Apps are back, or maybe they never left in the first place.

While some people debate whether people will shift away from apps as AI agents make accessing online services more efficient, we’ve found the App Store to be alive and well, with a recent explosion of fun, creative, and innovative tools, experiences, and other indie efforts.

Some of the more recent launches may be attributed to the rise of AI coding, which has enabled people to ship software more quickly, and allowed novices to participate in the app ecosystem. According to one report, new app launches have soared in 2026, with worldwide new app releases up 60% year-over-year as of the first quarter across both the Apple App Store and Google Play. On Apple’s iOS store alone, that figure was an even higher 80%.

While there’s valid concern that vibe-coded apps in particular could be cluttering the App Store with lower-quality content, there are plenty of interesting apps worth exploring, and those that resonate with consumers will rise to the top. Many also use AI under the hood to perform their magic — they’re just not promoted as being “AI-powered.”

Below is our latest collection of App Store hidden gems, which we’ve added to our Home Screen. You can also visit TechCrunch’s prior app round-ups, like our looks at next-generation social apps, Apple Watch, and iPad productivity tools, and apps for digitally decluttering your life.

Albo

Albo (previously Sortd, but not that Sortd) is an excellent tool for anyone who regularly bookmarks content from social media, then promptly forgets about it. With Albo, the idea is that you’ll instead share the link to the TikTok, Instagram Reel, YouTube video, or other website to the app. Albo will then automatically pull the details from the post and categorize and save the idea for you. That post and its notes will remain available in Albo, even if the original content creator deletes their post or video at some point in the future.

The app works with a variety of social apps, including Pinterest, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Reddit, and Facebook, plus browsers like Chrome and Safari. You can also add screenshots to Albo.

This makes it easy to save any sort of online inspiration for easy access, whether that’s travel ideas, local spots to try, movie or shows to watch, books to read, recipes to cook, or workouts to do. Your collections can also be shared with friends.

Albo hails from the London-based app studio The Feel Good Project, which focuses on tech that makes users feel inspired and satisfied instead of drained by doomscrolling.

The app is free to use with advanced features available via subscription. We didn’t love how heavy-handed it was in pushing the trial subscription during onboarding, however.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Coop

The recent parasite outbreak in the U.S. has people thinking more carefully about where their food comes from. Buying from local growers and bakers may be the safer option — and better for the community — but not everyone has time to make it to the farmer’s market over the weekend.

Coop‘s app offers an alternative through its neighborhood marketplace, where you can buy real handmade and homegrown items from the people near you, even from the farmhouse down the road that offers fresh eggs, or a neighbor willing to barter their items for yours. The idea is to allow commerce to stay local, while helping people turn their own garden, field, or craft into an additional income stream.

On Coop, you can browse and discover nearby sellers, follow your favorites, see how far they are from you, and purchase from them via the app’s Stripe integration. The seller then receives the order and prepares it for pickup.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

PI.FYI by Perfectly Imperfect

A colorful and somewhat chaotic app, PI.FYI, promises to bring back the “old internet,” where you found recommendations through a network of friends, not algorithms. Having emerged from a cult newsletter, the app has been around for a couple of years, but still feels fresh and modern and very much like the alternative to social media it aims become.

In PI.FYI, you can track what you’re into, share your taste, and browse by category or “scenes,” like music, whimsy, retro, and literature, to find your community, read interesting articles, make lists, gather local recommendations, and play games with friends. The app exudes a retro vibe itself, as if it were built when the internet was a little less polished, too.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Lettre

OK, it might not be as fun as sharing a letter via pigeon post, but the app for pen pals, Lettre, also embraces the fun of snail mail in a digital format. This letter-writing app lets you start new friendships with pen pals around the world, discovered through the app, or with anyone whose email address you already know. Unfortunately, letters are sent digitally through the app or email for now, but the company’s FAQ suggests it is considering a postal mail option for the future, which would be so much fun.

Available on iOS only.

