Sometimes apps that do simple things, or seemingly simple things to the end-user end up being the ones that are the most useful. This week I discovered two such apps, one for the Mac Found and one for the iPhone the Streaming Music Timer by Fusion Effects. Both do something that I have been looking for a while
I use several different cloud storage options, including Dropbox and Google Drive. This works great and allows me to store up to 7 GB of files for free. The problem comes when I am trying to find a document and I can’t remember which cloud option I used to store it. This is where Found comes in. Found allows you to search Dropbox, Google Drive, your home folder and Google Mail at the same time. Found lives up in your menu bar, to invoke it you simply hit control twice. Then you put in your search term and it searches all four folders. It works well and has saved me a lot of time.
The second application is a iPhone application called the Streaming Music Timer. I like to listen to music when I go to sleep, however I often forget to shut it down. I have been looking for a timer that will work not only with iTunes but also with streaming services such as Spotify or Pandora. There are some that are supposed to work if you lie your iPhone next to you on your bed. The problem with this method in my mind is I keep picturing the iPhone falling off the bed on to the hardwood floor. Plus I charge my phone at night and the electrical outlet isn’t close to my bed. So I was looking for something that didn’t require me to put the iPhone on the bed next to me. I finally found it with the Streaming Music Timer. To use the Streaming Music Timer you simply start your favorite music app and then click on Music Timer and set how long you want the music to play and hit the next button and then start. So far it has worked perfectly for the last two nights.
Found is free and available through the Mac app store and Streaming Music Timer is .99 cents and available the iTunes app store. The Streaming Music Timer does have ads. The Streaming Music Timer is an iPhone app but works fine on the iPad. I do recommend downloading and trying both these apps.