
For iPhone game of the year, AFK Journey, which, as you might imagine, is a role-playing game, is a game where you step into Asperia. This is a fantasy world full of magic and you can kind of solve different puzzles and follow along with the story as you go through this journey away from your keyboard. It's a little bit reminiscent of, you know, like a Kingdom Hearts or a Final Fantasy, as you move along and battle against creatures out in the wilderness. Also in this category for iPhone game of the year is the Wear Cleaner. This is a really funny game about a guy named Kyle who is a custodian, a janitor, and also happens to be a werewolf, and for the longest time it was fine because he worked on the day shift, but now, oh no, he's got the night shift and you basically have to stealthily move around while you're working the night shift to keep anyone from realizing that you are a werewolf. And you are not sneaking around just because you don't want people to realize you're a werewolf, but also because it's the only way to fight those instincts to gobble up the people around you. So it's a fun little stealth game with some comedy built in, and is available in the App Store for free.

12:15
The last option in this category for best iPhone game of the year is a game called Zenless Zone Zero Z3. Year is a game called Zenless Zone Zero Zed 3. It is also an RPG, an anime role-playing game, and it looks like every anime role-playing game that you'd come across. You have these kind of huge cut scenes and you have turn-based strategy as you are making your way through the story and fighting against your enemies and upgrading yourself over time.

12:51
Now the iPhone games of the year are, of course, going to be the games that work well on the iPhone. That's the point of that, and so in that category you're going to find games that have controls that are built for that device Moving right along. We have the iPad app of the year and that kicks off with a game for kids called Bluey, let's Play. You're probably familiar by this point with Bluey. If you're not, that's fine. But Bluey, Bingo, Chili, Bandit, the Australian dogs, and in this you can kind of create different. I mean, it's basically a really simple game for kids that helps them to kind of create and explore a world and be able to have these kind of easy to play games. So there's not a whole lot of frustration as they're working on, you know, their hand-eye coordination and things like that.

13:55 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
And there is a separate games category, but this one is really much more on the educational side of things versus pure entertainment, which is why it's in the iPad app of the year finalist section's in the iPad app of the year finalist section rather than the iPad game of the year finalist section Because you know it is puzzles and training education as much as it is playing. You know kids see it as a game, but they're actually learning things, which is always a really great way to sneak in education, just like sometimes you may sneak vegetables into that.

14:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I was thinking like veggies. Yes, absolutely. The next app for iPad is really cool. It's called Moises M-O-I-S-E-S, and this app is an app for musicians who are looking at you know, learning songs creating things.

14:45
Looking at you know, learning songs creating things. What this tool does is it lets you import music and it uses AI to extract the vocals and the instruments from any song, and so what it will do is kind of separate those things and it will automatically do AI chord detection so you can learn how to play that as well. You can change the pitch so you can take a song and bring it into your range. You can change the speed of a song, you can add different things like count in, and overall, you're able to set this up to learn how to play songs, if you'd like, and keep those different areas in your vocals and your drums and your bass, et cetera, all spread out using AI, which is really cool. It also has AI lyric transcription so it can follow along to the song and add the lyrics, and I just think of all of the people, all the very, very talented people on social media who you know play songs and learn songs to cover.

15:57
This would be a great app for that and it's called Moises, as you might imagine. It is available to download for free, but does feature a subscription that will give you access to more of the features than you would have otherwise. So there's a premium version that's $5.99 a month or $40 a year and it seems to be very popular for being able to actually do that AI audio separation. The last app in this category I'm going to let Rosemary talk about. It's called Procreate Dreams and it's one of the latest apps from the Procreate team that kind of was featured on stage back when Apple came out with the new iPad and Apple Pencil in the latest versions.

