It’s that time of year again, a time to look back and reflect on the best new apps and the trusted, reliable applications you just can’t get away from. TNW, as always, strives to provide an uncompromising list of favorites, while not including the must-haves that you’re probably already downloading — Spotify, Slack, etc. It’s our goal to help you find a handful of new apps, and to affirm that some of the best from last year are, still, the best at what they do this year. As usual, feel free to add your own favorites in the comments below. Formerly Hocus Focus, is a focus timer app that allows you to stay on task by breaking large projects into smaller intervals. It’s similar to the Pomodoro System, where you work at full focus for short bursts, often 20 minutes, but then take a 5 minute break after these bursts.
Alumni homecoming greetings. The key difference here though, is that you can create the tasks, configure the breaks, and scope your progress throughout the day with some really beautiful visuals. It’s like a focus timer, with the built-in accountability of clearly measured results. Alfred (Free) Alfred is another oldie-but-goodie that’s like Apple‘s Spotlight, but with far more customization options. Sweep function in outlook mail in word. You can do a lot with Spotlight, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the power of Alfred — made even more powerful with an upgrade to Powerpack (about $22). Inside the basic app, though, you can search your Mac, the web, make complex calculations that would typically require a calculator, perform system commands, custom searches, currency conversions, and launch applications. And this doesn’t even begin to cover the app‘s functionality. Have you ever wondered what the best calendar app for the iPhone was? Calendar apps for iPhone are a tough thing to advise for because different people use them in different ways. Some people are. There’s a reason it’s been on every list of this nature since it launched in 2011. If you’re looking for even more ways to get the most out of Alfred, Lifehacker has a on just this. ![]() Reeder 3 (Free) Another of our “classic” favorites, is getting on in years. Still, though, it’s arguably the best RSS reader on the market. The app brings together numerous subscription services like Feedly, Inoreader, Instapaper and others, or local RSS syncing without the need for a third-party service. It has gesture support, customizable shortcuts, and a number of themes to tweak to your hearts’ content. Also, built-in sharing options with your favorite services (Safari, Buffer, Pocket, Evernote, etc.) leaves you no shortage of ways to share or save your favorite content. Bear (Free) is everything we’d hoped Apple Notes would be. In fact, we stating just that last summer. In short, it’s a Notes alternative that has some great customization options (including several color schemes), markdown support, and an easy tagging system that’s both robust and simple to understand. If you’re looking for a “better” Notes, Bear is it. Hazel 4 ($32) is a difficult app to describe. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything.
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