Twisty Launcher

Gesture-based controls are quickly making their way onto flagship smartphones such as Motorola’s Moto X. The Twisty Launcher application allows you to bring this type of functionality to your device as well by performing hand gestures to launch your favourite app. You can hold your smartphone upright with the display facing you and flick your wrist left twice to launch the camera for instance. Users get one gesture for free and can buy two more for around R10 a pop.

Avast! Mobile Backup

Avast! might be best known for their antivirus software, but it also offers a backup application that takes the hassle out of keeping your important data saved to the cloud, ready to be restored when you purchase a new device. This free Avast! Mobile Backup app saves a user’s contacts, SMS log, call log, and photos for free, but if you upgrade to the premium version (costs R20 per month or R150 per year), you can also keep your music, videos, and apps backed up.

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded is an updated version of the classic 1987 adventure game. This enhanced version of the game boasts high-res graphics, a more modern touch-based user interface, the expected bucket loads of risqué humor, and fully voiced characters. Players fill the shoes of lovable loser Larry Laffer, a 40-year-old virgin in pursuit of... uhm, human connection. We recommend connecting to Wi-Fi when downloading this game, since it’s a beefy 416 MB download.

Android Top tip- Enhancing browsing experience

If you struggle to read text whilst browsing websites on your smartphone or tablet, you can set the text size larger by accessing the browser’s ‘Settings’ and then selecting ‘Accessibility’. Next, users simply needs to set the ‘Text scaling’ percentage higher to see bigger fonts whilst surfing the web.

Article first appeared in TechSmart 121, October 2013. Download it here.