New apps for every platform
James O’Connor reviews the most interesting new apps for iOS and Android.
Microsoft Office
The newly consolidated Microsoft Office app now collects everything into one place, so you can organise your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files all in one place, as long as they’re uploaded to the cloud. This means that you no longer need to have three separate apps on your phone or tablet, which makes things a bit tidier. You can work on your files or make new ones from the app, too, and it works much better than the atrocious Google Docs app (although unfortunately you can’t share files so easily as you can through there). Is the Microsoft Office app a perfect substitute for using these applications on a home computer or laptop? Not at all – trying to build a PowerPoint on a phone is a nightmare. Is it a great way to keep track of your files and make minor changes on the go? Absolutely, and having all your files in one app is handy. Microsoft
Office might not be the most exciting app on your phone, but it’ll make working away from your desktop a lot easier.
Dr. Seuss’ ABC – AR Version!
Dr. Seuss comes alive in this AR app, but there’s no rambunctious cat monsters or haughty tree spirits for your children to deal with here. This is aiming at the good doctor’s very youngest fans – it’s a simple app designed to help them learn how to spell out the alphabet. Your child (or you, if you’re an adult who reviews apps for a magazine) has to trace out each letter with a finger, in both capital and lower-case forms, before being rewarded with a small AR scene of Seussian creations cavorting. This is a Seuss product, of course, so expect plenty of alliteration – spell out B and you’ll get “barber baby bubbles and a bumblebee.” It’s neat, but don’t expect your kid to be super engaged, or to, necessarily, like it more than a regular book (it’s certainly more complicated to read, and it’s not really teaching them how to write with a pencil). There’s a playground mode too, where you can stamp AR critters all over the room, which is neat fun.
RTRO – Camera by Moment
RTRO is a video filtering app that lets you apply numerous different looks to your footage (a few of which are free, although others are paywalled), pick between aspect ratios, and then record up to 60 seconds. This is all well and good, but there are some confusing decisions here. “Shorter is better,” the app’s site explains, which is why you’re limited to 60 second shoots – but I’m not convinced that 60 seconds is short enough to constitute a gimmick or long enough to serve as a useful length in all circumstances. Switching between video and photo modes is needlessly cumbersome, too. The limited selection of retro filters and ratios is neat, and I liked the look of the videos I took, but I also can’t imagine RTRO becoming a mainstay in my photo/video app folder. It’s a bit of fun to play around with, but – as with many nostalgia apps – I am not sure that it has real long-term legs for extended use.
byte
Byte is, apparently, the new Vine. I thought that Tik Tok was the new Vine? As far as I can tell, two things are true here – I am very old, and these are all the same damn app, with the main difference being that byte’s looped videos run just 6.5 seconds to Tik Tok’s 15. This means that the videos on Tik Tok are given a bit more breathing room, and, in theory, folks making things on byte need to be economic, getting to the point of their video as fast as possible. There’s a very specific cadence to the videos that byte’s users are making; they’ve been trained by society in the art of being short and sharp, and bless ‘em, scrolling through byte is fairly delightful as a result. The app separates videos into broad categories, and it’s a great way to pass 5-10 lazy minutes on an otherwise quiet afternoon. Will we start to see a new wave of byte comedians emerge like we did with Vine? Time will tell, but for now it’s a lot of fun.
Finder
Finder is the app equivalent of eating all your vegetables – it can feel like work, especially when dessert is in the freezer (or the games folder), but the further into adulthood you are, the more aware you are of its importance. Hand your bank information over to Finder and it’ll itemise your bills based on the information it gleans from your accounts, chart your expenses, tell you whether the total sum in your bank has gone up or down that month, and generally help you be fiscally responsible. It’s also, much like the website, a huge repository for deals, rates, and prices for all manner of essential services. I found that its ranking of prices was sometimes a bit off, and that it’s not a replacement for proper vetted recommendations, because it focuses so much on prices. Don’t believe the app when it tells you to sign up for TPG over Aussie Broadband, for instance. Because of this, Finder probably won’t overhaul your life – but it will paint a pretty accurate picture of how you’re living.
DarkRoom – Photo Editor
DarkRoom has been around for a long time, but it recently received a major update to its rendering engine that deserves fresh eyes. Indeed, it’s a pretty potent, powerful photo editor, whether you’re using the free version or splurging US$33 a year on the pro version (which is certainly worth it if you’re editing a lot of photos on your phone or tablet). Editing your photos is incredibly easy and intuitive, and even as a (very) amateur photo editor I found that I could make my photos more dynamic or moodier with just a few tweaks. The free version is very generous with how much it will let you do, too. It’s easy to undo changes, and to save your pictures, export them, or slap a watermark onto them. Darkroom is a fairly serious-minded app, so don’t expect sticker packs or serious photo manipulation – it’s all about getting your shots looking as good as possible. It’s a lot of fun to mess around with, but more serious photographers will find these features handy on-the-go, too.