#app review

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https://app.befinch.com/invite_v3/ENWD

I got house's blessing to roast wilson B)

Finch: Self-Care Pet

Rating: Verified, but it has a specific use case and I'm concerned about how abruptly and dramatically the advertising has increased.

Use case: if you need a gamified habit based app to help encourage you to get started doing things, with social elements, and you want a cute little friend and collectathon elements and limited time events, this could be for you. It is very good at getting you to sign in repeatedly to keep doing new and novel things, and while you're in there it does make you WANT to knock out your to-do list. It also has some attention paid to mental health elements that actually match stuff I've been told in therapy— breathing exercises, mindfulness work, self-kindness walk throughs that are genuinely really good.

Warning flags: if you need to plan projects or large scale multi-step tasks that don't repeat this isn't going to do anything for you, and they are somewhat persistent about the premium version and free trials for it (though this drops off after a week). They requested a lot of very specific personal details that I personally did not enjoy giving— I don't think they have bad intentions, but if there's a data leak lots of people are gonna be Fucked. If you have a history of ED the nutrition section is also not especially useful, there is no framework for trying to gain or recover weight.

I'm one of those perpetually-looking-for-the-best-tools-to-improve-my-life kind of people and always am looking for hacks and tricks.

I've tried all kinds of meditation and wellness apps and Quabble with the cutest duck has gotten me doing breathing exercises and reflecting twice a day for months!

My duck is named Quacky and I just wanted to share the cutest outfit I just purchased for him...

He's a FROG PRINCE.

The good.

Dreams imported the Animation Assist feature from Procreate, which was honestly the feature I liked about Procreate the most. This converts all drawn animation on the timeline into “flip books” which you can drag around the timeline as if it were a group. Going forward that’s a really powerful feature.

Additionally, they added the ability to have LAYERS within your Flipbooks. They had that feature before, but it was an absolute mess and nearly impossible to utilize. Now new layers are just part of the “flipbook” animation assist feature. This means I don’t need to keep making new layers and grouping them all together, I can just add new layers as I’m animating. These layers can be reorganized and have filter effects applied. So if I was to, say, add blush to a character’s face, I can draw it on a separate layer, apply a blur, and even create a clipping mask if I wanted to, all while I’m in the process of animating the next frame. That gives me a lot of control and I like that.

Audio plays while you’re in flipbook mode too. So you can set down an audio track in the timeline and then go into a flipbook and animate to the audio track. Something you couldn’t do with Animation Assist in Procreate. I know it should be an expected feature at this point but it’s amazing how often audio isn’t taken into consideration while animating so I appreciate that the Flipbook retains the timeline’s ability to hear what you’re working on while you’re going frame by frame.

You can now adjust how much or how little you see the timeline. That’s great for when you have a lot of layers and you need to make fine adjustments. You’re no longer regulated to a fixed and finite space.

You can highlight a bunch of frames or flip books and drag and drop them. Previously if you needed to move a bunch of frames on the timeline you had to group it together, move it, then ungroup it. It was cumbersome and frustrating. Now you can just move it.

Same goes for adding frames in a flipbook. You can literally just drag the side of the frame to make it hold for as many frames as you need. Even animation assist in Procreate doesn’t do that.

There’s now more editing tools while drawing, including the lasso and transform tools. I don’t use these very often but I know some people are excited they’re finally here.

The BEST new feature however is the ability to continue filling with color drops by just.. clicking. I’ve complained about this before (and even made a video about it) but the way filling in colors worked previously was that you had to manually drag and drop the color onto the screen EVERY SINGLE TIME. I was literally doing hundreds of drags and drops per frame sometimes and that was ridiculous. Now you can just drag a color onto the screen, then click a button to continue to just add color every time you tap the screen somewhere. No more dragging the color thousands of times per video.

The Bad.

One of my main issues so far is the extra steps everything takes to get to where we were before. Even one small additional added step in your workflow will exponentially compound over time. So when I view an update I try to look at what features are enchanting my workflow and which ones are hindering it.

And right now I’m finding that my workflow has been severely handicapped by taking away things that just existed on the screen and tucking them away behind menus I have to prompt to access.

For example: the onion layer feature has been moved behind a menu option. I frequently just wanna click a button to turn it on or off like I used to, and now I’m having to search for it in a menu. Additionally it doesn’t apply to the whole video, but only to that individual flipbook I’m currently working on. I genuinely don’t know why the onion layer feature can’t just be a button. Why do I need to go into a menu (that isn’t in the same location anymore) to turn it on and off? Why can’t it just be a dedicated button?

Flipbooks in general take a while to get used to. Previously if you wanted to draw something on the timeline you just drew on the timeline. But now you have to make it a flipbook, which takes you to a new screen where you can work, and when you’re done you need to click a menu button and deliberately exist out of the flipbook to see it on the timeline. It doesn’t sound like much, but this really changes how quickly you can get in and out of editing something on the timeline.

Flipbooks also show you all the layers of a timeline unless you’ve disabled them previously. You can’t turn on or off other timeline layers while you’re in the middle of working in a flipbook. There was a much smoother and more seamless way that the timeline to drawing interface switch worked that made it really easy to get into a good groove while animating. I’m finding that extra step of having to stop, go to the menu, hit exit to get back to the timeline adds a bit of a wrinkle in that workflow.

I’ve also encountered some bugs where the other layers just… forget to update? I have a video layer of my rough animation I imported from Procreate. I use this to draw over to make my clean lineart. For some reason, occasionally that video just glitches out and doesn’t play. I have to exit out of the program, close it, and re-open it for the video to play again. This doesn’t happen often, but Dreams 2 has been out for barely a day and I’ve encountered it multiple times already, so that’s something to be concerned about.

