#feel free to swipe the images for references elsewhere

[bruinhilda]

So, I dug out The First Toy Bricks I Ever Owned.  I have never identified what brand they are.  They are very obviously not LEGO, nor are they LEGO-compatible.  And I’m curious.  I would like to know what they are, and maybe add to the set from eBay (if you’re going to find old toys, it’s the place to go.)

I’ve been scrolling through images, and my best guess is they *might* be Tyco Preschool?  It’s close, at any rate.  I might buy some of the not-outrageously expensive ones at some point to compare, but in the meantime, here’s some pictures.  Any toy experts following me know what these are?

(The red and blue bricks are from the mystery set.  The yellow are authentic LEGO for comparison.)

[jackarychaoti]

DWC2021-15 - Memory/Chase

TW: Blood | Body Horror | Disturbing Images

-[ MUSIC ] -

Insanity.

In Azeroth, it was known as The Madness, The Darkening, the Dragon’s Sickness... The Nightmare. In many worlds, in millions of languages, it had endless names but it always meant the same thing. A corruption, often brought on by nightmarish feelings or situations, that ate the being alive, twisting it into something else entirely. Dragons fell particularly hard to such a toxic curse, especially.

This was no exception.

“DO NOT LET HIM GET INTO THE FOREST, WE’LL FUCKING LOSE HIM FOREVER!!”

Lokitan screamed as a mere handful of the Heran army raced upon war-bred Granondo, a clove-hooved type horse with coiled horns, best used to ram incoming enemies. Terrifyingly fast creatures that feared nothing in the heat of battle and yet they could not quite keep up with the terror streaking through the rotting fields of a dying wasteland and seemed even less inclined to get anywhere near it.

The target they hunted was a slithering creature running on all fours, bones twisted and inhuman with long tendrils of muddied hair, making the thing look even more sickly in the way that it hung over the face. Now and then, piercing silver eyes would dart back to see just how much closer its pursuers had come in the wild hunt, noting the way the warriors had begun to flank it. If only it could reach the edge of the forest, the beast would have a far better tactical advantage and a speed increase, let alone an easier time to attack those that hunted it.

“Loki!” A voice called out and soon a female rider pushed her steed up to the Dread Prince himself, eyes narrowed, glancing over in his direction. Fire blazed all around her, the snowy locks of her hair wild and free as a hellish set of crimson eyes flitted to the dark-haired rogue. “What do we do if it gets to the forest before we can reach him?!”

“You pray to your mother that we take him down before that.”

Chaos.

It was absolute chaos and he had just told her to pray to the deity that created it.

Inch after inch, Lokitan pressed forward, signaling the General’s finest men to continue flanking the beast, heels dug in harder into his skeletal Granondo to push onward and finally close in the distance of the skittering cretin running on all fours. Once close enough, the agile Prince pushed himself to crouch atop the saddle; he lunged, flickering through the very shadows to reappear right on top of the nightmarish beast. He dared not draw a weapon.

Not against this one.

The clashing form was greeted by the muddied, anemic animal twisting itself to bite hard at its would-be attacker, using the momentum to kick Lokitan right off and send him flying. That mere few seconds to protect itself was costing its safety to get into the forest. A loud shrieking cry pierced through the veil of carnage, knowing the chase was quickly coming to an end. Claws grabbed at the deep red mud below, years of war and corpses all around, the thick blood of countless soldiers meshed together with protected soils and painful, bitter rain. The slick surface had the creature try another attempt to break free, slipping the first few steps.

It was so close… The forest was but a hundred yards away.

Lokitan rolled through the slimy fighting ground, catching himself to snag at the beast’s ankle, yanking it back to throw it in the other direction. He was doing all he could to buy the warriors more time to position themselves and close in on the fighting pair.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Jack.”

Melted silver raised from under the long strands of hair while the beast hunched itself further, a deep snarl and razored fangs revealed themselves in a warning. The aggressive display had Loki push himself to stand and raise his clawed hands, exposing that he was as unarmed as he could possibly be. He stared down at the nightmare-fueled version of his cousin, his best friend who he knew was in so much pain that he had allowed the darkness to consume his heart.

“Look at me, Jackary… I don’t want to hurt you, hn..?”

There was a brief pause and for a moment, the world stood still. Even the droplets of sweat and foul mud froze in place for a fraction of a second while the thing Lokitan referred to as ‘Jackary’ mulled over its choices. Heavy breaths of air pushed out, bellowed in smoke pouring from its twisted jaw that was filled with acidic drool that flopped to the ground in large globs - a clear sign of the beast’s stress.

“Let’s get you home… Let’s get cleaned up…” A leather-clad hand dared to reach for the unholy creation but within a blink of an eye, time sped back up. Teeth snapped at the grasp, claws raised to full-on attack the one being that kept the beast from the forest it was trying to get to.

“FUCKING--!” Loki found himself head to head with the writhing mass of acid-spitting, half-transformed wyrm, a Beast of Insanity that wore a Prince’s crown and who was upsetting the balance of life and death. Without one, there couldn’t truly be another. Every snap of the jowls and swipe of talons was blocked or barely dodged, up until Lokitan lost his footing.

Slipping, he found himself under those wild jaws, hands clasped the wide-open maw above him that threatened to clamp down on his face and bite his skull clean in half. Muscles ached, his posture shook from trying to push what was once his peaceful, loving cousin off him. It wasn’t until another bubbling mixture of acid was seen dripping from under the beast’s tongue that the rogue knew he was in deep trouble… He was going to have to hurt the beast or die.

One hand released the mouth and in a split-second decision, the palm shoved up hard to strike at the creature’s jawline, his intensely sharp claws sliced the beast’s right jaw, stunning and pushing it away, jarred in surprise. It left Lokitan with just the smallest leeway to raise his hand up in the air, giving a hidden signal.

The Insanity-addled creature hissed loudly but before it could turn to lunge the last few steps to disappear into the forest and become a haunting ghost, a slough of chains and ropes fell atop it, blanketing the wild creature. The engineered nets implanted themselves into the dirt below, radiating pulsations of electrical charges to stun the captured beast into a horrifying submission. The haunting screams of agony, half-human, half-dragon rang out in a near ear-shattering volume.

Only when it stopped struggling to even stand did the shocking currents of energy cease their barbaric, but effective, handling.

“Are you hurt?” The woman from earlier charged forward, sliding down from her fiery warsteed to help Lokitan up from the wet earth.

“No,” Lokitan spat out, snagging the hand to be hoisted up, wincing when it indeed hurt to put any sort of weight on one of his legs. Glancing down at it, he was sure there was likely a fracture somewhere... But now wasn’t the time to dawdle.

“Well, you’re not dead, dear brother, so…” Musing, she helped at least support the Dark Prince, glancing down at the wheezing, now bleeding beast. “This isn’t curable, you know. When someone falls to the Insanity, they don’t come back.”

“Untrue,” Loki quipped, hobbling over with his sister’s help until he was able to ease down and sit next to the captured animal. A gloved hand reached forward, pushing the black hair from its face to indeed reveal a half transformed Jackary, the silver spiral of his eyes a dead giveaway at the corruption. “There was a Priest once who fought it and contained it. Rumour has it he wanders around with a single spiral eye, hn? Fucked up shit.”

The woman sighed, almost huffing while a hand motioned down to what remained of Jack. “Look at him, Lokitan. Half transformed, his brain isn’t fucking in there anymore. Put the thing out of its misery and let the avatar of Life be passed down elsewhere. It’ll rebirth by tomorrow, save your own ass.”

“No.” Lokitan took a moment to grip the skull before him, pinning the dragon further as a small crimson glow overtook his eyes. “He was never meant to hurt anyone, it was her that drove him to this.”

“Yeah, well, she’s pretty fucking dead, now isn’t she?”

A hand waved the antsy woman off, freeing Lokitan to simply focus on the inner workings of the beast before him. It was a rare trick the Rogue had up his sleeve and normally it was used to delve into someone’s memories, to unlock what terrifies them the most to use it against them… But what if, he thought, what if he could use it in reverse?

Time ticked by, allowing the dark, shadowy tendrils of his own essence to seep into Jackary’s form, filtering through and plucking every little bit of the corruption to neatly gather it within. A simple box was made at first, deep inside the dragon’s brain. Soon it was locked away and chained relentlessly to his psyche. A personality that he could never escape from, one that in time, would briefly show a fraction of itself and be referred to as…

Naga.

“M’sorry…” Loki whispered while he worked, remolding and melding Jackary’s very essence and memories to pull him from an otherwise impossible return. It was an attempt to do this or be forced to kill him and Lokitan wasn’t sure he inwardly had the power to do that. “You were designed to never forget.. But if you always remember, there is no saving you from the corruption that has been planted within you.”

Lokitan frowned, rubbing his thumb slowly, sweetly along Jackary’s forehead, the beast had long since stopped trying to fight back. It was lethargic.

“I am taking this from you, Jackary. This thing that turned you into something you aren’t.” Lokitan cooed, almost fondly at his twisted cousin as each memory leading up to a certain event was plucked and stolen away and yet what Lokitan hadn’t realized was that in making such a small hole in Jack’s memory, it served as an endless void. A slow-drip leak that would cause him to forever forget things after a while. A blessing and a curse in the future, but at that moment, when Lokitan gazed down and saw the beginnings of Peridot return to those eyes, he knew it was the best decision he could have made.

---

Darnath quietly clamped the journal closed with a small squeeze to the spine, the entry had been written in a far different font and form which made him think that perhaps Lokitan had written it instead. But... Where the memory that had been stolen was placed was beyond the Dragonsworn.

Stormy grey pools glanced at the snoozing blond curled against his side. Jack, in an elven form, had been cozying up for a small nap while his Knight read, blissfully unaware of what haunting stories Darnath had been refamiliarizing himself with once more. The Champion glanced to the spine of the journal, noting the number upon it, and raised his vision upward. The book he was really looking for must have been the one right before this… Maybe that one held the answer he was looking for.

| - @daily-writing-challenge - |

[egoludes]

sunkissed.

note: i promise i’m still working on updates for my series; but, after this pic showed up on my dash over the weekend, i’ve been in a tropical vacation!shawn frenzy and, well... here we are. big love to @dylshoney & @shhhawnmendes for letting me scream about this and giving me thoughts on the final product! i hope you all enjoy! wc: 3.5k warnings: nsfw, sex without a condom (i swear, i support safe sex), extremely mild reference (if you can call it that) to breeding kink

The sun is warm on your skin, rays in pretty patterns over your arms, tummy, thighs. There’s something rejuvenating about it, like all the energy from the sky is soaking in to displace what’s left of a brutal winter. You hadn’t realized just how badly you needed that until this second, and now that you’re here, well, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

Shawn seems to share the sentiment, looking more relaxed than you’ve seen him in months with his head tipped back and fingers resting on your legs in his lap. You’re in a comfortable silence, enjoying each other's company as your eyes drink in all your private villa has to offer. The view, shaded here and there by palm trees, is breathtaking. There’s a pool and hot tub below, their water as vibrantly blue as the sky above, and the contrast with the grass cut neatly around them is like something out of a painting.

When you'd first arrived, Shawn joked about all the ways you could enjoy yourselves with that much space and so many facilities ( you bite your lip just imagining it ) ; but, at the moment, you’re content to just take it all in.

“This is nice,” you murmur, gaze turning to his face and the bare expanse of his chest. He hasn’t changed since a swim this morning and neither have you. Call it too lazy, or too comfortable, but you’re in no rush to let go of the soft start to your day. The glow of it still lingers, in the way you’re resting now and in Shawn's faint smile and hint of a lazy eye as he nods his agreement.

