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I got married this week, and these five iOS apps helped reduce our stress levels
  • No Comments

April 14 was the day that I became a married man. And during the two years spent arranging it, there were a few apps on iOS 15 that we constantly used to make sure everything was paid for, and perfectly scheduled to play its part on the day.

Planning a wedding involves tasks that you would never expect to have to sort out – from agreeing on the music that would play while you sign the marriage certificate, to checking if the right tree logs for the table have been picked up by the best man.

If we didn't have our iPhones and apps at hand, we may have had to hire a wedding planner to avoid the multiple moments of stress we would have inevitably had.

But thankfully, there were five apps that helped us manage big chunks of the wedding that I was not expecting when I proposed back in 2020.

Notes

iOS 15 Wedding Notes

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Apple's Notes app is one I've relied on since the first version of iOS. It's simple, useful, and has always helped remind me of what's needed to be done for certain tasks.

For the wedding, its usefulness went to another level, thanks in part to the ability to manage notes with someone.

Having both of us add and remove checklists across the two years helped a bunch, especially when an update can appear as a push notification.

Things 3

Things 3 Wedding list on iOS 15

(Image credit: TechRadar)

While we had been arranging the wedding since 2020, tasks didn't really ramp up until the beginning of this year, which is where a to-do app came in.

Having tried other apps in this category, such as OmniFocus, Things 3 won out thanks to the quick actions of its Today screen. I could add and remove sudden jobs, and they'd also display in a helpful widget on my iPhone.

It's not just available on your iPhone for $ 9.99 / £9.99 / AU$ 11.99, it's also available on the iPad for $ 19.99 / £19.99 / AU$ 24.99, and on the Mac priced at $ 49.99 / £29.99 / AU$ 59.99.

Being reminded to pay for a photo booth or to decide on types of flowers in Things was a big help. In fact, it was so helpful I've expanded it to other aspects of my life, including my job at TechRadar, and hobbies like, embarrassingly, weekly Fortnite challenges.

Shazam

iOS 15 Shazam Playlist

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Spotify and Apple Music are two apps I've constantly used for the last decade. I still pay for iTunes Match, which is a yearly service that allows me to host all the music content that I owned on my iPod.

For the wedding itself, we found Spotify useful in arranging the entire playlist from start to finish, mainly due to the ability to have collaborative playlists.

This allowed us to add and remove songs in a playlist as we pleased, with our initials letting each of us know who added the most embarrassing song of the evening.

However, Shazam was most useful in helping us discover artists and tracks that we never would have considered. Going to wedding fayres and shops we heard a lot of music and by using Shazam to discover what the titles were, we could add them to our Spotify and Apple Music playlists.

It's a handy app that can help bolster your music library on whichever music app you use, without being intrusive.

A recent update also allows Shazam to be set up as a shortcut in Control Center on iOS 15, which saves you time before the track stops playing.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds Classic on iOS 15

(Image credit: TechRadar)

For me, managing a wedding is the equivalent of spinning 50 plates while standing on one leg, and reciting the alphabet backward in Spanish.

And that can lead to moments where you just want to escape the planning and the picking, and the paying, and just play a game instead.

This is where I decided to revisit some games thanks to Apple Arcade, and I rediscovered Angry Birds. It was an ideal pick for alleviating some of the frustration that occurred with some suits in February.

The game's maker, Rovio has also re-released the original game on iOS and Android, which I promptly downloaded. Flicking the irate fowl across four worlds on my iPhone 13 Pro turned out to be a great stress reliever while I was on a train to sort out the suits again or deciding on the right type of chairs for the reception.

Monzo Pots

iOS 15 Monzo Pots

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Weddings cost money – lots of money. If you want to make sure that the location or items you had your heart set on for years can be part of your special day, you're going to hear the word deposit a lot until the big day arrives.

It's also a great lesson in managing your funds, which is where a feature from Monzo came in handy for us. Pots are a way of moving money into sections that can't be used by your debit card. They're essentially saving methods without creating a savings account.

You can lock a pot to stop you from withdrawing any money from it, alongside naming it whatever you wish and setting it with a picture. If you want, you can set any transactions to round up the payment to the nearest unit, with the spare change being sent to this pot.

It removes a worry about how much you have ready for the wedding or other saving goals, alongside making sure it's safe from temptation.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

I got married this week, and these five iOS apps helped reduce our stress levels
  • No Comments

April 14 was the day that I became a married man. And during the two years spent arranging it, there were a few apps on iOS 15 that we constantly used to make sure everything was paid for, and perfectly scheduled to play its part on the day.

Planning a wedding involves tasks that you would never expect to have to sort out – from agreeing on the music that would play while you sign the marriage certificate, to checking if the right tree logs for the table have been picked up by the best man.

If we didn't have our iPhones and apps at hand, we may have had to hire a wedding planner to avoid the multiple moments of stress we would have inevitably had.

