With the Galaxy Note 20 launch just a week away, all eyes will be on what upgrades Samsung brings to the table. While the chipset might remain unchanged, there might be a silver lining. While Samsung flagship like the Note series and the S series are powered by Snapdragon chipsets in the US and European markets, they come with Exynos chipset in Asian markets such as India. It often tends to lose out on the performance front against Qualcomm Snapdragon counterparts. However, a new leak suggests some good news in this regard. Samsung Galaxy Note 20 release date, price, news and leaks Upcoming smartphones in India: Specs, launch date, price (Image credit: Samsung/WinFuture) According to a tweet by Anthony, a Youtuber, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 will continue to be powered by the Exynos 990 chipset, but with major improvements in terms of the performance and efficiency. These optimizations should bring it closer to the Snapdragon 865 series. He even suggested that it is almost li...
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HMD Global wants Nokia smartphones to be in the enterprise once again
The return of the Nokia brand to smartphone relevancy over the past few years has been one of the more intriguing subplots in the battle for Android dominance.
These days, Nokia devices aren’t made by Nokia, but are instead manufactured under licence by another Finnish firm called HMD Global.
Over the past two years, it has released a steady slew of mid-range handsets alongside the revival of the iconic ‘Nokia 3310’ feature phone has attracted the interest of the mobile industry and the wider public.
HMD is banking that the combination of a wide choice of devices, attractive designs and a commitment to rolling out the latest versions of Android and security updates will secure market share.
But although this approach was tailored for the consumer market, it has attracted the attention of SMBs and enterprises too. Companies started contacting HMD about potential enterprise use cases, rather than the other way around.
Device portfolio“Our enterprise story started a year ago when we started this safe, secure approach for our latest wave of devices,” Andrej Sonkin, head of HMD Global’s Enterprise Business tells TechRadar Pro. “This attracted interest from enterprises who felt this [approach] was missing and it kickstarted our business activities.”
“Enterprises are getting very interested because their needs aren’t being met by manufacturers with smaller portfolios.
“It’s not just about price as such, but it’s about the availability of devices with various price points and a strong Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) proposition. There are companies moving from paper processes and there is a need to find a device that doesn’t jeopardise security – but not everyone can get a flagship.”
Sonkin points to a survey of businesses in Europe as evidence. It found that 68 per cent of IT purchasers wanted a large range of devices, a criterion that was more important in larger companies.
HMD’s nomenclature might be confusing to some, but Sonkin says there is a purpose. The Nokia 3, Nokia 6 and Nokia 8 ranges all target different segments and HMD is committed to adding new features and functionalities to each at the same price point. This means businesses always have a device to upgrade to.
“We see the whole range as relevant and important,” he explains. “Smaller companies tend to purchase as prosumers and therefore look at high-end devices. But at larger companies, there is more difference. Middle management might get mid-range and there are use cases in the lower end there are customers who use devices for specific use cases to let them know a job has been done.”
It might be a stretch to consider the Nokia 3310 though: “The 3310 is more of a feature phone where data isn’t important, but feature phones shouldn’t be more be forgotten because long battery life and call quality [are also important].”
Minimum standardsHMD is ensuring its devices adhere to the Android Enterprise Recommended (AER) programme, a range of devices that meet a set of requirements that make it as easy as possible to roll out, manage and secure Android devices in the workplace.
This means AER devices get the latest Android security patches within 90 days and at least one major OS update – something that will boost confidence among those who are worried about the fragmented nature of the Android ecosystem.
HMD is also working to ensure its devices adhere to the Android One programme too, meaning Nokia owners receive a non-modified version of Android on their device.
Not only does this make it easier to get updates, it also ensures there is no ‘bloatware’ which affects battery life and reduces the amount of memory space available to organisations.
Security is the main concern of HMD’s target market, with 95 per cent of organisations aware of the relevance of rapid security patches, so certification from AER and Android One is seen as essential.
“More and more we’re seeing is that Android One is the minimum requirement,” adds Sonkin.
“The emphasis on security was more than what I was expecting at this stage. I think it’s the biggest priority for IT departments if they are driving the purchase because smartphones form part of a wider IT strategy and need to fulfil certain requirements.
“They ask us what our promise is when it comes to patching and how our approach works with the broader portfolio such as how it impacts manageability, the consumer benefits of Android, battery life and new user interface features. They also ask how much support the device will need in its lifecycle.
“We have an unbroken patch record in delivering devices.”
Another finding from the survey was that although organisations recognise the benefits of Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM), relatively few had adopted EMM technology. Again, the easy deployment of AER devices can have an impact.
“Companies are still evaluating what to do with management,” he explains. “They see a need to [adopt EMM] but are unsure which way to go. About 30 per cent of devices in enterprises are managed … but at the same time there are more opportunities to deploy devices in a more cost-effective fashion.”
Market prospectsBut there’s no escaping the fact that the Android market is fiercely competitive, especially in the mid-range segment in which HMD hopes to compete in. And, given saturation in the consumer space, many manufacturers are also looking at business as a way to identify growth.
Apple, Samsung and others are formidable opponents, but Sonkin says HMD believes its portfolio, its security pledges and its overall service offering will ensure it becomes a leader in the enterprise sector.
“One of the things that make us credible is that we’re a global company. We have direct distribution partners in 90 countries and device activations in 170. When companies are looking at global deployments we have credibility.
“Another thing is care services. If something goes wrong. We have local repair partners in markets, online repair solutions in various European markets.”
There’s also the small matter of the Nokia brand.
“Brand is very important because it’s a promise. The promise needs to be reliability, trust and security. Nokia is known as a trusted brand and it has been present in the enterprises over the past 20 years in various shapes and forms and that legacy is seen as a positive.”
“The credibility they have in the enterprise space is high. We’re a European manufacturer from the north, the quality of our devices is legendary and what we’re doing with Android builds on that.
“We’re delivering to a real enterprise need. It’s not just one vertical as all industries have similar needs in terms of security, convenience in enrollment ant TCO optimisation. Our global presence, proposition and brand means we can be trusted.”
Here are the best mobile phone deals for October 2018
Black Friday 2018 and Cyber Monday 2018: when are they, why they matter and where to get the best deals
If you're wondering whether to buy yourself (or a friend or family member) that special item, you're probably wondering one thing: should I wait for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2018?
Well, these sales days are only getting bigger every year, with Barclaycard, which processes around half of all UK card payments, stating that spending on Black Friday 2017 was 8% higher than on Black Friday 2016.
Some of the top retailers in the UK saw their biggest hours of online trading ever, with millions gracing the web pages of the high street stalwarts (and online only portals, of course, too).
The question of whether you should wait, though, is a tricky one: while prices are only going to go down during this time (in the UK, 91% of UK retailers took part in Black Friday 2017, while the figure was 81% in the US) sometimes there are bargains to still be had before Black Friday rolls around.
So we've dug through the data on the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and begun to look at how you can find the thriftiest deals, whether you're looking to get your Christmas shopping early or just finding that special something for yourself.
Black Friday started in the US, and is the Friday immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday, so this year Black Friday is on November 23, 2018.
When is Cyber Monday 2018?It’s the Monday immediately after Black Friday, so Cyber Monday 2018 will fall on Monday November 26.
What’s the difference between Black Friday and Cyber Monday?There's not a huge amount of difference, to be honest. Many deals last from Black Friday all the way through to (and beyond) Cyber Monday too.
Cyber Monday was originally unconnected to Black Friday – the term was coined to mark the date when everybody went "Yikes! It’s nearly Christmas and I haven’t bought any presents!" and ordered tons of things online when they were supposed to be working.
It used to be that Black Friday - mostly in store in the US - was focused on consumer electronics, and Cyber Monday more on clothing and jewellery, but the lines are pretty much fully blurred now.
They're now what might more accurately be described as Black Friday And Cyber Monday And The Week Before And After And A Bit More If You’re Amazon, as the online giant spreads its sales rather widely.
But that’s too long to type, and BFACMATWBAAAABMIYA is a terrible acronym – so let’s stick with Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Why do Black Friday and Cyber Monday matter?For consumers, the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales frenzy means a whole week or more of what appear to be good deals – and if you’re savvy, and take advantage of TechRadar's Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals monitoring, you really can save a lot of money.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have changed the way we shop in the run-up to Christmas, and they’ve had a massive effect on the retail industry, especially online.
As James Miller, senior retail consultant at Experian Marketing Services, told the BBC: "there is little doubt Black Friday has dramatically changed the way people shop in the run-up to Christmas, and has created an expectation of deep discounts that arguably did not exist before."
That’s good news for us and potentially bad news for retailers, because Black Friday and Cyber Monday don’t magically give us more money to spend. They just change when we spend our money, so perhaps rather than waiting until the week before Christmas to buy our presents we do it on Black Friday and Cyber Monday instead.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are overwhelmingly online phenomena. Many retailers offer Black Friday deals in their physical stores (Cyber Monday, as the name suggests, has always been an online thing), but with a few headline-grabbing exceptions of the fistfight-in-a-supermarket kind it doesn’t significantly increase footfall.
In fact, there’s some evidence that it has the opposite effect, with tumbleweed blowing down high streets as we all shop from our homes, schools or workplaces instead. After all, it's much easier and far less backbreaking, especially if you're after a new large kitchen appliance.
Once we’ve spent that money it’s spent, and if we’ve spent it on Amazon – one of the biggest proponents of Black Friday and Cyber Monday on either side of the Atlantic – then that money is lost to more local retailers.
What sort of deals will we see on Black Friday 2018?Black Friday has fallen into a rhythm, so some deal predictions are safe bets:
Amazon will heavily discount its own stuffApple will offer something small, such as gift cardsTVs are going to get massive discountsThere will be really big price drops on laptopsSome accessories will be brilliant valueYou really don’t want to take out a phone contract in the months leading up: networks' Black Friday deals slash the up-front and monthly costsCamera buffs will be able to save a small fortune on bodies and compactsIt’s not just tech stuff – you’ll see big discounts on some power tools and personal care products tooeBay will run Black Friday deals on new products, not just second-hand items What sort of deals will we see on Cyber Monday 2018?Like Black Friday, Cyber Monday deals have also become pretty predictable too. You can expect:
Fashion retailers such as ASOS to offer site-wide discountsElectrical retailers to offer deals on small appliances and white goodsA continuation of many retailers’ existing Black Friday promotions The top deals of Black Friday 2017There were some really good bargains among the best Black Friday deals 2017, including money off the then-rare Nintendo Switch, the cheapest iPhone 7 deal ever, a massive discount on the iPhone X and deep discounting on the Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S8.
There was £400 off Lenovo’s convertible Yoga laptop, huuuuuuuge discounts on PS4 and Xbox One bundles, and more than £1,000 off TVs such as LG’s wonderful 55-inch 4K OLED TV, down from a frightening £2,499.99 to a much more reasonable £1,499.
In addition to its usual discounting, Amazon’s own product range always gets deep cuts on Black Friday: it offered really good discounts on Fire tablets, Kindle ereaders and its Echo devices.
The top deals of Cyber Monday 2017Of course, we tracked the best Cyber Monday deals in 2017 too. We saw the lowest-ever price of the Samsung Galaxy 8 on contract, massive discounting on VPN services, Xbox Ones sold with a bunch of free games and huge discounts on Dysons.
Even the in-demand Nintendo Switch was available with decent discounting, while premium products such as Sonos Play speakers and Microsoft’s Surface Pro got significantly cheaper too.
And Amazon’s deals, including the discounts on its Echo smart speakers, Kindle ereaders and Fire tablets, continued into Cyber Monday and beyond.
What to expect from Black Friday 2018 and Cyber Monday 2018The 2018 Black Friday and Cyber Monday season is going to be longer than ever before. In 2017 Black Friday went from a weekend to a week and in some cases a month, and you can expect that trend to continue.
It makes sense for lots of reasons: retailers can spread demand over multiple days, reducing the stress on their sites and delivery partners; deals are more likely to stand out if every single rival isn’t offering discounts on the same day; and it can make what’s really just a sale seem much bigger than it actually is.
So don’t be surprised if Black Friday 2018 is also Black Friday Deals Week 2018, Two Black Fridays and a Cyber Monday Outside Ebbing, Missouri 2018, Three Black Fridays And A Baby on Cyber Monday 2018, and various other permutations from sale-crazed marketers.
What that means in practice is that having a trusted guide is even more important than in previous years. Our Black Friday 2018 and Cyber Monday 2018 deals pages are the places where we’ll separate the genuine bargains from the old-stock shuffle and the ever popular 'Ridiculous RRP so it looks like a big discount' nonsense.
One thing we noticed in 2016 and again in 2017 is that in many cases the available discounts changed as the month progressed. Headline-grabbing stuff aside, the best-value deals tended to appear later in the month on more expensive products, where retailers could still make a profit while knocking a hefty amount off the price.
That’s partly due to upselling and cross-selling opportunities too – many retailers and brands hope that if you buy a Super Expensive Gizmo for a bargain price, you’ll then buy some accessories to go with it.
Top deals to expect on Black Friday 2018 and Cyber Monday 2018While there's no way to know for sure what Black Friday and Cyber Monday will bring, we can take some educated guesses, and based on those the following are worth looking out for…
New iPad (2018) and iPhone XApple kit is so rarely discounted that even a little bit off is a really big deal. As with Black Friday 2016 and Black Friday 2017 we’d expect Apple itself to offer gift cards rather than deals, but you can expect cuts on last year's handsets - the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X.
For those hoping for savings on the latest Apple devices, we're unlikely to see any significant reductions for the new iPhone XS, XS Max and iPhone XR - they have simply not been out for long enough and Apple's kit is some of the best tech when it comes to holding its value.
The new iPad (2018) has been around long enough to attract decent discounting too, so keep your eyes peeled for that – it's a brilliant devices at any price, but particularly worth looking at if you can get any money off.
Samsung Galaxy S9As with iPhones, so with Galaxies: not just the Samsung Galaxy S9 but the Note range too.
We saw Black Friday deals wiping out the entire up-front cost on contract Samsung handsets, and with the phone having been on sale since early 2018 we’ll be amazed if there aren’t some delicious deals to be had around Black Friday 2018.
PS4 and Xbox OneTech-wise they’re still brilliant, but in retail terms these consoles are getting long in the tooth. With rumours of a PS5 swirling (and Sony effectively admitting that the PS4 is off to the glue factory soon), and a pretty saturated market, we’d expect to see some great deals on both consoles, especially bundles, where retailers have much more room to manoeuvre.
We’d also expect to see discounting on the PlayStation VR headset, which hasn’t been quite the smash-hit Sony was hoping for. There’s a good range of good VR content now, which wasn’t really the case when it launched, so keep your eyes out for cut-price head helmets.
PSVR’s a much better proposition this year than it was last year, and many of the older VR titles are widely available for pennies now the novelty’s worn off.
That said, do keep your eyes out for PS4 deals in the lead up to Black Friday - if you see a bundle you like the look of, it's worth going for it rather than risking it not getting dropped in the Black Friday / Cyber Monday furore.
4K HD OLED TVsBlack Friday is always brilliant for TV prices, but (as ever) beware hilarious RRPs: the price a manufacturer puts there is very rarely the price anybody pays, so use the likes of PriceSpy and CamelCamelCamel to check a price history.
There will be deals out there, though – OLED tech in particular is still incredibly expensive and improving fast, which means that, much to the chagrin of early adopters, there will be massive discounts on relatively recent sets.
The difference between OLED and even very good LED TVs is really dramatic, and you’re not going to regret the upgrade – especially if you get it at a knock-down price.
That doesn’t mean you should overlook LED TVs, though. The competition in that market is absolutely fierce, and that means sets that cost more than a car last year will be much, much cheaper this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Amazon Echo devices, Fire TV sticks, Kindles and Fire tabletsIt wouldn’t be Black Friday or Cyber Monday if Amazon wasn’t slashing the price of its own-brand devices, and last year we saw some superb deals on the Echo speaker range, Fire tablets, Kindles and Fire TV devices.
The full-size Amazon Echo was reduced from £89.99 to £69.99, while the Echo Dot was down from £49.99 to £34.99 and the hub-enabled Echo Plus was down from £139.99 to £109.99 – and there were even bigger savings to be had if you bought two or more Echos. There are sure to be similar deals this year, and with Amazon expanding its smart speaker lineup with the Echo Show and Echo Spot, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be the perfect time to create a multi-room Echo setup without breaking the bank.
Amazon's tablets and ereaders also saw some generous discounts, with the Kindle Paperwhite down from £109.99 to just £79.99 and the Alexa-enabled Fire HD 10 Tablet getting a whopping £40 off, bringing it down from £149.99 to £109.99. The Fire TV and Fire TV stick were also on sale – and if Amazon's new Fire TV Cube makes it to the UK in time for Black Friday 2018 it'll likely get a price drop too.
Why is Black Friday called Black Friday?The first known mention of Black Friday was in November 1951, when the journal Factory Management and Maintenance used it to describe the issue of people calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving so they could have an extra day off work.
At the same time, police in the US were using the phrases 'Black Friday' and 'Black Saturday' to describe the horrendous traffic jams that occurred at the beginning of the pre-Christmas shopping season. In 1961 some retailers tried to market the day as 'Big Friday' instead, but that one didn’t take off.
Why is Cyber Monday called Cyber Monday?The term was coined by Ellen Davis and Scott Silverman, and it was a deliberate move to promote online shopping back in 2005, when the internet was made of wood and powered by steam.
It was intended to help smaller retailers compete with the big names who were banging on about Black Friday, although of course those big names promptly jumped on the Cyber Monday bandwagon too.
Are Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals real?Oooh, the big question: and generally speaking, yes they are – although in some cases the discounts have been negotiated well in advance with suppliers, so they’re not as spontaneous as the sellers might have you believe.
As with any sales event you’ll see a mixture of genuine bargains, discounted end-of-line stock and strange things found in the back of a warehouse somewhere. In 2016, consumer magazine Which? accused retailers of some pretty dodgy behaviour.
If you avoid the slightly-shifty stuff, though, you can get some really great deals. For example, last year we got tons of money off 5K iMacs (end of line stock), Hi-Res audio players (deep discounting in the hope of selling headphones), wireless headphones (from another retailer hoping to sell Hi-Res audio players) and tons of Christmas presents.
And some TechRadar writers were physically restrained from spending all our savings on electric guitars, which were getting some serious discounting on high-end models.
How is TechRadar showing the best Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals?On our Black Friday 2018 deals page and on our Cyber Monday 2018 deals page. We scour all the top retailers’ Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on your behalf, with the aid of serious amounts of caffeine, and we’ll tell you whether the deals are worth getting excited about. So whether it’s a 4K HDR OLED TV or a PSVR, if it’s discounted we’ll have the details here.
How should I prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?Homework really helps. Some retailers up prices in October so they can offer supposedly amazing discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so don’t be fooled by such shenanigans.
They’re particularly prevalent on expensive consumer electronics such as TVs or laptops with product numbers rather than names, with products worth a few hundred pounds apparently having RRPs of a million jillion pounds. Once again, CamelCamelCamel and PriceSpy can help you detect both shenanigans and tomfoolery.
It’s also a very good idea to be flexible. For example, if you fancy a Samsung UHD TV it’s best to think about the features you want rather than a specific model number – the BRV553ABD34-82C-9218-X may not be discounted on Black Friday 2018, but an almost identical set with the specification you want probably will be.
Can I get cashback on Black Friday deals?Sometimes, yes. Your debit card or credit card may offer cashback on purchases, and cashback websites such as Quidco often offer cashback for new customers of big-name online shops. It’s definitely worth looking into, not just for Black Friday 2018 and Cyber Monday 2018 but for online shopping in general.
Am I protected when I buy on Black Friday and Cyber Monday?In the UK, yes. Anything you buy from a company online is covered by a wealth of consumer protection legislation, including the Consumer Contracts regulations, which give you the same rights as with any other online purchasing. However, be aware that it can be difficult enforcing the regulations if the company you’re buying from is located outside Europe.
How can I stay safe on Black Friday and Cyber Monday?Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring out the fraudsters and fakers as well as the sellers, so be wary of any unsolicited emails or any links to deals being shared on social media, no matter how legitimate they look; as ever with the internet, anything asking you for card details or login details is a scam.
Phishing sites rake in big piles of cash on Black Friday, so be extra suspicious, and if you’re on a PC, make sure your anti-malware software is up to date – many security suites automatically block known scammers, fraudsters and phishers.
What about physical safety? Wasn’t everybody kung fu fighting on Black Friday?Yes, they were. In fact, it was a little bit frightening. The combination of bargain-crazed shoppers and poor crowd control has long made Black Friday synonymous with injuries and the odd scuffle, and sometimes much more serious trouble – in 2011 a woman pepper-sprayed rival bargain hunters in a California Walmart, while in 2016 a shopper was shot outside a Macy’s in New Jersey.
When the UK imported Black Friday it imported some of the trouble too, although thankfully it hasn't yet proved fatal. In 2014 police had to shut down a Tesco in north London because everybody was battling in the aisles, and there were scuffles in ASDA stores too, prompting that retailer to stop running Black Friday promotions from 2015 onwards.
Cyber Monday didn’t attract the same kind of trouble as it’s always been an internet event, and the more Black Friday moves online the fewer fisticuffs we're seeing.
Check out our tips to avoid scams on Black Friday
Best PS4 games 2018: 33 essential PlayStation 4 releases
The Sony PlayStation 4 really is an incredible console - and possible Sony’s greatest achievement to date (at least until the PS5 is officially announced).
The PS4 has more apps and features than any other gaming console, is capable of showing you incredible gameplay and entertainment thanks to the visual prowess of both 4K UHD and HDR, and it boasts some of the greatest games ever to have graced a Sony console. Pretty impressive, right?
At the end of 2017, it was revealed that more than 73 million users worldwide had bought a PS4, and now we’re almost at the end of 2018 that figure will likely be significantly higher.
In comparison, sales of the Xbox One were believed to be around the 30 million mark at the same time, though that hasn't been officially confirmed.
Although there’s a lot to love about the PS4, a huge part of the console’s success has been due to the exclusive games that Sony has brought to it.
For example, it’s the only console on the market with the likes of Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Shadow of the Colossus and God of War, all of which are available right now, and games like The Last of Us Part 2, Death Stranding and Ghost of Tsushima that are all expected to be released over the next few years.
But although Sony has found continued success with its first-party franchises, let's not forget the fantastic games from the likes of EA, Ubisoft and Epic Games that are available to play on the console as well, all of which contribute to the PS4's monumental game catalogue.
With that said, whether you're lording it over your mates with the premium 4K PS4 Pro, or happily fragging away with an original PS4 until the PS5 launches, there really is something for everyone on Sony's system.
So, to help you sort out which games are worth your while, we've compiled a list of the best and newest games on the PS4 – a round-up of the best games on PS4. We've done our best to include something from every genre, from AAA down to indie gems and have posted our findings here for you to enjoy.
Should you not find something to binge here today, check back in with us in a few weeks – with every new release we're updating and revising our choices!
Looking to enhance your PS4 experience? These are the best PS4 accessories you can getLooking ahead? These are all the latest PS5 rumorsUpgraded to a PS4 Pro? These are the best PS4 Pro games out thereNeed some more space to store all these great games? Don't miss our guide on How to upgrade your PS4, PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro hard driveHere are the best PS4 headsetsTrying to decide which PS4 set-up to get? Watch Jon and Gerald discuss the differences between the PS4, PS4 Pro and PS4 VR.
A Grecian epicAssassin's Creed Odyssey is the latest edition to the action RPG franchise. Odyssey is set during the Peloponnesian War and sees you stepping into the sandals of either Alexios or Kassandra as they try to uncover the truth about their history while navigating the turbulent world of Ancient Greece as a mercenary.
Odyssey is a graphically stunning title which will take you to the heart of Ancient Greece - just make sure you have the time to place it because there's over 100 hours of content.
PS4 Pro Support? PS4 Pro enhanced.
Amazing, Spectacular and Sensational
Marvel's Spider-Man is likely the best comic book-based video game in the entire PS4 library by a country mile - sorry, Batman: Return to Arkham.
While the latter did a great job bringing the brooding caped crusader to life on our home consoles, it failed to provide us any insight about Bruce Wayne's actual life when he takes off the cowl. The former is worlds different, if only because it shows us two sides of the same hero - the affable Peter Parker and the heroic, self-sacrificing Spider-Man - in the same game. Tie into that the best traversal mechanics since Spider-Man 2 on the PS3, and you have all the markings of a spectacular (and dare we say AMAZING) Spider-Man game.
Don't miss our full Spider-Man review!
PS4 Pro support? 4K HDR
There's something strange in the neighborhoodStrange Brigade is an action-packed third-person co-op shooter which allows you to team up with friends online or play side-by-side in some good old-fashioned couch co-op.
Pairing Monty Python-esque humor with mythological creatures, Strange Brigade tasks players with exploring ancient tombs and solving puzzles - in between fending off some supernatural beasties.
A definite for those who want a fun action-packed co-op game which doesn't take itself too seriously.
PS Pro support? Yes. 1440p, larger draw distance and improved screen space reflections.
Making the old feel new again
After a year away, Assassin's Creed is back and it's bigger and better than ever. In Assassin's Creed Origins you go back to ancient Egypt, before the brotherhood and before the Templars, where you play as the original assassin Bayek.
Assassin's Creed is a series that was growing increasingly stale but with Origins the formula has been refreshed with new RPG mechanics, story-driven side quests and a far more free-flowing combat system.
Whether you're new to the series or a fatiguing fan, Assassin's Creed Origins is absolutely worth playing as it's the strongest and most stunning installment we've seen in years.
Read our full review of the game and our tips and tricks guide.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. HDR support coming November 6.
Jump into the trendFortnite Battle Royale has had a meteoric rise since its release in 2017 - and it's not hard to see why. The free-to-play battle royale offers players an energetic and enjoyable online multiplayer experience, with a concept that pretty simple to get to grips with - be the last person standing.
PS Pro support? Yes. 60 fps.
A refreshing jump back in time
In the latest Battlfield game, DICE takes players back in time to World War One and by doing so completely rejuvinates the once stagnating franchise.
Battlefield 1's historical setting helps it to stand apart from the rest of the modern military shooters on the market with all new weapons, vehicles, and level designs that feel fresh and capture the chaos and brutality of war.
The game offers a poignant and entertaining single-player campaign that sets a new standard for first-person shooter. Broken into six sections, each following a different character and front line location, the campaign never feels dull or repetitive.
The single player campaign even feeds neatly into Battlefield 1's multiplayer mode which, while familiar, also benefits from the much-needed breath of life that the change in setting gives.
Graphically impressive, entertaining, and sometimes touching, Battlefield 1 is a return to form for the series.
PS4 Pro support? Yes.
Hope you don't have a swear jar
From Software's enigmatic and notoriously challenging Souls titles all hold critical and fan acclaim, but none are as stylistically interesting as the quasi-Industrial era Bloodborne.
It plays like an RPG set indelibly on a hidden difficulty mode with all the helpful text pop-ups removed, which is to say it requires more than a modicum of patience from the player.
