6 Ways to Find Mac and iPhone App Store Discounts

Developers often put their apps on sale through deals websites, app bundles, or the App Store. The App Store consists of millions of apps, but doesn’t help you find these deals or let you track the prices of individual apps.

You could once add apps to your wishlist to help keep track of them, but that feature is gone as of iOS 11. We’ll show you six ways to track App Store discounts for both Mac and iOS.

1. Ceceree

Ceceree for Mac lets you create shareable app wish lists and keep track of interesting apps for both Mac and iOS. To add an app, click the Plus button, type the app name, and press Enter. Ceceree will instantly search the App Store and show the results.

Click the tab that corresponds to the app you’re looking for, then press Add to add that app to your wish list. Repeat the same process for other apps. Click Done to return to the main screen.

To make sure you don’t miss anything, go to Ceceree > Preferences and under the Notifications tab, tick all the options. Cecerre will watch your apps in the background and notify you about pricing changes and updates for each app.

You can create any number of lists in Cecerre. The app even lets you keep separate lists for Mac and iOS. To create a new list, go to List > New. Give your list a name and assign a color. To navigate between platforms, press Cmd + Shift + Right/Left.

Cecerre also lets you create shareable links for lists, allowing you to send a collection of apps to others. Hover your mouse over the list title bar and click Share. Type the iTunes email ID and click Create. Anyone who gets the link can see your entire list.

Download: Cecerre for Mac ($4, free trial available)

2. AppShopper

AppShopper is one of the largest iPhone, iPad, and Mac app directories. It lets you discover new apps and monitor your wishlist for version updates and pricing changes. Use the dropdown at the top to find apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Universal iOS.

The menu also lets you set up filters. You can view, say, all the paid iPhone or iPad apps that are on sale or recently updated. You can also filter your results by category, or find a particular app through search. Click the Wish button to add that app to your Wishlist—you’ll need a free account to do so.

Once you’ve filled out your wishlist, go to your profile by clicking your name in the top-right. Under Notifications, tick Notify me of Wishlist price drops by E-mail. You’ll get an email when the price of that app drops.

Click an app anywhere on the site to visit its page with screenshots, description, changelog, app activity, and ratings. In this page, you can further track whether the app has been on sale before, or if the developer is rigid on pricing.

Due to Apple’s restrictions, AppShopper doesn’t offer its own iOS app. Thankfully, you can access the site’s content through other methods.

Try using one of Safari’s tricks and adding a shortcuts to the site to your home screen. You can also follow AppShopper on Twitter for the latest updates. Or if you’d prefer to get updates via RSS, the service provides these links:

• Popular iPhone app price drops
• Popular iPad app price drops
• Popular Mac app price drops

3. AppSliced

AppSliced, like AppShopper, is a great place to discover apps and browse sales. It tracks price drops, analyzes previous price changes, and gives you recommendations tailored to your tastes.

Click Shop Apps to browse the most popular iPhone and iPad app price drops. You can also set up filters. For example, to see all the popular Mac apps on sale for the Productivity category, select the Device as Mac, Sort by Popular, Price as Paid, and Category as Productivity.

On an app’s product page, you’ll see the description, screenshot, changelog, and similar apps. Click the Like icon to like the app, which the recommendations engine will use to fine-tune what it shows you. You should also take note of the Recent Price Changes to see when an app goes on sale, for how long, and its discounted price.

From recent price changes and the AppSliced algorithm, it will provide advice on whether it is the right time to buy the app. Under Set Price Alert, you can set a threshold for an app and click Set Alert.

On the sidebar, you can see the list of your favorite apps, likes and dislikes, friends’ activity, and settings. Browse the Top Alerts and Recommendations tabs to see the list of most popular app alerts. You can also import your contacts to AppSliced to see recommendations from your friends and what apps they like or dislike.

4. iOSnoops

iOSnoops brings you deals for iPhone and iPad. The daily app deals section features quality apps for iPhone and iPad from all categories, updated daily. The real-time update section lets you grab deals as soon as they pop up.

Search for an app, and you can fill the Deal Alert form on its page. When the price of that app drops, you’ll receive an email with all the details.

To help you stay current, you can follow iOSnoops on Twitter or use the Daily App Deals RSS feed.

5. IFTTT Applet for App Store

This option works best if you want to track only a few apps. IFTTT is a powerful service that lets you build connections between different apps and services. Check out our guide to using IFTTT to get started.

Once you have an account, sign in to the IFTTT website. Click your account name in the top-right corner and select New Applet.

To set the trigger, select this and type App Store in the search box. Pick Apple App Store. Choose the trigger App price dropped and enter the app’s name or URL. After entering the URL, click the Create trigger button.

Now you have to set up an action that will occur when IFTTT notices a price drop for your app. You could do this with a notification on your device or other triggers, but we’ll use email in this example. Select that, and choose Email followed by the Send me an Email trigger.

This template is customizable, so you can delete or add more information about the app. Now, click the Create action button. In the last step, toggle to receive a notification when the Applet runs if you want a notification on your device in addition to the email.

6. Create Twitter Lists for App Deals

A list is a curated group of Twitter accounts. There are three advantages to making a Twitter list

• You can group multiple similar accounts together.
• You don’t have to follow the users on the list.
• Viewing a list timeline shows tweets only from those accounts and reduces the clutter.

Sign into Twitter, and click your profile icon. Choose Lists from the dropdown menu, then click Create New List. Type the name of the list as Deals or similar and write a short description if you like.

Then choose if you want the list to be Private or Public. Click Save List when you’re done.

Once you create a list, type the name of the account under Find people to add to your list section and press Enter. Now you can easily browse just the accounts that share deals.

