We’re back this Sunday with another Platter ready to be served to you wonderful folks. We’ve got two weeks of wonderful content to share with you today, so go right ahead and check out the beautiful apps we have in store for you.
Watched
After we wrote about TodoMovies 2 a few days ago, we came across Watched in our inbox. Watched is another very pretty iPhone app that lets you add movies that you have seen and rate them. The has a bold UI and looks excellent. You can Search for a movie name and add it as ‘watched’ or ‘unwatched’ and also rate it. The app shows you all the movie metadata including cast, release date and trailer. You can add custom notes to each movie, if needed. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with it. Compared to TodoMovies 2, it seems very limited in features, but it is still a very nice little app for iPhone. It’s available on the App Store for just $0.99.
Moneta
Moneta is another addition to the already overflowing plethora of currency convertors on the App Store. But Moneta still maintains its own identity via its beautifully simple design and UX. Moneta is a simple currency convertor with a very simple learning curve. You add a few currencies as Favorites and then you can quickly convert between them as you wish — they’re accessible by swiping from the left. It does support decimal conversions, but unfortunately Moneta lacks regional settings, so for example, it uses a comma instead of a period for decimal points. Moneta is still a fairly good app and you can grab it from the App Store for just $0.99.
Dots
Dots is the new simple playful game that’s taking the iOS market by storm. I have been playing Dots for a few days now and love how addictive and fun this game has been for me. The idea is simple — you are presented with a grid of dots in multiple colors and you get points as you connect the dots of the same color in a single stretch. More the dots, more the points. As you connect the dots, they disappear and the top ones slide down and are replaced by newer dots. You do have some powerups in the game that you can buy for more dots (and by more dots via IAP). Dots is a lot of fun and very addictive. It’s easy to get hooked. It’s FREE on the App Store.
Instacast for Mac Beta
Instacast for iOS is one of the most popular podcatchers out there. We featured it in our Best of 2012: Stock App Replacements and are glad to see it make its way to the Mac. Instacast for Mac is in public beta but in its current state, it works great. It looks like a modern Mac app and also syncs using your free Instacast Cloud account with iOS so your podcasts are synced across your iPad, iPhone and Mac. As of now the sync is working very well and hopefully it holds up as time goes by. One great feature the Mac app has right now is the mini player which can be above all other apps. It has every feature the iOS app has and the only real complaint right now is the inability to use the keyboard media controls in the app. Instacast for Mac Beta is available for free right now and an early bird license can be purchased at a discounted price of $14.99 right now from within the app.
Google Search for iOS animation
They keep doing it again and again. Google’s iOS app updates have been more or less phenomenal. After the brilliant Currents 2.0 release, the biggest thing to happen to Google’s iOS apps is the latest update to Google Search. The first thing worth mentioning is how much we appreciate Google paying attention to subtle details like the lip on their app icons staying consistent in all the new updates. Google Search 3.0 for iOS brings Google Now functionality to iOS. Google Now is one of the best things Google has ever done and having it on iOS is beyond brilliant. The app is mentioned here because of the spectacular animation that you trigger by sliding up the screen from the bottom to go from the basic search to Google Now. Cards appear at the bottom and they slide up slowly and the Google logo colours slowly fade into plain white as the stunning city landscape image appears. If there’s a special doodle, it slowly flips over into the same position as the cards appear. When the update just hit we were busy swiping up and down in awe at what they accomplished with this stellar update. Google Search 3.0 for iOS is available on the App Store for free. Click on the image to view a GIF of the animation in action.
Riposte for App.net
One of our favourite social networking apps of all time, Riposte, got a pretty massive update this week. Riposte is an App.net client. Riposte is great to use. Its single handed use is unparalleled and in its latest update it added a number of great Pro features that let you play around with the UI. The features we love the most are custom typefaces (Avenir all the things) and quick account switching with gestures. The app also allows now has an auto dark mode that switches depending on sunset and sunrise in your current location. The update also brings new main menu icons for the menu that can be accessed by swiping to the right. Overall Riposte is even better now. It feels like a great mature client for a service that is growing. Speaking of App.net, if you still haven’t checked it out and need an invite, we will be giving away invites on twitter so you will want to follow us there and stay tuned. Riposte is available for Free from the App Store and the Pro features are available via in app purchase for $4.99.
Cliffhanger for Android
Back when we featured Cliffhanger, it was only available on Android phones. As with most modern Android apps, a tablet UI is essential. The latest update brought full tablet support and it looks great on the Nexus 7. It has a Holo themed look with green highlights and it even had cards for episodes. Animations are fluid and everything that was good about the phone app is now on tablets as well. There are a few layout issues if you use a larger than normal font size on your device in portrait mode. Cliffhanger is available on Google Play for free.
Know a website, app or something else that would look great on next week’s Platter? Let us know!