The apps discussed below represent the best of their kind ever made for iPhones, with their ratings evaluated according to ease-of-use, productivity impact, user ratings, and international acclaim to name a few. These apps helped to tame workloads, improve response times and generally just turn any iPhone into an improved work tool.

Slack offers users one of the hottest complication chat platforms to aid in speeding up the tempo at which work can get processed in teams containing larger numbers of people. Superficially, the app and platform allow users to create chat rooms/channels through which they may send messages, but the real reason Slack became so popular is the scalability it offers to larger teams. It employs a highly customisable interface that allows users to connect to services such as Giphy. The developers that designed this app clearly display a higher level of talent, as is easily apparent in its seamless functioning with native apps and web-based clients, and excellent design features. Additionally it offers a digital assistant called Slackbot that shows such excellent AI functioning it quickly turns a lurker into a power user.

Sunrise saw the light of day after its initial inception started as a side project between two designers who made contact while employed at Foursquare. It began as an email daily digest; however, it quickly grew to become one of the greatest smart calendars in the market. The app initially attracted attention because the interface avoided any traditionally recognised calendar design while including additionally assistive functions such as maps and weather forecasts. The app came as a forerunner before the age of digital assistants such as Cortana, Siri and others; it also had the ability to connect with near all accounts anyone might have had, from social media, to emails, or even assist with productivity by searching for information its users might need.

Clear stands head and shoulders clear the rest of the to-do apps in the market, and did so way before Apple dreamt of its pre-installed Reminders app that currently arrive on all iPhone variants. It offers powerful, but simple reminders and to-do functionality that has seen in excess of 2.5 million downloads to date. One of its greatest achievements becomes clear via its flat, elegant user interface that speaks of a design language that has currently been incorporated into every major software tech imaginable. It offers functions such as swiping items right or left to mark tasks is complete, which today might not seem too innovative, but considering the date of its origins was quite revolutionary when the custom demanded users tap checkboxes to mark tasks is completed.

Over the previous 12 months, Android developers uploaded copious quantities of top grade, highly inventive mobile videogame apps, which spoilt the android community rotten, as they should be and now more of the same, but with improved graphics, more action, superior storylines, lower battery usage, and a whole bunch of other absolutely necessary improvements.

Considering the already launched games as well as this year’s early news reports, video clip previews, and secret leaks of new upcoming game titles it certainly seems as though they remain bent on meeting these demands/wishes/goals. Below are another couple of yet to be released games under discussion that will raise the excitement and adrenaline levels by another couple of notches.

Iron Marines is an upcoming new game development from the creators of Kingdom Rush, who after three extremely popular sequels of this fantastic tower defence game, just recently revealed their intention to launch their new Iron Marines videogame app somewhere in mid-2016. Iron Marines incorporates a number of core design elements from the successful Kingdom Rush that have now been adapted to deliver an action packed sci-fi based real-time strategy game. Iron Marines includes loads of action, brave powerful heroes, presented with a level of tongue in the cheek humour delivered on both Android as well as iOS gaming platforms.

Albion Online intends to deliver players into a cross-platformed, mediaeval themed, MMO that as of this moment remains enclosed beta development phase and is expected to launch in the first half of 2016. Albion promises to be an absolutely gigantic game with PVE, GVG, and PVP action that incorporates house building and farming into its new dose of videogame excitement. This new game promises huge potential to appeal and fascinate much larger audiences by the date of its cross platformed release that makes it compatible to both iOS as well as Android devices.

Marvel Avengers Academy, sees Marvel hanging partnered up with the well-known TinyCo with the intention of delivering a game featuring for more youthful representations of everybody’s favourite Marvel heroes. Players will enter the game as students at the Avengers Academy and will be required to go on numerous missions of the type that teens would be exposed to while at the Academy. The missions unlocks upgrades and bonuses that in turn allows you to customise Marvel’s student campus, while interacting with powerful friends like Loki, The Hulk, and Iron Man amongst numerous others.

Each month android developers launch numerous scorchingly hot new game titles onto Google Play Store’s well-stocked shelves, the two brilliant games discussed below was also once plucked as undiscovered diamonds from the obscure depths of the play store. These games represent the cutting edge in mobile video games entertainment apps and are definitely worth downloading and playing on your android device. Once you’ve played them you will also be able to tell your gaming buddies the ones that are worth playing at the moment.

Plants Versus Zombies 2 is free to play and is the new favourite of everybody that plays it, it is also the second rendition of the renowned classic tower defence game and the sequel is destined to be the new shining star of this genre. Plants Versus Zombies 2.0 once again sees the player convincing an assorted bunch of likeable shrubbery to assist them in defeating the approaching zombie horde. Creator developers PopCap now presents a newly remade addictive, colourful, and well-balanced game of strategy that offers a near endless play value. Each stage features its own reel set with unique traits that makes game-play continually inventive by encouraging players to employ new strategies since each stage presents them with new and different challenges.

