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Apple’s iPads come with built-in productivity tools like Notes, Calendar, and Reminders, but if you’d like to explore new ways to maximize productivity and organize your life, there are many apps out there to help you.

Although the iPad started off as a device that could be used to stream content or browse the web on the go, Apple has essentially turned its iPads into computers that can handle a variety of different tasks for personal, work, and school use. As a result, there are numerous apps to help you do things like create a single place to organize your life or help you stay focused on your day-to-day tasks by blocking out distractions.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best ones that are available on the App Store.

Goodnotes

Goodnotes is one of the most popular iPad apps, and for good reason. The app is great for people who like to write out notes using an Apple Pencil; you can include both handwritten and typed text on one page and add things like images, stickers, and even doodles. 

You can create a digital notebook with blank or ruled paper for notes, checklists, planners, and more. The app lets you export entire digital notebooks or specific pages into PDFs and other files. 

Goodnotes is also great for drawing and sketching. While it’s not as advanced as some creativity apps like Procreate, Goodnotes is easy to use and perfect for quick sketches or diagrams. 

If you’re attending a class or a meeting, you can also record audio notes that are synced to the moment you write. Plus, you can use AI to summarize your notes and help you write. 

You can create three digital notebooks for free. If you want unlimited notebooks, you’ll have to pay $9.99 per year or a one-time fee of $29.99. 

TickTick

If you’re not a fan of your iPad’s built-in Reminders app, or you just want a more advanced to-do list and task management app, TickTick might be a good choice. You can use it for both professional and personal tasks. 

The app lets you sync tasks across all of your devices and integrate your favorite calendar app. You can create checklists, set recurring tasks, upload attachments to tasks, share task lists to collaborate with others, and more. 

If you want to develop a habit, such as meditating before bed, you can set your goals in the app and track your progress. And if you get an email but don’t have time to respond to it, you can turn it into a task to remind yourself not to forget to respond to it. 

You can also add tags to your tasks to better manage them, and you can mark tasks based on their priority.

If you want to focus on a specific task, you can turn on the app’s “pomo timer,” which is based on the Pomodoro Technique that breaks work into focused intervals to maximize productivity. 

TickTick is free to use, but if you want additional features like the ability to add up to five reminders to a task or more lists and tasks, then you’ll pay $3.99 per month or $35.99 per year. 

Forest

Forest is an interesting app that gamifies productivity while helping the environment. If you’re someone who struggles to stay on a task or are easily distracted, then this app might be good for you.

When you need to focus on something, you can open the app and plant a tree. Your tree will then grow as you focus on and finish your work. If you leave the app before the timer finishes, then your tree will wither and die.   

You can set “Allow Lists” for different apps that you’re using to be productive, like an email app or Microsoft Word. The app also lets you track your productivity.

Over time, you create a digital forest that visualizes your productivity. If you’re competitive, you can share your forest with others to see how it compares to theirs. As you stay focused and grow virtual trees, you can earn coins that you can save to help plant actual trees around the world through tree-planting organization Trees for the Future. 

Forest costs $3.99 to download, and you can buy in-app boosts to grow your forest and plant real trees faster. 

Notion

Notion is a great app for taking notes, managing tasks and workflows, organizing lists and habits, collaborating with others, and more. Instead of having to go to different apps to manage your calendar, tasks, and notes, you can get all of this done right within Notion. 

You can integrate the different apps that you use, like Slack and Dropbox, in order to combine all of your workflows in one place. One of the great things about Notion is its flexibility and customization options. You can customize it to be what you need, whether it’s to organize your personal or work life, your schoolwork, or your passion projects. 

If you’re not sure where to start, you can use templates to create things like a travel planner or a product roadmap. Notion also has an AI feature that helps you write and brainstorm ideas. Notion AI can help you get answers about your content and turn large amounts of data into digestible action items. 

Notion offers a free plan for personal use. The company also offers an $8 per month Plus plan for small groups and a $15 per month Business plan for companies. You get 20 AI responses for free; after that you pay $10 per member per month.

Crouton

Sometimes planning what to eat can take up a lot of time, leaving less time for other tasks, so it can be nice to have an app to help with that. Crouton, meant to help make cooking and meal planning easier, is great for organizing recipes and planning grocery lists.

You can import recipes from websites or even scan them from a physical cookbook. So, instead of relying on bookmarked or physical recipes, you can store them together in one place. 

You can plan out your meals for the week, and if you get stumped on what to make one day, the app can generate a meal plan for you. Once you have planned your meals for the week, you can create a grocery list that includes all of the ingredients you will need. 

