‘Smart TVs’ Are Next Bet for Makers as Sales Languish

Crisp, high-definition TVs as big as 50 diagonal inches can be had for a few hundred dollars. Why bother upgrading or paying more for a fancy new one? Many people don’t. And if you spend much of your time watching streaming video on a tablet or phone, paying for a better TV seems even more pointless. So for several years now, TV sales have been lackluster.

Electronics manufacturers, though, are not losing hope. And at the 47th International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, scheduled to open on Monday, they will show how they intend to attract more customers. In many cases, it will be by offering so-called smart TVs that can connect to the Internet and run apps.

“Consumers are telling us they’re more interested in connected” televisions, said Benjamin Arnold, an analyst at the NPD Group, the research firm.

For example, at the show, Roku, the manufacturer known for making set-top boxes that include Netflix streaming, will announce designs for integrating its streaming media service directly into television sets. Two Chinese manufacturers, Hisense and TCL, will make the first products based on the designs. Roku, which is based in Saratoga, Calif., will show six television set models at the show with its service built in, said Anthony Wood, the company’s chief executive.

Mr. Wood says Roku is in a position to make a smarter television than others in the industry. He said most TV set makers do not have the resources to make smart televisions with a broad selection of content, partly because many media companies do not want to create versions of their apps for all the different smart TVs on the market. By contrast, there are already more than 1,200 apps available for Roku, including HBO Go, Netflix, Vudu and others, he said.

“Our strategy is to be the dominant platform on the big screen,” Mr. Wood said in an interview.

Samsung, the No. 1 TV manufacturer in the world, is also bullish about Internet-connected TVs. This year more than 75 percent of Samsung TVs will be smart TVs, said Joe Stinziano, an executive vice president for home entertainment at Samsung Electronics America.

But Samsung, like other television makers, is covering its bases by also trying to grab consumers’ attention with flashy new features for the old-fashioned set. The manufacturers have been introducing these kinds of features for a while now to little avail; last year’s crop of sets offered the ability to watch content in 3-D and included screens with quadruple the pixels. Yet shipments of sets last year were down, and with little content to watch, 3-D TVs are a failure so far.

In the United States, sales of Ultra HD TVs in the 12 months that ended in November accounted for less than 1 percent of overall sales of televisions 40 inches or larger. Nonetheless, this year, Samsung is emphasizing curved high-definition TVs, including a high-end 105-inch Ultra HD TV with a curved display.

The slightly concave screen cuts down on reflections from ambient lighting, like the ceiling lights in a living room, for example. It also allows people who are sitting off to the sides, away from the central sweet spot, to get a better viewing experience, Mr. Stinziano said.

“Your eye is curved and this TV is also curved,” he said. “It’s a much more natural feeling.”

Other TV makers like LG, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and Sony will also showcase their big-screen Ultra HD TVs at the electronics show this week.

Out of all the TV makers’ tricks, smart TVs appear to be gaining some traction. In the year that ended in November, 22 percent of televisions sold in the United States were Internet-connected TVs, compared with 11 percent in the previous year, according to NPD.

App Smart: Basic Apps for Your New Smartphone or Tablet

Don’t panic. Here’s a selection of great, basic apps to get you going.

Let’s start with some games. Sky Gamblers: Cold War from Atypical Games has 3-D graphics so impressive that it is almost as if you have a game console in a device you can put in your pocket. This $5 iPhone or iPad game puts you in the cockpit of a number of aircraft from the Cold War era. You steer by turning your device in the air, and control various systems and weapons by tapping on icons or swiping on the screen. The game has dramatic missions, and is great fun. It’s also an ideal app to show off the power of your new device to a friend.

On Android a similar game is Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy, from the makers Namco-Bandai. It also has good graphics and the same sort of complex gameplay. It’s free, although it costs up to $3 to unlock different missions and aircraft. There also is Air Supremacy on iOS for $1, but I feel the Cold War version is better.

For an alternative to a war-themed game, try Infinity Blade 3 on iOS and Dragonslayer on Android. These are fantasy games with amazing 3-D graphics that place you on an adventure in a mystical land with just your wits and sword skills to save you. Infinity Blade 3, which is also perhaps the most graphically wonderful game you’ll see on an iOS device, costs $3. Dragonslayer is free on Android.

You probably have heard of Angry Birds, a wonderfully odd puzzle game where you catapult moody avians to destroy buildings made by evil pigs. The latest, Angry Birds Star Wars 2, is free on both iOS and Android and is hilarious to play. Its puzzles and hidden levels have kept me amused for too many hours to count. There is a Windows 8 version too that will cost you a dollar.

For a different puzzler, check out Candy Crush Saga, which has been downloaded half a billion times. It’s a bit like the classic Tetris, with cute graphics and simple but addictive gameplay. It’s free on iOS and Android.

With social networking apps you can experience the thrill of sharing news or photos or even video about what you’re up to with the world in real time. Twitter (free on iOS, Android, Windows Phone), Facebook (free on iOS, Android and Windows) and Instagram (free on iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8) are all worth checking out. Again, these apps come with a warning — you may use them much more than you expected.

But don’t forget that smartphones and tablets have more uses than merely to gossip or play games. How about using them to get you from A to B? Waze is a powerful GPS app to try. It replaces that old device that you used to suction onto your car’s windshield with a modern mapping system that is constantly improved by its community of users.

As well as the usual tricks of showing a map and speaking turn-by-turn directions, Waze offers real-time traffic data and alerts for incidents like traffic jams or accidents. The app has some quirks, like requiring a network connection for live data, thus eating up your mobile data allowance, and its cutesy graphics may not tickle your fancy. But it is free, and available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

For more real-time data for the world around you, download Layar or Junaio to tap into some of the same “augmented reality” vibe that Google’s Glass headset is championing. These apps turn your device into a digital window.

You hold your device up and the screen will show a view through the camera’s lens. Superimposed on top of this view is all sorts of additional data you select from a library of different “layers,” including information like the identity of boats you can see on the ocean, or photos that Twitter users nearby have shared.

Layar (iOS, Android) and Junaio (iOS, Android) are free and may amaze you with the amount of location information you can find within moments. But this technology is quite new, so be prepared for a bit of a learning curve with the apps and occasionally unreliable performance.

Finally, check out the amazing power of Shazam. This app listens to music you hear in public, as you sit in a coffee shop, for example, and automatically identifies the tune for you. It’s magical to see in action, and it even offers links to buy the music if you really like it. Shazam is free on iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

These, of course, are just the beginning. There are many thousands more out there — many free. Do some of your own exploring, and you’ll find apps for everything. Just be careful about spending surprising amounts of money on in-app purchases, particularly in games.

QUICK CALL

Cut the Rope 2, the sequel to the first runaway hit, is new for $1 on iOS. It’s a sort of puzzle game with timing and physics-based elements, and it’s great.

App Smart: Getting a Party Started With D.J. Apps

Djay 2 by Algoriddim is perhaps the most full-featured D.J. app available, which is probably why it costs $9.99 for iPad. The app plays MP3 tracks stored on your device but with a traditional D.J.-ing vibe: Its main display looks like a classic twin record deck. When you load a track on one of the decks the album art is displayed in the middle, and while it’s playing the art even spins like a record. To extend this realistic look, you can “scratch” this record by swiping your finger, as if it were the real thing.

Manually mixing from one track to the next is as easy as pressing play on the second deck’s play button as the first one begins to end. Then you slide the fader control across so the first track becomes quieter and the second louder, as on a real mixing desk.

But this app does much more. Tapping on the “sync” button aligns the playback speed of two tracks to match each other so there’s no awkward change in the rhythm. And for a different interface, the app can show you the music as a scrolling sound wave. There are also straightforward controls for creating playlists or adding special audio effects like distortions.

