Awesome Apps

Like Automatic, Vinli plugs into you car’s OBD-II port and can tell you specific details about your car’s health. But it also has apps for security, automatic emergency calls, GPS tracking, integration with home automation and more.

Acorns links your checking account and invests spare change from purchases through that account. Your portfolio is diversified and transparent, and you can deposit or withdraw at any time. Android and web versions coming soon.

This amazing new iOS app from Instagram lets you capture impressive “hyperlapse” moving time-lapse videos with your iPhone or iPad. It’s easy to use, lets you vary playback speed, and stabilizes images for cinematic quality.

A smart cooking app for iOS. SideChef’s step-by-step recipes are augmented by high quality images and timers for time-sensitive steps. It can also read instructions out loud and respond to voice commands. Android version coming soon.

A free service for iOS and Android that lets you transfer links, files and more between a PC and a mobile device, or to other Pushbullet users. Android users can also use it to get call and text notifications on their computer.

A smart contacts app for iOS. Humin lets you search your contacts using practical criteria like when or where you saved their info or where they live or work. It can also tell you which of your contacts know each other as well.

An iOS app that lets you quickly order pizza. It stores your credit card information and delivery address to make successive orders much easier to place. Also, Hipster Billy Mays cameo alert! He’s like the Nic Cage of online commercials.

A web app that disguises any webpage to look like the New York Times’ website. It even has the title and image from an actual news article, plus a summary of the article so your cover won’t be blown if someone asks what you’re “reading.”

Previously exclusive to the iPad, Parallels’ mobile-friendly remote desktop software is now available for the iPhone as well as Android tablets and smartphones. It’s also more affordable now, down to $20 from $80 per year.

An immersive art installation and story in the form of an app, Circa 1948 transports you back in time to post-war Vancouver, BC and allows you to take in the history of the then developing city by eavesdropping on long lost conversations.

TapPainter is an iPad app that virtually repaints walls. It accounts for the lighting conditions in your room and lets you try out different paint brands. There’s also a Kickstarter for an Android and iPhone version.

Contactive is an address book app for Android. It can identify unknown numbers using publicly available online data. You can also link your social network accounts to Contactive to get more info about your existing contacts.

Currently in development, Tabify is a mobile app that will automatically transcribe guitars – and possibly other string instruments – as you play. You can also go over created tabs and edit them. Note that the UI hasn’t been finalized.

PackPoint is a free Android app that generates a list of clothes and other items to pack based on your destination, activities and the weather forecast. You can also add to and remove items from the list. Also on Blackberry.

Microsoft finally released full featured versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint made for the iPad. The free download lets you read Office docs; subscribe to Office365 to get the full apps plus the desktop versions of Office. More here.

An audio news app for iOS and Android. Newsbeat lets you pick from a variety of newspapers and other news sources and will read article summaries to you using text-to-speech. It also supports voice commands. More here.

Now you can horribly mangle, torture and hopefully save Bob the patient on the go. Surgeon Simulator Touch is as hilariously awkward and vague as the desktop version. It also has two new surgeries and a new game mode.

A fast paced strategy game for iOS and Android tablets. First Strike pits you against other nations in a nuclear arms race that quickly escalates to all out war, all presented through a simple but slick interface. More here.

Kids these days have little motivation to exercise their minds (or their bodies) so it’s nice to see a project like Moff that seems like the perfect intersection between technology and the power of good ol’ fashioned imagination.

Radiohead have released PolyFauna an app that combines sounds from Bloom off of 2011’s The King of Limbswith trippy visuals that transform your surroundings into digial landscapes just begging to be explored. Android version here.

Paper offers an alternative way to interact with your Facebook feed. Taking cues from the popular news-reading app Flipboard, Paper features a clean interface dominated by gestures instead of buttons. Available for iOS on 3/2/14.

Because everything is a remix. Samplify is a meta-Shazam: it can identify the origin – both the original song and its artist – of samples used in a song (if any). Pick from your library or have it listen to the song playing around you.

Developer Evil Window Dog wants to save us from a 21st century plague. Horizon is a video recording app for iOS that always takes videos in landscape mode, regardless of device orientation. This should be standard on all phones.