It’s the weekend—and a long one at that! You didn’t think the holidays were going to keep us from putting out our Apps of the Week update, did you? On the contrary, we have some fantastic picks for you this week including a time-traveling music discovery app, an AI tutor for learning to code in Python, and an AI-infused sketch app. And as always, we’ve selected an awesome new game for you to check out.
Rewind: Music Time Travel
Here is an interesting concept: a music app that lets you discover new music from decades ago. Hear the psychedelic music that transformed the 60s, or the disco music that took over the 70s—you can check out virtually any era. There’s even a Weekly Discovery feature that celebrates anniversaries of influential albums. The down side? For now, it only connects to Tidal (seriously bro, Tidal?), but the good news is it also connects to YouTube with video support, and it sounds like the developer is working on adding support for other streaming services.
Codebay: Learn python with AI
Somewhere there is a New Year’s resolutions list of mine from 5+ years ago that I’ve yet to cross anything off of. It’s stuff like learning to speak a new language, reading more books, or reading a book, and learning to code. I’ve tried several times to learn to code, and it just seems impossible to stick with. Maybe Codebay can help. It advertises itself as an app that helps coding become ‘a delightful journey.’ Yeah, ok. Sarcasm aside, the app does look interesting, with an AI tutor that gives you tips when you’re stuck, a streak tracker, flash cards, and is that a…lecture on Forrest Gump? Ok I’m sold, learning to code is going back on my 2024 New Year’s resolutions list.
Drawww: Realtime AI Drawing
I saved the best for last. From what I gather, this is a rather highly anticipated app. Drawww—that’s with 3 W’s, not two, not four—turns your crappy sketches into masterpieces in seconds, with the help of AI. Most current AI image generators only use text prompts or images, but by using your own real-time drawings, you can expect much more accurate results. As a long-time crappy doodler myself, I can’t wait to try this app out. I don’t usually like featuring apps on this list that haven’t fully launched yet, but you can pre-order Drawww for free, and as I’m writing this, the App Store page says ‘Expected Dec 23, 2023,’ so hopefully it will be out by the time this post goes live on Saturday.
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 marks the rebirth of an industry juggernaut. It first came out in what, 2005? And now it’s back on all your favorite consoles, as well as iOS. Can we just take a moment to appreciate that you can get massive titles like this on iPhone, for free? I know there are tons of IAPs and maybe even some of the game and its features are hidden behind a paywall, but still you can download and play at least some of the game for free. That’s awesome! I play Call of Duty all the time on my iPhone—a full, $60 console game; free on iOS. Anyway, I’ve done all this talking and said zero about the game so quickly: modernized gameplay, reimagined storyline, vividly detailed graphics, survival horror at its finest. I know what I’m doing over the long weekend.