This week’s top iOS apps feature an a subject near and dear to my heart: A Charlie Brown Christmas. The official app of A Charlie Brown Christmas leads off our list this week, but we also have selections for big time blog readers, wine drinkers, energy hoarders and The Economist’s readers.
A Charlie Brown Christmas ($2.99)
It’s fitting that one of the best Christmas specials should have such a fantastic app. As an interactive experience, A Charlie Brown Christmas is hard to top. The app has features that should appeal to fans of the classic alongside interactive games that younger kids will find engrossing. There is original dialogue from the special alongside narration provided by the original voice of Charlie Brown. Meanwhile, users can decorate their own Charlie Brown Christmas tree, play Schreoder’s piano and listen to the Peanuts gang singing Christmas carols. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, indeed.
NuffnangX (Free)
Despite its mystifying name, NuffnangX might be of great use to the reader who powers through dozens of blogs a day. Primarily, the app makes it easy to follow a number of blogs in one app environment so you don’t have to manage a series of convoluted bookmarks. But NuffnangX also distills blog posts down to a single sentence so you can know ahead of time whether it’s worth the effort to read the rest of the post. Finally, NuffnangX makes it easy to communicate directly with the blogger you’re reading as long as they’re using the NuffnangX software, creating an open dialogue between writer and reader.
Vivino Wine Scanner Pro ($4.99)
When I choose a bottle of wine, it’s because the animal on the label looks pretty cool. But for more sophisticated drinkers out there, there’s Vivino Wine Scanner Pro. Users can take a photo of the bottle and the app matches it against a database of more than 500,000 wines. If there’s no automatic match a team of experts will do the matching, and then provide various facts on the wine including ratings and tasting notes. Users can then build a custom wine list of all the wines they’ve tasted while keeping track of wines they liked or disliked. Pro users get higher priority manual scanning and ability to search the wine database via text-search.
Juice (Free)
Feeling low on energy? Juice helps you track your energy level, complete with tips from various dieticians and nutrition writers. Users rate their own energy level and then are given an “ingredient” list of things they may be lacking in their life like sleep, exercise, and nutrition, from there they can see just what they need to improve upon to have a higher energy level. It’s a simple and fun way to take better care of yourself on the fly.
The World in 2013 From The Economist (Free)
Whether you enjoyed the print edition of The Economist’s “The World in 2013” issue and you want a digital copy or you haven’t had a chance to read it at all yet, there’s plenty of appeal to check out The Economist’s predictions for the upcoming year. The app grabs experts in the world of politics, business and science to offer 2013 forecasts in numerous fields. Things like the global outlook, Euro-zone confidence, and global outlook by industry are covered.
