Download these five great apps to send GIFs, wake up to The Rock, and more

Jason Howie/Flickr
The App Store may have been hit with some problems earlier this week, but that hasn’t stopped us from curating a list of top apps of the week. Need a better way to send GIFs? Looking for additional motivation to complete your tasks? We’ve got apps to help satisfy both those questions, and more.

Giphy Keys


GIFs are a language, and so naturally, you’ll need a keyboard befitting the medium — or so that’s what the team at Giphy believes. The GIF search company is out with a keyboard that makes finding and sending GIFs much easier and faster. You don’t need to replace your preferred keyboard, as swapping between them is pretty easy on iOS. Giphy Keys has six icons sitting above the keyboard, which offer features such as GIF search, saving GIFs to your favorites, and an 8 Ball to generate a random GIF for you. An Android app is in the works.

Recommended Videos

Quik


Quik isn’t exactly new — GoPro acquired the company behind it earlier this year. The app, formerly known as Replay, lets you quickly turn your action-packed footage into a short, snappy video. Quik automatically analyzes your footage to find the best parts — then it adds transitions, effects, and even matches the cuts to the beat of the soundtrack you choose. You can add custom text overlays, title slides, and emojis. It’s a quick way to share a video if you don’t have time or access to edit it yourself. Of course, if you do have a little more time, the second app GoPro acquired from a different company is called Splice — it features more manual control of their final cut.

The Rock Clock


“Beep, beep, beep … I could do this all day … beep, beep, beep.” Don’t you want the sound of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to help you kick start the day? That’s right, even the famed professional wrestler-turned actor has an app — but the Rock Clock wants to help you beat your goals. First, you’ll have to set a goal — which can range from feeding the cat, to one of the preset goals of “lose 10 pounds of non-muscle.” Then you need to pick your alarm ringtone: Choose from The Rock singing, “good morning sunshine,” to mimicking the “beep” sounds from digital alarm clocks, and more. Of course, you can also opt to set your alarm to mimic The Rock’s — though he’s an early-riser. You’ll get daily messages from The Rock each morning to help motivate you to completing your goal, whatever it is. Oh and FYI — there’s no snooze button.

Beme


Whether you’re at a concert or at the beach in a far away land, we’ve all seen people who are more interested in sharing the experience to social media through their smartphone’s screen (and sadly their tablet) than actually taking it in through their own eyes. Beme wants to help by offering a bare bones way to share these experiences — without filters and any means of editing. Simply tap the front of your phone to your anywhere on your body to have the app start recording, and when you separate the phone from yourself, the app will stop recording and share your experience.

Sqgl


There are a surprisingly high number of apps that help you send a physical postcard — and Sqgl is another quick way that offers a sleek interface. Simply add a picture from your Camera Roll, and type in a message for the person you’re sending the postcard to — you can choose what kind of font you want. Then you can sign your name, and add the recipient’s address. Add your billing information, and for $3 you can send a postcard to anywhere in the U.S. It also supports Apple Pay. The prices increase slightly when you send postcards to countries around the world — for example, sending one to Sweden only costs a dollar more.

Editors' Recommendations

Former Digital Trends Contributor
Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…
The best iPhone and Android apps for Black History Month 2024

February is celebrated as Black History Month to honor Black Americans' remarkable achievements and contributions. The theme for this year is "African Americans and the Arts," which shines a light on the impact of African Americans in different artistic fields, such as cultural expression, visual and performing arts, fashion, literature, and more.

In this regard, we present a list of popular iOS and Android apps developed by Black-owned businesses and cover various topics such as finance, entertainment, wellness, and more. These apps run on all the latest smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro.
Calendly

Read more
Google is launching a powerful new AI app for your Android phone

Remember Bard, Google’s answer to ChatGPT? Well, it is now officially called Gemini. Also, all those fancy AI features that previously went by the name Duet AI have been folded under the Gemini branding. In case you haven’t been following up all the AI development flood, the name is derived from the multi-modal large language model of the same name.

To go with the renaming efforts, Google has launched a standalone Gemini app on Android. Moreover, the Gemini experience is also being made available to iPhone users within the Google app on iOS. But wait, there’s more.

Read more
Apple is updating one of the oldest apps on your iPhone

Apple iPhone 14 Pro (left) and iPhone 15 Pro Max Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Apple has updated one of its original iPhone apps, the Clock app, in the first iOS 17.4 beta. Specifically, the update includes a small, but significant change to the Stopwatch function.

Read more