New apps for every platform
Hope Corrigan reviews the most interesting new apps for iOS and Android.
Art Flow
The first thing I did when looking into what’s included in Google Play Pass was find an app I’d genuinely be interested in trying. I looked at the drawing section and quickly found
Art Flow, one of the higher rated apps in the bunch. This app is free, generally speaking, but Play Pass gets you all of the paywalled content, which is actually well worth it. For artists it means having access to all the tools, such as the ability to create your own brushes, which is exactly the kind of thing I’d expect in a pro drawing utility. It supports multiple layers, transparencies, colour pallets, and has lots of nice little extra bits in there. Plus you can even time lapse record what you’re drawing to make cute little videos to show off. Art Flow proved its worth nice and quickly, and I enjoyed even initial experimentations, which is a really good sign in a drawing app.
Daylio
There are a lot of different lifestyle apps included in Play Pass but I decided to try out Daylio. This focuses more on your moods and what activities coincide with them. It’s quick and easy to put in the basic information for a day by ticking relevant activities. This means it’s a small task, which is paramount to convincing me to do anything, every day. Daylio is good at making you wonder what makes you happy in your day-to-day and drawing the lines that join your days to your moods. You can use this information to set goals that might keep you happier in the longrun or just to do more things important to you. It can be especially helpful if you’re introducing something new to your life, like medication or hobbies, and seeing how they affect your day. I like that Play Pass gave me the opportunity to test out all its functions, especially given how expensive some of the paid options are.
AndroVid Pro
Video editing apps also have a few options to choose from on Play Pass and again, I grabbed one of the higher ranking ones, called
AndroVid Pro. This app boosts your video editing capabilities on your phone, but it’s hard to say how much. It’s not because it doesn’t have a lot of options like trimming video, adding music, merging different videos, or putting on filters and watermarks. In fact it has all these options and more, it’s just that I’ve never used more than one and had the end result successfully export. Instead it will freeze with a percentage done and never seem to get beyond there. It’s ok for small changes to video but they could all be done within the stock app. If it gave me a finished product I’d be fairly happy with it as an easy-to-use on the go phone editing package, but it didn’t, so I’m not.
$16.99, Play Pass Android Photo Studio Pro
Out of all the photo editing apps Photo Studio Pro grabbed my eye and it’s pretty close to what you expect. Sure there are nice little changes you can make to images like filters and colour corrections but there are also incredibly stupid big changes you can make too. Things like distorting an image with bubbles or refracting glass, large ugly poppy text, light effects, and all sorts of other wankery. It gives you all the tools you need to make the most outrageously garish scrapbook style images and I appreciate its dedication to the cause. While I don’t know if Photo Studio Pro is the tool for me, I can see the appeal. It caters to the more outrageous photo editors among us rather than those trying to get the perfectly colourbalanced image. It’s silly and definitely is a bit of fun and just packed full of options. I wouldn’t pay for it, but I’m kinda glad I can play with it without having to.
FlipaClip
Free/Play Pass, In app purchases $1.29 – $8.99 per item, iOS, Android
I wanted to pick a few apps that highlight some of the weirder, but still cool things included in Play Pass and that’s where FlipaClip comes in. It’s a keyframe style animation program, in that you create multiple images that change very slowly and it knits them all together. You can draw, or even upload images for a stop motion effect, or use actual video. Play Pass gives you access to the full library of sounds such as cartoony bounces, as well as some basic backgrounds to enhance your work. Essentially you can create little animations in a flipbook style pretty easily and on the fly. Having layers and other tools means these can actually get very professional if you’re willing to put the time in, but it does take time. It’s pretty cute to play around in but it’s also a niche idea that might not be worthwhile for everyone.
$6.49, Play Pass Android Lunescope Moon Viewer
Lunescope Moon Viewer was another app I grabbed just because it looked different to everything else on offer. To some people the phases of the moon might have spiritual significance but I’m more mooncurious than anything else. I wasn’t too sure why I’d want to know them, but Lunescope sure makes sure I can know every damn thing about them. This app is thorough. I can get a full calendar of moons, check out past and future lunar events like eclipses, or check out the full 3D map of the moons’ surface. I can even zip to the various Apollo landings. This app appears to satisfy all moon desires both spiritual and scientific, with a definite lean towards the science side and I really appreciate that. It’s the kind of app where almost anyone will probably learn something by having it, regardless of why they downloaded it in the first place.