5 Under-The-Radar Apps You Should Know

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I don’t know whether it’s a function of my age, nosiness, or just the times we live in, but one of my favorite things to do is see what apps other people are using on their phones that I may not have heard about yet.

So, in the spirit of flipping the script, I’m sharing 5 of my recent favorite apps with you all in hopes that maybe at least 1 or 2 of them might be new (and useful) to you.

Plus, I’ve always been a big fan of tech reviewers like MKBHD, Peter McKinnon, and Casey Neistat (although, granted, all three are much more than tech reviewers).

App 1: Highball (iOS | Free+)

I discovered Highball one weekend back home in Boston when my dad and I were concocting a new cocktail called the Casa Cidre (recipe below). We didn’t have a good place to store the new recipe digitally and Notes just wasn’t cutting it.

Enter: Highball.

This is a beautifully designed that has all sorts of hidden features from choosing the cup, ice type, and garnish (among other things) when representing the drink you’ve just created, to importing a recipe from an actual photo (you know, the no-flash one of the cocktail list you took at dinner?).

Casa Cidre Recipe: 2 parts casamigos tequila, 1 part apple cider, 1 part fresh lemon juice, half part elixir g ginger syrup, half part agave nectar, 2 dash of angostura bitters, 1 pinch cinnamon. Combine all & shake. Serve over ice with thyme, apple slice, star anise and cinammon sprinkle.

App 2: Tunity (iOS/Android | Free)

Ever been at the airport or gym and wish you could hear the audio of the TV that’s been muted for some reason? This handy app lets you scan the screen and automatically syncs the audio from the station that’s playing to your phone so you can listen in peace through your phone or headphones.

I always use this at the airport and just last week when I travelled to Houston, I watched the Red Sox beat the Yankees with full audio straight from the bar TV into my bluetooth headphones.

A nice added feature is that they have a clever way of slightly tweaking the sync speed so if it’s off for any reason you can manually adjust it to match.

App 3: HomeCourt (iOS | Free+)

Now, this is a cool app — the rise in Augmented Reality presence within apps these days is very exciting and this seems to be a really unique and helpful instance of AR “augmenting” the usefulness of an app.

Next time you go shoot hoop, bring a small tripod and position your phone so it’s facing the court, HomeCourt does the rest. It’s able to figure out where the court is and also where you are. It then tracks your shots and which ones you make and miss. The end result? A perfectly tracked session with full data so you can see what types of shots you always hit or miss without having to hire a full-time shot tracker (do those even exist?).

App 4: SketchAR | Free+

Are you sensing a trend? Like HomeCourt (featured above), SketchAR also uses augmented reality but in a slightly different way. If you’re anything like me, you wish you could draw better. Also, if you’re like me, when you try to draw, it ends up being the same mountain with a stream running through it or fancy line-drawn S that you mastered back in 5th grade social studies.

Enter: SketchAR.

It has a library of hundreds of examples that, through AR scanning of your page, it guides you step by step through the process of building the image in a systematic way. Now, that’s cool.

App 5: Unfold | Free+

The final app I wanted to share with you all today is one called Unfold. I’m almost positive that if you follow any major photographers on Instagram like ioegreer or jacob you’ve seen Unfold in use, just maybe without knowing what app they were using.

In short, it’s a beautiful way to create more thoughtfully-designed Instagram Stories and has all sorts of layouts, grids, etc. for you to play around with. It also lets you add text and create mini stories and then export them all in one simple manner to upload right to IG.

If you’re looking for a quick way to instantly make your Stories look more professional, look no further than Unfold.

And that’s that! Hope you enjoyed this little experiment of mine. If you liked this type of post, please let me know in the comments below–I’m happy to make it a weekly series.

Plus, if you have favorite apps that you think are under-the-radar, I’d love to hear what they are!