AppAdvice App Of The Week For Nov. 11, 2013

Every week, our staff will handpick an app from the past two weeks that we believe is a must-download for your iPhone or iPad. These apps will always be from various categories, but they are chosen because our own staff members love it and have been using them daily. So here are this week’s picks! Enjoy!

Knock - Unlock Your Mac

Do you own a newer Mac and use a password to unlock it each time you come back to it? Things are about to get simpler thanks to our App of the Week: Knock.

This simple little app turns your iPhone into the key to unlock your Mac. All you need to do is to get this app for your iPhone, and then grab the free companion Mac app from their website. Set up involves launching the app on both devices, then you’ll lock your phone to complete the rest on the Mac. Then, you are asked to knock twice on your iPhone to confirm.

Knock works through Bluetooth Low Energy, so it is only compatible with iPhone 4S and higher, and more recent models of Macs (Macbook Air 2011 or newer, MacBook Pro 2012 or newer, iMac 2013 or newer, Mac Mini 2011 or newer, and Mac Pro 2013 or newer).

When it’s set up, Knock on Mac will detect if your phone is nearby, and then you will see the ring around your avatar glow green, and then pulsate, which will tell you that it is safe to knock twice on your device to unlock. This is due to the security checks that the app goes through to make sure that everything is okay. Knock on iPhone will keep your computer’s password safe through standard RSA encryption, and the Mac app has a key to decrypt it, so it will be entered without the need to type a thing.

We’ve been enjoying having this app around for our Macs, as it is a safer way to unlock our computers (we’re never without our phones) and it’s less of a hassle for those long, secure passwords. You can get it in the App Store for $3.99, but make sure to go over the system requirements and make sure it will work with your devices.

For a more in-depth look at Knock, make sure to check out my original review.

Honorable Mentions

Interesting for iPhone

Get bored a lot? Then this Honorable Mention will sate your needs: Interesting for iPhone.

This gorgeous and simplistic app curates the most interesting content from around the Web into several categories for you: Design & Technology, News & Politics, Entertainment & TV, Sports, Dribbble, and Reddit. You can also log in to your Reddit account from the app.

The categories can be accessed by swiping from the left edge of the screen or by tapping the side panel button. Tapping on a category will present an endless list of articles and content from all over the Internet for you to browse through, and you can read any by tapping on it to go to the web source. For Dribbble, you will get thumbnails of images, and Reddit will show the thread’s points, which subreddit it originated from, and how many comments are on it. The Reddit section also allows you to go to different subreddits.

We’ve been enjoying the simplicity of this app, and all of the content that it brings. Boredom is definitely out of the question once we start digging through Interesting. You can get it in the App Store for $1.99.

For a closer look at Interesting for iPhone, make sure to check out my review.

Nike+ Move

Lastly, we decided to include a bonus pick for this week, and that will be Nike+ Move! This is a must-have if you are an owner of an iPhone 5s.

This free app helps you get more active through the use of NikeFuel, a universal measurement of your activity throughout the day, not just steps. The app features a simplistic, yet easy-to-follow, design that focuses on the important stuff: how active you are.

Users are able to see their total fuel for the day, and how much more they will need to beat their daily average. Nike+ Move can also access the last week’s worth of activity data on your iPhone 5s’ M7 chip, which serves to calculate your average.

The app also shows you a line graph of your activity throughout the day, which will highlight the amount of fuel you’ve earned each hour. You can also see how you’ve moved, which breaks it down to running, walking, and other movement. If you enable Location Services, you are able to see the spots where you’ve earned the most fuel. Users can also see the progress throughout the week with a bar graph, and compare it to last week.

The coolest thing about Nike+ Move though, is the fact that it uses Game Center for leaderboards so you can compete and get motivated to move more. There are also regional leaderboards, so you can see how you are doing against other people from all over the world, or even in your area.

We’ve been enjoying getting more fit with Nike+ Move, since it gamifies the whole “get active” thing. You can get it for your iPhone 5s for free in the App Store.

For more information on Nike+ Move, make sure to check out my review.