Before apps on your smartphone would be able to solve a dilemma without leaving your house, you would have had to see if the nearest store was open to try and save face.
But if you’ve left it too late in 2022 to find a perfect Valentine’s Day gift, we’re in a time where apps can come to the rescue.
This problem has soothed somewhat anyway, thanks in part to easier methods of sending gifts, such as greeting cards and flowers to appease your better half, without having to make a quick dash during your work break.
Of course, if you’re not with someone just yet, there are plenty of dating apps that can help you with that as well.
So, read on for our pick of the best apps on iOS that could make February 14 a Valentine’s Day to remember.
Temply
(Image credit: Temply)
Available on the App Store for free, but with a bunch of in-app purchases that range between £9.99 / $ 9.99 / AU$ 11.99 and £52.99 / $ 49.99 / AU$ 59.99, this app enables you to add some Valentine’s Day filters and themes for your Instagram Reels and Stories. This way, you can mark the day in style while being able to save the videos for future reference.
t’s not just limited to Instagram, either. As you can export these videos, you can upload them to Twitter or TikTok as well, with your filters and themes intact.
It’s the 2022 method of a mixtape – instead of a collection of songs on a tape, your partner could receive a thoughtful compilation video of both your best and most embarrassing moments together.
Bloom and Wild
(Image credit: Bloom and Wild)
Bloom and Wild is an app that you can download for free, letting you buy a bunch of flowers, alongside a box of chocolates if you wish, and have them delivered to your home at a time that suits you or your partner.
There may have been a time when you would have had to find the closest florist, and pick a bouquet of flowers that best suited the day.
Bloom and Wild also has an innovative feature, where you can add a special occasion, and its notifications will remind you to make sure to order something for it. If you add three occasions, you will receive £5 in credit, so everybody wins for Valentine's Day.
Cameo
(Image credit: Cameo)
If you want to surprise your partner with a short video featuring an actor, perhaps from the Harry Potter series, for example, this is the app for you.
Cameo has grown in popularity in recent years, mostly due to the pandemic, with actors and other celebrities turning to the service to communicate with their fans. With this app, you can pay for them to record a short personalized video for your partner.
The app has also branched out into offering one-to-one video calls with certain celebrities, so it could be a nice touch to have your partner spend a few minutes on Valentine's Day with their true love.
OpenTable
(Image credit: OpenTable)
If a takeaway and a movie aren’t an option, OpenTable will be able to find available tables in nearby restaurants for you.
The app has an intuitive way of finding the nearest bookings by showcasing a home screen with the restaurants in your area, with the next available time, so you can book for Valentine’s Day in an instant.
When you select a restaurant, you can also view the menu, so if your partner is slightly picky in what they like to eat, you can do some research beforehand, to make sure that the restaurant will cater.
Givingli
(Image credit: Givingli)
Available to download on the App Store in the US only, Givingli allows you to create and send a digital greeting card with no fuss. So if you mistakenly forget to arrange a card or a gift, this app can hopefully save the day.
You can choose from a wide variety of styles and themes that best suit your partner, either in interest or in humor, and you can arrange to have it sent as soon as possible.
Alongside adding a personalized note, you can also include a gift card that can be from Amazon or DoorDash. There are plenty of options for Valentine's Day, but we can’t guarantee same-day delivery if you order on February 14th..
It's no secret that Google has an interesting relationship with creating social media and messaging services – often with far less success than its search engines and, mobile operating systems.
Add to the body of evidence the demise of Google Currents, introduced in 2019 as replacement for Google+ as part of the G Suite services, which the company has now announced is coming to an end.
Instead, Google says enterprise customers should use Spaces, which it introduced in 2021 as part of Google Workspace, the replacement for G Suite for Enterprise.
Here today, gone tomorrow
“Since launching Spaces, many customers have told us that they appreciate the tight integration with Google Workspace products, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Meet, and the seamless collaboration experience,” says Google. As such, starting in 2023, Currents will be found down and its services moved over to Spaces.
Anyone impacted – which is surely a fairly small community – will be fully supported by Google in the transition, with Spaces offering many of the same tools as Currents but with tighter integration into other Google apps.
“Upgrading Google Currents to Spaces removes a separate, siloed destination for users, and provides organizations with a modern, enterprise-grade experience that reflects how the world is working today,” the company added.
