Waze: Drive Safely

Waze doesn’t only provide you with free (besides the data costs involved) voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation, but also enables users to save time and petrol by avoiding heavily congested roads. This free app shows pop-up notifications of hazards en route or in the nearby vicinity, including robots that aren’t working, construction works or roadblocks. These have been shared by other Waze users and you can also report other annoying time consumers and hazards like accidents or speed cameras to the Waze community. In addition, users can setup or join groups, chat with registered Waze members, share their location via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare as well as email and post traffic reports to Twitter.

Viddy: Easy video sharing

Viddy is a video-sharing app that works in a similar way to the ultra-popular Instagram application, except with videos instead of photos. This app enables users to share captivating, humorous or interesting moments with others, simply by recording a 15 second clip, which can then be enhanced by adding music and using Instagram-like filters. This is done via the app, with users also able to select the intensity level at which these filters are applied. When you’re done, clips can be shared via the social web to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. You can also follow other Viddy users to like, tag yourself in or comment upon their videos. It’s a nice app, just check those data costs.

Free Ringtones by iOS Lab

iOS is one of the most stable and user-friendly mobile operating systems available, but also somewhat restrictive in what aspects of the OS users are allowed to customise. For instance, you cannot easily use music tracks on your smartphone as ringtones. This is where the Free Ringtones app comes in, since it allows users to broaden their iPhone’s acoustic horizons, by making thousands of ringtones available within over 30 lists. These include sound effects and holiday-themed tones, which users can browse through via categories including most downloaded and top rated. Users can also preview sounds before downloading them.

iPhone tip: Another use for the timer

Ever fallen asleep with your headset on whilst listening to your favourite music or podcast episode? Apple has made an easy way of preventing users from depleting their smartphone’s battery in this manner, available within iOS. Simply open the clock app, whilst listening to music or the podcast and set a timer for however long you want to listen for. Then you simply select “Stop Playing” as the action to be performed when the timer ends.

First appeared in TechSmart 104 during May 2012.