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 app that works out the best contract for your phone, a minimalist photo app, and a messaging service that only uses your lock screen.
KillBiller
For: Android (iOS coming soon)
Cost: Free
- Figuring out the best mobile plan for you is a guessing game. Unless you’re really dedicated, chances are you will opt for whatever plan that’s offered to you.
- Irish-developed app KillBiller is designed to take that guesswork away and help you make a better decision. It analyses your phone calls and mobile usage to present to you the best possible mobile plan.
- The app is bright and simple, which is what you want, colour-coding mobile plans and graphs showing you how much it would have cost
- It’s recommended that you have at least two-three months of call data logged on your phone to get the best results.
- Strongly recommended for anyone who is thinking of getting a new phone over the next few months. Also for those who may feel like they’re overpaying every month.
Pipes
For: iOS, Google Play
Cost: Free
- Interest apps tend to be quite general, covering broad areas and requiring you to trudge through them to find the stories you really want.
- Pipes lets you focus on topics both broad and specific. The interface is swipe-based and it takes information from news sites, Twitter and Wikipedia to help flesh out chosen topics.
- You can get push notifications alerting you to what’s new, something the developers wisely limit to one or two a day.
- You can shake your phone to see what news topics are trending right now, although you might prefer to add ones in yourself.
- One for those who absolutely need to keep track of events like the World Cup or Wimbledon.
Lenka
For: iOS
Cost: €2.69
- Remember when we covered the black and white photography app Black for Windows Phone a few weeks ago? Well, a iOS equivalent has arrived and it’s just as good.
- Developed by the Irish photographer Kevin Abosch, Lenka‘s strength is in its simplicity. It doesn’t use flash, it doesn’t use the front-facing camera, it’s all about what’s in front of you.
- Well, saying it doesn’t use flash is kind of a lie. There is an option to have it always on, similar to the torch function, so you can add extra light to your photo.
- Also, there are one or two editing features here at best, meaning the experience is purely focused on letting you taking your photo and getting it out there.
- One for those who want to make their photos more artistic, but not have to put in the effort.
The Ingenious Machine
For: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Cost: €1.29
- If you’re not a fan of Rube Goldberg machines, you may want to skip this app and move to the next one. Otherwise, you’re going to enjoy this.
- The Ingenious Machine is a physics-based puzzle game which takes this concept and lets you build impractical machines to perform simple tasks.
- It has a nice hand-drawn art style, using a blueprint background and sketched items to
- There are 25 levels, but it becomes more complicated with guns, magnets, conveyer belts and one ton weights all needed to succeed.
- If you’re looking to give your brain a workout, you could do worse.
LokLok
For: Android
Cost: Free
- We’ve seen numerous custom lock screens for Android, but chances are you would never expect it to be used for messaging.
- That’s the concept of LokLok, which allows you to send drawing messages straight from your lock screen.
- It’s effectively a whiteboard app that’s in sync with those of your friends. Simply wake your phone up, draw something, save and it appears on your friends’ lock screen.
- It’s silly, but it’s fun and is designed to be used with small group of friends – or even just one person if you’re so inclined.
- It’s in beta mode, but it approves new users very quickly so you certainly won’t be waiting long to get started.
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