16:49 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yeah. So I'm sure folks have heard of some of Procreate's other applications where you know they're great for drawing, they integrate with the Apple Pencil, they've always got the cool latest features there. And Procreate Dreams is about creating rich 2D animations which you turn into videos for storytelling essentially. So it's got the timeline controls. You've got, you know, drawings and so on in there. If you've ever wanted to create like a flip book, but digitally, like this is the app for you and it's just. You know, I've spent some time playing with this and I'm really really, really bad at drawing and animation and so on, so my results have been fairly terrible, but I am sure that they would have been considerably worse if I had just tried to do this myself by just like trying to draw something and then like using Keynote's magic move or trying to do it in Final Cut Pro or even. It's not GarageBand. I've having a mental block, um, for whatever the the one is, it's not garage band it's the video version of garage, but yeah, imovie, that's the one.

17:54
Yes, if I tried to use iMovie for this, oh gosh, or even clips would have been terrible, um, but yes, uh, like you know, this is really nice and I particularly like the backstage feature, which is basically like you've got something that's kind of like moving along behind the curtain and then it appears at just the right moment, and, yeah, it's very nice. And also, if you use other Procreate apps, you'll find you have muscle memory for how things work and it's the same. So, yeah, this is really nice. It can import videos and audio and then you can share the files out, as well as MP4s or PNG sequences, if you like.

18:32
And another great thing about this this it is a one-time upfront purchase of twenty dollars. Yeah, that's it. It's a one-time purchase of twenty dollars. There's no subscriptions or a thing, um. So, yeah, it's a very nice app and I feel like it's exceptionally good value for money, um, especially when you consider the fact that if you've bought brushes or similar for Procreate, you can use them in Procreate Dreams. So it just takes everything that you've already got and just adds animation, basically with framing and flipbook stuff and all of the magic on top.

19:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Love, love, love. Up next is the iPad Game of the Year finalists. As you might imagine, assassin's Creed Mirage has made it into this category. This was very highly sort of touted as being able to play Assassin's Creed on an iPad from Ubisoft. It is exactly what you'd expect it's Assassin's Creed Mirage, but it's on iPad. The point here, though, is that these iPad games again work really well on these devices and also received a lot of attention.

19:42
The other two games are more family-oriented I guess no-transcript from Disney and Pixar characters, and the last one in this section is Squadbusters. This is a game that you're able to play with other people, and you are, you know, working around. It's a lot like Brawl Stars or Clash of Clans, clash Royale, those games. This is, um, a game that you can run around and play with other people uh, online, and get those gems as you move through the different uh sections of the map. I always forget the name of that category the like Clash Royale, clash of Clans, brawl Stars, those, those games, but maybe somebody will say in the chat yeah, yeah, come on chat room, rescue us.

21:03 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
This is what live chat's for. Are they have they?

21:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
no, no, no, that's okay, we will talk about one of the finalists in the Mac app of the year and the Mac game of the year. I'll quickly just mention the others before Rosemary talks about one. Adobe Lightroom, which of course is the photo editor, works very well on the iPad, especially with the screen quality that you can get, but this is for the Mac version. Shaper 3D CAD modeling, which of course is a tool for being able to create 3D models and edit 3D models.

21:44
Mac Game of the Year finalists include Frostpunk 2, which is a strategy game where you build a city and, kind of you know, try to keep them from keep your civilization alive in an icy apocalypse. Stray, the fun little cat game, and Thank Goodness, which is a little comedy game from Panic that is all about a traveling salesman who just goes around and is attempting to kind of make friends with everybody. It's a little adventure game called Thank Goodness You're here and it's really adorable. I've heard that the writing for that game is quite lovely. Frostpunk 2 is $44.99. Stray is $29.99. Thank Goodness you're here is $19.99. You can get Adobe Lightroom and the Shapr3D CAD modeling the basic apps for free with, of course, subscriptions for those. But there's one on the list that Rosemary wants to talk about that. I know you adore Rosemary.

22:46 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yes, I did just want to mention OmniFocus 4. So Shapr, as a note, is also available on the iPad and I do actually use that quite a bit for creating 3D models, for 3D printing. But OmniFocus is the app that actually makes me get stuff done, and it's not just available on Mac, it's available on iPhone, ipad, apple Watch, vision Pro, you name it, and it has honestly been just a huge amount of my life so far. I think I've been using it since OmniFocus two days I didn't quite make it into OmniFocus one, but I've been using it since I heard Miller man talking about it on the website 43 Folders back in the day, and this was back in the day.

