App offers - AppGratis
Min requirements: Android 2.2
Size: 2.8 MB
AppGratis
Wake up to a free new app every morning
with this superb money-saving service. AppGratis is already something of a
legend among iPhone users who can no longer download it after Apple banned it
from the App Store. It’s now freely available for Android, and offers a
normally paid-for app for free, every day, with each offer available for 24
hours. You can set it to send you a single push notification of email about the
day’s offers, which are hand-picker and tested by the AppGratis team and
accompanied by lively, eloquent reviews. Offers so far include the note-making
app EasyPad, normally $3.01, and photography app Lapselt, normally $2.55.
AppGratis also offers regular discounts of up to 90 per cent alongside the
daily freebies, plus “freemium giveaways” such as free in-app purchases.
Shopping - Amazon Local
Min requirements: Android 2.2, iOS 4.3
Size: 2.9MB
Amazon
Local
Amazon was never going to let Groupon
(bit.ly/groupon321) remain the biggest daily-discounts app in town. This app
launched in the US two years ago and is now available in the UK, offering
discounts of up to 75 per cent from various local, national and online
businesses. The password-protected app lets you set preferences for your
favorite type of deal and control what kind of notifications you receive.
Cloud storage - Cloudee
Min requirements: Android (varies with
device), iOS 5.0
Size: Varies with device
Cloudee
Just because you want to share videos with
family and friends, doesn’t mean you want to share them with the whole world.
This new app from set-top box manufacturer Boxee lets you store videos in the
cloud and share them only with selected people, who can watch them in high
resolution on their phone, tablet, PC or TV. You can use the app to upload
videos to YouTube or Facebook, so they don’t take up space on your phone.
Weather - WeatherSignal
Min requirements: Android 2.2
Size: 1.2MB
WeatherSignal
Don’t be fooled by the name – this is more
than just a weather app. It will forecast rain or shine and read the
temperature, but it also uses your phone’s environmental sensors to record air
pressure, humidity, light and even magnetic flux, depending on which sensors
your phone has. There are home screen widgets for taking various readings,
graphs for plotting data and a map view that lets you compare your readings
with others in your area.
Image tool - AVG Image Shrinker
Min requirements: Android 2.1
Size: 2.2MB
AVG
Image Shrinker
Storing and sharing photos on your phone
uses up space and can be expensive if you’re on a limited data plan. AVG’s new
app shrinks your images to free up space on your phone and make your photos
easier and cheaper to send. It works with JPEG, PNG and BMP files, and you can
choose the size you want the images shrunk to, with options to batch-resize
photos and save originals to cloud-storage services such as Dropbox or apps
like Flickr, before they’re shrunk on your phone.
Language learning - Duolingo
Min requirements: Android 2.2, iOS 5.0
Size: 5.8MB
Duolingo
Languages that bored you at school come to
life with this app, which takes a game-style approach by rewarding you with
heart tokens as you advance through levels of bite-sized lessons. Duolingo has
received excellent user reviews on Google Play, notably from teachers who
recommend it as “a fantastic tool to reinforce lessons of mechanics and
grammar" and “a three-year language curriculum in a single app”. Languages
include Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and English.
Browser - Next Browser
Min requirements: Android 2.2
Size: 3.2MB
Next
Browser
Speed-dial your S bookmarks and Sync them
across all your devices with this new tabbed browser from the team behind the
GO family of apps. Launching the browser opens the speed-dial page, which can
easily be customized with your own choice of bookmarks. You can search from the
homepage by text or voice, and a drop-down menu lets you tweak settings, check
downloads and install extensions such as Evernote, Facebook and Pocket.
Conversion tool - Flib
Min requirements: Android 4.0
Size: 606Kb
Flib
This beautifully design, fast and simple
conversion app lets you make calculations between Fahrenheit and Celsius, yards
and metres, tons and tones, and many more units of measurement but no
currencies yet. It learns your preferences, so categories and units you use
most often are listed at the top next time you use the app. If you want to
convert a unit that isn’t listed, simply tap the ‘Want more?’ button to email
the developers.
Strategy game - Classic MasterMind
Min requirements: Android 2.2
Size: 7.8MB
Classic
Mastermind
The classic Seventies pegs-and-holes logic
game isn’t an obvious choice for an app, but it really works. The rules are
exactly the same: you have to break your opponent’s four-color code within 10
attempts, only in this instance you’ll be playing your phone, not your dad.
Sadly, there’s no box photo of a bearded man and exotic lady, but the strategy
is the same and the app brilliantly recreates the look and addictive quality of
the original game.
