EACH WEEK, WE highlight five apps that are worth downloading for your smartphone and tablet. There are a lot of apps released every day, but not all of them are worth paying attention to.
This week features hexagons, finger painting photo editing apps, and a to-do list boiled down to its most basic format.
Clarity Keyboard Beta
For: Android
Cost: Free
- If it wasn’t clear from the name, the beta tag means there are going to be bugs here so if you want a perfect experience, you may want to sit this one out.
- For those of you still interested, Clarity is a traditional keyboard that wants to do all the heavy work for you.
- instead of checking what you’re typing, it encourages you to type as fast as possible. While traditional autocorrect keyboards correct one word, this corrects multiple words together or even sentences so it says what you want.
- It’s very much a work in progress, but from what’s there already, it does a good enough job figuring out what you want to say, so long as it’s not slang.
- If you’re better at touch typing than swiping, then this will be an app worth looking at.
That
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- Ever feel that to-do apps leave you feeling more snowed under after you’ve created a list? Well, here’s a simple alternative.
- That is the to-do list boiled down to one entry. It’s not even an entry, just a reminder that you need to do something, specifically ‘that’.
- All you do is set the day a task needs to be done, either today tomorrow or next Monday.
- And that’s it. Go about your day, get ‘that’ done and tell the app you’ve completed it.
- Should you find a regular to-do list a little overwhelming, you might find this to be a more manageable alternative.
Pocket Casts
For: iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Cost: €2.99 (Android), €3.99 (iOS & WP)
- Should you be looking for a good podcast app on Windows Phone, you’ve come to the right place.
- Pocket Casts is a minimalist but polished app that allow you to keep up with your favourite shows without having to check.
- It usually checks every hour if there are new episodes and only downloads when on WiFi, although you can change this to 12 hours segments or just check manually.
- It can also sync across multiple devices whether that’s the web or other mobile devices or both. So favourite episodes and even progress through episodes is carried over.
- Definitely one of the better podcast apps you can get on WP.
Repix – Inspiring Photo Editor
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
- Most photo editors allow you to impose broad changes on photos. Brightness, filters, special effects, but nothing specific.
- Repix has the standard editing features available, but the real draw is the ability to fingerpaint (for want of a better term) effects on images.
- Through that you can blur images and add other effects. The freedom it gives allows you to truly get creative when editing.
- The only two drawbacks are the number of in-app purchases you have to make to unlock everything and the fact that ads usually appear every time you open it.
- Apart from that, a powerful set of tools are available, even if you just use the free version.
Polygon Evolution
For: iOS, Android
Cost: €1.99 (iOS) Free (Android)
- We love a good puzzle game but this one may take a little bit of time to learn first before you start enjoying it.
- Polygon Evolution is all about hexagons and it will remind you a little of Threes! in its format.
- Your goal is to clear the map of all icons. Join up three dots to get one line, join three lines to create one plus sign and so on. The tutorial will feel like overload, but you should stick with it.
- You have to clear each map in a set number of turns but if that sounds too stressful, there’s a Zen mode which takes all the pressure away.
- It requires a bit of patience to learn but once you’re there, it’s a rewarding puzzler.
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