Crouton also features an in-app timer, so you don’t have to use a different app when you have time-specific steps of a recipe. Plus, you can share your recipes with others, whether to tell your family what’s for dinner or if you came across a recipe that you know your friend would love. 

Crouton offers basic features for free, but if you want unlimited recipes and additional features, there’s a $14.99 yearly subscription. 

Freedom

Freedom is a great app for blocking distractions in order to focus on your work and be more productive. You can start a Freedom session to block distractions across all of your devices for a select amount of time. 

You can choose which websites and apps you want to block during that time. So if you’re getting work done on your iPad, but then try to open TikTok on your phone, you won’t be able to and will instead see a green screen.

The app lets you start a session right away, schedule an upcoming one, or set a recurring one. If you know that you need to be free of distractions at a certain time every day, you can set up a Freedom session to start at that specific time each day.  

If you’re someone who listens to specific sounds to help you focus, Freedom offers a variety that you can listen to. For example, you can listen to the sounds of a coffee shop in a city like New York or Berlin, the sounds of birds chirping, calming instrumentals, and more. 

The app, which costs $3.99 per month, is pretty easy to use and includes a series of different articles that feature tips on how to boost productivity and better understand digital wellness. 

Notability

Notability is a great note-taking app that lets you jot down thoughts, import and annotate textbooks, record audio, and sketch out ideas. The app is useful for both students and professionals, or even hobbyists.

You can choose to take notes with an Apple Pencil, text, or audio. If you’re trying to find something specific, the app lets you search your notes, including handwritten ones and any documents you have uploaded. 

Notability also features AI-generated note summaries and the ability to work on two different notes side by side. Plus, you can test your knowledge with personalized quizzes based on the content in your notes. 

If you need a place to start, Notability includes a gallery of templates for things like planners, study notes, to-do lists, and more. 

Notability is free but offers a $4.99 monthly subscription for access to additional features like math conversion, automatic audio transcription, unlimited notes, and more.

Todoist

Todoist is a simple and straightforward app that lets you record and organize tasks using natural language. You can add tasks like, “Plan next week’s work every Friday afternoon” or “Do homework every Wednesday at 6 p.m.” to quickly organize and plan your life.

You can sort tasks into “Today,” “Upcoming,” or custom filters to allow you to focus on what currently matters, which means that you only see what’s relevant when you need it.

Todoist can be used for organizing a variety of tasks, whether they’re related to work, personal, education, or management goals and reminders. Plus, you can link Todoist with your calendar, voice assistant, and dozens of other tools such as Outlook, Gmail, and Slack.

In addition to the iPad, you can also access the service from your iPhone and Apple Watch, while also syncing across desktop and all other devices.

Todoist’s basic features are available for free. You can unlock additional features, such as an AI assistant and a calendar layout for $4 per month with Todoist’s “Pro” subscription plan.

Update: This story originally ran September 2024 and and is updated regularly with new information.

Amazon announced a fresh batch of games that it’s giving away for free or nearly free in July. The company’s cloud gaming platform, Amazon Luna, has a few notable standouts on its lineup of free titles this month for Prime members in regions where the service is available. However, you’ll want to play quick. Resident Evil 2 is available on Amazon Luna now through 11:59PM PT on July 12. Need for Speed Unbound is only free for July 5-6, while EA Sports FC 25 is getting two free weekends on July 19-20 and July 26-27. The director’s cut of Death Stranding and the excellent metroidvania Hollow Knight are also on the July roster for Luna, alongside mainstay titles such as Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege and a few Fallout games.

Amazon also gives away game codes outside of Luna to Prime members each month. The big standout in the July batch is Venba, a lovely bite-sized game about cooking, family and the immigrant experience. Here’s the full rundown of free games available through Amazon this month:

• Boxes: Lost Fragments (Epic Games Store)

• Paquerette Down the Bunburrows (Epic Games Store)

• ENDLESS Space 2 Definitive Edition (Amazon Games App)

• Besiege: The Splintered Sea DLC (Amazon Games App)

• I Love Finding Wild Friends Collector’s Edition (Legacy Games)

July is shaping up to be a busy month for gaming at Amazon, with the retailer’s kicking off in about a week. Amazon has already made a handful of available for free ahead of the big deals spree, and if it continues the trend from last year, expect to see a couple more freebies given out once Prime Day begins.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have identified in a new study a novel, noninvasive method for diagnosing bacterial corneal ulcers, a serious ophthalmologic condition that can lead to vision loss.¹

Corneal ulcers, primarily caused by microbial keratitis, represent a global health challenge, contributing to up to 2 million cases of blindness annually. Current diagnostic methods rely on corneal scraping and culturing, which are invasive, time-consuming, and often yield false-negative results.¹

“This work has the potential to redefine the diagnostic standard of care for corneal ulcers,” said Mathieu Bakhoum, MD, PhD, assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual science and senior author of the study. “Timely and targeted treatment prevents ulcer progression, reduces broad-spectrum antibiotic use, and diminishes the downstream need for surgical interventions.”