23:28
The thing that is a standout feature of OmniFocus for me, like the small thing, is that it has a defer date. So I can say, hey, I need to renew my passport in 2030. I don't want to think about this until six months before, which is in 2029. And I can put that in there. I can set a defer date for July 2029, and it will just disappear. That task will basically just hide from me until July 2029, at which point it then shows up as a thing that I can start doing.

24:01
And yeah, there's a whole bunch of other things in there. There's automation, a topic near and dear to my heart, including great shortcut support. But yeah, and also the, the folks at omni group. They've been doing, uh, mac apps for since next, you know, um, and then they they branched out into the iphone and ipad apps as soon as that became available and I just really love them. So, yeah, I just wanted to give a great shout out to a really great app because I I do genuinely need it, uh, to get all my work done. Like I wouldn't have shown up today on time for the show with the things done that I needed to do if it wasn't for OmniFocus because that list is in OmniFocus making sure I get it done.

24:40 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And that is the Mac app of the year and Mac game of the year. Finalists. Moving along, we have kind of the the remaining categories. Uh, apple separates between kind of your outside of its Halo games and it's inside of your Halo games, and so that is by way of Apple arcade, which, of course, is Apple's subscription gaming service that gives you access to games that don't have free-to-play mechanics and also are required to work offline. They can have online components, but they need to have an offline component.

25:18
The Apple Arcade Game of the Year finalists include Balatro+, which is a very, very, very popular game right now. I see it all over social media. It is somehow a mix of solitaire and poker and you basically are just working against the kind of dealer, the boss, and you use it to change the game in different ways, so you can, kind of like, change the rules of the game as you're playing and overall, you're also building a deck, so it's like a deck building card game, they say when poker meets solitaire. I will be honest in saying not a big card game fiend. I don't really like card games all that much, so I have not tried this out, but I have heard so many people talking about it, so it may be something that you out there would like to give a shot.

26:24
If you have an Apple Arcade subscription, this game is available for free to you as part of that subscription, with no ads and, of course, offline support as well. And you know what? I'm going to go ahead and click, get on this app so I can at least try it and see. Who knows, maybe this is the first card game I'll actually enjoy the other. Have you tried it, rosemary, yet?

26:47 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
I have played it a bit. I it's one of those things I do love games, I just don't play them all that much. So I have tried it and I do enjoy it. But yeah, I'm I'm not necessarily a huge gamer. Uh, in that respect it's a shame. I wish I was, because there's so many great apps and games out there.

27:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's how I feel as well. Um, outlanders 2 is the next Apple Arcade game. Outlanders 2 is a role-playing sort of strategy game. You are able to create a city and your job is to keep that place running with plants and pets and people, and you're just growing your city over time. So it's a bit of a simulation and it is the second version of Outlanders. I remember playing and beating Outlanders in like a day, I imagine.

27:44
Outlanders 2 is probably a little bit more involved, but again available in the App Store Apple Arcade portion of the App Store. And then the last one is Sonic Dream Team, which is an adventure-based game where you are playing as Sonic and, just like you would on a console, you're moving around different stages and levels and you're not just playing Sonic but you're also playing the whole cast of characters, including Amy and Tails and Knuckles and some others, as you take on bosses like Dr Eggman and everyone else. It is Dr Eggman, right, it's been so long since I've played a Sega Sonic game, but the Eggman guy, somebody out there is like what is he? Wow, could he butcher the name so bad? And we can't forget to mention Apple Vision Pro. Yes, apple Vision Pro also gets its own categories for apps and games. Jigspace is one of the apps that I showed off when I did my review of the Apple Vision Pro, because of how cool it was. You can use it to view and interact with 3D models. That was enough to make it cool to me. There's also NBA live games and scores so you can watch games in virtual space, although they're not 3D games or anything like that. For the most part, there are some experiences inside that are a little bit immersive, but the idea is that you can have multiple screens open and have you know the game playing in front of you and the player stacks over here and other game scores getting updated live. Oh, very exciting, I'm sure, for people who find that kind of thing exciting.