“It is.. don’t know why it took us so long to finally get out here.”

You both know the answer to that question, but choose not to dwell on it. After all, this isn’t the place for responsibilities or obligations (both of which had delayed this trip a few months each). That’ll be for some other time, four or five days from now, when you’re back in Toronto and the world’s returned to its usual chaos.

Right now, you’re in paradise, salt water dried on your skin and lips, and Shawn’s fingers starting to move along your calves. He does this a lot — trace shapes against you when you’re resting and his mind is elsewhere. So, you don’t even bat an eye, relaxing further into the balcony sofa while he explores.

In the distance, you can hear the ocean, waves to shore in an erratic, but calming, rhythm. And between that and Shawn’s touch, you feel as if you’re floating — like being lightheaded with none of the unpleasant side effects. The airiness guides your head back in a loll and your eyes flutter a few times before closing completely.

His eyes, on the other hand, are too busy looking over you to be distracted by anything else. They start where his fingers are, watching the pads flatten on your skin in a muted sort of fascination. Then, they follow the curve of your legs, over your uncovered thighs to the spot where your bikini starts. It’s the first time you’ve worn this one and he still can’t quite handle how stunning it looks on you. His new favorite, he’d confessed on the beach.

His gaze keeps rising over your stomach, your chest, the underside of your jaw. And what'd started in appreciation slowly becomes Shawn working himself up too fast to catch himself, cheeks pink as gears start turning in his head. You’re none the wiser, humming to yourself while you bask in the tranquil moment. Which makes it easy for him to grow bold, fingers moving up over your knee, thumb bumping along the hinge, until they can find your thigh. A sharp breath rises from you and he smiles, teeth sinking into his lip - he loves seeing his affect on you.

It’s what leads him to do it again, fingers moving back to your calf before repeating the upward motion. A rhythm forms naturally, Shawn spending less and less time at the lower part of your leg with each swipe ---- and it doesn’t take long before he gets more than a breath out of you.

“Think you’re playing with fire there, Mr. Mendes.” The comment is cheeky, one eye cracked open to watch him as a grin plays at your lips.

His expression is equally as playful, an eyebrow arched as he smirks down at you. “Think that’s the point, babe…” He leans forward, maintaining eye contact until his lips meet your knee. It’s a simple gesture, innocent even — but the way his eyes are darkening, and the fingers nudging under your swim suit to find your hip, makes his intention clear as day.

He wants you.

Your body tightens from the mere thought.

There’s a moment where you weigh your options --- where you consider the chances of being caught and how much you really care if you are. But, the look in his eyes, halfway between expectant and needy, stops that in its tracks. You're too enamored to tell him no, and too brave to care about what anyone thinks about when and how you want him. So, permission comes easy, a quick nod against the cushion, and your other eye opens just as he undoes the knot securing your bikini bottom to your body. One side is enough to get it off you and Shawn’s purring when the fabric falls aside, allowing you to open your legs to him. “Oh, honey… look at you..”

The awe in his voice makes your heart swell — how does he manage to be so tender in a moment so filthy? It’s a talent, that’s for certain, and you almost coo reaching to find his curls. He falls forward into the touch, pressing another kiss to your knee before letting his fingers dip to find you too. They settle on your clit first, the press of his thumb making your mouth fall open in a gasp. Your hips lift instinctively for more pressure, but Shawn doesn’t let you chase him. His free hand moves until it can guide you back down, a curt shake of his head accompanying it.

Immediately, you let out a sheepish giggle, shrugging it off because really, who can blame you for getting a little ahead of yourself? And Shawn laughs, the sound rumbling in his chest and against you where your bodies are pressed together. “Adorable,” he muses, flicking your clit with his thumb with a little mischief behind the eyes.

“Shawn,” you hiss, hips bucking as best as they can. You want to pout, but you refuse to give in, eyes narrowing instead as you tug a curl. “Don’t be a tease.”

“‘m not,” he fires back, though that shit-eating grin tells a different story. As if proving his point, he starts to rub circles over the sensitive bundle of nerves, licking his lips when you arch off the sofa. He’s deliberate in his touches, pressing down hard but keeping his movements slow; and as much as you’d wanted to complain a moment ago, everything about it feels right. His name leaves you a second time, but this go is more sensual than indignant, a drawn out moan that spurs him on. “There we go,” he mumbles, lips finding the top of your knee once again, “gonna let me enjoy you, eh?”

You don’t know if he actually expects an answer, but the earnest makes you nod all the same, a half-dazed look on your face. The sight of it makes his groin throb and his thumb picks up its rhythm, eyes hungry as they follow the movement. You’re intoxicating enough on your own, but the way you look right now — stomach tightening and chest rising as you unravel for him — would be enough to bring him to his knees if he wasn’t sitting already. Blood rushes between his legs and he scoots closer, lap supporting your right leg while the left falls to the ground to give him more room.

Room he takes full advantage of with a finger sinking into you, all the way to the last knuckle. One stroke is enough for him to see the mess you’ve already made on him and he licks his lips, wrestling, for a moment, with the urge to taste you. After a few pumps that send you reeling, though, he sets that aside for another day (well, later on in this one, really).

A second finger joins the first, the sight of you all spread out too good to resist. And as his pace quickens, his attention darts between watching his fingers disappear inside you to your face twisted in pleasure: two images he wants to seal away for safekeeping. It’d be impossible to decide what he wants to see more — until you break the string of softer moans with a strangled whine of his name. Then, his eyes are snapping up towards your face so fast, he’s almost dizzy.

You have your head tipped back, mouth in an ‘o’ as another, raspier whine pushes its way out of you. It’s all too much for you to handle — his fingers, his mouth, his eyes picking you apart through his lashes. Your orgasm is mounting faster than you’re used to and you want to ask him to let you go so that you can search it out, give the final push on your own terms.

Shawn, as intuitive as ever, reads the familiar desperation on your face and gives in quickly, fingers leaving your hip to brace you by the thigh instead. “Come on, honey — give it to me.”

The encouragement strikes a chord, something in the naughtiest parts of your mind, and you’re off, shifting your weight over the cushions to meet every stroke of his fingers. Shawn moans as loud as you do at the uptick in speed, eyes lidding at how good you look, how good you are. Your need is contagious and he’s rubbing your clit faster to meet the pace you’ve set, breathing heavy as though he, too, is almost there.

Your orgasm doesn’t take long after that; a blindingly intense sensation that ripples from your head to the soles of your feet and has your fingers so twisted in the cushions that you leave them wrinkled. Wanting to be close, Shawn moves to find your mouth, dropping a couple sloppy kisses between soft nothings and encouragements: “That’s it… that’s it..."

By the time you catch your breath and let your eyes re-open, Shawn’s sat back up, his fingers still squarely inside you. When he sees he has your attention, though, he grins, moving them to his mouth to drag his tongue over and between them. Your stomach does flips at that, but you press the already re-emerging urges aside to tug him down for another kiss. “You really are such a tease,” you mutter with a nip at his lip. Tasting yourself on him is a bit odd some times; but others, like now, it’s electrifying, lighting something in you that just wants him closer.

That desire has you reaching a hand for his lap, pride rising when you feel how hard he is in his swim shorts. He makes a sound when he feels your palm, guttural in the back of his throat; but, before you can get very far, he regains his senses and reaches to stop you, much to your chagrin. “Nn, not yet... let me just kiss you for a little.” 

You could melt right then and there - but Shawn doesn’t give you time to when he fits both hands under you and tugs you the rest of the way onto his lap. You settle with your legs swinging and his cock pressed against your bare ass, and he tips his head up to find your mouth again. Anticipation’s already rising, turning in your tummy like butterflies. But, this time, there’s no rush — no adolescent neediness steering the ship. It’s like the island’s energy has made its way into even this, leaving your kisses languid and heady.

It keeps Shawn at bay for at least a little while, his focus on kissing every inch of you instead of the ache in his lower half. Your bikini top’s shifted quite a bit since earlier and with the new position, it finally finds its way off, his fingers brushing your skin as they work. When the fabric falls to the ground, he pauses to appreciate you, lips pursed in a hum, before his attention falls to the skin along your neck. The kisses are light at first; but the lower he goes, the more teethy they get and before long, he’s sucking as hard as he needs to leave little marks all over you.

“Heeey,” you pant, fingers landing on the nape of his neck to disappear in the hair there, “people will see those.”

Lidded eyes find you through his curls, a hand patting your bum to a beat only he hears. “I know — ’s the whole point.” He places another kiss for good measure, prompting an endeared eye roll and a mental note to return the favor later. For now, he’s off the hook, especially with his mouth reaching your breasts too quickly for you to focus on anything else. The fingers at his nape tighten, and you give a strong tug as he wraps lips around one of your nipples. It’s all tongue to start, but Shawn gets eager fast and teeth graze your skin once or twice before he finally commits to a little nip. When you gasp, he chuckles, amused with himself even as he soothes the sting with another lap of his tongue.

This little game goes on for a bit longer, Shawn nibbling wherever he can reach and getting more lost in you by the second. “Why don’t we stay here forever,” he mutters eventually, breath fanning out over your skin. It’s much warmer than the sun had been and you turn into the closeness easily, arousal swelling in every part of you. “Could buy you this house, marry you, give you some pretty little babies...”

You both know there’s no way you could stay, but the fantasy is nice to entertain, fun to flirt with. You keep it going with the fingers in his hair guiding his face to yours until your noses are bumping lightly. “Think we could get started with at least one of those things...”

You’re going for subtle, but Shawn’s immediately catching on, a needy groan rising out of him at the thought of what you’re offering. “Yeah..?”

“Mm... yeah.” There’s a shift of your hips then, calculated to rock your ass back against the bulge in his shorts. You only manage it a second time before Shawn surges forward, falling headlong into this, into you with a sigh. His hand comes up to the small of your back to help lay you onto the couch; and once you’re settled, legs parted for him again, he’s between them, shorts partly off his hips as he fits his mouth over yours.

You kiss him back with the same fervor, fumbling to get his shorts the rest of the way off. You only manage to get them as far as mid-thigh, but when you feel his cock against your hip, you decide that’s good enough, and your hands move, instead, to tug him in by his sides.

“Still feel ok, baby?” The words are muffled against your jaw, where he's sponging kisses all over as he settles in over you. “I can...” He finishes the question with fingers teasing between your folds, a quick, suggestive touch.

The contact is overwhelming, deliciously so, but you still manage to refuse him — there’s something else you want much more. “No, no, just...want you.”

It’s hard to tell if it’s the lust in your tone or the heat behind your eyes when you say it — maybe even a combination of the two — but something about your confession flips a switch in him. All at once, Shawn’s positioning you with one hand and pumping himself with the other, a sharp exhale as he drops his hips and presses forward.

Your hands tighten on him when you feel his tip against your inner thigh, and it’s all you can do not to rush him. The anticipation had felt exciting before, but now it’s almost exhausting, reducing you to impatient squirms the longer it takes for him to be inside you. Shawn, as always, feels it as much as you do and lets his hand between you guide him until he can fill you up.

He bottoms out almost instantly, and the sensation of being stretched - or in his case, squeezed - so fast takes your breaths away. Up to now, he’s been supporting himself with a hand near the side of your head and fingers curled into the cushion. But, when Shawn’s head starts swimming from how hot you are around him, he can’t help but fall forward, arms bent at the elbow to let him press his weight into you.

It’s nothing you can’t handle, though. In fact, you love it when he’s so close; it lets you feel him deeper, harder and your arms find a place around his neck, bracing you for what’s to come.

