Best new apps

JAMES O’CONNOR REVIEWS THE MOST INTERESTING NEW APPS FOR iOS AND ANDROID.

Luckbox News NOT GREAT, BUT GETS THE JOB DONE Free/ https://blog.luckbox.com/

Luckbox News is the latest in a long line of esports news apps that have been popping up lately. This one is basically a mobile-friendly version of website Luckbox, which is trying to build itself up as a betting platform. Curiously, there seems to be no way of placing a bet inside the app right now, but odds are (no pun intended) that will change down the track. With that in mind, there’s a good chance that this app is going to serve a different purpose from the one it currently serves, which is worth remembering, especially with the gambling problems so many people suffer from in Australia. For now, though, it’s a fairly unassuming app that focuses specifically on Counter-Strike Go, League of Legends, and DOTA 2. It gives you all the latest news, the match line-ups, when they’re happening, and provides links to Twitch livestreams. It’s a tad limited, but relatively professional by ‘app version of a website’ standards, and it makes following and watching matches easy.

RateBeer BOLD FLAVOUR, SMOOTH FINISH Free/ https://www.ratebeer.com/

RateBeer has grown and improved since it launched and is now at a point where it’s a great app for anyone who likes to track their favourite beers and find cool recommendations. It lists nearby bars and bottle shops, gives you all their details, and tells you which of their beers in stock are highest rated by users of the app. Often apps like this aren’t heavily populated in the area I’m in (Adelaide), but RateBeer has extensive knowledge of my locals, what they have, and what I should be ordering. If a beer isn’t available locally, it’ll tell you where to go to get it, too. The rating is community driven, and users can assign ratings on a 50-point scale (0.0-5.0). They’re picky – there are very few beers, it seems, that can crack a 4.0 – but the reviews tend to be quite detailed. This one’s for beer connoisseurs, meaning that the top charts are largely dominated by European beers – as long as you don’t get too upset that true Adelaide icon Coopers Pale only has a 2.7 rating, this is a great app

Centr, by Chris Hemsworth FOOD FOR THOR(T) $20 a month/$120 a year/ centr.com

Centr’s main selling point is the presence of Chris Hemsworth, and the notion that you, too, could look like him if you just change your entire life. The app features advice on how to train, recommended exercise routines, recipes, and general life and relaxation issues, complete with videos, images, and full articles. The daily planner gives you meal suggestions and workouts, although the expectations on your time are pretty high – if you’re the sort of person who can handily buy for and cook two ingredient-heavy meals in one day, the app might suit you. It’s quite pricey – cheaper than a gym, of course, but some of the exercises require equipment – and following along to videos on your phone can be difficult, especially since you’re moving around and using your hands a lot. Centr is interesting, but it feels like an app for well-off people who need a bit more charisma in their workout routine rather than something that will help the average schlub – like me – improve their fitness.

Laughable HA. HA. HA. Free/https://laughable.com/

Laughable’s recent 3.0 update introduced an improved subscriptions feed, much more content, and faster loading, and in the process turned it into an app worthy of a qualified recommendation. Laughable is a way to follow the various podcast appearances by your favourite comedians. It’s far from perfect, because it has a limited catalogue of podcasts available – that appearance your favourite comedian made on that smaller podcast about board games or whatever probably isn’t on here. But the bench of comedians they have on the app runs deep, and even if it won’t fill you in on every appearance they’ve ever made it’s a great starting point. The in-app player is solid too, and streams well. It’s not perfect, but Laughable is a decent enough way to track your favourite funny people. There are some weird design decisions in here, though – why exactly the app features sections devoted to ‘businesses geniuses’ and (cough) ‘the intellectual dark web’ (Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, and so on) is a bit of a mystery.

Stay in your lane, Laughable!

GBox – Toolkit for Instagram INSTANT INSTAGRAM EXPERT Free / N/A

The tools you need to use Instagram most effectively are annoyingly fractured, and while GBox isn’t quite as complete as it claims to be – I’m not going to be deleting Layout anytime soon –it’s useful all the same. It lets you identify colour names in your photos for hashtagging purposes, display people’s full display pics without the circle cropping, prepare uncropped photos for Instagram (which, as far as I can tell, you can do within the app too, but okay), edit photos in a 9-grid formation, create long-form swipe photos, and edit down videos so that they fit into an Instagram post. Perhaps best of all, it makes reposting photos and text from other accounts a total breeze, complete with attribution. Of course, looking at all of this, it’s easy to think about all the things the app isn’t doing. There are no extra filters, or collage options, or anything particularly funky. Still, it’s a handy toolkit to have, and it’s totally free without any ads getting in the way.

BitterWorld SCREAMING INTO THE VOID Free/www.ransoft.io/bitterworld/

BitterWorld is a sort-of social network app built all around griping and bitterness. It’s a cute idea – a place to go and leave your complaints, complete with photos, so that other people can commiserate. It’s meant to prevent you from clogging up your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds with your bitterness, and to make you feel a bit better after venting. Unfortunately, the app layout feels like it’s been dragged kicking and screaming out of 2008, and right now the app’s thin userbase is sharing a lot of dumb memes. The insistence that you tag your photos with some kind of onomatopoeia speech bubble is weird, as is the way you can rate your bitterness by intensity. The default geotagging is a little too specific, too. Nothing about the app lends itself to real venting, basically, and when people have posted about legitimate issues there doesn’t seem to be much scope for proper commiseration. Basically you’re better off just making that private Twitter account you’ve (potentially) been thinking about setting up.