The Modern Desk

This hand-sanded and hand-oiled wood veneer iPad sleeve with geometric contouring done through a laser-cutting technique made me look twice. The internal premium German wool lining protects your precious device from scratches. Two different wood types are available. Oh, how I love geometric shapes.

TYLT Zumo

Portable charger and battery pack in one

The TYLT Zumo is a small and portable back-up charger. It works like any other phone charger, just that it has a battery sitting in between both ends giving you a few more hours of extra juice when you're on the move. It's designed to hold a charge for over a year. Pretty impressive.

Delayed Gratification

Join the slow journalism movement

As a magazine maker I'm a big proponent of print as a slow counterbalance to the digital onslaught of information. An indie title that does an amazing job at just that is Delayed Gratification: a quarterly print magazine that revisits the news after the dust has settled to give the final analysis on the stories that mattered.

Google Keep

Simple note-taking powered by Google

Not sure how that missed my radar: Google has a simple, note-taking app called Keep, which allows you to create shareable notes, lists and reminders. The design reminds me a bit of Mac OSX sticky notes. It gets messy quickly, but the search feature is powerful, as you'd expect from Google.

iDoneThis

Get regular status updates from your team members

Does your company do daily stand-up meetings to get everyone on the same page? iDoneThis tries to replace them with your inbox: simply reply to an evening email reminder with what you did that day. The next day, get a digest with what everyone on the team got done.

Grammarly

The advanced spell checker

Don't you hate discovering those typos just a second after you clicked the "Send" button? Grammarly promises help by checking your spelling in real time within your browser, making use of advanced and continuously improving algorithms. I just installed the Chrome plugn... I mean plugin.

The Modern Desk is a brief, once-a-week newsletter with a handful of apps and accessories to help you create a more productive and enjoyable work environment. We don’t get kickbacks, we just love great products. Follow us on Twitter for related updates. Kindly supported by Campaign Monitor.

A project by Kai Brach of brizk design, 20 Breese St, Brunswick VIC 3056, Australia.