The Walking Dead: Road to Survival, is another branded franchise theme that sees a television series provide the subject matter for a great android mobile video game. The franchise has proven to be as thriving as the endless supply of zombies found on its post-apocalyptic landscapes. This Road to Survival version provides the most fulfilling and exhilarating Walking Dead experience on android to date. This base building video game now require players to use Woodbury as the new location where they are required to construct the necessary training grounds, workshops, as well as forms to assist humanity in rising back from worldwide destruction. Venture outside your base to engage in raids and missions, with the letter challenging you to explore your surroundings while led by story and turn-based ground combat.

It’s combat scenarios offers players the opportunity to compete against other players online where you will fight for supplies as well as your reputation. Its storyline mode requires players to make certain decisions at specific key moments. This game is sure to develop its own fan base of highly enthusiastic followers.

The iPhone has over the years since its first introduction, become an extremely popular holiday gift item to select and given its sales figures recorded in the recent past festive season not much has changed. All those proud new iPhone owners have become holders of a stylish status icon with its iOS9 widely acknowledged as one of the better operating systems for mobile devices; however, what makes iPhones truly worth owning is the brilliant apps that are available for download and installation from Apple’s jam-packed App Store.

The question most raised by new owners when considering applications as which ones are worth downloading, the following list should provide an inkling of knowledge and insight to be able to choose your own apps according to your own preferences. Many apps have already been adapted to interact in new ways via the new 3-D touch pressure sensitive screen featured on the iPhone 6S.

Google Maps, free on iPhone, was at one stage included on all iPhone devices, but in latter-day devices sadly replaced by Apple’s inferior navigation app, fortunately it is still available as a separate download. Google’s Maps app proved itself to be significantly more accurate than its proprietary Apple counterpart, which it can match and exceed feature for feature, offers greater interactivity, smoother & easier map manipulation, and a multitude of other benefits.

Google Translate is another free app for iPhone users, that remains a must have on any mobile device. It features support in excess of 30 languages, with translations presented in an impressively accurate delivery that exceeds the precision delivered by any other product currently on the market that offer similar design goals on mobile devices. It quickly proves itself to be unmissable when visiting websites in languages foreign to its user’s it will translate all written text on-the-fly. Users were needed often, but its usefulness far outweighs its relatively small footprint that takes a very little of the precious, limited space on mobile devices.

Weather Underground is a free app for iPhone users that far exceeds the capabilities of the standard proprietary app that come with iPhones. It succeeds simply because it remains focused on doing exactly what a weather app should. It clearly presents loads of hyper- local weather information on an extremely customisable yet user-friendly interface.

In a recent study at the University of Cambridge, the researchers found 87% of all android devices are currently vulnerable to security breaches. Google, in the meantime announced security updates for its Nexus; however, that unfortunately will not repair or secure any other Android device’s security vulnerabilities. The research team revealed that the greater part of Android phones currently in use and on the market could be hacked via a simple MMS or multimedia file. The team’s research uncovered exactly how far Android’s ecosystem has fallen behind in relation to dealing with security issues and this comes despite all recent promises to further improve security via its monthly patches.

Nearly all Android platformed handsets remain open to security attacks, due to all handset manufacturers’ failure to deliver on its promised security updates in a timely fashion. The above is a summary of the conclusions discovered by the Cambridge University research team in their quest to identify and quantify the exact current level of security risk in Android mobile devices.

In order to do an aggregation and compilation of its data the research group uploaded a Data Analyser app to Google’s Play Store. It provided the capability to collect data from a vast number of participants, while at the same time ensuring Android smart devices that did not run Google Play Services, such as those currently targeted at newly emerging markets, were excluded from the final result calculation.

Resultantly the researchers acquired data from approximately 20,000 individual android devices, with the greater part being from major hardware suppliers such as HTC, LTG, Motorola, and Samsung, even currently uses free to download install and run this app for themselves to contribute by providing more data for the team to analyse.

The research remains current and ongoing, and benefits from partial Google funding. Part of the research was to ascertain the reaction time from all major hardware manufacturers were in applying the latest available security update patches to their own branded devices. The full results reveal a truly abhorrent picture, the research was conducted after the Stagefright vulnerability revealed the speed at which a single security issue could be utilised to become a threat to the complete Android community.