But that's the point – in Bloodborne, you get out what you put into it. Victory's all the more rewarding when you've watched your enemy, memorized his attack patterns, struck at the opportune moment and prevailed via the game's impeccable melee combat.
PS4 Pro support? No.
A welcome dose of nostalgia
Crash Bandicoot is one of the classic gaming IPs and a revered figure on the PlayStation platform. We were absolutely delighted, then, when he made his debut on PlayStation 4 with the remaster of the N. Sane trilogy.
If you like your nostalgia in big dollops, Crash Bandicoot N. Sane trilogy is a remaster well worth picking up. This is the same levels, gameplay, and the iconic music is still there but it's been given a lovely new lick of paint. At TechRadar we think it's a great example of the way classic games should be resurrected.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 1140p at 30fps
Out of this world online multiplayer
Dark Souls is an iconic series in the gaming world and with this remaster you have the chance to go back to where it all started in 2011, but with improved visual fidelity and performance. All the better to see those horrific and punishing enemies that are coming relentlessly for your blood.
This is the same original game with all of its DLC but that's no bad thing. Dark Souls is a fantastic, must-play title and it's great to see it on the latest generation of consoles. Not just because the framerate bump to 60 fps makes it a much smoother and more exhilarating gameplay experience.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 4K at 60 fps.
A smart, stealthy, steampunk adventure
Following the surprise 2012 hit Dishonored wasn't going to be an easy task, but Dishonored 2 has more than lived up to its expectations.
Picking up 15 years after the events of the original, Dishonored 2 takes players back to the Victorian Steampunk city of Dunwall. This time, though, you have the choice of whether or not you want to play as the original title's protagonist Corvo, or his equally-skilled protegee Emily.
Dishonored 2 doesn't differ wildly from the first game, but there was nothing wrong with Dishonored in the first place. What we get is a vastly improved and close to perfected take on it.
Anyone who likes their games filled with atmosphere, character, and a bit of wit and intelligence will find Dishonored 2 worth picking up.
You can read our full review here.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 2560x1440 at 30fps.
Still the best football sim money can buy
FIFA is, for many console owners, a highly anticipated annual event. The latest and arguably greatest installment in the football sim series has arrived in the form of FIFA 18.
Whether you're looking to play against others online, build up a management career on your own or play a cinematic story mode that'll give you an insight into the dramatic life of a premier league footballer, FIFA has a game mode just for you.
The best thing is, there's always more than enough to throw yourself into and agonize over until the next game rolls around with further incremental improvements that'll convince you to upgrade.
FIFA 19 is due for release on September 28. Make sure to check out everything we know about the latest addition to the FIFA franchise.
You can read our full review of FIFA 18 right here and make sure you're the best on the pitch using our tips and tricks guide.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 4K and HDR.
The JRPG genre at its best
Final Fantasy 12 is one of the most underappreciated and anomalous Final Fantasy games, first released in 2006. With this remake, Square Enix gives players a chance to take a second look at the game, this time at a games that runs much more smoothly with less obvious faults and cracks.
In The Zodiac Age you'll find a beautiful game world, fast and exciting combat, and a sweeping storyline that's an example of the JRPG genre at its best. Whether you're a fan of Final Fantasy or not, 12 is enough of a series outlier that it's a good place to dip in and see what you might be missing. It's a PlayStation 4 exclusive, too.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 2560x1440 resolution.
Of heists and men...
Not only is it the best sandbox game on the platform, GTA V is also the best golf game, the best tennis sim, the undisputed virtual yoga champ, one of the best racers… it's even a pretty serviceable MMO.
We're used to scale and scope from Grand Theft Auto, but what Trevor, Franklin, and Michael bring us is a staggeringly well-realised city seen from three entirely different perspectives. Trevor, the maniacal rampage killer whom we discover to be in all of us when we play a Rockstar game; Franklin, the classic rags-to-riches character with street smarts and the ability to pull off a bandana; and Michael, the troubled criminal with a dysfunctional family and a beer gut to show for his life of violence.
However you play GTA V – a multiplayer muckabout, a story-driven third-person actioner, a flight sim – it reveals itself to be the best game on both this generation and the last.
PS4 Pro support? No.
A powerful, poignant and unforgettable game
One of PlayStation's most highly anticipated exclusives of 2018, God of War has lived up to the hype. Taking Kratos from Greek to Norse mythology, making him a father, and focusing on narrative as well as completely revamping combat has made God of War a welcome refresh for the franchise. In our full review, we called God of War "the best game in the series" for many reasons, but the stand-out is that this is a game with heart and it's not to be missed.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 4K at 30 fps and HDR.
Say hello to the triple indie
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is developer Ninja Theory's first attempt at publishing its own game and it's quite an achievement. The game follows Senua, a Celtic warrior suffering from psychosis who travels to Hell to rescue her lost lover.
The game uses an interesting mix of binaural audio and innovative visual techniques to communicate Senua's experience with her psychosis to the player, resulting in a game that's likely to be quite different from anything else you've played recently.
Disturbing, insightful and extremely enjoyable to play, this is a game worth taking a look at.
You can read all about our experience with the motion capture tech behind Hellblade right here.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. Dynamic resolution adaption for stable framerates.
Guerrilla Games' new IP is one of PS4's best games
Horizon Zero Dawn is the first-party open-world game that Sony has desperately needed. While Uncharted and The Last of Us have long given PS4 players a fantastic linear experience, Horizon Zero Dawn - developed by Guerrilla Games - gives you the keys to a massive, detail-rich and utterly jaw-dropping open world.
Set in an aesthetically prehistoric post-apocalyptic world inhabited by robot dinosaurs, the game puts players in the shoes of Aloy who hunts these creatures and scraps them for parts. It's part Jurassic Park, part 10,000 B.C. and part Asimovian Sci-Fi epic all rolled into one.
Once you get through the sprawling campaign, check out The Frozen Wilds DLC that sends Aloy up north to the frozen wastes of The Cut, the home of the Banuk Tribe. The Frozen Wilds elevates an already exceptional game and is well worth the price of entry.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 4K, 30fps and HDR support.
How many Snakes does it take to change a lightbulb?
Okay, so Hideo Kojima's last game for Konami - and his last ever Metal Gear game - might be a little tough for the MGS n00b to get to grips with, but it's still one of the best stealth-action games ever crafted. The open-world shenanigans will satisfy all your behind-enemy-lines / Rambo fantasies and probably confuse you with crazy plot twists and a million characters all with the same gravel-toned voices.
But hey, that's all part of its charm, right?
PS4 Pro support? No.
Friends who slay together, stay together
Monster Hunter is a classic franchise that's been going for a long time, but with its return to console it's been given a new lease on life and dragged kicking and screaming into 2018.
Whether you want to play solo or team up with a group of up to three friends, this game has you enter a stunning game world that feels genuinely dynamic and alive in order to hunt down monsters. For research, of course.
There's a learning curve here, and the dark-souls style of combat has the potential to frustrate, but this is the most accessible Monster Hunter game we've seen in years. If you've been looking for a chance to break into the series, this is it.
In our review we called the game "a bold and confident new chapter" and gave it a "play it now" recommendation. Thinking of becoming a Monster Hunter yourself? Make sure you check out our full survival guide.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. Can choose between 60 FPS, 4K resolution, or prioritized graphics. All with HDR support.
Seeking fun, weirdness and excellent combat? Look no further
If you want to play a game that will feel different to anything else you've played recently, we heartily recommend NieR: Automata.
Though it's a sequel to 2010 game Nier, you don't have to have played the first game to enjoy this one. Set in a dystopian future, the story of the game revolves around a war between machines created by alien invaders and the remnants of humanity. Humanity has fled Earth to seek refuge on the moon but has sent combat droids down to fight for them.
You play as one of these droids, 2B, accompanied by another droid called 9S. Combat in this game is intensely satisfying, the game world is stunning with a huge sense of scale and the story is strange (sometimes to a fault) but incredibly entertaining. You won't be disappointed.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 1080p at 60 fps.
Our 2016 Game of the Year
Overwatch has without a doubt been one of our favorite games to come out of the last year.
It's a classic team arena shooter from Blizzard that sets two six-person teams of wildly different characters against each other in a bright and cartoonish science fiction universe.
Great graphics, tight maps, and a good roster of characters to enjoy playing. Overwatch is good old fashioned fun and we thoroughly recommend it.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 1080p with 60 fps. 4K UI overplay.
A chilling return to form
Your gaming collection isn't really complete if it doesn't have a quality horror title and if we had to suggest one it'd be the newest installment in the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil is the franchise that put survival-horror games on the map and though it lost its way slightly in later titles, the newest game is a return to form for Capcom.
By going back to the survival-horror basics and getting them dead on, Capcom has made Resident Evil 7 a genuinely frightening and exhilarating gaming experience. If you have the stomach for the gore, it's absolutely worth playing.
The PlayStation 4 version of the game has an added bonus for PS VR owners – a virtual reality adaption of the game which Capcom has absolutely nailed. However, you'll need to be brave to play it all the way through.
Don't miss our full review of the game.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 1080p supersampling and HDR.
Lara's origin story finally makes its way to the PS4
Has it really been 20 years since we first saw Lara in action? How the time flies when you're upgrading from a 32-bit resolution to upwards of 4K. But no matter how many years go by, Lara still manages to find a handhold in our hearts.
Despite being the sequel to a prequel about the young life of the Lara Croft, Rise of the Tomb Raider feels like the pinnacle of the series. The reboot which saw a brave new direction for the franchise seemed a lot of the time to be little more than a bit of light Uncharted cosplay, but Rise is a far more accomplished game.
There's now a genuine open world which feels like there is always something to do, and something more than just harvesting up collectibles in exchange for a light dusting of XP. There are also tombs. Yes, that might seem a fatuous thing to say given the name, but the previous game gave them short shrift. In Rise though they are deeper and more plentiful. Plus, on top of everything else, it's got VR support, which is pretty neat considering that there aren't many PlayStation VR titles around these days.
Welcome back to PlayStation, Lara, we've missed you.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 3 display modes available; choose between 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 60 fps or 1080p at 30 fps with enriched visuals.
A classic lovingly recreated
Shadow of the Colossus is a classic PlayStation title, a game that performed graphical marvels when it was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005. Now it's been remastered with 4K and HDR support and this time around the game world is more beautiful than ever, while keeping the original's emotional weight and gameplay.
For those looking for a gaming experience quite unlike any other, Shadow of the Colossus is a must-play. In our full review of the title we called it "a journey well worth taking once, and somehow even more worthwhile second time around"
PS4 Pro support? 2 modes: cinematic with 4K, HDR and 30 fps or performance with 60 fps.
They had the technology to rebuild him, better than before
The original Titanfall was a great game, but unfortunately it didn't come to the PlayStation. Fortunately, its sequel, Titanfall 2, improves on it every conceivable way: the motion is more fluid, there are more distinct titans to choose from and, hold onto your hats here, there's actually a single-player campaign that might take the cake for the best first-person shooter story of the year.
This game's pedigree is inherited from one of this generation's smartest and most unusual shooters. The original Titanfall married ninja-fast on-foot combat to the gloriously thuggish thrill of piloting giant mechs, which are summoned from orbit a few minutes into each match.
The skill with which Respawn has balanced this mix of styles in the sequel is remarkable – Titans have firepower in excess but they're easy to hit, and maps offer plenty of places for infantry to hide. These ideas coalesce into one of this year's most remarkable entries in the genre and is well-deserving its own shot in the spotlight as well as a Game of the Year nomination.
PS4 Pro Support? Yes. Higher resolution and more stable frame rates.
Naughty Dog's best, made better
Many games have offered us post-apocalyptic visions of the future, but none have been as brutal, as believable, or as touching as Joel and Ellie's story.
It was near-perfect on PS3, but with current-gen's increased performance ceiling Naughty Dog found ways to ramp up the visual fidelity to 'drop the controller and stare' levels. A radical tonal departure from Uncharted's jovial treasure-hunting escapades, The Last Of Us Remastered demonstrates the California studio's ability to strike a darker mood, populating the overgrown ruins of its setting with a cast characterised by murky morals but still getting you to care for them like your own bessies.
If you love this one, make sure you keep an eye on all the latest news surrounding its sequel: The Last of Us Part 2.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. Choice of 4K at 30 fps or 1080p at 60 fps with HDR.
Stories don't come bigger than this
Geralt didn't have the smoothest of entries to PS4, but after some heavy patching and a lot of angry words about visual downgrades, we're left with an RPG boasting tremendous scope and storytelling.
Oh, and combat. And don't forget Gwent, the in-game card game. And there's the crafting to get stuck into. And the alchemy.
You're rarely short of things to entertain yourself with in The Witcher 3's quasi-open world, then, and all the better that you're in a universe that involves the supernatural without leaning on the same old Tolkien fantasy tropes. Invigorating stuff.
Netflix has announced it's working on a Witcher TV series with Henry Cavill taking on the role as Geralt, so if you haven't jumped into the fantasy RPG then now is the perfect time.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 4K resolution or improved performance at 1080p.
The end of the long and dusty road
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End hasn't been out for very long, but we can already tell that this is going to be a Game of the Year contender come December. The game was tasked with an impossible task by bringing a satisfying close to Naughty Dog's classic adventure series and delivered something well above our expectations. Exceptionally high production values, an engaging story about a wayward brother and an adventure to remember, Uncharted 4 has them all in spades.
Though Naughty Dog's Uncharted journey has finally reached its destination, you're guaranteed to treasure the memories it created forever.
If you're a PS4 owner, it would be criminal not to take this ride.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 2560 x 1440 resolution with HDR and 30 fps in single-player.
Superb in every sense
Looking for an incredible single-player shooter? Look no further than the 2017 wonder that was Wolfenstein II. Picking up from where the original game left off, this game is a timely social commentary and a superbly silly adventure all rolled into one well-written package.
With tight mechanics and a story worth caring about this is one of the most satisfying first-person shooters we've played in a long time. In our full review we called it "expertly crafted" and recommended that you play it now.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. 2560x1440p.
Probably the most fun you'll ever have playing a racing game
A bundle of anti-gravity goodness featuring some of the best versions of Wipeout from over the years. It's not an exhaustive collection of the different games, but it is a great, remastered trio of games that brings you the best of Wipeout racing and chaotic car combat. Multi-player mode is fantastic, but the game's AI improves as you do, meaning some of the later levels are eye-watering challenges.
Here's some Wipeout Omega collection tips and tricks to get you started.
PS4 Pro support? Yes. HDR and 4K at 60fps.
A strong narrative and emotionally compellingLife is Strange is an episodic graphic adventure which tells the story of Max, who moves back to her hometown and reunites with her best friend Chloe - who is a bit more rebellious than she remembers.
On top of trying to navigate the difficulties of teenage life, Max discovers that she has the ability to rewind time at any moment and only she can prevent a storm on its way to destroy her hometown.
Rather than focusing on combat, the crux of Life is Strange is the choices Max (AKA you) makes and the effect these choices have on the overall story.
A game for those who appreciate an engaging story. The prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, is equally mesmerising.
PS4 Pro support? No.
Cook up a stormFans of the original Overcooked will not be disappointed by the second instalment in the chaotic couch co-op series, with all new challenges, recipes, and characters to take on with up to three other people.
This time your task is to defeat the 'Un-Bread' (zombie baked goods) that have taken over the Onion Kingdom, by battling through brand new recipes including sushi, pizza, and burgers in increasingly chaotic kitchens. To add to the frantic fun, you must battle obstacles including random fires, collapsing floors, and interfering passers by, all while getting your orders out to the pass in time.
Things get complicated incredibly quickly, and relationships, friendships, and family bonds will be tested as you work together to complete your recipes on time, making it a fun and challenging couch co-op game that will make you truly understand the meaning of "too many cooks spoil the broth."
PS4 Pro support? No.
A true coming-of age-taleNight in the Woods is an unconventional side-scrolling adventure game that follows on 20 year-old Mae, who drops out of college to move back home with her parents.
With a story based on dialogue choices and tasks, it's a classic coming-of-age tale, with stunning minimalist graphics and laugh-out-loud interactions that will leave you completely hooked on this charming indie game.
PS4 Pro Support? No.
Fear of FinTech: 5 misconceptions keeping you from the future of finance
The world of finance and the technology that supports it is constantly evolving. As early as 1866, the first transatlantic cable was laid, providing an infrastructure for financial globalization. A century later, the ATM/ABM was introduced, and by 1998, banks established the first transactional websites for Internet banking. That commitment to innovation continues to drive the finance technology or “FinTech” industry at a rapid pace, as evidenced by the more recent arrival of mobile banking and smartphone payments.
Over those 150 years, technology and the modern idea of “FinTech” has transformed dramatically, changing how we think about finances. Now, smartphones help us spend, save and transfer our money with ease. Despite the benefits of new technology, America lags in FinTech adoption, ranking 10th out of 20 major global markets according to the EY FinTech Adoption Index 2017.
So, what’s keeping Americans from embracing new ways of banking? Fear is a likely culprit since people tend to be cautious, especially with their money. But that reluctance prevents consumers from accessing exciting new products and services. To help clear the way for the adoption of FinTech, perhaps we need to debunk some common misconceptions.
We've also highlighted the best small business software I don't understand what FinTech doesFinTech is still a new concept for many, especially compared to Americans’ relationship with the big banks, which have been around for over 200 years. Marry that with an inherently loyal streak and it’s not surprising Americans cling to traditional banking norms.
But Americans should rest easy, because FinTechs aren’t changing the functions of how money is used, but rather its accessibility. For example, wire transfers originated in the 19th century, but now you can transfer money to a cousin in Italy via a smartphone. It’s fundamentally the same concept, but technology advances eliminate the need to physically visit a bank branch.
FinTech is the wild westThere’s also the misconception that FinTechs aren’t regulated. That’s simply not true. On both a federal and state level, legislation regulates the commercial relationship between FinTech companies and their customers, offering protection and peace of mind. This includes rules regarding online contracting, false, misleading or deceptive representations, and unfair practices.
Today, many federally-regulated banks, financial institutions, and intermediaries in America have adopted and embraced FinTech to improve on back-office functions and help provide customers with convenient products and services. But standing alone, some FinTech companies go a step further than banks to promote trust through transparency. For example, TransferWise, a FinTech company providing overseas money transfers, shows real exchange rates with no markups or hidden fees.
Through transparency, FinTechs hope to build consumer confidence. Paired with a strong regulatory framework and the confidence that comes from knowing federally-regulated financial institutions are using these technologies, FinTech is far from the Wild West.
My data isn't protectedWhile consumers should rightfully be concerned about their personal information, it shouldn’t hinder their decision to try reputable FinTech products or services.
Because of the amount of personal information FinTech companies collect and store, many have adopted bank-level security measures and applied them to their platforms.
Consumers can also take a proactive approach by selecting FinTechs that offer robust privacy policies and encryption, as well as conduct regular security assessments and audits.
FinTechs are too complicatedThis couldn’t be farther from the truth. The main selling point of any FinTech company is to make finances simpler, more convenient, more transparent and more personalized. Many people also assume FinTechs are only available via mobile, but in fact most are also available via computer—so you don’t need the latest and greatest mobile phone to access their services.
In most cases, FinTechs are known to offer better customer service than traditional players, prioritizing 24/7 access and allowing customers to engage on multiple channels, rather than in person or on the phone.
FinTechs come and goFailure isn’t a word you hear often in the financial industry, and it’s no different for FinTechs.
Take digital payments, for instance. They continue to be built into services instead of being offered as a standalone product. As a result, many large banks are actively partnering with FinTech companies to extend those services to their customers. We see this happening in America as well as globally, where TransferWise recently became the first non-bank to become a member of the UK's Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) and France's Groupe BPCE’s money transfer service.
That’s just one example. FinTechs aren’t going anywhere, thanks to their ability to deliver valued enhancements to banking services, and in some cases, replace banking services completely. Given the fast pace of innovation in the FinTech field, Americans will continue to have plenty of reasons to get past their fear and embrace the convenience and added value FinTech can deliver.
Andrew Boyajian, Head of Banking at TransferWise
Also check out the best personal finance software
Super Mario Party first look review: the most tactical Mario Party game yet
Nintendo really needed Super Mario Party to be good. While the Nintendo Switch console has been selling like wildfire for the past 18 months, many of the tentpole releases we were waiting for – Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 – have come and gone, and there’s a lot of pressure to keep up the console’s early momentum.
Thankfully Super Mario Party is the game to do just that, and feels as much a refresh as it is a tightening of the series’ well-worn mechanics.
As a multiplayer party game, Super Mario Party won’t be a necessary purchase for a lot of players, but for couch-based co-op and casual minigame fare, this is exactly the game the Switch needed. So what exactly have Nintendo done differently, if anything?
If it ain't brokeThere have been a lot of Mario Party games now. Super Mario Party is technically the 11th for a mainline console – and the first not to use a numbering system – though there have been a handful of DS entries along the way too.
Most similar titles see criticism for re-using the same repetitive board game mechanics, and in a console generation that saw complete overhauls of traditional Zelda and Mario game design, that wouldn’t have been good enough.
This is still a Mario Party game though, and most of the action takes place on 3D boards, with a host of Mario characters rolling dice, playing mini-games, and collecting stars to try and crown themselves the best of them all. Think Mario Kart, but you’re all playing some kind of in-house, home-brew family Monopoly.
There's a host of secrets on each board, like a melting ice cream cone or ticking Bob-ombs that shake things up if you land on the right spaces enough times – and unprompted visits from Mario baddies that add more risk to landing on random spaces. These alone are an incentive to revisit old boards or play out a full 20 turns instead of a mere five or 10, and as always it’s the combination of chance and strategy that makes Super Mario Party so enjoyable to play.
Mario Party 9 and 10 lost a lot of the series’ competitive streak in main board mode, which packed all four players together in a single cart that was pulled around the map, rather than letting each player roam for themselves. Super Mario Party wisely goes back to the old formula here, along with a host of new tactical elements that expand the possibilities for gameplay.
The enemy of my enemy is my friendAnyone familiar with previous games will see a number of entirely new faces for the series, including Boo, Goomba, Koopa Troopa, Hammer Bro, Dry Bones, Shy Guy, Diddy Kong, Monty Mole, Pom Pom, and Bowser Jr – as well as the big man Bowser himself, previously only playable in Mario Party 10’s ‘Bowser Mode’, but now able to walk the boards like the rest of them.
What makes these more than cosmetic choices, though, is the dice. Each character has a unique die with custom numbers, which they can choose to use instead of a simple 1-6 roll. This means you can try for higher numbers, but usually with the risk of hitting a 1 or 0, depending on who you’re playing. (Bowser has a handful of tempting 10s, but can also sap away your hard-earned coins while leaving you stuck on the spot.)
You can collect ‘support’ characters along the way, which act a bit like Assist Trophies from Super Smash Bros – but instead of attacking other characters, they add their own die to your roll each turn, stacking up the numbers and often saving you from a low roll, or making you overshoot the nearby space you wanted.
The 2v2 Partner Party mode goes one step further, ditching the restrictive one-way board for an open map you can roam in any direction you please. It allows for far more strategy in your movements each turn, not least because you share turns with your teammate, and need to communicate to make sure you make the most of the stars, items, and surprises of each board.
It’s not just a different mode, though - it’s a smarter one, and one that will keep bringing back adult players who have tired of the simple formula of the games’ main Party Modes.
The competitive play has really been focused, with enough feel-good charm to still make you feel like you’re all in it together. Players have the option of high-fiving each other at the end of each minigame for a reward of +3 coins, which makes even breezy minigames feel like triumphant team efforts.
The once-infamous cart from the last two games, however, lives on in spirit in the River Survival mode, which puts four players in a raft, plunging down rapids and playing minigames to extend how much time they have left to reach the end. Naturally this requires everyone to paddle somewhat cooperatively – in a smart use of the Joy-Con’s motion controls – and the various twist and turns to the finish line give it plenty of replay value.
Minigames for allAnd we haven’t even touched on the mini-games. In usual Mario Party style, there’s a whole new 80 minigames created just for the Nintendo Switch system - with the promise of more unspecified content if you manage to access them all from the main game mode.
Many will feel… familiar to fans of the franchise, as they use the same randomized selection and 1v3, 2v2, 4v4 formulas to try and out-mash, out-smart, and out-collect your opponents.
Few are truly difficult, but the short and combative nature of most of them keeps tension high, and the selection is smart enough to utilize the specific strengths of the Joy-Con controllers. The HD rumble makes for tense balloon competitions, while the motion controls allow you to reel in nets, operate wind machines, and high-five each other in intuitive but surprising ways.
This is the first Mario Party game to offer online play, in a dedicated ‘Online Mario-thon’ mode that connects you with players around the world. It does, however, only extend to the minigames, allowing you to play a best-of-five with strangers online and compete for the top spot on various leaderboards.
For a multiplayer game that doesn’t seem like much, especially since the Nintendo Switch Online paid service has just launched, and more could have been done here. But playing 20-turn board game with online matchmaking would also bring its own problems, which we don’t entirely blame Nintendo for avoiding: what’s the incentive to stay online with a stranger if it’s clear you’re losing halfway in?
Much has been made of the Toad’s Rec Room mode, which lets you pair up two Nintendo Switch screens for a number of compatible mini-games. Cue 2v2 tank combat that shoot cannons from one screen to another, or halved pieces of fruit that need to be reconnected. It’s fiercely fun and makes the most of the console’s capabilities, even if it requires you to have two $300 systems to hand.
Super Mario Party is exactly the party game the Nintendo Switch needed. While online features are sadly limited, there’s a host of different modes all offering a unique take on the Mario Party formula, and gamers of all ages and abilities should find something here for them – just as a Nintendo game should be.
The added strategic elements and wide range of gameplay modes make this, perhaps more than any other, a Mario Party game for everyone.
Super Mario Party: the 5 best minigames from Nintendo's Switch party game
The best iPhone games 2018
It would take approximately 34,506,455 years to play through every single iPhone game on the App Store.
Well.. that number might be fairly inexact, but such is the wealth of titles on the app portal, combined with the depth of some of those on offer, you could easily play happily on your phone for years without getting bored.
The App Store is crammed with gaming goodies to keep thumbs busy, but not all iPhone games are born equal - which is why we've done the difficult job of playing through as many games as humanly possible in order to tell you which are best.
A bit of advice: make sure you think about what kind of game you want, and appreciate that some of them are more 'session' titles and some are those that you'd like to pull out and play in an odd five minutes.
That's important as we're big advocates of people paying for games on the app portal - they help offset some of the free titles that are funded by in-app purchases.
So if you're going to pay £5 / $5 for a game, make sure you've got a daily commute or enough downtime to give it your attention. The beauty of being able to play an immersive game on the move - something that would have been console quality a few years ago - should never be under-appreciated.
The best controllers - and compatible games - for your iPhoneAlso think about a controller for some titles - while many games don't support an external device, those that do are often brilliant to play without needing to resort to a touchscreen for interaction.
And just to contradict ourselves: free games with in-app purchases are fine, and often give you a great experience without needing to pay up. However, when you get really good at them you'll find that you're constantly told when to stop, in order to regenerate something or get to the next level.
