Whether or not you personally use every application under the sun, there’s no arguing that for many users, applications on their phone are almost the lifeblood of their day to day use when it comes to their smartphones. This past month has brought us some pretty great applications and quite a few of them are definitely worth checking out. With that said, if you aren’t too sure where to start when it comes to new apps, we’ve rounded up ten great ones that you may want to give a try.
Contextual App Folder
For those that live on folders and use them daily, this is an app worth trying. It lets you create and configure contextual folders that become easily and quickly accessible based on certain actions or situations. For example, if you hit the gym every day at 6 am, once you arrive you’ll end up getting folder access right on the home screen to all the apps you would use during exercise. This is just one example, though, and there are plenty of other situations to create folders for.
PayPal Business
If you’re a small business owner, then you definitely want PayPal Business. It acts similar to the regular PayPal app but has a handful of business focused features that you won’t get with the standard PayPal offering, such as managing your sales and account activity.
BBC Earth Colouring
Fans of Planet Earth and those eager to dive into Planet Earth II will want to take a look at BBC Earth Colouring, as it offers up a collection of line drawings based on things from the show, with a total of 36 illustrations, free form paint tools and more. Once the drawing is finished you can save the pictures to your phone’s gallery and of course, you can share them too.
DIRECTV NOW
This likely needs little introduction as it’s received plenty of attention before and after it’s recent launch on November 30th. This is the official app for streaming content from DIRECTV NOW, with loads of access to channels and shows as well as movies. That said, it does require a subscription to the service.
WB Movies All Access
If it’s a Warner Bros. movie, chances are it will be available to stream through the new app here. More than just watching movies though, the app also has unique features like discovering the locations of scenes and allowing you to share specific clips of movies with friends and family.
NewsTab: Follow Your News
News feed apps are a great way to access your favorite news content on the web. NewsTab is like a lot of news feed apps out there in aggregating your favorite sources, but it does also offer things like the ability to easily follow the social feeds of those sources. On top of that it has built-in integration and sharing with services like Pocket and Evernote, making it easy to save a particular article and get back to it when you have time.
Twitter for Android TV
If you enjoy Android TV but have been waiting on a way to scroll through your Twitter feeds, now you have an official way to do so. There’s not much different here from the regular app as it’s just a way to browse Twitter on a different platform, but nonetheless it’s great to have the option if you’ve wanted it.
Trusted Contacts
Sometimes unsafe situations happen, and now Google has come up with a way to let your loved ones know you’re unsafe and need help. Trusted Contacts is a way for you to easily share your location with contacts you set as trusted people, and it even works when the battery is dead or when the phone is offline.
NYTimes Crossword
This is a must have app if you’re a crossword fiend. There are loads of ways to play whether you simply go for the daily puzzle at 10 am Eastern, or opt to check out the mini puzzles and puzzle packs that are available within the app. You can also subscribe to monthly puzzle packs or set up an annual subscription to lessen the cost.
PhotoScan
Rounding out this list is Google’s newest application that caters to photos. Just as the name suggests, it lets you scan in physical print photos to keep them in a digital format. It boasts providing digital image scans that are free of any glare and it crops things automatically based on detecting where the edges of the print photos are.