In a study published in Translational Vision Science and Technology, the Yale team used samples from 10 patients with bacterial corneal ulcers to compare traditional scrape-based culture diagnostics with nanopore-based DNA sequencing performed on tear samples using Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ portable MinION sequencer.¹

“We were able to show that we can amplify the 16S rRNA bacterial gene directly from tears—bypassing both corneal scraping and nucleic-acid extraction—and obtain real-time, species-level identification using a handheld sequencer,” Backhoum said.

Researchers report the nanopore sequencing matched traditional cultures in all cases where the culture identified bacterial pathogens, and even detected bacteria in 2 cases where cultures were inconclusive. The Yale team said the sequencing of tears provided results in hours, compared with days for traditional culture-based methods.

Further research is needed to validate the technique across diverse pathogens and populations. Researchers said faster turnaround times in corneal ulcer diagnosis could reduce delays in treatment and result in better outcomes and less vision loss worldwide.

The research was supported by a grant from the Connecticut Lions Eye Research Foundation.

Reference

1. Dibbs M, Matesva M, Theotoka D, et al. A tear-based approach for rapid identification of bacterial pathogens in corneal ulcers using nanopore sequencing. Transl Vis Sci Technol. 2025;14(4):19. doi:10.1167/tvst.14.4.19

Dating app Tinder is testing new facial recognition technology aimed at reducing fraud and impersonation, as well as rebuilding trust with its users.

The feature, first reported by Axios, is called “Face Check,” and it is now mandatory for Tinder users in California. It prompts users to take a short video of themselves, which then creates a biometric face scan to verify the user’s identity, that they are a human and that the scan matches their profile photos.

According to Axios, the feature also checks to see if the user’s face matches other profiles. Once verified, users will get a special badge on their profile.

This verification process is part of Tinder’s efforts to ensure people on the platform are who they claim to be, potentially addressing concerns about catfishing and fake profiles.

The company has not yet announced when the feature might roll out to users in other states or countries.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

Video games are an art form, and Photomode lets you flex your own artistic muscles by capturing the beauty of Ubisoft’s worlds. Whether you’ve created the perfect shot of an assassination by Naoe or Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, the expansive beauty of a galaxy in Star Wars Outlaws, or a wild trick on the slopes in Riders Republic, we invite you to submit your creations in Ubisoft’s third annual Photomode contest, running July 1-15.

To be eligible for consideration, all Photomode entries must be composed entirely in-game. That means no editing once you’ve taken the shot, but Ubisoft games offer ample composition options with in-game Photomode, including contrast, color, filters, unique angles, and many more. Additionally, all entries must be at least 1920×1080 pixels.

To enter, you can post up to four Photomode creations on Instagram or X (formerly Twitter), tagging @Ubisoft, and using the hashtag #UbisoftPhotomodeContest. This year’s jury panel consists of four experts within Ubisoft, including Jean Guesdon, Strategic Visualization Director at Ubisoft Montreal; Shauna Jones, Community Manager, Consumer Interaction / Virtual Photographer at Ubisoft Newcastle; Tom Isaksen, Character Director at Ubisoft Paris; and Pierre Espaignet, Lead Lighting Artist at Ubisoft Bordeaux.

Ten winners will be announced on August 1. The first-place winner will be invited to Ubisoft Montreal for a studio tour, while from the second to the tenth place winners will receive a one-year subscription to Ubisoft+ Premium. Additionally, some winners will have their work displayed at the Mutek Festival in Montreal from August 15-30.

Eligible games for the Photomode 2025 Contest are:

• Assassin’s Creed Shadows
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Assassin’s Creed Mirage
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Assassin’s Creed Origins
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
• Anno 1800
• The Crew Motorfest
• The Crew 2
• The Division 2
• Far Cry 6
• Far Cry New Dawn
• Far Cry 5
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• Ghost Recon Wildlands
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Riders Republic
• Skull and Bones
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Steep
• Trackmania
• Watch Dogs: Legion

The Ubisoft Photomode Contest 2025 submission period opens on July 1 at 18:00 CEST and closes on July 15 at 21:00 CEST. For the full list of rules and eligibility requirements, visit the Ubisoft Photomode Contest website.