“Spaces provide a central place for teams to engage in topic-based discussions, share knowledge and ideas, move projects forward, and build communities and team culture.”
Responding to feedback is essential to succeed in the enterprise software space, where IT admins and end-users are the key consistency that must be heard. Creating frictions, or unnecessary faff, will likely spell the end of the product.
With Workspace, Google has been challenging in a very crowded field. Seemingly all major companies offer some kind of SaaS tools for businesses, including Meta (formerly Facebook), which offers Workplace and runs its own business on it.
The intense competition means that companies need to move fast and recognise when something isn't working, which Google appears to have done here.
For many users, the menu bar on their Mac sits there, a little unloved, as a necessary but barely used part of macOS. But Apple wants to make the menu bar a useful part of your productivity workflow. And that’s why developers offer a range of ways that you can use the menu bar as a versatile tool. We’ve looked at one of these options from Apple – shortcuts – before.
There’s an enormous variety of apps that you can add to your menu bar. Depending on whether they are for work or personal use, you can usually find a tool to meet your needs.
We’ve highlighted a few to get you started, but there are thousands more for you to explore on the App Store. They are a great way to save time and effort and make the most of the customization afforded to you by macOS.
What is a menu bar app?
The menu bar is much more customizable than some may realize. Found at the top of macOS, it’s the equivalent to parts of the taskbar found in Windows 11. Beyond looking at the time and connecting to your Wi-Fi, menu bar apps offer a wealth of different functions that, by placing them on the menu bar, can cut out additional steps that an app currently does for your needs.
Many of these can help with boosting your workflows and productivity. Instead of trawling through the Applications folder to select a single function from one app, you can just click on the app in the menu bar. While it seems incredibly simple, these can transform your workflow on your Mac, while offering you far more control over how you organize your desktop.
Quick View Calendar
(Image credit: QuickView Calendar)
Free todownload on the Mac App Store, Quick View does what it says on the tin. Instead of having to open your desired Calendar app from the dock to check a date, you can go to your menu bar and be greeted with a calendar, ready to browse.
Not only does Quick View only give you a monthly view, but it also allows you to display the number of the week if you need that shown. There are no other features here – it displays the date and that’s it, but it's the ease of use here that really shines.
You may be browsing in Safari to check for an upcoming event for instance, and with a quick hover over your menubar with your mouse, you can check Quick View for the relevant information, without leaving the web browser.
As it’s free on the Mac App Store, you can try it for a week and see if it fits your workflow.
AirBuddy 2.5
(Image credit: AirBuddy)
So far, Apple hasn’t brought out a feature that allows you to view the battery status of your devices on your Mac. Alongside this, it can be a challenge in connecting your AirPods peripheral to your Mac, as there are moments where they’ll connect to your iPhone without realizing it. This is where AirBuddy 2 comes in.
Created by Gui Rambo, the app allows you to easily check the battery status of your AirPods by clicking the AirPods case on your menu bar, which will display the status of your devices. They do need to be connected to your Mac first, but after this one-time requirement, they’ll show.
There are also other helpful features once these are connected to your Mac. You can change the noise cancellation setting through a keyboard shortcut or connect them to a nearby device without you doing anything else. Update 2.5 also adds a number of new features; the most significant being the fact that AirBuddy will now work with non-Apple or Beats devices when they are connected to the Mac.
For a one-time fee of $ 9.99 / £10.99 / AU$ 11.99, AirBuddy expands how you can connect your wireless Apple devices to your Mac without simply connecting and disconnecting them from the Bluetooth menu.
Hand Mirror
(Image credit: Hand Mirror)
We live in a world where video calls are everywhere. Whether it’s Zoom, FaceTime, or Skype, video calling happens regularly in our work and social lives. And we’ve probably all been in that situation where we need to join into a video meeting and your hair isn’t done, or the family dog has knocked over a plant in the background.
Free to download on the Mac App Store, This is where Hand Mirror comes in, without the additional steps that are often required in many video-conferencing apps.
It’s a simple app that doesn’t do much else, but it achieves exactly what it sets out to do. With one click, you can make sure that you and your environment are set up exactly as you want before joining that call.