Djay 2 is jammed with features, but you don’t have to use them. You can simply use it to manually play tracks one after the other, or you can push the “automix” button. Here the app looks at your available music and automatically plays suitable tracks one after the other, even fading between them when it’s time.

Completely amateur D.J.’s may initially find themselves at a loss because of this app’s complexity. But its controls are clear, and there is a help menu.

A similar full-featured app is Edjing, which is free on Android, iOS and for Windows 8 machines. It is similar to Djay 2 and has the same visual display of two record decks, but it’s simpler to navigate. It also has special effects, but you have to acquire them in the app by paying with vinyl “tokens,” which you have to buy. For example, to add a cool phaser effect you need 10,000 tokens, which could cost you up to $10. You can earn more tokens by sharing your mixes online or signing the app up to Facebook.

The app may be less daunting for beginners than some of its peers, and it also has an “automix” button for simplicity. But you may find the app limiting as your skills improve, and the token system could irritate you.

Traktor DJ on iPad has an interface that shows you the music you’re mixing as waveforms on a colorful graph display. The rest of the controls, which include special audio effects and the ability to set loops and so on, are also simply displayed. Traktor also has a sort of automatic detection system for your music so you can mix one track seamlessly into an appropriate follow-up track. But it’s best for those who prefer an unfussy control interface, and it’s expensive at $19.99.

On Android, an alternative is DJ Studio 5. This app looks like a simpler Edjing, complete with twin record decks. But it is full of features, with several built-in special effects, automatic tempo syncing and the ability to build an “automix” playlist of your music. Incredibly, it’s free, but the interface and controls can be confusing to navigate.

For an infinitely simpler, beginner-friendly D.J. app there’s the Party Monster, $2 on iOS. This app is not about automixing tracks with similar tempos or spinning faux record decks. Party Monster simply lets you build a playlist of music for a party through a simple touch interface. It lists your available music, and then you swipe the tracks you want into the “to be played” list. Once they’re lined up, the app plays through them in turn, fading automatically between the end of one and the start of another. It’s fun, and though unsophisticated, it’s designed well and may be exactly what you may need to keep the music throbbing at a party.

Quick Call

Adidas has released its first Windows Phone app, miCoach, a personal trainer. This nicely designed fitness app coaches you through your workouts, and integrates with Nokia’s HERE Maps for navigation and Nokia Music so you can listen to tracks as you jog along. It’s free.

App Smart: Streaming for a Good Beat That’s Just to Your Taste

Since then, the music landscape has undergone a sea change. But discovering music in a similar way is still possible via the latest and fast-evolving trend in digital music: streaming.

Perhaps the best-known streaming music app is Spotify. This app lets you listen to any of your favorite tracks at will, and it is also a digital radio that streams new music. Its interface is simple, bordering on spartan: it has a main screen where you control the music you are hearing, and a menu screen that lets you access different sections of the app and adjust settings.

To listen to a track you simply choose “Search” and type the artist’s name or a word from the track’s title. Spotify then lists the results by artist, album and song title. A more interesting way to use the app, however, is to select the “Discover” option. This reveals a long graphics-heavy list containing all sorts of different music.

Some of this will be familiar (right now, my app is telling me “You’ve been listening to a lot of Daft Punk lately” and recommends one of their albums), some of it will be new. These tracks include new releases, and music that is popular or is being listened to by nearby Spotify users.

There’s also a “Radio” option that has “stations” that stream either a particular band’s music, or genres of your choice, from Alternative to Trance. The app has straightforward controls and will show you album art and even band biographies.

Spotify has changed how I listen to music. But while the app is free on iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8, using it may cost you. In the United States, you can listen to the app’s radio stations free, but to listen to specific tracks you’ll have to subscribe for $10 a month.

For a different experience, you might try Rhapsody (which in some places overseas goes under the Napster brand). As in Spotify, you can search for music you want to hear, or discover new music through a few different routes. For example, the Browse section breaks music into genres; inside each genre’s page you can choose from new releases or popular tracks.

Alternatively, you can find new music through Rhapsody’s home page, which offers access to featured music, new releases and popular tracks. There are also Playlists, which are a little like Spotify’s stations. These lists have a regularly updated selection of music that will stream to you. There are extras like album reviews, so you can learn more about the artist you’re listening to.

Rhapsody’s interface is graphically richer and feels easier to navigate than Spotify’s, thanks to features like its ever-present icon bar. Bu you may find that Rhapsody’s graphics and many settings get in the way of your listening experience. It’s free to download on iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8, but you’ll have to pay $10 a month for unlimited music streaming.

Last.fm was one of the first players that streamed music over the Internet, and now it’s available as an app. Instead of concentrating on giving you access to new music, a bit like traditional radio, Last.fm tries to recommend new music based on the tracks you already listen to. In fact, it monitors music that you play through your mobile device, and keeps a list of it in your profile — a trick it calls “scrobbling.”

The scrobbled list can be shared online and is used to recommend lists of music similar to the kind you already like. The data comes from other Last.fm users’ lists. Last.fm is powerful and entertaining, but its interface is more basic than its peers’ and it doesn’t quite have the same range of music discovery options. And, though the app is free on iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8, to listen to the recommended lists you have to pay $3 a month.

Finally, there’s SoundCloud, a free app for iOS and Android that offers a different kind of streaming music. Where Spotify is like having radio on your phone, SoundCloud is more about hearing new music shared by indie artists via a social network. It has a wonderfully simple interface and it’s fun to use — you can upload your own music and share that too. Just don’t expect to find mainstream rock bands on this app.

Hopefully, you’ll find tons of new music to listen to via these apps, but remember there are other options. The Pandora app is well known and definitely worth trying. Apple is also poised to introduce iTunes Radio — a free service with advertisements. Streaming music is a fast-changing scene, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for special offers.

Quick Call

Telenav Scout, a successful GPS navigation app that’s done well on Android and iOS, has finally hit Windows Phone 8 devices. The core app is free, but advanced features like red light alerts will cost you $25 a year.

App Smart: Learning to Read, With the Help of a Tablet

One of the most comprehensive apps for teaching reading is a free iPad app called Learn With Homer (not the Greek one or Mr. Simpson, you’ll be pleased to hear). It’s a set of lessons and games presented with bright cartoon graphics and amusing sounds.

Using animations and spoken guidance, the app leads children to sound letters that appear on the screen and shows how letters make words, using examples like “alligator” and “ant.” The app’s learning sections are interspersed with game sections, and there is a listening section where children read and hear stories. Completing a lesson or story is rewarded with the chance to draw something on the screen or to record an answer to a question about the story. The app’s best feature is that it keeps these pictures and recordings, because it is fun to look back on them.

The app’s interface feels child-friendly and is easy to use thanks to on-screen cues and spoken instructions. Children could most likely use it on their own — though an adult may need to lend a hand with some controls, like the drawing interface. The app also has great attention to detail. For example, in the section that reinforces learning letter sounds there is a convincing animation of a child mouthing the sounds on the screen.

My main problems with Learn With Homer are that it moves too slowly in places and that younger children may lose interest. Buying extra lessons via in-app purchases could also be expensive, since they each cost $2 or more.

For a simpler reading app, the free Kids Reading (Preschool) app on Android is a great option. The app’s first section helps children learn to blend letter sounds into full words, through a cute game with a tortoise. The game animates the tortoise walking along slowly, sounding out each letter in a short word as he moves. The child can click on sneakers to make him move faster, which then sounds the word faster, or click on a skateboard to sound the word in real time.

A “try reading” section lets children practice reading and saying short words with a simple matching game. And the “make words” option has the child spotting the right-sounding letter to complete a word puzzle. This app has clear sounds, and many children will love its simplicity. But for more words you do need to pay $3 for the full Kids Learn To Read version.

