Once you’ve got your first smartphone, that’s it – your life is changed forever. But how many apps have the same transformative effect on our existence? Let’s face it, most are either games that are downloaded and forgotten or ideas that don’t work in the real world. But a handy app can make a difference to your life – so we picked out five corkers that do just that. What’s more, they each cost exactly zero pounds.
1 IFTTT
Pronounced like ‘gift’ without the ‘g’, IFTTT stands for ‘If This Then That’. The app lets you set up rules (which are known as ‘Recipes’) for it to follow – along the lines of ‘if this happens, do that’. It’s a simple idea, but its permutations are far from simple, and very useful indeed. You can set up rules that trigger interactions between 151 different apps and actions, for example, you can set it to give you an Android notification if rain is forecast, or to add a to-do item if you ever miss a call. There are also plenty of ready-made recipes to get started with – our favourite of which is “When I visit the White House, tell Barack I’m out front”. We haven’t had the chance to test this yet.
2 Duolingo
According to the people behind this language-learning app, 34 hours in Duolingo’s company is as effective as a full semester of university linguistic education. We are very keen for this to be true, because using Duolingo is free, while university semesters are very very expensive. The app lets you pick from nine languages, and you can also choose how seriously you want to take your language course, with five levels that range from ‘Basic’ to ‘Insane’. Duolingo’s gamified approach then introduces you to Duo the Owl, who shows you through your course. Don’t be fooled by that word ‘gamification’ – you don’t get fluent in a language by playing Sensible Soccer. But it is more fun than rote learning from a book, and if it works for you, you’ll be grateful forever.
3 Hotel Tonight
Forward planning is for wimps. Sometimes you want to be able to throw caution to the wind, hit the open road, and not have to sleep in a layby as punishment for not booking a hotel weeks ago. If you’re in that kind of reckless mood (or if your boss has just dropped a sales conference in Antwerp on your lap at a moment’s notice), then Hotel Tonight is for you. Offering discounted last-minute deals on short notice hotels through a stylishly designed mobile app, Hotel Tonight lets you choose from categories such as ‘Luxe’, ‘Hip’, ‘Solid’ and more, and book through the app. And its mobile-only ethos is designed for you to be as spontaneous as possible – a truly life-changing bonus.
4 Google Keep
Google’s best kept secret is now built into Android, so it’s just a question of finding it on your phone, saving it on your homescreen, and putting it to use. Keep is a note-taking app that lets you jot down things as you think of them, using your voice or the standard keyboard. It can create tick-box lists to help you get things done, and photos can be sent into Keep via your camera app too. It’s cloud-based so it’s available across all your devices via your Google login. You can set a timer alarm to remind you of a note, but often more useful is the location-based alarm. Set your “TOOTHPASTE” note to ping you when you’re on the High Street, and you won’t get to bedtime only to curse your forgetfulness yet again.
5 Pushbullet
Feeling the glare of your boss burning into your back every time you answer a chirrup from your ever-peeping phone? Get Pushbullet – an app designed to ping your phone’s notifications to your desktop. Not only does it let you screen calls and answer text messages on your computer, it also saves time by simplifying those fiddly tasks we find ourselves doing all the time – such as sharing links between phone and computer and vice versa. You’ll never have to email yourself a URL again. You can also drop pictures straight into your phone’s notifications bar, so you won’t have to trawl your email on your phone and save attached pictures one by one.
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