“Fuck, baby,” he lets out against your skin as he takes his first proper thrust. The movement’s careful, almost tentative, but that doesn’t stop him from filling you to the hilt and earning a quiet whimper. There’s a brief pause - long enough to guide your legs around him and angle your hips - before he’s taking another long thrust, shivering on top of you. He’d wanted this to be slow, a complement to your week in this easy paradise. But, he’s too far gone for that now — the moment he can tell that you’re adjusted and ready, all self-control dissipates, leaving nothing but a Shawn that’s desperate for everything you’ll give him.

His hand presses hard into the flesh at your waist as his thrusts become more pointed, hips snapping forward to send him deep into your core. You’d seen the change in pace coming, but that doesn’t keep you from crying out for him with nails dragging down over his back. The pain, while jarring, just winds him up more, a hiss against your throat that he muffles with a half-kiss.

“S-Shawn—“ You gasp out, head thrown back to give more access to your neck. It’s already sticky between you, the breeze no real match for the way your bodies are tangled and the temperature rising with every rock of his hips. This one is going to be sloppy —- and, if you have to guess by the tension building in your tummy, it won’t last long either.

Not that Shawn is faring much better. You can’t see much of his face with his head tucked against you, but you know that hitch in his breath by heart. He’s not completely close, but is getting there fast, and the build-up has his thrusts growing more and more haphazard. “Hon, I can't—“ he cuts off in a moan, the words strangled in the back of his throat by how good you’re making him feel. It takes him a moment to try again, sucking in quick breaths until he’s coherent. “Wanna cum—“

You nod quickly to acknowledge it, squeezing your legs at his hips as if to keep him from moving away. “I-inside me... don’t forget —“

He groans loud at the reminder — as if he could. As if there’s anything he wants more right now than to fill you up and watch the way you keen when he does. Just thinking about it does a number on him and you can tell that he’s on the brink when his thrusts get messy.

There’s no way he’s leaving you behind, though, and his fingers find your clit the second he knows he’s near his limit. They work over the nub fast and hard to match his thrusts and you arch to press closer to him, eyes rolling back from the flood of pleasure. “O-oh god—“ 

Shawn is just as reverent, teeth sinking into your shoulder as one last thrust has climax bowling him over. He whines out your name, fingers stuttering -- but not stilling -- over your clit; not even when his hips press down to spill everything he has inside you. Your peak, then, doesn't take much longer, more intense than the first and twice as good when you can feel him cumming too. 

You’re both hungry until the very end of it, nails and mouths over any inch of skin they can get to as you ride out your orgasms. You wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with marks a little earlier than you intended, and by the looks of his face when he catches his breath enough to look at you --- and every place he’s been --- he may be expecting the same.

Coming down in comparison is gentle and tender; marked by little kisses from a clearer-headed Shawn who's worried he might've hurt you. But, when he sees you beaming up at him, love glinting in your eyes like the sun, he starts to calm and runs hands over your sides with a smile to rival yours. 

He never forgets how much he loves you, but he's always reminded in moments like this; in the private little pockets of time ( in stadiums, on flights, and even after making love ) that the two of you just exist.

He really could stay here forever.

taglist (perm + fic): @sinplisticshawn / @heyits-claire / @honestey / @justanotherfangurl272 / @dylshoney / @softmndes / @bolognashawn / @unwrittendestiny / @shes-soparticular / @mendescurl / @mndes / @shhhawnmendes / @someoneunimportantxx

[toptechbank]

Best free iPad apps 2018: the top titles we’ve tried

Free apps sometimes have a bad reputation, but many are gems that are so good you won’t believe they’re free. We’ve scoured the App Store to find the very best, and sorted them into handy categories, which you can find on the following pages.

On this page you’ll find the app of the week – our top new selection to try out, and check back every seven days where you’ll find a new option to test. After that, it’s the best entertainment apps (surely the best reason to own an iPad…) and a variety of categories on the following pages to tickle your fancy.

Free app of the week: Laugh & Learn Shapes & Colors Music Show for Baby

Laugh & Learn Shapes & Colors Music Show for Baby is a two-part game designed for children as young as six months old.

In Level 1, your youngling – now armed with a worryingly expensive piece of technology – can tilt and tap the screen to make shapes appear and bounce around. But Level 2 ramps things up considerably.

“Let’s put on a show,” chirps the app as the five shapes wiggle and jig about on the screen, lurking above a colorful keyboard. And you know what’s next: maddeningly jaunty earworms, augmented by a deliriously happy baby smacking the huge piano keys.

Your slow descent into madness will be worth it for the smile on their little face.

The best free entertainment apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for having fun with your iPad, whether shopping, coloring, reading, watching TV or using Twitter.

Attenborough Story of life

If you’ve any interest in wildlife films, Attenborough Story of Life is a must-have. It features over a thousand clips picked from Attenborough’s decades-long journey through what he refers to as the “greatest story of all…how animals and plants came to fill our Earth”.

The app is split into three sections. You’re initially urged to delve into some featured collections, but can also explore by habitat or species, unearthing everything from big-toothed sharks to tiny penguins skittering about. Clips can be saved as favorites, or grouped into custom collections to later peruse or share with friends.

Some of the footage is noticeably low-res on an iPad – there’s nothing here to concern your Blu-Rays, and that’s a pity. Still, for instant access to such a wealth of amazing programming, this one’s not to be missed.

Boldmatic

Boldomatic comes across like a social network for people who like making bold statements – in bold colors and with bold text. Imagine Twitter, but with a chunky font, eye-searing backgrounds on every post, and a user base that’s perhaps a little too full of itself.

Which all sounds a bit unflattering, we’re sure, but Boldomatic is actually rather fun. You can zip through the feed to find random thoughts, tiny nuggets of philosophy, daft jokes, and little bits of poetry.

Fashioning your own slice of creative genius is simple, too: just type out your words, select a background color (or a photo), and share it with the world.

Boldomatic also works as a means to create content for elsewhere. Your creations can be hurled at Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, to share them with the wider world (or Photos, if you want to keep them just between you and your iPad).

Chunky Comic Reader

The majority of comic-book readers on the App Store are tied to online stores, and any emphasis on quality in the actual apps isn’t always placed on the reading part.

But with many more publishers embracing DRM-free downloads, having a really great reading app is essential if you’re into digital comics. Chunky Comic Reader is the best available on iOS.

The interface is smart, simple and boasts plenty of settings, including the means to eradicate animation entirely when flipping pages.

Rendering is top-notch, even for relatively low-res fare. And you get the option of one- or two-up page views. For free, you can access web storage to upload comics. A single $3.99/£3.99/AU$5.99 pro upgrade adds support for shared Mac/PC/NAS drives.

eBay

eBay provides access to a colossal online marketplace. Anyone can sell, and so you’ll find huge brands mingling with individuals attempting to offload the entire contents of their basements and attics.

Something of a design playground, the iPad app is regularly reworked; but whatever eBay’s designers come up with, a large touchscreen device proves to be the best way to search. You can quickly drill down into categories, and explore individual listings, swiping between photos.

If you need to keep track of things, the app offers automated notifications, and can flag searches, making it easy to see whenever new matching listings appear. And if you want to sell yourself, you can do that in-app, with eBay providing shortcuts to get your listing started (through barcode scanning or matching your item to publicly available information about it).

Fingerpaint Magic

The iPad and App Store combine to create an extremely strong ecosystem when it comes to art apps, but that’s not terribly helpful if you don’t have an artistic bone in your body.

Fortunately, there are apps like Fingerpaint Magic that enable a much wider range of people to create something visually stunning.

As you draw, feathers of color explode from your fingertip, bleeding into the background in a manner that feels like you’re drawing with an alien material atop viscous liquid. You can adjust your brush and color – ‘neon’ from the former coming across like sketching with fire.

Artwork can be further enhanced using mirrors or background filters prior to export. The process is at once aesthetically pleasing, fun and relaxing.

A single $0.99/£0.99/AU$1.49 IAP unlocks a set of premium brushes, but Fingerpaint Magic’s free incarnation has more than enough to unleash your inner artist, regardless of your skill level.

Instapaper

Instapaper acts as a time-shifting service for the web. You can send pages to it from any browser (PC, Mac or mobile), whereupon Instapaper strips away everything bar the content. When you open the app, it’ll quickly sync your article collection. You can then read anything you’ve stored in a mobile-optimized layout that’s entirely free from cruft.

On an iPhone, Instapaper is handy for commuters wanting to catch up on saved pages while belting along on a train. But on iPad, the larger display transforms Instapaper into a superb lean-back reading experience – your own personal periodical that’s free from the gimmickry and iffy curation found in glossier fare, and that’s instead all about the content.

Melodist

Part meditative relaxation tool, part sleep aid, Melodist is all about creating melodies from imagery. All you have to do is load something from your Camera Roll, and the app does the rest.

On analyzing your photo or screen grab for changes in hues, saturation and brightness, a music loop is generated. You can adjust the playback speed, instrument and visual effect (which starts off as a lazily scrolling piano roll), along with setting a timer.

Although occasionally discordant, the app mostly creates very pleasing sounds. And while it’s perhaps missing a trick in not displaying your photo as-is underneath the notes being played (your image is instead heavily blurred as a background), you can export each tune as audio or a video that shows the picture alongside the animation.

These free exports are a pretty generous gesture by the developer; if you want to return the favor, there’s affordable IAP for extra sounds, animation and MIDI export.

Nebula

Among the various finger-painting apps for iPad, Nebula is one of the weirdest. You draw by dragging two fingers on the screen, which results in a set of neon lines atop the background. Twisting your fingers changes the nature of the futuristic ribbon you’re creating, and subsequent taps and twists add to its length.

Using the app’s settings, you can play with the thickness and density of the lines and switch between angled and wavy compositions. The results are very abstract whatever you do, but Nebula’s a fun app for creating something visually different on your tablet.

There’s no saving your work in the free version, though (beyond snapping a screen grab) – you’ll need the $1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99 Tools IAP for that, which also adds symmetry functionality and high-resolution PDF export.

Notes on Blindness VR

After years of eyesight deterioration, John Hull became blind in 1983. Notes on Blindness VR has six chapters taken from his journal of the time. Each is set in a specific location, marrying John’s narrative, binaural audio, and real-time 3D animation, to create an immersive experience of a ‘world beyond sight’.

Although designed as a VR experience, this app remains effective when holding an iPad in front of your face, moving the screen about to scan your surroundings. The mood shifts throughout – there’s wonder in a blind John’s discovery of the beauty of rain, disconnection when he finds things ‘disappear’ from the world when sound stops, and a harrowing section on panic.

Towards the end, John mulls he’s “starting to understand what it’s like to be blind,” and you may get a sense of what it’s like, too, from the app, which ably showcases how to craft an engaging screen-based experience beyond the confines of television.

Pigment

Adult colouring books are all the rage, proponents claiming bringing colour to intricate abstract shapes helps reduce stress – at least until you realise you’ve got pen on your shirt and ground oil pastels into the sofa.

You’d think the process of colouring would be ideal for iPad, but most relevant apps are awful, some even forcing tap-to-fill. That is to colouring what using a motorbike is to running a marathon – a big cheat. Pigment is an exception, marrying a love for colouring with serious digital smarts.

On selecting an illustration, there’s a range of palettes and tools to explore. You can use pencils and markers, adjusting opacity and brush sizes, and work with subtle gradients. Colouring can be ‘freestyle’, or you can tap to select an area and ensure you don’t go over the lines while furiously scribbling. With a finger, Pigment works well, but it’s better with a stylus; with an iPad Pro and a Pencil, you’ll lob your real books in the bin.

The one niggle: printing and accessing the larger library requires a subscription in-app purchase. It’s a pity there’s no one-off payment for individual books, but you do get plenty of free illustrations, and so it’s hard to grumble.