Montessori Crosswords, $3 on iOS, is more sophisticated. This app’s main feature is a game in which children drag letters from an alphabet list onto a very simple crossword grid. Each word on the grid is accompanied by a picture hint. Tapping on this makes the app say the word aloud. Depending on the settings, words can be made of fewer or, if you choose, more sounds, which makes the puzzles more challenging. To keep children interested, getting words right delivers an interactive graphic, like one of shooting stars, that reacts to screen touches.

Compared with its peers, this app has a narrow range of activities, which may limit how long it remains useful. It also probably works best under adult supervision — particularly since the app’s main menu is a little confusing.

For children who have learned to recognize words by themselves, and yet would benefit from guided reading experiences, there’s Booksy. This free app, for iOS and Android, is best thought of as a traditional high-quality children’s reading book with added digital powers. For example, as well as displaying a page of text and well-drawn images, it reads the text aloud. Tapping on any word — even in the labels, for example in a drawing of a whale — will make the app say the word clearly. The app can also record a child reading aloud automatically, then e-mail the audio files directly to you so you can keep track of progress. This feature may seem a little creepy, but you can turn it off.

Booksy comes with two free books, and more are available through in-app purchases. There are about 30 titles for around $1 each. Each book has a different reading difficulty level, and many of them are also available in Spanish. You can lock the bookstore on iOS to prevent children from getting in, but smarter children may spot the parental controls and unlock it again. On Android there is a better “adult question” lock, but on this platform some of the app’s screen space is, unfortunately, taken up with navigation buttons.

Remember, your enthusiasm for reading can be an important example for your children — so why not play with these apps alongside them?

Quick Call

Dots is a simple game that has already had a lot of success on the iPhone — to play it is as easy as connecting the dots, yet it’s fiendishly addictive. Now it’s on Android, and free.

App Smart: Apps to Send Smartphone Files Into the Cloud

With these services you can store files and data online in “the cloud” and then get access to the information from any device with an Internet connection. An added bonus is that you do not have to worry about losing files if your own hardware fails. These services are particularly useful on smartphones and tablets, offering ready access to files while on the go.

Box is one of my favorite cloud storage apps. It’s a free download for iOS and Android, and the service is also available for PCs. The app is great to look at and its controls are clear, so it is easy to begin using it.

To upload a file, you click on a small cloud icon with a plus sign in it. The app offers the option to upload a file, like a photo or video, or to perform actions like creating a folder to organize files.

Viewing a file simply requires clicking on the relevant file name in the list of your files. You can print the file out, add it to a list of favorites, or perform other actions like sharing the file with other users by e-mail. Box is designed for group collaboration as much as for single users; you can invite colleagues to work together on a file through the service’s Web interface.

Box is a powerful app, but it has a few limitations. There is no batch uploading, so be prepared to upload one file at a time. And the free service provides only five gigabytes of storage; no single file can be larger than 250 megabytes. You will have to pay for more storage — the Business level costs $15 a month for each user, for example, but it offers one terabyte of space and file uploads of up to two gigabytes.

DropBox is perhaps the best-known cloud storage app. It looks similar to the Box app, but it has a little more functionality. It is available free for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices, as well as for PCs and Kindle Fires. DropBox has more sharing options than Box, including the ability to send a link to a particular file over Facebook or Twitter, or as a text message.

DropBox also feels a little more polished than Box, probably because of its unfussy visual design. The app is integrated into a device’s systems. It can automatically grab photos and videos when they are taken, so they are instantly stored safely in the cloud.

I prefer DropBox’s iOS interface because its layout is clearer than the Android version, which tends to involve more clicking to navigate through its menus. In all cases, though, the app is easy to use and the company promises tight security to protect data. Perhaps the app’s biggest limit is its pricing: it is free for just two gigabytes of files, which may be quickly eaten up by smartphone videos. Prices start at $10 a month for 100 gigabytes and greater.

Cubby, made by the people behind the well-known LogMeIn apps, offers even simpler cloud storage and sharing. It’s free for iOS and Android. The app functions similarly to its rivals, but there are fewer menus and buttons to get in the way of using it.

The app can upload photos and video to your Cubby account from your phone. It includes a neat interface for making an individual file public, or to let you share a link to the file by e-mail. On the app’s Web site you can upload and share more diverse file types, which can then be viewed on a mobile device. From the app, you can also choose to save a file to a device to work on it when an Internet connection is not available, which is handy for commuters.

Cubby does not have quite as many features as its rivals, but like the other apps it uses encryption, and an extra Cubby Lock password can be added to data for still more protection. The app is free for up to five gigabytes of storage — 25 gigabytes with customer referrals — and there is no limit on file sizes.

It’s possible that you will find yourself using several of these apps and forgetting which files are where. Then you can turn to CloudMagic. It’s a free iOS and Android app that aggregates many different cloud storage systems into one, including DropBox, Box and others like Google Docs and Microsoft’s SkyDrive. The most powerful feature of CloudMagic is its search function, which helps find the file you’re looking for.

Most of these services require you to sign up for an account; remember to keep your passwords secure to protect all your data as it floats in the cloud.

Quick Call

Fruit Ninja, a popular casual game on iOS and Android, is now available in an edition compatible with Microsoft’s latest smartphone operating system, Windows Phone 8. It’s silly, fun and costs only $1.

App Smart: Using the Masses to Improve Apps

Weather apps, for example, sometimes have data only for cities or towns far from a specific location. The Weathermob app, free on iOS, tackles that by sourcing weather reports from people who are exactly at the spot you are interested in visiting or knowing more about. Users submit weather information from their location, as well as other data, like their mood or what they’re doing.

As I write this, for example, some users in the app’s “nearby” page have shared photos from a beach not far away where it is 70 degrees and sunny, and they’ve added a smiley tag to the photos. There is also an option for adding comments, which means those beach partyers could add information, like “Come and visit here — a band is playing in an hour.”

This aspect of the app is entertaining but not particularly useful — I can take a step outside and get most of that information. But the app is searchable for information on other locations. When I looked up a town that I would be visiting, for example, Weathermob users reported that it was 66 degrees, and the app’s detailed forecast page reported an 11 percent chance of rain the next day.

Entering your own weather report is easy. You dial through a rotating list of weather icons to one that matches what you see. Then you select a mood and an icon from the “it’s weather for...” list, which includes oddities like a sea gull or a cricket bat. You can also add a comment, photo or video. It’s fun to use, but the app depends on users’ actively taking part to deliver meaningful information — and that’s not necessarily going to cover every location.

Weathersignal, a free Android app, takes crowdsourced weather reporting one step further by using sensors in your phone or tablet to assess the local weather conditions. Your device effectively becomes a miniature weather station. The makers stress that the app is experimental and that not every Android device has the right sensors. With the right device the app can collect data like air pressure, ambient temperature and even brightness. But even then, Weathersignal is quite basic and has a few quirks — like telling me my Nexus 7 is sitting in 37-degree Fahrenheit weather, when it’s plainly a warm day.

But as more people use the app, the team should be able to refine the algorithms to make better calculations and predictions about current and future weather. For now, this app as something amusing to contribute to, not a reliable weather app based on crowdsourced data.

If you are trying to learn a new language, it is worth trying Duolingo, a great example of a crowdsource app. The app is like many that teach languages, with guided lessons on vocabulary, verb use and pronunciation. It’s graphically very attractive, with straightforward menus. There is also a rewards scheme that makes learning a new language a gamelike experience.

But where other apps simply test your new language skills on preset examples, Duolingo takes another approach. As you move through the lessons, either in the app or on the complementary Web site, you may find yourself being asked to translate other Web sites or documents. This means that you’re part of a crowdsourced translation engine — a point of pride when you get something right, and probably no harm done if you get it wrong, since the app will rely on the wisdom of the crowd. The apps, on iOS and Android, are free, but at the moment available only for students of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English.