To get your list started, check out some of these Twitter accounts that share App Store deals:

• MDMDeals
• AppDiscount8
• TwoDollarTues
• AppSanta
• iOSnoops
• appshopper

Get the Best Price on App Store Apps

While the App Store doesn’t make it easy to see deals or track prices, these services can help. Whether you prefer to track all the apps on your wishlist or just want to use a Twitter list to see price drops, you can save some cash on iOS and Mac apps.

For more savings, check out the best apps and websites for saving money.

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Yahoo Messenger Is Finally Shutting Down

Yahoo Messenger is no more. Oath, the Verizon subsidiary which owns Yahoo and AOL, is shutting down the ancient messaging service. Yahoo Messenger will stop functioning on July 17, with users having six months to download their chat history.

Yahoo Messenger has been with us for 20 years, originally launching as Yahoo Pager in 1998. This was Yahoo’s alternative to ICQ, and was extremely popular for a time. But now, with much better options available, Yahoo Messenger is saying goodbye.

Oath Kills Off Yahoo Messenger

Messenger users can carry on using the service until July 17, 2018. At which point Oath will be pulling support and discontinuing the service. You’ll then have six months to download your Messenger chat history by visiting Yahoo’s download request site.

Despite Messenger being “one of the first chat apps of its kind” Yahoo states that, “as the communications landscape continues to change over, we’re focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.”

It’s been a fun ride, but Yahoo Messenger is logging off for the last time.

Peace out. ?? https://t.co/UFMi0efhMl pic.twitter.com/4aMXppb9cZ

— Yahoo Mail (@yahoomail) June 7, 2018

To this end, while Yahoo isn’t offering a direct replacement for Messenger, it’s advising users to try Yahoo Squirrel. This is an invite-only group messaging app that’s currently in beta, and Messenger orphans can request an invite at squirrel.yahoo.com.

Yahoo Squirrel is far from the only option, however, with Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Telegram, and Signal all being perfectly good alternatives. Still, for those of us of a certain age, Yahoo Messenger was the last remaining old-school option.

The Old Web Is Slowly Dying

While it’s a sad day when a service as old and iconic as Yahoo Messenger disappearing, its death was overdue. The handful of people still using Yahoo Messenger means it simply isn’t worth Oath spending time and money bringing it up to date.

Yahoo Messenger is the latest in a line of old tech products and services to be killed off recently. In December 2017, AIM ceased to be, and in May 2018, Klout was put out to pasture and it was announced that StumbleUpon is shutting down too.

Image Credit: Bryan…/Flickr

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LifeDoor crowdfunds the production version of its fire-thwarting door-closer

At CES in January I was pleasantly surprised by the LifeDoor, a smart home gadget that’s actually worth having. These little boxes automatically close doors when smoke detectors go off, inhibiting the spread of fire and smoke. The company is heading to KickStarter to fund the production version of the device, which has several improvements over the prototype I saw.

The simplicity and practicality of the device made it a standout at a show flooded with useless junk; the small team essentially made a gadget that automatically does what firefighters all insist you do: close the door in case of fire. That can be hard to remember to do or enforce, but the LifeDoor makes it so you don’t have to do either.

Installation, on any standard door hinge, shouldn’t take longer than a minute or two. It doesn’t detect smoke or heat, but rather lets your smoke detectors and other gadgets do that — instead, it listens for the beep when smoke is detected, and quickly (but gently) shuts the door against the threat. It’ll then light up and sound its own alarm in case you didn’t hear the first or the door muted the noise.

The version I saw was fully working, but was 3D printed and the team was still making improvements. The production device is only about two thirds the size of the prototype, which wasn’t too big to begin with. The new enclosure should help with detecting alarm signals as well. The microphone subsystem also will now sit idle unless it hears something, saving power and allowing the LifeDoor to go for up to two years on one battery.

Right now they’re looking to raise $50K on Kickstarter — they’re going for a little under $100 each as perks. My guess is all the backers so far are firefighters. I can say honestly that if I had an actual house I would buy a couple of these things in a second. I’ll leave myself open to accusations of shilling here because unlike most smart home knick-knacks, this one is more than useful — it could save lives.

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Instagram plans June 20th launch event for long-form video hub

Last week TechCrunch reported Instagram will launch a long-form video hub to compete with Snapchat Discover and YouTube, with a tentative launch date of June 20th. Now Instagram is asking reporters to RSVP for a June 20th “special event”, confirming our scoop’s date. The invitation simply reads “Instagram has some news to share, and we want you to be the first to hear about it.”

Instagram plans to launch Snapchat Discover-style video hub

Here are the details of long-form video hub that we’ve heard from our sources:

• Format: Instagram will let creators upload 4K, full-screen, vertically oriented videos ranging much longer than the current 60 second limit on videos.
• Destination: The videos will be available from a centralized hub featuring curating sections of popular videos and an option to continue watching clips you’ve already started, though it’s unclear where in its app or a separate Instagram will host this destination
• Launch Partners: Instagram has been meeting with social media stars and content houses to establish launch partners for the June 20th reveal
• Mid-Level Quality: The content is meant to approximate the clips you see on YouTube from star creators, shot with forethought and nice cameras, but most of it won’t be at the Netflix Originals or HBO-quality.
• Link-Outs: Instagram will let creators add a link that can visited by swiping up on the video so they can drive traffic to their other social presences, ecommerce stores, or websites.
• Monetization: Instagram plans to let creators earn money off their long videos, though it hasn’t finalized how yet. That couldtake the form of pre-roll ads or mid-break commercials, with creators potentially earning a revenue share.

It’s also quite possible that Instagram will announce that it’s hit 1 billion users, which would be a great way to draw content creators. Instagram hit 600 million in December 2016, 700 million in April 2017, and 800 million in September 2017. If it’s adding 100 million users every four months or so, that means it should have reached 1 billion by the June 20th event.

