Spottly, Audm, Motivate, and other apps to check out this weekend

This week’s edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a new travel app with a modern twist, an app that reads out the best long-form journalism content, and an app that serves up daily motivational videos. And as always, we’ve selected two great new games for you to check out.

Spottly

The App Store is is overcrowded with travel apps, but I’m always on the lookout for curated apps that can cutdown your research time and improve your trips. And that’s kind of what Spottly is. The app uses algorithms and user curation to highlight the best places to visit and things to do on your next vacation. Items are presented in photo form, so you can visual what you’ll be doing, and ranked by popularity. Spottly is available for free.

Audm

This is kind of interesting. Have you ever wanted to read more long-form journalism, but just can’t find the time? Meet Audm, the app that features the best content from the top publications around the world, read aloud by celebrated audiobook narrators. Supported publications include WIRED, The Atlantic, Esquire and ProPublica. Features include playlists, offline listening and more. There’s a free trial, which I think is worth checking out, and if you like it it’s $6.99/month for full access. Audm is available for free.

Motivate

This isn’t a new app, but it’s still worth checking out for folks looking for an extra helping of inspiration. Motivate delivers handpicked motivation videos to you daily. You can watch the clips in-app, listen to them in the background, save your favorites, and even share them with friends. I know this stuff may seem kind of cheesy, but for a lot of people it can be really useful and encouraging. Motivation is available in the App Store for free.

A Planet of Mine

A Planet of Mine is an engaging game combining exploration, mining, and strategy. Fully adapted for mobile devices, each game is unique thanks to an innovative “stellar system generator” that distributes resources, recruitable species, spoonable biomes, and buildable planets until a complete playground is yours to command. Some systems feature AI-controlled, faction-building opponents. Will you trade with these factions or fight them for control of the entire system. The choice is yours. A Planet of Mine is available for free (with some IAPs).

Full Throttle Remastered

Originally released by LucasArts in 1995, Full Throttle is a classic graphic adventure game from industry legend Tim Schafer, telling the story of Ben Throttle; butt-kicking leader of biker gang the Polecats, who gets caught up in a tale of motorcycles, mayhem and murder. Now over 20 years later, Full Throttle is back in a remastered edition that features all new hand-drawn and 3D high-resolution artwork, and remastered audio and music. Full Throttle Remastered is available for $4.99.

More apps to check out