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Today's Best Apps: BitTorrent Sync, Material And Parallels Access

Today's Best Apps: BitTorrent Sync, Material And Parallels Access

August 29, 2013
The App Store takes delivery of hundreds of new apps per day. The overwhelming scene makes it possible to easily overlook an exciting game, valuable productivity suite, etc. However, we have a solution. Today’s Best Apps tackles this problem by providing you with a handpicked and tested list of apps that are truly worth your consideration each and everyday. Remember: Even though in-app purchases typically require your iTunes Store password for processing, you can further prevent them and other unauthorized actions by enabling local restrictions using the passcode locked iOS parental controls

iPhone:

Material: Blogs, news & RSS tailored to your social footprint by INQ (Free, 20.9 MB): Stay informed about the topics you care about with this personally curated news aggregation app. Completely automated, the system learns your interests based on social circles, i.e., who you follow and what you post on Facebook, Twitter, or both. So, for example, if you monitor the headlines of your hometown NFL team, then one of the automatically generated categories will be Football. The same goes for other interests, such as a Film category if you follow a favorite actor, Computing and Technology for those who subscribe to the AppAdvice social feeds, and so on. All of this is updated three times daily, includes color-coded headers, source tags, and Push notifications, as well as easily navigable using simple swipe gestures or the slide out menu. In addition, articles are streamlined for easy mobile reading, although, can be shown in the original website format.

BitTorrent Sync by BitTorrent, Inc. (Free, 5.3 MB): Whether automatic synchronization or occasional transfers, this micro peer-to-peer app makes file transferring easy. Foremost, there's security. Devices must be authorized through a unique QR code. Next, it's simplicity. Each task has a separate tab and panel for the most straightforward operation. In addition, the Settings area allows device name changing as well as quick enabling or disabling of the automatic iOS camera roll backup and cellular data use. Clients for OS X, Windows, and Android can be found by clicking or tapping here.

iPad:

Parallels Access by Parallels, Inc. (Free, 42.2 MB): This VNC client by the popular virtual machine software developer provides an efficient user interface to access and control a Mac or Windows-based PC for remote work. Once connected, the view is the same as sitting in front of your computer, except that the screen size is smaller plus the input is through touchscreen-friendly gestures and a virtual keyboard. However, there are a couple of features to help regain multitasking ease. First is an OS X Launchpad-style app launcher to eliminate the tediousness of digging through the Start menu, Apple menu, or Finder. The second being a docked app switcher with previews, which resembles iOS 7's active app manager and switcher as well as the Windows Taskbar. Rounding out the convenience package, Parallels Access supports both PC app to app copy and paste along with PC app to iOS app and vice-versa data pasteboard transfers. To use Parallels Access, you will need the "Agent" software installed and an $80 per year subscription for each personal computer.

Mentioned apps

Free
Material: Blogs, news & RSS tailored to your social footprint
Material: Blogs, news & RSS tailored to your social footprint
INQ
Free
BitTorrent Sync
BitTorrent Sync
BitTorrent, Inc.
Free
Parallels Access
Parallels Access
Parallels, Inc.

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