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 features an easier way to take selfies, a way to turn your phone into a tennis racket and a puzzle game all about surveillance.
Snapi
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Taking a selfie is hard. You’re trying to stretch your hand as far as possible, keep your arm steady and press the shutter button without dropping it. And God forbid you decide to use a selfie stick *shudder*.
- Snapi tries to take the hassle out of selfies by using gestures, not buttons, to take a photo.
- At first, it requires a bit of trial and error. You have to show your open hand first for it to be recognised. Once that’s done, you make a fist and it will count down before taking your selfie.
- It uses both front and rear camera so you can get better quality photos (provided you’re ok not seeing the screen), and for the most part, it recognises your gestures.
- It’s pretty obvious who this is aimed towards so you’ll know if this is for you or not.
VapourChat
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- Almost all messaging apps now have a self-destructing feature included. It’s practically an unwritten rule now.
- VapourChat takes this up a notch by allowing you to delete any message, or conversation from both phones at any time.
- If you want, you can turn on Vapour Mode and see them removed within a set timeframe.
- If a friend tries to take a screenshot, you can customise it so that your conversation is automatically deleted when this happens.
- For those who really want to make sure their messages stay private.
Perfect Music
For: Windows Phone
Cost: Free
- Chances are you rely more on the likes of Spotify and Deezer for music, but you can’t beat having your own tracks when you’re on the move (or when you lose reception).
- Perfect Music has a great interface for a music app and manages to get the right balance between style and functionality.
- It’s a pretty standard music app, but it has a number of small but useful features that come together nicely.
- A good feature is the inclusion of lyrics search for each song (people still do that, ok) but even if you don’t care about that, there’s enough there to warrant a look.
- If you don’t use music streaming services and want an alternative to your regular music player, this is for you.
Motion Tennis Cast
For: Android
Cost: Free
- Got a Chromecast handy? You probably know you can play games on it with your phone but the selection of games can be hit and miss.
- Now you can add Motion Tennis Cast to that list as it turns your phone into a virtual racket. You won’t be making massive swings so you don’t have to worry about it falling out of your hands (but if you have a grip, that works too).
- It’s able to tell what way you’re holding it and after a bit of practice, you’ll be able to perform lobs, spin shots and smashes.
- There were one or two moments of lag experienced (which is annoying when you’re returning a shot) but overall, it performs well and is rather fun.
- Just make sure you don’t make any wild swings when holding your phone and you’ll be fine.
TouchTone
For: iOS
Cost: €2.99
- A game based around NSA-style surveillance may not sound like like your idea of fun, but it’s what makes this game so memorable.
- TouchTone’s presentation will remind you of games like ’Papers, Please’, as it’s more about atmosphere than gameplay.
- The game itself has you bouncing lasers and getting them to their destination. The purpose is you’re actually a citizen who trying to hack into personal emails, messages and texts so you can spot and report suspicious behaviour.
- The plot does add weight to what you’re doing, elevating it from a simple puzzle game into something more complex and intriguing.
- A great puzzle game that deeper than you would expect from a mobile game.
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