iPhone Apps: 8 Ways to Ease You Out of Summer

by Nathan Eddy

One of the lamentable things about the end of summer is the shortening of days, but this handy app can help you beat the sunset home from work (if you’re lucky enough). You can select custom dates to peer into the future and define custom locations or use your current GPS location.

While your summer vacation may be at an end, it’s never too early to start planning your winter break. Search for flight and hotel deals via Kayak’s low-price finder and book through the app—you can also check your flight status and manage your travel itinerary. The beaches of Miami never seemed so close.

Keep the winter blues away with exercise through this app, which offers 30 new exercises involving dumbbells, Swiss-balls, resistance bands and other equipment. The new update fixes several bugs and the app promises new features throughout the month of September—there’s no better time to lose the weight you gained at all those summer barbecues.

Get your mind off the work week with this mood application, which uses layers of frequencies and carrier signals assembled in precise sequences to bring your brain into a different state of mind. Programs include Chakra Meditation, Euphoric Bliss (to be used on Mondays) Tranquil Thoughts, Inspired Creativity and Quiet Mind, designed to help you empty your thoughts for a relaxed state of mind.

Through the iPhone’s motion-sensitive controls, you can rustle colorful fall leaves across the virtual forest floor. Choose from nine types of leaves to suit your mood—you can even submit photos of leaves you find and the developer will include your favorite in the next update.

For many of us, Thanksgiving is like Christmas without the stress—good food and family, but no running around malls searching for impossible-to-find gifts. This Thanksgiving countdown app allows you to launch your own personal fireworks display, select customized background images and, of course, keep track of the days left until turkey time.

Getting back into the work routine can be a painful process, but this app makes it a bit easier by offering appointments that can be integrated with tasks, week and month schedule views, 12 customizable project categories and a floating “Dynamic Day” line that shows you what you can do today.

This business card reader makes it easy to scan business cards and then edit them, with features such as automatic crop and text detection. The app also allows you to make a phone call, send an SMS or e-mail, or locate a business address via Google Maps from the information scanned off the card. With the days getting shorter, you’re going to need all the help you can get when it comes to filing those business contacts away.