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 a way to bring livestreaming to your tweets, a handy browser that takes inspiration from Facebook chat heads and another addictive drawing game.
Meerkat
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- Unfortunately, Meerkat isn’t actually about meerkats. Instead, it’s all about live streaming through Twitter.
- The twist is its similar to Snapchat in that once you start broadcasting, the live stream is tweeted out to everyone who follows you.
- When a live stream is in session, people can tune in and comment on it. You can also build anticipation by firing out a preview of what you’ll be live streaming
- We did find the app zooms in a little bit when it’s recording something so you have to account for that, but it’s actually pretty fun to play around with and simple to use.
- It may sound like a silly idea, but the spontaneity (and silliness) of it will bring you back.
The Impossible Path
For: Windows Phone
Cost: Free (€0.99 for full version)
- Do you feel like your memory and concentration skills are pretty good? Then you may enjoy this.
- The premise of The Impossible Path is to trace a line from point A to B and collect all stars along the way. The catch is the obstacles are hidden away and you have to remember where they are.
- It starts off rather easy to get you used to the mechanics of the game, but it does ramp up the difficulty somewhat by adding new obstacles like moving objects.
- Only the easy levels and some of the medium ones are available initially. If you want all 100 levels, you’ll have to pay.
- But if enjoy a good mental exercise, you probably won’t mind that.
Flynx
For: Android
Cost: Free
- If you find the idea of clicking links on Twitter and Facebook and being brought away from the app itself annoying, you may be in luck.
- Flynx brings with it a minimalist and clean layout allowing you to read articles without distraction.
- The real draw is it helps you open up links from any app you use. Once you tap a link, it loads in the background until it’s ready. It’s similar to how Facebook Chatheads works, and that’s a good thing.
- The purpose is to ensure you’re not taken away from apps like Twitter, Whatsapp or Facebook and has other features like offline reading, night mode and other customisation features.
- If you’re heavily invested in social apps or have a slow connection, this is very useful. but if you want a more browser-centric version, try Linkbubble instead.
Fifty Photo Shades
For: Windows Phone
Cost: Free
- Fifty Photo Shades is a rather simple app allowing you to adjust the highlights and colour tones after you change an image to black and white.
- The interface is rather basic, there’s only an edit and a camera button to use when you start, but it does make up for it with the editing options available.
- When you dig into the editing side of things, you are presented with a number of sliders to help you adjust highlights, shadow, and lighting.
- There is a little bit of lag when you’re trying to save photos. Also, some images end up with little blotches which aren’t noticeable on the small screen but are when blown up.
- If you love the idea of monochrome photography, this may be worth a look.
Magic Touch: Wizard for Hire
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free
- Nitrome is developing a reputation for creating simple but great smartphone games to play and it’s done it again.
- Magic Touch is the latest release from it and it’s another simple but addictive game to download.
- Taking inspiration from Impossible Draw, you are tasked with drawing shapes to help prevent the enemy from invading your castle.
- It has an easy learning curve, but it soon becomes more difficult as it throws more complex shapes to draw. There’s also a degree of strategy involved as well as you unlock spells and learn patterns.
- It will frustrate you regularly, but you won’t be able to put it down.
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