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These days we are all glued to our phones or tablets for relatively long periods of time and it is a common past time. Most people across the age spectrum are now big users of apps and I am sure we all have our favourites depending on your interests, hobbies and occupation.
One website has a listing of their best Apple apps of the year but my list looks at my five most useful apps that appeal to my personal tastes and needs. I have deliberately excluded any professional or medical apps as I wanted to look at apps which I think help, enhance or enrich my personal life and reflect my tastes. Hopefully these suggestions may give you some ideas and thoughts on your own personal favourites.
Google maps
If you love or hate Google, most people agree that Google maps is a fantastic asset and I suspect most readers must have used it at one time or another. Satellite navigation in a number of circumstances such as walking or driving (but not letting it distract you) is a commonly used feature of Google maps. But have you have looked at reviews of restaurants, hotels and other facilities built into Google maps? Also, Google maps contains incredible information about public transport such as routes, stops and departure times and seems to work in many places all over the world. There are also live traffic updates which I have found useful but scratch under the surface and there are some clever gems that you may not know exists.
After reading this article, I discovered that by gently tapping the blue location icon, a menu pops up which offers to set your parking location or share your location with a friend. I also did not know that Google Maps offers wheelchair accessible options in public transport. It is a fabulous and essential resource that is completely free to use for the end user. It is feature packed and has facilities yet to be discovered by many users, this happened to me in the preparation of this article!
I suspect many of you use this as your main messaging app. I have covered this in more detail in a previous blog post. It is free, sends messages to friends far and wide rapidly and works across most mobile operating systems. However, it has a number of useful extras such as the ability to make local and international phone calls and video calls (free apart from Wi-Fi or data plan costs) as well as sending file attachments or sharing geographical locations.
My favourite use of WhatsApp is that your computer can easily become the source of the WhatsApp message centre with the advantage of a bigger screen and the use of your regular, dedicated keyboard. The computer simply interfaces with your phone and produces a screen, that roughly resembles the look and feel of WhatsApp on your phone and for some users it makes WhatsApp easier to use. You type your message on the computer and it appears on the phone after you send it via the computer.
Spotify
There are a number of music streaming services but Spotify fulfils my personal needs. There seems to be a huge number of musical and podcast choices and very rarely have I not found what I have needed here. It can play on a number of electronic devices including mobile and PCs. It is fast, easy to find what you want in the huge range of content available and always seems to work flawlessly. I have found obscure and very popular music choices here before, in addition to the impressive collection of podcasts. It is easy to find what you want relatively quickly and the sound quality is very good.
The free version is quite good, but there is also a paid for version which for some people is worth paying the monthly subscription. Check out the variety of plans and I have never been disappointed with this service, although there is strong competition from Apple Music and Amazon Music. Spotify is commonly used in the UK and for more background information on Spotify and other music streaming services read this helpful article.
Netflix
Netflix is what is to movies and television what Spotify is to music and podcasts. Netflix contains a vast amount of content, a significant amount of it is original as it is created and distributed by Netflix and like Spotify is a popular streaming service. Again, by harnessing the power of the internet to quickly transfer the digital content onto your personal device, streaming works well as long as you have a decent internet connection, ideally Wi-Fi.
There are no free versions of Netflix but some of the plans are modestly priced depending on your need. Like the paid versions of Spotify, you can download the content for offline use and there should be plenty to satisfy the end user and their family. Like the premium version of Spotify, it is free of adverts (though Netflix will promote their own shows) but beware of streaming Netflix over mobile data as for some people it can run up big bills depending on your data plan. The competition in this field can be quite intense, but if you don’t like Netflix or want to stop the subscription, you can stop at any time.
Readly
With Readly, I pay under £10 a month to have digital access to the latest editions of over 5000 magazines and newspapers, as well as previous editions. They can be downloaded for offline reading and there is a wide variety of popular UK and foreign titles and your own content section can be set up for the latest edition to be added as soon as is published. For regular magazine readers who can manage digital editions rather than a printed edition, this is a superb offering at a relatively modest price.
However, this is not the only player in town, there is also Kindle Unlimited, which has a huge collection of books and substantial amount of magazines also for a relatively modest monthly fee. Even better many local public libraries offer an impressive range of free digital magazines and newspapers. I wrote about this in a recent blog with more information.
It is always interesting to review what is chosen in lists like this. All of the five services I have mentioned as well as being apps in a mobile device like a smartphone can be run from a computer. Also, some of them can be run in many different devices not just mobile devices and some of them can be paid for services.
Three of my choices can attract a subscription fee but I think it is affordable for many people and if you are a regular user, they can provide good value for money. Interesting three of the services offer high quality entertainment covering Movies and TV, audio and the printed word. Three common pastimes but made more accessible using modern technology. However, don’t forget, there is a lot of free and high-quality content out there as well. The delivery system may be hi-tech but good quality content has always been popular and welcomed for many centuries.