Instagram plans to launch Snapchat Discover-style video hub

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Facebook launches ‘Memories,’ a new home for reminiscing

Facebook today is introducing a dedicated page called “Memories,” where you can reflect on the moments you’ve shared with family and friends over the years. The page is essentially an expanded collection of familiar Facebook features, like “On This Day,” which lets you look back on this date last year and the years prior, as well as other memory recaps and memories you’ve shared with friends.

The content found on the Memories page isn’t necessarily new, it just now has its own section on Facebook so you can more easily find it at any time.

Among the other options you’ll see here is the “Friends Made on this Day” feature, which includes a list of friends you made on this same day in the past. You’ll also see special videos and collages to celebrate your “friendversaries” – the term Facebook coined for celebrating the day you and someone became Facebook friends.

You’ve likely seen these video collages pop up in your News Feed before with their collections of shared photos set to upbeat music.

Also on this page are “Memories You May Have Missed,” for those who don’t log in often enough to see these sharing suggestions in their Feed, and”Recaps of Memories” – meaning those seasonal or monthly recaps that have been bundled into a short video or message ready for sharing.

The social network had first introduced these memory recaps just over a year ago, as a way to encourage more personal sharing on a network where organic sharing has been on the decline.

The company has tried a number of things to try to push more people to post their own messages and comment on friends’ updates  – like adding colored backgrounds for status updates and adding support for GIFs in comments, among other things.

It even bought a briefly popular teen messaging app tbh, to power a new “Did You Know” social questionnaire which outright asked Facebook users to share personal tidbits.

But these days, people aren’t sharing as much personal content on Facebook directly, as before when it was the only game in town.

Now users’ posts are spread around on other social media sites, like Snapchat and Instagram (luckily it owns this one too), as well as through private messaging channels – where Facebook also has a large stake through WhatsApp and Messenger.

Memories are also tied to Facebook’s focus on time-well-spent efforts, which aim to increase the focus on quality engagement on Facebook, even if time on site suffers as a result.

 

For what it’s worth, Facebook notes the Memories feature includes controls to adjust what content you want to see, as some memories are not always things you want to revisit.

“We know that memories are deeply personal — and they’re not all positive. We try to listen to feedback and design these features so that they’re thoughtful and offer people the right controls that are easy to access,” writes Facebook Product Manager, Oren Hod, in an announcement. “We work hard to ensure that we treat the content as part of each individual’s personal experience, and are thankful for the input people have shared with us over the past three years,” Hod said.

Memories will be available through the Memories bookmark either to the left of the News Feed on the desktop, in the “more” tab in the bottom right of the mobile app, through notifications and messages in the News Feed, and through Facebook.com/memories.

 

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Instagram plans June 20th launch event for long-form video hub

Last week TechCrunch reported Instagram will launch a long-form video hub to compete with Snapchat Discover and YouTube, with a tentative launch date of June 20th. Now Instagram is asking reporters to RSVP for a June 20th “special event”, confirming our scoop’s date. The invitation simply reads “Instagram has some news to share, and we want you to be the first to hear about it.”

Instagram plans to launch Snapchat Discover-style video hub

Here are the details of long-form video hub that we’ve heard from our sources:

• Format: Instagram will let creators upload 4K, full-screen, vertically oriented videos ranging much longer than the current 60 second limit on videos.
• Destination: The videos will be available from a centralized hub featuring curating sections of popular videos and an option to continue watching clips you’ve already started, though it’s unclear where in its app or a separate Instagram will host this destination
• Launch Partners: Instagram has been meeting with social media stars and content houses to establish launch partners for the June 20th reveal
• Mid-Level Quality: The content is meant to approximate the clips you see on YouTube from star creators, shot with forethought and nice cameras, but most of it won’t be at the Netflix Originals or HBO-quality.
• Link-Outs: Instagram will let creators add a link that can visited by swiping up on the video so they can drive traffic to their other social presences, ecommerce stores, or websites.
• Monetization: Instagram plans to let creators earn money off their long videos, though it hasn’t finalized how yet. That couldtake the form of pre-roll ads or mid-break commercials, with creators potentially earning a revenue share.

It’s also quite possible that Instagram will announce that it’s hit 1 billion users, which would be a great way to draw content creators. Instagram hit 600 million in December 2016, 700 million in April 2017, and 800 million in September 2017. If it’s adding 100 million users every four months or so, that means it should have reached 1 billion by the June 20th event.

Instagram plans to launch Snapchat Discover-style video hub

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How Could the GDPR Affect Smart Home Devices? 2 Examples of Downed Services

Everyone’s being flooded with emails about privacy policy updates thanks to a new data protection law (GDPR) that went into effect in late May 2018.

The GDPR has affected almost every business that exists online, even those that mainly operate outside of the EU. While it’s still unclear how large the ramifications of the GDPR will truly be, services like Klout have already closed down instead of adapting to the new legislation.

Are smart home devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) the first thing that comes to mind after the GDPR? Probably not. But will they also be impacted? You bet. Here’s everything you need to know about how the GDPR could affect your smart home.

What Exactly Is the GDPR?

The GDPR is an EU regulation designed to protect the data of EU citizens. While it is EU legislation, it affects any business working within an EU country, and any business that processes data from EU citizens.

In short, it is incredibly wide-reaching. While the GDPR gives more power to new privacy protecting apps, many small businesses worry it will destroy the networks they worked so hard to create and build.

The law has been put in place to regulate the data collected from you by companies. This data can be as simple as your name, or as complex as your political beliefs and sexual orientation.

The GDPR is designed to replace the now outdated EU Data Protection Directive. This old legislation came into law in 1995 when the internet was a completely different place. With high profile data breaches becoming front-page news, it was time for updated legislation.

How the GDPR Affects the Internet of Things

Most smart home devices operate on a local Wi-Fi connection or using Bluetooth and infrared remotes (IR). At first glance, none of these things appear to fall foul of the new legislation. But problems arise when manufacturers use their own infrastructure to control devices.