Sandbox

Sandbox offers an interesting take on coloring apps. Instead of virtual paper and pens (as per the excellent Pigment), Sandbox gives you a quirky combination of painting by numbers and old-school pixel art.

Select an image and it appears in grayscale. A tap zooms you in to a grid of numbers. Select a palette color and tap relevant grid squares to start coloring things in. Tap the wrong squares and your colors remain – but the numbers stick around in zoomed view, reminding you of your ‘error’.

Because you have to tap every single square, Sandbox might for some feel tedious. But there’s a meditative quality to proceedings, and there are plenty of images to color for free. A drag-to-color brush wouldn’t go amiss though.

Twitterrific

The official Twitter client may get the social network’s new toys first, but Twitterrific is a better bet for the more discerning Twitter user. It has a beautifully designed interface that’s a delight to use, helpfully merging mentions and messages into a unified timeline, saving you mucking about switching tabs.

Customization options give you the means to adjust the app’s visual appearance (and the app can optionally automatically switch to a dark theme at night), and powerful mute and muffle features block users and hashtags you want no part of.

Pay $4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99 and the app adds notifications, Apple Watch support, and translation support, along with removing ads.

WWF Together

With a noodly soundtrack playing in the background, WWF Together invites you to spin a papercraft world and tap points of interest to learn more about endangered species. 16 creatures get fuller treatment – a navigable presentation of sorts that hangs on a key characteristic, such as a panda’s charisma, or an elephant’s intelligence.

These sections are arranged as a three-by-three grid, each screen of which gives you something different, be it statistics, gorgeous photography, or a ‘facetime’ movie that gives you a chance to get up close and personal.

Apps that mix charity and education can often come across as dry and worthy, but WWF Together is neither. It’s informative but charming, and emotive but fun.

Rather neatly, stories can be shared by email, and this screen further rewards you with origami instructions to make your own paper animal; once constructed, it can sit on the desk next to all your technology, reminding you of the more fragile things that exist in our world.

YouTube

YouTube is the best way to watch YouTube videos on your iPad. On the dynamic Home tab, you can quickly get at interesting stuff. It includes channels you subscribe to, and videos you didn’t yet finish watching; but also, it makes recommendations based on your viewing habits. The more you watch, the better they get.

On selecting something to watch, the video itself sits at the top-left of the screen, allowing you to scroll through comments other viewers have left, and peruse an up-next feed. There’s also a full-screen view for a more immersive experience.

Fittingly, for a service seemingly attempting to usurp traditional television, the YouTube app also provides access to content you’ve bought on Google Play. And with AirPlay and Chromecast support, getting what you’re watching to an actual telly is a cinch, too.

For a mix of free and paid apps, check out our amazing Best iPad apps chart. If you’re more into a smaller form-factor or have your eye on the iPhone X check out our list of the best free iPhone apps.

Haven’t bought an iPad yet and not sure which is best? We’ve got them listed on our best iPad ranking – or you can check out the best tablets list to see the full range available now.

Are you a professional? Then our pick of the 10 best business apps should have something for you.

The best free art and design apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for painting, sketching, drawing, graphic design and animation.

Adobe Illustrator Draw

On the desktop, Adobe Illustrator is more about enabling creative types to work up pin-sharp illustrative fare than freehand drawing. But on iPad, Adobe Illustrator Draw concentrates on doodling. You can experiment with five highly configurable brush tips, which feel great whether drawing with a stylus or a finger.

But dig deeper into the options and the professional sheen of this app becomes apparent. There are perspective grids, a layers system for mixing and matching artwork and imagery for tracing over, and stencils you temporarily overlay when extra precision is needed.

Completed images can be exported to Camera Roll or the clipboard, and Adobe Creative Cloud users can also send art to Photoshop or Illustrator with layers preserved.

A straightforward vector export option would be nice, although that’s perhaps too big an ask for a free app designed to suck you into a larger ecosystem.

Adobe Photoshop Sketch

Although Photoshop started out as a tool for retouching imagery, plenty of people use it for creating art from scratch. It’s presumably that line of thinking that led to Adobe Photoshop Sketch, an iPad app that enables you to draw with virtual takes on ink, paint, pastel and markers.

The tools themselves are broadly impressive and configurable. You can adjust brushes in all kinds of ways, and then utilize blend modes and layers for complex art, and grids/stencils when more precision is needed.

Export feels a bit needlessly restrictive – you’re mostly forced to send drawings to Adobe’s Behance network – even Photos isn’t an option.

Also, while tools work well individually, they don’t really interact, such as when dragging pen through a glob of paint. Still, for free, Adobe Photoshop Sketch gives you a lot – and even if you don’t use the app for finished art, it works (as its name suggests) as a pretty neat sketchpad.

Autodesk SketchBook

We tend to quickly shift children from finger-painting to using much finer tools, but the iPad shows there’s plenty of power in your digits — if you’re using the right app.

Autodesk SketchBook provides all the tools you need for digital sketching, from basic doodles through to intricate and painterly masterpieces; and if you’re wanting to share your technique, you can even time-lapse record to save drawing sessions to your camera roll.

The core app is free, but it will cost you $4.99/£4.99/AU$7.99 to unlock the pro features.

Brushes Redux

The original Brushes app was one of the most important in the iPhone’s early days. With Jorge Colombo using it to paint a New Yorker cover, it showcased the potential of the technology, and that an iPhone could be used for production, rather than merely consumption.

Brushes eventually stopped being updated, but fortunately went open source beforehand. Brushes Redux is the result.

On the iPad, you can take advantage of the much larger screen. But the main benefit of the app is its approachable nature. It’s extremely easy to use, but also has plenty of power for those who need it, not least in the layering system and the superb brush designer.

Canva

The idea behind Canva is to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating great-looking layouts based on your photos. Select a layout type (presentation, blog graphic, invitation, and so on) and the app serves up templates to work with.

These are mostly very smart indeed, but the smartest thing about Canva is that these starting points can all be edited: swap out images for your own photos, adjust text boxes, and add new elements or even entire pages.

Because of its scope, Canva isn’t as immediate as one-click automated apps in this space, but the interface is intuitive enough to quickly grasp. Our only niggle is the lack of multi-item selection, but with Canva being an online service, you can always fine-tune your iPad creations in a browser on the desktop.

Pixel art editor – Dottable

Despite being lumbered with an awkward name, Pixel art editor – Dottable is a usable and nicely-conceived app. Choose a canvas size and then the interface is split between your drawing area, layers, and tools.

The basics are all there for creating old-school pixel art, but beyond brushes and fills, Dottable adds some fairly sophisticated shapes and transform tools.

If you want to trace an image, it can be imported, and optionally converted to pixel art form. Exports are also dealt with nicely, either exporting your image as a PNG, or converting each layer into a single frame of an animated GIF.

None of this is enough to trouble the pro-oriented Pixaki, but as a freebie for pixel artists, Dottable is mightily impressive.

Dribbble

Dribbble is well known among designer types for being a hub of creativity. It’s used by thousands of illustrators, graphic designers, typographers and the like to upload ideas and see what everyone else is up to.

The discussion forums are a great way to get feedback on in-progress work and to talk about weird and wonderful sketches and experiments.

For those in a creative industry, the Dribbble app gets the bulk of the experience neatly onto your iPad. You can browse, chat, flag favorites, and adjust the toolbar to include buttons for quick access to your preferred streams.

For everyone else, it’s a hive of inspiration – a great way to explore what’s hot in visual design, perhaps even sparking some ideas to drive your own creative endeavors.

Flickr

Instagram might be the current online photo-sharing darling, but it’s clear veteran Flickr remains up for a fight. On iPad, it’s a lovely app, with a refined and minimal UI that makes browsing simple and allows photography to shine.

Another smart aspect of Flickr is its extremely generous 1 TB of free storage. You can set videos and photos to automatically upload, and they stay private unless you choose to share them.

There are compatibility issues with the most modern Apple toys as Live Photos end up as stills on Flickr. Even so, Flickr makes Apple’s free 5 GB of iCloud storage look pathetic by comparison; and even if you use it only as a belt-and-braces back-up for important images, it’s worth checking out.

Folioscope

One of the great things about the app revolution is how these bits of software can help you experience creative fare that would have previously been inaccessible, unless you were armed with tons of cash and loads of time. Folioscope is a case in point, providing the basics for crafting your own animations.

We should note you’re not going to be the next Disney with Folioscope – the tools are fairly basic, and the output veers towards ‘wobbling stickmen’.

But you do get a range of brushes (of differing size and texture), several drawing tools (pen, eraser, flood fill, and marquee), and onion-skinning, which enables you to see faint impressions of adjacent frames, in order to line everything up.

The friendly nature of the app makes it accessible to anyone, and there’s no limit on export – projects can be shared as GIFs or movies, or uploaded to the Folioscope community, should you create an account.

MediBang Paint

MediBang Paint feels like one of those apps where you’re always waiting for the catch to arrive. Create a new canvas and you end up staring at what can only be described as a simplified Photoshop on your iPad. There are loads of drawing tools, a layers system (including photo import), and configurable brushes.

Opening up menus reveals yet more features – rotation; shapes; grids – but palettes can also be hidden, so you can get on with just drawing. Judging by the in-app gallery of uploaded art, MediBang is popular with manga artists, but its tools are capable enough to support a much wider range of digital painting and drawing styles – all without costing you a penny.

PicsArt Animated Gif & Video Animator

You won’t trouble Hollywood with PicsArt (or PicsArt Animated Gif & Video Animator to use its unwieldy full name). However, it is a great introduction to animation and also a handy sketchpad for those already immersed in the field.

A beginner can start with a blank slate, paper texture, or photo background, on to which an animation frame is drawn. Add further frames and previous ones faintly show through, to aid you in making smooth transitions.

Delve further into the app to discover more advanced fare, including brush options and a hugely useful layers system. When done, export to GIF or video – or save projects to refine later. That this all comes for free (and free from ads) is astonishing.

Pixabay

If you often find yourself rooting around the web for images to use in projects, Google Images will do. But it can be tricky to know whether you have the rights to use whatever you download – and you very often don’t.

Pixabay does away with such concerns through its images being released under Creative Commons CC0. In plain English: you can do whatever you like with them.

The downside is the selection can be sparse for niche subjects, and quite a lot of the vector art is of poor quality. But for general imagery to add to a brochure or website when you’re lacking a budget for pictures, there are plenty of decent photographs to choose from, easily accessible from the app’s straightforward search.

Quark DesignPad

Quark DesignPad scratches an itch if you need to get started on some layouts while on the go with your iPad – or just fancy doing the same away from the glowing screen of your Mac or PC.

This isn’t a full-fledged desktop publishing app, note. Instead, it’s about creating frameworks for page designs – wireframes that show the placement of headings, images, columns, and boxes. You can work pages up from scratch, or use one of the pre-defined layouts. With its grids, pop-up menus, and a little nudge ‘joystick’, the interface proves to be flexible and efficient.

Output options, however, are initially limited. You can save flat images to Photos, but if you want PDFs or to print via AirPrint, you’ll need to go pro ($9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99).

Seedling Comic Studio

Although it’s apparently designed for kids aged 9-11, Seedling Comic Studio comes across a lot like a free (if somewhat stripped back) take on iPad classic Comic Life. You load images from your Camera Roll (or take new ones with the camera), arrange them into comic-book frames, and can then add all manner of speech balloons, filters and stickers.

Decided that your heroic Miniature Schnauzer should have to save the world from a giant comic-book sandwich? This is your app! Naturally, there are limitations lurking. The filter system is a bit rubbish, requiring you to cycle through the dozen or so on offer, rather than pick favourites more directly, and a few of the sticker packs require IAP.