But thankfully, there were five apps that helped us manage big chunks of the wedding that I was not expecting when I proposed back in 2020.

Notes

iOS 15 Wedding Notes

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Apple's Notes app is one I've relied on since the first version of iOS. It's simple, useful, and has always helped remind me of what's needed to be done for certain tasks.

For the wedding, its usefulness went to another level, thanks in part to the ability to manage notes with someone.

Having both of us add and remove checklists across the two years helped a bunch, especially when an update can appear as a push notification.

Things 3

Things 3 Wedding list on iOS 15

(Image credit: TechRadar)

While we had been arranging the wedding since 2020, tasks didn't really ramp up until the beginning of this year, which is where a to-do app came in.

Having tried other apps in this category, such as OmniFocus, Things 3 won out thanks to the quick actions of its Today screen. I could add and remove sudden jobs, and they'd also display in a helpful widget on my iPhone.

It's not just available on your iPhone for $ 9.99 / £9.99 / AU$ 11.99, it's also available on the iPad for $ 19.99 / £19.99 / AU$ 24.99, and on the Mac priced at $ 49.99 / £29.99 / AU$ 59.99.

Being reminded to pay for a photo booth or to decide on types of flowers in Things was a big help. In fact, it was so helpful I've expanded it to other aspects of my life, including my job at TechRadar, and hobbies like, embarrassingly, weekly Fortnite challenges.

Shazam

iOS 15 Shazam Playlist

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Spotify and Apple Music are two apps I've constantly used for the last decade. I still pay for iTunes Match, which is a yearly service that allows me to host all the music content that I owned on my iPod.

For the wedding itself, we found Spotify useful in arranging the entire playlist from start to finish, mainly due to the ability to have collaborative playlists.

This allowed us to add and remove songs in a playlist as we pleased, with our initials letting each of us know who added the most embarrassing song of the evening.

However, Shazam was most useful in helping us discover artists and tracks that we never would have considered. Going to wedding fayres and shops we heard a lot of music and by using Shazam to discover what the titles were, we could add them to our Spotify and Apple Music playlists.

It's a handy app that can help bolster your music library on whichever music app you use, without being intrusive.

A recent update also allows Shazam to be set up as a shortcut in Control Center on iOS 15, which saves you time before the track stops playing.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds Classic on iOS 15

(Image credit: TechRadar)

For me, managing a wedding is the equivalent of spinning 50 plates while standing on one leg, and reciting the alphabet backward in Spanish.

And that can lead to moments where you just want to escape the planning and the picking, and the paying, and just play a game instead.

This is where I decided to revisit some games thanks to Apple Arcade, and I rediscovered Angry Birds. It was an ideal pick for alleviating some of the frustration that occurred with some suits in February.

The game's maker, Rovio has also re-released the original game on iOS and Android, which I promptly downloaded. Flicking the irate fowl across four worlds on my iPhone 13 Pro turned out to be a great stress reliever while I was on a train to sort out the suits again or deciding on the right type of chairs for the reception.

Monzo Pots

iOS 15 Monzo Pots

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Weddings cost money – lots of money. If you want to make sure that the location or items you had your heart set on for years can be part of your special day, you're going to hear the word deposit a lot until the big day arrives.

It's also a great lesson in managing your funds, which is where a feature from Monzo came in handy for us. Pots are a way of moving money into sections that can't be used by your debit card. They're essentially saving methods without creating a savings account.

You can lock a pot to stop you from withdrawing any money from it, alongside naming it whatever you wish and setting it with a picture. If you want, you can set any transactions to round up the payment to the nearest unit, with the spare change being sent to this pot.

It removes a worry about how much you have ready for the wedding or other saving goals, alongside making sure it's safe from temptation.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Here are the six best Sonic Mania levels put in by modders
  • No Comments

There used to be a time when the only way to prolong a game further, would be to use cheats or hope that an expansion pack would soon arrive to bring out new levels.

But we live in a time where modding a game can be very easy, as long as you have the patience. The Sonic community is a great example of this, where full-blown makeovers of existing games, or additional levels have been created to showcase what a game could do further.

Since its release in 2017, Sonic Mania is still regarded to be one of the best Sonic games of its time, but modders have been expanding it with new levels, mods, characters, and conversions to prolong it further.

With this in mind, we've played through countless levels to highlight five of the best, from their time and attention paid, to the complete randomness of how some fit so well for a Sonic game.

Aquatic Ruin Zone

Sonic Mania Aquatic Ruin Zone

(Image credit: Future)

This zone is part of a collection that has four other levels from Sonic 2, released back in 1992.

Sonic 2 Mania is a team effort to remake certain zones into the Sonic Mania engine, but with remixed music and their Act 2 variants twist what you think of what the level entails.

