This week, Android users can jot down notes in a jiffy using a new app from Microsoft. And we've got two apps that are perfect for Halloween weekend. L'Oreal's latest lets you try on different hair colors, and offers styling tutorials — perfect if you wanted to switch up your hair color in tandem with your costume. There's also an amazing new Walking Dead game that is, of course, filled with zombies
Parchi
Everyone has moments when they need to jot down important information — fast. Parchi (free on Android) is a note-taking app perfect for capturing small bites of info, even from the lock screen. You can color notes, make lists, or just write down timely information. You can also pin your notes to the lock screen, add tags so you can find them later, and group multiple notes together. Whether you’re a grad student, a new mom, or basically anybody else, this sounds incredibly useful.
un Mo Run!
Next month is November, but among the men in your life, it may be better known as Movember. The Movember Foundation, which promotes growing a mustache to raise awareness for men’s health charities, created an app, Run Mo Run (free on iOS and Android), to go along with its month-long facial-hair-growing effort. In the app, your mustachioed character runs and jumps through various mustache-themed worlds as you collect coins and turn regular bros into “mo bros” (yep). If the idea of a whole Tom Selleck-style-mustache world tickles your fancy, you should check out this game; in-app purchase proceeds go towards charities.
Vidku
We love sharing videos on Snapchat, but sometimes it’s a bummer when you see or capture an amazing Snap, and then it’s gone forever. If you feel the same way, you may want to try Vidku (free on iOS and Android). It’s a video-focused social network that lets you share clips up to 17 seconds long with your friends. If you don’t want the video to linger forever, you can remove it anytime you want; otherwise, it exists in a discussion stream with your group of friends. You can make groups based around an event or around specific people
Matrix Color Lounge
One time, this author advised a friend, “Yeah, you should totally dye your hair that color; it will look great!” And she was wrong. Don’t be that friend. You can use an app like Matrix Color Lounge (free on iOS) to test-drive exactly what you’d look like in a particular hair shade (of, in this case, Matrix Colour products). In addition to letting you virtually try on colors, a craft-education feature offers how-tos on the latest hair-color trends. You can also follow up with which hair-care products you need to maintain that look.
Walking Dead: No Man’s Land
Just in time for Halloween, you can get spooky with a zombie-riddled survival game. Walking Dead: No Man’s Land (free on iOS and Android) takes you into the world of the AMC show Walking Dead. You’ve got to make tactical life-or-death decisions, including fighting hordes of flesh-eating zombies, training, hunting walkers, and choosing who of your survivor group gets to live or die. No pressure! The app has fantastic reviews, so if you’re a fan of the show, a zombie-genre obsessive, or are just looking for a quality game to add to your repertoire, you should check it out
Stitch Fix
Your favorite personal-styling website just became your favorite personal-styling app. With Stitch Fix (free on iOS), you fill out a questionnaire about your personal fashion preferences, and then the company’s stylists send you a box with five clothing or accessory items. You keep and pay for the items you want and send back the rest. With the app, it’s easier to schedule a fix (a delivery) when the need strikes and to send feedback to your stylist when you see something awesome or don’t like what they sent. You can also upload a selfie, so your stylist can get a better sense of you and your personal style. If you’re a regular Stitch Fix user, this is a must-download
Boomerang
Photos are so yesterday. If you want to share a moment in time, nowadays, you’ve got to do it with some motion. Instagram’s new app Boomerang (free on iOS and Android) captures five burst shots in a one-second time period and turns them into a video that it then plays forwards and backwards. It makes for a cool “going back in time” effect, depending on what you capture. The app is separate from Instagram, but lets you share your GIF-like creations to the platform (as well as Facebook)
CycleCast
Your 5 p.m. meeting ran late, and now you’ve missed your favorite spin class. You could hop on a gym bike, but the monotony is almost unbearable. Why not get a high-quality indoor-cycling workout on your own time? With CycleCast (free on iOS), you can take 20-, 45-, and 60-minute classes from multiple instructors. You can try out the app for free for 30 days before a $10-per-month fee kicks in. For tunes, choose from playlists ranging from pop hits and EDM to ‘80s jams and hip-hop. The app also keeps track of stats such as an estimate of your calories burned and your heart rate (if you wear an Apple Watch or heart rate monitor), so you know you’re getting a quality workout.
Phhhoto
Phhhoto (free on iOS and Android) is a fresh photo-sharing platform dedicated exclusively to choppy, stop-motion-style GIFs. The iOS app has been around for a while, but the Android version is new this week. Unlike other platforms, like Instagram’s aforementioned Boomerang app, this one actually does make GIFs (and makes it super-easy to create them) that you can save and share to any other app where GIFs shine. If you want a feed of all GIFs, all the time, Phhhoto could be your new favorite app
SessMe
Messaging apps aren’t in short supply, but while they all focus on connecting with friends, family, and your latest squeeze, they don’t always focus on security. SessMe (free on iOS and Android) aims to give you true control over what you send. All text is sent as encrypted text, so third parties trying to digitally listen in on your conversation can’t see what you’re saying. If a conversation gets a little too racy, you can delete the whole thread from everyone’s phones with the touch of a button. And if someone takes a screenshot, you’re notified with exactly what the screenshot is of. So if you send a photo and then decide that wasn’t such a good idea, you can delete it — and know for sure that it’s not secretly saved on the recipient’s handset. Pretty cool.