Flow
(Image credit: Flow)
With the numerous distractions of rolling news, social media and other notifications on your Mac, a simple to use timer app is a great productivity tool to give you control of how you use your time more effectively.
Flow is based on the Pomodoro Technique, which is where you focus on a discrete task for a set amount of time, before taking a short break. Flow helps this by providing a simple timer in your menu bar, so you can see at a glance how long you have left before your next break.
You can set the duration of both your periods of focus and the length of your breaks, to fully customize the balance of work and rest. It also allows you to block apps on your Mac, to further minimize distractions.
If you pay for the Pro version at $ 1 / £1 / AU$ 1 a month, or a lifetime license for $ 20 / £20 / AU$ 20, you can also block specific websites. As productivity apps for the menu bar go, this is a great option. Clean, simple to use, and even has a Dark Mode theme.
Cheat Sheet
(Image credit: CheatSheet)
Most of us have been in that situation where you want to use a particular feature on your Mac, only to find yourself having to navigate through menus and submenus while being fairly sure there is a simple keyboard shortcut. This is where CheatSheet comes in to alleviate that frustration.
Free to download, CheatSheet provides you with a list of keyboard shortcuts for whichever app you are using at that particular time. Being able to quickly access a reference sheet can save you enormous amounts of time, especially for repetitive tasks.
Perhaps ironically, the more you use it, the less you will need to use it, as you will start to remember the most frequently used shortcuts. And pretty soon, you’ll stop having to switch from keyboard to mouse and back again.
iStat Menus
(Image credit: iStat)
Perhaps you’re a power user, or maybe you just love seeing the inner workings of your Mac. Either way, iStat Menus 6 will throw more information than you could ever need at you.
As a system monitoring app, this tells you exactly how your computer is performing: CPU and GPU monitoring, memory stats, memory usage, temperatures, disk usage, and battery levels can all be viewed from the menu bar with just a few icons.
This level of detail doesn’t come for free, however. But for a one-off cost of £8.99 / $ 8.99 / AU$ 8.99 from the Mac App Store, or $ 14.39 / £13.49 / AU$ 14.99 directly from iStat, which also includes 6 months of weather data, you're getting an awful lot of information. It’s also highly customizable, so you can choose exactly what information you want to see, and how it looks.
Minesweeper
(Image credit: Minesweeper)
Everyone needs a little downtime, and when used in conjunction with the Flow timer, what could be better than five minutes playing Minesweeper as a short break?
Minesweeper is a very simple but highly addictive game that involves clearing a grid of mines as quickly as you can. The simplest premise for a game can fit perfectly on your menu bar.
Free to download from the Mac App Store, it sits on your menu bar, ready to take your attention away for when you're struggling with ideas.
This sits on your menu bar unobtrusively, and with one click, you can start playing. It’s a perfect game when you have a few minutes free for a quick break.
ColorSlurp
(Image credit: Color Slurp)
Free to download from the Mac App Store, this tool is particularly useful for designers and developers. ColorSlurp allows you to choose the exact colors you need with accuracy and precision, thanks to a quick overview in the menu bar of what color it’s identified, and you can copy this into your photo editing app of choice thanks to the magnifier tool.
Being able to have complete control over your color palette is ideal for graphic designers, website developers, and others. Most importantly, it’s an enormous time-saver and a more accurate method for selecting your colors compared to having to use screenshots to pick out colors.
Bartender 4
(Image credit: Bartender 4)
With the previous apps we’ve mentioned, your menu bar may be starting to look a little cluttered if you've decided to install them all. With this in mind, we suggest Bartender 4, an award-winning app that allows you to decide which items on your menu bar are displayed.
Available to download as a free trial and to buy for £13.91 / $ 15.99 / AU$ 16.49, you can customize the spacing between menu bar items, and make use of the bar to access your hidden items, especially if you have a lot of menu bar apps and shortcuts.
It also offers a quick search function to allow you to find menu bar apps via your keyboard. It’s a great way to keep your menu bar tidy and organized.
Control Center
(Image credit: Apple)
It would be remiss of us to compile a list of menu bar apps without mentioning the one that comes pre-installed on macOS. Control Center is the macOS equivalent of the iOS feature of the same name, which first appeared in macOS Big Sur back in 2020. It sits unobtrusively in your menu bar, available for you to control a host of options.