Between Fourth of July bargains and Amazon Prime Day just around the corner, you might be tempted to wait to see what low prices will manifest. Though the summer Prime Day sale officially falls between July 8 and 11, you don’t need to wait to save. Specifically, on the Amazon Fire HD 10, one of the best budget tablets available right now. 

At just $140, it’s very competitively priced, but that’s a massive $70 more than you will pay if you pick one up today. Amazon is currently offering this tablet for its lowest price of the year, slashing it to just $70 for a limited time. You can choose any of the three colors and pay that price, and you can pay an extra $15 to ditch the lockscreen ads, too. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen, a 50% discount.

This deal doesn’t require you to enter any discount codes or clip any coupons, but you do need to order your discounted Fire HD 10 tablet soon and you do need to have Amazon Prime. This is listed as a limited-time deal, so it won’t hang around forever.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

It’s definitely a deal that you won’t want to miss. For just $70, you can pick up a tablet with a large 10-inch display that sports a 1080p resolution. Despite that large display, you can still expect up to 13 hours of battery life per charge, while the base model comes with 32GB of storage. You can opt for the 64GB model or add more storage via an optional microSD card.

Notetakers and artists will be pleased to know that this tablet supports the Amazon Stylus Pen, while built-in Alexa support means that you can interact with your smart home and more using just your voice.

Why this deal matters

It’s easy to look at the price of Apple tablets and those from brands like Samsung and think that you have to spend hundreds of dollars to use something bigger than your phone. This Amazon Fire HD 10 deal proves that isn’t the case, and this deal offers the lowest price we’ve seen in 2025, making it the perfect time to pick up one.

The Apple Pencil Pro has dropped to a new low of $99 on Amazon. With its advanced features, the Pro is a newer, more attractive option than the USB-C Apple Pencil or the Apple Pencil 2nd Gen. And with Prime Day next week (and competing sales right around the corner), there’s no better time to shop these savings at a retailer of your choice — including Walmart, Amazon or Costco. 

Also: I replaced my iPad with a de-Googled Android tablet for a week – here’s my buying advice

This current discount makes the Apple Pencil Pro even cheaper than the less sophisticated Apple Pencil 2nd Gen. It’s a pretty solid bargain and a much smarter buy so long as your current iPad is compatible with the Pencil Pro. We haven’t seen the Pencil Pro drop below this $99 discount yet, so these savings are on par with those offered at different points this year, like Black Friday 2024. 

Compatible with the M4 iPad Pro M2 and M3 iPad Air, and iPad Mini with an A17 Pro chip, the Apple Pencil Pro introduces advanced features and tools that enhance creative control, such as squeeze and “barrel roll” gestures to access brushes and change stroke types without interrupting workflow.

Also: Apple Pencil Pro vs. Apple Pencil 2: Which model you should buy for your iPad

I would argue that its built-in Find My Support makes it worth the extra cost. Losing an Apple Pencil can be as easy as losing a regular pencil, so having Find My Support sweetens the deal.

With its new haptic feedback, users can feel their creations come to life as they sketch and draw. The device’s hover feature on the iPad Pro and iPad Air allows for a preview of marks before committing to the screen. 

The Apple Pencil Pro’s advanced capabilities make marking up documents, taking notes, and creating art more intuitive than ever. Take advantage of this deal while it lasts.

Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.

How I rated this deal

This 23% off deal earns it a 3/5 Editor’s deal rating. The Pencil Pro is barely a year old, so a sub-$100 offer is great during big savings opportunities, and it’s on par with previous discounts. 

Have you ever worked is legacy code? Are you curious what it takes to modernize systems at a massive scale?

Pascal Hartig is joined on the latest Meta Tech Podcast by Elaine and Buping, two software engineers working on a bold project to rewrite the decades-old C code in one of Meta’s core messaging libraries in Rust. It’s an ambitious effort that will transform a central messaging library that is shared across Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, and Meta’s AR/VR platforms.

They discuss taking on a project of this scope – even without a background in Rust, how they’re approaching it, and what it means to optimize for ‘developer happiness.’

Download or listen to the episode below:

You can also find the episode wherever you get your podcasts, including:

The Meta Tech Podcast is a podcast, brought to you by Meta, where we highlight the work Meta’s engineers are doing at every level – from low-level frameworks to end-user features.

Send us feedback on Instagram, Threads, or X.

And if you’re interested in learning more about career opportunities at Meta visit the Meta Careers page.