An example of this is the Philips Hue Range. As one of the first smart lighting kits to hit the market, the Hue was an early success in mainstream smart home accessories. One popular feature is the ability to control your lights from anywhere using the Philips Hue App. Philips adapted to the GDPR by requiring users to re-login to their service.

Of the many smart lighting solutions out there, so far only one of them has been hit hard by the GDPR.

Yeelights: Service Unavailable in Europe

Yeelights, manufactured by the ever dominant Android phone and tablet manufacturer Xiaomi, offers a range with similar functionality to the Hue home set, and comes with a companion app to control their lights. The day the new legislation came in, users of the service opened the app to find this message:

The fairly curt message greeted all EU users of the app. Some reported being shown an updated privacy policy, only to still get the same message after accepting it. Yeelight responded to the unannounced shutdown through a forum post titled “European server service will be restored within a week”.

Later in the same thread, a Yeelights employee coasterli shed more light on the situation:

“Actually, we have been working on GDPR compliance for months. But unfortunately, we found a potential risk that might not fully compliant [sic] with GDPR requirement in the last minute.”

There has been no official announcement as to whether European customers can use the app again as yet, but if you have been affected, there is a workaround. In a Reddit thread, user njitramlieu discovered a way to side-step the issue:

What made this issue worse than it could have been was an apparent lack of communication from Yeelights until after the problem had affected their European customers.

So far this appears to be the only smart home system affected to this scale, though among the other websites affected by GDPR there is one that may indirectly affect your setup.

Instapaper: Questionable Data Collection

Instapaper allows users to clip articles to read later on a device of their choice. The service was acquired by Pinterest, who made its premium service free to all users in 2016.

At the time of writing, the Instapaper homepage redirects to a statement about GDPR:

WTF is instapaper doing with data? pic.twitter.com/eG2dhtkvnd

— Sam (@smithsam) May 23, 2018

As @smithsam (the Twitter user who shared the image) states, this does prompt some questions as to what a service like Instapaper is doing with its users’ information. Given the two year window to prepare for GDPR, it seems unlikely the dev team was taken by surprise.

This only affects smart home users if you have Instapaper as part of your home automation setup—for example, using Google Home to listen to your favorited articles. IFTTT itself is not affected, as outlined by a recent post on their website. Users will be able to choose in each case if they wish to share their data with the parties involved.

GDPR and the Future

So far the answer to whether GDPR will affect your smart home is No—unless you are affected by these two specific cases. Up until now, all other smart home and IoT projects seem to have dealt with the new regulation well.

As for the future? With more and more services using our information as part of the service they provide, and the lucrative industry that is user data, it seems likely there will be more turmoil on the horizon.

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The 9 Best Streaming Services That Offer Shared Family Plans

Many music and video streaming services offer family plans that make it easy to share one account with multiple users. A family plan usually costs more per month than an individual plan, but is cheaper on a per-user basis.

Family plans generally include the following:

• One person is responsible for playing the bill.
• Each member gets their own account with their own playlists and listen/watch history.
• If the primary account holder cancels the paid subscription, everyone else loses their premium accounts.

You might be thinking: “I could just share my login with family members and we can all listen or watch with one account.”

Actually, many music and video streaming services are way ahead of you. If you try to play music on Spotify on two devices, for example, the first stream will automatically stop. A family plan is often the only way around this restriction.

Music Streaming Services With Family Plans

All the major music streaming services offer a family plan.

Spotify

Spotify’s family plan requires that members live at the same address. Each member gets their own unique login, which means they get their own listening recommendations, playlists, and listening history.

Users who sign up for Spotify’s family plan get everything that comes with an individual premium account, including ad-free listening and offline mobile listening.

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo

Apple Music

Apple Music’s family plan, like Spotify’s, gives users personal accounts with their own playlists, recommendations, and more.

The catch with Apple Music is that you have to first set up iCloud Family Sharing, which also allows the sharing of apps, music, and iTunes purchases.

The person who sets up the Family Sharing account is essentially granting other users access to his or her payment method. If other accounts are set up as Child Accounts, they will have to request permission to make purchases.

With Apple Music’s family plan, you get everything that comes with individual accounts including offline listening, ad-free music, and access across multiple devices.

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo

Pandora

Pandora launched its family plan in May 2018. Pandora family plan users get their own unique logins and access to all premium features: ad-free listening, playlists, and unlimited skips and replays.

Pandora’s family plan also includes a unique feature called Our Soundtrack. This offers up an auto-generated playlist much like Spotify’s Discovery Playlist, but is based on the entire family’s listening habits.

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo

Google Play Music

Signing up for Google Play Music’s family plan gets each user access to their own personalized Google Play Music account for use on up to ten devices each. Users can also share eligible Google Play purchases in the family library.

They get access YouTube Red (soon to be YouTube Premium) for no additional cost, provided they live in a YouTube Red eligible country. The Google Play Music family plan itself is only available in 23 countries.

While Google doesn’t specify that family members have to live at the same address, they do at least have to live in the same country.

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo

Amazon Music Unlimited

Amazon Music Unlimited is not the same as Amazon Prime Music, with the primary difference being that Amazon Music Unlimited gives you access to over 10 million songs (as opposed to the 2 million in Prime Music).

The Amazon Music Unlimited family plan gives each member a personalized account with their own playlists, recommendations, and listening history.

Amazon Music Unlimited, like its cheaper alternative, offers unlimited skips and the ability to download songs to the app for offline listening. It also gives users the option to filter out explicit lyrics.

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo (or $149/year for Prime members)

Video Streaming Services With Family Plans

Not all video streaming services offer a family plan, but most do offer a way for more than one person to watch their favorite shows at the same time.