But for no outlay at all, there’s plenty of scope here for comic-book creation, from multi-page documents you can output to PDF, to amusing poster-like pages you can share on social networks. And that’s true whether you’re 9 or 49.

Tayasui Sketches

Tayasui Sketches is a drawing tool, designed to be realistic, versatile, and usable. And although various IAPs lurk for the full toolset (which includes a ruler, extra layers, and pressure sensitivity), you get an awful lot for free.

You start by selecting a paper type, or use an imported photo as the basis for your masterpiece. Then it’s time to get cracking with the pens and brushes. Although it’s perhaps a stretch to call them totally realistic, they all offer pleasing results. The watercolor brush in particular is lovely, bleeding into the paper and leaving splats on the canvas when you tap the screen.

In fact, the app as a whole is very pleasant to use, offering the right balance between trying to help and getting out of your way when you’re busy painting. And as a final neat touch, if you’re stuck for inspiration there are some coloring book pages thrown in for free.

The best free education apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for learning new things – from coding to astronomy.

Khan Academy

Maybe it’s just our tech-addled brains, but often we find it a lot easier to focus on an app than a book, which can make learning things the old fashioned way tricky. That’s where Khan Academy comes in. This free app contains lessons and guidance on dozens of subjects, from algebra, to cosmology, to computer science and beyond.

As it’s an app rather than a book it benefits from videos and even a few interactive elements, alongside words and pictures and it contains over 10,000 videos and explanations in all.

Everything is broken in to bite-sized chunks, so whether you’ve got a few minutes to spare or a whole afternoon there’s always time to learn something new and if you make an account it will keep track of your progress and award achievements.

Py

Py wants to teach you to communicate with computers. You provide some information about the kind of coding you fancy doing, and it recommends a course – anything from basic HTML through to delving into Python.

Lessons are very reminiscent of those in language-learning freebie Duolingo. A colorful, cartoonish interface provides questions, and you type out your answer or select from multiple choice options.

Py could be more helpful when you get something wrong, but its breezy, pacy nature gives it a real energy and game-like feel that boosts focus and longevity.

Unlike Duolingo, Py doesn’t have any interest in being free forever. A premium tier locks a chunk of content behind a monthly fee (along with access to mentors, who can help you through tough spots via an integrated chat). But for no outlay, there’s still plenty here for budding website – and app – creators to get stuck into.

SkyView Free

SkyView Free is a stargazing app that very much wants you to get off your behind and outside, or at least hold your iPad aloft to explore the heavens.

Unlike TechRadar favourite Sky Guide, there’s no means to drag a finger to manually move the sky around – you must always point your iPad’s display where you want to look – but there’s no price-tag either. And for free, this app does the business.

There are minimal ads, a noodly atmospheric soundtrack, an optional augmented reality view (to overlay app graphics on to the actual sky), and a handy search that’ll point you in the direction of Mars, Ursa Major, or the International Space Station.

Swift Playgrounds

Swift Playgrounds is an app about coding, although you’d initially be forgiven for thinking it a weird game. Early lessons involve guiding oddball cartoon cyclops Byte about an isometric landscape by way of typed commands, having him trigger switches and grab gems along the way.

This is, of course, sneakily teaching you the fundamentals of logic and programming, and the lessons do then gradually become more involved. However, at no point does Swift Playgrounds become overwhelming. And the split-screen set-up – instructions and code on the left; interactive world based on your work on the right – feels friendly and intuitive.

It’s not Xcode for iPad, then, but perhaps a first step in that direction. More importantly, Swift Playgrounds can act as a first step for people who want to start coding their own apps, but for whom the very idea has, to date, simply been too daunting.

Wikipedia

Often, third-party apps improve on bare-bones equivalents provided as the ‘official’ take on a product, but Wikipedia is an exception. This freebie app for browsing the online encyclopedia is excellent on iPad – and probably the best option on the platform.

The Explore page lists a bunch of nearby and topical articles; after a few uses, it’ll also recommend things it reckons you’d like to read. Tap an article and the screen splits in two – (collapsible) table of contents to the left and your chosen article to the right. Articles can be searched and saved, the latter option storing them for offline perusal.

It’s a pity Wikipedia doesn’t rework the Peek/Pop previews from the iPhone version (by way of a long-tap), but otherwise this is an excellent, usable encyclopedia for the modern age.

Yousician

Learning a musical instrument isn’t easy, which is probably why a bunch of people don’t bother, instead pretending to be rock stars by way of tiny plastic instruments and their parent videogames.

Yousician bridges the divide, flipping a kind of Guitar Hero interface 90 degrees and using its visual and timing devices to get you playing chords and notes.

This proves remarkably effective, and your iPad merrily keeps track of your skills (or lack thereof) through its internal mic. The difficulty curve is slight, but the app enables you to skip ahead if you’re bored, through periodic ‘test’ rounds. Most surprisingly, for free you get access to everything, only your daily lesson time is limited.

TED

TED is a video app designed to feed your curiosity, by watching smart people talk about all kinds of subjects.

Although the organization’s name stands for ‘Technology, Entertainment, Design’, it’s fundamentally interested in ideas. Example talks we watched during testing included a piece about screen time for kids (and why related fears are not true), not suffering in silence from depression, and mind-blowing magnified portraits of insects. What we’re saying is: this app has range.

It also has smarts. Along with a standard search, you can have the app ‘surprise you’ with something courageous, beautiful, or fascinating, and revisit favorites by delving into your watch history and liked talks, which sync across devices.

TED’s perhaps not an app you’ll open daily, but it’s a breath of fresh air when you desire brain food rather than typical telly.

The best free health, food and exercise apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for cooking, relaxing and keeping fit.

Breathe+

Many of us are caught in high-stress environments for much of our lives, and electronic gadgets often do little to help. Apple has recognized this on Apple Watch, which offers a breathing visualization tool. But Breathe+ brings similar functionality to your iPad.

You define how long breaths in and out should take, and whether you want to hold your breath at any point during the cycle. You then let Breathe+ guide your breathing for a user-defined session length.

The visualization is reminiscent of a minimalist illustrator’s take on a wave rising and falling on the screen, but you can also close your eyes and have the iPad vibrate for cues. For free, there are some ads, which aren’t pretty, but don’t distract too much. For $1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99, you can be rid of them, along with adding themes and usage history stats.

Kitchen Stories

As you launch Kitchen Stories, you catch a glimpse of the app’s mantra: “Anyone can cook”. The problem is, most cooking apps (and indeed, traditional cookery books) make assumptions regarding people’s abilities.

Faced with a list of steps on a stark white page, it’s easy to get halfway through a recipe, look at the stodge in front of you, reason something must have gone terribly wrong, and order a takeaway.

Kitchen Stories offers firmer footing. You’re first met with a wall of gorgeous photography. More importantly, the photographs don’t stop.

Every step in a recipe is accompanied by a picture that shows how things should be at that point. Additionally, some recipes provide tutorial videos for potentially tricky skills and techniques. Fancy some Vietnamese pho, but not sure how to peel ginger, prepare a chilli or thinly slice meat? Kitchen Stories has you covered.

Beyond this, there’s a shopping list, handy essentials guide, and some magazine-style articles to peruse. And while you don’t get the sheer range of recipes found in some rival apps, the presentation more than makes up for that — especially on the iPad, which will likely find a new home in your own kitchen soon after Kitchen Stories is installed.

TaoMix 2

There’s a tendency for relaxation aids to be noodly and dull, but TaoMix 2 bucks the trend. You get the usual sounds to aid relaxation (wind, rain, birds, water), but also an interface that nudges the app towards being a tool for creating a kind of ambient personal soundtrack.

The basics are dead simple: tap the + button, select a sound pack, and drag a sound to the canvas. You then manually position the circular cursor within the soundscape, or slowly flick so it lazily bounces around the screen, your various sounds then ebbing and flowing into the mix.

This makes TaoMix 2 more fun to play with than its many rivals. Of course, if you just want to shut the world out, that option exists too: load a soundscape you’ve previously created, set a timer, and use TaoMix 2 to help you nod off.

Should you want something other than what’s found within the generous selection of built-in noises, packs are available for purchase (including whale sounds, ‘Japanese garden’ and orchestral strings); and if you fancy something entirely more custom, you can even import sounds of your own.

White Noise+

There are quite a few apps for creating ambient background noise, helping you to focus, relax, and even sleep. White Noise+ is perhaps the best we’ve seen – a really smartly designed mix of sound and interface design that is extremely intuitive yet thoroughly modern.

It works through you adding sounds to an on-screen grid. Those placed towards the right become more complex, and those towards the top are louder. Personalized mixes can be saved, or you can play several that are pre-loaded.

For free, you do get an ad across the bottom of the screen, only five sounds, and no access to timers and alarms. But even with such restrictions, White Noise+ is pretty great. Throw $2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49 at it for the extra features and noises, and it borders on exceptional.

7 Minute Workout

7 Minute Workout is designed to give you a complete fitness workout in just seven minutes. It’s far from alone on the App Store, but we like this take because it’s straightforward – and also properly free (rather than being riddled with IAP).

The exercise screens are basic, but bold. It’s always obvious where you are in a routine, and if you’re unsure about the next step, you can tap a video playback button to view a demonstration.

Beyond the exercises, the app enables you to track your weight and set the gap between exercises, which are regularly switched during the routine. The only downside is not being able to block specific exercises if, for example, you don’t have access to a chair, or cannot perform them due to accessibility reasons.

Epicurious

Epicurious is a massive recipe book for iPad. It provides access to over 35,000 recipes, and offers a magazine-like presentation. The entry screen is awash with new recipes with vibrant photography; you can quickly flick between that and dedicated pages for themed recipes and new videos.

The app’s search is excellent. You can select by meal type, and filter available recipes by selecting specific ingredients, cuisine types, and dietary issues (such as low-fat and wheat-free). Flicking back and forth between filters and results can irk, but the app at least does so quickly and efficiently.

The actual recipe pages are a touch basic – there’s no hand-holding like the step-by-step photos you get in Kitchen Stories. Still, if confident in your abilities, it’s a great app to broaden your culinary horizons.

The best free kids apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps, learning tools, and games for toddlers and children.

Sago Mini World

Sago Mini World mashes together a bunch of Sago apps in a single colossal download, and enables you to unlock them all with a monthly $4.49/£3.99/AU$6.49 subscription. But before you run away screaming, there’s still plenty to do for free.

Sago Mini Friends (the app’s original name) remains intact, and is a generous, heart-warming game, promoting empathy, sharing and creativity through play. You select a character, knock on doors, and play mini-games, such as dress-up, taking a bath, and having a snack.

In the last of those, feed one character too often and the other looks sad, hopefully prompting your own tiny person to figure out that sharing is good.

This and the other free games shine, with bold colors and smartly designed interfaces. The freemium shift rankles, but doesn’t overshadow the strong content.

Zen Studio

According to the developer’s blurb, Zen Studio is all about helping children to relax and focus, by providing a kind of finger-painting that can only exist in the digital realm. Frankly, we take issue with the ‘children’ bit, because Zen Studio has a welcoming and pleasing nature that should ensure it’s a hit with every iPad user.

You start off with a grid of triangles and a column of colored paints. Tap a paint to choose your color and then tap individual triangles or drag across the grid to start drawing. Every gesture you make is accompanied by musical notes that play over an ambient background soundtrack.

Bar the atmosphere being knocked a touch by a loud squelch noise whenever a new paint tube is selected, the mix of drawing tool and musical instrument is intoxicating. When you’re done, your picture can be squirted to the Photos app, ready for sharing with the world.

