What's On My iOS Home Screens: Winter 2013

The Winter season is practically upon us so to bring in the cold weather is another installment of What's On My iOS Home Screens. There have been some notable changes in home screen apps since my last posting back in the Fall.

iPhone

• Fantastical 2 ($3.99 - iPhone) - What else can I say besides Fantastical 2 being the best calendar app for iOS (iPhone only)?  The newer, version 2 has been retrofitted for iOS 7.  Not much in terms of changes in the UI as the first version was pretty flat in terms of UI controls and look.  A big addition is the integration with iOS reminders.  I love how Flexibits integrated reminders into the application.  Reminders can be created and marked completed from the app either in the calendar view or in a specific reminder view.  Also added is the ability to add location based alert triggering that allows a reminder to trigger if you enter or leave a certain location.  As with the prior version of Fantastical, the natural language input is rock solid and has been improved for version 2.   Quite simply, this is the calendar application that Apple should have built for iOS.  I highly recommend this app.

• Tweetbot 3 ($2.99 - iPhone) - Not a new addition to my home screen, but it is worth noting that the long-awaited iOS 7 redesign has made its way to the iPhone.  Smooth and as slick as ever, Tweetbot remains THE best iOS Twitter client and should be the defacto standard for both casual and power twitter users.
• Groove (Free - Universal) - Groove v3 is total redesign for iOS 7.  The UI is clean and supports native iOS swiping gestures to move around the application interface.  Groove v3 supports customized playlists (mixes), iTunes Music Match, and social media posting.  It also integrates with your Last.fm profile, which I do not use.  Overall, Groove is a very slick and clean looking music app that is worthy of a look if the standard iOS music player doesn't cut it for you.  The app does not support iTunes Radio, so if you are heavily into using it, you'll need to keep the stock player easily accessible.   Did I mention Groove is free?  Go get it. 
• iOS Weather (Free - Stock iOS application) - Nothing really special here, as I just wanted a change.  I was using Perfect Weather, but the temperature notification badge wasn't updating itself if the application was not running in the background. The Yahoo-based iOS weather app has been pretty accurate for the New York area and is in sync with the temperature and conditions data shown in Notification Center.  I could wind up switching the stock weather app for the Yahoo Weather app but there's no real need for that.  
• Apple Podcasts (Free - Universal) - I have now standardized on using Apple's Podcasts app on both the iPhone and iPad. Check out my review of the app here.

iPad

• Calendars 5 ($6.99 - Universal) - I think I have a love/hate relationship with this app.  For the iPad, it is a very clean and efficient UI.  However, on the iPhone I am not a fan of the UI layout when comes to menus and navigation within the application.  On the iPad however, all navigation menus are available with a single click so moving across to different calendar and task views is very efficient.  I have found a couple of bugs with the app such as the notification badge (events and due tasks) is not updated unless the application is running in the background.  I contacted Readdle tech support on this and they have verified a fix is in the works and should be available early next year.  The second bug I have found has to do with on-line subscription calendars where events on those calendars are duplicated.  I don't have many of these type of calendars so it's not really a big issue.   I haven't received any feedback on this from the support team yet.  Overall though, I do like Calendars 5 for the iPad and have decided to run with it for awhile. 
• Screens ($19.99 - Universal) - One of the best VNC-type applications for iOS just received its iOS 7 makeover.  Screens v3 allow you to remotely connect to any computer (PC or Mac) that is running the Edovia connect software.   Once the Screens app connects, you can view and control your computer remotely.  On the iPad Air, this app really runs smoothly although on older iPads the app was never really considerably slow.  The iOS 7 makeover has made this app a real pleasure to use. It is expensive at $19.99 but it is universal and is indispensable if you ever need to work with your computer remotely.