Find it difficult to make a decision? Then you might want to download Seesaw, a crowdsource app that is all about decision making. If you’re undecided on something, Seesaw can poll your social network friends with a simple click-to-vote mechanism.

If you’re considering a new haircut, for example, you could put photos of four different haircuts into a status update on Seesaw and submit a question like “Which one is best?” Your Seesaw friends, added from your Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account, can click on the picture they like best. They can also add a comment, if so inclined. It’s simple and easy to use, and you may be surprised by the answers. The app is photo-centric, though, so it may not suit all types of questions. It’s free on iOS.

Finally, check out the crowdsource video app Pixorial Krowds on iOS and Android, an app for sharing video of an event or location. The idea is that if you’re attending something like a music festival you can see what’s going on from other attendees’ perspectives. The interface is a little confusing, but the app is free.

Crowdsourcing apps are most useful when you actively take part and share data. But do check the apps’ privacy policies to be certain that you’re comfortable sharing the information that you are submitting.

Quick Call

Yahoo’s Fantasy Football apps have just been updated with a valuable new feature: They can now connect users to a live draft and even set up mock drafts. If you’ve never played fantasy sports, now is a great time to try out Yahoo’s free app on iOS and Android.

App Smart: In Case of Emergency: My Cellphone Knows What to Do

The American Red Cross has an app that can alert you to common natural disasters so you can prepare in advance. The free Earthquake app for iOS or Android, for instance, has a main page with a big “alert” button that brings up information on global earthquake activity or notifies you about areas you have programmed in. This makes it handy for warnings about your own location or that of a relative living elsewhere. If an alert is issued, your phone can inform you automatically. The app’s “prepare” menu tells you what to do when you get an alert, during an earthquake and immediately after. If you are inside a building, for example, it will tell you to “drop, cover and hold on.” The sections are clearly written and easy to follow.

This app and its peers are specific to one disaster type — there’s also one for tornadoes, one for hurricanes, another for wildfires and more. This means if you live in an area vulnerable to more than one kind of natural disaster, you may have to set up several apps.

Among apps that can help you deal with a medical emergency, one of the most comprehensive is the $2 iOS app Army First Aid. This app contains information on a wide range of first aid situations, including injuries, shock and snake bites. It is set up in chapters, like a book, and each section is written in plain English and illustrated.

While the app covers a large number of first aid situations, it could take a while to dig through its pages to find what you need in an emergency. You may also dislike its brusque military style. A great alternative is the Pocket First Aid & CPR app, $2 on iOS, which covers fewer emergencies but offers quick access to step-by-step instructions for more everyday situations, like an allergic reaction.

Knowing someone’s medical information can be critical in an emergency, and many apps let you store this data. A useful one is called ICE Standard-Auto Edition, a $1 iOS app. Enter personal details, like your name, emergency contact and important allergies or medical ailments, and the app automatically displays the information in an easily read format. The app can also generate an image of the data for use as your phone’s lockscreen. Emergency responders can read this without unlocking your device.

This app includes an auto section where you can enter data about your car, and a large “I’ve been in an accident” button guides you through what to do in that situation. There’s even a form for entering accident data like vehicle IDs and weather conditions.

The Android edition of the app is free, but does not contain the auto accident section.

For an emergency that forces you to seek shelter, food or water, Britain’s elite special forces unit offers the SAS Survival Guide, a $6 iOS and Android app. The app’s main page is a grid of icons that take you to subsections filled with survival information, covering essentials like drinking water and finding “wild food.”

The app is expensive, however, and while it does have information on first aid, you may find a dedicated first aid app more sensible. These apps may contain more up-to-date information based on current guidelines.

Your smartphone can also act as a signal beacon in case of an emergency, whether through its bright screen or a built-in photo flash. On iOS, the free app Flashlight O can send out a bright light or the internationally known S.O.S. message in Morse code, and it has a built-in compass. On Android, the free app Flashlight SOS FlashText is similar. If your device has no flash, it can turn your screen’s brightness to the maximum, and it can send short messages in Morse code.

Quick Call

Weathertron is a new and novel weather app that costs $1 on iOS. It combines up-to-date information and forecasts into a neat-looking infographic. The idea is to present a lot of weather data at a glance.

App Smart: To Manage Time, Track Time and Pass the Time

One thing that working at home absolutely requires is lists, to keep you from losing track of what you’re supposed to be doing. Wunderlist, a free iOS and Android app, is a powerful app for making and managing lists that has a clear interface controlled by gestures and taps. You can make as many lists as you like and add lots of items to each one, and you have the option of setting reminders for each item. List items can even have subelements and notes. The company also offers a cloud-based scheme so you can share your lists with colleagues or your boss.

The app is a pleasure to use. But one minor irritation is that some of Wunderlist’s features require a subscription. For example, to add unlimited subtasks or have the ability to designate tasks to friends or colleagues, you’ll have to pay $5 a month.

Another way to keep yourself on task and on time when working from home is by using a time management app. Eternity Time Log Lite is a great option, and it’s free on iOS. The app promises to help you time your work, rest and play — and these are the main categories loaded into its activities list. Tapping on each category brings up a timer window with a big start button. To log time on a particular task, you use this timer and add a note or a tag for later viewing. Later, you can look at the activities and filter them by tag or even by hour ranges, giving you an insight into your work patterns.

The app is easy to use, but it does require a lot of input and management. For best results, you have to use it consistently and all the time, and this may not suit you (though it is probably easy to get into the routine). As with Wunderlist, the app’s free edition is useful, but to access the full list of features, like the ability to create an unlimited number of activities and tags, you have to buy the pro edition at $10.

One alternative iOS time tracker is OfficeTime. It costs $8, but it’s powerful and it has handy in-app notes to guide you through its features. A similar Android app is Timesheet-Time Tracker. Though this app is free, it is powerful, and even lets you export your time and task data in an Excel-friendly format.

For freelance home workers, one important task at the end of completing a job is invoicing. The popular iOS and Android app Zoho Invoice has this task covered, and it’s free. Though the app’s really about invoicing, you can also use it to track time spent on different projects. It’s simple to use and attractively designed, which in its Android edition makes it stand out a little from many of its peers. But it does require you to sign up for a free account, and to make the most of it, you will probably find that you spend a lot of time typing in detailed data. It can also be easy to get lost among its different menus because they look similar.

Working from home can mean staring at your computer for long periods of time, and that may not be a great thing for your eyes. You can set your phone’s built-in timer or alarm apps to prompt you to spend a moment looking away from your monitor. Or you could use an app like Simple Repeat Timer on iOS, which is free and which will repeatedly alert you at a set interval. The Android app Yata! Yet Another Timer, which is also free, has a repeat timer function among its other clock applications.

It is hoped these apps will help you remain productive while you work at home. But you should also take breaks and have a little fun — something that simple games on your phone could help you with.

Quick Call

Soundwave is a new music discovery app that has a neat social twist. Instead of merely showing you which tracks are popular, it also shows you what nearby Soundwave users are listening to. In many cases you can also listen to a 30-second sample of the tracks. It’s free on iOS and Android. ... The popular image-sharing app Imgur is now available for Android devices. It’s a beta edition, so it may be a bit flaky, but it’s free.

App Smart: Smartphone Tools for the Connected Camper

Planning a camping trip can be complex because there are so many different things you may need to take with you. The Camping List Pro, $2 for iOS, can help. It’s a list-making and organizing app specially set up for camping, with categories from shelter to personal hygiene. You can add your own things to the list as well. It’s easy to use and attractively designed, and its preloaded lists may help you remember to pack some useful items you may have overlooked, like air pumps and Ziploc bags.

