App reviews: Hop, Line a Day

Hop

There are a lot of email haters in the world. In some ways it can be an outdated form of communication, particularly for those who prefer rapid-fire threads with a pace more like text messaging. Hop aims to bring the best of both worlds together with an email app that looks like a messaging app.

Hop's novel yet intuitive way of managing messages takes a lot of what is overwhelming out of the inbox. You can scroll back into the history of your conversation. Files, photos and GIFs - of course, GIFs - are all embedded in the feed.

Not every conversation is going to be suited to the messaging-like format, of course. In those cases, the app will display the messages in a style more like a traditional inbox - with a tap, you can also switch to that view on any message. But for quick conversations, where you're setting up plans or sending little more than a "got it," the messaging format makes a lot of sense. Free, for iOS and Android.

Line a Day

Have you ever tried to cultivate a journaling habit and failed? It can happen to everyone: Some days seem too humdrum to mention, while others are so busy that you just can't find the time. But Line a Day tries to reduce the tyranny of the blank page by limiting what you can write to 100 characters. That's less than a tweet - certainly you can come up with at least that much on any given day. Users can also post a picture in their entry. You can review your posts at any time and even have the option to read a month's worth of lines together if you want to reminisce.

The app is free, but ad-supported - you will see an ad every time you save an entry, for example. It may be worth it for some to pay the $2 to get rid of ads. In addition to getting an ad-free experience, the premium version of the app will also let you upload up to three pictures to any given entry as well as an audio clip.

Free, for iOS.