Stash
Investing in the stock market can be a great way to increase your net worth — and make way more money than if that same cash was just sitting in a bank account. But, the whole process of getting started… Well, how do you get started? Stash (free on iOS) makes the process simple and accessible, even if you’ve only got a handful of change to spare.
After signing up with the app, a process that takes just a couple of minutes, you can invest as little as $5 in various stock funds that fall into three different categories: “I believe,” “I want,” and “I like.” The first rounds up stocks based on causes they support, like LGBT equality; the second focuses on what you hope to get out of your investment (do you want to park your cash for years, or just make more money than you would at the bank?); and “I like” is companies you experience personally, such as Internet companies like Amazon and Facebook. The app is filled with descriptions, glossaries, and graphs so you can understand what’s happening, and track your progress. Once you’ve made some investments, it costs $1 a month to use.
CloudCal
Calendar apps are highly personal. What works for your friend or colleague may not be how you like to see your day laid out. CloudCal (free on Android) offers a new, at-a-glance view for checking your daily availability called “magic circles.” The app syncs with Google Calendar, Outlook, and Exchange, and has flexible reminders that you can snooze for later if needed. You can also hail an Uber straight from the app, as long as you’ve got Uber installed, that is. With an in-app purchase, you can get other features such as the ability to share documents and photos in calendar events, and the ability to drag-and-drop appointments around the calendar interface.
ShadeScout Nails
Wedding season is supposed to be over now, but you still have one more bridesmaid’s dress to don… and your current Halloween-flavored nail polish isn’t going to cut it. If you need to match your nail color to anything in the real world, from that dress to an ocean blue, you can use ShadeScout Nails (free on iOS). Aim your phone’s camera at your object of choice, and the app pools from thousands of colors from 25 different brands to show you what coordinates. You can also aim at a multi-color image, such as a balloon arrangement, to pull up an array of hues that match. When you’ve found something you like, you can even buy it in app. This is way more convenient than going back-and-forth with a picture on your phone in the nail aisle at Walgreens
Portrait Play
Who says your selfie isn’t a work of art? Portrait Play (free on iOS) takes your selfie and styles it in the strokes of famous painted self portraits, such as Marc Chagall’s Self-Portrait (1914) and Edouard Manet’s Head of a Woman (1870). The app was developed to promote an exhibition of masterworks from Switzerland at DC’s Phillips Collection museum. It’s a fairly basic app, but it’s fun to play around with your photos, and you learn a little bit of art history in the process. You can also learn about Switzerland and the city of Basel, in case you’re planning a trip to the Alps any time soon.
Read on for last week's top apps
Adobe Photoshop Fix
Celebrities don’t really look that good in their Instagrams; many of the best and most popular ‘grammers rely on clever photo editing. And now, the king of photo editors is available in a super-easy-to-use package on your phone. Photoshop Fix (free on iOS) is the ultimate photo-retouching app. You can virtually “liquify” on-screen elements to reshape an area. You can also fix blemishes or other imperfections in the image (we’re looking at you, photobomber in the background) by blending in the content from the surrounding photo area. You can lighten, darken, add blur effects, and smooth or sharpen areas, among other editing effects. We don't think your selfies need ANY editing, but nobody wants to look like the lone red-eyed demon in the family photo.
Psych! Outwit Your Friends
Ellen Degeneres has a knack for coming up with (or at least backing) fun mobile-based party games you can play with friends and family. Heads Up! was her first app, but now she’s back with Psych! Outwit Your Friends (free on iOS and Android). It’s a play on the game “Three Truths and a Lie” — your friends come up with fake answers to a trivia question, and it’s your job to suss out the real answer from their fakes. You can choose from a variety of categories, and the app keeps score of each player’s success, so you know who won in the end. The only thing (maybe) missing is a multi-player mode, so you can play with strangers when you’re by yourself
Inkboard
Now that phones are so powerful, you can do way more than just share photos: You can edit and customize them up the wazoo. And if you'd rather gussy up a photo with virtual markers or crayons than with filters and stickers, you should try Inkboard (free on iOS and Android). Inkboard is an easy-to-use sketching and drawing app. You can color photos to add silly or surprising Snapchat-esque doodles, like the example here, or you can sketch out ideas on a blank canvas. The app even has its own accompanying keyboard, so rather than typing a "Heck yeah!" to your friend or sending a thumbs-up emoji, you can harness your creativity and draw out your response.
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