Our 5 free and paid Android/iOS apps of the week

Like every weekend, we meet on NextPit for my selection of 5 free or paid mobile apps and games that caught my eye on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

Every week, I try to bring you the most recent apps that are not personal data traps or microtransaction nests. In addition to my own finds, I also add the gems unearthed by the NextPit community and shared on our forum.

Moodistory

Moodistory is an iOS emotional and activity tracking app whose watchwords are intuitiveness and privacy. Let me warn you right away, the app costs $4.99. Yes, it's expensive, but at least it works completely offline and stores all your data locally on your iPhone.

The idea is that you can create a journal entry in less than 5 seconds without writing a single word. Once the entry is created, you can of course expand it by adding photos, location or notes. You can choose a limited emotional range (2 responses, good mood or bad mood) or add more precise levels (up to 11 levels).

The app offers a calendar of the emotions - negative or positive - that you have recorded in order to determine possible trends or unusual changes in mood. Moodistory also works with an Apple Watch and can be displayed as a widget on your home screen.

I found the interface to be really nice. I also like the offline aspect of Moodistory, but spending more than $5 on this kind of application? Personally, I don't feel the need for it but that's just my opinion.

Moodistory works completely offline on your iPhone / © NextPit

You can buy the Moodistory application for $4.99 from the Apple App Store.

Headnote

Ah, you can never have enough note-taking apps when you're on an Android smartphone. How about this one? What? A note-taking AND productivity app? With a Pomodoro function?!

Headnote is a free and ad-free application that allows you to increase your notes with a task planner, a reminder function and a Pomodoro timer to fully optimize your time. The interface is very nice and the tagging system makes it easy to organize your notes.

Headnote's interface is very clean / © NextPit

You can download Headnote from the Google PlayStore.

Time Rise

I'm fascinated by weird apps. Actually, it's the fascination with them that fascinates me. I came across Time Rise while hanging out on Reddit looking for apps for this article. Its developer's post and its hundred or so responses caught my eye.

The concept of Time Rise is quite simple. It's a timer that works like an hourglass or a clepsydra. To start the timer, you have to tilt your smartphone down, as you would do with an hourglass. An animation then scrolls across the screen to illustrate the passage of time as it passes.

Honestly, I don't know why this app was so successful. Yes, the interface is neat, the app is free, with no ads or in-app purchases, but this is the kind of niche that remains a mystery to me. It's almost a meme actually, and I think that's pretty awesome, in a way.

Turn your smartphone into an hourglass / © NextPit

You can download the Time Rise app from the Google Play Store.

XAgo - Keep track

XAgo is an activity tracker but it tracks activities that you don't do enough of, or at least not often enough. The idea is to identify tasks or activities that are important to you and that you need or want to do regularly and frequently to feel good about yourself.

XAgo will then remind you when you have not done a certain activity for too long. Read a good book, do some sport, get some fresh air etc...

You can think of it as a productivity tool, but I see XAgo more as a wellness application. The goal is not to call you to order but rather to get you out of your daily routine and do something more essential. The application is free, no ads, no in-app purchases, no account and the pastel interface is very nice.

Don't lose sight of the essentials / © NextPit

You can download the XAgo - Keep track app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

JankenUp!

Every week, I try to find a game that's WTF enough to be more original than the other mobile game selections without selling you a micro-transaction trap. JankerUp!, which is unfortunately only available on the Play Store, is a rock, paper, scissors game presented as a fighting game.

Yes, it is a fighting game. But the goal isn't to hammer all the buttons on the controller at random like your little cousin when he was humiliating you with Eddie on Tekken 3 back in the day. No, instead you only have three buttons (rock, leaf and scissors), a bit of luck or bad luck but mostly timing.

The graphic atmosphere is very nice, with a Japanese style and good animations. I would have preferred a more aggressive soundtrack, to accentuate the combat side, even if it means pushing the joke to the end. The game offers a single player campaign or a multiplayer mode. You can unlock several characters.

And, big surprise, the game is free, without ads and its only in-app purchase of 1.39 € is only used to unlock all the characters at once (no pay-to-win, the differences between characters are cosmetic only). The gameplay is very simple but the progression curve is interesting. It's really a great hobby game, in my opinion.

You can download the game JankenUp! from the Google Play Store.

What do you think of this selection? Have you been able to test any of the apps on this list yet? What would be your apps of the week? Share your opinions and especially your good tips in the comments! If you're looking for a particular type of application, don't hesitate to let me know so I can orient my research and selection according to your needs! Applicatively yours.

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