Best apps: Our experts pick 50 of the most dazzling

[tabatha]

The web has undergone something of a makeover in the past couple of years. Apps, specialized miniature versions of internet-based services, now allow us to neatly populate our phones and tablet computers with our favorite bits of the web, from train times and painting tools to shopping services and karaoke. Simply packaged and easy to buy, apps have made niche corners of the web more accessible and mainstream.

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-12-26-best-apps-our-experts-pick-50-of-the-most-dazzling

a few ......

Fotopedia Heritage
iPad, iPhone, free. The world's largest coffee-table book featuring more than 25 000 sumptuous photographs and articles about 890 Unesco world heritage sites. It's continually expanding as well and it's free.

Word Lens
iPad, iPhone, $4,60. Not without some flaws, this augmented-reality translator is still stunning. Point the camera at a foreign language (on a menu, say) and it turns into English on the screen. Spanish-only at the moment; more languages promised.

Nasa
iPad, iPhone, free. Lovely educational app for budding astronauts with lots of news from Nasa. Find out when you'll be able to see the International Space Station passing. Also videos, images and lots of info on planets and asteroids and comets.

Real Tools
iPhone, $1,80. Leave the weighty toolbox behind, with 18 tools crammed into one little app -- everything from a ruler to a spirit level, and all surprisingly accurate. The measuring scale is a particularly impressive use for a phone.

(The comma is the decimal point.)

[NV Whino]

1. The first two apps I got

were Word Lens and Real Tools. And the article just reminded me to load Skype.

[tabatha]

2. I have avoided the smaller devices

until things shake out a bit. I may get iPad version 2 in the future.

[mdmc]

3. ..

[walldude]

4. That Word Lens thing sounds cool...

Hope they make a java version because I'm not buying damn iPhone.