Best new apps

Hope Corrigan reviews the most interesting new apps for iOS and Android.

Readly YOU MAY ALREADY BE USING IT.

Android/iOS, Free/ $9.99 per month I might be taking a leap here, dear reader, but something tells me you don’t mind the odd magazine in your life. If my massive assumption is correct, then maybe you should look into this app called Readly. Readly is a magazine and newspaper subscription service app that compiles over 5,000 publications into the one app. They happen to include this one, by the way, but there’s a tonne of others. The Guardian, Time, Women’s Weekly, K-Zone, Australian Muscle Car, etc. Just a huge variety of magazines all readable within the app. They present as they would appear in print, which looks cool but can be difficult to read. Thankfully there’s a reader button to make that easier – but it’s not as pretty, so it’s good Readly offers both options. The first month has a free trial, then after that it’s a $10 per month sub, which feels like a pretty good deal.

BirdNET: Bird sound identification BIRD ID.

Android, Free

Birds are cool. Or they’re really annoying. Either way, it’s generally good to know which birds you are enjoying or being annoyed by. BirdNET: Bird sound identification is a cute app that listens to birds, and then tells you what they are. BirdNet does this by isolating a portion of the recording and analysing it. So far, it’s correctly recognised every bird I’ve tried. It gets a bit cooler though. BirdNet will log the birds you’ve heard, so you get your own fun game of bird watch (listen?) bingo. It also shows you a list of birds that might be in your area for the time of year, so you know what to expect.

It’s free and developed by a team of biologists and engineers who seem to just really love birds and helping you find out what they are. It’s one of those labour of love style apps that works because it’s made by passionate intelligent people. Plus, I really like birds.

MarineTraffic - Ship Tracking FLEETS.

Android/iOS, Free/$7.99/other subs

I need to be honest and just explain that I don’t really know anything about modern maritime... well anything really, but this app seems to and that’s really cool. MarineTraffic – Ship Tracking lets you see ship activity all over the world mapped out in somewhat real time. It will tell you where that vessel is from, where it’s going, and what the last time it checked in is. Then you can select ships to find out more information about them and even see photos. It feels kinda like looking at ship trading cards and is just a fascinating thing to do. If you have an account you can create your own fleets and follow them! Move over fantasy football, I’m only into fleets now. There is some info hidden behind a $15.99 per year paywall, but you get a few free unlocks to try out first. This adds a lot of cool features like augmented reality and weather forecasts, but might only be interesting for enthusiasts.

Beauty&Beast Coloring: Free coloring games offline IF YOU CALL THAT COLOURING.

Android/iOS, Free

This app was fairly high on the new charts so I wanted to check it out. There have been a lot of colouring-in style apps in the stores lately, so I was curious to see what makes this one special. Firstly, these aren’t really colouring-in. You tap areas that are highlighted which automatically fill with colours loosely close to the current selection. There’s no choice in how to colour and essentially you’re just tapping on an image until it’s automatically coloured. I managed to colour one by tapping wildly on the screen for a few minutes. Personally, I don’t really see the point, but some people find it relaxing and there is some joy in watching a piece go from line art to full colour. What this app does offer is a decent chunk of different style images to choose from and a bunch are available offline. If you’re into this kind of thing, it’s probably not a bad app to look at.

Widgetsmith PIMP YOUR TIDE.

Android, Free/$3.49 a month or $32.99 per year

It took iOS devices a bit longer to get on the widget bandwagon, especially when it came to options. That’s all in the past and Widgetsmith is the app to prove it. This app lets you make almost any widget you could dream of. There are basic options like calendars, cycling through photos, and the premium subscription will give you weather services, tides, and other things. But what I really like is how customisable it is. You can tell widgets to do different things depending on the time of day. It also lets you change up how widgets look with different aesthetics whenever you like, so if you’re trying out a new background image you don’t have to get a completely new widget to match. The free version is a bit limited but will let you try out some functions and generally have a play. It’s $3.49 a month or $32.99 per year if you really want to pimp your widgets to the extra extreme.

INKHUNTER Try Tattoo Designs INK RANGER.

iOS/Android, Free

Tattoos are a pretty big investment, both in money and life decisions. Augmented reality photos of yourself with tattoos aren’t. INKHUNTER Try Tattoo Designs is an app that lets you try out tattoo designs through the power of AR. It comes with a bunch of predesigned flashes from artists that you can try out on your body, as well as a function to make your own text, and to upload your own designs. The app then asks you to make a square smiley face style mark on yourself, to let it know where to place the tattoo. I discovered that red ink is not ideal for this, but had easy success after switching colours. It’s not perfect. Sometimes images won’t scale to your body that well and slip off the sides, or just not be exactly how you want them. But it is fun and not a terrible way to check out how a tattoo might look before making that big step.

It comes with a bunch of predesigned flashes from artists that you can try out.