Sofa Time

While not a brand-new app, Sofa Time is one of several that is picking up where the recently shuttered TV Time app left off. The app has an easy-to-use, uncluttered interface for tracking the movies and TV shows you’re watching, organizing your watchlist, discovering what to stream next, and getting reminders about new releases.

While Sofa Time’s commenting section doesn’t yet rival TV Time’s forums, the app’s social elements leave room for the community to grow, as it supports the ability to react with a GIF or image alongside your text, and includes built-in translation features to support a global audience.

Available on iOS and Google Play.

ThingsBook

ThingsBook, a new writing-focused app from South Korean internet giant Naver’s U.S. subsidiary, is hardly an indie effort, but it’s an interesting premise for what the future of social media could look like. Instead of doomscrolling, ThingsBook offers a flexible space where you can capture what you care about, whether that’s through journaling, logging ideas, or collecting things like books, travels, meals, hobbies, and goals into structured lists you can revisit and expand.

The company explains that the app’s purpose is not to focus on “fleeting trends” but to become a “living record of who you are and what you love.”

Available on iOS and Google Play.

Pressed Petals

App or artistic project? Pressed Petals is both. An indie effort from designer Cynthia Chen, the app turns the photos of flowers you find on your walks into a pressed specimen, like one you’d find in a “vintage botanical journal.” The app automatically saves the location where you spotted the flower, and the date and time, turning your nature walks into interactive experiences. It also identifies the flower by name, both its scientific name and its common name.

You can try the app to press two flowers for free, then pay a one-time fee of $4.99 to unlock the full experience. This could be a fun app for luring your little ones outside, as it gives them something else to do beyond the hike itself.

Available on iOS only.

Moods Faster

We’re suckers for single-purpose apps that are built well. Moods Faster by Nick Leith is a perfect example, as it offers a way to log your moods for tracking in Apple Health in just two taps — one to select the mood and a second to save it.

You can choose between logging your current mood or your overall mood for the day, and can also optionally add information about the context and emotions you’re experiencing at the time of logging. In the settings, you can pick between different color schemes for your moods, though some are paywalled.

At $1.95 per month, it’s a reasonably priced subscription for anyone who regularly tracks their moods and emotions for mental health purposes.

Available on iOS only.

Activate Fitness

Originally pitched as a way to encourage kids to exercise, Activate Fitness has recently expanded its screen-time-earning app to include the whole family, which, frankly, makes it better. (The kids will just hate their parents for using this otherwise. Plus, it could turn outdoor time or exercise into a dreaded chore in kids’ minds, which defeats the purpose.)

For adults, the app could allow you to accomplish your own personal goals, like no doomscrolling until you get your steps in for the day.

Available on iOS only.

This post was originally published on July 28, 2026.

RGB backlighting and Super Quantum Dot (SQD) technology are mounting the strongest challenge yet to OLED’s dominance in 2026. After testing and reviewing the year’s major contenders, we are ready to reveal our picks for the best TVs of 2026 so far. Join Senior Reviewer Al Griffin, and Editor-at-Large Chris Boylan as they break down their favorite models, explain what sets each one apart, and debate whether OLED still deserves the crown.

Watch it on YouTube

Sponsor: Thank you to our podcast sponsor SVS.

This episode was recorded on July 29, 2026.

On the Panel:

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There’s a new contender in the prosumer UV printer world up on Kickstarter, the HeyGears G1. This one’s particularly interesting as they’re explicitly marketing it as being able to produce full-color 3D prints along with the “print-on-anything” functionality we’ve come to expect from a UV flatbed printer.

You get two choices of bed, with the larger being 420 mm x 320 mm x 130 mm. Hardly the largest build volume we’ve seen around here. You can fill that with up to 6 KG of UV ink/resin from its Epson-brand head in glorious full color and layers as small as 10 um. The ink isn’t super cheap — the CMYK kit looks to MRSP at 189 USD — but you aren’t locked in to expensive cartridges at least. HayGears sells ink in bottles, and you’re free to grab any other brand’s bottles if you want to risk it.

