Smartphone App Wrap: Movies, Twitter, games, and exercise

I am not a single smartphone guy, and use every mobile OS, so I get the chance to try out lots of applications. We now find hundreds of thousands of apps, and it can be difficult finding new ones to try. This is the first instalment of a planned weekly smartphone app wrap gallery, where I'll post some thoughts on new and useful mobile apps, along with representative screenshots from those apps.

Mobile operating systems today are quite advanced, and come with lots of integrated apps and utilities. A lot is written about mobile applications and how many are available for each platform. I am guilty of installing something like 50 apps on my devices, but then using just five to 10 on a regular basis.

Remember The Milk

Platform: Android

Price: Free

I have been looking for a good task list application that works across mobile platforms, and for a while I was using Wunderlist. They then updated the service and dropped Windows Phone support so I had to look elsewhere. I discovered Remember The Milk, and dove in to using it as soon as the latest Android version was released that offered a slick UI.

I love the way you can quickly filter your tasks on the left side, and then swipe back and forth to interact with the app.

Platform: Android

Price:

I have about seven weeks until my next half-marathon, and after RunKeeper support appeared on my Pebble smart watch, I installed the latest version of RunKeeper on my HTC One.

RunKeeper is a powerful fitness application, and last year I signed up as an Elite member so I could do even more with it online. It works well on Android, and tracks just about everything I could want.

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

My family loves to go to the movies, and a local AMC theater near us has premium leather recliners with the ability to pick your seat before you get to the theater. With Iron Man 3 kicking off last weekend, and many more great movies coming soon, I find the AMC Theatres to be an essential app.

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

I pay the yearly fee for AMC Stubs, and this gives me the ability to purchase tickets from my iPhone 5 with no fees, while also earning Stubs Rewards to then buy snacks or movie tickets with reward dollars. I also like that the application includes RunPee support so you can figure out when it is advised to make a bathroom or popcorn refill trip out of the movie.

Platform: iOS

Price: Free

I am not much of a gamer, but I do enjoy casual games where I can play for 5 to 10 minutes and then move on. I saw a few people talking about Dots: A Game About Connecting on Twitter, so I decided to go check it out.

It turns out that this was not a very good choice, as I now cannot put down the game and keep playing. The game is fairly simple: You connect dots using straight lines (diagonal lines are not allowed), and try to clear as many as possible in a minute. Stats are collected and presented after the game is over.

Platform: Windows Phone

Price: $1.99

I live about 45 miles from where I work, and in the Puget Sound area, this means weather conditions can be different between these two locations. My buddy Rafe Blandford, from All About Windows Phone, recommended that I test out Weather Flow.

Weather Flows looks great, and one of my favorite features is the ability to have it appear on the lock screen with the Bing daily image appearing as the background image. Weather seems to be accurate, and the app is very attractive.

Platform: Windows Phone

Price: Free

Microsoft killed the ability to rent and purchase movies from Xbox Marketplace on Windows Phone 8. There are ways to stream video content, and the latest application to support this launched this week. With the Hulu Plus app, you can view video content on your Windows Phone device.

Platform: Windows Phone

Price: Free

While the app is free, you will need to be a Hulu Plus subscriber to enjoy video content.

Platform: BlackBerry 10

Price: $2.99

Twitter is included in BlackBerry 10, but third-party developers have been making Twitter apps for other platforms. I used Blaq on my PlayBook, so I was very pleased to see Blaq appear for BB10.

Blaq has a slick UI on BB10, and I have been using it on the Z10. You swipe from left to right to access different parts of Twitter. When you select specific tweets, you swipe from right to left and then select options if you want to favorite, retweet, or perform other functions.

Platform: BlackBerry 10

Price: Free

I listen to a lot of podcasts on my devices, and found the Nobex app to meet my needs.

Platform: BlackBerry 10

Price: Free

Nobex is more than just a podcatcher; it also works as an internet radio application. YouTube videos of your favorite songs are also viewable within the app. You can have new episode notifications appear in BlackBerry Hub, too.