30 BEST APPS
Good apps help you forget how terrible everything is – and these 30 will set you up for the year, whether you want to unleash your inner artiste, ease your daily routine or just have a bit more fun
CREATIVE CRACKERS
Phones and tablets were never merely for consumption – but these arty apps let you turn that little rectangle into an extension of your weirdly inventive brain
ABLETON NOTE
The iPhone equivalent of a three-minute single rather than a double album, Note distills Ableton’s desktop app into a musical sketchpad. Its combination of samples and a great interface lets you quickly get ideas down, which you can expand in Ableton Live – and then inflict on the masses at Glasto. £4.99 / iOS
PHOTOLEAP
This app has long had form in the AI space. You can swap backgrounds, replace a sky, remove objects or explode a figure into animated shapes, as if they’d been subject to a finger-click by a geometry-loving Thanos. And now there’s AI image generation, to build quick pics from text or sketch input. £free (IAP) / Android, iOS
CAPTIONISTA
These days a lot of videos are watched in silence on phones – hence the trend for burned-in subtitles. This app lets you add them with ease. Intuitive controls let you quickly adjust pacing, and there are plenty of style options to ensure your captions remain readable yet still suit the feel of your video. £free (IAP) / iOS
LUMAFUSION
We’ve long been fans of this one on Apple kit, but now the LumaTouch video editor is on Android too. It’s desktop-grade stuff, with a wealth of features and effects – yet based on an interface that’s been smartly considered to the degree that you could feasibly edit your next Hollywood masterpiece right on your phone. £17.99 /Android ● ●£25.99 / iOS
AFFINITY PUBLISHER 2
Another ‘can’t do that on an iPad’ barrier is smashed to pieces. This third entry in the Affinity series (after Photo and Designer) lets you use your tablet to lay out everything from posters to entire magazines, by way of a full suite of desktop-grade tools married to a touchscreen interface. £17.99 / iPad
MIRROR LAB
Messing around with symmetry makes even mundane imagery shine. Mirror Lab gives you a host of options, from basic reflections to trippy kaleidoscopic effects that you can combine. The app lets you start with a photo or just a gradient; in either case, you’ll have something dazzling in just a few taps. £free or £6.99 / Android
EVERYDAY HELPERS
Face it, you’re chained to that phone – might