Camping Trip Planner, $1 for Android, is similar. Simpler than Camping List Pro and graphically more spartan, it may suit your tastes. A list-based interface is straightforward, though I wish for a button on the main display to add entries rather than having to tap through the menu first. The app doesn’t suggest items for you, but it does have a model list with over 200 useful camping items to jog your memory.

After you’ve planned your trip, the next step is finding a campsite. On iOS and Android, the popular Camp and RV app is packed with comprehensive information for campsites across the United States and Canada — nearly 25,000 of them, from private sites to military campgrounds.

The app is based on a map interface. You search for a campsite or simply navigate to the region you’re interested in exploring, and see what icons pop up on the map. Tapping one of the icons brings up a message with more information on that site.

From there, you can bring up an information page that includes data like a Web site URL, contact details and even photographs. The $10 price tag is high, but it is kept current by its developers and will work offline, which may be really useful if you’re on the road. You can also opt for just the Camp and Tent version or the RV version, depending on your needs, and they’re just $5 each.

If you’re planning some sightseeing walks on your trip, then Columbia’s GPS Pal, from the Columbia Sportswear Company, may become your best outdoor digital friend. Using the GPS technology in your phone, it automatically logs your trek, including elevation data, so you can see later where you went. You can also add notes, photos and video to specific GPS location tags to record something memorable. It’s on iOS and Android and is free, which is impressive. But there’s one important issue common to all GPS apps: using them will eat up your battery life. That’s something to remember if you’re planning to use them to find your way back to where you started.

Knots are always handy to know, whether or not you’re camping — I even put my old Scouts knot training to use the other day while putting up a hammock. Many apps can help you learn knots, but a great one on iOS is What Knot to Do, also from Columbia Sportswear. It’s free and no-nonsense, listing 70 knots sorted by category, including knots like hitches or “stoppers.” The app includes a short description of each knot category and what individual knots are useful for, and you can save your favorites for easy reference later.

It walks you step by step, with images, through tying each knot. But if you’re a complete novice, you may get a bit lost among all the options and knotty jargon, with phrases like “a loop on the bight” and “fair the knot.”

The Android app Knots Guide is a great alternative, with a simple interface that divides knots into categories like “fishing” or “decorative.” It’s not the best-looking app ever, and the knot-tying diagrams sometimes need close examination. But it is free.

Compass apps are useful for trekking, or even pitching your tent relative to prevailing wind directions. Commander Compass on iOS is a graphically attractive compass that also packs in an inclinometer, GPS tracker and speedometer. If its $4 price is too much for you, you might try Apple’s simpler built-in compass app instead. On Android, the Compass app from Catch.com is a rough equivalent to Commander Compass and it’s free.

When you are out in the countryside, remember to use these and other apps only when you need them. The view of the real world around you is probably far better than the one on your touch screen.

Quick Call

Crayon Physics Deluxe has long been a big hit on iOS, thanks to its clever physics-based game and cute graphics that make your on-screen crayon drawings come to life to solve puzzles. It has finally been released as an Android app on Google Play, costing $3.

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Learning to Unlock Your Inner Matisse

This week in App Smart the topic was apps that can help you learn the very basics of drawing. It seems touch screens and interactive multimedia guides are an ideal combination for teaching you how to put pencil to paper and draw anything from a cartoon car to a portrait.

One simple app that’s aimed at children, but that could serve as a fun entry-level guide for adults too, is the Let’s Learn How to Draw app on iOS for $1.99. This app is great to use, thanks to its very clear interface and the lighthearted way it instructs you as you draw. The app teaches you by showing you with an example of how a drawing is built up from a sequence of lines drawn on the screen. Then you copy these lines in a window on the screen to create your own version. Each step of the drawing is accompanied by a short text description of what you’re trying to do so that you don’t get lost. There’s even an “assist” mode that actually replaces the line you drew while copying the example image with a more correct one. This is a bit of a cheat, but you can use it while you get used to the app and then turn it off.

You can, however, tell that the app is aimed at a youthful audience thanks to the topics for your drawings: Dogs, trains and monsters. It is still great fun to use, though.

The free Android app Learn to Draw has a very similar young feel. This app also uses some fairly cartoonlike imagery. But Learn to Draw works in a slightly different way. It asks you what you want to draw, and then searches the Web for matching images. When you select the image you want to copy from the list presented — an image of, for example a monkey or a tree — that image is displayed in faint colors on the drawing area of the app. Then you use the app’s drawing tools to trace the original. It’s less interactive than some learn-to-draw apps, and there’s nothing in the way of assistance or pointers on good technique, but you may enjoy the more free-form nature of learning like this.

For a sophisticated portrait drawing lesson, the $4.99 iPad app Interactive Sketchbook has four very detailed lessons from an artist. Each lesson talks you through the process of drawing a portrait by showing you how the artist draws, step by step. The app shows an example sketch on the left of the screen, annotated with useful tips like “begin by drawing a circle to represent the cranium.” On the right is an area where you can draw with the app’s tools; you can choose from several different pencil effects to get the result you desire.

As well as this lesson section, the app has a sketchbook section where you can import an image of your choice that you then copy by sketching on the right-hand panel just as in the lessons. You can browse through these sketches later, so in a way it’s a handy portfolio of the drawings you make as you learn to sketch.

There are plenty of other drawing apps in the various app stores that will teach you how to sketch. Many of them are aimed at children, however, which may frustrate you if you’ve moved beyond being able to draw great-looking frogs or cartoon flowers. It’s worth spending some time trying out different drawing apps and also practicing what you’ve learned on paper instead of on-screen. You can always snap a smartphone photo of your efforts if you prefer to keep things stored digitally!

Quick call: The app developer Smule has made a string of fun and alternative music apps; its new Guitar! app, free on iOS, continues this tradition. As the title suggests you get to strum or pick at an on-screen guitar to generate musical sounds as you play along to vocals recorded by real singers.

App Smart: Phone Timer Apps Help You Stay on Schedule

You know that awful moment, while watching television, when you suddenly remember you left something on the stove? I know it well because I’m terrible at remembering things I need to do in, say, four or five minutes. But with a timer app on my phone, I could avoid burning dinner and keep track of any number of other events at the same time.

One of the most elegant timers on Apple’s iOS platform is Timeless, priced at $1. Its interface has large panels with clear typography and straightforward control icons. The main countdown timer screen, for example, is dominated by big white numerals in the center of a large blue display above a small icon bar.

Timeless is controlled by screen gestures. The first time you start it, the app explains how to swipe the screen or rotate the phone to switch displays. For example, swiping left and right on the main timer screen calls up different timers you have set, or lets you create a new one.

Setting up a new timer is simple: the app displays two columns of numerals, one for hours and one for minutes. Swipe these columns up and down to select the time interval you want, then start the countdown by tapping on the play icon in the icon bar. A bell icon selects which audio alarm is associated with the countdown.

The app can run numerous timers simultaneously; to see them, either swipe the timers one by one or turn the phone sideways to view them all in a list. You can even add a label to each timer so you know exactly what it’s for — like “boiled egg” or “important phone call.”

The app can also run multiple stopwatch timers that count up rather than down. You start a stopwatch by setting a new timer to 00:00 and pressing “play.”

The app does have some limitations. For example, the countdown timers count only whole hours and minutes — not seconds — and the stopwatch function has no option for split-timing laps.

An equivalent app for Android devices with similarly high design values is the $1 app Timer. The app is simple to use: to set a new countdown timer, you tap the little “+” icon, and up pops a setting for hours, minutes and seconds.

To set the seconds, you move your finger around a circular dial, then tap on hours or minutes if you need them. You can start the countdown straightaway or save it for easy access later.

