Basil Gets Tastier With A Beefy New Update
We’ve told you about a fresh new recipe app called Basil about a year ago in my original review, and then kept you updated with the latest happenings. And now, the app has gotten even better with version 1.5.
First off, what is Basil? It’s a minimalist recipe app for your iPad that featured an intuitive interface. To help you get started, it came with some demo recipes, or you could find recipes from top sites like Food Network, Serious Eats, and Epicurious with the in-app browser and save them directly to Basil. You could even install a bookmarklet into Safari and clip and save recipes to Basil that way — the possibilities are endless.
It also featured the Smart Timer, which is the biggest selling point of the app. It allowed cooks to just tap on a step (if it has time-based directions) and start up a timer with that time on the screen. No need for a secondary app or separate timer — it’s all done within Basil!
We loved Basil because of the simplicity. But it was missing a few things that kept it from being perfect, but these are now amended in version 1.5.
Basil now has support for photos! Previously, even if you saved a recipe from the web, Basil didn’t have images. But now, any saved recipes from the web will bring along the photo, and you can add your own pictures for your recipes too. We’re not just talking about thumbnail images, either. You can view any image in full-screen mode with a tap. This helps you see what exactly it is you are wanting (or already are) cooking.
Now there’s also Dropbox import and export, so your recipes will always be backed up and go wherever you go. If there are multiple iPads in the house, you will always have access to your recipe library thanks to Dropbox.
While recipes are great, sometimes people like to do things differently. Basil now supports the ability to add notes to recipes, so if you do a step differently, or need to focus on something, you can now keep a note of it right in the app.
The final new addition is being able to check off ingredients that you have already used. Just give an ingredient a tap to turn it light gray and cross it off. This is incredibly helpful when you are cooking because when you move on to the next step, you will be focused on the ingredients left rather than the ones that you have used up.
This is indeed a big update for Basil, and it makes the app even better than before. This update is available for free to existing Basil customers. For new customers, you can grab Basil in the App Store for your iPad for only $1.99.
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