In part the problem exists due to the fact that Android updates bottleneck at their manufacturers that need to integrate the Google security patch into their proprietary versions of the OS before it can be distributed to each brand’s devices. In contrast, date Apple releases its updates is the date and minute its devices are secured; Android carrier branded devices experience even further delays since each carrier tests these updates before releasing them to their users. Fortunately for Nexus users, in this scenario they are at the top of the Android food chain since they receive updates directly from Google on the date of its first release.
In summation, not a single device aside from Nexus managed to score above 5/10 rating.

The research team at Lookout security recently discovered new adware that has the ability to dig its claws so deep into its Android host device that it presents a near impossible task to remove. As some android users may already be aware that most Android based devices can currently be hacked via a conventional multimedia file or MMS message.

The recent survey highlighted in excess of 20,000 adware containing apps that currently go around masquerading as the well-known Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and numerous other likenesses of popular mobile online services. The security research study highlighted a newly uncovered style of malware that remains hidden inside Android apps that look and act as if there are entirely legitimate service delivery agents.

The world-renowned Lookout Security firm characterised these new types of unsavoury practices by likening them to trojanized adware. They comprise of third-party lookalikes of Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, Twitter, and a multitude of popular apps. However, once users install these trojanized lookalikes, they employ an illegal capacity whereby the app assigns itself system/root level security permissions that enables it to liberally infiltrate ads throughout the complete OS to illegally generate money for its hacker/creator.

The security firm expressed concern, since this represents an entirely new level at which evil genius is employed, because these infections of virtually impossible to remove or uninstall. It is at current generally accepted that there exists only two solutions to this infestation problem once it exists, the first is to simply throw away the device, and the second is to download a new standard ROM and flash the infected device after which the newly downloaded from can be installed.

The two solutions above is an accurate realisation of the seriousness of this infestation since even factory resets will not get rid of these types of malware infestations. It is not a complete solution, but Android users can listen the risk by exclusively installing apps from Google’s Play Store and furthermore install all the latest Play Services and Android OS updates.

The security specialists at Lookout recently uncovered a batch containing 13 apps that forms part of a dangerous family of malware commonly referred to as the Brain Trust. This Brain Trust malware has the capability to assign an automatic five-star review to its own family of infected apps, but the most important and dangerous aspect is its ability to gain root access to any android device.

This family of 13 sneaky apps that enjoyed uncommonly high ratings suddenly vanished from Google’s Play Store after the Lookout security research team discovered the app group’s hidden agendas. Apps infected with the Brain Trust vulnerability has proven even after gaining root access privileges to android devices to be like cockroaches surviving a nuclear war, they continue living on despite performing full factory resets.

This family of malware apps had a secondary but very important agenda that allowed them to assign apps belonging to the group excellent reviews via its infected device, allowing per quality apps such as Honey Comb and Cake Tower to aggregate review score averages amounted to 4.5 stars. This in turn encouraged purveyors of the Google Play Store to download these high-scoring apps, which automatically assisted in spreading the disease even faster and further.

The two above-mentioned games delivered their malware and a disguise of being harmless treats. According to the research team at Lookout, the architects behind the scheme displayed patience in choosing the correct app types to install their malware and in discovering new ways by which they gained access to the maximum number of users. This frightening scenario now implicates the users that exclusively obtain their apps from Google’s Play Store who commonly trusts its security measures to avoid these types of security issues.

Lookout recently published a complete list naming those apps removed from the Play Store, the list comprised of the following apps: Crazy Block, Cake Blast, Crazy Jelly, Jump Planet, Piggy Jump, Honey Comb, Ninja Hook, Timy Puzzle, Just Fire, Hit Planet, Cake Tower, Eat Bubble, and lastly Drag Box.

Any Google Play Store clients that may have downloaded one or more of these apps, should download and install Lookout’s security app to scan their devices and ensure they are not infected. Lookout recommends that the unlucky users that find their devices infected the stock ROM for the device before flashing and reinstalling their stock ROM.

The glossy new, much-publicised, endlessly reviewed and tested Android 6.0 aka Marshmallow operating system has been released for general consumption and most android smart device users have waited with bated breath for their service providers to release their own branded, customised, and approved versions of the much vaunted new king of the smartphone world. Well recognised skilled testers and product reviewers have already assessed and reported on the performance and looks of Marshmallow, establishing that its graphical interface remained relatively untouched, with most of the improvements having occurred under the bonnet, in the engine room that drives this powerful new beast. As is the nature of most Android users, many of its fans are tinkerers forever striving towards greater functionality, customisability, and improve performance, with that said the below apps delivers the aforementioned requirements with aplomb.

