Photo-editing
I’ve used Lightroom since the very first day I learned photo shooting and editing. Surprisingly, when I thought I’ve discovered everything in this app, I came across thousands of tutorials showing hidden tips and tricks that otherwise I never could have figured out.
What made me love LR so much is the endless possibilities to combine different settings and create unique presets (r/shameless-plug: I am selling one here) Other than that, it’s lightweight, friendly designed and detail-oriented. I can say that Lightroom has played a large role in nurturing my passion for modifying photo colors.
I also love the ability to sync photos and presets between phone and desktop, which makes editing photos so much consistent. However, I wish the mobile version could be a little more affordable…
Honorable mention: Snapseed
Snapseed is an example of a mobile app done well. Maybe the fact that it’s developed by Google is the main reason for its materialistic and easy-to-use interface. Retouch-wise, Snapseed allows very deep and comprehensive editing that I believe can meet the demands of both professionals or newbies. It feels like a minimal melting pot of preset-based apps like RNI (which I really like) and tool-based apps like PicsArt. What I especially like about this app is the power to blend texts in photos. Here is what I mean.
Habit-tracking
Yeah I know you’re laughing. Don’t try to hide it. What’s wrong about loving your own company’s product and promoting it out of pure, angelic passion?
Habitify is a habit tracking app that has helped me stay on track with the recurring tasks I set for myself every now and then.
Objectively, Habitify is distinctively minimal and straightforward. It’s not bloated with features that dilute its own mission: tracking habits.
Subjectively, I’m proud that Habitify doesn’t fall for the trap that most indie apps are suffering from: letting users define the app. Small developers often want their apps to scale up and reach more people, and they do so by listening and adding features that their users request, which subsequently turns their apps into the mediocre of many worlds. I would say that it’s not only the minimalism and focus of Habitify that nails it, but it’s also the ability to stay minimal and focused despite its 4 years of development that makes the app deserve a better spot in the store.
In the beginning, I used Habitify to track my “waking up early at 5:30 AM” habit. I only found the “Aha” moment of Habitify when I reached the 90-day unbroken streak, and often took a look at my 2019 progress to motivate myself.
The simplicity of Habitify allows me to use it for multiple purposes. After the first habit has settled in, I used Habitify to remind me to reflect, or use Vaseline every night, which are not necessarily habits but quite handy to do from time to time.
Honorable mention: ???
I don’t know? Why would I want to mention any competitor here?
All right, if you’re looking for something more flashy, try Productive. More colorful? Try Everyday.
But Habitify is enough.
Workout
If you’re looking for an app with cute pep-talks and instructions of which workout plan you should follow to lose weight or gain muscle, this app is not for you.
But if you’re looking for a super-comprehensive exercise tracker with beautiful design, you’ve come to the right place.
Strong targets gym lovers who have already got an idea of what they want to do. It takes little to almost zero onboarding to start using this app.
If Strong disappears from this world, I’m gonna be the first person to have serious troubles. My life could mess up, my mind could go dark, my motivation could dip. This is simply because it tracks my performance in every exercise, and with that information, I will know how to adjust my workout accordingly.
Knowing how many sets and reps I have to do saves me tons of time noting down or trying to remember (which is my traditional method, until I switched my routine too often that I could hardly recall how many I did the last session)
To give you a brief idea of what I mean, here’s how it looks:
The second weapon of Strong is its analytics dashboard. Though elementary, it’s visually motivating and insightful in a way that it makes me try to increase my performance every day.
You know, seeing that chart going up is one of the most eyegasm things for me 😉
Besides the aforementioned features, Strong also has animated tutorials, history records, and beautiful app motions.
Honorable mention: Fitbod.
I’ve tried several workout trackers before and only Fitbod could make it close to Strong in my own preference. Fitbod seems to target more beginner-level gymmers with comparatively more educational content both in the app and in their newsletter (sent bi-weekly after sign-up). Not only that, they have clear illustrations of targeted body parts plus a bunch of workout templates (e.g. Push-Pull or Upper-Lower).
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Sooo that pretty much sums up my daily routine kit. How about you? Which app do you use religiously for your daily life?
Drop me a comment 👇 or let’s grab a ☕️ and chat!
