It’s Worth It App Wednesday (#WAW) again, my weekly look at a couple of apps I think are well worth spending your money on. While there are free apps for virtually every imaginable need out there these days, it’s worth checking out the available paid apps, and seeing how much better designed and full-functioned they often are.
Worth It iOS App of The Week: TapeACall Pro
Ever conduct phone interviews on your iPhone or need to record your calls for other reasons? If that’s the case, TapeACall Pro is the app you need. Calls are recorded by creating a three-way call between you, the person you’re talking to, and a third number that accesses the TapeACall Pro recording service. If your carrier allows three-way calls, you’re good to go.
The app is $9.99, and it’s worth noting that unlike most other call recording apps, once you purchase TapeACall Pro there are no additional costs; you can record an unlimited amount of calls of limitless duration. Your only possible cost would be for the additional call to dial into the recording service – but even that is only limited by the available minutes on your calling plan.
Once recorded, audio from calls can be uploaded to the usual myriad cloud services, sent via email or SMS, and even posted to Twitter or Facebook. If you have a specific use or general need to record calls, you can’t go wrong with TapeACall Pro.
Worth It Mac App of The Week: Flare 2
Flare 2, a second-generation photo editing app from longtime Mac developer The Iconfactory enables you to easily and quickly apply any of the included filters to your photos, similar to Instagram. Of course, Flare 2 has far more filters than Instagram, including an active online community that’s always developing and sharing filters. With the ability to stack multiple filters, and customize individual filters, the creative options are virtually endless.
Without much effort or photographic know-how you can turn your comparatively mundane photos into artistic gems.
With iCloud syncing capabilities, you can share your custom filters between your Macs, and even with your iOS devices using the companion Flare Effects (App Store download) app. On your iOS device you can apply the filters via the Edit command in the Photos app, and share the finished photos with the usual social media services.
At $14.99 it might be more expensive than most of the apps you usually buy, but for the ease of use in creating stunning (or at least visually interesting) images on your Mac, it’s a good buy.