Amazon Prime (Video & Music)

Alongside two-day shipping and all the other benefits that come with Amazon Prime, users also get access to two million songs ad-free, and Prime Video.

Users can choose to sign up for a monthly or annual Prime membership, but to share Amazon Prime benefits, users must create an Amazon Household. Adult members can share payment methods if they want, and Amazon says that members of your household must live at the same address.

The household can consist of two adults, one of whom is the primary account holder, up to four teen profiles (ages 13 to 17), and up to four child profiles (ages 12 and under). The teen and child profiles have parental controls which include the ability to restrict the content viewed through Amazon Prime.

If two day shipping and access to Amazon Music doesn’t interest you, you can sign up for an “Amazon Prime Video only” account for $9/mo, but this technically doesn’t come with a family plan.

• Number of individual accounts: 2 adult accounts, 4 child accounts, 4 teen accounts
• Cost: $13/mo (or $119/year)

YouTube Red (YouTube Premium)

YouTube Red’s family plan is available for those living in the same household, ages 13 and up. To start a family plan, you need to create a Google Family Group and invite other members to use YouTube Red.

Members of the YouTube Red family plan can continue to use their own Google accounts to access the platform, and in so doing, get their own recommendations, history, preferences, and playlists.

YouTube Red family plans include all the same features as the individual account: ad-free watching, offline access and background play in the mobile apps, and access to YouTube Red originals. YouTube Red members also get full access to Google Play Music!

• Number of individual accounts: 6
• Cost: $15/mo

Netflix

Netflix’s family plans allow for simultaneous streaming, rather than creating individual accounts. While family members all share one login, they can create individual profiles with personalized recommendations and watch history. (And of course anyone with the login can see what you’ve viewed in your profile.)

Users can create up to five profiles in one Netflix account for personalized viewing, ratings and reviews, individual playback settings, and maturity level.

There are two options when it comes to family plans on Netflix: you can opt for the Standard Plan which gives you access to two simultaneous HD streams, or you can opt for the slightly more expensive Premium Plan which gives you four HD streams in HD or Ultra HD.

• Number of accounts: 2-4 simultaneous streams, up to 5 viewer profiles
• Cost: $11/mo (Standard) or $14/mo (Premium)

Hulu

Hulu technically doesn’t have a family plan, only a standard streaming plan for $8/mo and a commercial-free plan for $12/mo. However, users can create up to six profiles per account with personalized recommendations and watch history for each profile.

And while Hulu technically doesn’t offer simultaneous streaming, we found that even with the standard plan, we were still able to watch on two devices at the same time.

For Hulu’s Live TV offering, users pay $40/mo with Hulu explicitly including two simultaneous streams. Users can add unlimited screens to this plan for an extra $15/mo.

• Number of accounts: Technically 1 simultaneous stream, up to 6 viewer profiles
• Cost: $8/mo (Commercials) or $12/mo (No Commercials)

Choosing the Right Service With a Family Plan

The availability of a family plan can be a significant factor when it comes to selecting your music or video streaming service, but there are plenty of other things to bear in mind.

When choosing a movie and TV show streaming or the right music streaming service, you’ll want to think about basics like the catalog, the supported apps, and of course the cost. But if you do decide to take the plunge and select one of these services, all it takes is two people in a household to make it worth your while to sign up for a family plan.

Image Credit: dmitrimaruta/Depositphotos

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Pan-European seed fund firstminute hits a final fund close of $100M

New UK early stage VC firstminute Capital launched in June last year to the tune of $60m, with Atomico Ventures as it’s first cornerstone investor. They were joined by 30 unicorns founders form Europe. Last September they brought in the huge China-based company, Tencent, reaching a fund size of $85m.

Today firstminute capital, the London-based pan-European seed fund announced a final close of $100m, and detailed its first batch of early-stage investments made since September.

Two institutional investors have now joined. Henkel, the €60bn publicly-listed FMCG giant, is making its first investment into a European seed fund, and Lombard Odier, one of Europe’s largest private banks, also joins.

The fund has three partners: Brent Hoberman CBE, Spencer Crawley and Henry Lane-Fox. Hoberman is chairman and co-founder of Founders Factory, a corporate-backed incubator/accelerator based in London, and also of Founders Forum, a series of invitation-only, but influential annual global events for leading entrepreneurs. He co-founded lastminute.com in April 1998, and sold to Sabre for $1.1bn in 2005. Crawley is co-founder and General Partner was previously Business Development at AppDirect (a San Francisco-based cloud commerce platform provider, backed by Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital, latest valuation $1bn+), Investment Associate at DMC Partners (Goldman Sachs spin-out Special Opportunities fund), and Analyst in the Moscow office of Goldman Sachs. Lane-Fox is a partner at Founders Forum, Co-founder and CEO of Founders Factory, Co-founder of SmartUp.io, and previously part of the founding team of lastminute.com.

Hoberman said: “We’re excited to reach a significant milestone for firstminute, that helps us continue to support the most ambitious entrepreneurs globally. The latest investors to get behind the fund further increase our ability to have real impact, and we are buoyed by the rapid progress our portfolio founders are making. With our young and hard-working investment team, and our invaluable venture partners, we are hopeful that we can make our brand promise – of aspiring to be Europe’s most helpful seed fund – a reality. We were aiming to raise $60m for our first fund, and so to have closed our first fund at $100m is a strong signal for European technology.”

