A burst of 21 apps for your consideration
Adele Piano Songbook
Music publishers are getting interested in the apps bandwagon just as much as record labels are. Musicroom's new app focuses on Adele, who's currently riding high in charts around the world. The iPad app includes piano scores for 12 of her songs, with backing tracks to play along with.
Magicbeans
BlackBerry app Magicbeans is focused on one retail store only: Magic Beans in Boston. Why include it here? It's an interesting idea – "the first ever mobile self-checkout". It uses barcode scanning while the user is in the store, while also placing orders for delivery.
Ondroid
Ondroid styles itself as "the first and only Android App billboard chart". It's certainly not the only app discovery app for Google's smartphone OS, but it has promise, tapping into a mixture of chart rankings and social features to suggest possible downloads.
Fuugo TV for DVB-T
Fuugo is a very innovative TV app for iPhone and iPad (with other platforms to come). It has a slick touchscreen user interface, and lets users personalise their EPG to get to favourite channels quickly. However, there's a but – it requires a separate terrestrial digital TV receiver to transmit the actual TV to your iOS device via Wi-Fi.
Maps+
Maps+ is like a supercharged version of the Google Maps native app for iPhone, with regular mapping and routefinding functions complemented by location-based alarms, GPS track recording, and Twitter integration.
The National Mall by Bluebrain
Indie band Bluebrain have launched their new album as a location-based app. The downside is that you have to be in the National Mall in Washington, DC to make the most of it. The idea: the music varies according to your walking route through the mall.
Great British Picnics
Grey Advertising has launched a free app offering a guide to British picnic venues – more than 700 in total. It includes reviews and photos, as well as an option for users of the app to share their own thoughts. The app will soon pull in reviews from the Guardian too. Grey's client for the app is butter brand Country Life.
Quidco
Quidco is a social location app for shoppers that promises they'll get paid for checking in to retailers. What that means is discounts, in-store cashback offers and voucher codes. Based on the Quidco website, its partners include Debenhams, Halfords and Carphone Warehouse.
Instamap
Instamap is an iPad app for browsing pictures uploaded to the Instagram service. Photos can be viewed in a tile view or on a map, with users able to subscribe to specific feeds by location or tags. Commenting is also supported.
The Age for iPad
Australian newspaper The Age has launched its official iPad app, published by Fairfax Digital. It complements the daily e-issue with video, photo galleries and interactive graphics. Video can be played on TVs via Apple's Airplay technology, stories can be cached for offline reading, and there's an interactive Sudoku.
The Museum App
This Android app brings together content from more than 190 museums globally, including audio and video tours, and also pulls in YouTube videos, Facebook updates, tweets and blog posts from its partner museums.
Duke Nukem Forever Soundboard
2K Games and Gearbox Software are drumming up interest in the upcoming new Duke Nukem game with this iPhone soundboard app, offering 20 one-liners from Duke's, er, not-quite-new-man exploits. "I had eggs for breakfast, your mom had sausage." Quite.
New York Travel Guide – Time Out
Time Out has released its latest iPhone city guide app, focusing on the Big Apple. Nightlife recommendations are offered alongside maps of the city – all stored offline to avoid roaming data charges.
Rah Digga's Straight Spittin
US rapper Rah Digga has put her name to a new iPhone app that gets its users to verbally battle one another over the mobile network. "Battle rap any user in the world, or just rehearse your rhymes and hone your skills in private. Be a spectator and vote or just talk smack."
Drome by Taste My City
Drome is a location-based city guide app for BlackBerry, which serves up data on restaurants, coffee shops, cinemas, theatres and other locations. It's initially available in Canada, but US and UK support is forthcoming.
S.O.S. by American Red Cross
This Android app is the work of the American Red Cross charity, working with Dr Oz and Sharecare. It offers video how-tos and animations for a series of common emergency situations – seizures to broken bones – while in the US, it also has an automatic 911 call function.
Gettysburg Battle App
Here's an interesting new app category: a battlefield touring partner. This app uses a mixture of GPS and historical data to help people visiting the site of the Gettysburg battle in 1863 find their way around. Maps, photos, timelines and audio bring the atmosphere.
Talking Tom Cat 2
We've written about US startup Outfit7 before – it's generated more than 100m downloads of its Talking apps. Talking Tom Cat was its first success, and now it has a sequel. Expect more talking, wriggling and joking, along with a very meta feature that sees Tom playing with a virtual Talking Tom iPhone app.
Martin Rowson's The Waste Land 'Seen'
In 1999, Martin Rowson reimagined TS Eliot's The Waste Land as a film-noir-style murder mystery in comic form. Now it's been turned into an iPad app, pulling in web resources for background, and allowing readers to discuss the work with one another and with the authors.
GROUP
This isn't just an app, it's a "collective sound work". The idea: people start the audio app running on their iPhones on the morning of 21 June, and keep it going while making their way to the New York Stock Exchange. Then – in theory – it will become "a monumental sound as hundreds of participants come together with their sounding devices".
The Crankamacallit
iPad book-app The Crankamacallit describes itself as a "rhythmic 3D fantasy" blending animation, interactivity and music. It's aimed at children and is the work of developer Polymash.
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