This tool gives you control over a number of what might be considered ‘essentials’ such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airdrop.
Brightness and volume levels can also be adjusted from here, as well as media controls for any content you're playing in the background. Finally, there are options for Focus mode and Screen Mirroring. You can also add Accessibility Shortcuts if you wish.
This one may be preloaded, but it’s a feature that you’ll find yourself using more often than usual, mainly because it offers many useful functions, all in one location.
Being great at guitar or an improvisation king on the piano is only one facet of making good music. In the modern age, being technically great isn’t required if you’re creative enough. How you put together your music is just as important as being able to make it in the first place.
The DAW, or digital audio workstation, is what you need to look at if you’re interested in production. This will allow you to record yourself, and it will actively change the way you make music. Learning to compensate for parameters or workaround systems will shape the way you go about putting everything together.
For this reason, picking the right DAW is important and you're often better off exploring around a little bit before you settle on what works for you. Unfortunately, with the time and money required to do so, this can be a bit of a challenge.
With your MacBook in hand, we will be recommending our picks of the best free music production software suites.
(Image credit: Future)
1. GarageBand
The best free app
Intuitive
Free
Great selection of tools and instruments
A little simple
If you’ve booted up a Mac before, you will be familiar with this software package from Apple. Coming pre-installed on Apple devices, this is a usable and intuitive application with lots of useful built-in features.
You only need to plug in your midi, guitar, or keyboard to create music instantly. With the quick help function, it explains everything you can see in easy-to-grasp concepts, making it a great app for those just starting out.
It has some great functions like a smart drummer, which means you don’t need to create a drum track to have a nice beat in the background. It also has some nice packs to try for midi, like great piano sounds, some orchestral sounds, and some good effects for the guitar.
If you’ve never bothered with music production before, try this before you try anything else on this list. From here, you can read the list and pick your favorite app based on what you like.
(Image credit: Future)
2. Logic Pro
Apple’s flagship application
Great selection of tools and instruments
Very powerful application
Tons of customization options and features
Can have issues with unofficial plug-ins
As the software is still making changes and adapting to the latest M1 chips, there are issues using unofficial software sometimes and it can get a little complicated to start. If you have the time to dedicate, this is one of the very best pieces of software you can find.
If you like GarageBand but just want more out of it, Logic Pro is where you should go from here. This is a great piece of software, offering more sounds to choose from, more robust features to customize your songs, and just general better usability.
It's correct to assume that GarageBand is essentially a 'lite' alternative to Logic – a solid usable app that has some noticeable drawbacks. Logic gets rid of these and adds even more functions. It has better live looping and more intricate tempo options.
It also has plenty of extra software and built-in sounds to get full and vibrant music out of your projects. Alongside this, there are much better mixing options that can give you extra options for the bass and equalizers, depending on the types of genre you're focusing on, making it great for those looking to finish a full song, ready to go on an album.
It also has great intuitive methods to export your songs onto iOS or iPadOS if you want to take your projects on the go.
(Image credit: Future)
3. Pro Tools
The industry standard
Different price tiers
Great cross-platform use
Few moment-to-moment issues
Regular fees
Steep learning curve
Pro Tools is the industry standard when it comes to DAWs and there’s a reason for that. It’s powerful, can handle pretty much anything you throw at it and it is great when using across platforms.
If you want to work on a project with someone else or want to learn the software most professionals are used to, this is a valuable application to learn.
That said, it can be a little hard to get used to. It isn’t quite as intuitive as our previous choices and is loaded with options. Pro tools can be used for free with a trial but will cost you more in the long run with monthly/yearly plans.
Pro Tools' cloud features and great plug-in options make the app a fantastic choice, albeit with a steep learning curve and high price. If you’re looking for something complex that is used by industry professionals, this is the app for you.
(Image credit: Future)
4. Ableton Live 11
For those who like to improv
Unique selling point
Great for live sessions
Some great instruments and loops
Quite expensive for the best version
UI could be better
Ableton Live is an excellent app for those who like to improvise. All of its software is based around live sessions, giving your music a raw feel. It’s much better at allowing you to just sort of jam, then fine-tune every aspect of your music.
Out of all the paid apps here, this one could be bought alongside another (if you have the cash and patience) as its unique selling point makes it worth trying regardless. There are three central price tiers for the app; the top one is rather expensive, but the cheaper options are a good start.
