Monthly Archive: September 2015

Developers release tons of brand-new apps each month aimed at Apple smart device users, however there are but a few that are truly worth taking a look at since most are just rehashes or alternatives to old ideas or even just represents substandard programming practices. August saw a great selection of new as well as improved apps and taking an early look at September, it seems smart phone users are in for another month of great treats. The following selection of apps is made from the millions available in the App Store and represents the best of its kind available in new apps.

A spoiling app from Google released last week aimed at Android Wear smartwatch users that enables them to use their android device coupled to their iPhone. This latest development presents another competitive element that enters the iPhone smartwatch market, which up till now just comprised of the Pebble and Apple watches. Thanks to this latest app release a host of alternative devices now into this market as well, including the likes of the LG G Watch, Moto 360, as well as the Samsung Gear Live which can all now be paired to iPhones. Currently the app still has limited functionality, but the step has been made and the future looks bright for this new technology.

Leading games developer Frontier officially launched their highly popular Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on iOS, offering virtually the same features found within the original PC versions now released more than 10 years in the past its long-standing continued success and popularity still continuing. Now Apple mobile smart device users can also build amusement parks that are the stuff of legend and dreams. This game was the first in a series of titles that change to a 3D UI appearance and has been translated to work quite well on touchscreen devices.

Google Street View has for a long time been a brilliant and extremely helpful add-on to Google maps Navigator on Android, however, Google in its latest wisdom correctly decided to turn up the notch on Street View functionality with several additions and making it a stand-alone application available to Android users.

The newly launched and age-old Street View from Google will additionally in its current relaunched format allow users the benefit of adding their personal content to the Google Maps app. One of the main reasons the Street View app has been separated from Maps is that it would allow users to share their own photo content with Street View in order for the application to use these photos for other users’ benefit. According to a blog by Google, the company stated that users would be able to utilise Street View’s company content and still be able to now separately view content uploaded by other users.

The stand-alone app will now feature an immersive 360° tour of company imagery filled out by user contributions, including your own rights to Google Maps, in order for users to from a single gallery explore Street View image collections as well as company content available as always from Google Maps in conjunction with photo spheres added by other users contributing continually from all over the globe. Photo spheres provide users with the capacity to take 360° panoramic views of memorable places they visit all around the globe and upload it to Google Maps/Street View instantly. The new functionality will allow more freedom to explore and view collections whereby they will be able to hike Mount Fuji, scale Yosemite’s famed El Capitan rock wall, or simply track Nessie (the Loch Ness monster) in his loch in Scotland, the new app will be able to submit to your wish.

Smart phones in its relatively short lifespan to date have evolved tremendously as a tool to be used and ease our daily lives with developers finding new and innovative ways to utilize these magnificent pieces of modern technology. The following apps are shining beacons to the innovation available from some of the best independent developers in the world.

iOnRoad Augmented Driving is available at $4.99, and offers drivers an early warning as well as assistive winning system whereby your smart phone can with the correct mounting be used as a collision prevention tool. The app has the capacity to assist drivers by supplying traffic warnings and alerts, as well as a host of other informative data to assist drivers in making the correct decisions before hazardous situations arise. Its Visual Radar utilities a smart phone’s camera and sensors to track the users vehicle speed, as well as following distance from the car ahead of you to provide visual as well as audio warnings against potential collisions, accidental or unwarranted lane departures, and speeding reminders without interfering with other apps that may be onscreen simultaneously. Additionally, it offers the capacity to record all driving sessions, which includes taking snapshots with Geo tags, a driving analysis and a multitude of other assistive data.

Valet is one of those free apps that you never think of until you are desperately lost looking for your car you left in the middle a massive of a parking lot maze and absentmindedly forgot to check your bearings before leaving it only to later return and you cannot find your car, the app will then provide you with a safe and short route back to your car by using the Google Maps location API. In addition, it offers assistive timers with alarms helping users avoid unnecessary parking fines and tickets. When parking. You only need to tap Park My Car to allow Valet to drop a pin on your parked location to later provide detailed turn-by-turn navigation returning you to your car. It even offers near full automation by allowing the app to dock with your Bluetooth audio connector where un-docking will automatically drop a pin to record the location of your car.

The following treacherously simplistic game apps featured on both Android, as well as iPhones will definitely thwart any attempts at productivity and communications, so please proceed with humorous caution to play them at your own peril.

QuizUp, a free app that will drive all Trivia Night enthusiasts enjoying regular weeknight sessions to break their routine possibly for ever with their addiction to this multiplayer trivia game app. iTunes quipped it to be the biggest trivia game in the world, and they were not far off in their summation, the app allows you to play a head-to-head style game against friends and family, or alternatively other users picked at random. Here you will have the opportunity to test your knowledge by facing-off on a range of topics that reaches from A to Z in any general knowledge encyclopedia, with a multitude of new searchable topics that would match any user’s interests while allowing you to simultaneously chat with other users that may have similar interests.

Threes, is another free app where players will require at least three hours learning the strategy of its gameplay followed by three months of totally addictive game play. Similar in entertainment style to 2048, where players are required to match up identical tile numbers in their attempt to complete a four digit code as a final goal, all completed combinations will have the numbers added together until one day in the far future, and is a total addict, you will eventually achieve a 3072 tile combination. This app should be programmed with an involuntary time period to allow visitation with friends and family before the player may resume his game.

