Everyone nowadays pulls out their phone when there’s nothing else to do. When you don’t have a friend around and you’re stuck at the back of a bus, we take refuge in a familiar home screen. But it can get a little stale when you have nothing downloaded to your operating system and you’ve run out of 4G, or you’re sick of jumping between the same 5 apps.
Are you the kind of person who wishes you had a couple more apps on your phone to make the time go faster when you’re waiting for something or you’re commuting and the train has stopped, again? Then this is the list for you! Here’s some of the best recommended things to do on your phone when you’re just feeling a little bored; we all do from time to time!
Download Something More Unusual
Originality in technology is the thing that gets good reviews, and is the main way to shoot to the front of the app ratings. Yet, we’re likely to see the same kind of apps all the time on the frontpage of the app store: there’s another checklist program here, and a learning by numbers app there, and the good games are the ones you have to fork out for. So, we need to search a little more out of the box.
If you’re on the lookout for an app that can do a job you never knew you needed to get done, check out a couple of these suggestions. For those of you among us who enjoy the great outdoors and like to talk walks in the park for the sights, smells, and fresh air, if you download an app such as Leafsnap, you can identify all the plants you come across with a quick picture.
On the other hand, if you’re a person who likes to dig around in the sand or the mud, finding little discoveries, you can grab an incredibly smart app in the form of a metal detector for your phone. It works by using the inbuilt compass in all modern mobiles, and whilst the functionality is somewhat disputed, it’s generally agreed that this works!
Play a Strategy Game
Everyone likes a good video game, whether for the ability to take out your frustrations on, perform feats of diplomacy you never could in real life, or because the stories are beautiful and crafted well, a strategy game means you can craft your own universe of all three of these factors.
There’s plenty of strategy games around, but for the kind of people who love the legacy of long games, and enjoy the amount of freedom an open world layout can offer, you could try to destroy your enemies in the Final Fantasy 15 strategy game. This is an expansive universe with plenty of lore to get to grips with. With a game like this you could lose yourself in another world, and it still fits in the storage on your phone!
For the Research Element
A lot of people love to learn, and there’s plenty of people out there who could use the ability to reference their knowledge at a few taps on a screen. So if you’re a student, or someone with an essay that desperately needs finishing for the ‘library on making more comprehensive guides’ in your chosen field, this is the section for you.
For someone with more of a competitive streak, or you’re just trying to start a fight amongst you and your friends after a couple of glasses of wine, use an app like ‘Settle It!’ You can even set challenges, no matter the topic they’re in, and win a few games of ‘truth or not.’
However, if you want to be a little more serious with your research, there’s plenty of alternatives with a more peaceful format to them, such as WordReference. This is especially great if you’re learning another language or often work with more than English, as definition finding is the bread and butter of this functionality.
So yes, whilst phones can get a little boring to look at, there’s plenty of ways to spice that up. Your phone can take you far afield with just a few searches and a quick few flicks of the wrist. Take a good look through the app stores to find some apps personalized perfectly to you, and make sure you have plenty of storage on your phone to keep this around for every trip you make from now on!