Apps designed for 2016 countdown, resolutions

New Year’s Countdown Apps

• 

  Kerry Keith
  The Friday Flyer Columnist

  The New Year Countdown 2016 app just for iPhones offers an animated New Year Time Zone Map to see when the New Year begins worldwide, as well as live countdown to the final minutes and seconds to welcome in the New Year. $0.99

• Ring in the New Year with the New Year Noise Maker app that transforms your iPhone into your very own noise maker with noises that include the horn, the twirler and, of course, the blowout. It will even play the classic New Year’s Eve song. $0.99
• Times Square Official New Year’s Eve Ball app lets you be part of the New York City celebration in Times Square with live streaming of the events and performances that lead up to midnight. It works best when using WiFi. FREE
• Not drinking this New Year but still want to join in on the clinking of glasses? Download Clink! then choose your drink of choice and you can clink your phone against your friends glasses for an authentic clinking sound. It even vibrates your phone. FREE

New Year’s Resolutions Apps

It’s said that almost half of American’s make New Year’s Resolutions and losing weight seems to always be the number one resolution. To succeed in losing weight and getting healthy, use some of these helpful apps to stay on track, be accountable, and keep you motivated so you can achieve your fitness goals. Remember slow and steady wins the race!

• My Fitness Pal for both iPhones and Android users help you set a daily calorie budget, track your calorie intake and exercise, and stay on track. It offers a database of over 5 million foods and a barcode scanner that allows you to easily log the calories you consume. They claim that 88 percent of users who track for seven days or more have lost weight. Tracking is said to be one of the most effective tools in losing weight. FREE
• HappyScale is an app that smooths out your daily scale weight to predict your true weight loss and keep you motivated to stay on track. Since weight naturally fluctuates, HappyScale uses sophisticated math to learn the trend of your progress so you can see what you’re really losing each week and never be discouraged by what it says on your scale. FREE
• Spending less and saving more comes in at number three in resolutions. From money and budgeting to customized tips, Mint is a very helpful app where you can take control of your financial life. Easily pull all your accounts into one place so you can create a budget, track spending and set up bill reminders to save you more. It can also be accessed from the web to make it easier and more convenient to use. FREE
• Debt Payoff Planner is for Android users who want to get out of debt faster. It uses the snowball method to come up with the most effective strategy for reducing and eventually eliminating your debt. Just plug in the balances of your loans and other debts, interest rates, and payments you’ve already made and the Debt Payoff Planner will decide which loan, credit card or other debt you should start paying down first. Once you’ve chosen a debt to pay off, you can track your payments and see how the plan is working. Data can be emailed to you and exported into a Microsoft Excel worksheet. FREE
• Never lose track of debt with Debt Tracker. This simple and minimal app will help you track and manage your debts, accounts, payments, and more. It allows you to track your debt manually offline so there are no account numbers or sensitive bank information required. Debt Tracker can help you save for a car or a vacation and it can also keep track of who owes your money. FREE
• According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention there were 40 million smokers in the United States in 2014. It was reported that seven out of ten smokers want to quit and four out of ten made an attempt to quit in the past year. Smoking is still the number one cause of preventable death and disease in the US.

Quitting now can cut your risk for diseases caused by smoking and leave you feeling stronger and healthier. If quitting smoking is your New Year’s Resolution, then try the Smoke Free app. It offers techniques to help you stop smoking with a calculator that tells you how much money you’ve saved and how many cigarettes you’ve not smoked. The calendar tells you how long you’ve been smoke free and how much life you’ve regained. Bars show you how giving up smoking is improving your health, and a diary shows how your cravings are decreasing over time. FREE

• Quit Smoking is an app that creates a personalized plan to gradually wean you from dependency on cigarettes. Each program is continuously adjusted to your specific smoking patterns. FREE