This fortnight’s apps will focus on helping you create a great memory in one evening, from figuring out how to plan a fun party, what to snack on, and capture all the best moments to relive them.
Swipp
Swipp is a real-time gatherer of simple opinions. Available at the moment for only the iPhone, the app is available for free and signing into it requires a Facebook account.
Once you’ve logged in, you start seeing apparently random terms and pictures on the screen. For each one — which is called a Swipp — you give a rating between -5 and +5 based on what you think of it, and add a comment of your own.
As many users around the world similarly rate each Swipp, an overall ‘rating’ emerges, alongside comments that are also factored into evaluating it. If you want to see how one Swipp has fared in different locations, use the in-built map for the demographics. You can also create Swipps of your own — ideas or designs that you’d like other people’s opinions about, and put them up for the rating. An interesting way to use this app is as a real-time voting system — to vote for your favourite singer in a local singing competition, perhaps?
Cinemagram
When Twitter launched Vine last week, there was a buzz around how users could use it differently and efficiently with Twitter. However, way before Vine was Cinemagram, which is available for iOS devices for free. Unlike Vine, which lets you loop short clips, Cinemagram lets you shoot short clips, each lasting two or three seconds. Then, you freeze the clip at some frame, and let just one portion of it continue animating. What really set it apart from Vine are the plethora of ancillary features and the usage policy. With Cinemagram, you get to keep your video private, import videos into the app instead of having to shoot with it, share and interact over your clips on Facebook, apply filters, message users, and geotag your creations.
BigOven
Are you a foodie? If yes, then get BigOven, which is likely to become your best friend in the kitchen. It’s available for free for iOS and Android devices, the Windows Phone, and on the Kindle Fire.
It’s not just that you can just turn on the app and browse through hundreds of recipes without signing in, but also find out what you can do with your leftovers. Simply enter the ingredients you have on hand, and BigOven will give you recipes featuring those elements.
The app also comes with features to help you organise your kitchen, plan weekends and parties, and search for recipes by dietary constraints. For so many features, the interface isn’t too loaded either, and navigation is always easy and straightforward.
