Let’s hunt together on Product Hunt
This week on Product Hunt has been busy, and we’ve seen dozens of apps lunch. There were tons of new podcast episodes and a lot of exciting live talks. There were a lot of folks launching amazing apps that were beautiful, helpful, and also some which were very focused. I’ve picked a handful of top apps, news, and podcasts from this week to feature. There were many more hunts I wanted to include, but these were the top ones I loved.
If you don’t know what Product Hunt is, I wrote a little description to help you understand:
Product Hunt is a service where you can share and discover new products. The site was founded by Ryan Hoover in November of 2013, with funding from Y Combinator. The basis of the site is users submit a fresh podcast, an innovative app, other tech products, or wild gadgets. From there other users upvote the products onto the front page. The whole process feels a lot like Reddit but with a focus towards discovering products within the technology community.
I’m active on Product Hunt as @leonhitchens, where you can follow me!
Let’s hunt together!
Gboard
Gboard is a keyboard for iOS from Google. The keyboard isn’t any ordinary keyboard either; it features search, emoji search, and much more all without having to navigate to another app. The keyboard can change your whole workflow, and allows you to search Google more often.
I’ve installed the keyboard so I could use Google Maps search without having to jump to Google Maps. I also loved the idea of the emoji search. There are many times I want an emoji and cannot find it within the dozens of emoji windows. The keyboard features GIFs, gesture typing, and few other nifty tricks.
Medium Battle
Medium is a popular blogging platform where companies post announcements, release notes, and other informational blogs. The platform is very social with users being able to follow each other, comment on whole sentences, and recommend a post. The part missing is you don’t know who’s posting more, writing more, or has more recommendations.
Medium Battle pulls in all the info to ‘battle’ it out between two users. One user is crowned the winner when compared to post numbers, word count, writing level, and how many recommendations. It’s great if you have a beef with someone on Medium or if you want to see how someone is performing.
Electron 1.0
The desktop app is having a huge comeback! There is WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram, etc. all becoming essential apps on our desktops. Electron helps developers build cross-platform desktop apps in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Companies like Slack, Ghost, and WordPress have all used the platform to help develop desktop apps.
While I cannot code or have any use for the platform. I am always interested in the technology behind the apps and services I use.
SnapGeofilters
Snapchat geo-filters are becoming increasingly popular, and people are using them at weddings in addition to brands using them at conferences. The filters are custom and give users a fantastic feature for pictures taken at an event or particular place. SnapGeofilters is a company which will design a Snapchat geo-filter.
The prices range from $25 to $100 for more advanced filters. If you want to have a filter designed for a wedding or event, the company can have something ready in 1 to 3 days.
Canary Mail 2.0
Canary Mail is an elegant, simple, yet powerful email client for Mac. The email app has a snooze, Gmail labels and filters, read tracking, quick reply, unified inbox all within one app. The beta app is polished and looks ready for prime time, and Canary says an iOS app is in the works. The inbox is one of the more beautiful and easy to use email clients.
When Canary Mail comes to iOS, they could become a very popular email client as others have done in the past.
Recode Decode
Recode Decode with Kara Swisher brought Walt Mossberg on to talk about the company and their new redesign. Recode recently transition from running on WordPress to Vox Media’s own CMS. The duo has been working on AllthingsD and now Recode for over a decade, and they still think technology is too hard to use.
I love the redesign, and I’ve enjoyed their cover over the past few years and their fantastic interviews.