The Kickstarter is ongoing, and it will be some time before backers get their printers. But we can report that the early review copies, like the one [Steve Makes Everything] got for the video embedded below, seem to live up to the manufacturer’s claims, which is promising indeed. Certainly the idea of SLA quality without the mess is very appealing to many — though the super-early-bird price of two grand on Kickstarter and the doubtless higher MRSP may temper some of that interest.

If you’re curious about this UV printer business and why a maker might want one that doesn’t do 3D, our own [Tom Nardi] went hands-on with the EufyMake E1 last year.

While the rumored camera-equipped AirPods Pro won’t be coming out until 2027, an update is still expected by the end of 2026.

Fall is the traditionally busy launch period for Apple’s product catalog, and that can include AirPods. However, while there are rumors of a wild addition to the earbud range in development for 2027, Apple may still have something to launch in 2026.

Writing in Sunday’s “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman reiterates that AirPods Pro probably won’t be coming out in 2026. Back in May, while the model was said to be very close to launch, being in the design validation testing (DVT) stage, it was thought that it was too late in the schedule for 2026, and 2027 was a safer bet.

A more probable 2026 candidate is said to be in the works, under codename B790, with Gurman insisting that Apple habitually makes competing versions internally. The B790 was the alternative to the camera-equipped versions, codenamed B798.

The B790 are said to be “further along,” and have been referenced in iOS 27 code. They have also apparently been listed on Apple’s internal road map for launch as early as 2026.

As for what to expect, Gurman doesn’t provide any clues about them. Most probably, they will be an enhancement of the current version, but without any cameras.

Apple Vision Pro is way too unwieldy for yoga and cardio, but fitness tracking could be implemented in a future version of Apple smart glasses if a job listing is anything to go by.

If there is one thing Apple CEO Tim Cook did beyond making Apple a company capable of earning $109 billion in a summer quarter, it’s bringing health and fitness to its products. There were apparently ambitions for fitness software on Apple Vision Pro, but those plans fell through for obvious reasons.

According to the “Power On” newsletter from Bloomberg, Apple is looking to hire a “strategic product design leader” that would “define the future of health, wellbeing, and fitness experiences across vision products.” The listing goes further by stating that the person would “translate ambiguous opportunities at the intersection of spatial computing, wearables, consumer health, and human behavior.”

The listing itself is interesting, but if you’ve ever scoured Apple’s vacant job postings, there are many like it. Bringing fitness and health products to Apple’s Vision lineup isn’t an unprecedented move as Meta’s Quest headsets have fitness features too.

I still hope Apple might try to work with the team at Supernatural Fitness after Meta cut staff from the project.

The report suggests that Apple has already moved on from the idea of incorporating something like Apple Fitness+ into Apple Vision Pro. The new hire would likely be focused on implementing features in its future smart glasses, though possibly not in the first generation due in 2027.

That said, Apple Vision Pro isn’t devoid of health features today.

Apple Vision Pro is already a fitness product

I wouldn’t recommend buying Apple Vision Pro as a workout tool. It’s big, heavy, and can cause neck strain if you’re moving and twisting too much with it on.

There are fitness tools on Apple Vision Pro if you go looking for them

That doesn’t mean Apple Vision Pro is completely devoid of health and fitness tools. Users can install apps that interact with HealthKit and log fitness data.

Meditation tools were advertised at the launch of Apple Vision Pro, plus there are a few fun workout-focused games on the platform. I would love to play Beat Saber, as that’s a great workout, but it still isn’t on the platform.

The boxing and rhythm games that do exist can work up a sweat, though. Starting a general workout on Apple Watch while playing some of these games can be useful to the user too.

While Apple Vision Pro isn’t exactly something you’d add to your workout routine, it isn’t completely devoid of fitness software. It will be interesting to see how Apple leans into the AR and VR aspects of fitness and health as Apple Vision Pro and smart glasses evolve.

