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 a new game from the makers of Angry Birds, a portal for borrowing e-Books from your local library, and a brand new old-school chat room.
Overdrive
For: Windows Phone, Android, iOS, Kindle, Nook and desktop
Cost: Free
- Borrow e-books and audiobooks from your local library and store them on your device.
- Overdrive has a relationship with 87 libraries in Ireland (and about 30,000 worldwide), so you should be able to find yours.
- When you do, enter your membership number, and start browsing.
- Download the title in ePub, or read on your device, then return it before the due date.
- This is an incredible resource, the only slight drawback being that “returning” ePub titles can be a little bit fiddly, although Overdrive lists clear instructions on how to do it.
RETRY
Cost: Free (in-app purchases)
- The makers of Angry Birds and Bad Piggies release a retro-style plane navigator
- You control a small plane and propel it through an increasingly perilous obstacle course by well-timed screen-tapping
- The aesthetic isn’t a million miles away from pre-historic games like Sopwith, which is weirdly refreshing
- As the title suggests, Retry is addictive. Not Angry-Birds-addictive, but compelling nonetheless.
- However, if you like your thumbs and fingers to be busy while you play games, you might find the constant tapping a bit repetitive.
Deko
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- A ridiculously simple app to create unique, very pretty wallpaper designs.
- The user doesn’t actually design or draw the patterns, but you swipe across auto-generated schemes to change them and create a new one.
- The further across you swipe, the more radical the change in the pattern.
- Anyone looking for a gorgeous wallpaper or background for their website or social media account will get a kick out of Deko.
- Even if you don’t end up saving or sharing your patterns, the process of generating lovely-looking new designs with each gentle swipe, is fairly mesmerising.
Rooms
For: iOS (Android coming soon)
Cost: Free
- Facebook launches its hotly-awaited anonymous chat room app
- Users seek out common interests and hobbies, get a QR invite code to each “room”, and chat away about gardening and puppies, posting photos and videos for the group.
- You don’t need a Facebook account to join (just an email address) and you can pick a different nickname for each room you enter.
- Negotiating the QR code invites can be a bit fiddly, and it remains to be seen how much appetite there is out there for another chat room app, but definitely worth a look.
Hyspherical
For: iOS
Cost: Free
- Simple, elegant but fiercely challenging game of spheres and circles will test your timing and patience. And keep you playing.
- Hyspherical is simple: if the spheres can go around the circles in full just once, you beat the level. If they collide with each other, they disappear. If they all disappear, you restart the level.
- It might sound incredibly dull on paper, but it’s not. If you’re interested in exercising you attention span, sense of timing, and spacial logic, you’ll be hooked.
- Conversely, if you like your mobile games to flash and scream at you, it might not be for you.
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