Overall thoughts.

I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. A lot of the most glaring issues I’ve had with Dreams 1 have been fixed or resolved. The biggest gripe being the fill tool and the clunkiness of the flipbook feature as it initially existed. I think these updates are going to make animating a lot easier going forward, but there are some design set backs that baffle me. Onion skin not being a simple button to turn on or off and the clunkiness of switching between the timeline and a flipbook when originally it was much more seamless is the biggest hinderance.

But honestly? Given how bare bones Dreams was initially and how much they’ve listened to feedback and completely overhauled the program to work better, I think these will get ironed out eventually too. People forget how clunky and inefficient Procreate was when it first came out. They added features over time that really made it into a powerhouse.

I think Dreams was a Nobel first attempt, but the procreate team were clearly very taken back by how much they were criticized for the lack of features and I think they did a poor job marketing the app initially. Dreams was meant to be more for assembling your animations on a timeline, and as such it had a lot of limited drawing tools. But people don’t wanna create a dedicated workflow where they have to use two apps to get the same job done. They just wanna draw in the app and have it work.

The reason the Procreate Team have given for why it took 2 years to fix is because they basically had to completely overhaul the entire way the app was designed in the first place from the ground up. That’s not something where you can just add a new feature and it’s fine, that’s a complete overhaul of the way the programming works under the hood. And that makes sense now looking at what they’ve changed and how they’ve implemented it. And it’s still a free update too (if you previously already bought dreams), so that’s awesome as well. I like that the Procreate Team is so anti-ai and anti-price-gouging. They do seem like they care about how artists use their programs.

Future Wanted Features.

If I had to ask for more features the one thing I’d like is a way to do vector lineart. Right now Dreams and Procreate are raster based programs. And that’s fine…. Until you want to scale things up. If I make a video in 1080p and I want it in 4K, it’s going to look blurry or pixelated. Having the ability to convert a drawn image into a vector so the linework stays smooth no matter how large I export would be a welcome feature.

So too would be the ability to modify a vector brush stroke on a timeline. So much of lineart cleanup is done this way, it would be nice to have so you can really perfect exactly how you want your lines to look.

Hi, everyone!!! I may not seem like this, but I am a fiend for books. I will discuss today something other than otome games. It's related to books, but not entirely. I will review for a reading-tracker app, which has impressed me!

First of all, I need to clarify, I never used a book tracker before. I am an avid reader and always read what I had an interest in it. But for last two years, I have been more invested in books. But I realized last year December that I didn't remember which book I bought when, or which book I read when. Though I always put a small note in each book's back page writing down the purchased date and where I bought it from (like online book platform, or a book fair or from a random book store). But it was not much help, because my memory was completely a blur as when I was immersed in which book. This realization filled me with a void in my mind, as if I haven't enjoyed my time with those books, because I never tracked them down.

Lately, I was struggling to have a motivation for reading, too.

For these reasons, I reached out to Google play store. There were plenty of book trackers, and the most effective one was Bookmory. I will explain thoroughly about it's features.

Bookmory is a simple and handy book tracker. The UI is smooth, as well as the experience. You can record multiple books here, and all the books will be saved in your "Library" section. You can set up a goal for reading books,like 10 pages daily, or 1 chapter daily. Yep, you can change this format. It's your choice which will you record by chapter or page wise.

You can have streaks. These streaks is the key behind the motivation behind your reading habit. Just set a goal, and complete it everyday or every week, and the app will automatically update your streaks and make a book calender!

About goals: you can set the streak format as "Daily" and "Weekly". If you want to immerse yourself in book everyday, set a daily goal that you easily can achieve. If you are too busy, set a weekly goal and the motivation is yours!

About books: You can read multiple books at a time and can keep it recorded easily. I really liked the feature for "Paused books". If you are too bored or not in the mood for the book's theme, then pause it for a while, and resume it later! There is also a section for "Books you gave up reading". It's useful too! Another feature is, you can record the books you borrow in "Loan record". Here, you can register the book, can set reminder for return day etc.

The most favourite feature of mine is "Add books manually". It might sound like a hassle. But this is the feature for which I would never uninstall the app!!! Here, you can record your new book's or borrowed book's details manually (inputting name, ISBN, language, writer, translator and so on!).

Why I like this feature? Because it's really helpful. In other book trackers, like Goodreads and Fables, you have to add books by searching it in browser. And the browser is full with English literature as you have to face many hassle only looking for the books you are reading in your native language here. These book trackers are not much user-friendly for people who read books other than English. These book trackers are heaven for English speakers and English reader. But when you read a book you are reading in your native language (other than English), it's really hard to find them there! And these trackers don't have much language settings and it is trouble when you read books of an underrated language (like my native language, Bangla).

By the "Adding books manually", you can record whichever language you want to read!!! Just ANY language! Even the names of your native writers and translators will be saved!

You can even record your reading by dates. In some trackers, you must play the "Reading Session" feature to record your book reading, which drains your phone battery. But the system in Bookmory is really good, you don't need to necessarily use the reading session feature!

You also can rate the books you finished reading and write a review on it. But please note, if you write a review, the app will consume much storage in your phone.

About storage and ads: The app is not that heavy, but if you write reviews in it, it will take much storage. The ads aren't annoying at all. You also can have some premium version privileges only by watching ads. The app uses Google Drive for backup.

Cons: The only thing I say as a con, though I don't mind it at all, is that, this app is for single use. You can not have friends in app and chat about books. It's like your private library, no one will enter and you have the authority there. I don't mind the lack of friends at all, considering all the good feature we can have here!