Overglide costs $.99 on iOS, and unlike the two apps above is not a brainteaser, but an equally addictive test of skills where players are required to fly and guide a little paper folded aeroplane to overcome a range of simple obstacles. At first play seems simple and possibly even boring, I challenge you to attempt to communicate with this same player 10 minutes later, you will awaken his ire, or simply be ignored, because he’s hooked. Even sneakier, this app buries itself in the phone’s notification centre, so may God help you to resist and be productive if you ever attempt to read your notifications during a workday. All forms of productivity, emails, and communications will fly right out the door for the rest of the day.

Time lapse motion videography formats are very useful to condense extended video stories into much briefer action packed episodes that bind the watchers attention with much greater focus because the condensed format delivers a powerful message in a very short space of time. Condensing long boring videos of birthday parties were a holiday into a much shorter, interesting, potentially highly amusing, and attention grabbing timespan to upload to social pages, blogs, advertising spaces, and training videos.

Microsoft made a recent breakthrough when it developed and launched its brilliant new time lapse video app called Hyperlapse, and just to confirm Microsoft’s new technology has nothing to do with Instagram’s new app of the same name. The biggest problem experienced on any form of handheld video recording device while attempting to create by time lapse videos to date has been an inability to keep a steady camera which has an astoundingly negative effect on time lapse video quality.

The effects of external factors such as vibrations and unsteady jerky camera motion are now virtually negated by amazing new high-tech smart technology designed and developed by Microsoft. The company’s new software evolved to provide any handheld cellular device with a capacity to deliver near professional quality time lapse videos, offering additional functionality, such as the ability to record videos first and then turn them into time lapse videos with the Hyperlapse technology at a later stage. The app is already available to Windows and Android based smart platforms.

The Lapse It app available to Windows, Android, and iOS users has been around for quite a while and have garnered themselves a large number of hangers on since its introduction during 2011, with the paid Pro version representing a robust tool to create time-lapse videos with easy, user-friendly, intuitively navigable app interface and controls. It offers a brilliant tool to create stunning videos of sunsets, storms, family moments, or even that gnarly ski run or a first skydive adventure. The app offers a tiny footprint on mobile devices works brilliantly with non-retractable camera lenses commonly found on smart phones and still remains the second best option after the launch of the Hyperlapse app to create time-lapse video moments.

Apple Store and its content shines as a glowing beacon in a smart phone sea filled with, mediocre to – not worth it, applications the store reached its luminary position in today’s market by carefully choosing and holding its developers to the high standards through careful consideration and testing of their submitted app solutions. Yet we all still find it a bit bothersome at times to try and find the best of the best in its contents that most closely serves our personal preferences, the following advice will hopefully assist in choosing what most suits your own requirements in smart phone apps.

Feeday app, provides Instagram buffs with continual and instant feedback on the latest posts but offering a widget that provides an instant overview of a user’s latest preferred interests that they wish to follow on Instagram. The great benefit is that this app provides users with instant access to the posts and feeds without the need to continuously reopen and shut down an app. Customized features include free views of three tiles containing user interested posts, but for $0.99, the app will provide users with up to six or even nine tiles.

SayWhat, is a continuously updated knowledge base of street slang and popular phrases explaining the meaning of popular sayings and phrases such as “bae”, “chill”, or even “killing it”, by displaying 10 second video clip posts from its user community. As an alternative to searching for specific phrase, users can also enrich themselves by just browsing through the uploaded feed of definitions, making it the perfect solution to anyone not fully up-to-date on the latest slang used on the streets and in pop culture.

Pixcall, offers a very handy and useful photo messaging app that assist users in scheduling meetings with their friends, just socially or even when they are separated by a money miles. The app allows the user to set a timer which invites other users to their Pixcall event. Whenever a pre-set countdown timer ends, all of the users invited friends’ cameras shoots a photo simultaneously. Once the photo shoot is completed, all the photos are automatically shared individually or as a collage to each of the phones within their group.

Google Play store exploded in the past two years with a proliferation of new apps able to cater to any user’s every need, the main problem is that there are too many to properly assess and choose from the ones that best suit each individual person’s needs. This occurs despite categorising apps into Bestselling, Top Paid, Top Free, and Editor’s Picks to assist users in their downloading decision, finding the top apps remains difficult task, the following should make the choice easier.

Genius, originally an iOS app and now released on android allows users to retrieve the lyrics to their favourite song with the capacity to break down lyrics and news offering extremely entertaining and humorous, line annotations. After you search for the lyrics you can down-vote and up-vote the annotations. At this stage users cannot edit or create the annotations, but according to developers, the functionality is underway.

Microsoft Translator, is quite obvious as the name would suggest a translator tool by Microsoft. It performs nearly everything that is required of an app of this nature , translating text or voice into over 50 languages. The app also features built-in support functions to make it work with Android Wear, meaning users does not need to take their phone out continuously why they are travelling.

Snowball, is incredibly useful in that it will manage all formats of text messaging, as well as received notifications. Users can customise Snowball to gather, manage and present all messaging, but they require to be brought to their attention, including those they might wish to see less often. The app will draw user text messages into one handy app, from which they can not only read but also reply to texts, thereby dispensing with the need to open several different apps that offer basically the same functionality.