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Like every weekend, we meet at NextPit for my selection of 5 free or paid mobile applications and games that caught my eye on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
Every week I try to bring you the best possible apps that are not data traps or microtransaction nests. In addition to my own finds, I also add the gems unearthed by the NextPit Community and shared on our forum.
From mobile games to productivity apps, here are the 5 free and paid Android/iOS apps from NextPit this week. We publish this selection every week, by the way, you can check last week’s selection here.
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Locket Widget (iOS)
Locket Widget is an application that is supposed to emulate those pendants in which you keep a photo of a loved one. Basically, the idea is to be able to send and receive photos of your loved ones and display them in a widget on your home screen. You can only add 5 loved ones and the app doesn’t offer any filters or editing options for selfies.
The application is very popular at the moment and the only flaw I can find is that it requires your phone number and access to your contacts to work (and incidentally to monetize). I find the principle intrusive and would much prefer to trade it for advertising banners or a one-time payment. The app is without ads or in-app purchases and the interface is very basic and simple to understand.
- Price: Free / Ads: No / In-app purchases: No / Account: Required (phone number)
NeverMiss: Your stop forever (Android)
Ever missed your subway stop – or worse – your train stop after dozing off? NeverMiss wants to fix that by alerting you as soon as you approach your destination.
Using the Google Maps SDK and your smartphone’s location, you can enter your destination (which can be an address, not just a stop or station) and define a radius between 500 meters and 2 kilometers within which you will be notified.
The application is free, with no ads, accounts, or in-app purchases. However, the interface was quite buggy when I tested the app.
- Price: Free / Ads: No / In-app purchases: No / Account: Not required
Anthem (iOS)
Well, I’m cheating a bit this week by telling you about Anthem, an iOS application discovered and presented by my colleague Camila Rinaldi. In concrete terms, it allows you to explore the Spotify catalog via a news feed inspired by the one on TikTok. The interface is supposed to be more ergonomic to facilitate the discovery of new songs and/or artists to broaden your musical horizons. The application is free, without ads or in-app purchases, but you must have a Spotify account (free or premium, both work).
After downloading and installing the app, you’ll need to connect Anthem to your Spotify account. The application will then analyze your streaming history and invite you to choose your favorite tracks from a list created from your music stream on the platform. The concept will surely please many, but I’m not sure that layering algorithms will result in the most relevant recommendations.
- Price: Free / Ads: No / In-app purchases: No / Account: Required (Spotify)
PocketPlan (Android)
PocketPlan is an all-in-one productivity application. It includes a note editor, to-do and shopping lists, reminders, and a sleep cycle manager.
In short, we have productivity and activity tracking tools, all in one free application, without 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 in terms of word processing (you can only change the text color). The to-do lists are also rather basic and, above all, you can’t share them with other users (the application doesn’t offer cloud synchronization).
But PocketPlan is ad-free, light (5 MB), works completely offline (allows exporting local backup), and is open-source under the MIT license. Some functions are quite nice like the shopping list that automatically sorts itself by categories (to save you time at the supermarket), or the to-do list that sorts tasks by priority.
- Price: Free / Ads: No / In-app purchases: No / Account: Not required
Where’s Samantha? (Android & iOS)
Where’s Samantha is a 2D platformer in which you have to help two pieces of cloth torn apart to find each other. You explore hand-drawn levels and help George get to Samantha.
The graphic style of the levels is really nice and the gameplay, although simplistic, is well thought. The game also offers gamepad support. The game is free in the trial version, but you will have to pay 3.99 dollars to unlock the full game.
- Price: $3.99 / Ads: No / In-app purchases: No / Account: Not required
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