If You Need to Bake a Cake - Get Mela Recipe Manager
I've got cake on the brain today, for some reason...
I've extensively tested four different recipe management apps, all available in the App Store:
All of them are quality apps and they are not mirror images of each other. Anylist, for example has helpful features unrelated to groceries or cooking. It, along with Crouton, is a subscription app. Paprika is a one time purchase of $29.99. Mela, my pick for recipes, is only $9.99. The developer, Silvio Rizzi, is also responsible for the popular RSS app Reeder Classic and the chronological timeline app, Reeder. He's a talented developer but has a reputation for being difficult to get a response from. I don't have personal experience in that area. His apps work fine for me and I've never had to contact him.
Mela Features
- In app browser with preview - If you've looked for recipes online, you know they can be buried in SEO slop and lots of stories about how Aunt Nancy used to bake this cake. Mela helps avoid that by automatically extracting most recipes from wordy websites.
- Feeds - If you have favorite cooking blogs, you can subscribe to them from within Mela and read the recipes in the viewer.
- Cook Mode - Displays the recipe in a large, easy to read font and can load multiple recipes for the same meal
- Timers - In app timers to use when preparing meals
- Scanner - Scan and OCR recipes from cookbooks and magazines
- Apple Integration - Meal planning is calendar based and can be viewed and shared on devices whether Mela is installed on them or not. Grocery lists are managed in reminders and can also be shared on non-Mela devices.
- Printing - You can print Mela recipes
- Organizing - Create categories for your saved recipes based on your won criteria
The iOS/iPadOS version of Mela is an extra purchase, but it is only $4.99