Apps

8 mindfulness apps to help you cope in this time of uncertainty

Take some time for your mental health

Published

April 18, 2020

Chay Lazaro

Caring for your health goes beyond eating more whole foods instead of processed foods. Getting good sleep, working out, and practicing mindfulness are just as important for your overall well-being.

Taking a brief moment for your mental health is necessary especially at a time like this when stress and anxiety levels are high for a lot of people. Here are some mindfulness apps that can help you cope during this time of uncertainty, whether it’s guided meditation, breathing exercises, or looking for help to relieve stress.

Breathe

The Breathe app on your Apple Watch encourages you to set aside a few minutes a day to relax and focus on your breathing. Taking moments throughout the day to stop, relax, and practice mindfulness can help reduce stress and improve overall health. It’s also available as a watch face, so you can bring focus to your day just by raising your wrist.

3 Minute Mindfulness

If meditating for 20 minutes feels like too much, 3 Minute Mindfulness is the perfect introduction. 3 Minute Mindfulness helps you stop, pause and reset in just 3 minutes so you can remain calm and relaxed throughout the day. You can choose from a 7 Days of Mindfulness course to a range of breathing exercise that each have different benefits. In addition, 3 Minute Mindfulness connects with the Health app to save all the time you spend being mindful.

Ten Percent Happier

Want to sleep better, be more mindful, improve your relationships, and become just about ten percent happier? This is the app for you. The guided meditations, videos, talks, and sleep content will help you build (or boost) your meditation practice, and stick with it. Ten Percent Happier also integrates with the Health app.

Simple Habit

Wellness & sleep therapy sessions offer guided mindfulness & meditation, daily motivation, guided sleep sessions and coaching by world-renowned experts, personalized for the way you live your life. Whether you have 5 minutes in the morning or need to fall asleep quickly, start your Simple Habit today and live better every day. Optionally integrate your meditations with Apple Health by connecting your meditations with Mindful Minutes.

Headspace

Get happy. Stress less. Sleep soundly. Headspace is your guide to everyday mindfulness in just a few minutes a day. Choose from hundreds of guided meditations on everything from managing stress and anxiety to sleep, productivity, exercise, and physical health — including short SOS meditations for when you’re on the go. And to help you find some space during tough times, Headspace is here for you with the new Weathering the storm pack. Track your progress and time spent meditating while adding Mindful Minutes to your Health app.

Timeless

Multi-day courses, guided meditations, and a beautiful personal practice timer. Timeless is made by meditators, for meditators. The app provides high-quality guided instruction with practicing meditators, multi-day immersions for learning new techniques, and a personal practice timer that is elegant, easy-to-use, and fully customizable. Timeless is fully integrated with the Health app, making it easy to track Mindful Minutes.The app is also beautifully designed for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, honoring each device and its unique features while Cloud Sync and handoff ensure seamless experiences across devices.

Zen

If you want to live a happier, healthier and more balanced emotional life, Zen is the perfect app for you. On Apple’s list of ‘Best apps of 2016’, Zen offers a diverse and ever-growing amount of content and features such as HealthKit compatibility to save all health data on your Health app.

Stop, Breathe & Think Kids

Stop, Breathe & Think Kids is a mindful games app designed specifically for kids ages 5 – 10. Kids can check into how they are feeling using fun emojis and try recommended mindful missions and meditations tuned to those emotions. Stickers reward their progress and keep the mindful activities engaging. The kids meditation and mindful missions in Stop, Breathe & Think Kids were developed in collaboration with activity-based mindfulness expert Susan Kaiser Greenland, creator of the Inner Kids program and author of Mindful Games and The Mindful Child.

Apps

Disney+ launches a TikTok-coded vertical feed called Verts

Published

March 13, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

TikTok has changed how we consume media. Everything is now vertical. Even the most established streaming services, often a bastion for traditionally horizontal content, is adopting the different format. Now, Disney+ is getting a vertical feed called Verts.

