By Sandra Quinn

With smartphones ever evolving, in order to keep up with current trends, the best thing to arm yourself with is an impressive list of the best apps.

We know it can be an exhausting and thankless job to go trawling through the seemingly endless app stores to find the best apps, so we thought we would do some of the groundwork for you and have compiled a list of some of the best Android and Apple apps from this year so far.

  • 1Weather (Android) – This year’s weather has been the most unpredictable and unstable in years and it has left most of us not knowing what weather the next day or week will hold. This app shows you the current weather, a forecast for up to 12 weeks, a radar to see approaching storms and some other cool stats.
  • MindNode5 (Apple) – Do you ever have one of those days when you are feeling super productive and have a million and one great ideas, but no idea how to link them all together? Well, this app has the answers. Working like an intricate online brainstorming session with yourself, it uses colour coding, diagrams and images to bring all of your thoughts together into one tangible plan or outline.
  • TickTick (Android) – This is a great to-do list app and it covers everything from repeat tasks and reminders to notifications and allowing you to use lists, folders and tags to organise your calendar. It also lets you share your lists with other people, making it really useful for team work or families, keeping everyone on the same track.
  • Pic Collage (Apple) – This app allows you to bring something special to your images, allowing you to create collages, play around with grid formats until you find what you are looking for and you can add stickers and texts to your creations.
  • Pocket Casts (Android) – For those obsessed with their daily podcasts on the way to work to break up their commute or as part of their ‘me time’ at the weekend, this app is ideal. One of its handiest features is the sign-in option, so you can sync your podcasts across various devices.
  • ProCam 5 (Apple) – This is one for the serious photographers who just don’t want to lug around a heavy and cumbersome camera, but don’t want to compromise on quality either. This isn’t one for those starting out, as you do need a good understanding of photography settings to really get to grips with it. It allows you to take pictures in RAW, TIFF or JPEG format and also does HDR with several modes allowing you to play around with exposure, shutter speed, focus and ISO. Including a comprehensive editor, you can then edit fully, applying filters and lenses, reviewing videos clip by clip and much more.