Many timers can run concurrently — handy if, for example, you are cooking several dishes for a dinner party — and the app has clear controls for pausing, ending or deleting timers.

One slight irritation with this app is its method for setting labels on timers: you have to “long press” them in the list of running or saved timers, and that can be easy to forget.

You also cannot set different reminder tones for different timers — which means that if you have a group of timers running concurrently, you will have to check your phone to see which one the alarm is referring to.

Simpler timing needs may be met with the Ovo Timer, a free app on Android. Its clever design reduces countdown timing to a minimum.

The app’s screen is dominated by the time you have set, which is done by tapping on the screen and circling your finger clockwise or counterclockwise. There is also an option to have the time you want spoken.

The countdown begins automatically; you can pause it by touching the numerals. A colorful arc surrounds the countdown, disappearing gradually as the time ticks away. The app is simple and it’s free, but it can run only one timer at a time and cannot handle countdowns longer than an hour.

If you are interested in stopwatch timing rather than countdown timing, you may find it simpler to use a dedicated stopwatch app. Apple’s iOS has a useful stopwatch built into the Clock app.

You can also try the Stopwatch+ app, $1 on iTunes, a slightly more sophisticated timer that records lap events in detail and even lets you e-mail your list of times. The Ultimate Stopwatch app on Android features a clean and easy-to-use design, and includes all the basic stopwatch features. And it’s free.

And that smoke from your kitchen probably means you burned the toast while reading this.

Quick Call

The popular book Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America has been turned into a “pocket” edition app for iOS. Called Peterson Birds Pocket Edition, it is just $1, and comes with illustrations, data and bird song recordings to help identify birds you’ve heard, if not seen.

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Apps for Editing Photos

This week in my App Smart column, I wrote about some of the smartphone apps that have brought powerful photo manipulation techniques to your pocket. This is the kind of image trickery that used to be possible only on a desktop computer running Photoshop.

Many of these photo manipulation apps offer a range of effects, and you can “layer” effects on top of each other. But there are many simpler apps that can quickly transform basic smartphone photos into better images, or photos with an arty angle.

An example is Elasticam, a $2 iOS app that lets you tweak and twist your photos as if they were on a sheet of plastic. This can produce some entertaining funhouse mirror effects. The app’s easy controls can be used to pull a photo of someone’s face toward the nose, or add a crazy swirling spiral to someone’s ears, for example. Delicate touches can also make your legs look a little slimmer.

Facebox, for Android, is similar — although I did manage to crash it while testing it.

Percolator ($2 for iOS) turns your photos into a pile of colored bubbles. Close up, the altered image looks like one of those cards your optometrist uses to test for color-blindness, but from a bit farther away it looks like an arty representation of the original photo. You can adjust many settings to get the effect you want from this delightfully quirky app, which calls the process of adjusting your image “grinding” it up. It’s more for entertainment than serious photo editing.

Dash of Color is a surprisingly powerful app that can add dramatic effect to a photo. First, it turns your color image into black and white. Then you then carefully dab at the screen to restore color to parts of the image. It’s free for Android and iOS.

Apps like these turn otherwise ordinary smartphone snaps into something you may like to share with your friends over Facebook or even print out and hang on your wall. Some of them also perform some standard photo editing, like removing red-eye from photos. Others have some brain-twisting effects like changing your eye color (the free iOS app Magic Eye Color Effect).

Quick Call

TV Guide has given its free Android app a big overhaul. The app has a New Tonight, Trending feature so you can see what other people are watching, and it has more social networking so you can share your TV choices with the world.

App Smart: Mobile Editing Tools for Smartphone Photos

The granddaddy of photo manipulation on a smartphone is Photoshop. The Photoshop Touch app is a touch-screen version of the original ($10 for a tablet version on iOS and Android, $6 for iOS and Android phones). It’s powerful and can apply many of the effects you have seen in magazines and on the Web. That includes adjustments like the tilt-shift effect, which can make a townscape look like a miniature model, as well as better-known effects like red-eye reduction.

A tutorial shows beginners how to manipulate sample photos, step by step. Soon you’ll be experimenting on your own.

Because of its complexity, however, this app isn’t ideal for occasional use or for simple touch-ups of your holiday snaps. Unless you take the time to make yourself familiar with it, you’ll easily get lost in its hundreds of settings. You may find it hard to remember the purpose of its many icons.

A simpler app, Photoshop Express (free on iOS and Android) is ideal for quick fixes because it has only about a dozen effects. It’s great for cropping or quick brightness adjustments. It has clear controls and an obvious mechanism for undoing changes, though it would be nice to be able to undo an earlier effect without changing later adjustments.

You can also use it to share your tweaked photos via e-mail or over social networks like Twitter. It’s a simple app, and there’s little to dislike about it.

For a different, more entertaining experience, Snapseed is free on iOS and Android. It doesn’t have Photoshop Touch’s range of functions, but Snapseed’s tools are presented in an interesting, gesture-based interface.

Icons represent different adjustments it can make, including cropping, rotating, tilt-shift effects and retro-looking filters.

After you choose a photo from your phone’s library and select one of these effects, the app takes you to an editing page. You’ll see the image you’re working on and a simple icon bar at the bottom. In many cases, you adjust the selected photo effect with screen gestures: to crop an image you simply drag a finger from any corner of the image until you achieve the framing you desire.

Other settings, like rotating the cropping window, are controlled via the icon bar. You can hold your finger on the Preview button to see the photo before and after you’ve applied your chosen effect. When you’re satisfied, click Apply.

Some of the effects are beautiful. But I’ll admit that, even though this is one of my favorite apps and I’m practiced in its use, I find it easy to forget which gestures do what. Fortunately, the app reminds you when you start work.

A great alternative $1 app on iOS is Luminance. A full-featured app, it’s a little like Photoshop Express, but with a few more effects and a slightly different interface. It’s much more icon-driven than Snapseed and is a little more intuitive than Adobe’s apps.

For example, clicking on the icon that looks like a group of slider controls brings up a panel where you can adjust features like brightness, contrast or color saturation by moving a slider. The app also has a timeline of your edits so that you can see exactly what you did to your photo in the order you did it. It doesn’t have much in the way of tutorials or instructions, though, so mastering it may take some trial and error.

Quick Call

Google has given the free YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 an overhaul, turning it into a full-featured video app. Among its features are the ability to share videos over social networks and play clips in the background.

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: More Ways to Stay Fit

This week I wrote about apps that can take the place, at least in part, of a personal trainer. These fitness apps can coach and provide encouragement as you try to get fit. With summer fast approaching, now may be a great moment to take advantage of these apps to improve your overall fitness, lose some weight or tone your muscles.

The free Android app Fitness Flow is designed to be more cheerful and quirky than many of its peers. Its text is written in playful-looking fonts, and to pause the app you hit the “take a rest” button, and to stop you hit the red “that’s enough” button. Tapping on the “quick start” button on the app’s home page takes you straight into a random workout. As you exercise, the app’s main display shows a video of what you’re supposed to be doing. Along with the video, a voice tells you how to move properly and relays other information like the time elapsed.

You can adjust the app’s settings to focus your workouts on particular body sections, but the free edition only comes with a short list of exercises and coaching videos. For the full experience of over 100 different exercises you have to pay $3.99. The app displays video only when your device is connected to the Internet, but you can exercise to the audio cues alone when you’re offline.

The free iOS and Android Alpha Trainer app is almost the opposite. It’s very sophisticated, and has a much more serious tone about working out and getting fit. It’s centered around the idea of a 14-week program, which it builds for you based on the goals you enter into its settings menu. You can tell the app you work out at home or in the gym, and it will adjust — for example, recommending that you use simple hand weights at home or that you use a particular piece of bodybuilding equipment in the gym.

