Apps

Every gaming platform has its own app for managing games, such as Apple’s Game Center, for example. But for those who have multiple consoles, GamePal is a great companion app that helps players keep track of their entire game library.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

VoicePen is a native app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro that transcribes your lectures, meetings, and any sort of speech into clear notes. All of the transcriptions run through OpenAI’s Whisper model, making it accurate and fast. It also offers more than just meeting transcriptions, and can be used for YouTube videos and other online content.

Earlier this year, The Iconfactory launched a new social feeds app called Tapestry. The app pulls together Bluesky, Mastodon, and other feeds into a unified timeline. And Tapestry’s latest addition, Crosstalk, solves an especially annoying quirk of our fractured social app landscape: duplicate posts.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Sofa is an easy-to-use app that helps keep you organized when you don’t have something to do. Everyone has some level of downtime, but often don’t plan things out. Social media doomscrolling is often an option, but Sofa helps you plan out other leisure activities. In its new update, it also added a built-in podcast player.

A number of people are reporting that previously deleted iPhone apps are reappearing on their devices after upgrading to iOS 18.4.

Some Reddit users are also claiming apps they have never installed have appeared on their iPhones …

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Yumbox is an easy to use app that allows you to keep track of your favorite restaurants in your area. You can easily log all of your favorites, categorize them as you see fit, and then once you’re done – you’ll easily be able to filter all of your top picks.

While there may be debate about whether iOS 19 will be a UI revolution or evolution, there does seem to be a consensus view on app icons. Namely, that they are likely to switch from squircles – squares with rounded corners – to circles.

Whether one looks better than the other is of course a matter of subjective judgement. But there is a small problem with circular icons …

There’s no shortage of music-focused apps on the App Store, but one that’s long stood out among my favorites is MusicHarbor. Now, as part of a big version 5.0 update, the app supports a feature that Apple Music should have added years ago: news integration. Here’s why I think Apple News integration would be a perfect addition to not only the Music app but also TV, Books, and more.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Queue aims to be the simplest podcasts app out there. It offers a clean interface, and all of your podcasts are kept in one neat vertical list. From that list, you can play, archive, and reorder from all of your subscribed podcasts. Despite the simple design, Queue is also rich in features.

I wrote last year about MagicMiles, a new app that helps users create entire travel itineraries using AI. With its latest update, MagicMiles is getting a much-requested feature: the ability to add transportation and lodging to the travel itinerary.

Gentler Streak, the Apple Design Awards-winning fitness and wellness app, is getting another update – this time to make the app even easier and more intuitive to use. After adding new Home Screen widgets with health metrics, Gentler Streak is now introducing a new For You tab that combines the user’s Streak with health information from the wellness section.

Foodnoms is a powerful nutrition tracking app that I’ve written about before. It’s designed to be fast and easy to use with a design that’s optimized perfectly for Apple platforms, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

This week, Foodnoms is getting a big update with completely revamped Shortcuts integration.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Remind Me Faster is a nice companion app for Apple Reminders, helping you transcribe your thoughts into reminders as quickly as possible. It doesn’t replace Reminders, but instead makes it more intuitive to use.

A new WhatsApp message threads feature appears to be on the way, after it was discovered in an app beta.

It follows a flurry of new features launched last month, comprising colorful chat themes, linked social media accounts, and ChatGPT support extending to images and voice messages …

Epic Games has announced that it plans to bring Fortnite back to the iPhone and iPad in another region following a recent antitrust ruling against Apple.

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact.

Rovelist is a simple habit tracker app with a clean design, home screen widgets, and an intuitive interface. It’s available on iPhone, and provides everything you’d need to stay motivated and on top of everything you need to get done regularly.

If you’re a heavy Mastodon user (or were a Twitter user back in the good old days), you’re probably familiar with Tapbots – the company behind the popular Ivory and Tweetbot apps. The developers now have some good news to share with Bluesky users, as they announced this week that they’ve been working on a new app for the platform.

Reddit posts will be less likely to break the rules of a given subreddit, thanks to a number of changes the company is introducing to its apps.

These include the ability to ask an AI to check your post before you submit it …

Update: CNBC reports that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dismissed its lawsuit against the three lead banks, as the White House downsizes the consumer rights agency.

A high rate of Zelle scams originating from social media contacts has led JPMorgan Chase Bank to block payments made through social media networks and messaging apps. Chase said that Zelle was intended as a method of transferring money to family, friends, and other trusted contacts, and should never be used to make online purchases …