However, if you've decided that you love RPG, fighting and strategy games, and like both options that you can dip into and play for hours, we're here to help. After many trials and tribulations, we arrived at the list you're about to dive into: the best games you can enjoy on your iPhone today.
New: Evergarden (US$4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99)
Evergarden is a gorgeous puzzler underpinned by an emotionally charged narrative adventure. The main game echoes Threes! and Triple Town, in being about merging elements on a board to boost your score. Only here, you’re combining plants into new forms, and having them strategically spit out seeds between rounds.
The game has a great sense of rhythm, and stunning visuals that make everything shine on the iPhone’s screen. It’s also layered, gradually revealing new ideas as you play. Early on, animal companion Fen will demand you match provided patterns to increase your score; within the adventure, you acquire new skills, and must strategically apply them within the main challenges.
In all, Evergarden is a distinctive, beautifully realized treat – even if you think you’ve already got quite enough mobile puzzlers installed on your device.
While you're at it, check out the best iPhone apps aroundWatch our overview of the iPhone X below.
Donut County is a physics puzzler where you play as a hungry hole in the ground. The more the hole eats, the larger it grows. Initially you are only able to swallow a few blades of grass but as you crack the correct order of items to gulp down you’ll soon be downing cars, buildings and even hillsides.
Coupled with the satisfying gameplay, Donut County adds lovely visuals, inventive ideas, and a superb storyline. The imaginative conceit is that a local raccoon has been sending people down the hole when they order donuts, and now everyone’s deep underground recounting their stories and figuring out how to get back to the surface.
The challenge is slight and the journey short, but that also means Donut County wisely doesn’t outstay its welcome. Instead, it’s a beautifully crafted finite slice of engaging entertainment.
Supertype is a word game more concerned with the shape of letters than the words they might create. Each hand-designed level finds you staring at a setup of lines, dots, and empty spaces in which to type. Tap out some letters, press the tick mark, and everything starts to move.
The aim is to get the letters you type to the dots. In some cases, the solution may be fairly obvious – for example, placing a lowercase l on each ‘step’ towards an out-of-reach dot at the top of a staircase, then having a p at the start tip over to set everything in motion.
More often, you’ll be scratching your head, experimenting, trying new approaches, and then grinning from ear to ear on cracking a solution.
Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 is a racing management game without the boring bits. Rather than sitting you in front of a glorified spreadsheet, the game is a well-balanced mix of accessibility and depth, enabling you to delve into the nitty gritty of teams, sponsors, mechanics, and even livery.
When you’re all set, you get to watch surprisingly tense and exciting top-down racing (This being surprising because you’re largely watching numbered discs zoom around circuits.)
One-off races give you a feel for things, but the real meat is starting from the bottom of the pile in the career mode, with the ultimate aim of becoming a winner. It’s all streamlined, slick and mobile-friendly, and a big leap on from the relatively simplistic original Motorsport Manager Mobile.
One of the earliest 3D games was Battlezone, a tank warfare title at the time so realistic the US military commissioned a version from Atari to train gunners. iOS tribute Vector Tanks was subsequently gunned down by Atari lawyers, but its DNA survives in Tanks! - Seek & Destroy.
Like Battlezone, Tanks pits you against an endless number of vector tanks on a sparse battlefield, but this is a much faster, tougher game, with tilt-and-tap controls that put you more in mind of console racing games than a stodgy tank 'em up. The result is a relentlessly thrilling 3D shooter that marries the best of old-school smarts and modern mobile gaming.
Reckless Racing 3 is a top-down effort that features dilapidated cars and trucks battling it out across a surreal section of courses. Whereas the original in the series appropriately restricted itself to scrapyards and mall parking lots, Reckless Racing 3 features routes through a quaint European village, an airport, and a nuclear plant with a worrying amount of green goop sloshing about.
The handling feels a bit lightweight, but the races are amusingly smashy. And if you’re in the mood for something completely different, there’s a gymkhana mode for precision driving and drifting in your decrepit vehicle.
Suzy Cube is a platform game set in a world with a thing for straight edges. Assuming you’ve played a platformer before, you know the drill: explore; grab gold; unsportingly jump on the heads of enemies to obliterate them.
But Suzy Cube goes beyond the stripped-back 2D fare we often see on iOS for something akin to Super Mario 3D Land. This means you may find yourself quickly swapping between skidding down icy mountains in 3D, following Suzy Cube as she runs side-on around a tower, and then delicately leaping between floating platforms, as seen from above.
Bar some duff boss battles, it’s ambitious, entertaining fare, with tight touchscreen controls, and a great sense of pace and variety as you delve into the world and discover its many hidden secrets.
Oddmar is a platform game featuring the titular protagonist, a selfish Viking who suddenly has to become the hero when his village vanishes and evil critters take over the land. It is a stunning mobile production, awash with dazzling visuals, and wonderful set pieces, such as trying desperately to outrun a massive troll in a boss battle, or riding a pig like you’re starring in a medieval Metal Slug.
But even the more typical platforming bits are something special. Wonderful animation ensures the game is full of life, while carefully placed hazards and enemies cleverly shift and change the game’s tempo as you pick your way through each level.
On iPhone, there’s the slight niggle of thumbs getting in the way of the action. That said, the controls are among the best we’ve ever seen on a mobile platformer, as – to be frank – are all other aspects of the game.
Ovivo comes across as much like an art experiment as a platform game. It’s certainly rather more reflective than most running and jumping games.
Much of this is down to the environments, which are all stark monochrome – semi-abstract silhouettes that only occasionally offer a spark of familiarity. You tilt your device to move circular protagonist Ovo, and a tap of the screen switches Ovo from existing within the light to the dark.
By using gravity and flipping from black to white (and back) at opportune moments, you can scale hitherto unreached heights. And although there are objects to collect en route, your main aim is simply to reach a goal. Finish an entire world and the screen zooms out, giving you a slice of dazzling artwork to take in before immersing yourself in the next challenge.
Touchgrind BMX 2 invites you to coax a virtual BMX to the checkered flag in courses likely to usher in panic attacks and vertigo, while performing all kinds of stunts along the way. But unlike ostensibly similar fare on iPhone, there’s no rider on the bike – instead, you control it with two fingers.
You plant one finger on the saddle, and one on the handlebars, dragging left and right to steer. As you pick up speed and hurtle into the air on hitting a ramp, you perform stunts by flicking your fingers in various ways. Land safely and you get points.
Wonderfully tactile, and with superb track design, Touchgrind BMX 2 easily betters traditional BMX racing fare on iPhone. And although grabbing all the courses sets you back US$7.99/£7.99/AU$12.99, they’re worth the outlay.
Dig Dog features a dog that’s a big fan of digging. The pooch is after bones, but the snag is that this canine’s decided to search on fragile islands sitting atop deadly spikes, and peppered with roaming beasties.
You direct the hungry hound left and right, and tap a button to jump, at which point you can tap again to dig, tap fast to dig rapidly, or move horizontally to dash at speed.
Dig Dog’s claustrophobic nature and trap-laden levels create an experience that’s initially punishing. But put in the legwork and the game does open up. You’ll learn when to take risks, and how to obliterate multiple enemies in a series of bounds, to get extra coins you can spend on power-ups in a shop that infrequently appears.
Give this one time, then, and you’ll dig it.
Reed ^_^ is an entertainingly ridiculous high-speed platform game, featuring a hyperactive virtual kitten inside an old supercomputer. The computer’s on its last legs, and you need to find ‘cubes’ to save the world.
The tiny snag is that the inside of this machine is designed to kill. It’s littered with spikes and roaming monsters, and a single touch vaporizes Reed ^_^. Fortunately, due to our hero not being alive in any conventional sense, death is immediately followed by the chance to try again. And again. And again.
With such regular failure, this is the kind of game that could easily get trying, but Reed ^_^ gets the fun/frustration balance right. Levels are short, and you know when you end up dead yet again, your thumbs were ultimately to blame.
Meteorfall: Journey is a mobile-friendly adventuring game, but rather than your hero venturing forth into a grid-like take on a fantasy realm, everything here’s based around a deck of cards.
Decisions are made Tinder-style, with you swiping left or right. You might beat up a monster or save your strength for later, knowing in the back of your mind that growing more powerful only comes from battle victories. Or while on the road, you might face the choice between visiting a blacksmith for weapons upgrades or a temple to optimize the cards you hold.
This might sound complex, but it’s really not. Meteorfall: Journey is approachable and immediate, but with enough depth to keep you playing for many months due to its semi-random setups, multiple heroes and varied quests.
Dissembler is a match puzzler that seemingly has you methodically dismantle tiny geometric works of art. The mechanics will be familiar to anyone who’s played the likes of Bejeweled – flip two elements (flat colored tiles in this case) and try to make a match of three or more – only there’s no gravity in this game to fill blank spaces.
Instead, your matches vanish, and nothing else appears, which sometimes leaves single tiles isolated. At that point, you must undo moves and think again, figuring out the precise sequence needed to consign the entire artwork to oblivion.
It’s a deliciously captivating, tactile game, which also builds on its many dozens of hand-made puzzles with an intriguing endless mode, and extra daily free puzzles. In all, it’s flipping great.
Part Time UFO is the videogame equivalent of those claw crane games you find in arcades and want to smash because they keep dropping things. Only you won’t smash this one, because the claw extends from the bottom of an adorably cute UFO.
Said alien has crashed on Earth, and rather than humans spiriting it away to a top-secret location, they suggest it starts earning a living. So the little hovering critter ends up performing duties such as dropping goods in a van, repairing a broken art exhibit, and, erm, stacking cheerleaders.
The entire thing’s regularly frustrating yet spellbindingly charming. Just make sure you ditch the on-screen joystick for the thumbs-anywhere option, or you’ve no chance of success.
Alto’s Odyssey is a side-on endless sandboarding game. Alto zooms across windswept dunes, frequently hurling himself into the air to perform speed-boosting tricks that then enable him to leap across vast canyons.
In gameplay terms, it echoes Alto’s Adventure, and long-time players of that title might get a sense of deja vu. However, stick with Odyssey and you learn it’s more than just a reskin.
Complete achievements and new elements are slowly revealed: additional biomes to explore, and – more importantly – a rock-wall ride move that can have you reach greater heights than ever.
The main mission remains a curious combination of heart-poundingly exhilarating (when escaping a frenzied lemur, or completing a jump by a hair’s breadth) and relaxing; if you hanker after the latter, check out the Zen mode, which removes scores, coins and power-ups. At that point, it really is just you and the endless desert.
Reigns: Her Majesty is a kingdom management game smashed into Tinder. You must tend to the needs and desires of your subjects, ensuring the church, people, army and treasury are kept happy – but not powerful enough to instigate your untimely demise.
Actions happen by flicking cards left or right in response to requests and questions. Your approval rating with the aforementioned factions then changes – sometimes unpredictably. It’s a simple, fun system, but one with surprising depth.
This is partly down to a great script, but the balancing act is further complicated and augmented by challenges. When completed, these often unlock new cards and storylines. And should things go badly wrong, death is not the end – quests thread throughout the ages as you play on as the next in a seemingly endless line of queens.
Florence is really an interactive storybook, but there are game-like elements peppered throughout – and because it was created by the lead designer of Monument Valley, you know it’ll be full of heart.
It also features plenty of clever design elements. For example, you at one point create something as a child that later makes a reappearance in a box of mementos. After a crash, sliders are used to make the blurred vision of the protagonist coherent. And at one point you fashion speech balloons from puzzle pieces, which reduce in number as the people conversing with each other become more comfortable.
The downside is brevity – Florence is very short and lacks replay value. But it’s a heartwarming experience, and one that showcases the kind of innovation that occurs at the fringe of gaming.
PAKO 2 exists in a bizarre universe of constant, unending criminal shenanigans, and a police force whose sole response to getaway drivers is to hurl police cars at them with merry abandon – and then attempt to blow them away with a gunship when that approach fails.
This presents a tiny problem for you, given that you’re the getaway driver. Prodding left and right to direct your tiny car, you must zoom between pick-ups and drop-offs, gradually powering up your car as you do so, and trying to avoid taking a career-ending plummet into a ravine, or being atomized by psychotic law enforcement.
PAKO 2 is a shallow game, but also buckets of fun, and with several environments and a slew of vehicles to unlock, it should tempt you to unleash your inner criminal for many weeks to come.
Impossible Road is an endless survival game, starring a featureless sphere belting along a ribbon of road suspended in space. Gates are placed along the road at intervals, each of which bestows a single point when you blaze through it. As the road bucks and lurches, it’s all you can do to stop yourself plummeting into the abyss.
But Impossible Road is sneaky. It turns out that if you’re careful – or lucky – you can soar briefly into the air and return to the track, taking massive shortcuts that would perhaps be best referred to as ‘cheating’.
Amusingly, high scores are logged not only for the farthest gate reached, but also the most skipped. And although the App Store has freebie riffs on the Impossible Road theme, none have the class, style, polish and razor-sharp focus of this premium title – so stick to the original.
Layton’s Mystery Journey (non-US link) is a puzzle game masquerading as an adventure, and the latest entry in a series that’s highly regarded and much loved on the Nintendo DS. It features London-based aspiring detective Katrielle Layton, who explores landmarks and solves unlikely cases, all while trying to uncover a conspiracy.
The game switches between story, searching and puzzling at regular intervals. The puzzles are varied in nature, and even early on include some proper brain-teasers. The story bits could perhaps be more engaging, but at worst are pleasant and charming.
The series’ roots on the Nintendo DS are sometimes a rough edge – the split-screen nature of the interface and its occasional clunkiness can feel a bit off – but the rest of the game’s polish, and the many dozens of clever puzzles, ensure the latest Layton is good value for money.
AR Smash Tanks! is all about smashing tanks. Specifically, using yours to smash up your opponent’s.
Because this is an augmented reality game, you can project the rectangular arena onto anything from a table to a large garden – and then let battle commence. Whether using multiple devices or playing with pass-and-play, it’s great to be able to check out your next move from any angle.
Tanks are pinged around in slingshot fashion. If you’ve played Angry Birds, you’ll be right at home and, as with that title, the environments are destructible. That comes as a surprise first time round, when you knock a skyscraper on to your own tank. Later, you start trying for snooker-like trick shots, toppling towers, smashing up tanks, and escaping to safety.
In short, it’s tons of fun; an excellent example of the potential in AR gaming.
Food Pals is a platform game, featuring bipedal food – eggs, fruit and the odd burger – sprinting through hostile terrain full of electrified barriers, clockwork teeth, spikes and giant bugs. Your local supermarket, this is not.
Everything’s controlled by a single thumb. One prod of the screen sends your character into the air or ninja-jumps them off of a wall. Each level is hand-crafted, so the key is to learn every nook and cranny, then try your hand at the perfect run.
Reaching the end of Food Pals isn’t the most demanding of tasks, but there’s longevity for completists, with collectibles peppered throughout each level – often in hidden places. However you play, it’s a game that exudes fun and charm.
Canabalt popularized endless runners on the iPhone. Originally released in 2009, it strips back platform gaming to tapping the screen to make a little sprinting man leap over gaps rather than plummet to his doom.
You might wonder why such an ancient title is on this best-of list, but Canabalt is a classic that easily deserves a place. With a firm emphasis on speed, Canabalt’s breakneck pace makes it a pure adrenaline rush in a way that complex and slower rivals just can’t match.
The game hasn’t stood still for years, either. It’s optimized for modern iPhones and has eight variants on the basic theme. The aesthetics remain intriguing too – an ominous, urgent soundtrack accompanies a city’s destruction by massive machines, perhaps explaining why the leaping hero is so desperate to flee.
Far From Noise is as much an exercise in self-reflection as a game. It begins with a car balanced precariously on a cliff edge. With no means of escape, what remains is to make sense of it all – not easy when you start possibly hallucinating a conversation with a surprisingly philosophical deer.
Interaction comes by way of balloons, which you tap to confirm thoughts and actions. As you make decisions, the narrative branches, leading you to one of several endings. Oddly, we could have perhaps done with fewer choices, because many seemed almost inconsequential. Although perhaps that’s the point.
Despite the situation (car wobbling; imminent death), the pace is very restful and the experience is unique. We suspect Far From Noise will nonetheless prove divisive, but it’s great to see such artistic games on iPhone.
Sheep Goes Right is an auto-scrolling arcade game that features a sheep that goes right. And also up. But mostly right.
For reasons unknown, the heroic Sheepy has been challenged to pick his way through 100 levels of mayhem, packed with swirling maces and massive spiked balls. Hitting one is baa-d, sending you back to the start of the level, and wiping out one of your three gold stars. Fail too many times and the game assumes you’re rubbish and helpfully offers to let you skip the level, at which point you woolly feel like a failure.
The game looks crude, but proves compelling as you figure out which combination of rightward steps and upward jumps will get you to the end without being turned into a kebab.
Grid Autosport is a console-quality racer. That isn’t hyperbole; this is an accurate conversion of a game that has graced countless PCs and PlayStation 3s – all on your iPhone.
Naturally, not just any iPhone will do; you’ll need an iPhone SE or an iPhone 7 or newer, and at least 6GB(!) of storage space. But once the game’s installed, you can immerse yourself in by far the deepest racing experience mobile has to offer.
If you’re a simulation nut, turn off all driving aids, head into a full season and prepare to spend time spinning off into gravel traps. More cautious players can stick with quick races and rookie mode for a while, gradually learning car handling and tracks alike, and wondering why all mobile games can’t be made with such love.
Card Crawl is solitaire reimagined as a dungeon crawler – or perhaps the other way around. Regardless, it pits you against a grumpy ogre’s deck of 54 cards. During each round, he deals four cards, which may be a mix of weapons, potions, spells, and hideous enemies.
Your own four slots are for the adventurer, your two hands, and a backpack to stash items in for later. The adventurer’s health is diminished when fighting monsters (unless armed), but you can counter by getting stabby with swords (or hiding behind a shield, like a coward).
Games are brief – only a few minutes long – but Card Crawl manages to balance randomness and strategy. Over time, you can unlock new abilities and figure out strategies to boost your high scores. It’s a polished, entertaining and clever take on card games that’s ideal for iPhone.
Kick Ass Commandos is a top-down twin-stick shooter that begins in conventional fashion. But as you blast through the jungle, you quickly happen upon a prisoner. He then tags along, also shooting all and sundry. Save more and you amass a tiny army, which blows everyone in their path into chunks of meat.
This is a violent game, and also sometimes a stupid one. Despite the retro stylings, it can be a bit gross and occasionally tone-deaf; in one early scene, you mow down largely defenseless enemies in a shower block.
Fortunately, Kick Ass Commandos isn’t without brains. It demands you think tactically and safeguard health – particularly of characters who must survive to the level’s end. If you can deal with the odd icky moment, there’s hours of breezy action-packed high-octane retro shooting here, with an interesting twist.
jodeo asks how a 2D creature might interact with 3D objects. Each level is introduced as an ‘experiment’, and that feels entirely appropriate as a little jelly critter is dropped onto a vector shape that morphs and spins. Your aim: to paint every edge.
You start by tackling basic polygons, but the experiments become quite diverse, introducing a range of conditions. These include invisible shapes, objects that pelt the critter, and gravity unhelpfully being turned off.
It can all be a bit finicky and random – irritating, even, when you keep missing the last bit of painting, fall off the shape, and are sent back to the previous checkpoint. But there’s a lot to like in this unusual miniature adventure – not least the permanently surprised and distressed expression of the protagonist.
Million Onion Hotel is crazy. But if you want specifics, it mixes Whac-A-Mole-style screen prodding and a highly strategic match mechanic. The aim is to make solid lines by tapping onions that appear randomly on a five-by-five grid.
The simultaneous demand for speed and strategy clashes gloriously. Tap too slowly and you run out of time. Too fast and you secure only single lines, rather than the doubles you need to ramp up your score and bonuses.
And that’s before you take into account deranged boss battles, and an underlying story that encompasses onion soup, the mafia, quite a lot of hanky panky and an interdimensional wormhole.
Just know Million Onion Hotel is a relentless assault on the senses that’ll leave you exhausted – but eager to dive in for another go, in part to try and make sense of what’s happening.
Super Samurai Rampage seemingly depicts the stabby breakdown of a legendary warrior, “provoked into a relentless rampage”. Quite how he was provoked isn’t made clear, but there’s no shortage of bloodshed in this lightning-fast slash ’em up.
Swipe the screen and your samurai moves and attacks: up and he’ll leap; across, and he’ll slash his sword – not great for anyone in the vicinity at the time. The key is to chain kills to increase a multiplier that culminates in a brief period of murdery invulnerability.
One hit and you’re dead, and although you’re given fair warning when an enemy’s going to attack, keeping track of everything on the busy screen is tricky. Still, get into the zone, and Super Samurai Rampage is a rewarding way to unleash your frustrations on hordes of little computer guys who should really learn to run away.
Dark Echo is a weirdly creepy horror game that manages to make squiggly lines scary. As you stomp about in the dark, sound waves are represented as abstract lines that rebound off of objects you can’t otherwise see.
The soundtrack is all-important. Don a pair of headphones, and you can hear your footsteps, and the floor squelching beneath you. Flies buzz as you pass… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. And then you hear things growling in the shadows, before one decides it fancies a snack.
Dark Echo will helpfully suggest RUN! as you bolt for an exit – or end up devoured in a dead end. It’s a great example of how the imagination can give you bigger scares than any rendered CGI beast on your iPhone’s screen. That and you’ll never look at red zig-zags in quite the same way again.
Max & the Magic Marker - Remastered is a spruced-up take on a much-loved platform puzzler that first appeared on iPhone way back in 2010. Despite its age, the game still feels fresh today, offering a breezily fun and entertaining mix of leaping about platforms, collecting objects, and being a massive cheat by way of the titular marker.
Actually, that’s not entirely fair on Max – it’s not like he can scribble a cheat code and skip to the end. But he can fashion shields to protect himself, slabs to drop on bounding monsters, and ad-hoc stairs to clamber up.
Neatly, you can pause the game while working on your temporary artistic masterpieces – and that’s just as well, because to get three stars at level’s end, you must beat a timer, along with collecting all the floating bling.
The Talos Principle brings a much-admired open-world PC puzzler to your iPhone. It begins with you awakening in a garden, fresh from a deep sleep. A brief look at your hands reveals you’re a robot – which may come as a bit of a surprise – before a booming voiceover reveals you’re in some kind of facility for testing your abilities.
Over the next 20 or so hours, you work your way through dozens of immersive puzzles, battling floating drones, and manipulating laser beams, all the while gradually finding the answers to your purpose, and what it means to be human.
There are niggles here and there with the controls, which don’t always click on the touchscreen. But the game otherwise gels nicely with iPhone, looking great on the smaller screen (compared to noticeably rough edges on iPad), and enabling you to tackle an epic quest in bite-sized chunks.
Mikey Hooks is a speed-run platform game that plays out a bit like a stripped-back Super Mario Bros. in fast-forward – if Mario happened to be armed with a grappling hook he could used to swing past enemies.
Each level is full of spikes, pits, monsters, and platforms, along with piles of gold coins to collect. You run left and right, and use virtual buttons to jump and slide through narrow gaps. The twist is the aforementioned ‘hooks’ bit, and it’s exhilarating to swing through the air, scooping up coins, missing a spike-headed roaming enemy by a whisker.
There are 36 levels and a bespoke ‘race’ mode to tackle; and to keep you coming back for more, you can race against ‘ghosts’ of your fastest times.
Beat Sneak Bandit is one of the most audacious genre mash-ups you’re likely to find on an iPhone. Despite each level taking place on a single screen, the game manages to combine platforming, pathfinding, rhythm action, turn-based puzzling, and stealth.
The premise is that the nefarious Duke Clockface has stolen all the clocks, throwing the world into disarray. Benevolent pilferer Beat Sneak Bandit vows to get them back.
Amazingly, everything is controlled using a single thumb, which propels Bandit onwards. He must move on the beat, and you make use of walls to turn around, ensuring the rhythmic hero’s not spotted by a guard or security camera.
The game’s full of character, along with devious level design that requires seriously twisty routes and deft timing to crack. Great stuff.
Missile Cards is a mash-up of classic defense game Missile Command and solitaire. During each round, a conveyor belt that deals the deck judders forward one space, revealing defense and hazard cards.
When bombs and nukes reach the end of the conveyor, they reappear at the left of the screen, raining down on your little city. To stave off obliteration, you can equip, charge, and activate defense cards. It’s a bit bewildering at first, but everything becomes clear once you’ve played the tutorial and a few rounds.
There is, perhaps, a little too much emphasis on luck. Sometimes, you’ll reach the end of the deck and lack the means to survive. But the game warns sacrifice is sometimes necessary, and with perseverance, you’ll likely come to love this interesting twist on a pair of classic games.
Super Crossfighter is a modern take on classic blasting action that harks back to Space Invaders. But instead of lobbing the occasional pot-shot at lumbering green beasts, Super Crossfighter is a neon-infused affair, with bullet hell aplenty, and a thumping techno soundtrack.
There’s also the ‘crossfighter’ bit, which alludes to the way you can leap back and forth between the top and bottom of the screen. This can be handy for grabbing power-ups, un-sportingly shooting an enemy in the back, or simply escaping certain death when facing a hail of projectiles.
The touchscreen controls work nicely, and there are over 150 waves and an upgrade system to sink your teeth into. The game’s perhaps a touch ‘relaxed’ in feel at times, rather than super-intense, but otherwise this is an excellent iPhone shoot ’em up.
Level 24 is a match puzzler, which tasks you with building a tiny civilization on a four-by-four grid. The tutorial is borderline incomprehensible, but the game’s worth sticking with, because it’s colorful, clever, and a bit different from everything else out there.
The game centers around matching tiles of the same color. These are ‘sucked’ into whichever grid space you tap, and the face value of the resulting combined tile (usually depicting a building) increases based on how many tiles you combine. The idea is to make and then combine as many constructions as possible, in an attempt to reach an elusive value of 24.
Chances are, you won’t do that for ages, not least because buildings above level 10 cannot be combined. But there are power-ups (in the shape of historical figures) to help you along, and many other interesting bits and bobs to discover.
Schattenspiel is a puzzle game about the interplay of light and shadow. Each level is based around a grid of dots, on which pillars and lamps can be dragged around. The aim is to replicate the image shown at the top of the screen by casting shadows using your lamps.
More serene than showy, the game has a visual sleekness and gives no penalties for experimenting. A move limit exists purely as a per-level achievement, but you can also progress by bumbling towards a solution. This means Schattenspiel caters for casual and hardcore gamers alike.
The entire production comes across as a simple concept, executed very well – a cheap, stylish puzzler that should keep you entertained for a good few hours before it’s time to turn out the lights.
Pigeon Wings is a deranged side-on racing game, featuring wide-eyed pigeons belting along in tiny planes. The backstory involves a rich nutcase aiming to destroy a city by way of a heavily-armed gigantic flying fortress; the birds race it out to decide who gets the chance to stop him.
The game switches things up between strings of races and occasional battles. In the former, you slipstream rivals, bob and weave through the air by tilting your iPhone, and power up your craft through trophies won in-game.
The shooty bits are brief and intense – a nice change of pace, despite the fact you’ll likely be blown to bits several times before claiming victory.
