You’ve probably been checking your smartphone for bad news all week.
And it’s been there, faithfully obeying. Take a break, and reward that
little glowing rectangle with these, our favourite new apps this week.
Multi-Platform Updates
YouCam Makeup
YouCam Makeup uses advanced facial recognition software to turn a
selfie into a virtual makeup playground, letting you experiment with
different looks and products without breaking out any brushes. By
detecting your face’s shapes and contours, the free app’s overlays give
you a realistic view of your new look, and built in tips and tutorials
keep you up to date on the latest trends.
[
Android] [
iOS]
OOLOO
Your smartphone’s voice-activated virtual assistant is great for
straightforward questions, but it still gets tripped up. Ooloo harnesses
the original intelligence, the
human kind, to answer your
questions. Just hit the button to voice-record your query, and send it
off to Ooloo’s experts. They will fire back an answer ASAP, any time day
or night. The app is free, but it’s limited to English language
questions for now. [
Android] [
iOS]
Android
Wanna feel like a spy, or just keep your little brother out of your
Snapchats? Dynamic Pin lets you set a mathematical formula, rather than a
static PIN, to unlock certain apps or your whole Android device. Say
you set the pin as A+B: no matter what the matrix shows (and it will be
different each time), you just add A + B to get in. Easy for you,
impossible for an over-the shoulder peeper. [
Free]
Maybe your power button’s broken. Maybe you’ve got a flip case on
your Android. Maybe you just want to feel like you’re living in
the future.
Pocket Lock locks and unlocks your screen based on either a gravity
sensor (detecting when your phone goes in or comes out of your pocket), a
proximity sensor (seeing when you wave your hand over the screen), or
both. It’s like it knows what you’re doing. [
Free]
Formerly limited to HTC devices, Zoe is now available across (nearly)
all Android handsets as a public beta. It’s like a video highlight
reel, allowing you to capture footage, apply filters, and add a
soundtrack to make the perfect little mini-montage. Plus, a Remix
feature lets your friends add their footage to your Zoes (or vice versa)
to create something totally unique. [
Free]
iOS
OK, so on the face of it, “Instagram for fashion brands” sounds
terrible. And if you don’t have much credit card restraint, it probably
is, because Swarm lets you follow fashion labels for the latest updates
and make purchases with a single swipe. Don’t worry, you can also “fave”
items without buying them right then and there. But where’s the fun in
that? [
Free]
If you’re OCD about your contact list, you won’t need Humin. If,
however, you’ve got six people named “Mike” and the random, nameless
numbers of four people you met at parties in your phone, Humin is for
you. The Facebook-powered app lets you put in a contextual identifier
along with a name (i.e. “met at the concert in the park”) to help you
search out that newfound contact even after you’ve forgotten his or her
name. Even better, it will auto-populate contact info when you enter a
new friend, clean up the contacts you’ve got, and tell you friends in
common when you meet someone new. [
Free]
This app is kind of goofy, but in the most charming way — fitting,
since it sprang from the mind of Tom Hanks. Hanx Writer replaces your
iPad’s boring digital typing interface with the look, and
sound,
of an honest-to-god typewriter. The page ratchets from side to side,
arms flurry, keys clack, and at the end of each line you get a
satisfying “ding!” as the page returns. Send your faux-typed
masterpieces via email, or pile them together into the world’s most
rustic e-book. [
Free]
Windows Phone
Foursquare’s new location-based app joins the WinPhone world this
week. Open up Swarm to see who among your friends is nearby. You can use
it to check in like original FourSquare, send a message to your nearby
pals, or plan a meetup for later on, all of which will be communicated
with your closest (geographically speaking) friends. It’s like a
megaphone, but less jarring. [
Free]
Perhaps
the best news to come out of Blackberry in the past several months, BBM
is a great, lightweight, intuitive messaging app. And now that it’s on
Windows Phone, it’s even better, with the ability to pin group or
individual BBM conversations right to your Start screen. Plus, it’s got
all of the privacy, like anonymous BBM numbers and both-way opt-ins,
you’ve come to expect from BBM.
[
Free]
