Readers’ App Reviews – August 2016

Like clockwork, another month has marched by. That brings us closer to all the goodies Apple will hopefully share with us this fall. I’m sure we’re all getting excited for a new iPhone, an updated MacBook, and maybe even a surprise or two.

But for me, August has brought another swarm of great apps and games from our readers. :] We write our tutorials for you and its exciting for us to see them put to use in some fantastic apps.

I’ve tried out all the ones sent to me and I’ve picked just a few to share with you. As always, I don’t have time to write about them all, so make sure you check out the honorable mentions too.

This month we have:

• Photo and Video editors that make it fun
• An app for the Pokemon trainers among us
• Apps to help you travel anywhere
• And of course, much more!

Keep reading to see the the latest apps released by raywenderlich.com readers like you.

GoTypeChart

Pokemon Go has swept the world, and that means the competition couldn’t be higher. To gain the edge you’ll need to know everything there is about your Pokemon and their abilities. The GoTypeChart can help with that. It has a ton of information on each and every Pokemon from Pokemon Go.

GoTypeChart lets your search for Pokemon by type, name, move type, index, attack damage, defense, and stamina. Each move is listed with its DPS and type. You can easily find just the right attack to give you the edge. Or you can easily look for fire Pokemon to battle the grass type.

GoTypeChart also makes it easy to browse Pokemon, their abilities, and their attributes. So it’s easy to find new Pokemon to add to your list to catch to improve your battles.

• Author: Robert Chen @robcornerstone
• Most useful tutorial: The iOS Apprentice
• App Store Link: Check it out!

AnyMap

AnyMap is a very cool custom map application that allows you to get all the benefits we’re used to with regular iPhone maps but while using your custom map. Maybe it’s a trail map or a city landmark map. You can continue to use your custom map while taking advantage of GPS, pinch to zoom, and more.

AnyMap just needs a picture of the mall you’d like. Then you orient it by walking to a few easy to find landmarks. Now AnyMap knows how to navigate your custom map. You can now easily see where you are on the map at any time as you move around. It doesn’t even require cell service now that it’s synced your map to GPS coordinates.

• Author: Oliver Schaff @_anymap
• Most useful tutorial: Swift by Tutorials
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Can’t Eat That

Food allergies are a common problem for many people. It may be manageable at home but when you go out it can be hard to find a safe entree. Now imagine being in another country without being a native speaker! Thank goodness for Can’t Eat That, an app that will help you communicate your food allergies in a variety of languages.

Can’t Eat That lets you select your food allergy and then a language you need to express it in. You can then show the app to your waiter in their native language and they’ll be able to help you find something safe to eat. The app can even read the translation aloud if necessary. Can’t Eat That could be a truly life saving app depending on how severe your allergy may be. You can finally travel and try new foods without fear.

• Author: Alex Bilbie @alexbilbie
• Most useful tutorial: Swift by Tutorials
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Crop-Size

Crop-Size is a photo editing app with some powerful features to make it a step above the rest. It has all the expected features like resizing, cropping, filters, and color correction. But it takes a few of those features to the next level.

While resizing a photo, you can choose from a ton of preset sizes common for photos. You can input exact sizes to the pixel. You can also choose between cropping, stretching, or a border when resizing the photo. Cropping has easy custom controls, pixel precise inputs, and tons of common presets. Rotation is even a breeze. All the filters, controls, and effects you’d expect are available as well. You can even edit full metadata and choose which data is exported to exercise full control over your private data.

The best feature of all is the ability to save your edits as a template. After you finish getting an image just right, you can save all your crops, filters, and metadata changes to a template. That template can be used on future photos or on large batches all at once.

What could be better than large batch processing right on your iPhone? Editing in the field has never been so good.

• Author: Alex Khuala cropsize
• Most useful tutorial: Image Processing in iOS Part 1: Raw Bitmap Modification
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Coffee Phone

Coffee Phone is a unique social network based entirely around coffee. Having a coffee alone wishing you could meet some new people? You can offer to buy a stranger a coffee if they’ll come enjoy it with you.

Anyone can open the app and see available coffees near them. So if you’re looking for a coffee to meet new people or looking to meet new people by offering a coffee you can easily find someone nearby.

The conversation is up to you, but you already know you both like coffee. ;] So next time you’re relaxing and looking to meet someone knew, grab a coffee and offer one to your next friend.

• Author: Andrea Sangiorgio @sancho80app
• Most useful tutorial: Adaptive Layout video tutorial series
• App Store Link: Check it out!

Tandem – Medication Companion

Tandem is an app for those of us with scheduled medications. Sometimes life is just too busy to remember our medication but often it’s very important we take our pills at the right time. Tandem is here to help us by reminding us to take the right medication at the right time.

Tandem starts by asking you for the medications you need to track as well as dosages in case you may forget that as well. It will ask you about your dosage schedule. From there it can handle the rest. You’ll get a notification when it’s time to take it and you can even mark it as taken right from the lock screen.

But if you need a little extra motivation, Tandem has a special feature just for you. You can invite a friend or family member to be your companion. Tandem will text your companion when it’s time to take your medicine. They can reply straight to the text message and you’ll get it in Tandem as an extra reminder. And when you mark your medication as taken, Tandem will also let your companion know. The companion doesn’t need Tandem at all. They can help remind you with simple text messages.

• Author: Will Sun @jointandem
• Most useful tutorial: iOS Animations video tutorial series
• App Store Link: Check it out!