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These Are The Mobile Apps You Need To Own This Week

AJ Dellinger
By

iOS 9 home screen
App stores are crowded places these days, and because storage space on your phone is often at a premium, you’ll want to find and fill it with not only the best, but also the most helpful apps out there. Because they come and go quicker than the latest fashion trends, and digging through Google Play, the iTunes App Store, or any of the others is such a mission; a little nudge in the right direction is often very welcome. Here are the apps we think you need to check out this week.

Livetext

yahoo-livetext-002

They say, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Yahoo appears to have taken that suggestion as literally as possible with the introduction of Livetext, which joins together a bunch of ideas from other apps. The once major player in web search has fallen behind in recent years, but has had some surprisingly good mobile offerings recently. Livetext is the latest, and probably the most intriguing.

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Livetext is like an odd mashup of Snapchat and Beme and a silent film. You have video conversations to your friends, but there’s no sound. You can add text to the message and give it better context by placing it over your facial reaction, and the text disappears into the ether a la Snapchat messages. It’s an oddball mix of features, but once you start using it, a purpose may show itself. There’s already so many messaging apps, at least this one tries to be different.

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iTunes, Google Play

Snowball

snowball
Notifications are the worst. Sure, sometimes they’re handy and tell you valuable information. But most of the time, they’re excessive and come from apps you don’t even really care about. Snowball wants to turn notifications into a priority inbox that pushes the most important ones front and center for you while sending the other ones into hiding until you have time to manually take a look at them. The app is a good opportunity to take back you phone from unnecessary updates.

Google Play

Cut the Surge

CuttheSurge

There are plenty of complaints worth levying against Uber, but the app is undeniably popular. Any frequent user — and uninformed newbie — has likely stumbled into surge pricing, which is the enemy of every Uber rider. Cut the Surge aims to protect you against the unwanted extra fees. It predicts surge price times to help you plan your commute and decide when to summon your driver so you can keep the cost to a minimum.

iTunes

#besomebody

besomebody

Everything is made better when you feel passionately about something. #besomebody is an attempt to build a network of people who care deeply about certain topics. You can join sessions to meet with people who share your passion and learn more about the topic from others or, if you’re an expert, you can host a session of your own and earn money teaching others about the thing you love. When you can make a little cash doing what you’d be doing anyway, it’s hard to beat that.

iTunes

Power Nap App

PowerNapApp

Power Nap App is incredibly simple. That’s because all Power Nap App does is serve as a timer for naps. Why would you need such a thing? Because naps are the best, that’s why. When’s the last time you took a nap? You’re missing out on all of the great health benefits that can come from taking 15 to 30 minutes out of your day to recuperate. Download this app and try it out.

iTunes

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Topics
The Google Pixel Fold may not be as expensive as you thought
Alleged renders of the Google Pixel Fold in black.

Google’s long-in-development foldable phone — the Pixel Fold — is reportedly eyeing a late June launch. A recent leak predicted that the Pixel Fold will hit the European shelves priced at 1,700 Euros, which equates to roughly $1,800 based on current conversion rates. That’s not easy to digest, especially for a first-gen foldable phone and considering Google’s own shaky history with its Pixel hardware and software.
But it appears that the Pixel Fold’s price won’t be inexplicably exorbitant at all. Leaker Yogesh Bear shared on Twitter that the foldable phone could actually cost anywhere between $1,300 and $1,500. Assuming that turns out to be true, the Pixel Fold could undercut the Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 and its successor by a healthy $500.

In fact, such an asking price would put the Pixel Fold in roughly the same ballpark as the higher storage configurations of phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max. Of course, Google won’t be able to match the asking price of foldables from Chinese brands, but it would at least look competitive in the Western markets.
Now, a price of around $1,300-1,500 makes a lot of sense. First, the biggest deterrent for foldable phones is their high asking price. There’s a reason Samsung managed to sell bucketloads of its flip-style foldable phones because they cost nearly half vis-a-vis the phone-tablet hybrids in the Galaxy Z Fold series.

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Your Tinder profile is about to change in 3 huge ways
An image of two iPhones displaying the new badges coming to Tinder.

Tinder's dating app gives users a quick look into a potential match's life before they decide if they're compatible via swipe, but now even more information will be on full display. Following an update that went live today, desired relationship types, a person's pronouns, and relationship goals will now appear front and center on user profiles as badges found directly underneath a person's name and age.

The updated information has been added in order to improve clarity for all users. According to a survey conducted by Tinder, 73% of Tinder users say that they're looking for someone on the app who knows what they want and are clear about it. The newfound focus Tinder is taking on clarity when it comes to what sort of relationship type a person is looking for is meant to help streamline interactions, and cut out any matches that come from misaligned expectations.

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The Google Pixel Fold may launch a lot sooner than you expected
Alleged dummy model of the Google Pixel Fold.

Google is apparently closer to launching its first foldable phone a lot earlier than leaks had predicted. WinFuture, citing information received from sellers, reports that the Pixel Fold is lined up for a market release in June. It appears that Google will at least give a brief teaser of the phone at its I/O developers conference in May, alongside the budget-centric Pixel 7a.

The report adds that Pixel Fold is the official marketing name of the foldable phone, and it will at least be up for grabs in the European markets in the second week of June. The eagerly awaited phone will be sold in a sole 256GB storage configuration, while color options on the table are Carbon and Porcelain.

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