Its focus on live play means there are some pretty solid built-in loops and instruments to use, perfect for setting up a track. Where other apps often get lost in the weeds, figuratively speaking, Ableton Live is great for just letting you in there to mess around.
If you like the idea of composing on the fly, you should try this one out.
(Image credit: Future)
5. FL Studio
For those who like to loop
Loop-based writing leads to some interesting songs
Has some good effects
Fun to play around with
Live recording is a little limited
Can be a little confusing
Originally known as FruityLoops, FL Studio has come an incredibly long way since its release two decades ago. Its functionality is entirely based around loops, making it great for genres like EDM or trap.
You essentially build loops in a separate track and place them into your main track. This means coming up with ideas that are only used once or ever-changing songs can become a tedious process.
While it has the ability to play and record, fixing that afterward becomes a little bit of a hassle due to its architecture. The loop-focused build of this software often makes you write a little outside what you’re used to, which is great but also gets in the way of your own ideas.
This also makes learning it a little confusing but, if you can get over that learning curve, it’s a solid and versatile DAW that may make you think outside the box.
The popular continuous-delivery platform has a path-traversal bug (CVE-2022-24348) that could allow cyberattackers to hop from one application ecosystem to another. Threatpost
Attackers increasingly are using malicious JavaScript packages to steal data, engage in cryptojacking and unleash botnets, offering a wide supply-chain attack surface for threat actors. Threatpost
Microsoft has outlined the next big steps for Windows 11, and that includes Android apps coming to the OS next month, albeit still in testing.
Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer (Windows + Devices) at Microsoft, spilled all the details in a blog post, explaining first and foremost that there would be a public preview of Android apps in February.
If you’ve been following the progress of Windows 11, then you’ll realize that support for native Android apps arrived in testing for Windows Insiders (in the US) back in October 2021. A public preview means it’s come to the release version of Windows 11, but there may be some flakiness evident given that it is still in beta form.
Panay also highlighted various taskbar improvements, including “call mute and unmute, easier window sharing and bringing weather to the taskbar”, although of course we’ve already seen the latter happen in testing (the infamous weather widget returned with a preview build in December).
Finally, Panay mentioned that two core apps which have been redesigned, namely Notepad and Media Player, would both soon be debuting in the finished version of Windows 11.
The Chief Product Officer also revealed that with Windows now on some 1.4 billion devices across the globe, Microsoft has “seen strong demand and preference for Windows 11”, with users accepting the upgrade when offered at double the rate at which Windows 10 accrued new recruits. Although of course shifting from Windows 7 to Windows 10 was a much bigger change – Windows 11 is really quite similar to Windows 10, when you get down to it, so it’s less of a leap for folks to make.
Panay also observed that: “Windows 11 has the highest quality scores and product satisfaction of any version of Windows we’ve ever shipped.”
Analysis: Better late than never
Android apps were one of the big new features touted for Windows 11, but disappointingly didn’t turn up at launch (in fact, when they didn’t appear in later testing phases pre-release, it soon became clear enough that they wouldn’t arrive for kick-off). Better late than never, then, and it’s still exciting to finally get native Android apps on the Windows 11 desktop – even if the applications are limited to those delivered from the Amazon App Store (via the Microsoft Store).
The next step, of course, is not just these Android apps, but games from the Google Play Games store, which will be delivered to Windows 11 and 10 systems in the form of an app that’s due to arrive at some point this year. The idea is to be able to seamlessly switch between your phone and desktop with the progress you’ve made in whatever mobile game you’re playing maintained across platforms – pretty neat, huh?
It’s also good that more core Windows apps are getting the redesign treatment in Windows 11, and we’ve already seen the likes of the new Notepad in testing, complete with a Fluent Design makeover, dark mode compatibility, and more, making this dated application look a lot more at home in the new OS.
We can expect more of these default Windows 11 apps to benefit from an overhaul as the year rolls on, no doubt, although this piecemeal approach adds to the overall feeling of Windows 11 having been released very much as a work in progress.
While Dropbox is finishing up an update to its cloud service app for macOS that brings native Apple Silicon support, it's sent an email to users, warning them about potential issues if they don't update once a future version of macOS Monterey arrives.
