App reviews: GifsArt, Thirty
GifsArt
By now, we're all probably pretty familiar with GIFs, those looping and often loopy short videos that can sometimes say so much more than your own words. (Or an emoji.)
But what if you don't want to rely on other people's GIFs for your own expression?
Try GifsArt, a super-easy GIF maker that lets you use your own photos and videos to create your own short masterpieces. You can shoot from the app or use images from your own library, then add on effects such as stickers or filters to customize your shots.
GifsArt gives you a lot of opportunity for customization, down to the speed that you want your GIF to play.
You can opt to share them on social media, or save them to your phone if you'd prefer. You can also add text, if you think the GIF doesn't quite capture the message you wanted to share on its own. It's true that - when it comes to GIFs - you may still want to rely on Kermit the Frog or Beyoncé to get your message across some of the time. But GifsArt is there if you want a more personal touch.
Free, for iOS devices.
Thirty
The start of a new year always brings plenty of new plans with it, and a host of apps out there could help you meet those goals. Different motivation methods work for different people.
Thirty, a habit-tracking app, focuses on social support and notifications to get you moving toward your goals. It also tries to make forming a habit into a smaller, more digestible goal: doing something for 30 days.
That could be easier to tackle, mentally, than saying "today is the first day of the rest of my life." Your phone will notify you to ask whether you've met your goal for that day; you can schedule those notifications.
You need to make an account to start making goals, but you can opt to make your goals private or public. You can also look through other people's public goals and "rethirty" them - meaning that you can make your own goal based on theirs as a template.
So if you see someone else vowing to learn something new every day or to practice an instrument for 30 minutes a day, you can join them on that quest.
Free, for Android devices.