Shelter-in-Place Journal, Day Ninety-Three

Happy Medicare Birthday to my brother!

A few days ago, I decided I needed an app to track packages. The Mac podcasts I listened to have raved about an app called Deliveries (from JuneCloud) for years; it was $4.99 on the App Store, so I bought it. It works well for USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL tracking; you can even give it access to your Amazon account and it will track Amazon orders no matter how they’re shipped (and even before they’re shipped). It has an Apple Watch app; there’s also a Mac app, but it costs another $5. It’s attractive and makes good use of notifications.

But…it doesn’t support FEIA, the carrier that’s delivering my webcam. Instead, I wound up using parcelsapp.com to track that package – and after a while, I decided to try their iPhone app, Parcels (free, with optional in-app purchases).

Parcels is not as pretty as Deliveries, doesn’t have a Watch app as far as I can tell, and doesn’t have a Mac app. Notifications require a subscription ($3.49/year, which also turns off the ads, which are pretty annoying). But it tracks more carriers and goes into more detail. It imports orders from a few merchants (including Amazon and eBay), too.

If I’d realized how good Parcels was in its free mode, I would have tried it before buying Deliveries. But now I have both – I’m going to have to order more things!

If you’re looking for a package tracker, try Parcels first; it may be all you need.