Apps & services

Not especially useful but insanely fun for distorting photos into tiny planets.

One of his favourites of the year, with the most convincing lighting and sky effects of similar apps.

A stripped-back home screen limited to seven apps that works and reports your usage.

Batches notifications and releases them at set times to curb constant phone checking.

Extracts text from screenshots so you can search and copy from them.

His favourite weather app, with sophisticated features and a clean interface.

Adds a bottom notification bar so you can reach settings without stretching your thumb.

Lets you see phone notifications and send files from a computer's Chrome browser.

An elegant, low-power live wallpaper that looks good out of the box.

An icon pack he rates in his top three of the year, helped by its good wallpapers.

A music player that plays two songs at once, handy for two people sharing one phone.

Uses augmented reality to show Wi-Fi signal strength in the space around you.

Useful enough that he switched to it as his main keyboard, thanks to one-handed and floating modes.

Well-done dice, coin and card randomiser, though he wishes it had fewer ads.

An absolutely killer, well-animated live wallpaper that is mostly black to save battery.

A fascinating way to run Android inside Android, useful for separating work and personal use, though it crashes on his Samsung.

A party trick that pauses games and videos when you look away; he would not use it himself.

Convenient camera-based heart rate readings that are fine for fitness tracking but not medical use.

An amazing way to completely restyle a Samsung One UI phone without rooting.

An eye-grabbing blue and white neon icon pack that pairs well with a matching wallpaper.

Lets you remap screenshots to holding the home button and adds an instant share pop-up.

He still uses it three times a week to quickly vary a favourite wallpaper.

Brings back a notification LED using screen pixels, but still feels beta and lacks features.

A smart, fast OS creating a new category of semi-smartphones, but its long-term future is uncertain as incomes rise.