The free part of the app is limited, however, and to access the full functions you have to pay for in-app purchases that vary, from individual workouts (for example, plyometrics jump training costs $9.99) to “elite” membership that unlocks the app for $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year.

On the other hand if you prefer a simpler type of workout, like going for a bicycle ride, taking a fast walk or going for a jog, then there are apps like the $2.99 Run Tracker Pro for iOS. This is one of the training apps I use because I prefer not to be “nagged” or even motivated by a trainer (albeit in video form) and instead I make my own targets. The app also lets you try out interval training workouts, such as alternating your pace every minute as you run. But its main purpose is to track you through GPS and monitor your pace. The app can show you each workout on a map, and it stores information like your pace and split times so you can see how your current times compare with your previous ones. For a similar alternative app, check out Endomondo free on iOS or Android; you may find its interface better suits your tastes.

Have fun getting fit!

Quick call

Rovio has added 100 new levels to its Angry Birds game on the Windows Phone platform. The game is a classic of the touch-screen smartphone era and if you’ve not played Angry Birds before, now is a good time to try it out. It’s free for Windows Phone 8 devices and for those running the 7.5 version.

App Smart: Workout Apps That Keep Track of Your Fitness Regimen

My favorite is Nike Training Club, free on Android and iOS. It has a simple, clean interface, so you can exercise without distractions. The home page has a summary of your training performance and a menu bar that takes you to pages with more details on your previous workouts. There’s also a rewards page where you can earn digital badges for completing workouts.

To start exercising, you click the Get Workouts button, or pick Quick Start and choose the workout you did previously. Workouts vary, depending on whether you want a leaner body or a stronger one, for example. When you choose an activity the app inquires about your experience level (beginner to expert) and offers a list of different exercise styles. As an example, the beginner level’s Get Lean workout has a 30-minute “sweat and shape” and a harder 45-minute “crunch and burn” workout.

Before you begin, the app lists the activities it will ask you to do. You can click on these to get step-by-step advice, with images, to help you do them correctly. Or you can watch a professional demonstrate the moves in a short video.

When you begin a workout, the app gives you a spoken summary of what’s ahead, and then starts a large on-screen clock. While you’re exercising, the app speaks aloud at key moments to give you tips or let you know how much time remains in the exercise. In the Straight Leg Kicks exercise, it reminds you to “roll up on the ball of the standing foot when you kick.” You can exercise to this voice alone, or listen to music from your device library with the coaching voice superimposed over your music.

The app has a huge list of different workouts and includes examples from famous athletes like Gabby Douglas. Its one drawback may be that it requires you to sign up for a free Nike account or connect through your Facebook account.

A great alternative app is Gain Fitness Cross Trainer, free on iOS. While its design is less glossy, it may suit serious exercisers. The app has prebuilt workouts like Torso Rush and Full Bod Livelong, but you can also add workouts customized to your needs. The app can suggest exercise programs based on your goals and where you exercise, at home or on the go. You can also choose a workout time and which part of your body you want to concentrate on (for example, full body or just legs and abs).

When the workout starts, an overview describes the different exercises it’s going to run through. For fun or for motivation, you can e-mail this list or share it through Twitter or Facebook. Tapping on the little information icon pauses the exercise and shows a list of text-based tips on how to carry it out.

While the workout is running, the app shows you an animated image of the current exercise. Beneath this image, a large progress bar shows you how much time is left for each exercise; below that is a smaller progress bar for the entire workout. At the bottom are controls for stopping the workout, skipping or repeating a particular exercise and controlling the sound.

The app uses audio encouragements like, “Nice,” and reminds you of time limits, but the words are spoken in a very neutral voice and can get repetitive. This may not necessarily inspire you to athletic heights.

Workout Trainer is a similar free Android app, with simple animations of each exercise and voice cues to help you with the timing. Its clean and simple visual design shouldn’t distract you as you work up a sweat. But the trainer voices on the free version are electronic and may grate on your nerves.

While there’s a sizable selection of workouts to choose from, many more require a $15-a-year subscription. Subscribers do benefit from human audio recordings and high-definition videos of the exercises, though.

Quick Call

The BBC has released an Android version of its Sports app, free on Google Play. Available internationally, the app has articles and breaking news on soccer, cricket, tennis and other sports.

App Smart: Home Design Apps Let You Experiment With Colors and Décor

Home Design 3D ($7 on iOS) is one of the better ones. It turns a two-dimensional view of your home into a three-dimensional graphic that you can view from any angle and even walk around as if inside. It is so sophisticated you could use it as a starting point for designing a house, rather than just tweaking your interior design.

You start in two-dimensional construction mode, adding rooms and adjusting their size and shape to match your place. You can add measurements and drop in items from a database, like a water fountain or a grand piano. There’s a host of options for doorways, windows and other openings, and you can choose to color walls or floors with textures that look like wallpaper, carpet or wood or simply a uniform color.

When your design is done, you click on the 3-D button to turn it into a 3-D version. While the app tries to be as intuitive as possible, with clear icons for control and some attractively designed screens, it has a steep learning curve. The fact that you have to pay for access to some textures and pieces of furniture might also frustrate you.

Build App Pro is a similar Android app that costs $6. The app also has a plan-view design mode that lets you set out the layout of rooms and furniture items, plus a 3-D graphical view. Like Home Design 3D, the app tries to make design simple — it uses icon-driven menus and easy-to-learn gestures.

But it has a small number of 3-D furniture models and a tendency to crash.

A far simpler app is Houzz Interior Design Ideas, free on Android and iOS, which will probably be more useful in the early stages of any redesign plans. The app’s main feature is an extensive catalog of photos, listed by categories like Family Room, Wine Cellar and Exterior. Tap on a category, select a subcategory like Modern or Tropical and scroll through the photos. You can bookmark designs you like in your own idea book, or export them to Twitter or through e-mail. The app also has lists of products for sale and professionals who can help you realize your design.

If you’re just thinking about changing the color of your furniture or walls, there are many apps to help. The best-known color matching system is Pantone, and it has an official MyPantone app for iOS.

The app’s main feature is a representation of the famous Pantone color swatches. Scroll through the rainbow of options by dragging and then tapping on a color you like. This brings up a new page of data on that color, including its official Pantone code number and a tab for “harmonies.” This tab takes you to a graphical display of colors that complement your initial choice. If you are inspired by a color you see in real life, you can snap a photo of it and have the app recommend the closest Pantone color. You can save your favorite colors for a visit to a store to find matching paint. The downside is that the app costs a steep $10.

Quick Call

Swype has been a popular alternative text-entry system for Android. It speeds typing on an on-screen keyboard because you simply glide your finger to the next letter in the word you want to type. Now the app has come out of its beta test mode, and has hit Google’s Play store for the first time, priced at $1.

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Dictionaries on the Go, Both Fancy and Simple

This week, my App Smart column was all about the delights of using dictionary apps on your smartphone or tablet. These apps can help you quickly look up a word’s meaning and usage or learn new words. Compared with a printed paper edition, dictionary apps on your mobile device can also let you share words you’ve found over social media or even quickly swap between looking up text in a dictionary or a thesaurus.

Many big names in dictionary publishing have released apps, and Oxford is perhaps one of the best known. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is one of the most powerful apps you can get on iOS, though you have to pay $29.99 to access it. Where some similar apps emphasize quick access to word definitions and other useful information like synonyms, this app instead offers full dictionary entries that include examples and even photos.

The app can also teach you the right pronunciation with real British and American voices instead of computer voices. You can download the audio database for all of the 116,000 example sentences so they can be accessed offline. The app even suggests spelling, so you can find the word you’re looking for even if you don’t exactly know how to spell it. The main drawback is that this app’s screen can seem cluttered on a small iPhone display. If the clutter bothers you, you can choose to tell the app to, for example, turn off photos or example sentences.