The link to Founders Forum is not insignificant. Hoberman curates an eclectic mix of founders investors and new entrepreneurs which has allowed him to tap a wide range of enthusiastic investors to his fund. These include the co-founders of lastminute.com, Supercell, Skyscanner, Trulia, Skype, Autonomy, Betfair, King.com, BlaBlaCar, Qunar, Carphone Warehouse, Datamonitor, PartyGaming, Tradex Technologies, Net-a-Porter, Capital One Bank, Fox Kids Europe, Webhelp, Airtel, PartyGaming and others, alongside other successes such as Marketshare, Ticketbis, Nordeus and LoveFilm. Tommy Stadlen, author, former Obama campaign speechwriter and co-founder of Swing, which exited to Microsoft, is both an investor in firstminute and a venture partner.

firstminute says it has a European focus – with the flexibility to follow local lead funding events in the US and Israel – and says its typically plans to invest $1m into seed-stage businesses.

There will be a sector agnostic remit for the fund, but wil take a particular interest in Robotics, vertical AI, Healthtech, Blockchain, SaaS, Cyber, Gaming and D2C.

The fund also released more details of its portfolio companies to date including:

• Cambridge self-driving start-up Wayve
/> • Fuel delivery business Zebra
• Wireless charging platform Chargifi
• ICO exchange Templum (which has raised an additional $10m).

Firstminute says three of its portfolio have raised subsequent rounds within 6 months of firstminute’s investment.

The geographic spread of their 17 investments to-date has been UK, Germany, Portugal and Israel, as well as four investments in the US.

Family offices also feature heavily in the fund.

These include the JCDecaux family (€6bn market cap business), Baron Davies of Abersoch (former Labour minister and Standard Chartered CEO & Chairman), Sir Paul Ruddock (former CEO of Lansdowne Partners and Chairman of Oxford University’s Endowment) and Alex de Carvalho (founder of Public.io and Heineken non-executive director).

Firstminute is also now introducing its full-time operating team consisting of six investors: Lina Wenner (Cambridge, BCG), Camilla Mazzolini (OLX, Berenberg), Elliot O’Connor (founder of Code at Uni), Sam Endacott (Goldman Sachs), Anais Benazet (Founders Forum) and Clara Lindh (former freelance journalist).

Finally, three venture partners complete the set-up. Steve Crossan, formerly of DeepMind and Google and co-founder & CTO of Brandwatch.com, currently also an XIR at Atomico; Arek Wylegalski, formerly of Index Ventures in London, and currently exploring opportunities in the blockchain space; and Tommy Stadlen.

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Xiaomi posts $1.1B quarterly loss ahead of much-anticipated IPO

A month after it filed for a much-anticipated Hong Kong IPO, Xiaomi has revealed a little more financial information after a monster 621-page document disclosed a $1.1 billion (seven billion RMB) loss for the first quarter of the year.

The IPO, which could value Xiaomi at up to $100 billion, could to be the largest IPO raise since Alibaba went public in the U.S. in 2014, and it will be boosted with a dose of positive financial growth despite a loss incurred by one-off payments.

The document, which was filed was an application to issue a CDRs as part of a dual-listing, showed that Xiaomi’s revenue for the quarter jumped to 34 billion RMB, or $5.3 billion. That’s compared to 114.6 billion RMB ($17.9 billion) in total sales for all of last year, according to digging from TechCrunch partner site Technode.

While Xiaomi posted a loss for the quarter, the firm actually posted a 1.038 billion RMB ($162 million) profit for the period when one-time items are excluded. Xiaomi previously registered a 43.9 billion RMB ($6.9 billion) loss in 2017 on account of issuing preferred shares to investors (54 billion RMB) but it did post a slim profit in 2016.

Xiaomi officially files for Hong Kong IPO to raise a reported $10 billion

The company is ranked fourth based on global smartphone shipments, according to analyst firm IDC, and it is one of the few OEMs to buck slowing sales in China.

China is, as you’d expect, the primary revenue market but Xiaomi is increasingly less dependent on its homeland. For 2017 sales, China represented 72 percent, but it had been 94 percent and 87 percent, respectively, in 2015 and 2016. India is Xiaomi’s most successful overseas venture, having built the business to the number one smartphone firm based on market share, and Xiaomi is pledging to double down on other global areas.

Interestingly there’s no mention of expanding phone sales to the U.S., but Xiaomi has pledged to put 30 percent of its IPO towards growing its presence in Southeast Asia, Europe, Russia “other regions.” Currently, it said it sells products in 74 countries, that does include the U.S. where Xiaomi sells accessories and non-phone items.

Despite its design progress, relative age as an eight-year-old company and the fact it is shooting for a $100 billion, Xiaomi left some spectators disappointed when it wheeled out a very iPhone X-looking new device earlier this month. While the company claims the Mi 8 is packed with new technology, it’s hard to look past the fact that a number of its visual designs are identical to Apple’s flagship smartphone. Xiaomi could have made a stronger statement of intent with the launch, but it will hope its financials can do the talking as it moves into the last moments of preparation before its public listing.

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25 Useful iPhone Productivity Apps That’ll Help You Get Things Done

Your iPhone is one of the best tools for becoming more productive. But there are thousands of productivity apps out there—how do you know which ones to use?

This guide is available to download as a free PDF. Download 25 Useful iPhone Productivity Apps That’ll Help You Get Things Done now. Feel free to copy and share this with your friends and family.

We’ve ranked the 25 best iPhone productivity apps for you here. Which app will take the #1 spot? Keep reading to find out.

25. Forest

Staying focused is hard. Forest makes it easier by showing you how long you’ve been able to resist getting distracted by your phone. The longer you leave the app open (blocking other apps), the more your forest grows.

And now you can grow a forest with your friends—but only as long as everyone stays focused. It adds peer pressure to the previous gentle reminder. And the makers of the app will even plant real trees for the ones you grow in the app.

Download: Forest ($2)

24. Astro

The average person spends 13 hours a week reading and responding to email according to SaneBox. What could you do if you got a few of those hours back? Astro will help you find out. Gmail and Office 365 integration, email snooze, priority inbox and notifications, and an in-app calendar make it a stellar iPhone email app.

