TECH SPOTLIGHT

Just in time for New Year, some favorite and fun apps

RadarScope provides up-to-date radar images using a variety of radar such as storm velocity, precipitation, and the new dual polarization radar.
RadarScope provides up-to-date radar images using a variety of radar such as storm velocity, precipitation, and the new dual polarization radar.

— It’s hard to believe, but we have only a few hours left of 2012.

Last week, I kept my Christmas tradition of showing off a few fun websites. This week, I’m sticking to the New Year’s tradition by offering up a few apps for your Apple or Android smart phone.

I could suggest apps for typical New Year’s resolutions, but this year, I thought I’d just suggest some of my favorites. Most are helpful apps, and one is just fun.

The first app is ShopShop, which I use almost daily. At its core, this is a shopping list app. The latest version has a lot of features to customize your lists for more than shopping. I often use it to make a list of items to take with me when I travel or when I have several errands to run.

ShopShop (free at Apple’s App Store, not available on Android) allows you to make multiple color-coded lists. You can add items to the list, and those items are saved in the program, so they’re easy to access later. I love the new feature that allows you to organize each list by dragging the items into proper order. I organize my shopping list by where the items are in the store, so I don’t have to keep running back and forth. Once I have an item, I touch it to put a line through it. I can then shake the phone, and the crossed-out items disappear from the list.

The next app is for weather nerds like me, or those who just want decent radar to watch in bad weather. It’s called RadarScope. This isn’t a free app - it costs $9.99 at the App Store or Google Play. But if you want updated, accurate radar, this is the app to own. A meteorologist introduced me to this app, and other meteorologists I know have it on their iPhones, too. Yes, this is used by the pros.

Many free radar apps have a 5-15-minute delay on the images, but RadarScope shows the latest data from regional sites throughout the country. It includes standard precipitation radar, wind velocity radar (that red and green one they show during tornadoes), storm rainfall totals, you name it. It even has the new radar images you may have heard about, the “dual-polarization” radar. I’ve actually used this app in tornadic situations. Trust me, it’s a keeper.

The next app is for those who love to take photos, edit photos and share photos - because you can do all of that in this one app.

The app is called Snapseed, and it’s from Nik Software, a company known in the photography world for its outstanding photo editors. Amazingly, this outstanding editor is free.

I fell in love with the iPad version of Snapseed before I found out it works just as well for iPhone and Android phones. Snapseed allows you to take photos or open those already on your phone. You can do basic edits, like color and brightness, plus you can add cool filters to give the photo a frame or a funky look. Thanks to the latest updates, you can add age to your photo as well.

Snapseed is incredibly easy to use, and it’s available for iOS or Android phones. Give it a try, and you may never use another mobile editor. (If you like it enough, they have versions for Mac and Windows as well for $20 each.)

Android users get to enjoy the Google Maps included on their phone, but as of the latest operating system upgrade, iPhone users have had to use Maps, which has had a less than-stellar track record.

Take heart, Apple fans. Google Maps is back, and it’s still free. This isn’t the link to a Web page like what you had to use. It’s actually Google Maps the app, complete with routing information and, perhaps the greatest loss with Maps, Street View.

Apple’s Maps isn’t all that bad, though it’s had a few well-publicized glitches and inaccuracies. Personally, I’ve used Maps a few times now and had OK luck. I must confess, now that Google Maps is back, I suspect Maps will take a back seat for a while - at least until it becomes more accurate.

Finally, I wanted to add a little fun to your New Year by offering a twist on an old favorite: solitaire. It’s hard to count how many solitaire games are out there, but my favorite has become Full Deck Solitaire.

Full Deck takes it easy on the user, providing cards that are playable most of the time. It not only includes the standard Klondike solitaire, but it also includes dozens of other solitaire games. I’m partial to Thieves of Egypt and Royal Parade. Don’t know how to play those? No worries. The app provides written rules for each game, and it will even provide hints and automatic play if you still don’t get the hang of it.

Full Deck Solitaire is free for iPhone (unfortunately, it’s not available for Android), but the free version includes ads between each game. It costs $1.99 for the full version, which removes the ads.

Hopefully, these apps will prove as useful and enjoyable to you as they have been for me.

Happy New Year!

Melissa L. Jones can be reached via e-mail at mljones72@me.com.

Business, Pages 19 on 12/31/2012

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