Despite a lawsuit from xAI, a Minnesota ban on apps that allow users to “nudify” images can move forward, according to NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank’s ruling focused as much on the timing of xAI’s lawsuit as on the substance of the law itself. Frank wrote that xAI filed its request for a temporary restraining order “on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect” on August 1.

“Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate,” Frank said.

This isn’t the end of xAI’s lawsuit against the ban; it only means that the law can take effect while the lawsuit proceeds. In the suit, xAI argued that the ban — the first of its kind in the United States — is “overinclusive” and that “there are far less restrictive alternatives that function to achieve the same ends.”

Earlier this year, users of Elon Musk’s social media platform X (both X and xAI, are now part of SpaceX) used xAI’s Grok chatbot to flood the platform with non-consensual sexualized images, leading to investigations and bans.

We’ve all seen these sensors and modules kicking around, as part of beginner kits, strapped into prototypes and potentially even in products deployed in the field. Yet as [John Teel] rightfully points out in a recent video, most of these have no business ever being used in a real product, and might not even be suitable for prototyping.

First up is a combination of the related DHT11 and DHT22 temperature-humidity sensors. As common as these are, they’re also pretty sketchy with their proprietary one-wire protocol and at most questionable accuracy, worsened by not having a good supply chain. The replacements are plentiful: the SHT40 and SHT41, the Bosch Sensortec BME280 or BMP180, as well as TI’s HDC3020. These get you standard I2C communication and a supply chain plus a datasheet you can trust.

Second is the HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor. Although fine for prototyping, it’s a 5 V module, lacks temperature compensation and other features that’d be needed outside a temperature-controlled room. Here ST’s VL53 Time-of-Flight sensors are a good alternative, containing a range of sensors of which we covered the fancier VL53L5CX previously for 3D scanning a room. Of course, you can also use reflective IR as a good cheap alternative.

Third is the HC-SR501 passive infrared (PIR) motion module. This one is also fine for PIR and motion sensing prototyping, but is too inconsistent and power-hungry for production. Instead you can get much better and much smaller PIR modules, like the Panasonic EKMC and EKMB, or the ST STHS34 IR motion and presence sensor.

Fourth takes a swing at all the MQ-series of gas sensors. These generally feature a heater that consumes a lot of power, require a long burn-in period and need calibration using a reference gas to be useful. In a safety-first environment you’d thus use a sensor from a reputable manufacturer with a datasheet and some level of calibration.

Fifth is the MPU-6050 IMU, which probably comes as a surprise to many, as it generally seems to just work well. The main issue here is something that is common for a lot of common non-sensor chips as well, like the still very common UDA1334A I2S codec that hasn’t been manufactured by NXP for ages, but is still found everywhere. If you want to design a product that can be easily manufactured, you have to pick an IMU here that is actively being manufactured by a reputable manufacturer.

You also have to actively avoid anything that’s marked as ‘Not Recommended for New Designs’ (NRND) unless you love supply surprises during production. For IMUs you end up with something like the Bosch BMI270 or TDK’s ICM-42688, albeit for more money, but with better specifications.

Sixth sensor are cadmium sulfide photoresistors (LDRs). Although this is a very simple light-dependent resistor part, they fall afoul of the EU’s RoHS regulations due to the presence of said cadmium. Fortunately they’re not that great anyway, so an ambient light sensor IC is a good alternative. Here the Vishay VEML7700, TI OPT3001 and Lite-On LTR-303 are recommended and provide far more features at a reasonable BOM cost.

Seventh sensor and #1 on the list is the ACS712 current sensor. Specifically the mains-targeting breakout boards that are being sold everywhere. Here it’s not the IC that’s the problem, it’s that here – as also seen with various common relay boards – there has been no consideration given to basic mains power safety, such as creepage distance and general separation. The lesson here is that if you integrate mains power in your device, you do not skimp on safety with a sketchy module.