Thing #19: Hobbies

Genealogy is my primary hobby, and I already have the best apps on my phone and tablet. I have heard a lot about Spotify: my 30-something son and 20-something niece are both devotees. I do love listening to many genres of music, but didn't think I needed yet another way to do so. I've got iTunes, Pandora, Play Music, Amazon, MPR, TuneIn. I'm into my own mixes more than following the lists of others.

Spotify appears to be a pretty comprehensive suite: songs and albums of all sorts, related artist suggestions, tour schedules, and bios. I searched out a few of my obscure favorites and was pleased to find them represented. Exploring Spotify will be a great time gobbler, I can tell already.

Thing #18: Education

I'll being heading to San Antonio next week for a librarians' convention, so I opted for the DuoLingo language instruction app. It's simple but useful lessons introduced me to some beginner's Spanish. It would probably be useful to also look for a translation app if I get serious about adding a language. I may try the French lessons - it has been 40 years since I took my last formal class in that.

Thing #17: Connecting with Community

Rather than choose from the selected apps, I searched for anything Minnesota in the Play App Store. Just for something completely different, I installed the Minnesota Wildflowers Lite version, which profiles a couple dozen common flowers seen in the Gopher State. Each item has a nice photo, with basics such as Latin name, habitat, and characteristics of the flower, leaves, and stem. You can save your own notes and create lists. The paid version has hundreds of flowers. This is a fun little app, and I found out about Butter & Eggs and Pipsissewa.

Thing #16: Audio

IPadio is a slick little app for recording short audio snippets. It is intuitive and straightforward. I tried only the tablet recording option rather than the phone, but it worked quite well. My sample is a favorite poem by e.e. cummings.

Obit for an App

Springpad will be no more as of June 25, 2014.  They thoughtfully provided a migration plan for Evernote users, so I am already converted. I liked this app the most of those I've learned about through the 23 Things, so I am sorry to see it go. I wasn't as attached to it as I was to Google Reader, but it is still sad to see good apps go away when there are so many lousy ones in the marketplace.

Thing #15: Infographics

While I love the images that Infographics Hub collects and categorizes, the app itself is disappointing. I was not able to set up a personal login for saving items I found, and attempts at both searching and sharing via email crashed it. Luckily the sources are usually on the images, so this app can still function as a locator. But then so can Google Images. I liked this one on What Can Humans Learn from Animals.

Thing #14: Video

I am not much into sharing pictures and video. I have Facebook friends who capture so much of their lives that one feels like they've moved in with them. I'm sure their children will cherish those movies and pix someday but right now I'm a bit of a Luddite in that regard. Super 8 reels probably elicited the same reaction a generation back.

My first try at video was created with Magisto, an Editor's Pick on Google Play Store. The star is Duncan Cat, whose tuxedo lent an air of elegance to the film despite his low-key portrayal. I couldn't get an easy connection to my still photos or my own music so this first try is not quite what I wanted.  It felt like the app had all the control of the finished product and I wasn't really directing it. Maybe that's all one needs for a quick post on a social media destination. I liked it enough to pay $.99 to download it from the free app.