Should you hanker after something marrying the intensity of ALONE… and the frantic racing of Mario Kart, Pigeon Wings is a must – in fact, you’d be bird-brained to miss it.
Wonderputt is what might happen if Monty Python-era Terry Gilliam was hurled through time and charged with designing an iPhone minigolf game. The single 18-hole course is an exercise in surrealism and imagination from the moment tiny meteors smash into the ground to fashion the first hole.
Things then get weirder, with courses eaten into grass fields by cows (who are then whisked away by UFOs), and an impossible waterfall hole that looks like it’s escaped from a colored Escher print.
Fortunately, the game is more than a visual delight – it plays well too. Notably, a ‘smart zoom’ feature ensures you don’t need a magnifying glass to see what’s going on in the visually arresting miniature landscapes.
The only snag is there’s just that one course – but even if you only play it once, this game’s worth the outlay. And for perfectionists, there’s replay value in spotting visual details you may have missed, and getting all of the achievements.
Zen Bound 2 is a puzzle game of sorts, which has you wrap a length of rope around objects, in order to paint them.
That all probably sounds horribly dull, but it turns out Zen Bound 2 is an engaging, unique, and oddly tactile experience.
The blocky objects on the screen effortlessly shift and turn with a flick or drag, gradually acquiring color as the rope encases them, or blows up paint bombs. The rope obeys gravity, too, enabling you to twist your iPhone as you manipulate the challenge in front of you.
The meditative and somewhat noodly feel is further enhanced by a lengthy soundtrack, and the remastered take released in 2017 ensures the game looks pin-sharp on every size of iPhone. So although Zen Bound 2 might be a game that’s been knocking around for years, it manages to remain distinctive and thoroughly modern all the same.
Linelight is a serene, smartly designed puzzle game set in a universe of lines. It vaguely resembles a stripped-back take on Tron, or perhaps a circuit board diagram as reimagined by a graphic designer with taste. Your task is to help a white line find its way through dozens of pathfinding puzzles.
Movements are controlled by a virtual stick, which is one of the most effortless and elegant in any iOS game. The puzzles are similarly graceful and ingenious, gradually introducing new mechanics.
These include enemies that amusingly bob along to the chill-out soundtrack’s beat. Said foes are colored lines that kill with a single touch; but when carefully directed, they trigger switches to help you across otherwise impassable divides.
It might not be the longest experience on iOS, but Linelight deserves a place on your iPhone, due to being an engaging, beautiful experience, and a perfect example of how minimal design can have a soul.
Sidewords is a word game with a new twist. Each single-screen puzzle has a grid with words along the top and left-hand edges. You use letters from those (at least one from each edge) to create each new word.
On selecting a letter, a line shoots into the grid; where lines from the left and top edges collide you get solid blocks, which display the words you create. Blocks can at any time be tapped to remove them.
The aim is to fill the grid with these blocks – simple early on, but not when you’re staring at a seven-by-seven grid annoyingly full of gaps. At that point, the devious nature of Sidewords becomes apparent.
But this game’s nonetheless also forgiving and relaxing – there’s no time limit, and the vast majority of puzzles are unlocked from the start. There’s replay value here, too, despite the static set-ups, since for each puzzle you can save a solution, clear the grid, and try to solve it in a different way.
Mini Motor Racing is a top-down racer featuring tiny vehicles that blast about twisty-turny circuits. They auto-accelerate, so you’re left with steering, and periodic use of a turbo that rockets your vehicle forward a few car lengths, leaving you unable to steer in the meantime.
From the off, Mini Motor Racing is frenetic. The tracks are claustrophobic, and the cars respond (and even sound like) remote controlled vehicles – albeit ones seemingly driven by psychopaths. Once you’re a few dozen races into the game, it seems your opponents are keener on smashing into you than winning.
That grumble leaves Mini Motor Racing languishing in the slipstream of the best top-down effort on iPhone, Reckless Racing 3, but it still manages a podium finish. And that’s because it’s packed full of content, has a great multiplayer mode, and in its ‘remastered’ 2017 form looks stunning.
Idioctopus features brainless lovesick octopus couples desperate to be reunited. One lurks somewhere in a single-screen maze of walls and hazards. It’s your job to direct their other half in a manner that doesn’t turn them into a seafood snack for a lurking predator.
Your eight-legged lover ambles along automatically, and always turns right when possible. You can therefore to some extent predict their movements, and redirect them using draggable arrow tiles. With its bright colors and noodly guitar soundtrack, it’s all quite relaxing and sedate.
And then you notice the achievements, and the fast-forward button. These are an extra challenge for those who want higher-speed puzzling, having you remember your solution and play it out at speed in the fewest possible moves. It’s a clever and entirely optional twist, transforming Idioctopus into two games in one.
Yankai’s Peak is a minimal puzzle game based around pyramids that trundle about platforms comprising triangular grids.
The aim is to use your blue pyramid to nudge and spin colored pyramids to pre-defined resting places. It sounds simple. It really isn’t. Yankai’s Peak is like the crate-pushing classic Sokoban reimagined by a triangle fetishist who also happens to be a sadist.
Right from the start, you’ll need to rewire your brain to understand how wildly different movement is when spinning pinned pyramids about an axis, or using one to shove several others ahead.
Even early levels can baffle, and the later ones require serious planning and brainpower, even when taking into account the game’s unlimited undos button – which you’ll use often.
But this one’s worth sticking with. It’s elegant and clever, and you’ll feel like a genius when cracking a puzzle you’ve been stuck on for days.
Ellie & Max is a landscape-twisting pathfinding puzzle game that in some ways echoes Monument Valley in its propensity for visual illusion. Here, tiny isometric worlds can be spun, but always appear side-on when stationary.
In two dimensions, previously impassable gaps may suddenly disappear. Your aim is to reunite pet dog Max with his owner, Ellie, within the fewest ‘spins’ and steps possible.
Visually, the game’s a treat, and over time you can collect all kinds of costumes, transforming Max into anything from a wolf to a polar bear. The puzzles are smartly designed too, gradually increasing in difficulty. The lack of an undo is a pity though, for when you inevitably leap into a situation you can’t recover from.
The game does at least provide checkpoints, so you never need start from scratch when halfway through one of the more head-scratching challenges. Quite why Ellie gets lost so often, though, we’ve no idea; perhaps she’s the one that should be on a lead.
VVVVVV is a love letter to classic games. Its visuals and soundtrack recall the Commodore 64, and its platforming action (each single-screen challenge also being amusingly named) echoes much-beloved 1980s fare, like Manic Miner and Bounty Bob.
However, VVVVVV’s speed and fluidity are thoroughly modern, as you zoom about a huge space station, trying to locate lost crew members. And unlike comparatively stodgy platformers of old, VVVVVV doesn’t have you leap over hazards – you instead invert gravity to flip between ceiling and floor in an excitingly disorienting manner.
The spike and alien-infested twisty corridors awaiting you require serious dexterity to conquer. Fortunately, death is not the end, because you get unlimited lives, and there are frequent checkpoints.
And in another nice nod to the old-school, even the 4:3 viewing area works in the game’s favor – you can control your character by swiping and tapping in black bars at the edges of your display, rather than covering up his on-screen exploits with your thumbs.
Coming across like an auto-scrolling stripped-back Lemmings, Micro Miners features a team of excitable, tiny miners that toddle along tunnels you dig with a finger. On encountering a deposit of gold, silver or coal, they’ll gleefully hack it to bits with their tiny pickaxes.
At first, this all feels noodly and simple, but Micro Miners soon bares its teeth. You must commit each level’s layout to memory, in order to navigate underground hazards, often splitting and rejoining your little auto-running-team.
Before long, you’re carving complex pathways through the dirt, so you can grab large deposits and huge gems, circumvent lava, and avoid ferocious giant worms that eat anyone daft enough to stray into their path. The result is a fun, sometimes chaotic, and unique iPhone gaming experience.
It might have a chill-out jazzy soundtrack and cute visuals, but Fish Fly Fever is a tough arcade game determined to make your thumbs – and by extension all your other parts – feel like gaming buffoons.
In its tiny single-screen universe, a little fish fly scoots about, emitting a trail. When its bubbles hit another creature, that creature is transformed into a gem. Grab those and your score goes up, periodically sending you into a ‘fever’ mode (bigger trail), or pitting you against a boss (which will almost certainly kill you).
It’s really tough. Despite the simplicity of what’s required and the controls (rotate left or right), you’ll initially die before you grab half a dozen gems. But persevere and, like the best arcade games of old, you’ll slowly master Fish Fly Fever. Over time, it may become a bit repetitive, but again like classic arcade titles, this one’s perfect for the occasional blast.
Games creator Zach Gage is seemingly on a mission to reimagine all those puzzle games that used to languish only in newspaper pages. With Typeshift, you get something that approximates anagrams smashed into a crossword.
But unlike on paper, the word grid here isn’t static – you drag columns to try and form words in the central row. When every letter has been used, the puzzle is complete.
For free, you get a smallish selection of puzzles, but many more are available via various IAP. If you’re at all into word games, you’re likely to devour them all.
The best of them roll another aspect of crosswords into the mix – cryptic clues. In these brain-benders, you can’t almost brute-force solutions by dragging the columns about and finding weird words – you must figure out what a clue means, eke it from the grid, and after a few of those probably go for a little lie down.
If you’ve played Reigns, you’ll know what to expect in Artificial Superintelligence. Only rather than trying to juggle a demanding kingdom, Artificial Superintelligence finds you dealing with the press and investors in Silicon Valley as you build the world’s first sentient supercomputer.
Decisions are made Tinder-style, with a left or right swipe. You hire and fire, interact with interested parties, and occasionally obliterate the world when it turns out the AI is in fact psychotic (as users of the developer’s CARROT apps will already be very aware).
The game’s visual styles clash a bit, and the ‘decision switch’ is fiddlier than Reigns’ full-screen swipe, but there’s plenty to like here. If you’re a fan of oddball casual adventure puzzlers, you’ll not rest until you’ve found all 52 endings, including one where your cat enslaves humanity. Meow!
A friendly whale beckons a shipwrecked pirate to leap on its back. So begins their joint adventures, in Run-A-Whale, which is perhaps the iPhone’s most gorgeous endless runner.
Really, endless swimmer is more like it, seeing as you’re a massive aquatic mammal speeding through the sea. You hold the screen to dive and release your finger to surface and leap, grabbing coins in a manner akin to Jetpack Joyride in reverse.
But Jetpack Joyride was never this eye-dazzling, and Run-A-Whale is packed with wonderful moments, from soaring through the air after being blasted from a cannon, to zooming along as a volcano erupts in the distance.
Occasionally, the game irks with its demands – obstacles in succession you have little chance of avoiding, or unskippable tricky missions – but for the most part this is a gem that’s not to be missed.
This neon-infused one-thumb single-screen shooter has you fire orbs into the void. When an orb stops, it expands into available space and is given a number. Hit it with subsequent orbs and the number decreases until the orb explodes, sometimes starting a chain reaction that obliterates its neighbors.
Your main concern is an orb returning over the line of death above your cannon. Orbital therefore rapidly becomes a tense battle of nerves, accurate aiming, and space management.
Whichever of its three varied modes you try, it’s a gripping game, and there’s also a same-device two-player mode that pits you against a friend.
Part game, part exploratory toy, Vignettes is all about the joy of discovery. It’s based around colorful objects suspended in the air, which you manipulate by way of a finger. Spin them through a flat edge and they instantly become something new.
This slice of magic initially mesmerizes, but the trick doesn’t wow for long. Fortunately, Vignettes is more than an interactive animation. Pathways between objects are more complex than they first appear, and hide all kinds of secrets.
During more contemplative moments, there’s plenty to discover, too – many objects respond to taps and swipes. Also, unlike ostensibly similar fare such as Shadowmatic, Vignettes seems ideally suited to the smaller screen of an iPhone rather than demanding the larger play surface of an iPad.
Float initially appears to be something of a meditative arcade game. You tap nearby a lily to propel it through minimal landscapes, its movement akin to sliding atop a sleek ice-covered surface.
The flower is fragile – any collision with the rocks that are dotted about, or mysteriously spinning bits of wood, and it disintegrates, forcing you to restart from the most recently passed checkpoint.
In time, you realize there’s an edge underneath the tranquility: the subtle scrolling of the world that urges you onwards; the increasingly tricky sections that prove demanding regarding the precision of your taps. The journey is ultimately fairly short, but it’s satisfying in trying something different, and in its bite-sized nature that’s ideal for mobile.
To differentiate itself from a slew of Boggle and Scrabble clones, word game AlphaPit tries something a bit different. Although the aim is, as ever, to clear a grid of letters, there’s more to AlphaPit than simply dragging lines through the grid, making words to remove tiles.
There are bonuses, which you can use strategically, to shuffle letters, or blow to pieces a tile that’s particularly annoying you. Spare letters also lurk, which can be swapped in at an opportune moment.
Perhaps most importantly, though, AlphaPit isn’t random – instead, you get 200 predefined levels to work through. This proves rewarding, transforming the experience into a set of puzzles you know you can beat – if only you can figure out the solutions.
In Edge, you control a cube that finds itself within a minimal geometric clockwork universe. As the cube trundles about, the blocky world frequently shifts and changes, often thwarting your attempts to find the goal. When you do finish a level, Edge dispassionately awards you a rating, which will probably be rubbish.
If you’ve got steely resolve, you’ll try again to see how rapidly you can speed through each isometric wonderland. If not, you’ll still have a great time exploring the dozens of varied worlds, regularly being surprised at how much imagination can be packed into landscapes comprising only cubes.
And if in either case, you exhaust Edge’s levels, you can start all over again in equally impressive sequel Edge Extended.
Breakout – or ‘Pong for people with no friends’ – is one of the oldest videogames around. Still, the ‘use a bat to whack a ball at a wall of bricks’ mechanic is entertaining enough that game creators keep offering their own unique spin on it. And breakforcist is certainly unique.
Here, a wall of bricks slowly marches down the screen. Said bricks primarily comprise possessed waffles and weaponized breakfast food power-ups.
The manic nature of the production feels borderline unhinged, packing the screen with colorful explosions as you blast angry ghosts with a giant pancake ball, and use bacon lasers to hack back the tasty wall of doom. It’s ideal one-finger iPhone gaming fodder.
The thinking behind Stagehand is to flip platform games on their head. Instead of controlling the character, you control the stage. So as your little chap automatically ambles along, you drag chunks of landscape to give him a clear path, ensuring he doesn’t smack into a wall.
From a visual standpoint, Stagehand feels like the sort of thing Nintendo would be happy to call its own. There’s also a superb soundtrack that tinkles away as you grapple with the weird means of staving off the hero’s untimely demise.
If there’s any criticism, the controls can be a tad awkward, and Stagehand could have been improved with finite designed stages, rather than solely being an algorithmically generated endless runner.
Still, it’s a clever twist on the genre and there’s plenty of polish and entertainment here for anyone wanting to make the Earth move – by dragging it with a finger.
If you’re old or well-versed in classic games, Boulder Dash might be a favorite. The fast-paced 1980s arcade game has its protagonist zoom about 2D caves, digging through dirt, grabbing diamonds, manipulating rocks, smashing up enemies, and heading for an exit. Captain Cowboy uses the same mechanics, but reimagines everything as a giant puzzle adventure.
Instead of short, timed levels, Captain Cowboy offers a single massive maze in space. Although there are still moments of tension and excitement, this title’s more about the joy of exploration and discovery – finding your way blocked and figuring out a new route.
There are lovely touches throughout, such as the CRT-style visual filter and the soundtrack dulling when floating through space or underwater. But mostly, Captain Cowboy is a must-have for its mobile-friendly mix of adventuring and arcade action.
Although it resembles a dungeon crawler running on a Game Boy, Warlock’s Tower is a cunning turn-based puzzler that plays out across 100 meticulously designed rooms.
The backstory is the titular warlock is in a mood, thinks everyone’s shunned him, and has decided to obliterate the world. Enter Tim the mailman, carrying a letter saying everyone loves the warlock.
But the tower is filled with magic, robbing you of life for every step you take. You must chart a (frequently convoluted) path to each exit, grabbing life-replenishing gems along the way, along with outwitting zombies and flying eyes.
The retro aesthetic can be trying, as can the lack of an undo (mess up and you must start a stage from scratch); however, the puzzles are cleverly designed, often sending you down dead ends and making you properly think before you figure out a solution, leaving you suitably satisfied when you finally do.
Although Glitchskier is a fairly typical vertically scrolling shooter, it lives in its own strange little world that provides a unique sense of character.
The conceit is Glitchskier is all happening inside an ancient PC. It begins with a clacking keyboard, PC hum, and icons to click. The shooty bit involves your little ship blasting chunks of code and squadrons of letter Vs, all intent on your destruction.
A clever power-up system that restricts you to only holding the most recent two forces you to strategize. Power-ups also work as shields: get hit and you lose one, but the game world temporarily slows, Matrix-style, so you can get out of a scrape.
It’s all very smart – but over far too rapidly, when you best the last of four bosses. But then you can enter an endless world, which is far more ferocious.
Precision platformer Bean Dreams is more bouncing bean than jumping bean. The edible hero, decked out in a natty sombrero, bounds about colorful environments, aiming to grab fruit, free a hidden axolotl (a Mexican salamander, if you didn’t know), and reach the exit without getting impaled. Your part in all this: guiding the bean by prodding left or right on your iPhone.
Bean Dreams offers plenty of replay value – you can spend time learning each small level, but only on committing to memory every nook and cranny can you aim for the tiny number of bounces that unlocks a gold medal award.
And to succeed in grabbing the axolotl or getting all the fruit, you’ll often need to play again, shaking up your approach.
With plenty of variation in its stages, alternate beans with special powers, and devious puzzles lurking within, Bean Dreams is ample proof platform games can work on iPhone – when specifically designed for the system.
Mario on iPhone could have been a disaster – a lazy port of a DS title with virtual buttons. But that’s not very Nintendo. Instead, Super Mario Run rethinks Mario for touchscreen and mobile, in a manner that initially seems reductive – even regressive – but that in time reveals a clever game with surprising depth.
In essence, it’s an auto-runner, where you tap to jump. But this isn’t Canabalt in Mario’s dungarees. Clever level design forces you to master – and subvert – perceived limitations should you want to scoop up all of the coins.
This transforms each of Super Mario Run’s admittedly smallish number of stages into a compelling mix of puzzling, precision timing, and gradual mastery of the game’s tiny worlds.
Undoubtedly, traditionalists will grumble, cheapskates will baulk at the price, and gamers on the go will rightly gripe at Nintendo’s infuriating decision to require an internet connection to play.
But we nonetheless reckon Super Mario Run is a worthy addition to the Mario canon – and a polished, playable title for iPhone.
A criticism leveled at touchscreens since day one is how they robbed gamers of ‘proper’ controls. Touchgrind Skate 2 highlights how ridiculous such a statement can be, because rather than having you perform tricks on a little on-screen board by manipulating a gamepad, two of your fingers become legs that dictate how the board behaves.
This is not an pick-up-and-play game, though. You really need to work through the tutorials and fully master them, before you try your hand at competition and jam sessions where you’re punished for mistakes, but greatly rewarded for strings of amazing moves.
In a sense, it feels weirdly like the real thing in miniature – which is more than you can say when your hands are fashioned into claws, gripping a traditional console controller.
In our opinion, Threes! is the iPhone’s Tetris – that absurdly addictive puzzler that’s perfect for the hardware, with simple rules but enough depth that you can conceivably improve your skills over a period of years.
It takes place on a four-by-four grid, within which you manipulate tiled cards. The aim is to merge matching pairs, which increases their face value and leaves an extra space for subsequent cards to appear.
Subtleties in the rules keep Threes! head and shoulders above countless App Store pretenders, and it’s also infused with personality. Even when you’re in a fix, it’s hard to be mad at a game where all the cards on the board have cute faces and natter away to each other.
The original Eliss was an early App Store darling, defining the iPhone in terms of multi-touch gaming. Eliss Infinity takes the basic premise of the original and runs with it, cementing itself as a modern-day classic.
The basic aim is to control (move; tear apart; combine) colored planets in order to fit into them into wormholes that sporadically appear. Should planets of different colors collide, your energy reserves are depleted – only replenished by mopping up space dust that appears after successful planet dumpage.
Each of Odyssey mode’s 25 levels demands unique tactics to conquer. Best them all and there’s the manic Infinity mode, ready to tie your fingers in knots.
Although primarily a match-three game, Swap Sword adds a massive dollop of dungeon-roaming and turn-based strategy to the equation. The result is a fresh game that marries tension, planning and risk to great effect, adding energy and fizz to an otherwise tired genre.
The mechanics are similar to the likes of Bejeweled (swap two items, aiming to construct a row of three or more); but you must also keep the hero safe from roaming monsters, and collect enough keys to open an exit to the next stage.
At first, this is relatively simple, but later stages find you fending off insane numbers of foes, balancing power-ups, and figuring that colored gems have never had it this tough.
If you’re a massive basketball fan whose nose will be put out of joint when rosters aren’t entirely accurate, or the game you’re playing is a bit weird, skip this game description and head on to our next entry.
Otherwise, try NBA JAM.
This game’s an updated take on a mid-1990s arcade game, which features weird photorealistic characters playing two-on-two matches. Sportsmanlike behavior’s left in the dressing room, as they muscle each other off the ball, and a big-head version of the visuals is deeply unsettling yet oddly hypnotic.
The controls are a bit of a virtual-joystick-and-buttons nightmare at first, but simple enough to grasp without sliding your fingers all over the place. And before you know it, you’ll be BOOM SHAKALAKAing it with the best of them. (Or hiding from the freaky oversized heads.)
Cartoonish graphics. Simple controls. An emphasis on catching ramps, much like in Tiny Wings. You might look at Pumped BMX 3 and think: Pah! Easy! Casual gaming! At which point, the game hurls you rudely over the handlebars, leaving you a crumpled, tearful mess, with grazed knees and broken pride.
Pumped BMX 3, it turns out, is a deviously tricky but deliciously compulsive trials game, keen to punish any error, and yet reward those who take the time to master controls and courses alike.
Your best bet is to carefully learn every nook and cranny of each course. Only when you can easily make it to the end unscathed should you start getting clever with the odd stunt, before finally winning the shiniest of medals with the kind of routine that would make BMX aficionados the world over break out into a cold sweat.
Card games have come a long way since the days when you completed a round of solitaire on a PC and were rewarded with said cards bouncing around the screen a bit. In Solitairica, you’re instead immersed in a fantasy world, where, for some reason, all battles take place by way of card decks. And your reward here is to not get horribly killed by some monster or other.
The solitaire itself is ruthlessly simplified into a game of higher or lower, with you hoping for runs of cards in order to batter down your enemy’s defenses. Meanwhile, they’re lobbing all kinds of attacks at you, from pointy sticks to making cards grow beards that have to be hacked away.
Cards also have energies, which you can collect to enable hurling of spells at your opponent; these can be upgraded during campaigns via the in-game shop.
This all sounds terribly complicated, we’re sure, but really this is a gentle, amusing, entertaining card game with a fantasy twist. And cards with beards.
We’re very much in classic shooter territory with The Bug Butcher, which has your dinky soldier blasting away at all manner of squelchy foes. It’s a bit Space Invaders (death from above!), a little Pang or Asteroids (monsters inconveniently splitting apart when shot), and a touch Defender (with lurking idiots getting captured, and you having to rescue them).
The game’s controls perhaps betray its origins on platforms that don’t favor touchscreens, but they just about work on an iPhone, enabling you to dart left and right, blast enemies, and reach for a bonus weapon as necessary. (Avoid playing on iPad, however, unless you’ve got incredibly flexible thumbs.)
And although the gameplay might feel a little old-school, everything’s dressed up in smart, modern cartoon visuals, paired with some sassy scripting, as the hero berates the scientists who got everyone into this mess.
Based on the hit TV show, Mr. Robot (or Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n.ipa, to give it its full name), immerses you in a world of hacking as you accidentally become entwined with a shady group planning a mysterious world-changing event.
It begins with a smartphone you find and quickly pocket, shortly before it's hacked by its actual owner, the furious Darlene, who then press-gangs you into service. The game plays out by way of a messaging app, your replies selected from canned responses to progress you through the narrative.
This simple structure is similar to the Lifeline games, and there's a distinct feeling of being shoved along a particular story regardless of what you choose to say. However, it's exciting bouncing between different message threads, and smart writing throughout infuses the game with palpable tension.
The core of Riptide GP: Renegade feels like it's been wrenched wholesale from the unhinged water-based faction of 1990s arcade racers. Renegade, for the most part, matches their energy and spirit, as you barrel along splashy tracks atop a souped-up futuristic jet ski, performing death-defying stunts to accrue boost that catapults you along at even more breakneck speeds.
The game's packed full of content, from single races to a challenging career mode, and the premium price means you need skill rather than cash to succeed.
There are times you wish the game would let go a little – the colors are drab and it at times takes itself too seriously - but when it fully unleashes as you blaze through factories or get hurled into the air by the wake from a rocket launch, Renegade is glorious.
Madcap racer Drift 'n' Drive somehow appears to have arrived from a 1980s home computer and yet feels perfect for mobile play. It's an old-school overhead racer that pits you against a grid of crazed opponents, all fighting to get to the finish line first.
The game only scrolls vertically, and the controls are simple: steer by tapping near a screen edge or prod the centre for a temporary boost of extra speed. Tracks snake left and right within the screen's narrow confines, but sometimes do so abruptly, causing plenty of opportunity for massive pile-ups.
Manage to not crawl in last and you move up the grid next time round. Place better and you start getting cash to upgrade your car. Before long, you're laughing like an idiot while barreling along in a race of two-dozen tiny cars buzzing around the track like flies, boosting into walls, and occasionally wondering why modern racers are rarely this much giddy fun.
Slingshotting cartoon characters across your iPhone’s screen is a popular gaming pursuit. But if you’ve become bored rigid of catapulting miffed avians at kleptomaniac hogs (and, let’s face it, who hasn’t?), try Frutorious HD for something that’s somewhat familiar, but with far more spark and heart.
The story is that an evil skull’s turned all the protagonist’s friends into fruits, and so he must bound up vertically scrolling levels, making use of handy levitating platforms and cannons to collect fruit and avoid various nasties ambling about.
It’s a jolly, sweet-natured game with superb hand-made visuals that add plenty of character, and a slightly unhinged edge always lurking just beneath the surface.
Gamebook-style text adventures have had something of a renaissance on mobile, and the adaptations of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! series are among the very best. The fourth entry, suitably titled Sorcery! 4, again immerses you in a world of fantasy, with you attempting to ascend a mountain, infiltrate a fortress, and recover the Crown of Kings.
If you’ve played previous games in the series, you’ll find a familiar set-up akin to a single-player board game. You drag your character about, respond to scenarios, bash up monsters, and can (thankfully) flip back to save points should you mess up and get horribly killed.
But even for total newcomers, there’s a full standalone adventure here – one that perfectly marries and balances a book, interactive game, and touchscreen experience. (Note that should you fancy trying the rest of the series first, it’s available as a bargain-priced three-pack.)
