EACH WEEK, WE highlight five apps that are worth downloading for your smartphone and tablet. There are a lot of apps released on a daily basis, but not all of them are worth paying attention to.
This week includes a better way to manage your time, Dropbox’s answer to your photo storing woes and an extreme solution to your alarm clock woes.
Week View 8
For: Windows Phone
Cost: €1.99 (trial version available)
- In case the first 100 days of the year didn’t quite go to plan, there’s a new calendar app for Windows Phone that may help you out.
- Week View 8 focuses entirely on the week ahead. It doesn’t let you think about what’s happening further down the line, just the next seven days.
- Live tile functionality allows you to see the next four events that’s coming up, and multiple tile support allows you to view appointment duration or monthly calendar (among other things) if you wish.
- Speech recognition is quite decent, although you might have to speak a little slowly if you want it to recognise your voice, but that’s the same as any personal assistant.
- Thankfully there’s a trial version of the app should you like the idea but want to take it for a test drive.
Day Flow
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- If you have problems managing your time, but want a minimalist way of viewing your time, this could help improve things a little.
- For those who struggle to find time to complete tasks, Day Flow helps you find the time here and there to complete tasks by scheduling tasks per hour although you can change how long each activity is.
- A nice, clean interface shows you exactly how your day is panning out and how efficient you’re being throughout the day.
- Ultimately, it shows how one action can impact your time in other ways. It’s one that will require a little bit of time to get used to but it’s worth it.
- If you require an app that will help you focus on the task at hand a little better, this is for you. If you find it a little too simplistic, Any.do or Time Planner might suit you better.
Carousel
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
- If you’re a regular Dropbox user, the people behind it are giving you a new way to backup and organise your photos.
- Carousel automatically syncs all your photos in one place. Chances are you’ve been placing them in Dropbox (or Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive) already so this mightn’t be as large a jump as you’d expect.
- It sorts all photos chronologically, starting from the most recent to the oldest and its surprisingly intuitive.
- You can message or email photos in private conversations as well, should you come across an image that just needs to be shared.
- One for those who rely on Dropbox regularly and are using more than the free 2GB of storage initially available.
Puzzle Alarm Clock
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Some people find it easy to wake up in the morning, others find it a little difficult, but for those who constantly hit the snooze button regularly, here’s a fun alternative.
- Puzzle Alarm Clock takes things to a rather bizarre extreme. Instead of a traditional snooze button, it makes you solve equations and puzzles to shut off your alarm.
- You can set an app to open up as soon as you turn off your alarm, handy if you regularly check your email or Facebook first thing in the morning.
- It will also check to see if you’ve actually woken up, just in case you decide to switch off the alarm and go back to sleep.
- If you want to go one step further, you can pay money to hit the snooze button. In case you need extra motivation.
Javelin Browser
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Android users are now being spoiled for choice when it comes to browsers. First LinkBubble, now Javelin Browser offers another viable alternative.
- It looks nice (which always helps) but the focus is very much on speed. It strips browsing down to its basics so you’re not bogged down.
- It uses one-touch navigation meaning you can competently browse the web with one hand, unless you use a tablet or *shudder* phablet.
- On top of that, incognito mode, reader mode (similar to Safari on iOS) and ad-blocker are included too.
- The only drawback is that what you’re getting is effectively a freemium version of a browser. The pro version gives you additional features like unlimited tabs (the free version allows you to open ten at any one time) and Spirit Mode, which lets you surf the web using built-in proxy services so your browsing is faster.
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