But it turns out that it's not an isolated issue, with Microsoft also stating on a support page that not updating OneDrive on the Mac may bring problems in future macOS Monterey versions. As long as users download the rewritten Files-On-Demand app, there'll be no issue.
You've most likely used both apps before, whether that's at College or as a way to quickly download files from someone in a hurry. But this looks as though there's been a background change to macOS by Apple that both cloud apps use.
We've reached out to Apple to confirm what this change is, and why both Dropbox and Microsoft are recommending you about potential issues for future macOS versions.
Analysis: What's changed so drastically?
It's telling that another potential issue from Apple involves the cloud, after developers' ongoing frustrations with the 503 iCloud errors, that's causing failures in syncing content across devices.
In an email to users, Dropbox explained, “Some applications on your Mac may have problems opening Dropbox files while they are online only. You will still be able to open Dropbox files by double-clicking them in Finder”.
While you can download the beta version of Dropbox for Apple Silicon, this still means that you may encounter issues when macOS 12.3 arrives.
macOS 12.2 is currently available for developers and users who are signed up to the beta program, so there may be a forthcoming change in 12.3 that Apple has told both Microsoft and Dropbox, so that the cloud apps can work on another update to make sure that there are no further issues.
For now, we recommend backing up your files if you use one or both of these apps, and to make sure that you have the latest updates to both for when macOS 12.3 does arrive to your Mac.
The best portable apps make it simple and easy to run programs straight from a USB stick or cloud storage to any device.
Portable apps are programs that don't have to be installed, and don't change your PC's settings. Provided there’s enough space available, you can store portable apps anywhere – an internal drive, an external storage device like a USB stick or SD card, on a networked drive, or a cloud storage service like OneDrive or DropBox.
Portable apps have several advantages: they make it easy to switch between different computers because you can take your software with you, they don't interfere with any other programs installed on your PC, and they can be used on PCs with restricted user permissions (at work or school, for example).
Some portable apps have an ‘installer’, but don't worry – this just unzips a compressed file archive and saves the extracted files to a location of your choice; it doesn’t make any changes to your system files. Other portable apps are provided as a regular ZIP file for you to extract yourself.
The program itself is an EXE file, but the extracted folder will also contain associated files including fonts and settings, which are essential for it to run. Some portable apps have optional language files, which will add to the size considerably, so consider opting out of these unless you need a language other than English.
Here, then, are the best portable apps currently available.
All the popular browsers have portable editions, but for sheer convenience we've opted for Google Chrome Portable. Because it's linked to your Google account, all your bookmarks and preferences are automatically synced, making it the best choice for working on the move.
Chrome also supports hundreds of extensions, though you might want to be a bit picky about which you install – they can bump up the disk space requirements considerably.
A couple of pointers to note are that passwords are not saved between PC's by default, and that certificates are not managed by Chrome but by windows so these won't transfer with you.
(Image credit: LibreOffice)
2. LibreOffice Portable
Best portable office app
Full office suite
Documents on the go
Missing charts
LibreOffice Portable is the largest of the portable apps here, but it's still amazingly compact considering it's a full office suite. You’ll need an external drive if you want to carry it, but you can easily keep it in the cloud (Google Drives gives you a free 10GB to play with, and DropBox gives you 2GB).
LibreOffice Portable includes almost all the programs from the installable version of LibreOffice: Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector drawing), Math (formulas), and Base (databases). The only thing missing is Charts – though you can create graphs and other visualizations using Calc.
Like many portable apps, LibreOffice Portable is made using open source code. This takes some time, so it's a few versions behind the installable version of LibreOffice. However, that time has been well spent and it's well optimized for use on the move, with easy access to documents stored on a networked drive, an FTP server, or cloud storage account.
(Image credit: GIMP)
3. GIMP Portable
The best portable graphics app
Full version release
Graphics on the go
Photo editing
Large program size
The portable edition of GIMP, the free open source graphic and image editor, should be fine to install on any modern USB stick or any other storage media.
GIMP Portable is a hefty folder thanks to all the necessary resources, including brushes, plugins and fonts. The need to access all of these means GIMP Portable takes a little while to launch, but once it does you've got the perfect tool for advanced photo editing, wherever you are.
