No matter where you go, Smartphones, including Android, iPhones, and Windows phones, are everywhere. Newer users are often confounded by the array of applications or apps that are available for today’s mobile phones.
Frugal folks find that there are thousands of free apps available. It is also possible to get paid apps for free for a limited time period by downloading and using any of these free apps: AppsGoneFree (iPhone); AppFree (Android); AppGratis (iPhone and Android).
Avid readers and library customers appreciate apps that provide printed books, magazines and audiobooks. These include: Hoopla (audiobooks), OverDrive (printed books & audiobooks), and Zinio (popular magazines), which all provide free downloads with a library card. Other free apps that readers love include: Audible, Calibre, GoodReads, iBooks (iPhone only), Nook and Kindle.
Love music? Three apps provide free music with a library card: Freegal (3 free song downloads per week); Hoopla (10 album/item downloads per month) and OverDrive (up to 20 item downloads at one time). Music downloaded via Hoopla and OverDrive expires, but the Freegal downloads have no expiration period. Additional free music apps include: Bandcamp, DeaDBeeF Player, GarageBand (iPhone only), Groove, Pandora, Qello, Shazam, Slacker Radio, Songkick Concerts, SoundCloud, SoundHouse, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn Radio and Yesterday USA.
Love movies? Two apps provide free movies with a library card: Hoopla (10 movie/item downloads per month) and OverDrive (up to 20 item downloads at one time). Additional apps for movie lovers include: Amazon Cloud Player; Amazon/LOVEFiLM Instant (iPhone only), Hulu Plus, Movies by Flixter, Netflix and YouTube.
Useful apps for those who have a long commute to work include: Gas Buddy (find cheap fuel), Google Maps and Maps.me, iOnRoad Augmented Driving (driver alerts), Park’n’Forget (iPhone only),Umano (news read by professional readers), Waze (navigation & road reports), WeatherBug, Yahoo! Weather, and Yelp.
No matter what a cell user’s interests—there’s an app for that!
Search the Google Play store for Android apps and the Apple iTunes App Store for iPhone apps. A downloadable list of selected apps: Top Mobile Phone Apps
