Do you use any apps that are so good you are compelled to tell people about them? Well I do. I have set a very high bar for what I consider an A+ app, so when I find one that meets my bar, it’s gotta be good. What makes an amazingly great app? The first requirement is that it has to satisfy a need. So if you don’t have any pictures to scan, don’t watch movies, never take taxis, don’t care whether people pay you back, don’t need to lose weight, and don’t mind standing in long checkout lines, you probably won’t get excited about any of these apps. But I don’t think a person like that would even be here in the first place, so I think you should read on.

You have probably seen ads for photo scanning apps. They always show someone flipping through a photo album, taking quick pictures of the pages with their phone and then - POOF! - miraculously the page is sliced into perfectly cropped digital images. I have always dismissed those ads as total bullshit because we all know there is no way the photos would be of decent quality.

I was wrong.

I got a wild hair the other day and decided to download Photomyne and within 10 minutes I had scanned 206 pictures from my childhood photo album and the quality is pretty darn good. No one could be more shocked about this discovery than I. I have two filing cabinets full of my parents’ crap in my basement - photos and documents that I have been trying to get scanned since 2007. I even put an old scanner and laptop down there to make it easy but there is nothing easy about scanning photos one at a time. It is tedium on steroids. Now that I have this app I should be able to get through all of that stuff in an afternoon. I am seriously psyched.

There is a colorizing feature you can use on black and white photos that is nothing short of amazing. The app itself is free, but to be able to share photos or get them off your phone and save them forever in your own account you have to subscribe. That usually pisses me off, but in this case I think it is quite reasonable at $4.99 per month, $19.99 per six months or $59.99 for a lifetime. The problem with that last option is - whose lifetime are we talking about?

How many times have you had a hankering to watch a particular movie, but you don’t want it so badly* that you want to pay for it? First you look on Netflix, then Amazon Prime, then Hulu, then cable On Demand. It’s sick, especially when you own the movie on DVD and it is at the bottom of the stairs but you are too lazy to go down there to get it. (* To Our Ladies of the Deep End: I looked it up and this is the correct usage of badly vs. bad so don’t embarrass yourself by correcting me).

If that describes you, you are going to love me for this one.

Anyone who has read my blog is probably tired of me saying, “If I’m thinking of it, it has already been done,” but it’s true. So I just knew there had to be an app that tells you where you can stream movies and TV shows. So I googled something like, “movie streaming search app” and found out there are several of them. I chose JustWatch and I use it all the time.

JustWatch is a video-on-demand search tool. Type the name of whatever you want to see in the search window, and it finds it and tells you where you can get it, where it is free, how much it costs to rent and how much to buy. For example, Broadway Bridget wrote a Facebook post saying how good the remake series, One Day at a Time is. Instead of posting an annoying comment, “Where can I watch that?” I went to JustWatch and saw that it is on Netflix. And if you just watched A Star is Born and are wondering what else Lady Gaga is in, you can search using an actor’s name and it will show you everything that person appears in. Check it out - you’ll get hooked. Here are results from some of my recent searches. Looks like I won’t be watching Begin Again in the near future.

When I was in my twenties I would go to New York to visit my older sisters who lived together in an enormous rent-controlled fifth floor walk-up on W. 82nd St. Taking taxis in New York was a major source of anxiety for me — what with figuring out how much tip to give and finding the right change and feeling under pressure to get out of the car in a jiffy because you are in New York. CURB fixes all that, and it’s in lots of big cities besides New York. Install the app, set up your account with a credit card and decide what your default tip amount will be. When you get in the taxi there is a Check In code on the screen. Open the app, enter the code and it says “You’re paired.” When you arrive at your destination, just say “Thanks” and get out. Or just get out - your choice. You can also use it to hail a cab when it’s 5:30am on a Sunday and you’re trying to get to Riverside Park to watch your daughter swim in the Hudson River, bike on the West Side Highway and run through Central Park. It’s called a triathlon and I’m sure there are a zillion apps for that.

If you don’t have Venmo yet, you really need to get with the program. Venmo lets you pay people back and, more importantly, lets them pay YOU back - no excuses. They can’t say, “I don’t have any cash,” or “I don’t have my checkbook,” or “I’ll pay next time.” My sister Janelle and I use Venmo to reimburse our daughters for ridiculously expensive Broadway tickets. I use Venmo to pay my dog sitter, the girl who cuts my hair and my house cleaner. You just create an account and attach it to a source of funds. It doesn’t cost anything. You just have to remember to take your money out when someone pays you.

Even if you never use it, it’s fun to browse on Venmo because people mostly use Emojis to show what they are paying for. So if you’re browsing through Venmo to see what the kids have been up to, you probably don’t want to see this.

If you read my recent post, I am a Gold Star Junkie, you may remember that I have lost weight since the beginning of the year. If I made it sound like my sole motivation was earning gold stars, I might have misled you. I have been using the Lose It app for years, which may not be the greatest testimonial they have ever received, since I always seem to gain the weight back.

I record my exercise and everything I eat throughout the day. Recording what you eat is a good thing to do because, at the very least, it makes you think before you ingest four beers and half a bag of Cheetos. You set a goal for how many pounds per week you want to lose and the app tells you how many calories you can eat at each meal. I feel like I am VERY honest in recording what I eat, but I’m not losing at the rate they originally predicted. I am currently scheduled to reach my goal at the end of March. The graph below shows how I’m doing. Don’t bother blowing up the photo to see how fat I was when I started because I blurred the numbers out. I know what people are like.

Remember when I had that love affair with Kroger and was obsessed with the self-checkout experience? That infatuation has matured into an enduring relationship and I remain a loyal Kroger shopper. Tony, bless his soul, does all the big-box shopping, for which I have a very low tolerance. Nevertheless, I tagged along with him a while back and was dumbfounded to watch him use his phone to scan each item before placing it in the cart. It’s called Scan & Go and, for now, it’s just available at Sam’s Club, but I read that Walmart is going to start using it soon. It is almost cool enough to make me volunteer to do the Sam’s Club shopping. But that hasn’t happened yet.

You download the free app and set up an account using your club number. When you get to Sam’s Club, you just Scan and Go, like the app says. When you get to the exit door, the person who takes a 3 second visual inventory of your stuff and pretends to reconcile it with the items listed on your receipt, instead uses an electronic device to scan the barcode your phone is displaying. Somehow, using the Scan & Go app absolves you of the need for the visual inventory reconciliation. She just scans your barcode and before she can say, “Y’all have a nice day,” you’re walking out the door wondering how much stuff you could have snuck out of there for free.

Do you have any staggeringly amazing apps that I should know about? I would appreciate hearing about them, as much as I’m sure you appreciate me telling you about mine.

Y’all have a nice day.

6 Apps That Will Change Your Life