It's easy to open files from a local drive, networked storage, or a URL, making GIMP Portable brilliant for editing pictures remotely. The portable edition is based on the full version's current stable release, so you'll get all the latest features and built-in extensions.
(Image credit: portableapps.com)
4. VLC Media Player Portable
The best portable media app
Free and open source
Audio playback
Video playback
VLC is one of the most capable and widely-supported media players around. Its main appeal is its ability to play pretty much any audio or video file or stream, without the need to download additional codecs.
That flexibility makes VLC Media Player Portable extremely handy. Keep it in reserve and if you come across an awkward file that won't play nicely with your regular music or video software, you've got the perfect tool for the job.
VLC Media Player Portable can handle files from any location, including local drives, network storage, and streams. You can even supplement it with extensions to integrate it with specific services – though bear in mind that this will add to its size considerably.
(Image credit: CCleaner )
5. CCleaner Portable
Best system maintenance app
Clears temporary files
32 and 64 bit versions
Free to use
CCleaner is the biggest name in system maintenance. It makes it easy to clear out clutter like temporary files and cookies that not only takes up valuable space, but can also put your privacy at risk.
CCleaner Portable is a handy toolkit that you can run on any PC in need of a good spring clean. The download includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the program, so you can pick the right one for the OS running on the afflicted machine.
CCleaner Portable is ideal for helping out friends and family members whose PCs have started to slow down (though always check before deleting their cached logins). Oh yes, and if you’re running it from your Downloads folder, don’t worry – it won’t try to delete itself.
(Image credit: Emsisoft)
6. Emsisoft Emergency Kit
Best anti-malware portable app
Free to use
Amti-malware program
Quarantines infections
Most of the portable software here is nice to have to hand, but Emsisoft Emergency Kit is essential – particularly if you’ve been lumbered with the role of unofficial tech support for your friends and relations.
Emsisoft Emergency Kit isn't a replacement for antivirus software; instead, it's designed to save your bacon if your PC has already become infected with something unpleasant. If your machine is acting strangely, just run the program, update its database of threats, and scan for nasties.
If anything suspicious is found, Emsisoft Emergency Kit quarantines it to preventing it from affecting system files, then gives you the option to delete it, or release it back into the wild.
We all live busy, hectic lives these days and, with so many distractions around us to draw our attention away from the things we need to get done, we could use some organization.
The iPhone has an ever-improving to-do app built right in, but if you’re looking to take things to the next level with some more advanced options, there are also some very impressive third-party reminder apps available to you.
If you are constantly forgetting when your cars are due for a service or when you need to pay that important bill then you could use a to-do app.
Below, we highlight five of the best to-do apps on iOS to help you get things done and keep your focus on what's important.
Apple Reminders
(Image credit: Apple)
The Reminders app from Apple is on every iOS device out of the box. As with other Apple built-in apps, it can feel quite basic initially, but for many, this clean simplicity is what makes it shine. Dig a little deeper, however, and you'll find more depth to the app than you’d imagine.
A major plus point of the Reminders app is its deep integration with the system itself. As you’d expect, it works well with Siri, which can even be invoked within apps like Mail with the phrase ‘remind me about this email.’ This will alert you at the chosen time and also let you jump directly back to the app.
Stock Apple apps can go years without any real updates, but Reminders has been refreshed year after year for some time now. With iOS 15, quite a few new features have helped the app keep up with some premium third-party apps.
Tagging was introduced, so now you can easily group and view all items with the same tag via the new Custom Smart lists feature. One long-requested feature that made it into the iOS 15 release is natural-language support, so you can type statements such as ‘Call Mike every other Friday at 5PM.’
Other useful features include the ability to add picture attachments to tasks and an option to be reminded about a due item the next time you message the chosen individual. Now you’ve got a strong to-do app ready to be put to use.
GoodTask
(Image credit: Goodtasks)
If Apple’s Reminders app is the Ford pickup of the to-do world, then GoodTask is the Tesla Cybertruck equivalent. GoodTask takes everything you get in Reminders and soups it up.
GoodTask is free, but there's an in-app purchase of $ 9.99 / £8.99 / AU$ 14.99 to fully unlock the app. It's based on Reminders, but it adds a lot more advanced features not available in Apple's app. Some of these features include quick actions that can be customized to help you enter new to-do items quicker, such as marking the item due in +5 hours or automatically tagging it.
