Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/1534428
FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MAY 2025 21 By Steve Beno Last month you no doubt remember my epic article about some of my favorite apps. Those, as well as almost all of the apps I write about are not those that came loaded on my iPhone when I first received it. Fact is, I like and use several Apple apps. I do understand that there are myriad alternative apps to all of these. Some could well be better. It's just that I found Apple apps I use regularly are well-suited to my needs. Let's deal with the two for which I have no choice — Phone and Camera. These both work fine for me which is just as well since I'm not aware of any alternative apps. There are photo-editing apps for smartphones. For one, I don't edit my photos, and, two, if I did, I'd do it on my desktop Mac. I use the Apple Messages app every day. OK, let's get one thing straight. All the apps I'll be talking about will be Apple apps; so, I'm going to dispense prefacing them with their creator. Messages is home to the controversial blue and green bubbles. Frankly, I've never had an issue about this distinction until recently. I was in a building which wouldn't send a green message (that is, one to an Android phone) but a blue one went through. My only issue with Messages has nothing to do with the app itself. I don't save messages. At the end of each day, I delete all my conversations quite easily. And because I don't have Messages on my Mac computer, there is nothing to delete. My Apple Watch is a pain with regard to Messages. I have no interest in having Messages on my Watch, but I can't exclude it. Not only that, even though I have my Watch set to mirror my iPhone, it doesn't delete my conversations automatically. I have to do that all over again on my Watch. When I checked the App Store, there were dozens of calendar choices. But I've been quite happy with the Calendar app that came with my iPhone. It syncs instantly with my Mac. Calendar is simple and straight-forward. It's easy to add, change, and delete an entry. And I can set it to repeat for future events. I do have one quibble. You can set repeats to daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or custom settings like the third Thursday of the month. But what you can't do is set a reminder entry in a way I'd like. Apple won't let me set an entry to the two days before the third Thursday. So, I have no choice but to set it for the third Tuesday; except that many times those two days are in different weeks. On the plus side, a Calendar entry syncs nicely with Maps. As an experiment, I added Google Calendar to my phone to see if it synced with Google Maps. It didn't; so, I deleted it. While I'm on the subject of Maps, my guess is that this is my most controversial favored app. I know, most people prefer Google Maps. I've even written earlier articles comparing the two. Frankly, I switched my preference between them a few times. But I keep coming back to Maps as my go-to app for directions. For one, I like the integration with Calendar that I mentioned above. Although I find its tendency to alert me to go straight at upcoming intersections and off-ramps annoying (sometimes even warming me not to turn into an alley), Google Maps does this, in my experience, even more. This is not to say I use Maps exclusively. When I want an overview of traffic over an entire route, I switch to Google Maps for its clear green-yellow-red display. And on occasion, when I want the source of a traffic holdup that isn't apparent on Maps, I consult Waze, which I otherwise find almost impenetrably stuffed with unhelpful details displayed in an unattractive, unclear color scheme. I've only covered half the Apple apps I use regularly. I'll talk about the rest next month. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! A Bushel of Apps