Some apps come into our lives and change the way we do things, or give us a totally unique experience, whether it's playing a game or manipulating photos in a whole new way. Here is our top list of apps of 2017 that will stick around in your app drawer for a long time to come.
Microsoft To-Do
To-do lists are remarkably simple: A list of chores and errands designed to ensure you don’t forget to pick up the eggs and milk on your way home from work. So why is it so hard to find a to-do app that’s any good? Wunderlist was a popular choice, and was recently bought by Microsoft and relaunched as Microsoft To-Do. It's an easy-to-use, beautifully designed to-do app with all-important cross-platform compatibility and helpful deadline reminders.
Marvel: Color your own
If you love comic books and fancy yourself as an up-and-coming illustrator, then Marvel: Color Your Own is for you. The app allows you to customise famous comic book panels with a variety of different colours and shaders, letting you become part of the creative process while bringing your own particular vision to life. Its touch-guided interface is both intuitive and powerful, letting dilettantes recolour famous vignettes from iconic comics with uncanny semi-pro fidelity. Colour more than 200 exciting colouring pages from Guardians of the Galaxy, Civil War, Doctor Strange, Age of Ultron, Women of Power, Young Marvel, and more. Marvel: Color Your Own is free to download and contains in-app purchases.
Download for iOS
Clips
Unlike Snapchat and Instagram Stories, there’s no social network tied to Clips. Instead, you can share your creations to existing social networks or via instant messaging services (most notably Apple’s own iMessage, which integrates with Clips very tidily).
Key to Clips is ease of use, and Apple’s done a great job of making the process of importing video or stills from your camera library as easy as recording new footage or snapping new pics in the app itself. Everything revolves around the big red record button at the bottom of the Clips home screen. It’s even helpfully labelled "Hold to Record".
Whether you’re adding an intro or putting a speech bubble or effect on existing video, all of it gets added to the timeline with the record button, and how long you hold down the button decides the length of each segment.
Download it for iOS.
Face App
If you feel like you’ve been flooded with selfies featuring noticeably edited smiles each time you open a social media feed, you’re not wrong. FaceApp, an app that uses AI to morph faces in photos, exploded in popularity after debuting earlier this year. There’s no shortage of photo editing apps available for tweaking selfies, but FaceApp goes a step further by allowing users to apply filters that change their age, gender, and facial features.
Datally
Google has come up with a smart solution to track and save data on your smartphone. Their new app, Datally, is a mobile data manager that will help you monitor, save, and gain control of your data. Through tracking and controlling app data usage, you save more data and get the most out of your phone. With Data Saver mode enabled, you can save up to 30% of your mobile data, while personalised recommendations empower you to stop data-hungry apps and control your usage.
Download Datally for Android
Google Earth Voyager
Google Earth is much more than a fancy map, it’s an opportunity to digitally explore not just places, but their treasures, too. While it's not an app you can use on your phone, we included it in the list because it gives you such a powerful way to explore the world, wherever you are.
Voyager, accessed by clicking the ship’s wheel icon, is a collection of map-based stories that are frequently updated. They’re divided into four categories: travel, nature, culture and history. One of the most recent additions to Voyager is called Beatlemania, and starts out at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Thanks to integration with another Google Product, Street View, it’s possible to view the club’s exterior. Google Earth then offers information about the venue in a sidebar.
Click the right arrow to move to the next spot on the tour and you’re whisked eastwards to Penny Lane, the street from which the eponymous Beatles song gets its name. Another click and you’re off to the Indra Club in Hamburg where the Beatles played dozens of shows during their first visit to the German city. Fittingly, the last of the nine stops on the digital tour is the Strawberry Fields memorial to John Lennon in New York’s Central Park.