Astro also gives you the power of an AI assistant. It responds to hundreds of text and voice commands and will help you get work done quickly. The “zap” command is especially useful—it starts up an inbox-cleaning protocol.

Download: Astro (Free)

23. Wrike

If you need to manage projects on the go, Wrike is a great choice. It gives you the project management features you’d expect, like Gantt charts, assignments, approval workflows, and time and budget tracking.

For small teams, Wrike can serve as a free shared task list. Larger teams willing to pay get a full project-management app that keeps team members coordinated and productive.

Download: Wrike (Free)

22. Be Focused Pro

The Pomodoro system is great… but what if you don’t like the traditional 25/5 split? Be Focused Pro is a Pomodoro timer and to-do list app that lets you customize your work intervals. Set the short and long intervals, decide on your break times, enter your tasks, and get moving.

Be Focused Pro also offers notifications, alarms, and other settings that will keep you on pace. There’s even an Apple Watch app so you can take your intervals on the go.

Download: Be Focused Pro ($1)

21. Habitica

Gamification is here to stay. And Habitica is by far the most fun gamified iPhone productivity app. Enter your tasks and the daily/weekly/monthly habits you want to put in place, and start working. When you complete a task, you earn experience. You can use that experience to level up, get new gear, and battle monsters.

Beyond the fun fantasy interface, Habitica is a great way to cement new habits. The theme won’t appeal to everyone, but it’s a welcome break from dry productivity apps.

Download: Habitica (Free, subscription available)

20. Harvest

While it’s pitched as a tool for businesses that need to track employee time, Harvest shows anyone where they’re spending time.

Add tasks, assign time to them, and get reports later to see which tasks you’re spending time on. If you’re a freelancer, you can also use expense logging and invoicing right from the app to simplify your billing process.

Download: Harvest (Free)

19. Bear

While Evernote is still the king of note-taking apps, Bear is making strong inroads. Instead of being bloated with features, it aims for a minimal interface with pleasing typefaces and advanced markup features.

The disadvantage of Bear is that it’s iOS and Mac-only. But if you’re invested in the Apple ecosystem, that won’t be a problem. You can enjoy a great note-taking app designed specifically for iOS. Think of it as a level between Apple Notes and Evernote—and with great design built right in.

Download: Bear (Free, subscription available)

18. Edison Mail

There are a lot of great iPhone email apps, but few have security in mind. Edison Mail prevents email snooping with Touch ID or Face ID authentication.

Beyond that, you get integration with many mail services, custom swipes, intelligent mail categorization, and smart notifications. It’s a great way to unify your myriad inboxes from around the web.

Download: Edison Mail (Free)

17. Nirvana

The Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity system requires a highly organized app to support it. And Nirvana was built specifically around that purpose. At its core, it’s a task manager, but it also lets you capture information, sort by location, and focus on your next task.

Nirvana Pro adds even more functionality, with unlimited projects, areas, and reference lists. You’ll also need the pro level if you want to create recurring tasks. Even without these features, there’s a ton of organizational power here for GTD enthusiasts.

Download: Nirvana (Free)

16. Productive

This app is all about developing and maintaining habits. First, create items for your habits. Then set their recurrence intervals, and choose morning, afternoon, or evening. Finally, track your successes!

You’ll use the don’t-break-the-chain method to build up streaks of habits. Productive gives you detailed reports of how well you’re doing so you can make tweaks, too.

Download: Productive (Free, subscription available)

15. Zendone

Evernote has been the go-to app for the Getting Things Done system nearly forever. But Zendone doesn’t try to replicate Evernote’s functions. Instead, it serves as a task list and project management app that integrates with Evernote to pull in your notes when you need them.

In this way, Zendone lets you go through the entire GTD process—from collection to archiving to delegation to action—from a single app. The Google Calendar integration makes it easy to schedule future tasks, too. The only downside is that there’s no free option; you can get a trial, but after that you’ll pay at least $5 per month.

Download: Zendone (Free trial, subscription required)

14. OneNote

Microsoft’s note-taking app used to feel like a tacked-on addition to Microsoft Office. But updates to the app added many useful features, and it now rivals Evernote for the crown of best note-taking app.

The biggest advantage is that it’s completely free; there are no upgrade options. But there’s also built-in sketching support for the iPad, powerful organization tools, and cloud sync with OneDrive.

Download: OneNote (Free)

13. Fantastical 2

This calendar app is all about flexibility. With numerous views and themes, you can look at your schedule in the way you prefer. And it works with iCloud, Google Calendar, Exchange, and others, so you can see all your calendars in one place.

The widget and interactive notifications also make sure you don’t forget any of your events. And if you have a newer iPhone, you can use 3D Touch to interact with your events and notifications.

Download: Fantastical 2 ($5)

12. Omnifocus 2

If you’ve looked for the best iPhone GTD apps, you’ve almost certainly come across Omnifocus. It’s built from the ground up for Getting Things Done. It will help you keep the various parts of your life separate—it’s the best organization app for GTDers.

Perspectives let you see only work, personal, or any other category of task. Tons of view options narrow in on specifics. There’s a phenomenal amount of customizability here, and with it a huge amount of power. It’s going to take a while to get the hang of it, but there might be no better app for managing your entire life with GTD.

Download: Omnifocus 2 (Free trial, subscription required)

11. Trello

Trello’s iPhone app will help you coordinate an entire project team or just get yourself organized. The Kanban-style organization makes for great visual workflows. Just drag and drop cards into new categories as they progress.

You can also create checklists in each card, assign cards to other users, add due dates, upload files, and color-code tasks. Each card serves as its own to-do list, making Trello a great app for managing several areas of your life.

Download: Trello (Free, subscription available)

10. Microsoft To-Do

To-Do is the successor to one of our favorite productivity apps: Wunderlist. Microsoft bought the company and has rebranded the app.