This is, however, a limited freebie in some ways. You get eight canvases, which can be blank or based on templates. If you want more, you can buy an IAP to unlock the premium version of the app. Still, for no outlay at all, you get a good few hours of chill-out noodly fun — more, if you’re happy drawing over the same canvases again and again.

Doctor Who: Comic Creator

Doctor Who: Comic Creator does what you’d expect from its name. When you’re between seasons of the hit sci-fi show, you can satisfy yourself by fashioning custom adventures about everyone’s favorite regenerating time traveler, who goes everywhere and everywhen in a beaten-up old time machine.

Creating comics is akin to slapping down stickers – only you can move things around later. And you get a pleasingly diverse range of page layouts, along with a monster maker, so you can combine parts of the Doctor’s enemies into something suitably horrific.

The main downside is most foes lurk behind various IAPs – would it have killed the BBC to throw in a Cyberman for free? Sadly, there’s no way to use the app to get all timey-wimey and change people’s minds when the app was being made.

Lego Life

Lego Life is a social network for kids whose lives revolve around plastic bricks. Once you’re signed up, you explore feeds and follow themes, to become a better builder, or just see what’s current in the world of Lego.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a nod towards advertising of a kind, in new product videos being liberally sprinkled about. But mostly, this is an app about inspiration. You’re regularly offered building challenges and knowledge tests; during lazy days, you can slap stickers all over a virtual Lego kit, or build a mini-figure for your profile.

Given that it’ll mostly be kids using the app, it’s worth noting usernames are anonymized. You can’t type your own, and instead select from semi-random word lists. EmpressSensibleMotorbike, meet ElderSupersonicJelly!

The best free music and audio apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for listening to podcasts, making music or being a virtual DJ.

Auxy Music Studio

The thinking behind Auxy Music Studio is that music-making – both in the real world and software – has become too complicated. This app therefore strives to combine the immediacy of something like Novation Launchpad’s loop triggers with a basic piano roll editor.

For each instrument, you choose between drums and decidedly electronic synths. You then compose loops of between one and four bars, tapping out notes on the piano roll’s grid. Subsequent playback occurs on the overview screen by tapping loops to cue them up.

For those who want to go a bit further, the app includes arrangement functionality (for composing entire songs), along with Ableton Link and MIDI export support. Auxy’s therefore worth a look for relative newcomers to making music and also pros after a no-nonsense scratchpad.

Figure

The iPad is the perfect mobile device for composing music, with its fairly large display and powerful innards. This has resulted in a range of involved and impressive music-creation tools, such as Korg Gadget. Sometimes, though, you yearn for something simpler for making some noise.

This is where Figure comes in. Within seconds, you can craft thumping dance loops, comprising drum, bass and lead parts. The sounds are great, being based on developer Propellerhead Software’s much-loved Reason. They can be manipulated, too, so your exported loops sound truly unique.

Garageband

On an iPhone, music-making app GarageBand is mightily impressive, but on iPad, the extra space proves transformative. In being able to see more at any given time, your experience is more efficient and enjoyable, whether you’re a beginner tapping the grid view to trigger loops, a live musician tweaking a synth on stage, or a recording artist delving into audio waveforms and MIDI data.

Apple’s app also cleverly appeals to all. Newcomers can work with loops, automated drummers, and piano strips for always staying in key. Pros get seriously impressive track controls with configurable effects, multi-take recording, and Audio Unit support for bringing favorite synths directly into GarageBand.

If you don’t feel terribly creative sitting in front of a PC, GarageBand’s the perfect way to unleash your Grammy-winning songwriter in waiting.

Groovebox

Groovebox is a really clever app for anyone interested in making electronic music. The smartest bit is in the app being approachable for newcomers, yet offering power and features for seasoned noise makers.

The basics involve selecting a track type (drums, bass, or synth), and then a sound, whereupon Groovebox starts playing a loop. If you’re not happy with what you hear, tap the dice and Groovebox will spit out a different pattern.

Most apps of this ilk are samples-based, and so grind to a juddering halt at this point. But Groovebox goes further, offering a keyboard for live play, and a piano roll grid for tweaking a loop’s notes – or removing them all to add your own. You can also build up entire tracks using a ‘song sections’ feature.

The only major limitation of the free version is many advanced instrument controls sit behind IAP. Still, for no outlay, Groovebox offers plenty of head-nodding entertainment.

Music Memos

It’s fair to say that Music Memos is primarily designed for the iPhone, enabling musicians to quickly capture a song idea, which can later be expanded on. But if you’re in a studio – home or otherwise – strumming away on a guitar, and with an iPad nearby, the app can help you compose your next chart-troubler on a much more user-friendly screen size.

You kick things off by tapping a circle in the middle of the screen, whereupon Music Memos starts recording. Tap again to stop. The app then attempts – with some degree of success – to transcribe the chords played, and enables you to overlay automated bass and drums.

It’s when tapping the audio waveform in the recordings list that the iPad’s value becomes clear – you get the whole screen to see your in-progress song, which is great for playing along with or when considering further tweaks. And with iCloud sync, you can always record on iPhone and peruse later on iPad.

Novation Launchpad

GarageBand offers a loop player, but Novation Launchpad was doing this kind of thing years before, and in a manner that’s so intuitive and simple that even a toddler could record a track. (We know — ours did.)

The app comprises a set of pads, where you choose a genre, tap pads, and they keep playing until you tap something else in the same group. Performances can be recorded, and you can also mess about with effects to radically change the output of what you’re playing.

Whether you’re a musician or not, Launchpad is a great app for making a noise. And if you fancy something a bit more unique than the built-in sounds, there’s a $6.99/£6.99/AU$10.99 in-app purchase that lets you import your own samples.

Overcast

Podcasts are mostly associated with small portable devices – after all, the very name is a mash-up of ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore your favourite shows when armed with an iPad rather than an iPhone.

We’re big fans of Overcast on Apple’s smaller devices, but the app makes good use of the iPad’s extra screen space, with a smart two-column display. On the left, episodes are listed, and the current podcast loads into the larger space on the right.

The big plusses with Overcast, though, remain playback and podcast management. It’s the one podcast app we’ve used that retains plenty of clarity when playback is sped up; and there are clever effects for removing dead air and boosting vocals in podcasts with lower production values.

Playlists can be straightforward in nature, or quite intricate, automatically boosting favourites to the top of the list, and excluding specific episodes. And if you do mostly use an iPhone for listening, Overcast automatically syncs your podcasts and progress, so you can always pick up where you left off.

Pacemaker

There are quite a few DJ apps for iPad, but they mostly tend to make the assumption you’re a master of the decks already. With its bright colors, straightforward nature, and lack of a price tag, Pacemaker feels rather more approachable to the typical wannabe deck spinner.

You can mess about with demo tracks or load tunes from your iPhone and Spotify. Then it’s a case of messing around with virtual decks, sliders and buttons to crossfade, beat-match, and add effects. If you hit on something especially great, record your live performance and share it with your friends.

It’s worth noting the app does have IAP lurking, but that’s really only for people properly bitten by the bug. Splash out and you can grab new effects or a premium subscription for precision mixing. For free, though, there’s plenty to enjoy.

Remixlive

Fancy creating a slice of dubstep, hip hop, or deep house? Largely bereft of musical talent (or just feeling a bit lazy)?

Don’t worry – Remixlive has you covered. Using the app, you select a genre (others are available via IAP – and some extras are even free), and then superstardom is just a case of triggering loops by tapping large colored pads.

The app’s pretty much idiot-proof – pads are labelled, everything’s always in time or in tune, and you can record your efforts by tapping a big REC button. Lovely.

But if you fancy going a bit further, the app’s happy to oblige: there’s a mixing desk for adjusting levels, live effects, and an editor to mix and match pads from different genre sets. Want to import/export your own sounds? Grab the relevant IAP ($5.99/£5.99/AU$9.99).

Seaquence

There are two ways to approach Seaquence, where the first is as a really bizarre interactive album. Select a track and a bunch of little creatures swim about on the screen, which results in spatialized sound mixes. (Stick some headphones on to hear how their movements affect the placement of sounds being played.) You can manually fling the creatures about, or tap-hold to remove them.

But Seaquence also enables you to edit. Add a new creature and it’ll instantly change the track. Tap a creature and you can delve into a scale editor, sound designer, and a sequencer for adjusting the notes of the current loop.

A $6.99/£6.99/AU$10.99 IAP opens up a bunch of pro features; but for free, Seaquence is entertaining whether you’re just listening and occasionally bothering the digital sea life, or figuring out how to construct your own tunes.

Beatwave

Beatwave is a grid synthesizer/sound toy, loosely based on Yamaha’s Tenori-on. This means you tap notes by turning on the grid’s lights. When the endlessly looping playhead collides with one, you get an explosion of color, and a sound plays.

Notes towards the top of the grid are higher, and those at the bottom are lower. Some instruments use the bottom two rows for drum sounds. Most importantly, though, Beatwave is designed to always make output listenable.

It’s actually quite difficult to create anything horribly discordant, short of filling every square on the grid.

For those who fancy more depth, the app offers plenty of alternate sounds, automated morphing, and the ability to save patterns to the sidebar, which you switch between with a tap. So it’s fun whether writing songs or just playing with sound and color.

The best free office and writing apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for writing, email, spreadsheets, presentations and calculations.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a popular app on the desktop for viewing, annotating and signing PDFs. On iPad… well, it’s much the same, albeit with a reliance on cloud storage, and a nicely-designed touchscreen interface.

On importing a PDF from another app, Dropbox, or iCloud Drive, you can rearrange its pages, add a signature, slather the thing in comments, and highlight bits of text. If your document arrived from Adobe Scan, you can search the text, and select/copy some to paste elsewhere. Annoyingly, copying must be done manually – there’s no ‘grab all text’ option.

In the main, though, this is a friendly, usable app, and you get the bulk of its functionality for free, including the means to share edited PDFs with other apps. (IAP is mostly for converting PDFs to other formats for editing in the likes of Microsoft Word.)

Adobe Scan

Adobe Scan turns your iPad into a handheld scanner. This in itself isn’t anything special – there are plenty of paid and free scanners for iPad, including inbuilt support with iOS 11. However, in Adobe Scan’s case, it’s mostly about the ecosystem.

The basics are present and correct – place a document in front of Adobe Scan and it will automatically be captured. This feature is sometimes a bit over-eager when scanning multiple pages (in one case during review, it took a fetching angled picture of a trackpad), but you can subsequently fiddle with cropping, page order, and recoloring.

The best bit, though, is the way in which Adobe Scan also captures words. You can’t actually get at them in Adobe Scan, frustratingly, but fling your PDF at Adobe Acrobat, and you can copy and paste text to the likes of Notes. Accuracy is pleasingly high, too.

Bear

A halfway house between full-fledged writing tool and capable note-taker, Bear provides a beautiful environment for tapping out words on an iPad.

The sidebar links to notes you’ve grouped by hashtag. Next to that, a notes list enables you to scroll through (or search) everything you’ve written, or notes matching a specific tag. The main workspace – which can be made full-screen – marries sleek minimalism with additional smarts: subtle Markdown syntax next to headings; automated to-do checkboxes when using certain characters; image integration.

There’s not enough here for pro writers – they’d need on-screen word counts, customizable note column ordering, and flexibility regarding notes nesting. Also, for iCloud sync, you must buy a $1.49/£1.49/AU$1.99 monthly subscription. But as a free, minimal note-taker for a single device, Bear more than fits the bill.

Dropbox

Dropbox is perhaps the most famous of cloud storage providers. For free, you get 2GB of space for your documents and photos – and more if you pay to upgrade.

