Congratulations everyone, we made it to another weekend! That means it’s time for our Apps of the Week roundup, and oh boy do we have some great picks for you this week. There’s a document scanner with an AI assistant, a palette design tool, and a travel guide for #vanlifers. And as always, we’ve selected a fun new game for you to check out.
ScanBoy – Document Scanner
ScanBoy bills itself as the “ultimate document scanner,” and that seems a bit ambitious, given how many stalwart titles there are in this category. But it does have a few things going for it. Scanning is quick, just point your camera at the document and press a button, and there’s built-in OCR for grabbing and extracting text, as well as AI-generated file names. That’s right, the built-in AI assistant will generate smart, descriptive file names for you, so you don’t have to type each one up manually. The app also has a fun design, with themes(!), so if you aren’t already committed to a scanning app or service, ScanBoy seems worth giving a shot.
Palette Hunt
Palette Hunt is a neat little tool that will help you get your creative juices flowing, whether you are making art, creating a website, or redesigning a bedroom. The app features retro gaming aesthetics, and some quirky UI prompts such as “red pill or blue pill,” but the end game is to put you on a color, or a set of colors, you would’ve otherwise not seen. There’s an Automatic Mode that can pull colors from images you upload, a Demo Mode that lets you see your palettes in real-world designs, and since the app supports .aco file types, you can easily export all palettes to your favorite design software.
Nomadgem
It seems #vanlife has become a super popular thing these days. People everywhere are ditching their expensive mortgages and rents, in favor of tricked out vans, buses, and SUVs, in an effort to “find themselves” as they road trip across the country. If that’s you, or sounds interesting to you, you might want to check out Nomadgem. It’s essentially a digital travel companion built especially for things like campsites, motorhome areas, rest areas, car parks, and much more. “This is what I get to wake up to” the newly-minted travel influencer said, as he pointed to a polluted lake while cleaning out his composting toilet. Anyway, for a fun travel app that focuses on road-tripping essentials, check out Nomadgem.
Word Train
What do you get when you mix Dominos, Scrabble, Snake, and Wordle in a blender? You get Word Train. It’s a daily word-grid puzzle that aims to test your vocabulary knowledge and strategic skills. Every day you are given a start and end letter, each placed several spaces apart on the game board. You must make a “train” of words starting with the beginning letter, and ending with the end letter. You can use all the letters, but you get bonus points every time you use the day’s chosen letters, and your train must have a direct path to the end letter — no branching. It’s an interesting concept, that flexes a few more brain muscles than your typical word game. I also like this new trend of getting daily challenges like this, that can be played fairly quickly. So, uh, yeah, check out Word Train this weekend.