The app offers a lot of options to customize both the layout and theme to really make it fit around the way you work and not vice versa. GoodTask is a universal app, so it works across all iOS and iPadOS devices. It also has a very good macOS and Apple Watch app to round things off.
GoodTask is the ideal app for anyone that doesn’t want to sign up for yet another service that will hold your data, or for those that like the Reminders experience but need more power-user features that the stock app just doesn’t offer currently.
Todoist
(Image credit: Todoist)
While the first two options on this list focused on Apple device users, many people don’t have the luxury of using just one device manufacturer to get their work done. There are also some very good to-do apps for iOS that can be used across Android, Windows and the web. One of the best examples of a truly cross-platform to-do app is Todoist. The ability to use this service both in and out of the Apple ecosystem makes this a strong option for those of us that use a Windows PC for work but use Apple hardware and software outside the office.
Todoist has been around for a long time and offers a clean, easy-to-use interface that looks at home on any platform and syncs seamlessly between each one. A strong selling point beyond the option of using it truly anywhere is the fantastic natural-language reminder entry, which lets you describe what you want it to do in a natural, non-robotic way. You could say something like: ‘Remind me to pay the gas bill on the 27th of every month’ and Todoist would set this recurring event for you automatically.
Todoist is a freemium product, which means the app is free to download but includes an optional subscription to add extra functionality. The free tier is, actually, very generous. The extras you get with a subscription, such as the ability to add up to 25 people to each project, themes, and custom icons are nice to have, but definitely don’t hinder a single user from using the app to great effect.
If you really want to go to the next level with your tasks, Todoist even offers a Kanban board view so you can get a better visualization of various interconnected tasks across a large project. For those unfamiliar, a Kanban board allows you to display all tasks on a single board, which you can drag between statuses such as ‘not started’, ‘in progress’, and ‘done’.
If you’re looking for a feature-rich to-do app that works perfectly on any device you use then Todoist may be the perfect app for you.
Things 3
(Image credit: Things 3)
Of all of the to-do apps in this roundup, Things 3 is the least flexible both in terms of functionality and options for using it across multiple, non-Apple platforms. It loses points for no web app or Windows version, but it makes up for it in pure good looks. Costing $ 9.99 / £8.99 / AU$ 14.99, the app oozes charm and fluidity and is very rigidly based on the GTD (Get Things Done) methodology.
This app has won two Apple Design Awards in the past, but it’s more than just a well-designed to-do list. Things 3 includes unparalleled keyboard shortcut support, keyboard navigation, calendar integration, and some very nice widgets. It also has one of the best Apple Watch apps in the business.
With Things 3 you can, as you would imagine, add standalone tasks one at a time, but a big strength for the app is the ability to quickly convert a single to-do item into a project. You can then fill it with subtasks and more detail about the project itself. Things 3 is an app you should turn to when a simple ‘one item at a time' to-do system just won’t do.
There are some downsides to Things 3 to consider. The main sticking point is the relatively expensive upfront cost and the fact that you have to buy it separately for every device you want it on. A lack of Windows or web support may also put people off, but if you want a great-looking app with a lot of muscle under the hood then look no further.
OmniFocus 3
(Image credit: Omnigroup)
Some may describe Things 3 as form over function. OmniFocus 3, on the other hand, may tip the balance the other way. That’s not to say OmniFocus isn’t decent looking, in its own special way, but it certainly lets its functionality do the talking.
Of all the apps or services listed here, OmniFocus is the most advanced, with a focus on power users and those with large projects to manage. While it’s perfectly usable by anyone, you’re unlikely to get the most out of it unless you have a lot on your plate.
Available as a subscription of $ 9.99 / £9.49 / AU$ 15.99 a month, its emphasis is on creating and managing larger projects where you can tag your tasks with places, people, or priorities. By tagging tasks as much as possible, OmniFocus encourages you to manage tasks through what it calls ‘perspectives’. So, for example, if you have a work project with Bob from Accounts, you could filter down to all tasks tagged with ‘work’ and ‘Bob’ and work through all relevant tasks.
To get the most out of OmniFocus you would need to live a very busy and organized life. If this doesn’t apply to you, the app may be overkill. If it does apply to you, however, this is a powerful and flexible app that would help you de-stress, focus, and get things done.
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