This mod has been the template for other modders to follow since its first release in 2019, as other levels released before this, would be 1:1 copies. Here, they're fresh but look as though they're DLC from SEGA.

Aquatic Ruin Zone has been remade from the ground up, with remixed music and all the enemies intact, alongside the dangerous arrows and the breakable pillars that are across the two acts.

Labyrinth Zone

Sonic Mania mod: Labyrinth Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

This zone is a great example of building on what made the level memorable while expanding its design.

Released as part of the Misfits Pack, you also get three other zones as part of a demo that remixes established and cut levels from past Sonic games.

The music is a big highlight here, where the drums and percussion make the track pop as you run for an oxygen bubble or jumping across platforms.

But what makes this zone a highlight, is how much the level doesn't stay in the underground parts of the Mega Drive version. As you try to jump and run to the top of the level, you see cracks of light in the background, reminiscent of a scrapped idea for the zone that was found in a leaked beta build of Sonic 1.

Once you reach the top of the level, you find an unexpected night sky, but it works so well you end up accepting this.

As there's currently no way to edit or add in new bosses, you're using the same one from Hydrocity Zone Act 1, but it still fits the brief, and it makes you wonder how a new boss could work in this remixed Labyrinth Zone.

Jungle Zone

Jungle Zone in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

This is a level taken from the Master System release of Sonic 1, SEGA's 8-bit system released two years before the Mega Drive.

Some arguably regard the 8-bit port to be superior to the Mega Drive version, mainly due to the different zones such as Jungle Zone and Sky Base Zone, alongside the Chaos Emeralds being hidden in each level, rather than the motion-sickness-inducing Special Stages.

Instead, this mod is the best of both worlds, where you get one of the best levels from an 8-bit Sonic game, with its green and orange pixel art put together with its catchy music tune that's remained unchanged, and rightfully so.

Available as two acts, with the second act offering a sunset theme, it's a level that's asking to be remade in a future game.

Music Plant

Sonic Advance 2 level Music Plant in Sonic Mania as a mod

(Image credit: SEGA)

This isn't just one zone from the GBA sequel released back in 2003, but six, all working as intended in Sonic Mania.

Music Plant is part of a collection of levels from the Game Boy Advance release of Sonic Advance 2, released back in 2003. It was the second time Sonic appeared in a 2D game on a handheld other than SEGA's, with an appearance on the NEO GEO Pocket Color in 1999.

Here, there are six zones recreated in Sonic Mania, all with its original music. But it's Music Plant which is the highlight for this mod.

In one of the most colorful zones in a Sonic game, you're bouncing between piano keys while rolling down rails, all in Sonic Mania's engine. The zone's music is originally from another SEGA game called Ristar, which is also in this mod, which fits well for the design and the atmosphere of Music Plant.

But the mod is still under development, with more zones being worked on to be implemented.

Hill Top Zone

Sonic Mania Hill Top Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

We're slightly cheating here, as this is part of the Sonic 2 Mania mod that has Aquatic Ruin Zone in this list. But when you consider that there's two Acts here, completely remade, with remixed music and a twist in Act 2, it's one of the best mods you could download for Sonic Mania.

You can control other characters here as well, but Knuckles is a good fit for Hill Top, as you can glide and climb up the platforms while avoiding the lava.

The moments of being in a cave and the rising lava is all here as it was in Sonic 2, and again the two acts feel as though they are right at home in Sonic Mania. For a level that was originally conceived to be a past version of Emerald Hill Zone during Sonic 2's development, it's become iconic in 30 years since its debut, and begs to be remade for a future 2D or 3D outing.

The PrideLands

The PrideLands level from Lion King, in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

Do you remember playing The Lion King in the mid-nineties, and wondered if a level could work in a Sonic game?

Wonder no more, as a talented modder has ported over the fifth level from the SEGA Mega Drive game, with monitors and enemies scattered throughout.

It's a short level, as you need to reach the top, and Act 2 requires you to get to the end in under sixty seconds.

But what sells it, is a cover of Toto's Africa that plays throughout both Acts, which is random on one hand, and so right on another.

Its randomness is what makes this level so compelling, and while there's next to no chance of a Sonic and Simba crossover, it does make you wonder if other levels from The Lion King, or Aladdin on the Mega Drive, could also work for Sonic Mania.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Here are the six best Sonic Mania levels put in by modders
  • No Comments

There used to be a time when the only way to prolong a game further, would be to use cheats or hope that an expansion pack would soon arrive to bring out new levels.

But we live in a time where modding a game can be very easy, as long as you have the patience. The Sonic community is a great example of this, where full-blown makeovers of existing games, or additional levels have been created to showcase what a game could do further.

Since its release in 2017, Sonic Mania is still regarded to be one of the best Sonic games of its time, but modders have been expanding it with new levels, mods, characters, and conversions to prolong it further.