29:42
And the last app of the year is called what If, and it is an immersive story. So in this you are kind of working in between your own world and then this Marvel world that is being created that is based on the what If show, which is a show from Disney, where they kind of throw in some ideas about what if instead of how this went. It went a different way. So it's pretty cool because it's very immersive um, working in your space and in uh in in virtual space together. And then games of the year include Luna uh, which Rosemary has talked about before in iOS version, but this is the Vision OS version and you basically work on these little puzzle games that are meant to help you kind of relax Thrasher, arcade, odyssey, which is a lot like a rhythm game, but it is just incredibly psychedelic the colors and the motions and everything else you interact with in this world as you kind of use your fingers to make things move in that space.

31:00
And that is available for $19.99 in the App Store. And the last one is Vacation Simulator. This is for the creators of Job Simulator, who there's always been this idea of like, wait, why are we, why would I want to, in virtual space, go to work when I'm trying to escape work? That is where Vacation Simulator comes along now from the creators of Job Simulator, available for $29.99 for the Apple Vision Pro, and Job Simulator is one of the most popular VR games in existence, so it's really cool to see that on the App Store for Apple Vision Pro, in both its original format and this vacation simulator version. Okay, tell us about the Apple Watch app of the year.

31:48
Finalists pretty, please, these are of course you're not going to get games in this category, right?

31:55 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
I mean, I could imagine. Do you remember, micah, the iPod video? It was, I believe, the first iPod that came with the Blockbuster game. So you use the click wheel to move the platform across the button and you had to bounce the ball to try and destroy the blocks. I can imagine that working really well with the digital crown, and I suspect there is a version of that out there already, but unfortunately that is not in the finalist category, so I don't know if it doesn't exist. I'm giving you, folks, a free app idea. The idea is free, the work is yours, so good luck.

32:31
But yes, there are, of course, three apps in the finalist category here, and the first one is Look Up English Dictionary, which is kind of exactly what it says on the tin. It's an English dictionary, but the idea is that it is right there on your wrist to help you look upwards and also to give you the word of the day. And this app is quite nice because it is available on more than just the the I. The apple watch is also available on the mac, the ipad and the iphone as well. But one of the things that is quite nice about this is it has the widgets. So the widgets that, when you scroll up on the crown, appear at the bottom of your screen. Yes, yeah, you can get one of those with the word of the day, so it doesn't matter if you're a native speaker or not, you know it can help you pick up some new words like did you know that slick is to satisfy one's thirst? Well, now you do, and that is one of the examples from their screenshot. And this is just a really nice, pretty app to help everybody improve their vocabulary Absolutely. So, yeah, that is the first one. The second one is Lumi. Now, if you are a photographer or you just want to take some great pictures or you want to know, like, when is this golden hour? Anyway, for $6.99, you can get Lumi, which is available on Apple Watch, iphone and iPad, and it tells you when sunrise, sunset and the golden hour are. The golden hour is that hour, you know, right around sunset or sunrise, where you get really beautiful light to help you take really great pictures. And the beauty of Lumi is this is available as a complication as well as an Apple Watch app, so it is a really nice way to just have that information show up straight away on your Apple Watch as you glance down at your wrist without having to go off and find other info, information or anything like that. So, yes, I personally do really like Lumi and I use it quite a bit.

34:42
And then our final app in this category is Watch to 5K. Now, if you've ever heard of Couch to 5K, yep, this is the Apple Watch for it. So Couch to 5K is a program to try and get you off of your couch to running 5K. It is a nine-week plan which is 30 minutes a day, three days a week, and it is a fairly standardized, widely spread, popularized fitness routine which can be modified and adjusted to varying levels of health and fitness, which is really great. I have personally done it before. Side note don't recommend doing it on a cross trainer in a pandemic. That was a choice that I made. It was not a good choice. If I'd had this app, maybe it would have helped me, but this app didn't exist back then, or at least I didn't know about it.

35:24
But this will help you track and it gives you the little virtual achievements and trophies as you go, which I personally feel is quite nice.

35:38
You know it's not a participation trophy, it's a you did a thing trophy in virtual form, so it's not cluttering up your house and requiring you to dust it on a regular basis.