You’ll get all the same features you came to expect with Wunderlist: a simple interface, easy operation, intelligent suggestions, lists, and cloud sync.

It doesn’t offer more features than the best to-do list apps listed below, but the familiar interface and easy syncing across platforms is still appealing.

Download: Microsoft To-Do (Free)

9. Google Calendar

You may take it for granted, but Google Calendar is still one of the best productivity apps. And the iPhone version is arguably better than the browser-based one.

It all starts with the view. The clean interface makes it easy to see what you’re doing and when. You can quickly flip through the coming days to get an idea of what’s ahead, and automatically generated images highlight important events.

Smart text interpretation makes it easy to get events on your schedule in just a few taps. And it automatically imports information from Gmail, so your calendar invites, flights, and hotel reservations are already linked in.

Download: Google Calendar (Free)

8. Evernote

There’s no productivity app more popular than Evernote. If you can think of a feature that would be useful for taking notes on your iPhone, Evernote has it.

In addition to all the organizational power of the desktop version, the iPhone app adds features for easy note-taking on the go. One-button note creation, the ability to add photos, a purpose-built business card scanner, and support for handwriting are just the tip of the iceberg.

You can also use 3D Touch to pull up quick actions on your notes to save even more time. Pressure-sensitive sketching takes advantage of new iPhone technology, too. If you want more power than Apple Notes, and you’re alright with a slightly more cluttered interface, Evernote is tough to beat.

Download: Evernote (Free, subscription available)

7. Calendars 5

Google Calendar is great, but Calendars 5 takes it to the next level with tons of different views and a built-in to-do list function. You can connect absolutely any type of third-party calendar. (It even supports AOL!)

Natural language support makes it easy to add events quickly; you can even create events with Siri. And although the task manager is relatively simple compared to some of the other productivity apps on this list, the fact that it’s in the same app as your calendar is really useful.

Calendars 5 isn’t cheap, but if you spend a lot of time in your calendar, it’s worth it.

Download: Calendars 5 ($7)

6. Asana

While it’s generally meant for team-based project management, Asana works equally well for categorizing your own tasks and projects. No matter how many people and projects you’re trying to organize, Asana’s mobile app will keep you on track.

Having the ability to check your tasks in both Kanban and standard views makes this a great alternative to Trello for people who want added flexibility. The calendar and to-do views also make this a versatile project management app.

That versatility is what makes it one of the best organization apps around. It offers tons of ways to store your data and just as many to access and manage it.

Download: Asana (Free)

5. Pocket

While you could use Evernote to store all the articles you’ve been meaning to go back and read, the reading experience from Pocket sets it apart. Whether you’re collecting and reading productivity tips or just grabbing the latest posts on your favorite blogs, Pocket will help you do it.

One of the best ways you can use Pocket to improve productivity on your iPhone is to throw articles into it—either via the app or on your computer—and get in the habit of reading when you have a few minutes to spare.

All you need to do is open the app and tap the first article. Then start reading. You’ll learn more, be more inspired, and have more fuel for productivity from just a few seconds here and there.

Download: Pocket (Free, subscription available)

4. Gmail

Gmail continually reinvents how we deal with email. And as it come up with new ideas to test in the Inbox app, those ideas get moved to the Gmail app. With the latest Gmail redesign, you have access to lots of new features that will help you manage your email more efficiently.

You can now snooze emails in Gmail so they come back later—freeing up space in your inbox and your brain. Priority and categorized inboxes automatically sort your important emails to where you can see them. Reminders let you know that it’s been a while since you received an email and should probably follow up.

New features roll out all the time, and when they’re perfected, they arrive on the Gmail app. No longer content as just a communication tool, Google has turned Gmail into a full-blown productivity powerhouse.

Download: Gmail (Free)

3. TickTick

Flexible scheduling, custom repeat schedules, subtasks, and multiple reminders all help you manage your workload with TickTick. But it’s more than just a to-do app.

The premium version of TickTick offers calendar integration, custom smart lists, and even integration with Siri. It also offers a task timer, which is great when you want to time block your tasks or you need to file reports for hourly billing.

The free version does include a Pomodoro timer, which is nice—that’s one less productivity app you need on your phone. (Unfortunately, the Windows app is premium-only at this time.)

Download: TickTick (Free, subscription available)

2. Things 3

As the most expensive to-do list app on this list, Things 3’s price tag might turn many people off. But ten bucks gets you a huge amount of power. There’s no free plan here to tease you with a few features; you get the whole package right away.

Everything in the app is focused on helping you organize your tasks in the way that works for you. Headings for subtasks, completion pie charts, projects, drag-and-drop scheduling and organization, and dozens of other features make this a tough app to compete with.

It very well may be the best iPhone to-do list app. (The desktop version is one of the best Mac productivity apps, too.) But the price tag keeps it at #2.

Download: Things 3 ($10)

1. Any.do

There are a ton of to-do apps available, and more are released all the time. But Any.do is always near the top of the list. Its simple interface belies a great deal of power, from integration with Google Calendar and iCloud to a built-in AI assistant.

That assistant is still in early access, but it’s very promising; a combination of chatbots and humans should help you get work done faster than ever.

Even without the assistant, Any.do is one of the best to-do list apps on the iPhone, without question. The calendar integration is especially useful. If Apple were to design a task management app (other than Reminders, of course), it would likely look a lot like Any.do.

Download: Any.do (Free, subscription available)

Pick the Best iPhone Productivity App for You

It’s easy to fall down the black hole of iOS productivity apps. Trying to find the best to-do list app can take weeks or months of trying out different options.

But in the end, it’s not about finding the perfect app—it’s about finding one that works for you.

Try a few of the apps above, pick a couple that work well for you, and start using them. You’ll develop habits and workflows that help you boost your productivity no matter which apps you choose!

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