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 an easy way of digitising your documents, a trip around the world and an app for defacing friends’ photos.
Scanbot
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free (basic), €4.49 (pro)
- Printers are slowly going the way of the dodo and, with them, scanners are becoming rarer fixtures in homes and offices
- Scanbot lets you use an iOS or Android device’s camera to scan documents at up to 200 dpi resolution and save them as either a JPEG or PDF
- It includes technology to reduce blurring and it also has built-in “perspective correction”, which can straighten up an image before it is saved
- The free version covers all the basics, but the pro features pack some punch – like automatic word recognition to produce searchable and copyable text from an image
- Scanned documents can be sent straight to cloud services like Dropbox and they can also be edited for a quick crop or note to be added
doo GmbH / Vimeo
80 Days
For: iOS, Android, Kindle Fire
Cost: €4.49
- This retro-themed game has been getting rave reviews and has made a bunch of “best-of” lists already this year
- Set in the “steam-punk” world of 1872, players have to make their way all the around the world from London and back again using various kinds of transport – and against the clock
- Based very loosely on the Jules Verne classic, Around the World in 80 Days, it’s an interactive adventure game from the team at Inkle Studios
- The game is heavily story-based, with your choices pushing the main characters (you play Passepartout, French valet to Verne’s lead character, Phileas Fogg) down different paths to produce new plotlines
- There’s a lot of freedom in how the game plays out, making it a good option for repeat playing even once the 80 day goal has been cracked
Stickered for Messenger
Cost: Free
- OK, this app has no practical purpose – but that doesn’t stop it from being a good diversion from doing something more useful
- The add-on to Facebook’s Messenger lets you put stickers on photos then send them to friends via the messaging app
- Most of the stickers are cutesy cartoon characters or emoticons, which means it will probably appeal most to younger users. Or Hello Kitty fans
- You can easily cover faces or do other customisation jobs with the stickers – which can be stretched and shrunk as necessary – before adding a caption to the image
- The Android version came out last week, but Facebook only released the iOS version on Tuesday
SuperBeam
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free (regular), €1.79 (pro)
- SuperBeam is designed to make it easier to send big files between devices without fiddling with cloud solutions or chewing up battery life using BlueTooth
- It uses WiFi to hook up the device to a partner – that could mean transferring between a smartphone and a tablet, or to a PC using either the companion software or web interface
- Devices are linked using a QR code or a manual sharing key (Pro version only). It remembers paired devices so you only need to go through the hassle of the process once
- An Android version of the app has been out for a while now, but the iOS version has only been released this week
- If you’ve got an Apple device the app makes less sense because it doesn’t have Android’s WiFi Direct feature – which allows transfers to be done without the devices being on the same network
MetroTube
For: Windows Phone
Cost: €0.99 (free trial)
- One of the best options if you want a YouTube client for Windows Phone since the Google-owned video-sharing service pulled its flawed client from the OS altogether
- MetroTube has been around for a few years now, but it just got an update – adding support for playlists to the continual-playback feature that was included earlier in the month
- It now supports videos in qualities up to Full HD and the user interface was also recently upgraded to look prettier
- Most of the features are the same as you would expect from a YouTube client, like the ability to like and comment on videos, and log in for favourites and subscriptions
- You still can’t upload and share videos direct to YouTube from the app however, so another third-party app is needed to send your content to the site
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