Smartphone App weekly roundup: Featuring MyMTN, Matatu and Avast

Welcome to our weekly Smartphone app section. This is where we tell you which apps are rocking our world that we’d like you to try if you haven’t and which ones you should keep away from.

We shall be featuring both the tried and tested apps, highlighting them for the benefit of anyone who may not have tried them for one reason or the other, as well as some newer ones that we are impressed with and believe you should give a try.

Not all apps are “Top Apps”, so we’ll also regularly highlight those that have issues you need to be aware of. For example Facebook owned Instagram is on the wrong side of this week’s list because of it’s resource consumption. Whereas I love depleting my data bundle scrolling through users photos on Instagram, I’ve not loved the way it keeps being flagged for causing performance issues.

So here is this week’s round up!

Winners:

MyMTN: Android | iOS

Last month Joshua wrote about his experiences with Mobile Money on the MTN smartphone app, and I have since been using it. I agree, it’s definitely the better way to do Mobile Money. When using the MyMTN app, once you log in, you transact swiftly, and you have more detailed information about your transactions. The app simply needs you to enable a data connection even if you don’t have an active bundle. Check it out!

Define: Android

Think about how much time you spend reading on your smartphone, you are perhaps always scrolling through your texts, maybe Facebooking or probably reading an article online, there are chances that you will come across a word that you don’t know.

However, Define does all the work for you to understand that word that is giving you hard time. You simply highlight that very word and press “copy”, you bring up an unremarkable notification, which you can then press to get a definition and usages of the word in question.

Matatu: Android | iOS

Have you gotten tired of the “usual suspect” games on your smartphone? I mean you’ve played the same game every morning and evening in the taxi, how about you try something new? Or old, depending on how you see things!

The Ugandan made Matatu is a simple game that can keep you occupied for hours on end. The app is fast and doesn’t occupy a lot of space on your phone plus its user friendly. So why not download it?

Avast Antivirus & Security: Android | iOS

Scans and secures against infected files, unwanted privacy invasions, phishing, malware, spyware, and malicious software such as Trojans which is what everyone would want, none of you would want to walk around carrying Trojans on your phone. Fast and free, you get yourself a defender.

Losers:

Instagram: Android | iOS

Instagram is the most used photo app with over 400 million users. However it takes it toll on battery life, data consumption and storage on your smartphone. For its greedy ways, we’ve seen many people uninstall it.

My Talking Tom: Android | iOS

“My Talking Tom” is an app that is basically a cute little game where you adopt and take care of a kitten that anyone would love to have on their smartphone. However, the privacy settings ain’t so adorable. It includes a whopping eight targeted ad libraries and, in addition to your phone’s identifying information, it sends the advertiser’s audio from the microphone as well which isn’t cool at all.[related-posts]

New comer:

News Pro: iOS

Microsoft new iOS app that uses Bing News to deliver personalized feeds of news based on your profession. News Pro use algorithms to recommend stories based on your interests. All iPhone holders would love to have this app.

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