Like its contemporaries, Verts presents a continuous feed of content but tailored to show the plethora of titles from the Disney+ library. This might include the first scenes of shows or notable highlights. The hope, of course, is to direct users to the longform content.

Directly from the Verts feed, users can easily add the respective title to their watchlist or go straight to the title’s page. In turn, the feed is accessible from the homepage since it has its own tab.

According to Disney, early experiments with the feature have driven engagement to available content. Right now, the feed is mostly for clipping enticing content from shows. However, the platform will experiment further with the format for new ways to tell stories.

Though Verts surely stands for “verticals” in this case, “adverts” might fit better as its full government name. Still, it might be a useful tool if you’re figuring out what to watch for the night.

Currently, Verts is available for Disney+ subscribers in the United States. Disney also has plans to expand the feature to ESPN for sports-related content.

Apps

Google Maps is finally getting a 3D mode

The app will also have a Gemini chatbot baked inside.

Published

March 13, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

Some of today’s navigation apps are living in the future. Instead of a two-dimensional map, these apps render the user’s surroundings in 3D. It’s a nifty upgrade that helps drivers more accurately visualize directions on the fly. Finally, Google Maps is getting a much-needed upgrade and will take navigation to the third dimension.

In a new update rolling out today, the new Immersive Navigation feature will bring your surroundings to life. The 3D view creates a render of the surrounding buildings, overpasses, and terrain around the car. It takes the guesswork out of navigation by showing precisely where to turn and what landmarks to look out for.

In the same vein, you can now use Street View to preview your destination before you arrive. Google Maps will also highlight your destination’s entrance, side of the street, and nearby parking.

Outside of how the map is visualized, Google Maps is also infusing its service with Gemini. The new Ask Maps feature will let you engage with the app in a conversational manner. For example, if you’re in the middle of a long drive, you can now ask Maps where the best place is to stop over and have a coffee break. Ask Maps will provide directions, a potential itinerary, and even helpful links to book a reservation ahead of time.

Now, availability for both of these features is still a bit limited. Immersive View is rolling out today to compatible devices and vehicles in the United States. Further, availability will expand over the coming months.

Meanwhile, Ask Maps is available now in the United States and India for Android and iOS. A desktop version is coming soon.

Apps

Apple Music, TikTok launch Play Full Song, a new music discovery experience

Rolling out worldwide exclusively through Apple Music

Published

March 12, 2026

GadgetMatch

Ever came across a viral 15 or 30-second music snippet on TikTok that instantly became your jam on repeat?

For years, TikTok has been a regular source of songs that have become part of our playlists. And together with Apple Music, listening to the music you discover has just gotten even easier.

That’s through Play Full Song, a new music discovery experience, which launches exclusively though Apple Music.

With the new feature, Apple Music subscribers can now enjoy full-length tracks that they discover on TikTok. That’s without ever leaving that popular streaming app.

Fans who discover a song that they love on their For You or Sound Detail page can simply tap the Play Full Song button to open up an Apple Music player and enjoy the song in its entirety.

From there, subscribers can continue listening to a personalized stream of recommended songs. That means no more need to switch apps and search separately.

The new Play Full Song experience helps music fans move seamlessly from the moment of discovery to deeper listening. It’s also designed to be instant and all within the same environment.

Moreover, users can also save their favorite songs to Your Music and add them directly to their Apple Music playlists.

Built using Apple’s MusicKit, full-length song playback takes place on Apple Music. This way, streams are paid within the Apple Music service, supporting artists and rights holders while giving fans a smooth, uninterrupted experience.

Listening Party also launched

The feature builds on the success of TikTok’s Add to Music App. This was previously launched to help artists and fans convert discovery on TikTok to a playlist save in Apple Music and other streaming services.

To cap the announcement, TikTok and Apple Music are also introducing Listening Party. This new feature is designed to bring artists and fans together around music.

It creates a shared environment where fans can listen to songs from their favorite artists in real time, interact with each her, and engage directly with the artist during the session.