I use the Countdown Days Since & Until app to track how long it’s been since health and beauty appointments so I know when it’s time to reschedule — I’m really bad at remembering to get my hair cut. I also use it to count down to vacations and anniversaries, occasionally opening the app to see how many weeks or days or even hours are left, and it’s nice to get a little surge of anticipation as the time between things shortens. After using the free version for years I finally paid $4.99 to unlock extras like adding photo backgrounds to certain events. Unfortunately, this particular app seems to be iOS‑only, but any simple “important dates” tracker would be useful. — CD

I constantly switch between iMessage, Google Chat, Instagram DMs, Slack, Signal, and WhatsApp to send messages to friends and colleagues. Sometimes I miss important messages because I forget which platform a specific person or group prefers to use, leading me to check the wrong apps or overlook notifications from the right ones. I recently started using Beeper, a desktop and phone app that combines all of these platforms and more into a single messaging environment. It’s free to use for up to 6 platforms; if you need more, it’s $10 a month. — MF

The free Adobe Scan Mobile App converts physical documents into searchable, editable PDFs. It’s faster and easier to use than Apple Notes' built-in scanner. It automatically detects document edges, corrects perspective, and improves text clarity. The OCR is accurate, letting you extract and edit text from scans instantly. I recently digitized a 50-page puzzle book in minutes using the high-speed scanning feature — just flip through pages and it captures each spread automatically, then splits them into individual pages. I’m using it to digitize snapshots, too. It straightens, color corrects, and crops the images, then saves them to my photo library. — MF