We've been getting hands on with the best new apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and other platforms
With thousands of new mobile and tablet apps released every week, we're trying to find the best ones. Here's this week's selection.
The Heist
iPhone, �0.59
Indie puzzler The Heist is currently bossing the Top Paid and Top Grossing charts on Apple's UK App Store, having been released earlier this week. The adulatory reviews on the store are right, too: the 60 puzzles are varied in content and difficulty, with plenty of depth as you work through them. The game also features fake phone calls from a character called Sophia, which mimic actual calls on your iPhone ? an imaginative touch.
Glastonbury 2011
iPhone, Android, free
Every big music festival has its own app nowadays, with the core features seemingly set in stone: a map of the venue, stage listings and a personal schedule planner to ensure you don't miss out on a favourite band. Orange's official Glastonbury app does all of this very well, pulling in news about the festival too. A version for Nokia handsets will be out too, before the festival kicks off.
BBC News
Android, free
It took a while, but the BBC News app has finally made it to Android smartphones. The app offers a slick touchscreen interface to content from its website, including video reports. Swiping between stories makes it a quick way to catch up on the day's news, while an Edit menu lets you add or remove certain categories from the homescreen. If you're running the Android 2.2 OS or above, you can also live-stream the BBC News TV channel.
Napster
iPhone, Android, �10 a month
Is Napster's new smartphone app good enough to snaffle some of Spotify's buzz? One of its biggest selling points is the size of its catalogue, with more than 15m songs to stream. The offline caching features are also welcome, including the fact that your last 100 played tracks are automatically stored on your device. The app is slightly clunkier than Spotify, but still works well. You'll pay �10 a month for web and mobile access.
Tastecard
BlackBerry, free
The number of apps being released for BlackBerry pales in comparison to iOS and Android, but that means when a good one turns up, it spreads quickly through word of mouth. We can see Tastecard appealing to BlackBerry's business customers here in the UK: it collects discount offers for more than 5,000 restaurants, showing those nearest to your current location.
Swing Pong
iPhone, �0.59
Swing Pong is very silly, but in the best possible way. The iPhone game claims to be "Ping Pong for your ears" ? an audio-only table-tennis simulation where you're relying on the sound of the ball bouncing on your side of a virtual table to judge when to swing at it. And by swing, we mean really swing ? you play by waving your iPhone like a table tennis bat. Fairly fun alone, but marvelous in two-player mode.
Deadmau5 Remix
iPhone, iPad, �1.79
Dance artist Deadmau5 has been involved in a series of apps, culminating in this latest remix application. It lets fans mess about with beats, melodies and effects from Deadmau5's music, mashing them up by dragging coloured circles into on-screen slots and tapping them to play. The resulting mixes can be shared on Facebook, and there's a competition to enter too. Naturally, this will mainly appeal to fans, although we're hardly au fait with Deadmau5's catalogue, but still enjoyed it.
You Don't Know Jack
iPhone, iPad, $2.99
Remember the snarky, smartarse computer game that launched way back in 1995? Yep, You Don't Know Jack is back ? this time for mobile platforms ? and it's just as snarky and smartarse ? and host Cookie is still as smarmy as ever, too. It's a fast-paced, multiple-choice TV-style trivia quiz game. Each question (there are 20 rounds of 10 questions each) has four answers to choose from, and a 15-second time limit. It's fun, and funny ? but the questions tend to be just a tad US-centric. So if you know all the middle initials of former US presidents, are up-to-date on American brand names and know the second most-common surname in America, then this game's for you.
Stuart O'Connor
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/may/27/best-app-reviews
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