In the early days of iPad, Apple wanted to hide the file system away, and Dropbox – which was quickly supported by a great many apps – became a kind of surrogate. And even in these days of iCloud Drive, it’s very much worth installing.

The main Dropbox app is smart and straightforward, with speedy previews, the means to save content offline, passcode lock functionality, and optional automated backup of your iPad photos.

As of iOS 11, Dropbox can integrate directly into the Files app, too. Given Dropbox’s cross-device and cross-platform nature, this makes it worth grabbing even if you only use it rarely. Chances are, though, you’ll use it a whole lot more often.

There are other decent cloud storage apps too, such as Google Drive, but even if you already have that it’s worth grabbing Dropbox for a little extra space.

Gmail

Gmail brings Google’s email service to your iPad. Of course, Apple’s own Mail app does this to some extent – and supports sending and receiving from Gmail addresses. But the Gmail app provides a fuller experience.

One of the most vital is the ability to undo a send. You have to be quick, but it’s hugely useful to stop something being sent if you realize you’ve made an error, or forgotten to add an attachment.

Elsewhere, the app’s also in tune with Google’s way of doing things, and so you get profile pictures of people you’re conversing with, integration with Google Calendar, and excellent search capabilities.

Another possible reason to install: as a means to keep business and leisure fully separate, if you use Apple’s Mail for work, and Gmail for everything else.

LiquidText

There are loads of iPad apps for reading and annotating PDFs, but LiquidText is different. Rather than purely aping paper, the developers have thought about the advantages of working with virtual documents.

So while you still get a typical page view, you can pinch to collapse passages you’re not interested in and also compare those that aren’t adjacent.

There’s a ‘focus’ view that shows only annotated sections, and you can even select chunks of text and drag them to the sidebar. Tap one of those cut-outs at a later point and its location will instantly be displayed in the main text. Smartly, you can save any document in the app’s native format, export it as a PDF with comments, or share just the notes as an RTF.

Microsoft Excel

The iPad’s well catered for in spreadsheet terms with Google freebie Sheets and Apple’s Numbers, but the reality is the business world mostly relies on Microsoft Excel. Like Microsoft’s other iOS fare, Excel is surprisingly powerful, marrying desktop-style features with touchscreen smarts.

You can get started with a blank workbook or choose from one of the bundled templates, which include budget planners, schedules, logs, and lists. Wisely, the app has an optional custom keyboard when you’re editing cells, filled with symbols, numbers, and virtual cursor keys. This won’t make much odds if you’re armed with a Bluetooth keyboard, but it speeds things up considerably if you only have your iPad handy.

You might be wondering what the catch is, and there aren’t many if you own a standard iPad or a mini. Sign in with a free Microsoft account and you’re blocked from some aesthetic niceties, but can do pretty much everything else. If you’re on an iPad Pro, however, Microsoft demands you have a qualifying Office 365 subscription to create and edit documents, but the app at least still functions as a viewer.

Microsoft Word

It’s not like Microsoft Word really needs introduction. Unless you’ve been living under a rock that itself is under a pretty sizeable rock, you’ll have heard of Microsoft’s hugely popular word processor. What you might not realize, though, is how good it is on iPad.

Fire up the app and you’re greeted with a selection of handy templates, although you can of course instead use a blank canvas. You then work with something approximating the desktop version of Word, but that’s been carefully optimized for tablets. Your brain keeps arguing it shouldn’t exist, but it does — although things are a bit fiddly on an iPad mini.

Wisely, saved documents can be stored locally rather than you being forced to use Microsoft’s cloud, and they can be shared via email. (A PDF option exists for recipients without Office, although it’s oddly hidden behind the share button in the document toolbar, under ‘Send Attachment’, which may as well have been called ‘beware of the leopard’.)

Something else that’s also missing: full iPad Pro 12.9 support in the free version. On a smaller iPad, you merely need a Microsoft account to gain access to most features. Some advanced stuff — section breaks; columns; tracking changes; insertion of WordArt — requires an Office 365 account, but that won’t limit most users.

Presumably, Microsoft thinks iPad Pro owners have money to burn, though, because for free they just get a viewer. Bah.

Numbers

With Numbers, Apple managed to do something with spreadsheets that had eluded Microsoft in decades of Excel development: they became pleasant (even fun) to work with.

Instead of forcing workmanlike grids of data on you, Numbers has you think in a more presentation-oriented fashion. Although you can still create tables for totting up figures, you’re also encouraged to be creative and reader-friendly regarding layout, incorporating graphs, imagery, and text. On iPad, it’s all tap – and finger – friendly, too.

With broad feature-parity with the Mac version, iCloud sync, and export to Excel format, Numbers should also fit neatly into most people’s workflow.

And although updates robbed the app of some friendliness (whoever removed the date picker needs a stern talking to), it still excels in that department, from nicely designed templates through to the handy action menu, ensuring common tasks are only ever a tap away.

Paper

For a long while, Paper was a freemium iPad take on Moleskine sketchbooks. You made little doodles and then flipped virtual pages to browse them. At some point, it went free, but now it’s been transformed into something different and better.

The original tools remain present and correct, but are joined by the means to add text, checklists, and photos. One other newcomer allows geometric shapes you scribble to be tidied up, but without losing their character.

So rather than only being for digital sketches, Paper’s now for all kinds of notes and graphs, too. The sketchbooks, however, are gone; in their place are paper stacks that explode into walls of virtual sticky notes. Some old-hands have grumbled, but we love the new Paper. It’s smarter, simpler, easier to browse, and makes Apple’s own Notes look like a cheap knock-off.

PCalc Lite

PCalc Lite‘s existence means the lack of a built-in iPad calculator doesn’t bother us. For anyone who wants a traditional calculator, it’s pretty much ideal. The big buttons beg to be tapped, and the interface can be tweaked to your liking, by way of bolder and larger key text, alternate display digits, and stilling animation.

Beyond basic sums, PCalc Lite adds some conversions, which are categorised but also searchable. If you’re hankering for more, IAP lets you bolt on a number of extras from the paid version of PCalc, such as additional themes, dozens more conversions, alternate calculator layouts, a virtual paper tape, and options for programmers and power users.

The best free photo and video editing apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for editing photos, working with filters, adding text to photos and editing video.

Photoshop Fix

It’s become apparent that Adobe – creators of photography and graphic design powerhouses Photoshop and Illustrator – don’t see mobile devices as suitable for full projects. However, the company’s been hard at work on a range of satellite apps, of which Photoshop Fix is perhaps the most impressive.

Built on Photoshop technology, this retouching tool boasts a number of high-end features for making considered edits to photographs. The Liquify tool in particular is terrific, enabling you to mangle images like clay, or more subtly adjust facial features using bespoke tools for manipulating mouths and eyes.

Elsewhere, you can smooth, heal, color and defocus a photo to your heart’s content, before sending it to Photoshop on the desktop for further work, or flattening it for export to your Camera Roll. It’s particularly good when used with the Apple Pencil (still a funny name) and the iPad Pro, such is the power and speed of that device and input method.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Making apps approachable is a good thing on mobile, but sometimes photo editors go a bit far, flinging all kinds of detritus into the mix (stickers; gaudy frames; a million indistinguishable filters).

With Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, you instead get a more sedate and distinctly professional offering – although one that nonetheless retains plenty of immediacy.

The basic toolset includes cropping, rotation, a bunch of measured and genuinely useful presets, and an editor for adjusting tones, vignettes, colors and lens issues. Edits aren’t burned in and so you can experiment and revert as you wish. When you’re done, you can send the result to your Camera Roll.

If you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber, you also get DNG support, and selective adjustments. But even as a pure freebie, Lightroom’s a must-have for any iPad owner interested in improving their photographs.

Little Moments

There are loads of apps for making basic edits to photos and slapping on some words, but Little Moments stands out primarily through being rather jolly (if a little twee at times) and being extremely easy to use.

Load in a pic (or use the camera to shoot a new one), and you can quickly add a filter, adjust things like saturation and contrast, overlay some text boxes, and get creative with quotes and stickers.

Weirdly, the last two of those things are pixelated when browsing through the app, but look just fine when added (and sadly many of the categories also sit behind in-app purchases).

But everything else about Little Moments is a joy, from the non-destructive adjustments (unless you select a new filter, whereupon everything resets) to the friendly, intuitive interface.

Matissa

For reasons unknown to us, Prisma’s not on iPad, but Matissa provides a similar take on transforming photos into works of art. You know the drill: load a pic, select a filter, watch as the app turns it into something that looks more akin to paint on canvas, share, print, rinse and repeat.

Matissa’s filter selection is quite diverse, even if the results aren’t as convincing as Prisma’s. Still, there are some interesting ‘dynamic’ styles, which animate the end result, in a flickering loop that’s oddly hypnotic.

Everything does feel a bit too much like a blown-up phone app, though, and we wish Matissa could delve into shared albums rather than just Camera Roll. Still, it’s free, it works, and it does the job if you want to add a little art to your snaps.

MuseCam

The App Store’s awash with alternate cameras with editing smarts, but MuseCam warrants a place on your iPad’s home screen nonetheless. As a camera, it’s fine, with an on-screen grid and plenty of manual settings. But on Apple’s tablet, it’s in editing that MuseCam excels.

Load a photo and you can apply a film-inspired filter preset (based on insight from pro photographers), or fiddle around with tone curves, color tools, and other adjustment settings.

The interface is bold, efficient, and usable, making it accessible to relative newcomers; but there’s also enough depth here to please those wanting a bit more control, including the option to save tweaks as custom presets.

IAP comes in the form of additional filters, but what you get for free is generous and of a very high quality, making MuseCam a no-brainer download.

Photofy

Although Photofy includes a decent range of tools for performing typical edits on photos – including adjustments, cropping, saturation, and the like – this app is more interested in helping you get properly creative.

Within the photo editing tools are options for adding in-vogue blurs and producing collages; and in ‘Text & Overlays’, you’ll find a wealth of options for slapping all kinds of artwork and text on top of your photographic masterpieces.

The interface works well through bold, tappable buttons and chunky sliders (although it takes a while to realise the pane containing the latter can be scrolled). And although some filters and stickers require IAP to unlock, there’s loads available here entirely for free. (Also, Photofy rather pleasingly gives you alternatives for its watermark, if you don’t want to pay to remove it, but aren’t too keen on the default. Nice.)

Pic Collage

Pic Collage has you create collages from photos and images. In Grids mode, select some pictures, and the app automatically places them in a layout. If you’re not keen, switch to a different layout; you can also adjust background colors and border sizes.

Select an individual image and you can move and rotate it, and perform the kind of edits and adjustments you find in a slew of photo apps. Using the + button you can further customize your creation with stickers, text and doodles.

Beyond this mode, you can craft cards and ‘freestyle’ layouts. For free, it all comes across as an astonishingly flexible, usable and feature-rich take on digital collages. The only real downside is watermarks on your exported collages, but you can be rid of them forever by paying a single $1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99 IAP.

Pixify

On the iPhone, Prisma has become many people’s go-to app for transforming photos into tiny works of painterly art. Bafflingly, an iPad version of the app has yet to materialize, so fortunately Pixify is on hand to plug that particular gap.

In fact, in many ways Pixify is superior to Prisma. It has the same level of immediacy: load a photo and select what artwork you’d like it to resemble. But the app also provides a modicum of control over the output, in you being able to adjust brush sizes and how heavily the painterly style is applied.

The one downside on iPad is the final rendered image displays quite small on the screen. And even the $0.99/99p/AU$1.99 IAP, which unlocks higher-resolution artwork to export, doesn’t affect this oddity.

Quik

Formerly known as Replay, Quik is a video editor primarily designed for people who can’t be bothered doing the editing bit. You select photos and videos, pick a theme, and sit back as Quik pieces together a masterpiece that can subsequently be saved and shared.