35:42
But also this is really nice it ties into Apple Health. It's got spoken alerts and sounds and haptics on the watch as well, so the watch is going to vibrate when you need to change your pace as you go through one of the workouts, but it doesn't just take over the audio that you're listening to through, say, your AirPods. It will work alongside music and podcasts and things like that. And also this is really important you don't need to take your phone with you. You can just go running with a watch, and you don't need a cellular watch either. It will just work, and I think that that is actually really great, and I really appreciate the fact that they have thought about this and decided you know what? Let's just make this work completely offline for people, because that is the ideal running app as far as I am concerned. So, yeah, it is a really great app. Watch to 5K.

36:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And then we come to the Apple TV app of the year. Finalists. There are three. As per usual, you have Dropout by College Humor. This is an app that features content from Dropout TV. These are hilarious different game shows and also Dungeons and Dragons, actual play shows and lots of fun stuff that has all made its way to college humor's sort of over the top system for streaming content. F1 TV, which, of course, lets you stream Formula One and, believe it or not, a new edition, a relatively new edition, believe it or not, a new edition, a relatively new edition, which came out when Apple started supporting using your iPhone as a camera with your Apple TV the Zoom app. So this lets you use Zoom on your television to connect with other people around the world.

37:36
And then I'll briefly mention the cultural impact finalists. These are the games or apps that are attempting to make a difference, either through donations or through telling a story within the app or, whatever it happens to be, bringing awareness to different things. As Apple puts it, by telling challenging stories with courage and care, helping us bring out our best selves and celebrating art in all its forms, these finalists made a lasting difference. Arco is a tactical action RPG, also from Panic and in it you are making different decisions that are going to shape the world around you based on what you do. The Bear is a game about they call it an interactive bedtime experience and you can kind of move along in different spaces and it tells this very simple not simple, I shouldn't say that a very easygoing story as you move about, so you kind of try to get a bear out of its cave and lead it around as it talks about friendship and cooperation. There's Better Sleep, which helps you get sleep through different white noise, green noise and other sounds. Brawl Stars, which is another oh, it's MOBA, that's the word M, o, b, a, um, and so that's one of those player versus player battle Royale games.

39:05
Um. There's daily art, which just is an art history app. It gives you a new piece of art every day, uh, and tells you about it, tells you you know who made it, um, where it from, that kind of a deal. So you're always getting new artwork and I'm going to also be installing that one Really cool, to just kind of check in and see what the artwork of the day is going to be and get some information about who's created stuff over time, about you know who's created stuff over time. Then we have Do you Really Want to Know? 2, which is a text-based adventure game that is kind of a role-playing game, again played through text, and it tells the story from the perspective of the character Nick, who was featured in Do you Really Want to Know? The first version? Up next we have EF Hello.

40:05
This is a game for learning how to speak English and it's kind of an easy, low-stress way of learning English using AI as an English tutor. One of my favorites, which is the New York Times Games app, which now features many a New York Times game. There are lots of word games at this point, plus, of course, sudoku Oko, which is a way to better navigate. You can search for your destination, you get detailed turn-by-turn directions and then it'll let you know when you're coming up on an intersection. So this is for folks who might need some visual assistance or to hear that there are special directions that you need to take when there is a pedestrian signal coming up, and it uses all of this to help people who have low or no vision to navigate around the world. You get haptics, you get audio, you get color cues, and all of this helps you cross different intersections safely and get to where you're trying to go.

41:17
Partyful, which I love. This is it's kind of like modern Evite. You create these event pages and the RSVP works really well, but you get. You can have people kind of sign up. They get text blasts whenever you are saying, hey, this is going on. You can use it to help everybody find a time. You can also feature a chip-in option so that people can send money via Venmo or Cash App or PayPal to help cover whatever event that it's going to be. Afterward you can post photos in this. It's really cool. I have attended a couple of events where the host had used Partyful to set it up and I just I really appreciated the system. I thought it was great, uh, the way that it worked.

