In this month's selection of the App Store's highlights, we've got some tools to help you relax, get to places and appointments on time, and even explore some new sights in the city! As usual, that's just the start – read on to find out more.
Snorelax
Nordin Ouameur
£1.49
Snorelax is a intelligent alarm clock that has one goal: to get you to work on time.
For many commuters there can be any number of delays on your route to work – ranging from heavy traffic to random bouts of bad weather. Snorelax learns your route to work, and will then keep an eye on the weather, traffic reports and public information to check whether there's anything with the potential to interrupt your commute. If there's any kind of delay likely, it'll wake you up a little bit early to make sure you don't arrive late!
As well as being highly functional, Snorelax looks great, too – with a nice simple interface and background pictures that will change during the day, depending on factors like weather and the season.
You'll quickly come to appreciate not having to guestimate when to set your alarm – and it's fantastic to get back those precious minutes of sleep!
Memrise
Memrise
Free
For a long time, I thought Duolingo would hold the crown for the best language-learning app to –but Memrise may just be able to take that title away!
The big idea behind Memrise is something called 'Memory Science'. This is a process within the app that analyses your progress and adapts the app to help you learn better. You'll first work through introductory excercises and small challenges to help you get to grips with whatever language you choose, and from there the experience is tailored to you. There are also a handful of learning games included, so you can learn in more fun environment, rather than just repeating the same exercises over and over.
The app offers over 100 different languages to learn, which is mighty impressive by itself – but the way it presents them truly sets apart. The app presents words and phrases in a way that makes it extremely easy for beginners to get to grips with: pictures, text, video and sound are all combined to help you learn not just the words, but the context and usage behind them too.
The app gives you daily learning goals – and the more words you learn, the more fuel you'll earn for your rocket. The rocket is the app's way of tracking your progress and basically acts like an 'experience level' in an RPG: more fuel means you can fly further and go up more levels! While you can keep this to yourself, you can also show off and compete with your friends too by linking the app to your Facebook account.
Whileyou can learn a lot for free, there are also some paid options available. If you subscribe to their premium service you'll get some extra games, as well as an offline mode, which lets you download an entire language course to your phone or tablet.
All in all, if you want to learn a new language, you can't really go too wrong with Memrise - it's definitely worth a download!
Wildfulness
Mark Hendriks
£1.49
The benefits of meditation apps can be debated endlessly – but the overall consensus seems to be that even you don't fully believe in it, you can still benefit from a little rest and relaxation.
With that in mind, we bring you Wildfulness – a meditation app that focuses on nature as the backdrop to give your mind a break from the stresses of life.
To complement and enhance the meditation ideas are six hand-drawn landscapes that certainly add to the immersive experience. You'll want some headphones, too, as the app also comes with a variety of soothing sounds – including thunderstorms, leaves and trees rustling, birdsong and more. You simply choose a scenario, choose a time and then start your meditation!
Personally, I find I don't always have time to experiment with things like this – but the artwork and style has made me want to give this more of a try.
Tayasui Colour
Tayasui.com
£1.49
Sticking with the theme of relaxation, Tayasui Colour is an adult colouring book in the form of an app.
I will readily admit I've never really seen the appeal of adult colouring books, but something about this particular app caught my eye. It features twelve different pictures for you to colour, in any style you see fit, with a variety of different drawing tools to use.
There is a sense of realism to these tools to try and immerse into the whole experience – and if you keep the sound turned on your iPhone or iPad, you'll also hear the realistic sounds of your drawing implement as you pen (or pencil) a great work of art.
Being a colouring book, there are obviously lines for you to follow with your colouring – however, the app encourages you to be creative with your work, so feel free to go crazy!
Walter
Triposo Inc.
Free
Walter is a compass – but not just any compass. You see, instead of pointing you in any cardinal direction, instead Walter directs your towards various points of interests around your current location.
There's no setup involved, and no options either: you simply open it up and the compass will pick up your location and start showing you sights. These are colour coded: red for places to eat, purple for drinks, blue for a sights to see and yellow for shops. All you need to do is treat it like a compass – and it will quickly help you find the sights and sounds of virtually any city.
You'll also notice that locations are separated into three concentric circles depending on how far away they are. You can use this to estimate how long it'll take you to get to any of the locations – and as you get closer it will move towards the centre of the compass.
Walter is ideal for trips to a new city – particularly if you're the adventurous type who likes to really explore. If this sounds like you, then Walter will be a perfect match!
That's it for this month's roundup of the very best iOS apps – but if you're after more fun on your iPhone or iPad, why not check out July's selection of the very best iOS games? And for more great articles from our Agents straight to your inbox each month, get your name down below for our Geek Squad newsletter!