You’ve just bought yourself a spanking new smartphone. With a slew of preloaded apps, the phone is everything you’ve ever dreamt of. But wait, there’s a lot more you can do with it. Personalise it a bit more, and make it a one-stop device for yourself; well, almost. Your new phone might come with a preloaded calculator and flashlight app. But there are so many more utility apps you could install to make your experience that much more seamless. There’s a whole lot to choose from — from apps to help you get by in a foreign land to something that will help convert your phone into a universal remote perhaps.
Here is my list of five utility apps you should try. If you haven’t already, that is.
AppLock
Might seem like an old one to some. But AppLock is really a great way to keep away all those pesky Peeping Toms. You know that little cousin who’ll want to borrow your phone to play a game, but will snoop through your texts or pictures instead. AppLock is the perfect way to keep them out of your personal stuff. The app lets you individually lock folders and apps — be it a game, photo gallery or message folder. This way, you don’t need to worry about activating the screen lock. Go ahead, make that smartphone truly private.
AnyMote
If you own a smartphone with an IR blaster built into it, there’s no reason why you cannot use your handset to control devices like your television, air-conditioner or DVD player. Just download the AnyMote app, which turns your phone into a universal remote. Pretty nifty eh? The app also has a lot of interesting features that let you create custom remotes to be able to control multiple devices from a single screen. Although it’s priced at Rs. 435, I think the app is a pretty neat way to get rid of those one dozen remotes lying around at home.
Valet
How many times have you stumbled out of a nightclub, only to realise you’ve forgotten where you’ve parked your car? Or maybe wandered into the parking lot of a mall, trying to remember which pillar in the cavernous basement your vehicle might be near? Happens to most of us. With Valet, you can easily track that vehicle of yours and save yourself some trouble. The app uses Google Play Services location APIs to enable its parking sensor. All you’ve got to do is enable the parking sensor or use your Bluetooth to automatically set your location.
Google Goggles
This one’s my favourite. After all, what could be cooler than holding up your smartphone against a signboard with foreign lettering and have the app translate it for you? But Google Goggles does a lot more than just translate. The app uses your phone’s camera to look up famous landmarks, scan bar codes and QR codes. Simply open the app to see what it can find about a particular spot — historical facts, encyclopaedia entries, related products and reviews.
Any.do
Making a To-Do list has really never been simpler. The Any.do app handles to-do lists, schedules and note-taking with equal ease. What’s better? The speech recognition feature lets you dictate new entries. Yay! Laziness. A simple drag-and-drop action allows one to easily organise and sort through their lists too. And you can share these lists with groups as well. Quite a useful little tool to have.
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