42:05
Uh, pinterest, or, as our dear uh Paul Thorat of Windows Weekly calls it, p-interest, um, pinterest is, of course, the app where you can uh collect different photos and things in kind of a mood board, and it's full of crafts and different inspiration and different ideas, and I'm not surprised to see it on the list. And last but not least is a game called the Wreck, which is an adventure game and it tells the story of a failed screenwriter writer named Junon, who is working through the most excuse me pivotal day in her life. If I remember correctly, she is going to the ER because her estranged mother is in critical condition, and so it's all about kind of navigating that. It's a really powerful visual novel. I wanted to ask you, rosemary, any of the apps on the list you want to talk about in the cultural impact finalists?

43:09 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Not necessarily. I am just going to say like Pinterest can be used for more than just creating mood boards. Like my family have used it for wishlists in the past, we have ended up moving over to Apple Notes just because it's a little bit easier for my grandmother, who doesn't quite get Pinterest. But you know, it is just a really nice way of putting together, you know, like wishlists or idea lists for things, and I love to use it for gathering gift ideas for people because it kind of gives me like an overview and also within a board you can have different sections.

43:42
So I have like a whole board for my dad, for example, and then I have a section for this is what I'm getting him for Christmas, where I've moved things that I'm specifically getting him for Christmas, which also kind of helps work as a little reminder of yeah, so I've already bought him like five things and I probably need to stop Christmas shopping for my dad now and maybe do some Christmas shopping for my mom. Don't worry, her presents are on the way too, but it's still November as we record this, so I think I'm ahead of the game. I'll be all right. But yeah, I do really like it for more than just its intended purpose. It is really handy there.

44:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Absolutely, folks. That is the list of the App Store Award finalists. As we mentioned, the actual winners will be coming out in the coming weeks, so be sure to stay tuned to that App Store Awards story for more there. I would love to know if there is an app or a game that you think should have absolutely made it onto the list that didn't make it onto the list. Tell us about it. I want to hear which one you think should have been there, and we thank you so much for tuning in today to this episode of iOS Today.

44:52
If you out there would like to become a member of Club Twit, then now is your time, because we, for a limited time, are offering two weeks of Club Twit for free, so you can try it out and see what you're missing at twittv slash club twit. After the fact, you will join for $7 a month. All right, we encourage you to join for $7 a month. What you get when you join the club which you'll find out when you give it a go is you will be able to view all of our shows ad-free just the content, none of the ads. You'll also gain access to the TwitPlus bonus feed that has extra stuff you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show. After the show, special Club Twit events get published there, access to the members-only Discord server and special live events, like my live event that I have every month called Micah's Crafting Corner.

45:44
As I continue on, we're getting more and more people each time. I just had a delightful new person join this last time and we got to the end of the hour that we spend together and they were like wait, you're only going for an hour, come on, let's keep crafting. Uh, so that was a really uh awesome, awesome moment. Um, so, yes, be sure to tune into that. I am actually this coming month where I usually do the show on Wednesdays at, or the, the gathering on Wednesdays at 6 PM and the third Wednesday of the month. I'm actually going to be doing it on the third Thursday of the month, which is December 19th, at 9am instead of at 6pm, so that way people across the pond are able to join as well.

46:35
I've had some folks say who are European or otherwise outside of the US, who said please can we try it at an earlier time so that they can join too. So be sure to tune in December 19th at 9 am to watch and join us for crafting. But all of that is part of Club Twit. So twittv slash, clubtwit $7 a month to join and again, two weeks free for a limited time. Those of you who are already members twittv slash, club twit slash referral that's going to give you access to our referral program where you can earn free months of Club Twit. Rosemary Orchard, if folks want to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

47:17 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Well, the best place to go is rosemaryorchardcom, which has got links to apps, books, this podcast and, of course, all the social media sites down at the bottom. But you can also find me hanging out in the ClipTut discord, where there are great chats during the show as we record, but also after the show, about each episode and, of course, any shortcuts requests, which we'll be back in the future. Micah, where can folks find you?

47:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
If you're looking to follow me online, I'm at Micah Sargent on many a social media network, or you can head to chihuahuacoffee that's C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-Acoffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of iOS Today and we'll catch you again next week for another episode. Bye-bye.