Redbird, Greenbird and Bluebird aren't birds in the conventional sense. They're 'snakebirds' - grumpy worm-like feathered critters with a penchant for fruit. The tiny snag is they happen to live on tiny islands, and getting to the fruit (and then to the exits that propel them to the next fruity collection point) isn't exactly simple.
In fact, it's pretty clear the creators of Snakebird have tried their best to drive you to the brink of insanity with this game. Even the earliest levels are hard going, with you twisting and turning your grumpy snakebird, trying to figure out how to wind it around a floating rock, grab an apple, and not end up tumbling into the sea.
Eventually, you're faced with multiple snakebirds per level, and increasingly deviously designed puzzles involving movable objects, teleporters, and snakebird-impaling spikes. All the way through, Snakebird sits on the edge of sadism, but you'll feel like a genius when you crack one of its puzzles, only to realize there are dozens more waiting for your subsequent feeble efforts.
We should hate the game, but Snakebird is superb – a properly brain-mashing puzzler that drives you to despair, but keeps you coming back for more.
Mimpi is a little dog with a big imagination, and in Mimpi Dreams he becomes a canine superhero as he snoozes. Within various dreamtime worlds, Mimpi fends off dragons, leaps atop projectiles blasted between pirate ships, and deals with the dastardly goings on in an evil pollution-spewing factory.
This all plays out as a straightforward platform puzzler. The cheery pup pootles along and you prod and swipe at various contraptions to make them do things so Mimpi can continue. Most of the puzzles are gentle in nature, but hints are generously peppered about and give you an idea of how to proceed by way of comic-like speech balloons.
Much of the joy in Mimpi's Dreams, though, is immersing yourself in its sheer inventiveness. Only a few times does it slip, with the odd tedious maze to grind through; mostly, the game is a breezy, grin-inducing, vibrant romp through a charming cartoon world.
Bringing together the basic mechanics behind dating app Tinder and the decision-making involved in ruling an ancient kingdom(!), Reigns is an easy-to-grasp but surprisingly deep quick-fire strategy effort.
On each step of your regal journey, you respond to demands and requests by swiping left or right, thereby making distinct decisions. The consequences of each action may affect one or more of the church's support, the love of the people, the strength of your army, and the size of your gold reserves. If any of these falls too low, chances are you'll soon be an ex-king.
But death is not the end. Die and you play on as your heir, often finding yourself faced with similar problems, and perhaps taking a different path that time around. Underpinning this swipe-based royal oddness are dozens of side missions designed to propel your lineage onwards.
We suspect Reigns might lack longevity, palling once you've played through enough times to crack the missions; but in the short and medium term, it's a ludicrously compelling, novel and hugely entertaining title that deserves your attention.
Dog Mendonca is a witty and stylistic point and tap adventure that follows the eponymous supernatural detective as he solves a mysterious criminal case.
Stunning visuals are sure to draw you into its comic-book world and the impressive writing will have you solving puzzles and chatting it up with shady characters just to find out what happens next. It's like things all went a bit wrong for the Thundercats.
Star Knight is a beautiful platformer that follows the journey of a lone knight who must defend his planet and restore its sun.
Stylish levels are sure to catch your eye as you solve its puzzles, defeat diverse enemies, and overcome impressive boss battles with an array of cool weapons and abilities. Upgrade and unlock new skills, then put them to the test by taking on waves of enemies in its arena.
>> Download: Star Knight
Warbits may look colorful and cute from the surface, but don't be fooled - this strategy game means serious business. Missions require you to control your tanks, infantry, and other units and make the right moves to ensure you have the advantage over your enemies.
You need to think carefully where to position your troops, as scenarios get more challenging as you play. It's a game that keeps on giving too, as its smooth multiplayer mode means you have reason to keep playing after your campaign is done.
Fast and colorful, Chameleon Run is an autorunner that is sure to sharpen your reflexes. You'll need to think fast and tap the screen to swap colors and match that of the platform you're about to jump on or else you're dead.
Increasingly difficult levels further challenge you to pick up various collectibles and complete them with certain restrictions. Collect them all and you'll unlock even more hidden trials - and we're really digging the impressive visuals on offer with this one.
Combine cats and explosion and you have yourself a card game that's quite the winner. Based on the physical card game, Exploding Kittens is a local multiplayer title that puts a feline twist on Russian Roulette. This means you don't want to be the player who draws the kitten or else you're done. Draw cards that help you avoid or move any possible explosions and figure out strategies to make sure you don't blow yourself up.
We've been after a decent futuristic racer on the iPhone for some time, but none of them really felt right. AG Drive bucks the trend, echoing Wipeout and F-Zero: breakneck speed is married with pitch-perfect tilt controls and suitably shiny graphics. Also, there's absolutely no IAP, so the only way you're going to win is with mastery and skill.
Single-screen platformer Drop Wizard is infused with the soul of classics such as Snow Bros. and Bubble Bobble, but it's also part auto-runner. You can only run left or right, and your wizard blasts magic on landing. Strategy, therefore, involves careful timing, to avoid and zap foes, and then kick them into a tumbling combo that will bounce about in a pleasingly destructive manner before turning into fruit. Because that's what vanquished platform-game enemies all did in the 1980s.
Square Enix would have been on a hiding to nothing converting its free-roaming 3D game to touchscreens, and so it's great to see the company do something entirely different with Hitman GO. Although still echoing the original series, this touchscreen title is presented as a board game of sorts, with turn-based actions against clockwork opposition. You must figure out your way to the prize, without getting knocked off (the board). It's an oddly adorable take on assassination, and one of the best iOS puzzlers.
Time was racing games were all about ludicrous speed, gorgeous graphics, and the sheer rush of weaving through a sea of cars to the finish line. Horizon Chase briefly reverses back to such halcyon days, grabs the best bits from the likes of Lotus and Top Gear, before zooming back to the present as a thoroughly modern arcade racer.
It looks gorgeous, with some stunning weather effects, and an odd but pleasing low-poly roadside-object style; it sounds great with veteran games musician Barry Leitch on soundtrack duties; but most importantly, it handles perfectly, and is a joy until the very last track.
Following in the footsteps of Hitman GO, which astonishingly managed to transform that series into an adorable board game, Lara Croft GO reworks the adventures of the world's most famous tomb raider. It's another turn-based affair, with lashings of atmosphere, finding Lara carefully working her way past traps crafted by an ancient civilisation with a penchant for blocky design and elaborate moving parts.
There are also lots of snakes and deadly lizards about, which she's quite keen on shooting in the head. The five chapters are quite brief, but savour the game rather than blazing through, and you'll find something that merges early Tomb Raider's sense of adventure and solitude, Monument Valley-level beauty, and bite-sized touchscreen gaming that's perfect for iPhone.
Leo's Fortune finds gruff hairball Leo in search of his gold, which has been dropped in a suspiciously trail-like manner across typically platform-game environments. As he scoops up coins, he finds himself whizzing round Sonic-style loops, solving puzzles by manipulating the environment, and negotiating increasingly complex and deadly pathways. It's a beautiful game, full of character, and well-suited to quick bursts on your iPhone.
Power Hover is an impressive action game that takes you through a beautiful world to recover a village's stolen power. Hover through deserts, oceans, and highways, and grind on rails as you make your way to the finish line, chase down baddies, or play through arcade-style boss runs and challenge your friends for the best score. Collect dropped batteries to unlock even more gorgeous and thrilling levels.
A game of exploration, mystery, and puzzles, Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon once again stars an intrepid eight-legged protagonist and lets you unravel a subtle story with each clue you find. Trap insects in your web as you explore the enormous Blackbird Estate, and solve some puzzles along the way too. What's more, the game uses your location, time, and local weather to add dynamic features to your experience each time you play.
Ah, Super Hexagon. We remember that punishing first game, which must have lasted all of three seconds. Much like the next - and the next. But then we recognised patterns in the walls that closed in on our tiny ship, and learned to react and dodge. Then you threw increasingly tough difficulty levels at us, and we've been smitten ever since.
Featuring more than just boxes to examine, The Room Three expands the format of the original just enough to create a uniquely tactile experience that definitely pulls you into the many nooks and crannies you'll be entering to solve. Gorgeous box puzzles still play an important role in the game, but many other clever logic games are sure to tickle your brain and condition you to look closely at everything that could turn out to be a puzzle. Three's a charm indeed.
It's always great when a savvy developer rethinks a genre and comes up with something that feels fresh. EightyEight Games welds auto-running to match-three in You Must Build A Boat.
Deft fingerwork must be married with careful timing, matching keys as the hero approaches locked chests, or swords at the moment an incoming enemy prepares to get all stabby. Get shoved off of the left-hand side of the screen and you're told YOU WIN!, because every step potentially adds to your coffers.
There are missions to complete, abilities to power-up, and a cheeky sense of humour that sets the title apart from its frequently comparatively po-faced contemporaries.
Blizzard reveals first look at Overwatch Lego collection
Blizzard has finally given us our first look at the Overwatch Lego collection.
The collection was teased via a 30 second trailer on Twitter, which shows Blizzard vice president/Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan playing with a Tracer Lego character which suddenly comes to life.
You can check out the tweet below:
Blizzard announced the Overwatch Lego collection back in May, however the company has remained pretty tight-lipped about it since then. However, in August, Lego teased six characters in a tweet (which look like McCree, Genji, Widowmaker, Reaper, Soldier 76 and Mercy).
Here's the teaser tweet from Lego:
We still don't know when we'll get to play with these tiny heroes as the official Overwatch Lego page just says 'coming soon' with an image of some peanut butter and bananas - so we know we'll be seeing a Winston figure. Now we've seen teasers for Tracer and Winston, alongside the original Lego teaser, it seems we'll be getting figures of all the current heroes.
Best gaming headset 2018: the best PS4 and Xbox One headsets this year
First look: Nest Thermostat-E
They keep you warm, save you money, and can even make your home look great, so it’s no wonder that smart thermostats are becoming an increasingly popular addition to the smart home.
Now, one of the smart home market leaders Nest has just launched its latest model, the Thermostat-E, in the UK. At £199, the Thermostat-E is considerably cheaper than previous models like the Nest Learning Thermostat, which comes in at around £300 when you factor in professional installation and accessories - the old models do looks a little more luxe however.
With the first shipments expected to reach customers by mid-October and, despite being available in the US for a number of months already, comes with cool UK-specific features, including ‘Heatlink’, which is Nest’s alternative to wired thermostats, and a predesigned heating schedule.
DesignThere are two components to the Thermostat-E; the thermostat itself, and the wall mounted ‘Heatlink’, which acts as a replacement for traditional wired thermostats - both are designed to fit in seamlessly with any style of decor.
The thermostat itself looks a little like an alarm clock, with a modern-looking white casing and frosted display, which hides the temperature when not in use. As it’s not designed to be wall-mounted, the Thermostat-E can be placed on any surface in the home, and would look great on a desk or bedside table.
One downside to this design is that the Thermostat-E has to be plugged to the mains with a two metre long cable, so if you want to go completely wireless, this may not be the thermostat for you.
Hiding the temperature when the thermostat is not in use is a cool feature, and makes the the Thermostat-E even less intrusive, however the frosted display can be a bit difficult to read at times.
Nest was acquired by Google in 2014, and this is reflected in the design of the Heatlink element of the Thermostat-E, which uses the same grey fabric covering as the Google Home, making the Heatlink an attractive alternative to the traditional wired thermostat.
This means that the your thermostat could be an aesthetically pleasing addition to your home, rather than something you hide away in the boiler cupboard, which will appeal to the more design-conscious consumer.
Furthermore, you won’t need to hire a professional to install the Thermostat-E, with the Nest app walking you through the stages of installation - however it won’t work with more complex multi-stage heating and cooling systems, which is more suited to the Nest Learning Thermostat.
The Thermostat-E can either be controlled using the dedicated app, which connects to the device via your WiFi, or by using the thermostat directly - simply turn the white exterior ring left and right to turn the temperature up and down, and push the ring in to go to the setting menu, which we found was really easy to use.
In addition, if you have small children, you can turn on child lock to stop them from turning the heating up and down - a lifesaver for busy parents who don’t have time to be constantly monitoring their thermostat.
One of the most exciting things about the Thermostat-E is that it learns your unique schedule over time, meaning that after a week of use, you no longer need to adjust the temperature manually. However, you don’t have to wait a week to use a pre-designed schedule - Nest took data from UK homes to create an average heating and cooling schedule, which should help you to save energy straight from the box.
The Thermostat-E contains four sensors that measure temperature and humidity, as well as occupancy, which uses infrared light that tells the machine if someone is home, plus an ambient light sensor so that the screen doesn’t appear too bright in a darkened room.
The occupancy sensor is particularly useful, as it automatically tells the thermostat to turn the heating down when nobody is home, which could end up saving you a fair amount of money in heating bills.
One issue that could arise from using a free-standing thermostat like the Thermostat-E is sunlight-based temperature discrepancies; for example, if the thermostat is sitting in direct sunlight all day, it may interpret the ambient temperature as being warmer than in actually is.
To combat this, Nest has ensured that the Thermostat-E understands the difference between heat from the sun and ambient temperature, which should make it extremely accurate in all seasons.
As the Thermostat-E is Google Assistant-enabled, you can ask it to turn the temperature up or down using a compatible smart speaker likes the Google Home, or the Polk Assist, adding another layer of ease to controlling your heating. This process would be even more seamless if Google Assistant was integrated into the Thermostat-E directly, negating the use for a third-party speaker, although we imagine this would come at a substantially higher cost.
Final thoughtsAt a first glance, the Thermostat-E certainly looks the part, combining sleek design with intuitive machine learning to make heating your home a far easier and more attractive process.
Although the design is less luxurious than previous models, the Thermostat-E will probably appeal to a far wider audience and more decor styles than the pricier Nest Learning Thermostat.
At £199, it’s not exactly cheap in real terms, but compared to other models on the market the Thermostat-E is fairly inexpensive, particularly when you consider the money it could save you in energy bills.
With easy installation, a pre-designed heating schedule, and Google Assistant, the Thermostat-E could be a great addition to your home, whether you’re buying your first smart device, or making a new addition to your smart home setup.
Nest Learning Thermostat review
Vodafone UK CEO: We've got our mojo back
“We’ve got our mojo back,” declares Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffrey to a room full of journalists and customers at its Newbury headquarters, detailing how IoT, 5G and its converged network infrastructure is going to deliver a platform for UK businesses to thrive.
“Newbury is the spiritual home of a company founded 30 years ago above a curry house that has become the UK’s only multinational company and today it is where you will see a transformed Vodafone UK.”
It’s been a difficult few years for the company in its homeland, with challenging regulatory and competitive environments squeezing margins, while its reputation for customer service took a battering after a billing debacle that saw it fine £4.6 billion in 2016.
What is 5G? Everything you need to know Vodafone is backBut Jeffrey is adamant that the difficult work in overhauling its network architecture and internal systems, along with the expansion of its IoT network, mean it is well placed to deliver organisation’s digital transformation projects and consumer’s own demands as the market transitions to 5G.
“There is some uncertainty around the world and with Brexit looming there has never been a greater need to close the productivity gap,” he says. “Having a world-class digital infrastructure will help the UK compete and Vodafone UK will play a critical role in delivering that infrastructure.
“It should be obvious to those who follow Vodafone that Vodafone believes in the UK. After two years of tireless work and £2 billion of investment – and with £2 billion more over the next two years – you will see a Vodafone with digital in its blood.
“I’m proud to share the new Vodafone in the UK – the same Vodafone that mad the first mobile call in the UK and the same Vodafone that made the first SMS in the UK.”
Having been late to the party with 4G, partly through reasons beyond its control like the delayed Ofcom spectrum auction, Vodafone will be a leader in 5G. It is holding trials in seven UK cities and plans to go live in 2019, with coverage extending to the Lake District and Cornwall too.
But 5G is only part of the overall picture. Convergence is where Vodafone places the most importance.
Redstream and convergenceIt has converged its core mobile and fixed networks into a single infrastructure, capable of offering the capacity needed to handle the anticipated growth in data and the resiliency and low latency that will power next generation digital services.
This has been done by virtualisation the various functions that comprise the core network so Vodafone can move them around and bring them closer to the customer. Its 3G and 4G networks have already running on Redstream and there are plans to bring its enterprise customers on board too.
Vodafone defines convergence as mobile, fixed and IoT with M2M being a key differentiator. The operator has 70 million IoT customers around the world and was a major supporter of Narrowband-IoT (Nb-IoT). The UK is its largest market and Vodafone is well positioned.
Eight-five percent of Vodafone’s business customers are connected via the company’s own infrastructure and enterprise market accounts for half of Vodafone’s UK revenue. It’s clear that businesses will benefit the most from 5G and from this architectural transformation.
Once enterprise services are migrated, then Vodafone can start to switch off its legacy tools and accelerate its own digital transformation. It has separated its digital elements such as its online shop from the underlying systems of record like billing and CRM so it can be more agile and rollout new services. Eventually, it will be possible to rollout daily updates.
This architectural shift is transforming customer services, with Google Assistant integration, Facebook Messenger assistance and its own TOBI chatbot that can handle 32 end-to-end transactions and is even being used internally. And, AI is also being used to predict customer issues before they happen.
“When it comes to customer service we haven’t always got it right, but we’ve made improvements over the past two years and we have our highest ever levels of satisfaction,” says Neil Blagden, director of digital and commercial operations at Vodafone UK.
“For far too long the telco industry has been highly reactive. That’s not good enough in our eyes so were changing that [so we’re proactive]. So we’re using AI to learn from our customers and to anticipate issues before they rise, reducing the amount of contact they need to make with us.”
Blagden says the first instance of this system being used was to inform customers who had recently changed contract that their first bill would be higher than usual because it covered a longer period. A notification was sent to 55,000 people articulating the issue in clear language and a direct web channel for them to access. This reduced the number of contact instances by a quarter.
Going forwardThe use of chatbots and AI should reduce the number of customer agents needed, but Vodafone says it wants a mixture of humans and robots in its contact centres. Instead, it wants its employees to reskill as coders so they can create new digital services based on their understanding of customer needs.
5G will benefit consumers in that they will be able to access faster mobile broadband, but the real opportunity is in business.
It is apparent that Vodafone hopes to leverage its legacy as the UK’s oldest mobile operator and its strong likes with the business community to position itself as the ideal transformation partner.
This is why it has endured short-term pain for long term gain, overhauling its architecture and laying the foundations for future forms of connectivity.
It’s time for that strategy to pay off.
Here are the best Vodafone deals for September 2018
The best cheap GoPro prices and deals in October 2018
Cheap GoPro deals and prices are our speciality here at TechRadar throughout the year. These tiny cameras have really made a name for themselves. In fact, these little action cameras are so good that the name GoPro is more popular than the entire action camera category in general nowadays.
The best of the best action cameras don't come cheap though - well most of the time at least. That's why we've rounded up all of the best GoPro prices, so that if you do want to buy one, you can get the best deal. Our GoPro deals are checked every day to make they're all up to date.
If you're just after a regular camera deal, be sure to check out our guide to the best cheap cameras.
What's a good GoPro deal?Towards the top of our list we've started with a selection of the most recent releases, namely the latest GoPro Hero7 prices. You can get some seriously discounted GoPro deals on older models as you get further down the page. Towards the end you'll find the GoPro drone prices too. GoPro themselves reduced the RRP on a number of cameras recently to head off some pretty aggressive competition from rivals.
Top of the our best GoPro deals list is the GoPro Hero7 Black, but for those who don't need all those high-end features, there are plenty of other options to choose from. We'll run through the spec of each model making it easy for you to compare them all. So whether you're after the smoothest 4K scene shooting, or after a reliable budget price 1080p option, we've got you covered.
The resolution and frame-rates may be similar to the older 6 series (we were bound to hit a wall sooner or later), but GoPro has endeavoured to improve their flagship camera elsewhere. GoPro HyperSmooth is the camera's enhanced form of image stabilization can be used in numerous shooting modes to provide the smoothest possible picture running at 60fps. The audio commands are more responsive than older models too. SuperPhoto tech performs automatic improvements on lighting colour and noise-reduction across multiple frames. ProTune options allow you to take the safety wheels off and tweak setting to your own particular style too.
If you just can't wait to show off your days fun until you get home, you'll be delighted to hear you can now live stream with the GoPro Hero7 Black via the app on your phone, which has also been simplified to get you filming quicker than ever before. Finally, unlike previous models in the GoPro Hero Black range, the camera is actually black this time, making mistitled deals much easier to spot.
So you've seen that the GoPro Hero7 Silver prices are a decent whack cheaper than the Black edition. But what's the difference between the Hero7 Black and the Hero 7 Silver? The Silver still shoots in 4K but at 30fps instead of 60fps so the picture isn't as smooth, but still impressive. The 1080p fps capabilities are lower too. You don't get the new HyperSmooth, SuperSmooth or Live Streaming features either. For the price though, this is still an extremely capable, durable and waterproof action camera. There are cheaper models available on this page though if some of the features seem like overkill or it's still a bit pricey.
That's seriously cheap for a new GoPro camera. The GoPro Hero7 White prices indicate this is this year's budget entry in the GoPro range, priced close to the original prices of the unnumbered Hero model released earlier in 2018 or the Hero Session line. As you can tell by the specs mentioned above compared to the other Hero7 cameras, this has a more entry-level feel with the main omission to note being the lack of 4K shooting. You do get a touchscreen though. If you'd be happier with 4K shooting instead of a touchscreen though you might be able to get a similar price via one of our highlighted GoPro Hero5 Session deals further down this page.
This is still an excellent GoPro camera with 4K recording at a super smooth 60 fps (frame per second). Image stabilization is super important given the active lifestyles most GoPros record, so it's great to see this model improve even further on older ones. Even the 1080p recording has been improved with a boost to 240fps - excellent for maximizing those slow-motion shots! We expect the price to drop on this one over time with the new Hero& Black now on the scene. If the prices are still close though, you may as well opt for the new one.
The Hero5 Black is the GoPro we wanted for years. It was the first GoPro to have a waterproof design out-of-the-box, making it more resilient and the camera has enough to make it a convincing update on the older models. The picture quality is better, it has video stabilization and the touchscreen makes it easier to use than any other GoPro before it. Sale items aside, it's often cheaper than the older GoPro Hero 4 Black now too.
Update: We'd imagine this model is going to be phased out soon despite still being quite new. This is because it's pretty much identical to the ever newer GoPro Hero7 White in terms of capabilities. Actually, it's looking like the Hero7 White is currently cheaper! Always worth keeping an eye on this one though as clearance sales should mean potential discounts.
The simply-named GoPro Hero is cheaper than most other Hero models. You're not getting 4K capture options, but you are getting a display and a touchscreen, features many of you might miss from the other budget GoPro option, the GoPro Hero Session. There was an older GoPro Hero released years ago and if you want to avoid getting that one by mistake, avoid models with a big, round, red light on the front as they can pop up in search results. They're not much cheaper, sometimes even more expensive and aren't as good as this 2018 version.
The GoPro Hero5 Session is a capable 4K action camera with a minimalist design that pushes the specs to the max within its cube-shaped confines. The Hero5 Session is also a major specs boost for GoPro's tiniest action camera. It now shoots stabilized 4K video and has a variety of new field of view modes. It's more expensive than its predecessor, but worth the upgrade.
The model, simply called the GoPro Hero Session, has replaced the very similar GoPro Hero4 Session. They're the same price and considerably cheaper than the most recent GoPro Hero5 Session. Actually, looking around at the various GoPro models, this looks like the cheapest of the lot seeing as the older GoPro Hero is proving hard to get a hold of nowadays. So if you want an entry level GoPro, this could be the one to go for.
Compared to the models before it, the GoPro Hero4 Black offers the best image quality, plus a 2x more powerful processor that delivers super slow motion at 240 frames per second. High-resolution 4K30 and 2.7K601 video combines with 1080p120 and 720p240 slow motion to enable immersive footage of you and your world.
With the arrival of the newer Hero5 and Hero6, expect to see prices drop soon. As things stand many retailers are selling it for more than the Hero5! So it may be worth checking out the deals on the newer model (see above) before opting for this one.
UPDATE: This model has now been widely discontinued in the UK and Australia, but retailers could still have some stock available.
The GoPro Hero4 Silver was the first-ever GoPro to feature a built-in touch display. Controlling the camera, framing shots and playing back content is very convenient with this model – just view, tap and swipe the screen.
This GoPro captures 1080p60 and 720p120 video, plus 12MP photos at 30 frames per second. It's not the best anymore, but it often cheaper than the GoPro Hero4 Black model above.
Looking to take to the skies with your GoPro camera? There are certainly cheaper camera drones available, but this is one of the best premium setups out there. You can buy the drone on its own (often listed as 'GoPro Karma Light' or 'GoPro Karma with harness'), or get it bundled with the excellent GoPro Hero5 Black camera (some retailers may start to replace these bundles with the more modern Hero6 or Hero7 models instead).
We've also included price comparison charts for both below, but you may be able to save a bit of cash by buying the drone and camera separately (check out the various GoPro Hero Black deals near the top of this page). You'll find the best GoPro Karma prices below though.
Best Usenet providers of 2018
You might think, given that most ISPs no longer provide direct access to it in 2018 and the majority of the free Usenet providers online have disappeared, that the venerable service has died a slow death. But that's not entirely true; there are still many, many active discussion areas in the bigger groups.
But let's be realistic: the real reason to lean towards Usenet in the current age is for file sharing (made popular by Bittorrent just make sure you remain anonymous using a VPN) – the groups below alt.binaries.* are very active, carrying many downloadable files of all kinds usually available through Usenet search.
But to gain access to the large amount of Usenet bandwidth you'll need in order to collect these files, you'll have to pay as quality bandwidth is expensive.
The key if you're looking at binary newsgroups is, due to Usenet's distributed server architecture, in finding a provider whose servers are fast, and who retains copies of binary files uploaded to Usenet for as long as possible. So with that – and many other – considerations in mind, here’s our breakdown of the best Usenet providers of 2018.
Check out our best VPN services
[58% Off] Newshosting (Official Promotion) - Get up to 58% Off TechRadar's #1 Rated Usenet Provider
Newshosting is the best Usenet provider as tested and vetted by our experts. If you want a strong all-rounder of a Usenet service, then look no further than this provider.
It sports the industry’s best retention, runs its own US and European server farms, and also offers uncensored access to 120,000 newsgroups. You can also get some high-quality newsreader software that includes search, not just for Windows and Mac, but Linux as well.
Through an exclusive TechRadar promo, you will be able to grab a free, albeit rudimentary, zero-log VPN account for extra security and privacy in addition to 256-bit SSL connections already included with the service.
Newshosting tested the fastest as far as download speeds go. It also passed our tests in retrieving old binaries with flying colors as well. Are there any negatives at all here at all? There’s very little to complain about, save for the VPN client being a little basic and for support being only in English, but this doesn’t actually reflect on the core Usenet service you get.
Newshosting is competitively priced, which you can try for yourself with a 750 GB free trial, exclusive to TechRadar visitors, the largest Usenet free trial offered anywhere.