With this in mind, we've played through countless levels to highlight five of the best, from their time and attention paid, to the complete randomness of how some fit so well for a Sonic game.

Aquatic Ruin Zone

Sonic Mania Aquatic Ruin Zone

(Image credit: Future)

This zone is part of a collection that has four other levels from Sonic 2, released back in 1992.

Sonic 2 Mania is a team effort to remake certain zones into the Sonic Mania engine, but with remixed music and their Act 2 variants twist what you think of what the level entails.

This mod has been the template for other modders to follow since its first release in 2019, as other levels released before this, would be 1:1 copies. Here, they're fresh but look as though they're DLC from SEGA.

Aquatic Ruin Zone has been remade from the ground up, with remixed music and all the enemies intact, alongside the dangerous arrows and the breakable pillars that are across the two acts.

Labyrinth Zone

Sonic Mania mod: Labyrinth Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

This zone is a great example of building on what made the level memorable while expanding its design.

Released as part of the Misfits Pack, you also get three other zones as part of a demo that remixes established and cut levels from past Sonic games.

The music is a big highlight here, where the drums and percussion make the track pop as you run for an oxygen bubble or jumping across platforms.

But what makes this zone a highlight, is how much the level doesn't stay in the underground parts of the Mega Drive version. As you try to jump and run to the top of the level, you see cracks of light in the background, reminiscent of a scrapped idea for the zone that was found in a leaked beta build of Sonic 1.

Once you reach the top of the level, you find an unexpected night sky, but it works so well you end up accepting this.

As there's currently no way to edit or add in new bosses, you're using the same one from Hydrocity Zone Act 1, but it still fits the brief, and it makes you wonder how a new boss could work in this remixed Labyrinth Zone.

Jungle Zone

Jungle Zone in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

This is a level taken from the Master System release of Sonic 1, SEGA's 8-bit system released two years before the Mega Drive.

Some arguably regard the 8-bit port to be superior to the Mega Drive version, mainly due to the different zones such as Jungle Zone and Sky Base Zone, alongside the Chaos Emeralds being hidden in each level, rather than the motion-sickness-inducing Special Stages.

Instead, this mod is the best of both worlds, where you get one of the best levels from an 8-bit Sonic game, with its green and orange pixel art put together with its catchy music tune that's remained unchanged, and rightfully so.

Available as two acts, with the second act offering a sunset theme, it's a level that's asking to be remade in a future game.

Music Plant

Sonic Advance 2 level Music Plant in Sonic Mania as a mod

(Image credit: SEGA)

This isn't just one zone from the GBA sequel released back in 2003, but six, all working as intended in Sonic Mania.

Music Plant is part of a collection of levels from the Game Boy Advance release of Sonic Advance 2, released back in 2003. It was the second time Sonic appeared in a 2D game on a handheld other than SEGA's, with an appearance on the NEO GEO Pocket Color in 1999.

Here, there are six zones recreated in Sonic Mania, all with its original music. But it's Music Plant which is the highlight for this mod.

In one of the most colorful zones in a Sonic game, you're bouncing between piano keys while rolling down rails, all in Sonic Mania's engine. The zone's music is originally from another SEGA game called Ristar, which is also in this mod, which fits well for the design and the atmosphere of Music Plant.

But the mod is still under development, with more zones being worked on to be implemented.

Hill Top Zone

Sonic Mania Hill Top Zone

(Image credit: SEGA)

We're slightly cheating here, as this is part of the Sonic 2 Mania mod that has Aquatic Ruin Zone in this list. But when you consider that there's two Acts here, completely remade, with remixed music and a twist in Act 2, it's one of the best mods you could download for Sonic Mania.

You can control other characters here as well, but Knuckles is a good fit for Hill Top, as you can glide and climb up the platforms while avoiding the lava.

The moments of being in a cave and the rising lava is all here as it was in Sonic 2, and again the two acts feel as though they are right at home in Sonic Mania. For a level that was originally conceived to be a past version of Emerald Hill Zone during Sonic 2's development, it's become iconic in 30 years since its debut, and begs to be remade for a future 2D or 3D outing.

The PrideLands

The PrideLands level from Lion King, in Sonic Mania

(Image credit: SEGA)

Do you remember playing The Lion King in the mid-nineties, and wondered if a level could work in a Sonic game?

Wonder no more, as a talented modder has ported over the fifth level from the SEGA Mega Drive game, with monitors and enemies scattered throughout.

It's a short level, as you need to reach the top, and Act 2 requires you to get to the end in under sixty seconds.

But what sells it, is a cover of Toto's Africa that plays throughout both Acts, which is random on one hand, and so right on another.

Its randomness is what makes this level so compelling, and while there's next to no chance of a Sonic and Simba crossover, it does make you wonder if other levels from The Lion King, or Aladdin on the Mega Drive, could also work for Sonic Mania.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More