Native Clipboard is a free Android app that extends the rather rudimentary copy and paste functionality that came as part and parcel of the android OS since its earliest incarnations. This very handy functionality has unfortunately remained fairly rudimentary on the greater device spectrum, but now Native Clipboard lends this handy support function and immense increase in power, by simply saving everything users copy to a very user-friendly and speedily accessible clipboard. Users just need to tap on the data in the floating window where it has been saved to have it instantly reposted, users also have the option of pinning often used or important pieces of text, or clear items that are not required any further. The pop-up can be customised via a multitude of interface and theme settings, the functionality in this totally free app makes it an absolute must have.

Custom Quick Settings for Android 6.0 for the greater part known as Marshmallow delivers a number of experimental tools whereby users may change their quick settings menu and status bar layout. In the standard Marshmallow these newfound features are evidently remiss of a couple of necessities; however, the Custom Quick Settings app now makes those missing items available by allowing its users to create additional tiles for quick settings. This enables users to single tap open any app, or website, as well as performing some very handy Tasker type actions via an in app $1.49 pro upgrade. This new app performs incredibly well by plugging into that yet to hidden experimental features.

Most avid Smartphone users tend to share a common trait amongst themselves in that they are app junkies always straining the leash to get to the latest and greatest new applications to discover and share the knowledge with everyone they know. The most difficult concept for them to comprehend is that not all share their passion for discovering great new applications; however, even those new app chasing junkies amongst us have an extensive list of brilliant, long-lived, standby apps that always feature on their personal mobile devices and slowly evolves and expands over time. Below are two of the handiest apps that this past year joined that slowly evolving and expanding standby list and it should be added to any smartphone.

AppChat exists because at times we all need to, and wish to connect with other bipedal creatures that are also in possession of mobile smart devices. When that time arrives it is a confusing scramble from one brilliant texting app to the next in order to communicate with all your smart phone carrying bipedal friends, because they each have their own communication apps that meet their personal preferences in texting communications. AppChat exists in order to stop this made scramble between applications, social media and forums just to send out a simple message or two to a couple of friends. This app offers a useful, simple resolution to the above problems by creating a singular chat room connecting all texting apps on a mobile device that its users may log into to chat and share files with other like-minded bipeds. Its users will be able to view device and manufacturer specific chat rooms for their own devices.

Palabre serves as a brilliant replacer for the now-defunct Google Reader, because RSS feeds continued going strong despite Google’s snuffing out of its own app. Users will find it immaterial whether they use services such as Feedly in order to aggregate their links prefer to have manual control over basic functions. Palabre offers a fantastic solution to keeping up with the changing news from around the world, the app is a ground up rebuild utilising the best basic design principles last seen in the Google app.

Users can choose a number of differentiated layouts that includes options for magazines, thumbnails, as well as list views and includes dark and light themes to cater for ambient conditions.

With the festive season over everyone has started the daily commuter rush back to work again, which means time for play has been reduced substantially and useful apps that extend the range of your Smartphone’s capabilities become far more significant. An accurate weather application could assist in one of two ways, in the first manner it will prevent you leaving the house without that umbrella for that late afternoon shower on your way home. In its second and most useful instance will provide you with an accurate opening line picture to the cute young lady across from you in the subway or bus. Which-ever purpose suits your need the best, it always remains a necessity on every Smartphone, and once you’ve broken the ice with that opening line you may want to show her a couple of your bare-chested action shots that perfectly displays your rippling six pack.

Weather Timeline is one of the few paid apps that one can consider to be positively essential, despite there being no free or trial versions. This is not the greatest financial derailment, since it only costs 99 US cents, and is by large margin the greatest weather app available to android users. The interface displays, as the name would suggest, and nicely laid out timeline, that ensures easy scrolling through both its hourly as well as extended weather forecast. Anyone requiring additional info regarding 99% of all weather-related aspects will find the answer in Weather Timeline, it offers its data in both graphical and text based layouts to display humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction, as well as loads of other information. Its built-in Time Machine allows users to take a peek at probable maps of future weather predictions, built on data from weather patterns recorded in the past. The app also offers brilliant home screen widgets which are probably the best on the android market at the moment.

Focus is an unmatched photo viewing and managing app that offers blinding speed and a killer design. As with most current day gallery apps images are displayed in its folder locations, what differentiates it from the rest is its fantastic tagging system that makes finding favourite photos and pictures much easier. All images that require a modicum of privacy can be securely locked away in its fault from any potential prying eyes, in addition it supports all the latest Android 6.04 / Marshmallow fingerprint APIs, which enables users to unlock vault content with their fingerprint reader. Users can enjoy it’s free version will pay $2.99 as an in app upgrade that delivers an additional dark theme, customisable tags, and the incredibly handy secure photo vault.