[22% Off] Eweka (Official Promotion) - Get up to 22% off + Free High Speed Upgrade
Eweka is an impressive operation indeed, running its own data centre in Amsterdam with its own server farm. The firm has its own trans-Atlantic backbone which allowed us to get the full download speed offered (although no US servers as yet).
There’s a lengthy 3,369 days of retention offered here (growing daily), which is among the strongest Usenet offerings in that respect, and while you only get up to 20 connections maximum, which is less than many rivals, we found performance to be very speedy in our tests. And really, that’s what counts.
Read our review of Eweka
There’s plenty more to like with Eweka besides, including the fact that the service performed well when it came to our retention testing (grabbing old files). Eweka users also get free access to the premium Newslazer newsreader, which includes a powerful search tool.
There’s also an unrestricted seven-day trial (if you do not signup through the official TechRadar promotion) to give the service a whirl, and this doesn’t require you to enter any payment details, either. Considering what you get here, the service is reasonably priced, too.
Supernews is a veteran Usenet provider having been in operation since the mid-90s, and it has servers across the US and Europe. You get 2,357 days of binary retention and 5,021 days of text retention, and access to over 110,000 newsgroups.
What’s more, Supernews keeps multiple copies of articles across its network, and the firm claims that this helps to ensure a 100% completion rate.
And on the performance front, you get unlimited speed, with the provider guaranteeing that your connection won’t be throttled in any way, shape or form.
Supernews keeps things pleasingly simple when it comes to plan choices, as well, because there’s only one: a straightforward unlimited plan with a monthly fee. It’s not the cheapest subscription around, but this is a quality service, and you get a three-day trial to test it out first. Also note that with the TechRadar Pro offer in place at the time of writing, you get your first month at half price.
[$11.99 a month] Unlimited Usenet ($5.99 first month)
Newsgroupdirect offers an impressive retention level of 3,370 days, and maintains its own network. As with the previous provider, it makes a big promise on the completion rate front, guaranteeing users 100% completion. And furthermore, 100% uptime is also promised.
You get a plentiful 50 connections even with the most basic plan, along with SSL encryption, and access to the Ghost Path VPN service for extra security and privacy on top. Again, the VPN comes bundled with all plans, which is good to see. Customer support is another strong suit here, as well.
Read our review of newsgroup directWhile there is no free trial, Newsgroupdirect does offer a seven-day money-back guarantee, so if you’re not satisfied in the first week, you don’t lose anything – although note that you must not have used more than 15GB of bandwidth.
Subscription plans are competitively priced, although it’s slightly disappointing that you don’t get much better value for signing up to the annual plan compared to the six-month option.
[$7.95 a month] Unlimited Monthly[$6.66 a month] Unlimited 6 Months[$6.25 a month] Unlimited Yearly
Easynews is a slick operator that differentiates itself by offering the ability to access Usenet directly from within your web browser as well as supporting mobile access. That’s obviously a commendably hassle-free way to do things, and the web interface is well crafted, plus it also means you can access the service across all your devices (with no software installation necessary).
Retention rates vary, but with the top-end plan you get 2,950 days retention via the web interface (3,364 days retention via NNTP), although considerably less on some of the more basic plans. That Big Gig Plan also gives you a bundled Zero-log VPN service (albeit with a rather basic client).
Read our review of EasynewsThere’s also good news when it comes to Easynews’ privacy policy, which is very concise and makes it crystal clear what data is kept by the provider. Performance is good too, although the range of plans is somewhat confusing, and the basic subscriptions are more suited to those with light downloading needs.
Also handy is a 14-day free trial which lets you experience the service before you pay for a subscription (note that there is a 10GB bandwidth limit). However, this provider isn’t cheap, particularly if you want unlimited data, and in that case things get pretty expensive.
Resellers are quite common in the Usenet world, and for good reason: by purchasing a large amount of bandwidth from a major service provider, they can negotiate better terms and sell on that access to you for a vastly discounted rate. One of the biggest providers to resellers is Omicron Media, which counts nearly 30 clients operating from its vast server backbone.
Omicron Media reseller NewsDemon is our pick of the bunch, offering 50 simultaneous connections and unlimited SSL-secured transfers from European and US servers for a more-than-reasonable £3.60 ($4.70) per month – or perhaps less, we've seen different prices listed during different visits. There are also block accounts available.
There's the bonus of a VPN connection if you're willing to spend a bit more, or transfer-capped block accounts for a little less. If you're employed in education, charitable work, or certain media outlets NewsDemon will even offer you free access – though in the interests of disclosure we should be clear that we've not taken advantage of this offer.
[$4.70 a month] 50GB data[$5.60 a month] 75GB data[$6.55 a month] 100GB data[$7.50 a month] 200GB data[$8.40 a month] 500GB data[$9.40 a month] Unlimited dataBlocks from: $3.75 for 10GB
GigaNews is amongst the most expensive Usenet providers, but its price reflects the sum of its parts. Alongside access to newsgroups – naturally – a $24.99 (£19) per month Diamond subscription gets you the use of GigaNews' own Mimo Usenet browser and search engine, SSL access to its servers, and the pro version of Golden Frog's multi-faceted VyprVPN service.
Whatever you're using it for – and even if you're doing something else online entirely – the extra layer of privacy offered by a quality VPN has to be reassuring.
Read our review of GiganewsGigaNews' server availability is another plus, with multiple redundancy on US and EU servers owned and run by the company itself. The real question, however, is whether you plan to use all of the features GigaNews offers. If you're looking to Usenet access for the conversations this is absolutely overkill, and for binary downloads it's still rather expensive, but if quality is your top priority, then it’s a good choice.
[$4.99 a month] 5GB data[$9.99 a month] 10GB data [$14.99 a month] 50GB data[$14.99 a month] Unlimited data [$19.99 a month] Unlimited data
Astraweb is another of Usenet's big mainstays, having run since 1998. Sign up and you're actually gaining access to two distinct services – its download servers in the US and the Netherlands are run as separate companies, and one server may contain files that the other does not. Essentially Astraweb gives you a main server and a backup server for the price of one.
Users have reported that its quality has declined over the years. Whether or not you believe this is up to you, but Astraweb's longevity in the market does earn it some brownie points, and it does not resell its services meaning you should see a consistent download rate from its servers.
Read our review of AstrawebRetention is one of the highest we've seen at over 3,000 days, with a claimed 99% availability. Seeing as the 1% that's missing could be the one critical part of a binary you need, Astraweb – even with its dual servers – is probably best used with a block account on hand.
[$10 a month] 10Mbps speed[$6.66 a month] - $20 for 3 months; 10Mbps speed[$15 a month] Unlimited speed[$13 a month] - $39 for 3 months; Unlimited speedBlocks from: $10 for 25GB
This is a European Usenet provider which offers solid core features, and it’s a fairly priced service to boot. One interesting point to note is that there is a VPN bundled here, although it only comes with the most expensive plan.
We found performance to be impressive with TweakNews with fast download speeds, and it was also good to see that the included VPN (which is Omicron Media-based) managed a commendable turn of speed. In fact, it was comparable to a good specialist VPN provider.
Read our review of TweaknewsOn the downside here, retention isn’t great, and when we encountered an issue with the service, we found that tech support was on the sluggish side.
In terms of cost, there’s plenty of flexibility, and if you sign up for annual billing, there are some good value deals to be had – and you can benefit from block subscriptions, too, if that’s the route you prefer to take. There’s also a free trial which gives you 10GB of data to play with (but it has a limit of eight connections).
Up to 42% off for life (€90 for the annual plan on TweakNews’ top-end package, ‘Ultimate + VPN’)
If you want a dependable Usenet offering with a good core service, then look no further than this affordable provider – although be warned, it isn’t for newsgroup novices.
UsenetServer gives you plenty of retention at 3,371 days, a promised 99% completion rate, and no restrictions such as data limits or throttling of your download speeds.
A slight weak point is that you can only have a maximum of 20 connections, which is less than many services, but that said, in testing we found UsenetServer to offer 150+ Mbps download speeds performance levels anyway, so this likely won’t matter.
Read our review of UsenetserverWhat may matter for beginners is that UsenetServer is rather shaky when it comes to help but offers good tech support, and while it does offer a bundled zero-log VPN for extra security, the Windows client for the latter is a poor piece of work. But if you’re an experienced user who knows what you’re doing, all this is likely moot, because you’ll find your own way around the service just fine anyway.
The other strength here is that this is a relatively wallet-friendly provider, particularly when you consider that with the annual plan, the zero-log VPN service is bundled in. There’s also a free 14-day trial (with a 10GB data transfer limit).
[$10 a month] 1 Month Plan (Unlimited downloads)[$7.95 a month] 12 Month Plan (Unlimited downloads plus bundled VPN)
Best free Android apps of 2018: 100 you must download
It's been ten years since Android was first outed by Google, and back then it was hard to imagine the sheer number of apps we'd have today.
There are apps for everything, and many of them are completely free, meaning you're just a few downloads away from supercharging your smartphone at no extra cost.
What's the best phone of 2018?Admittedly, the huge quantity of apps doesn't mean they're all quality - far from it in fact, and finding the good ones can be tough.
There are tools and techniques to help, with various lists in the Play Store providing you with Editor's Picks across a range of categories, new releases and even apps that are specifically recommended for you based on your previous installs.
You can also hunt out apps that are similar to your favorites by searching for an app you have and seeing what else comes up.
And checking out user reviews and ratings can save you from downloading a dud of an app.
But even with all that, the sheer number of apps on Google Play means many of the best can often get lost, while weaker ones sometimes rise to the top.
So to make sure you never install a duff app here's our selection of the best you should install right now - each one carefully chosen to ensure you'll have a whole suite of fun, engaging and, dammit, useful apps on your phone or tablet.
New this week: Inware
Inware does one thing and does it well: it tells you about the device you’re running the app on. More specifically, it tells you just about every hardware detail, from the screen size and resolution, chipset, RAM amount and battery size, to far more in depth information, like the current speed each core is running at and the serial number.
Inware can also tell you how much RAM is currently in use, how healthy the battery is, how hot the battery is, how much storage there is in total and in use, the build number, what security patch your device has, what GPU it has, the aspect ratio of the screen and plenty more besides.
It goes way more in depth than your phone’s settings screen likely will, so if you’re ever curious about an aspect of your handset’s hardware or software, this is the app for you.
Visual impairments are one of many things that technology has made slightly easier to live with, and Envision AI is a prime example of how tech can help.
Point your phone’s camera at whatever’s in front of you, press a button, and the AI will examine it and say out loud what it thinks it’s seeing.
Descriptions can be moderately detailed, taking in multiple objects in a scene (for example a computer monitor and the desk it’s sat on).
With common objects it all seems quite accurate, though testing it on more unusual things, such as a wooden sculpture of an elephant, led to more mixed results.
As well as scenes, Envision AI can also read out text, even if it’s handwritten (though unclear handwriting will again lead to mixed results).
So it’s not perfect, but Envision AI could make a big difference to anyone who struggles to see or read on their own.
There are all sorts of apps designed for journaling your travels, but Polarsteps can do much of the work automatically.
The app will track where you’ve been and add photos from your travels, giving you a map and gallery of all your trips, simply by having the app running in the background on your phone.
You can make trips manually and add any photos it missed, but creating trips automatically means you’ll have at least a partial record of your adventures without doing anything.
This might sound like it would hammer your phone’s battery, but in fact Polarsteps is designed to only use around 4% each day and it doesn’t even need to be connected to the internet, which is ideal if you’re traveling somewhere where data costs extra.
You can keep your trips private or share them with friends and family, and by following people in the app you can see their journeys as they happen. Polarsteps is also nice to look at, easy to use and completely free, making it near essential for anyone who wants a visual record of their trips.
Anchor is both an app for both listening to podcasts, and creating and sharing your own. It’s that second part that’s the most interesting.
You can record audio straight from the Anchor app, or import recordings. You can also add friends to a recording, even if they’re elsewhere in the world, allowing you to have a recorded conversation that you can use as a podcast.
You can add various sound effects, and rearrange and edit parts of the podcast, so you’re not limited to a single audio file.
Once you’re done you can share your podcast, not just on Anchor itself, but also on the likes of Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts. When it’s out in the world, you can use Anchor to track how many listeners it has, and which parts of the podcast are most played.
If all you want to do is listen to podcasts then there are other apps that do the job just as well or better (Pocket Casts is always a favorite), but Anchor is a slick, simple way to get into podcasting yourself.
If you love slathering filters all over your photos then there’s a good chance you’ll love Picai, as it makes the process a lot smarter than most apps.
But this isn’t just a tool for sticking filters on photos you’ve already taken (though you can do that too). Rather, it’s a camera app. Simply point it at something you want to photograph and it will use AI to detect what you’re looking at, even going so far as to provide a text pop-up telling you what it sees.
From there it will automatically choose filters that it thinks would be a good fit and overlay two of them on the viewfinder – one on the left half, the other on the right. That means you can see what a filter will look like before you even take a photo.
If you’re happy with one, you can swipe horizontally across it to select it, or you can swipe up or down to cycle through filters. It’s a clever idea, well implemented and completely free.
If you’re serious about your beer then you need Untappd on your phone. It not only has a database of beers for you to discover and rate, but also highlights nearby beer-related events and shows the beer menus in local bars.
Add a venue to your favorites, and you’ll get alerts when it starts selling a new beer. There’s a social element too, which lets you follow friends to see what they’re drinking (and what they think of it).
Whether you want to make a wish list to help you keep track of all the beers you want to try, keep a log of what you’ve already tried so you can remind yourself whether you liked something, or just keep abreast of all the beer-related happenings in the area, Untappd is for you.
Google Clock (or simply ‘Clock’) is a fairly ordinary clock app in many ways, but it has the polish you’d expect from Google and is now better than ever, thanks to Spotify integration, meaning you can set a Spotify song or playlist as your alarm.
That instantly gives it an advantage over many clock apps, and the fact that Google Clock is free doesn’t hurt either.
Beyond that you get a timer, a stopwatch, the ability to create and save multiple alarms, and the option to view times for other parts of the world.
Of course, it also has Wear OS integration, so all of your alarms and timers can be synced with your wrist, and there are several options to tailor the app to your preferences, such as being able to change the clock style and the snooze duration.
Overdrop is yet another weather app, but it stands out more for its widgets than its forecasting skills.
It has quite a lot of them, and many are beautifully designed, showing some combination of the weather, time, day, date and battery level. We’d be surprised if you can’t find one you like, and while some are reserved for the paid Overdrop Pro app, many are free.
Beyond that, Overdrop is a perfectly accomplished weather app, with seven-day forecasts, nice animated illustrations, and information on things like cloud cover and humidity.
Khan Academy Kids is packed full of games and activities designed to entertain and educate young children.
From sorting objects based on their color, to selecting the right letter to complete a word, to drawing and a whole lot more, there are apparently thousands of activities in here, and while we haven’t tested that many, the ones we have tested are varied and well put together, with colorful drawings, songs and sound effects.
Most of the interactions use simple tap and swipe gestures, so most children should be able to navigate the app comfortably. A colorful character sits in the corner, and can be tapped whenever help is needed.
There’s a lot here, and Khan Academy Kids should be suitable whether you want something your kid can do on their own, or something they can play through together with you.
Notes by Firefox is a very simple note-taking app, ideal if you just want to jot down basic notes without wrestling overbearing interfaces and unwanted options.
The look is minimalist, with a mostly white screen housing all your current notes. You can tap on one to open and edit it, tap the plus button to make a new note, or tap the minus next to a note to delete it. There are a few formatting options – you can create bullet points or numbered lists, add headings and use bold and italics, but that’s about it.
However, Notes by Firefox does have a few tricks up its sleeve, as it syncs between your Android device and the Firefox browser on your desktop, so you can access your notes from multiple devices, and they’re secured with end-to-end encryption.
Other than that, this is a basic app, but if you’re not a power user it should be all you need, and it’s completely free.
Emma helps you keep a close eye on your money. Link all your bank accounts (including credit cards) and you’ll be able to see all their balances in one place.
But that’s just the beginning. Emma also tells you how much money you have in total across all your accounts, as well as how much debt you have, and how much money you gain or lose in total each month.
It also lists all transactions and has a good stab at putting them into categories, such as shopping, transport or bills. This also means you can see at a glance how much you’re spending in each category, which is a good way to make you more aware of your spending and potentially reduce it.
You can change any miscategorized spends, see a list of recurring payments, get a weekly breakdown of spending and income, and more.
Of course, Emma is secure too. It uses SSL 256-bit encryption, supports fingerprint locking and doesn’t store your banking credentials.
Emma is an essential app if you have accounts with more than one bank, but even if you don’t, chances are that it gives you a lot more insight into your money than your bank does. The only real downside is that it’s UK-only.
There are a lot of language learning apps on Android, but when it comes to languages such as Japanese, Mandarin and Korean, which have different alphabet systems, most apps fall a bit flat in teaching you to read and write in the language.
But that’s where LingoDeer excels, with various exercises designed to teach you the alphabet and grammar, as well as more conventional lessons focused on speaking and hearing the language.
LingoDeer can feel a bit intimidating at times, especially if you’re a complete beginner, as these alphabets can look completely alien, but we’re not sure there’s any way around that. Learning one of these Asian languages is going to be hard, and LingoDeer is a good way to get started.
There are so many words in the English language, including all sorts of weird and wonderful ones that you might never have come across. But how do you come across them? Browsing a dictionary is inefficient, so instead you could try Orphic, an app dedicated to the more unusual and interesting parts of English.
The app contains hundreds of words and will highlight a new one for you every day, even sending you a push notification for it if you want, so you can constantly learn new words.
You can also head into the app and explore its library of language at your own pace. For every word you can see definitions, example sentences and even hear an audio clip, so you can be sure you’re saying it right.
You can also add words to a list of favorites, so you can easily return to them later, and Orphic promises to add new words regularly, so the app should get better over time.
Space Nation Navigator is an oddity. Part game, part learning tool, part fitness app – the only thing uniting it all is a focus on space.
There are various ‘missions’ including mini games, such as memorizing codes to repair a spacecraft, quizzes, and even physical exercises designed get you ready for an outer space adventure.
There are also videos and articles that teach you more about space and the people exploring it, while leaderboards give you extra incentive to carry out the various activities.
There’s the slightly annoying need to buy ‘coins’ or watch adverts if you want to replay missions, but otherwise Space Nation Navigator is an interesting app for anyone with even a passing interest in space. A bit more focus might help, but there’s a lot of content here.
Mei: Messaging with AI promises a lot, but at the moment – at its core – it’s primarily an SMS app that can also analyze the messages you send and receive to show you a personality profile for you and the people who message you.
It will tell you your top five characteristics, and assign a percentage score to your openness, emotional control, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
You can tap on any of these to dig deeper. For example, tapping on openness will show how adventurous, emotionally aware and imaginative you are in Mei’s opinion, among other things.
You can also use the app to see how similar you are to the people you message and what traits you have in common.
As well as standard SMS messages, if you’re talking to someone else who also uses Mei you get end-to-end encryption and free international messaging (due to messages then being sent over the internet), along with other tools such as expiring messages and the ability to unsend messages.
The app’s in beta, and more features are coming, including additional AI abilities, such as the app being able to detect if you’re not texting as you normally would, perhaps because you’re in an unusual state of mind, and alerting you to that fact.
Being in beta, Mei might not be totally bug-free, but it’s an interesting upgrade to your standard SMS app.
Wherever you are, chances are there are hundreds of different plant species within walking distance, and most of us have no idea what all but the most common are called.
PlantNet aims to make identifying them easier – simply snap a photo and the app will attempt to identify what kind of plant or flower you’re seeing using visual recognition software.
Assuming you’ve taken an in-focus shot with just a single type of plant in it you’ll probably get one or more suggestions, complete with names and pictures.
This is probably the main thing you’ll use PlantNet for, but you can also view pictures submitted by other users and browse plants by a number of categories, such as where in the world they’re found. In many cases there are also links to Wikipedia pages about the plants, so you can learn more about them.
As an identification tool PlantNet isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than nothing, and even if it can’t always identify the plant you’re looking at with 100% accuracy, chances are it will highlight some other interesting species in the process of trying.
There are plenty of podcast apps already but when Google makes one it’s worth paying attention, and Google Podcasts doesn’t disappoint, instantly reaching the heights of the best free ones.
It’s got a minimalist design that’s light on color, but the app’s not light on features, as it automatically syncs podcasts across devices, so you can start listening on one and finish on another, it works with Google Home and you can launch straight into podcasts from Google Assistant and the Google Search app.
Google Podcasts also gives you recommendations based on your listening history and preferences, so it’s a decent way to find new content, and there are other tools, such as the ability to change the playback speed.
None of which would matter if it didn’t get the basics right, but it does, letting you subscribe to podcasts and highlighting new episodes on the main screen, letting you stream or download podcasts, and providing lists of the top podcasts in various categories.
Quip is an office suite built for teams, as not only can you create documents and spreadsheets, you can also share them with others and work on them collaboratively.
It supports real-time messaging too and while this app will mostly be of use for teams of people who work together it could also be used for other things, such as shared grocery lists and to-do lists.
You can access it all from your phone, tablet or computer, so you’ll never be far from the work and information you need, and Quip is quite full-featured when it comes to actually creating documents and spreadsheets, as for example it supports over 400 spreadsheet functions.
You probably won’t want to make much use of them from a phone, but if you’re on a tablet then Quip is a great way to work on the move, and even on a phone it can be good for reading, editing and commenting on work.
If you like to have relaxed background music on while working, reading or anything else, then Loffee is definitely worth a download.
The app contains a handful of curated playlists, all featuring lo-fi music that’s ideal for relaxing to or having on while you do something else.
To our mind, the music choices are great, as well as often featuring little known bands and artists, so you’re sure to find things that you like and haven’t heard before.
If you do, you can follow links to the artist’s Facebook, SoundCloud, Twitter and Instagram pages, while other tools in the app include a timer (which shuts the music off when it finishes counting down), and the ability to listen to songs offline.
The Loffee app itself is also something you’ll want to spend time in, as each playlist has a custom illustration that’s almost as soothing as the music. You can’t cast music to other devices and the actual selection of songs is small, so this won’t replace your main music apps, but it could definitely complement them.
Your phone might already have Google Lens built in, but if not you can now download it from the Play Store, and that’s worth doing.
Once you’ve launched the app you can point your camera at almost anything and get information on it. Point it at a book and it will give you links to reviews of the book and places to buy it. Other products also produce store links, or if Google Lens can’t definitively identify something it will suggest similar products.
You can also point it at a landmark to get information on it, at foreign text to translate it or at an event to add it to your calendar. You can even point it at plants or animals to identify them.
The results aren’t perfect. In our experience Google Lens will regularly incorrectly identify something or fail to come up with any suggestions for what something might be, especially with more unusual items, but it works often enough to be genuinely useful, especially once you get used to the kinds of things it’s likely to work with – so you know whether to even bother booting it up.
Starling Bank is more than just an app. In fact, it’s a bank account, but it’s a modern one that’s entirely app-based. That means there are no branches and there’s no web access.
That could sound daunting, if the prospect of changing bank account isn’t already off-putting enough, but in fact having everything in an app keeps things simple, and there are some powerful tools here not offered by most conventional banks.
For example, it has zero ATM withdrawal fees or transaction fees when using your card abroad, it lets you temporarily or permanently lock your card in-app, and you can enable or disable contactless payments, ATM withdrawals and online payments, for extra security.
You can also send in-app requests to friends and family who owe you money (and who don’t need Starling themselves to pay you back), receive instant notifications for income and outgoings, and a whole lot more.
As for changing your bank to take advantage of all this, well, you don’t necessarily have to. After all, there’s no real downside to having two bank accounts, but if you do decide you want to go all-in with Starling Bank that’s simple too, as there’s an account switching service that does all the hard work for you.
This one’s for UK users only, but there are similar app-based banks elsewhere, such as Simple in the US.
Today in History is exactly what it says on the tin, telling you what happened today in history, and as it turns out there’s usually a lot that happened.
The Today in History app will tell you about events, births, deaths, holidays and just about everything else significant that ever happened on the current day, and it includes pictures, text and links to Wikipedia articles (which is where it pulls its data from).
It’s an attractive app and even better if you use the widget, which shows you events from this day in history on your home screen.
Today in History also lets you download content for offline use, get notifications and – for anyone who’s not a native English speaker – switch to one of 50 different languages, a switch which cleverly will also affect the events you see, with those relevant to the culture associated with that language being prioritized.
Google News replaces Google Play Newsstand, and it’s a strong substitute. Throughout the day it will highlight the top five current stories that it thinks you’ll care about, based on the sources and topics that you tell the app you like, but if you keep scrolling down you can also see other news.
The best bit about Google News though, might be the option to see ‘perspectives and context’. It’s a little button next to stories, which when tapped shows the same story as reported by various different sites and inevitably from various different perspectives, including some that you might never find on your own.
As such it can give you a more rounded look at the news than you’d get if you’re always just using your preferred news source.
Other features of Google News include the ability to filter headlines by subject or source, and subscribe to paid news sources with a single tap.
Pet Care Diary is a fairly simple but potentially very useful app for keeping track of when your pet needs feeding, cleaning, walking or whatever else.
Essentially, it’s like a calendar or to-do list, where you can set up events and reminders, but they’re all focused on your pet, and if you have more than one pet you can set up individual profiles for each, where you can see every upcoming event and reminder, as well as previous ones.
You can also add comments to each reminder, as well as assigning a category, such as ‘food’ or ‘veterinary care’.
Pet Care Diary is probably most useful if you have a high-maintenance pet or multiple pets with their own schedules and needs, but if you ever find yourself putting pet-related things in your calendar, or forgetting to do them, then it’s definitely worth having.
The core app is free, but for US$2.99/£3.99 you can unlock the pro version, which removes adverts and lets you create an unlimited number of pet profiles, among other things.
If more than one person in your household buys groceries, then Bring! is an app that you should really look into.
It’s a grocery list app, as you might have surmised, but it lets you share and collaborate on lists, so everyone who might buy something can see the current list, and anyone else in the household can see it and add to it. Whenever someone does buy things from the list they can tick them off with a tap, so there’s no danger of the same thing being bought twice.
Bring! also lets you add photos to each entry, which is handy if you want to add something very specific, such as a certain brand of item, or if you just want to add some color to the list. But Bring! also has its own database, with images for hundreds of items.
You can create and share multiple lists if, for example, you have a general grocery list and another one for a party. There’s even a recipe section, designed to inspire you to cook, and making it easy to add all the ingredients to your shopping list.
Technically there’s no reason you couldn’t use Bring! for other types of shopping lists as well, or even for to-do lists, but it’s designed for – and excels at – groceries.
Privacy is increasingly hard to come by, especially if you live much of your life online, but Signal Private Messenger can at least ensure no one snoops on your messages.
The app uses your normal phone number and address book, so as with WhatsApp, you don’t need to set up a separate account or anything, making it convenient to use.
Signal is more secure than WhatsApp or most other messaging apps. Not only does it use advanced end-to-end encryption, but it’s also open source, meaning anyone can audit the code to verify how secure it is.
Signal lets you set messages to delete anywhere from five seconds to one week after they’ve been seen – or you can have them remain forever if you’d prefer.
