This Sunday we have again selected productivity apps, mobile games and other applications that you should definitely try out. In addition to our articles with temporarily free apps, you will also find paid applications here.
At NextPit we deal with the latest top smartphones every week. Of course, we also keep installing tons of apps that we stumble upon in the Google Play Store and the AppStore. In addition to my recommendations, I naturally also include tips from the NextPit community.
From mobile games to productivity apps, here are the 5 free and paid Android/iOS apps NextPit found this week.
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Lock Widget (iOS)
Locket Widget is an app modeled after the lockets that keep a photo of a loved one. Essentially, it’s about being able to send and receive photos of your loved ones and displaying them in a widget on your home screen. You can only add five family members, however, and the app doesn’t offer any filters or editing options for selfies.
The app is very popular right now and the only flaw I can find with it is that it needs your phone number and access to your contacts to work (and monetize itself as well). I find the principle obtrusive and would rather exchange it for advertising banners or a unit price. The app is ad-free with no in-app purchases and the interface is very simple and easy to understand.
- Price: free / advertising: no / in-app purchases: no / account: required (phone number) / German language: no
You can only add five people to share your photos with in the Locket widget. / © NextPit
NeverMiss: Your Stop Forever (Android)
Have you ever missed your subway or train stop because you fell asleep? NerverMiss aims to change that by alerting you as you approach your destination.
Using the Google Maps SDK and the smartphone’s location data, you can enter the destination (this can be an address, not just a bus stop or train station) and set a radius between 500 meters and 2 kilometers within which you will be notified.
The app is free with no ads, no account and no in-app purchases. However, the user interface was quite buggy when I tested the app.
- Price: free / advertising: no / in-app purchases: no / account: not required / German language: no
No more stress waking up in the middle of nowhere on a train / © NextPit
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Anthem (iOS)
This week I’m going to cheat a little by telling you about Anthem, an iOS app that my colleague Camila already discovered and featured. Specifically, it’s about letting you explore the Spotify catalog through a news feed inspired by the feed on TikTok. The user interface should be more ergonomic and make it easier for you to discover new songs and/or artists to broaden your musical horizons. The app is free, with no ads or in-app purchases, but you must have a Spotify account (free or premium, either works).
After downloading and installing the app, you need to connect Anthem to your Spotify account. The app then analyzes your streaming history and prompts you to select your favorite tracks from a list generated from your music stream on the platform. The concept will certainly appeal to many, but I’m not sure that layering algos will result in the most relevant recommendations.
- Price: free / advertising: no / in-app purchases: no / account: required (Spotify) / German language: no
An Android version of the app is planned / © NextPit
Pocket Plan (Android)
PocketPlan is an all-in-one productivity app. It combines an editor for notes, task and shopping lists, reminders and a sleep cycle manager.
In short, we have productivity and activity monitoring tools in a single free application, with no ads or in-app purchases. Of course, if you want to do everything, PocketPlan is not the most advanced application. The note editor is not very powerful when it comes to word processing (you can only change the color of the text). The to-do lists are also quite simple and, most importantly, you cannot share them with other users (the application does not offer cloud synchronization).
But PocketPlan is ad-free, small (5MB), works completely offline (allows you to export the local backup), and is open-source under the MIT license. By the way, some functions are quite nice, like the shopping list, which is automatically sorted by category (to save you time in the supermarket), or the to-do list, which sorts the tasks by priority.
- Price: free / advertising: no / in-app purchases: no / account: not required / German language: no
PocketPlan is a little too basic for power users, but perfectly adequate for newbie productivity users / © NextPit
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Where’s Samantha? (Android & iOS)
Where’s Samantha is a 2D platformer where you have to help two torn pieces of cloth to find their way back together. You explore hand-drawn levels and help George get back to Samantha.
The levels are graphically very appealing and the gameplay is simple but well thought out. By the way, the game also offers controller support. The only downside for some of you is that the game is accompanied by a narrator, whose voice is provided by actor Rufus Hound, and logically, unfortunately, it’s only in English.
The trial version of the game is free, but you have to pay $3.99 to unlock the full game.
- Price: €3.99 (free trial version) / Advertising: no / In-app purchases: no / Account: not required / German language: no
What do you think of this selection? Have you already tested some of the apps from this list? What would be your Android and/or iOS apps of the week?