Feature
Material world «Field Trip
Weather
Timeline
Google Maps is great if you’re trying
to reach a specifi c location, but isn’t
ideal for discovering new places. Field
Trip by Google subsidiary Niantic
Labs, offers a guided tour of local landmarks and
other hidden gems near your location. If you’re
imagining an off-brand TripAdivsor, then forget it.
While Field Trip does include bars, restaurants andWhile meteorology is a complicated
business, as a mobile user on the
go you just want a few simple facts:
is it going to rain and what’s the
temperature. Weather Timeline displays the
information you need to know in a clean, clear
style that you can understand at a glance. As
the name implies, it displays the forecast as a
vertically scrollable timeline. The top card
contains the current conditions, followed by
basic predictions about the next hour and the
coming days. Warnings will also cause a new
card to pop up at the top of the timeline.However, a fun extra feature is the included
‘time machine’ which enables you to search
historical weather reports and forecasts
projected years in advance.
»^ Price^ £0.99/$0.99 »^ Requires Android 4.0shops, it is m
geared toward
discovering art,
history and
hidden gems –
things that are off
the beaten track.
Tracking your
location, Field Trip
will alert you when yo
pass something of
interest in the street. It
then display an in-depth
profi le of a nearby place o
event drawn from popular
Historvius, Songkick and th
The way it works means t
lot of time navigating the app
refresh might seem unnecess
swapping the brown-hued inter
faded paper and maps for clean
white colours, breathes new life nd
makes it feel much warmer.
The structure has also been rearranged with a
new slide-out menu, taking priority for both the
various subsections of the app and managing
settings. It's now much easier to fi nd local points
of interest split up among categories like history,
shopping, museums, architecture and more, or
you can just tap Everything for a roulette approach
to your next outing.
» Price Free » Requires Android 2.3Apex
Launcher
Apex is a go
start. A lon
name in th
Android, Ap
given some
inspired ch
back in ver
but has be
released w
new moder
with Mater
Design for
version 3.0
If your
smartphon
tablet still
hasn't had
Lollipop
upgrade, th
Apex offers
very faithfu
imitation. T
includes a
drawer background and animation. Other
Android 5.0-inspired items include: Lollipop
folder style and animation, Lollipop search
bar and scroll indicator, and the Lollipop
drawer icon. It even has a new Material
Design icon for your home screen.
Decided you want to tweak the Lollipop
layout? No problem. As well as icon packs
and theme skins, Apex lets you customise
drawers, such as adding unlimited drawer
tabs and adding folders to draws. You can
also add additional transition effects,
overlapping widgets and extra gesture
controls as well.
Added to this, there is a new scroll speed
option (under Advanced Settings) that sets
the speed for scrolling between the home
screen or drawer pages. According to the
changelog, there are also lots of other UI
tweaks and improvements available along
with some updated translations.
The Apex Launcher comes in two fl avours,
Free and Pro. The Free version is fully
functional, but the £2.49/$3.99 Pro version
includes lots of extra features, such as being
able to place widgets in dock, transition
effects and gesture controls.
» Price Free + IAPs
» Requires Android 4.0.3