The app also promises that its server never has access to your messages or any other data, plus it offers password or fingerprint protection and it’s not light on general messaging features, as it also supports group chats, voice calls and attachments.
In all, it’s a decent enough messaging app that it could be a strong choice even if privacy and security are only of secondary concern.
Steam Link allows you to stream your Steam games from your PC to your Android phone or tablet, so you can play them from anywhere in your house.
You are limited to your house though, as your computer needs to be on and using the same Wi-Fi network as your Android device for this to work. No Steam streaming on the train, then, but it’s quite freeing if you’re usually tethered to a desk.
You also need a fairly fast and stable internet connection and most games will need you to pair your phone with a Bluetooth controller, though some simpler ones can be controlled purely touchscreen.
Still, if you’re big on gaming but wish you could play your ‘proper’ PC games from the couch, bed or bath, then Steam Link is well worth trying.
Neverthink is an app that aims to give you interesting things to watch, without you ever having to think or decide on them for yourself.
All you actually have to decide is the general category of content you’re in the mood for, be it learning something new, comedy, news, food videos, or one of dozens of other categories.
Once you’ve selected one a relevant video starts playing. These are sourced from the internet and it’s all subscription-free stuff that you could find yourself, except now you don’t have to.
There’s Chromecast support, and if you see something you like you can favorite it to return to later, and that’s about it.
It’s worth noting also that the content is all hand-picked by actual people. There aren’t any algorithms here, and Neverthink promises that hours of new content is added every day, so there should always be so mething to watch.
There’s a lot more to the weather than you’ll generally see in a typical forecast, and it can be a lot more interesting – and beautiful – than a simple temperature reading.
Ventusky knows this, as it makes forecasts more engaging by including an attractive weather map and wind animation, complete with the current temperature shown on the map, so you can see exactly which areas are what temperature at a glance.
Hourly forecasts let you see how the weather will change over the day and tapping on any hour or day will adjust the weather map accordingly.
You can also view weekly charts of the temperature, precipitation and wind, so you can see how much it varies over time.
Sunrise and sunset times are also available, so there’s a lot to sink your teeth into, but really Ventusky is all about that weather map and wind animation, which shows the motion and direction of the wind in a mesmerizing way.
From the name you might think ChefsFeed is a recipe app, or maybe a social network for chefs, but while there’s an element of both it’s so much more than that.
ChefsFeed, really, is for anyone who loves food. It has articles and videos about food and restaurants, and yes, some recipes, but most of it’s not so much about cooking your own dishes as it is about food culture, with articles titled ‘why restaurants are a refuge for the restless’, and ‘sourcing sustainably is a way of life’, for example.
The app also helps you find new places to dine out, with a section highlighting interesting and recommended restaurants near you, complete with their opening hours and contact details.
You can filter these suggestions by price, distance and type of food, among other things, and save your favorites, so you’ll never forget a place you planned to try.
SketchBook isn’t a new app, but while many of the features used to cost money, it’s now completely free, making it worth revisiting.
The features that are now free include more than 130 brush presets, customizable canvas sizes, various rulers, high quality image imports and more.
And that’s on top of all the basic tools that were already free, such as a layer editor and pen mode, all of which combine to make this one of the most generous free sketching apps available on Android.
Coming from Autodesk, the power of SketchBook should come as no surprise, but it’s an app that seemed worth the money previously and is now utterly essential if you’ve even toyed with the idea of digital sketching.
Facebook Local is all about finding events and attractions nearby. It links to your Facebook account then shows a bunch of events listed on Facebook that are near your current or home location, or another place of your choice.
Some of these will be from friends and pages that you follow, but it will also dig up other local public events, so you’re likely to discover things that you wouldn’t have found on your main Facebook feed.
You can filter events and attraction by type, date, location or time, view them on a map and add them to your Facebook calendar, so it’s simple to control what you see and keep track of what you’re interested in. You can also add your phone calendar to the app, so you can see and manage everything in one place.
More or less all of this stuff can be found on Facebook itself, but Facebook Local is a much more focused way to find out what’s going on around you, without all of Facebook’s many distractions, so it’s worth having on your phone even if you already have the main Facebook app.
Ever wanted your own custom emoji and stickers that star you, rather than a generic face? Then you should definitely download Bitmoji.
This lets you recreate your likeness in cartoon form, with loads of tools available to make the look as perfect as possible. Then you can choose an outfit and get access to dozens if not hundreds of stickers, each of which feature you.
These can be shared to various chat and social apps, but Bitmoji has deeper integration with Gboard, letting you share its stickers direct from the keyboard. It can also be linked to your Snapchat account, making your Bitmoji your Snapchat avatar.
You can alter the look of your Bitmoji at any time, so if you change your own hairstyle you can change theirs to match, or just give them a new outfit, and new stickers and customization options are being added over time, so you shouldn’t get bored.
Opera Touch is a browser that’s designed to be used with one hand, with a ‘Fast Action Button’ that’s always visible and easy to reach at the bottom of the screen. Tapping it launches you straight into a web search, where you can type or speak your query.
There’s even a barcode scanner here, so you can quickly look items up online without having to type their names.
Gesture controls ensure you can navigate the rest of the interface with one hand, letting you switch to recent tabs, reload or close the current page or send it to your computer.
That last one is powered by Opera Flow, which lets you share links, videos and the like between your phone and computer with a single tap or click – though of course to enable this you’ll also need to be running Opera on your PC.
Opera Touch is also fairly secure, with features such as an ad blocker and even cryptocurrency mining protection, which reduces the risk of malicious sites using your phone to mine cryptocurrency in the background – an act that can drain your battery or even cause your phone to overheat.
There are some missing features, most notably private browsing and a desktop mode. Hopefully they’ll be added at some point, but considering Touch’s focus on simplicity, they might not.
Learning to code isn’t easy, but learning the basics is easier in recent years than it ever used to be, and that’s partially because apps like Grasshopper exist, guiding you through the first steps (of JavaScript, in this case) with exercises and quizzes.
The exercises are often presented a bit like puzzles. For example, very early examples task you with completing flags of countries by selecting the right code in the right order. This can feel almost like a game, and is engaging and enjoyable as a result.
Achievements can be gained to further motivate you, and while the app will never make you an expert it does aim to leave you with fundamental JavaScript skills, so you’re ready to take on something more advanced.
You probably didn’t realize that you can save the world while browsing the net, but you can make a small difference by using Ecosia Browser, which uses its ad revenue to plant trees.
Ecosia has already planted over 26 million trees thanks to its users, and for roughly every 45 searches you make another one will be planted.
Beyond its environmental credentials, Ecosia is also a very competent browser. It’s based on Chromium so the look and feel is a lot like that of Google Chrome, meaning it’s likely to be familiar to you.
It supports tabs, private browsing and bookmarks, lets you view your history, allows autofill of forms and has various privacy controls, so you don’t have to sacrifice a feature-packed browsing experience to help the Earth.
PhotoDirector is one of the more powerful and polished photo editing apps available on Android. It’s got you covered for fun filters, frames and effects, but it gives you more control than some of its peers. For example, you can adjust the strength of effects and choose to apply them globally or selectively.
You get a lot of control over the core image too, as you can adjust the white balance, saturation, hue, sharpness, tone and more.
You can also rotate, crop or mirror the image, cut out sections, adjust the perspective, and if you’ve taken a portrait remove red-eye. There’s more here, too much to list, but suffice it to say, PhotoDirector is a comprehensive app.
You’re not limited to just editing photos you’ve already taken either; there’s also a camera component, allowing you to take new shots and see how effects and filters will look before you’ve even taken a picture.
PhotoDirector is free to download and use. There’s an optional subscription for £2.59 (around US$3.70) per month if you want to unlock additional tools, remove adverts and improve the output quality, but the core app is already far more generous than most free offerings.
Seven – 7 Minute Workout Training Challenge promises to get you fit in just seven minutes a day, and while a longer workout might do you more good, we can’t deny that this got our hearts racing.
There’s a wide variety of exercises and workouts, with an animated man or woman showing you how to do each one, along with an optional text explanation.
So far, so standard, but Seven also doles out achievements, lets you add friends for some friendly competition and has specific training plans for different goals. For example, if you tell the app you want to lose weight, it will give you different workouts to if you want to increase your mobility.
The exercises in Seven don’t require any equipment, so you can do them from home or even your office if you have a bit of space, and you can create your own workouts too if there are specific exercises that you like.
Seven is partially free, but there’s an optional US$9.99/£9.99 monthly subscription which unlocks additional workouts, exercises and personalized workout plans. If you like the free version, it could be worth considering.
ESPN has all the sporting news and scores you need (probably) all in one place. While not all sports are covered by the app, many are, including soccer, golf, tennis, basketball, F1, baseball and loads more, and you can select your favorite teams and leagues to have them highlighted by the app.
You can see the latest scores, any breaking news, and drill down into more detailed stats for specific players, teams and games.
There’s also video content, usually surrounding the latest news and results, which you can cast to a big screen.
You can get push notifications sent to your device too, so you’re always up to date on the latest goals and wins.
Drum Pads – Beat Maker Go is a drum machine which lets you easily make beats on the go. There are numerous sound packs split across various genres, such as dubstep, EDM and hip-hop, and once you select one you can get tapping on the drum pad.
There are various effects that you can apply to your track, such as distortion and delay, you can create loops and save your finished pieces, then share them with friends.
Drum Pads is accessible enough that beginners should be able to have fun with it (though some trial and error will be required), but there’s enough here to appeal to more advanced users too.
Otter Voice Notes is a voice recorder, but that’s just the beginning. It also uses AI to automatically turn the recordings into written text so you can read them back rather than having to listen to them.
The app also lets you search for keywords, so you can find exactly the piece of information you’re looking for in seconds, even in long recordings. This all makes it a great tool for recording meetings, lectures and the like, especially since Otter can be trained to recognize voices and you can tag who’s talking, so that even in text form you can see the true flow of a conversation.
You can also create groups with other Otter users if you want to share recordings, and all of your recordings are saved in the cloud so you can access them anywhere and don’t have to store them on your Android device.
The text transcription isn’t perfect (though Otter claims it will get better over time if it’s you talking, as it gets to know your voice better), but it’s reasonably accurate in our experience and you can always go in and make changes to the text manually.
Just a Line is a simple example of the creative potential offered by AR (augmented reality). It lets you view the world through your phone camera and draw on scenes by touching the screen.
You can see your drawings from multiple angles as you move the phone around, and you can film your creations to save them or share them with others.
There’s not a whole lot more to it than that, and Google (which built the app) describes Just a Line as an experiment, so you should go in expecting a curiosity rather than a full-featured app, but it’s a fun introduction to AR that can be enjoyed by all ages.
If your phone battery isn’t lasting as long as you’d like then deleting Facebook could help, as the app tends to use a lot of life, but what to do if you also want to keep using Facebook on your phone? Get Facebook Lite.
This is a lightweight version of the Facebook app, with most of the core features, including your timeline, the ability to post status updates and photos, comments, events, notifications and more, but it uses a lot less power and a lot less data.
Facebook Lite also works even if you only have a 2G connection, so you’ll be able to use Facebook in places that you wouldn’t have been able to before, and it takes up less space on your phone.
The main downside to it is that the interface is much less attractive than on the standard Facebook app, but if you can get used to that it could be a worthy replacement.
RememBear is a simple, surprisingly cute password manager full of bears. Simply add all your passwords to it, lock them behind a master password or fingerprint, and RememBear can auto-fill login forms with them so you never have to remember them or type them again.
RememBear can also generate new secure passwords, so you won’t have to think them up, and the data is synced across devices, so if you don’t have your phone to hand you can access your logins from a computer or other device.
You can also store credit card details, there’s end-to-end encryption and there’s a built-in browser for secure web browsing.
RememBear lacks some features offered by rivals like LastPass, such as favorites, but more features are likely to be added over time. It’s also free to use on a single device, though there’s a paid version that you’ll have to upgrade to for $35.99/£32.49 per year if you want to access your account on multiple devices.
It’s probably fair to say that most ringtones that come with phones aren’t very exciting, and while you can easily set a locally stored song as your ringtone, you won’t necessarily want the whole thing. That’s where Ringtone Maker & Music Editor comes in.
First, you can get this app to scan your device for any stored audio files, sort them by track, album or artist, then select the one that you want to turn into a ringtone and you’ll be able to choose a start and end point – handy for cutting boring intros.
You can type out exactly what point in the music you want to start and end the ringtone down to the millisecond, and you can also cut parts of the music, copy and paste parts, or even meld multiple audio files together. There’s also a basic recording feature built in, so you can record your own ringtones and then edit them.
Once done, you can save your ringtone and assign it either system-wide or to a specific contact.
Ringtone Maker is easy to use and supports various file types, including MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, AAC, M4A, MP4 and 3GPP/AMR, and the only real issue it has is the number of adverts, but there’s a pro version that gets rid of them for US$3.99/£3.29.
Moovit is the only app you need to navigate public transport wherever you might be in the world.
Simply enter a destination and it will tell you how to get there from your current location (or you can set a different start point).
Moovit will give you various route options using different forms of transport by default, but you can tell it to only include certain kinds of public transport, or to minimize walking or transfers.
Select a route to see full step by step instructions or get live navigation. The app will tell you exactly where to go and even alert you when you’re nearing your stop so you don’t need to stare at your phone screen the entire journey.
There are also timetables for buses and trains and you can save your favorite destinations or transit lines to quickly get directions and timetables in future.
Moovit also has widgets, offline maps, and transport information for thousands of cities in over 80 countries. We weren’t kidding when we said it’s the only public transport app you’ll need.
Trips by Lonely Planet is a visually beautiful way to share your travel experiences or view those shared by others.
It’s essentially a journaling app designed for globetrotters. Create a new trip in the app, give it a title, subtitle and cover photo, then add your choice of photos, text and maps.
Your trips can be kept private or shared publicly, you can edit them after posting, and of course you can view and favorite other people’s.
There’s a slight social element in that you can follow other users, so you’ll always see any new trips they post, but mostly this is just about seeing the world from your phone and sharing your own trips with the world.
TouchPal is a truly feature-packed keyboard, and an enormously customizable one at that. Not only can you select from thousands of free themes, you can also create your own, picking a key color and adding a background image or color.
All the usual settings are also available, letting you customize the keyboard height and width, change the key layout, enable or disable auto-correct and much more.
There’s also a ‘Curve’ mode, which lets you swipe across keys to select them rather than tapping, and more uniquely a ‘Wave’ setting that builds on predictive text by putting AI-driven next word suggestions under the keys as you type.
You can also access various emoji and GIFs from the keyboard, bring up a Google search and use voice typing. None of that would matter if TouchPal was slow or inaccurate, but in our tests it works well – just as long as you take the time to get it set up how you want it.
Bandcamp is a service that highlights and sells music from numerous artists, mostly of the independent variety, and with the Bandcamp app you can access all of its content from your phone.
As well as buying music, you can stream or download music you already own, and in many cases stream songs that you haven’t yet bought.
You also get access to a weekly podcast that highlights music you might not have come across before, so it’s a good way to discover your next favorite musician.
You can also search, browse, add things to your wishlist and comment on releases, sharing your thoughts with the wider Bandcamp community.
It’s a handy app if you’re into music (and who isn’t?) and a great way to support up and coming artists.
Zomato (formerly Urbanspoon) is probably all you’ll ever need to find and choose restaurants. From the main screen you can see a list of nearby restaurants, each of which has a user rating out of five. You can also search using filters, such as whether you can book, whether the place is currently open and whether it has Wi-Fi, then sort the results by distance, cost, rating or popularity.
There’s also a tab for viewing collections, which are restaurants sorted into categories such as ‘newly opened’ or ‘romantic’.
Tap on a restaurant and you can see photos and reviews added by other users, along with details about what it costs, opening times, an address and map and in many cases menus and lists of pros and cons. From here you can also call the restaurant or add your own photos or review. In some cases you can even book a table direct from the Zomato app.
You can also bookmark your favorite restaurants and follow other users, so you can see where they’ve been and what they like.
If you’re reading this then chances are you could probably stand to spend less time on your phone – we know we could. If so, THRIVE could be just what you need to stay focused and in the moment.
The app lets you block all apps, notifications, calls and texts for a set duration, though you can set up a VIP list of people whose calls and texts will still get through, and you’ll always be able to call emergency numbers.
That’s the default mode in THRIVE, though you can deactivate it if you decide you need to use your phone after all.
If you really want help staying off your phone there’s also a ‘Super Thrive Mode’, which – short of rebooting your phone – can’t be deactivated before the allotted time runs out.
If anyone tries to contact you while you’re using one of these modes, you can set an auto-reply message that will let them know when you’ll be available again.
There’s also an App Blocking mode, which will block access to apps of your choice after you’ve used them for an amount of time that you can set. So, for example, it might block Facebook after you’ve used it for 30 minutes. You then can’t access it again until 12am the next day.
THRIVE isn’t the only app designed to keep you off your handset but it could be one of the most useful, as while most try to incentivize you, THRIVE simply stops you.
If you play an instrument then you probably sometimes need backing tracks, and Backing Track Play Music can provide them.
It has thousands of backing tracks designed for guitarists, bassists, drummers, keyboardists and singers, and you can filter by instrument, genre, artist, or just perform a general search.
The selection is decent and varied, covering many big hits from artists of various genres. You’ll also find lyrics and tablature for many songs, and the app claims new backing tracks are added every day.
The core app is free, but if you want to get rid of adverts and be able to download backing tracks for offline use, you can grab Backing Track Play Music Pro for $1.49/£1.29.
Your phone is probably your most used device, so it’s understandable if you get a bit bored of it sometimes and want a change. Rather than buying a whole new handset you could just change your launcher, and Microsoft Launcher is one of the best around.
Formerly known as Arrow Launcher, it’s been around for a while and it keeps improving, most recently thanks to the addition of Cortana, which you can activate by tapping an icon or long-pressing the home button. Cortana isn’t any better than Google Assistant (or arguably even as good), but it’s a change and you can still use Google Assistant as well.
The rest of the app has a lot to offer, including loads of customizable gesture controls. For example, you can open the app drawer with a two-finger swipe up, but if you’d rather that gesture launched your favorite app, you can set it to do that instead.
You can also make Microsoft Launcher your own by customizing the theme, icons and accent colors, and if you’re not feeling inspired when it comes to wallpaper then you can set it to automatically change daily.
Got your old home screen exactly how you like it? Then when setting up Microsoft Launcher you can choose to import the old layout, bringing all your folders with you.
There’s also a clever unified search bar on your home screen that can search both the contents of your phone and the web. For the latter it uses Bing of course, but you can’t have everything.
Yummly is a super customizable recipe app for picky eaters and cooks. It’s packed with over a million recipes, and you can add various filters to dictate which ones you see.
These include basic dietary and allergy options, such as vegetarian, pescatarian and gluten-free, but you can also add specific disliked ingredients that you want to avoid, filter by taste such as sweet or bitter, choose the nutritional values you’re interested in (such as low-carb), and pick which cuisines you do or don’t want to see.
There are also filters for prep time and techniques required, such as baking or blending, so you can tweak the requirements exactly to your liking, or those of your guests.
All that aside, Yummly has many of the same features as other recipe apps, including a built-in shopping list, personalized recommendations, the ability to save favorites, and videos that teach you cooking techniques.
Most Android users probably opt for Chrome as their web browser, and it’s a solid choice, but there are more interesting – if not necessarily better – options, such as Cake Web Browser.
This attractive browser will instantly load the most relevant result when you search for something, which can save precious time if what it’s loaded is useful or slow things down if it isn’t.
From that first page you can swipe left to get to the search results and pick a different site, or swipe right to instantly load the next result, then keep swiping right to keep moving through the results.
You can customize and reorder the sources it uses for web, video, image, news and shopping searches to improve the accuracy of its search results, but this is otherwise a fairly basic browser – you can open multiple tabs, view your history, bookmark pages and the like, but if you want things like desktop sites or privacy and accessibility controls you should look elsewhere.
Still, if you want a refreshingly different, stripped back browsing experience then Cake Web Browser is well worth a look.
Two of the main reasons for using a VPN are accessing geo-restricted content and maintaining your privacy and security online.
ProtonVPN can help with both of those, and costs a lot less than most rivals. In fact, the core service is totally free, and there are no bandwidth restrictions, so you can use it as much as you want.
There are no ads either, because it’s fully funded by optional paid subscriptions (starting at around $5/£3.50 per month). These unlock higher speeds, VPN servers in more countries and the ability to use ProtonVPN on more than one device.
But for free you still get access to VPNs in three countries, and a whole lot more security than you’ll have without a VPN, as your activity will be encrypted and protected by Swiss privacy laws, and it won’t be logged.
If you’re a movie lover then you might already know about Letterboxd, and if you don’t you should. It lets you keep track of movies you’ve watched, add them to your list with a single tap, review them, give them a star rating, and say when you watched them.
It also lets you keep track of what you want to watch, thanks to a comprehensive film database and the ability to add films to a watch list – again with a single tap.
Letterboxd helps you discover films by highlighting what’s currently popular, and offering thousands of lists created by users of the app. These lists all have a theme, and while that’s sometimes as simple as someone’s favorite movies, usually it’s a lot more interesting than that, for example one list is titled “They aren’t films, they’re experiences”.
Of course, you can also make lists of your own, and Letterboxd is a bit of a social network too, letting you follow other users and comment on their lists.
If you have an Amazon Echo then you’re probably familiar with the Amazon Alexa app. It’s where you can set up skills for the device, check back on previous queries, look at your shopping list, manage other smart devices and get more information on certain things you’ve asked Alexa about.
Even if you don’t have an Amazon Echo, you can use the Alexa voice assistant from within the app itself. That means you can tap a button and talk to Alexa, asking her to control smart devices, look things up online, play music and more.
Most of this stuff can already be done by Google Assistant, which you probably have on your phone, but Alexa makes a nice change and you may even find you prefer it if you can get over the extra step of having to launch the app first.
Your calendar can already create reminders, but you need to be in the calendar to make them. With Remindee you can create a reminder from within almost any app, and not just within an app, but with the reminder itself linked to the content you’re viewing.
For example, if you’re on a web page and want to read something later, you can use Remindee to remind you about it at a more convenient time. Or if you want to watch a YouTube or Netflix video when you get home, you can do the same for that.
Hit the share button, select Remindee and a box pops up letting you set a time and date when you want to be reminded. The box is automatically populated with a link to the content you were viewing, but you can add additional details if you want.
Head into Remindee itself and you can see upcoming and past reminders, and if you plan to use it a lot you can add a persistent Remindee option to the notifications dropdown.
It’s a simple idea, but a useful one. Achieving the same with your calendar would mean first opening it and then copying the link across manually, so if your reminders tend to be content-focused then Remindee could be a slick alternative to whatever you’re using now.
There are loads of filter apps and photo fixers on Android, but LightX Photo Editor is one of a much smaller number of comprehensive editing apps.
It has plenty of filters, as well as tools for sharpening images and removing blemishes, and much more besides.
You can tweak the hue, saturation and tone, adjust the focus, add a frame, sticker or text, merge images, create collages, flip, crop and rotate, draw on pictures and change the perspective.
All of that is free, though there’s an optional IAP to remove adverts and add a few extra features.
Whether you opt for the free or paid version, LightX is a powerful, feature-packed app that should suit most mobile photo-editing needs.
Keeping up with the news can be hard work, but Nwsty aims to make it easier – and faster.
The app uses AI to choose between six and ten of the day’s biggest stories and present them in a concise, digestible manner.
Each story is only around a paragraph long, which is usually enough to get the key details, but means you can read them all in the time it would take to read one full-length story. If you want extra information, each snippet includes a link to a longer version of the article on the web.
There’s not much else to Nwsty. You can share stories on social media and scroll back to previous days to catch up on older news, but that’s about it. It’s a great way to stay in the loop and only takes a couple of minutes.
While there’s still something to be said for keeping a paper journal, going digital gives you a lot more convenience, security and features, and Day One Journal is one of the best tools for the job.
Having enjoyed years of popularity on iOS, it’s finally arrived on Android, bringing with it a slick interface that lets you see your journal entries by date, as a gallery of attached images, or on a map of the world with pins that take you to an entry made at each location.
Making a new entry is as simple as tapping the big plus or camera icons on the main screen, depending on whether you want to start with a photo or text. Day One Journal adds the time and current weather to each entry automatically.
You can also set reminders to help you get into the journaling habit, star your favorite journal entries to easily return to them, add tags, and get alerts for entries you made on this day in previous years, or at nearby locations.
With optional fingerprint or passcode security, no unauthorized eyes will be able to access your memories.
That’s all free, but there’s also an optional $24.99/£22.49 yearly subscription that lets you back everything up to the cloud, access your journal on multiple devices, keep multiple journals and more. It’s not cheap, but could be worthwhile if you get really into journaling.
Exercise should be its own reward, but if it’s not then you might want to check out Winwalk Pedometer.
As well as doing the important job of counting your steps, Winwalk also rewards you with a coin for every hundred you take. Save these coins up and you can ultimately cash them in for vouchers at the likes of Tesco and Starbucks.
The rewards – which appear to be UK-only for now – do take a while to earn. You’ll need 9,450 coins for a £5 Starbucks voucher for example at the time of writing, but you can get a scratch card for just 65 coins, and these have a chance of unlocking the same vouchers.
You can also top up your points faster by inviting friends to join Winwalk and completing ‘missions’, which tend to involve installing and using other apps.
Rewards aside, Winwalk is a basic but competent pedometer. You can have it permanently visible on your lock screen or notification shade, showing how many steps you’ve taken and how far you’ve walked, and it will take a stab at estimating how many calories you’ve burned.
Once you’ve used it for a while, Winwalk will also tell you your average seven-day and 30-day step counts, and how many steps you took on your best day.
It seems reasonably accurate, but although you can set your gender, age and weight, you can’t set your stride length, so if it’s mis-measuring yours there’s not much you can do to fix it.
One way or another shows and movies usually cost money, but Viewster gives you access to a library of streamed content at no cost.
There is a catch of course, and that catch is adverts, coupled with limited content compared to something like Netflix. If you can look past that, you’ll find a good range of anime series, along with documentaries, old sci-fi movies and shows about games.
Content is added regularly and the app is pleasant to navigate, with options to favorite videos so you don’t lose track of them and subscribe to specific channels to get alerts when they publish new content.
You can’t download videos, so you’ll need internet access to watch them. Viewster’s content also makes it a bit niche, but if you’re into anime or video games then it’s worth having, even if you already have a subscription to a different service.
Canva was a hit on iOS and now it’s arrived on Android, giving you a simple yet powerful way to create posters, collages, flyers, cards, Instagram posts, banners and headers for blogs or other social media, and more.
It’s a graphic design app, and one that’s intuitive from the moment you launch it. Start by choosing the type of content you want to design, then take your pick from a wide selection of ready-made templates (or search for something specific). Once that’s done, you’re ready to get editing.
You can tap on any part of a template to change it with context-sensitive tools. Tap on text, for example, and you can write something new, or change the font, size, color and spacing.
Select an image to change the color, add a filter, adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation, or switch it for a different picture altogether – either one of the many in Canva or one from your gallery.