An alternative, simpler iOS dictionary app is WordBook English Dictionary and Thesaurus, at $1.99. Its design is plainer than many of its peers. It offers a basic ability to look up a word in its database of some 150,000 entries. Each entry includes a pronunciation guide and spoken audio, although you need an Internet connection to get the audio to work. The app includes both British and American spellings of words, but the entries are written in American English.

It also has the ability to search several different online dictionary sources if the word you want can’t be found in its built-in word database. For fun there’s also a “puzzle solver” system that can help you solve anagrams or find words from partly solved crossword clues. It’s not the prettiest app, and you may find yourself yearning for a bit more context or background in each dictionary entry, but at least it’s speedy to use.

On Android there’s also the Dictionary app by Farlex. It’s free in an ad-supported edition, and includes both British and American audio pronunciation guides, and when it returns data on words, it can display some very extensive information. For example, the word “tap” returns some four or five scrollable pages of text, including images and alternative meanings of the word, example uses, history of the word and so on.

But sometimes it can seem like there’s too much data to look through, and it’s all presented in a similar way, which means you have to exercise your own judgment as to which of the results are useful to you. On the other hand, it can work offline, though you have to download data to the app while you have a connection. Plus it has the ability to look up words in several foreign languages, including Spanish and Russian.

Have fun improving your vocabulary!

Quick call: Paper Toss 2.0 is a new edition of the popular casual game, free on Android. The objective is simple: You have to toss scrunched-up paper balls (or bananas and a number of other objects) into a target trash can. The company says it’s like the classic office “time waster” game made digital.

App Smart: Dictionary Apps for Smartphones and Tablets

But before your fingers close on that printed book and flick through its alphabetically indexed pages, consider this: There are many dictionary apps that could help you do the job more speedily. They may also have features that will teach you new words. And they might even be fun.

Dictionary.com Dictionary and Thesaurus is a free iOS and Android app that comes from one of the best-known dictionary Web sites. Unlike the Web site, the app has the advantage that many of its features work offline. This app’s home page is colorful with icons and is topped by a search bar where you enter words you want to look up. As soon as you begin to type in this bar, the app begins to suggest words that may match, so you don’t always have to type in the whole word. If you’re unsure of a word’s spelling, you can tap on the microphone icon and speak your word instead.

When you see the word you’re looking for in the search list, a single tap takes you to its main dictionary entry. Here you’ll find the usual definitions you’d get in a paper dictionary, including a guide to pronunciation, word origin description, various meanings and related word forms. You can hear the word spoken aloud by tapping on the loudspeaker icon, or add the word to a favorites list. The app also has a built-in thesaurus, which you can get to via a tab in the search bar. On the iPhone, the app can translate a word into several languages.

It’s functional as a dictionary, but the app also has entertaining extras. It can show you which words people are searching for most right now, for example, and even what people near you are searching for.

The app is visually cluttered, though, and some features, like voice recognition and pronunciation guides, work only online. I got the feeling I was being nagged to buy add-ons, like the ability to see example sentences. Also, the free version’s on-screen ads can get annoying if you don’t make a $2.99 in-app purchase to banish them.

The Android version has a slightly different interface of a simpler design than the iOS version. There is also an attractively designed free edition for Windows Phone, though it seems trickier to switch between the dictionary and the thesaurus in that one.

Merriam-Webster has released several dictionary apps with different functions to cater to certain users or devices. For example, some apps incorporate a thesaurus function alongside the main dictionary; others don’t. The basic Merriam-Webster app is free for iOS and Android devices and is supported by on-screen ads. Its design is simpler than the Dictionary.com app’s. The home page consists of a logo, a control bar at the bottom that provides access to the app’s various functions and a prominent search bar at the top.

Like the Dictionary.com app, Merriam-Webster’s version suggests word matches as you type in the search bar. It can also take voice input instead of typed text. When you tap on a word in the list of suggestions, the app shows the relevant dictionary entry, which is easy to read, with a clear layout and large text. The entry also uses the word in an example and offers a list of synonyms and antonyms. Tap on the red speaker icons to hear the word pronounced.

But the basic app’s database is limited and it knows only two of my favorite three words. It’s possible that the Collegiate edition would know all three: it costs a little less than $25 on iOS and Android to get more definitions as well as the ability to modify menus and a “pen reader” system for recognizing handwriting in many languages. A $3.99 Windows Phone edition of the Merriam-Webster app says it includes “all” the definitions from the Collegiate dictionary.

English Dictionary — Offline, free on Android, is the simplest of the apps mentioned here but is still powerful. Its interface is basic: a search box at the top and space below for word definitions to appear. Tap icons to share words to other apps, flag words as favorites or perform other actions like viewing your search history. Dictionary entries are based on the Wiktionary database, which the makers say includes about 159,000 words. You can click on individual words on an entry page to navigate to that word, and the app will speak the word aloud for you. It’s free and handy for looking up definitions. But it falls short if you’re curious about how a word came into use.

As for “philtrum,” it’s that little vertical groove in your upper lip beneath your nose.

Quick Call

Microsoft has updated its Outlook.com e-mail app for Android, bringing the new design of the desktop Outlook software to the app and adding services like threaded conversations and the ability to mark messages as junk.

Gadgetwise Blog: App Smart Extra: Say It, and It Will Be Written

Though computer recognition of speech has not yet achieved the levels of sophistication that science fiction writers love to imagine, nowadays it is good enough that your smartphone or tablet can help with the tricky task of converting speech to text. Apps that pull off this trick can help you with your studies or in the office and were the subject of this week’s App Smart column.

One of the chief ways speech recognition and transcription can be useful is in creating reminders or notes. If you’re anything like me, when I have an idea I tend to articulate it best by speaking aloud versus trying to write it down. The advantage of modern smartphones and tablets, usually with the latest operating system upgrade, is that they have basic speech recognition built in, which means you can use a note-taking app like Evernote to record and transcribe your spoken text. The note management features of Evernote, which include the ability to pin an audio file to a note along with images and typed text, could make it a useful tool. It’s free on iOS and Android, and it’s hugely popular. It may be a little too complex for very short notice note-taking needs, however, unless you work to become familiar with the app.

For a far simpler speech-to-notes experience, Voice Dictation for Notes, $1.99 on iOS, is a good option. The app presents you with a graphic that looks like lined note paper, and there’s a prominent microphone button at the top of the left-side icon bar. Pressing this brings up a warning that you are recording at the top of the screen, and then the app transcribes your words. The resulting text can be forwarded to e-mail with the press of a button, or copied so you can paste it into another app.

The app can handle a long list of separate notes, listed on its main page. It shows the first several words of each note to you as a reminder of its content, along with the date the note was created.

It’s a bare bones app and thus may be a great choice if you are working in a busy environment where you simply want to record a note and not fuss with an app interface. At the same time, though, it’s not a sophisticated app and you will find yourself making a lot of manual corrections to the text.

You can also fall back on the built-in “Notes” app in iOS and use Apple’s standard voice-recognition system. But it is not easy to use, and has a few controls that seem too small for fingertips. You may also tire of its fake yellow notepaper look and its limited font selection. Google also has its own note-taking app, Keep, which includes speech-to-text powers.

If you are in the habit of writing a lot of text on your phone or tablet, then it’s definitely worth giving speech recognition apps like these a try. You may even find yourself being more productive than when you type words on a touchscreen keyboard.

Quick Call

The free beta edition of launcher app Everything.me has arrived in the Google Play store for Android. It’s an app that tries to be a clever front-end for your smartphone by adapting the apps it offers to you based on what you are using your phone for at that moment. Compared with the static homepage of fixed apps that Android typically has, you may find this app enhances your experience.