Must-downloads, from typing to Tekken
1 BBC Earth: Life in VR
£free / Android Daydream Dive into the drink and discover life beneath the waves, from faffing otters to swarms of krill. It’s the best personal Blue Planet around, short of actually hurling yourself into the sea.
4 tanz.love
99p / Android Drum machines with traditional pads and step sequencers are so last year. With tanz.love, you get your ‘UNCH UNCH UNCH’ on by way of an oddball circular beat recorder twinned with chunky retro buttons.
7 Part Time UFO
£3.99 / Android, IOS These days, when a UFO crashes it isn’t sent to Area 51 – the locals would just grumble too much about the “immigrant” not pulling its weight. Cue this feast of absurd claw-machine chores.
2 Typorama
£free (IAPS) / IOS If your idea of type design is a strange attraction to Comic Sans, use Typorama to add text to your pics instead. Loads of styles and effects are included, and a £5.99 IAP forever nukes watermarks.
5 Promptsmart Pro
£17.49 / Android £19.99 / IOS Who says Android is bereft of pro-level apps? Promptsmart gives you a tiny teleprompter that follows your voice as you speak. Perfect for your award-winning “I hate Apple” Youtube series. ●
8 Tiny Armies
99p / Apple Watch Turn-based strategy on a PC? No problem. A smartphone? Sure. An Apple Watch? Hang on a minute. But Tiny Armies has a go anyway, with surprisingly great stripped-back, lightning-fast battles.
3 Noted
79p/month / IOS Zone out even more during boring lectures and meetings with Noted. Use the app to record everything, tap to add inline ‘Timetags’, and use them to flesh out notes later when you’re less bleary-eyed.
6 Tekken
£free (IAPS) / Android, IOS It’s not the console game, because your phone’s lacking in buttons. But mobile Tekken does offer loads of punchy fun, combos, and a very violent panda. (And yes, also freemium you want to beat up.)
9 The Battle of Polytopia
£free (IAPS) / Android, IOS This Stuff fave is a mobile-optimised Civilization in fast-forward. Now, buy any extra tribe (99p each) and you get online multiplayer. There’s a good chance we may never leave the house again.