You can also drag and rotate things, and there’s unlimited undo, so you can go back as many steps as you want if you make a mess of the whole thing.
When you’re done, you can save your creation to your phone or share it online. It’s also saved in the ‘Your designs’ section of the app, which you can access from the web and other devices, so you’ll never lose a design you’ve made.
Need more podcasts to listen to and not sure where to start? You could do a lot worse than Scout FM.
This is a podcast discovery app with various ‘stations’ of podcasts focused on a particular theme, be it mindfulness, the latest news, entertainment, and many other topics.
These stations work like playlists; rather than just giving you a list of podcasts in each category, it plays one automatically and lets you move to another with a swipe of your finger. You can pause with a tap, and there are options for skipping, changing playback speed. It’s a fairly basic player, but all the essentials are there.
You probably won’t use Scout FM as your main podcast app – not least because you can’t actually choose a specific podcast to play – but if you’re open to hearing something new and just aren’t sure what to start with, it can help you find a whole new selection of favorites.
Ever wonder where all your mobile data is going? Datally can help answer that. It’s an app made by Google that not only tells you how much mobile data you’ve used over the last day, week or month, but also breaks down which apps are using it and how much they’re consuming.
That’s handy, but it’s something that a lot of other data monitor apps do too. Datally has a few extra features though. For one, there’s a data saver mode, which blocks apps of your choice from using data when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi. That’s especially handy if you find one is a big drain and you don’t need constant access to it.
There’s also a list of nearby public Wi-Fi networks. The app shows you how far away they are, pinpoints their position on a map, and tells you whether they’re password-protected, so you can more easily seek out a suitable connection.
Datally is a Google app, so it’s unsurprisingly polished and simple to navigate, all of which makes it a very worthwhile freebie.
Did you know that the best time to buy a car is at the end of the month, since salespeople have quotas to hit and are more likely to cut you a deal? Or that you can get gum out of hair by dipping it in coke? If you had Life Hacks you would.
This appropriately named app has hundreds of hacks spread across various categories, such as ‘Money Savers’ and ‘Study Boosters’.
Tap on a category and you’ll be shown a selection of cards, each of which has a life hack on it. The bottom of each card also has the option to favorite, copy or share it, so you can easily build up a library of useful hacks or share them with your friends.
New hacks are also regularly added, so you won’t run out of things to learn. Some of the hacks are clearly aimed specifically at US users as they’re related to businesses like Walmart and Wendy’s, but most of them could be useful wherever you are.
Hitlist is designed to both find cheap flight deals and give you ideas of where to go. You start by selecting your home airport, then you can select a destination and the dates you want to travel, then get results sorted by price.
So far, so familiar, but Hitlist lets you select a range of dates rather than a specific flight day if you’re prepared to be flexible in order to save money, or you can even enter no dates at all if you’re happy to travel at any time.
And that’s just half of the app. The other half is about discovery. Hitlist will highlight various locations and events, such as the best cities for New Year’s Eve, and the best places for photography. Tapping on any of these will let you drill down to specific locations and then look for flights.
If you save a location you can also get alerts from Hitlist whenever the flight prices drop, so there’s a lot here, whether or not you know where you want to go.
Smiling Mind is a meditation app for everyone, and when we say everyone, we really mean it, as there are meditations specifically designed for various age groups and situations, from kids of 7 through to adults, from office workers to athletes, from those new to meditation to those who’ve been doing it for years.
There’s also resources for anyone trying to teach meditation in the classroom, and whatever your age or situation you’ll find meditations of varying lengths, from as little as around one minute, to around half an hour.
The app will also keep track of how many meditations you’ve done, the total duration and on what days, and if you want to share the app you can set up sub profiles, so everyone has their own accounts.
Unlike many meditation apps, Smiling Mind is also completely free. There’s no subscription, no in-app purchases and not even any adverts.
Sticking with the same wallpaper for too long can get boring, but if you’re anything like us you rarely bother to change it.
With Smart Wallpaper you can set up a selection of wallpapers to cycle between, so once it’s set up there’s little to no need to ever manually change your wallpaper again.
Smart Wallpaper can change your wallpaper after a set time period, but it can also do it based on the day of the week, the month, the weather or even the Wi-Fi network you’re on.
The app itself has a number of wallpapers to choose from, but they’re not sorted into categories so it’s not the best way to browse for wallpapers.
However, you can also import them from your gallery, so just find a collection you like from whatever source you like and then send them over to Smart Wallpaper, so you’ll never again have to look at the same picture for too long.
Replika is a hard app to categorize. It’s an AI that you can talk to, but it’s more than just a gimmick and there’s purpose to the conversations.
It will often ask you things like how your day’s going, how you feel and what the highlight of your day has been, and by answering these questions you can build up a sort of journal, which you can then search through, as there’s a part of the app that sorts your responses by date.
Of course, you could just use a journaling app, but we found the prompts of the AI and the feeling of having an actual conversation more appealing than just writing things down.
Many of the questions asked will also prompt you to focus on positives, which in turn could help you be more positive.
Replika can also act as a confidant - ‘someone’ you can talk to about anything, at any time.
And the more you talk to Replika, the smarter it gets. It learns your responses and becomes a bit more like you over time, as well as allowing you to upvote or downvote anything it says.
Chances are you already have some kind of file manager on your phone, but Files Go is still worthy of attention, as it’s made by Google and has many rivals beat.
There’s two parts to it. First, the ‘Storage’ section which highlights all the ways you might be able to clear space on your device, such as by deleting duplicate or large files, moving files to your SD card and deleting rarely used apps.
Then there’s the ‘Files’ section, which is a file explorer, letting you dive into the folders on your phone so you can find, open, rename, delete or share specific files.
The whole app is colorful and easy to navigate as well, with an interface seemingly inspired by Google Now’s cards.
Zyl claims to be the first photo gallery managed by an in-app AI. We don’t know whether that’s true or not, but it’s certainly a useful way of managing your photos.
Zyl is especially handy if you want to clear space on your device, or just get rid of rubbish shots, as that AI we mentioned can find and delete blurry shots, as well as duplicate or similar photos, even choosing to keep the one that it thinks is best.
And its judgement is generally quite good, but you get to confirm before deleting anything, and even then photos can be recovered for thirty days in case you change your mind, so there’s no danger of losing your favorite shots.
Other features of Zyl include the ability to create collaborative albums that several people can access and add to, and for Zyl to automatically create albums from your pictures – though this didn’t work very well in our tests, as while some of the suggested pictures were similar, others seemed quite random.
Still, Zyl’s ability to clean up your gallery is enough to make it worth a download if your photo collection is getting out of control.
Having been around on PC for a while now, Microsoft Edge has finally arrived on Android.
Microsoft’s replacement for Internet Explorer is surprisingly polished, and especially useful if you run it on both Android and a Windows 10 computer, as you can send content between your phone and your PC.
You first need the Fall Creator’s update on your computer, but then you can simply tap a button at the bottom of each webpage on your phone (or hit ‘Share’ then ‘Continue on PC’) and have the page load on your desktop.
Your favorites and reading list are also automatically synced between devices, giving you further incentive to make Microsoft Edge your one and only browser if you’re going to use it at all.
There are also handy features such as voice search, and a ‘Reading View’ which reorganizes pages to make it easier to focus on the main text.
If you already use Edge on your computer then the Microsoft Edge app is worth having, but if not there’s probably not enough here to convince you to switch browsers.
That said, it’s worth a look if you’re not getting on with your current one - just be aware there might be a few bugs while it’s still in beta.
And yes, you can switch your search engine from Bing to Google.
Live wallpapers can look great, but they can also drain your battery and hog your RAM… the good news is Material Islands - Wallpapers does neither.
That’s because rather than being constantly animated it’s just updated several times a day, showing a minimalist island changing from dawn to dusk.
And there’s more than one island in this app. You can choose from the mysterious ‘Isle of Easter’, the frosty ‘Isle of Ice’ and around 10 others, or choose ‘daily random isle’ and get a new one every day.
More islands are likely to be added over time, and you can customize the experience to an extent – choosing the time period during which each version of an island is shown, or just setting a static wallpaper if there’s a particular scene you want at all times.
The world is full of weird and wonderful fonts, but identifying them isn’t always easy. That is, unless you have WhatTheFont.
Then you can simply take a photo of the font you’re curious about, or grab an image from your gallery, and WhatTheFont will analyze it and show you a selection of similar fonts.
The fonts it shows you may or may not include the actual font that you photographed - we’ve had slightly mixed results on that f(r)ont - but all the selections are usually close to it.
You can type out any word or phrase in any of the fonts it comes up with to get a better idea of how they look, and then if you really like them there’s a link to buy.
Other than the fact that WhatTheFont seemingly doesn’t have every single font in its database, our main complaint with it is that it won’t save your previous searches and nor can you favorite fonts to return to later, so if you want to remember one you’ll have to write the name down.
But as a freebie – at least until you succumb to the urge to splash out on the fonts you find – it’s a handy app.
Messenger Lite is designed to minimize the amount of data you use when sending and receiving messages on Facebook.
It’s an official app and likely designed with developing countries in mind, but could be useful anywhere if you have a restrictive data limit or an iffy connection.
Messenger Lite works on all networks, even 2G, and if there’s no signal when you send a message it will automatically be sent as soon as there is one.
It uses less data than the main Facebook Messenger app and also loads faster and takes up less storage space. All this efficiency should also mean it’s lighter on battery usage, and indeed it was in our tests, though the difference is small, yet Messenger Lite has many of the core Messenger features included.
You can send messages, including pictures and stickers, have group chats, see who’s online and make or receive voice calls.
Some features are absent, most notably video calls, but for the basic Facebook messaging experience this should have you covered, and it’s got a less cluttered interface than the main app too.
If you’re a user of Amazon’s ebook store then you probably already have the Amazon Kindle app, but if not it’s worth getting, especially as it’s just been overhauled to make it slicker than ever.
As before, the app gives you access to your Kindle books on your phone or tablet, as well as access to the store - so you can buy more digi-tomes - but it’s now got a new look, with larger cover art and a re-designed interface that makes it faster to get into your books.
There’s also a new light theme joining the dark one, and the app will soon be improving further, as Goodreads integration is on the way, which will allow you to rate your books and interact with that community from the Kindle app.
You probably already have some sort of news aggregator on your device, but if you like sharing interesting stories with other people then Squid could have it beat.
That’s because Squid lets you annotate stories before you share them. You can underline, circle and highlight sections in various colors, add text of your own and even add stickers, then send the story off in an email or social media message.
Other than being able to leave your mark on the stories you find, Squid is fairly conventional, but quite polished.
You can pick from a range of topics that you’re interested in, such as music, lifestyle or politics, then get a constantly updated feed of relevant stories.
You can switch to a topic-specific feed with a swipe, block sources you don’t want to see with a few taps, and switch to a reader mode (which ditches most of an article’s adverts and other unnecessary content) with ease.
If you like your weather with a side of humor then you should check out What The Forecast?!!, which provides generally negative (or some would say realistic) commentary on the current weather, in the form of a short humorous sentence.
It’s reminiscent of the iOS app Carrot Weather, but it’s laughing with you, rather than at you, and more importantly is actually available on Android.
Beyond the commentary, which apparently includes over 6,657 phrases, you can get 7-day forecasts and details on humidity, sunrise and sunset times, wind speed, the moon and more.
It’s all fairly standard weather app stuff, but delivered with more personality than usual, and as the actual forecasts are pulled from Dark Sky, What The Forecast?!! should be just as accurate as your current weather app of choice.
Tinycards, from the makers of Duolingo, has taken a long time making the jump from iOS to Android, but it’s finally arrived, and is set to give you another way to improve your language skills.
Link it up to your Duolingo account and then Tinycards will give you a selection of flash cards based around the words and languages you’re already learning.
These will sometimes take the form of a picture, in which case you have to say what it’s a picture of in the relevant language. Other times the card will show a word or phrase in the language you’re learning, which you’re to translate to English, or the phrase will be shown in English, in which case you’re tasked with translating it to a foreign language.
Like the main Duolingo app answers are sometimes multiple choice, while other times they must be typed, and you can unlock new sets of flashcards as you progress.
It’s essentially a simpler, even more bite-size form of language learning than Duolingo offers and is best used in combination with that app.
But you can also create your own cards and decks if there’s something specific you want more practice at, and interestingly you’re not just limited to languages, as history, maths, science and more all have their own flashcard decks too.
While many of us have moved to streaming music, there is still a place for locally stored music on Android, and Phonograph is one of the better players.
Phonograph puts aesthetics and ease of use first, so it’s always pleasant to operate. The app has a Material Design look that fits with Google’s vision of Android, but it’s also packed full of album art and color, so there’s never a dull screen.
You can also customize the colors and overall theme and look of the app, while the color of the main ‘now playing’ screen will change based on the album artwork of the current track.
The layout is simple too, with your music library sorted by song, album, artist or playlist, and you can switch between views with a swipe, while most other options are no more than a tap away.
Although not as feature-packed as some players, Phonograph has a number of handy extras and toggles, like gapless playback, information and images pulled automatically from Last.fm, a sleep timer, widgets and lock screen controls.
It’s not often that Google’s apps come to iOS before Android, but Motion Stills did, as it was designed to stabilize Live Photos, so they’d come out smoother. Now though it’s out on Android too, letting you shoot a short video clip which the app stabilizes.
Clips that you shoot can be saved as a video or a looping GIF and then shared on social media, and Motion Stills also lets you use a ‘Fast Forward’ mode, which will condense up to a minute of footage into a shorter clip. This too is stabilized, to keep it smooth, and you can pick the playback speed.
Motion Stills only works for new footage – so you can’t import and stabilize anything you’ve already shot (though if you just want to turn old footage into a GIF there are plenty of other apps that will do that).
But for anything new you shoot Motion Stills is a great way to make a GIF or short video and ensure footage remains smooth. It’s fast too, as footage is stabilized in real time, so you don’t need to wait for it to process your clip, and it’s completely free.
We all know drinking water is important, but it can be easy to forget to do, especially when you’re busy with other things.
Tech has come to the rescue though, with various apps designed to give you a gentle prod to drink more, and Hydro Coach is a strong option.
You start by entering some basic details like your age, gender and weight, and from this Hydro Coach calculates how much you should be drinking.
You can log your intake with ease, telling the app the size of containers you tend to drink from and then just tapping the relevant one every time you’ve finished a drink, and the app will remind you to drink if you haven’t done so in a while.
You can see at a glance both how much you have drunk today and how much you should drink over the remainder of the day and you can also see weekly and monthly statistics.
You can pick whether to measure your intake in millilitres or fluid ounces, while a Pro version of the app gets rid of adverts and adds more detailed statistics for $4.49/£2.49. But for free, Hydro Coach offers a fast, simple way to monitor your fluid intake, and – more importantly – to actually remind you to drink more.
Apex Launcher isn’t new. In fact it’s been around for a long time, and was once one of the best launchers available. Then the developers stopped supporting it, but they’ve just given the app a big update and a new lease of life.
The changes are largely focused on bringing the look in line with modern versions of Android, as well as generally polishing the app and getting rid of bugs, but the core app remains much as it always was: namely, one of the most powerful and customizable interfaces available for Android.
It will replace whatever UI you have now – be that stock Android or a manufacturer’s skin – and give you far more control than you likely had before.
You can change the home page transition effects, make your dock scrollable, hide elements of the interface, such as the dock or status bar, choose custom icons for folders, choose between various different app drawer styles, hide apps from the drawer, set up customizable gestures and a whole lot more.
In short, if there’s any part of the look or feel of Android that you’re not entirely happy with, there’s a good chance you can change it with Apex Launcher. And almost all the features are completely free, though you can unlock some extras with Apex Launcher Pro for a few dollars/pounds.
Timbre’s full name is ‘Timbre: Cut, Join, Convert mp3’, and that tells you almost everything you need to know about it: this is an app for cutting, joining and converting files.
But the MP3 bit in the name rather undersells it, because Timbre can also work its magic on WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, PCM, AIFF, Ogg, WMA, ALAC, MP4, AVI, FLV, MOV, WebM, MKV and MPEG files.
You can convert from one file type to another, which is handy if, for example, your music or video player doesn’t like a specific file type.
You can also trim down audio and video files, or combine several files into one, which you might want to do if you’re editing together a video with multiple scenes, or making a mixtape.
Those are the headline features of Timbre, but there are also tools to remove audio from a video file, split a single audio file into two parts, and change the bitrate of an audio file.
All of these things are simple to do, with Timbre sporting a clear interface, and it’s completely free as well.
Almost unavoidably there will be times when you have to hand your phone to someone else, be it to show them some pictures or let them make a call, but what you probably don’t want is the risk of them rummaging through your other apps.
Or, equally, you might not be in the habit of handing out your phone, and not really want to have to unlock it every time you use it either, but still want security for your most sensitive apps.
Either way, Norton App Lock can help, by, well, locking the apps of your choice, behind a PIN, pattern or fingerprint scan.
The app itself is easy to use – just set up the security options you want, then tap the padlock next to any app you want to lock. Once done, you’ll get Norton’s lock screen whenever you (or anyone else) tries to launch the app.
While Norton App Lock isn’t the only option for this it is the best we’ve come across, as it’s fast, loading the instant you tap on a secured app, rather than keeping you waiting. It’s also smart enough not to re-lock an app until you turn the screen off, and it has other handy features too, like one-tap locking of all the apps it thinks you should be securing.
You might think that working solidly for hours on end is the best way to be productive, but many people find that actually taking short regular breaks is better. It’s such a popular idea that an entire technique has been built around it, called the Pomodoro Technique, and it’s this that’s at the heart of Tide.
The idea is simple: work for 25 minutes then get a 5-minute break. After 4 work periods you get a longer, 15-minute break.
It’s a technique that you might find works, and is definitely worth trying if you ever struggle to focus, as breaking the day into smaller chunks can make it feel more manageable, and you’ll probably find that you resist opening up Facebook while working when you know you’ll be given a break shortly.
You could just use a normal timer for all this, but Tide automates the process, alerting you after each work or break period has finished, but also giving you some control, allowing you to adjust the work and break durations, or change how many work periods you need before a longer break.
When an alarm goes off you have to tap to start the next work or break period, which is more useful than it sounds, as, for example, you might not be ready to go on break after exactly 25 minutes.
Tide also has a beautifully designed interface and optionally plays relaxing nature sounds while you work. We can live without that part, but if, like us, you’d rather work in silence than to the sounds of rolling waves, you can easily turn it off.
Your phone probably came with a calculator app, but we can almost guarantee that All-in-One Calculator is better. Not only does it have a basic calculator (which changes to a scientific one when you hold your phone in landscape orientation or swipe in from the right edge), it also has over 75 specialist calculators and unit converters.
These cover everything from solving equations, to converting weights and lengths, to working out percentages, averages, density and more. There’s even a currency converter, which updates to offer the current exchange rates, and a BMI calculator.
Most of these you’ll probably never need to use, but next time you need to calculate or convert anything All-in-One Calculator will ensure the answer is never more than a few taps away.
Evernote is an excellent app for your Android device that lets you stash and sync all your text notes, voice memos and files on your phone and access them through a desktop computer.
It's a brilliant productivity tool that lets you organize and search your notes so you always have exactly what you need at your fingertips.
The paid premium version unlocks offline access and use on an unlimited number of devices, among other things, but for free you still get a vast, feature-packed digitial notebook that's easy to navigate.
Boost your productivity with Pushbullet, which lets you view your Android phone's notifications and messages directly on your desktop PC. It means if you get a text message you can read it and even reply to it there and then without having to take your phone out of your pocket or bag.
You can also quickly send files from your computer to your phone with only a few clicks, and if you regularly find that you email links to yourself just to open them on your smartphone, then you'll never have to do that again thanks to Pushbullet's link sharing features.
There are probably hundreds of photo apps around, but Google Photos stands out as it gives you unlimited storage for photos and videos, all for free.
That's reason enough to jump on board, especially as it works not just on Android but on iOS and computers too.
But with basic editing tools and the ability to make collages and albums this is more than just photo and video storage, it aims to be your first and last stop after taking a picture. To achieve that it will need a few more features, but it's well on its way.
If you're serious about running or cycling then you should be serious about Strava. As smartphone fitness tools go it's one of the best, allowing you to track your performance, set goals and see daily progress updates.
There are leaderboards and challenges to give it a competitive edge and if you're ever not sure where to run or cycle you can find user created routes on the app, or share your own. All of that comes free of charge, while a premium version adds even more tools.
Even now there are still times and places where we can't get an internet connection, but this doesn't have to mean you can't read websites, however, thanks to the excellent Pocket app. It allows you to save articles, news stories, blog posts, videos and much more, letting you read and watch them offline.
You can also synchronize your saved articles across every device you've installed Pocket on, allowing you to pick up where you left off and continue reading. With unlimited storage you can build up a whole library of content and the app even makes recommendations of new things it thinks you might like.
Arriving in a brand new city is always exciting but it can also be a little daunting, especially if you need to get around using public transport. Citymapper - Bus, Tube, Rail is a brilliant app that brings you real-time information on public transport for cities around the world.
You can easily plan your route using all kinds of transport, from buses to ferries, and you can be kept up to date with real-time data, including any disruptions or cancellations. An essential app for any city-bound traveller.
It might not be quite as glamorous as other media players, but if you want a no-nonsense app that can play pretty much any media file under the sun, then VLC for Android is the app for you.
It spent a long time in beta, but it now delivers a stable, full-featured experience, complete with support for subtitles, multi-track audio, DVD ISOs and network streams.
That's all packaged in an easy to use player, with widgets and gesture controls. So you don't need to worry about getting your media to work, you just need to launch VLC and press play. The app will do the rest.
IF was formerly known as IFTTT, which stands for "if this then that" and handily sums up what this app does. It's a simple ethos that gives you a huge amount of options for making your Android device even smarter.
You can create simple statements such as "if any photo is taken then add them to Dropbox", or "if my location is home, send a text message to my partner saying "I'm home!"" which can also be shared with other IF users. You'll be amazed how much you can do with such a simple premise.
One of the best things about Android is how customisable it is, and there are loads of apps out there that can help you change the way Android displays and launches apps to suit your preferences.
Out of these Nova Launcher is arguably the best, giving you complete control over your home screen. You can change the icons, themes, colours and layout, completely hide apps that you don't use, set up gesture controls and add funky affects when navigating your phone.
It might sound bloated but you can use as many or as few of these features as you want, so if you want to keep your Android experience slick and minimalist Nova Launcher can do that too.
If you fancy learning a foreign language then make sure you download Duolingo: Learn Languages Free, as it's one of those rare apps that manages to be both educational and fun, ensuring that you'll keep coming back for more to brush up on your language skills, with bite-sized, genuinely useful lessons and tests.
Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, English, Swahili and Romanian can all be learned, it's mostly free and it's one of the best ways you can learn a new language with your Android device.
Windows 10 October 2018 Update supports ray tracing to make games look better than ever
Microsoft has unleashed the October 2018 Update on the world, bringing plenty of new features to Windows 10, but perhaps the most exciting one for gamers – at least those who have bought one of Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX graphics cards – is the introduction of support for ray tracing to the OS.
Specifically, the big update introduces the first public support for Microsoft DirectX Raytracing (known as DXR for short). This means Windows 10 PCs with the October 2018 Update installed are now capable of supporting real-time ray tracing – as opposed to pre-rendered sequences – providing their GPU also supports this tech.
And of course as we’ve seen with Nvidia’s recently launched Turing graphics cards, these GeForce RTX models are primed to supercharge visuals with an extra dose of realism via ray tracing.
Ray of lightRay tracing is all about more realistic lighting effects, shadow details, and associated elements such as reflections, all of which go towards making a game environment look much more like the real world. Even to the point of imbuing a character’s eyes with the reflection of an explosion, as previously seen in some Battlefield V footage.
Naturally the games themselves have to be programmed to benefit from ray tracing, and the catch right now is that there are no titles currently on the market which do so.
But they’re coming, and that includes the aforementioned Battlefield V, Metro Exodus, plus Shadow of the Tomb Raider has a patch inbound, and there are a good number of others (when Nvidia first showed off GeForce GPU’s ray tracing capabilities, some 21 titles were highlighted).
Battlefield V might be the first game to showcase ray tracing, as it should support the tech right from the off (via an immediate patch, with an expected launch date of November 20). Not long to wait now, then, with any luck…
As we’ve noted previously, Microsoft has already sent the October 2018 Update live so you can grab it now, or wait for the automatic rollout to start on October 9.
Some of the best laptops of 2018 run Windows 10Via Digital Trends
New Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K packs Dolby Vision and HDR10+ in the same device
Sandwiched between the Roku Premiere and upcoming third-generation Chromecast that’s reported to be revealed at Google’s upcoming Pixel 3 event on October 9, Amazon today has unveiled a new entry in the affordable, small and powerful category: the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K.
Not only will Amazon's thumb drive-sized streaming device be capable of 4K HDR playback, but the updated streaming stick will have a number of new specs – like an 802.11ac Wi-Fi chip and a 1.7GHz quad-core processor – that will help it compete with (and potentially beat out) the two new small form factor streaming devices from Roku and Google.
Of course, new hardware isn't the only trick up the Fire TV Stick's sleeve.
Despite sitting underneath Amazon’s refreshed Amazon Fire TV dongle, the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K will offer just as much functionality as its larger predecessor with the added capability of streaming 4K HDR content in HDR10, Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats – a first for any streaming device.
On top of offering three types of HDR support, the Amazon Fire TV 4K will support Dolby Atmos object-based surround sound for Amazon’s growing library of Atmos-enabled content – another feature that’s found on only a handful of streaming devices at the moment – and should be about 80% more powerful than the current-generation Amazon Fire TV Stick in-stores now.
Add to all of that Alexa integration either via Amazon’s new-and-improved Amazon Alexa Voice Remote or Echo device – and an unbelievable low sticker price of $49 (around £39, AU$68) – and you have a potentially strong contender for king of the streaming stick wars when Fire TV Stick 4K becomes available on October 31 in the US and Canada and November 14 in the UK, Germany and India.
Amazon's Alexa Voice Remote has a few neat new tricks, too.
All-in-one compatibility with the Alexa Voice RemoteOne of the larger complaints we had about the Amazon Fire TV is that the remote didn't let you control the volume like some other streaming devices – something that Amazon has set out to fix with the new Amazon Alexa Voice Remote.
The remote, which can be purchased separately for $29.99 (around £20, AU$40), adds dedicated power, volume, and mute buttons to the traditional Amazon Fire TV remote design and allows you to control most AV devices connected to your TV.
While Amazon didn't come out and say it directly, all this capability likely comes down to the player adopting CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) via HDMI ARC.
The remote itself combines Bluetooth and multidirectional infrared technology (a technology employed by the Amazon Fire TV Cube) and could be the all-in-one solution Amazon desperately needs for its players.
The Alexa Voice Remote will be available the same day as the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (October 31 for United States and Canada, November 14 in the UK, Germany, and India) and will be available bundled with the Amazon Fire TV Cube in the US starting on October 31.
Don't miss our round-up of the best 4K TVs in 2018
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