For tinkerers, there are styles and settings to tweak. Post-Replay, the app offers its 28 varied styles for free, and you can delve into the edit itself, trimming clips, reordering media, adjusting focal points, and adding titles.

Alternatively, the really lazy can do nothing at all and still get results – every week, Quik will serve up highlights videos, enabling you to relive favorite moments. These videos are quite random in nature, but are nonetheless often a nice surprise. Still, anyone willing to put in the slightest additional effort will find Quik rewards any minutes invested many times over.

Snapseed

Apple’s Photos app has editing capabilities, but they’re not terribly exciting — especially when compared to Snapseed. Here, you select from a number of from a number of tools and filters, and proceed to pinch and swipe your way to a transformed image. You get all the basics — cropping, rotation, healing brushes, and the like — but the filters are where you can get really creative.

There are blurs, photographic effects, and more extreme options like ��grunge’ and ‘grainy film’, which can add plenty of atmosphere to your photographs. The vast majority of effects are tweakable, mostly by dragging up and down on the canvas to select a parameter and then horizontally to adjust its strength.

Brilliantly, the app also records applied effects as separate layers, each of which remains fully editable until you decide to save your image and work on something else.

Splice

Between quickly trimming a video in Photos and immersing yourself in the likes of iMovie sits Splice. This is a free video editor that on the surface looks accessible – even simplistic – but that offers surprising depth for those who need it.

To get started, you import a bunch of clips. These can be reordered, and you can for each choose a transition if you don’t want standard crossfades. Access an individual clip and a whole host of additional tools becomes available, including text overlays, speed adjustment, and animation effects. It’s also possible to layer multiple audio files, including on-board music and narration.

For more demanding wannabe directors, Splice might still not be enough – in which case, head towards a more powerful product like Pinnacle Studio Pro or iMovie. But for everyone else, it really hits that sweet spot in being straightforward, approachable, and powerful.

Trigraphy

Another filter app, but this one’s more about creating semi-abstract works of art than aping a bunch of photographic effects from the 1970s (although you get those too). With Trigraphy, the most interesting bits are the art filters, which can totally transform even the most mundane snap into something visually arresting.

You get four for free – more styles lurk as various IAPs – and they’re all pretty amazing. With a single tap, you can turn your photo into a landscape of isometric blocks, or overlay fragmented reflective surfaces.

With the brush tool, you can then paint out the effects layer to let parts of the original image show through, before exporting at up to 4K. It’s certainly a lot more creative than tapping a button to make a pretend Polaroid.

The best free productivity apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for being more productive with cloud storage, timers, iPad keyboards, automation and more.

1Password

Although Apple introduced iCloud Keychain in iOS 7, designed to securely store passwords and payment information, 1Password is a more powerful system.

Along with integrating with Safari, it can be used to hold identities, secure notes, network information and app licence details. It’s also cross-platform, meaning it will work with Windows and Android.

And since 1Password is a standalone app, accessing and editing your information is fast and efficient. The core app is free – the company primarily makes its money on the desktop. However, you’ll need a monthly subscription or to pay a one-off $9.99/£9.99/AU$14.99 IAP to access advanced features (multiple vaults, Apple Watch support, tagging, and custom fields).

Cheatsheet

As iOS has evolved, Notification Center has become a far more useful and robust part of the iPad experience. It can now house all kinds of useful information, which is accessible via a single downwards swipe. The idea behind Cheatsheet is to create a place for tiny things you need to remember, such as luggage combinations, phone numbers, and Wi-Fi passwords.

The Cheatsheet app enables you to configure your list of items and their sort order; a custom icon can also be assigned to each one. On iPad, the screen is big enough to show two rows of ‘cheats’, meaning the widget rarely takes up much space.

Note that for free, you get all of this without even any ads, but there’s a single IAP ($2.99/£2.99/AU$4.49) to extend Cheatsheet further; this gives you extra icons, iCloud notes sync, a custom keyboard, and an action extension, along with allowing the developer to eat.

Evernote

In a sense Evernote is an online back-up for fleeting thoughts and ideas. You use it to save whatever comes to mind — text documents and snippets, notes, images, web clips, and even audio. These can then be accessed from a huge number of devices. (We suspect any day now, Evernote will unveil its ZX Spectrum app.)

The app itself could be friendlier, and there’s a tendency towards clutter. But navigation of your stored bits and pieces is simple enough, and the sheer ubiquity and reliability of Evernote makes it worthy of investigation and a place on your Home screen.

Find My iPhone

Find my iPhone isn’t well named, because it’s really ‘find all my devices that are signed up to the service’. And in the case of mobile devices, you really should sign them up.

The app itself gives you a list of devices and a map, showing where each device was most recently located. Lost something in your home? Select it, tap Actions, and have it make a noise, for easier retrieval. Lost something elsewhere? Set it to Lost mode, and hope a good Samaritan will notice the custom message/phone number. (You can also erase the device remotely.)

As an added ‘bonus’, Find my iPhone’s also a sobering reminder of how much Apple kit you own, if you see a dozen little bubbles nestled around your house on the map.

Firefox Focus

The web’s pretty great, apart from the bits that aren’t. And those bits are the manner in which your journey online is monitored by countless trackers. They look into what you’re viewing and where you’re going, aiming to serve up targeted ads. Beyond privacy issues, these trackers can slow down web pages and even crash browsers.

Enter: Firefox Focus. The app itself is a brutally stripped-back, privacy-oriented browser. You go online, tracker-free, do whatever you want, and then stab Erase to delete your session. Which probably sounds ideal for nefarious purposes, but this is mostly great for basic efficiency, and also handy if someone wants to quickly get online using your iPad but not leave their accounts live when handing your device back.

Beyond this, Firefox Focus can also integrate with Safari, blocking trackers and web fonts from that browser and, potentially, increasing its performance.

MultiTimer

Given the acres of space you get on an iPad display, it’s a bit odd that Apple’s own clock only provides a single timer. Fortunately, MultiTimer – as its name suggests – goes somewhat further by offering multiple options.

In fact, depending on the layout you choose, you can have twelve timers all ticking away at once. Each one of them can have its own icon, color and default time assigned, for those people who need to simultaneously exercise, boil eggs, and cook a turkey.

Smartly, the app works in portrait or landscape, and if you want a timer you can see clearly across the room, a single button press zooms it to fill almost the entire screen.

Should you want a bit more flexibility by way of multiple or custom workspaces, there’s a single IAP to unlock those features.

Notebook

Although Apple’s Notes is far more capable than it used to be, it can feel a touch sterile. Notebook mirrors a lot of the functionality of Apple’s app, while injecting a touch more tactility and fun.

Your notes are grouped into little notebooks, which when opened display as a grid of sticky notes. Individual notes can have a bespoke background color and contain text, imagery, audio recordings, checkboxes, and scribbles. The drawing tools lack the ruler from Notes but offer far more colors and tooltip sizes. Back in the notebook, notes can be grouped and browsed through with subtle flicks.

Export is weak and sync rather annoyingly requires an account with the developer rather than iCloud; but for a freebie note-taker on a single iPad, Notebook fits the bill.

Slack

We’re not sure whether Slack is an amazing aid to productivity or some kind of time vampire. Probably a bit of both. What we do know is that the real-time messaging system is excellent in a work environment for chatting with colleagues (publicly and privately), sharing and previewing files, and organising discussions by topic.

There’s smart integration with online services, and support for both the iPad Pro and the iPad’s Split View function.

Note that although Slack is clearly designed with businesses in mind, it also works perfectly well as a means of communicating with friends if you don’t fancy lobbing all your worldly wisdom into Facebook’s maw.

Slash Keyboard

Slash Keyboard is a custom iPad keyboard that makes sharing online content easier. Tap the slash key for a list of commands, which you can filter by typing a letter or two, and then enter search terms and prod a result to insert it into a document.

This makes it a cinch to quickly find and add links (Wikipedia articles; SoundCloud songs; App Store products; and so on) to notes, documents and social media posts. Additionally, Slash Keyboard speeds up typing with gestural single-finger scribbles in a manner similar to Swype and SwiftKey.

It’s not a perfect app by any means, as links are US-focused and sometimes use a proprietary link shortener rather than giving you the entire URL. Also, long-pressing the top row of letters cuts off the menu displaying related special characters.

But Slash’s usefulness counters such drawbacks, and it’s at the very least worth considering as an occasional alternate keyboard when wanting to link to a bunch of things you’ve found online.

Thoughts

There are plenty of apps for doodling on your iPad, but Thoughts differentiates itself by going for a kind of razor-sharp minimalism that’s vanishingly rare these days.

On creating a new document, you can draw with a finger, and resize the canvas with a pinch. There’s also an eraser, a small palette to change colors, an interesting night mode (which flips black to white) and that’s pretty much it.

It sounds reductive, but in reality frees you up. You’re not thinking about line thicknesses and the like – you’re just drawing. Export is a little disappointing – it would be good if you could have a vector format rather than a fairly low-res bitmap – but otherwise Thoughts is a nicely simple sketching tool for iPad.

TunnelBear

VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are becoming very popular, due to issues people increasingly face when browsing the web. A VPN can be used to circumvent region-blocking/censorship and security issues on public Wi-Fi. Such services can baffle people who aren’t technically adept, but TunnelBear is all about the friendlier side of VPNs. With bears.

After installing the app and profile, you’ll have 500 MB of data per month to play with. That said, TunnelBear’s exclusive TechRadar plan offers a far more generous 5GB, 10 times the amount you get if you sign elsewhere.

Tunnelling to a specific location is simply a case of tapping it on the map and waiting a few seconds for the bear to pop out of the ground.

Tweet about the product and you’ll get an extra free GB. Alternatively, monthly and annual paid plans exist for heavier data users.

Workflow

Automation is something you’d usually associate more with a PC than an iPad, but Workflow, can perform strings of tasks on your behalf. This means instead of dipping in and out of several apps to do something complex, you can just tap a button.

The app’s gallery includes over 200 pre-made workflows, such as turning a web page into a PDF, creating an animated GIF, or finding the nearest coffee outlet. These can be saved to your Home screen as an app, to Workflow’s Today view widget, or even as a Share sheet action extension.

Should you want to construct a workflow of your own, you can do so using a straightforward drag-and-drop interface. During creation, workflows can be tested and each step tweaked until you’re happy.

Now Workflow’s owned by Apple, its future is a little unclear, but it’s also free, so you’ve no excuse not to delve in.

The best free travel and weather apps for iPad

Our favorite free iPad apps for planning a holiday, currency conversion, weather forecasts and mapping.

Google Earth

Google Earth is about exploring our planet. Search for somewhere specific and the app swoops and dives to its target. Important landmarks are rendered in 3D that’s surprisingly effective – if you don’t zoom in too far.

This is an entertaining, tactile app that encourages investigation. You can drag and spin the screen, and flick through cards that point towards local landmarks. Fancy looking at something new? Hit the random button, or tap on the Voyager icon for stories based around anything from UNESCO World Heritage Sights to trekking about Kennedy Space Center.

The app is effortless to use, and the iPad’s large screen enables you to more fully breathe in the sights; the result is armchair tourism that’s far more effective than what you’d get even on the largest of iPhones.

Google Maps

Google Maps is an app that might seem an odd fit for an iPad, but we’d argue it’s an essential install. First and foremost, it’s much better than Apple’s Maps for figuring out journeys: Google Maps can more easily find points of interest, and ably deals with public transport information.

Local areas can be explored in terms of amenities (food, drink, and sometimes entertainment), and in a more direct sense, with the road-level Street View. The latter is a great way to familiarize yourself with a place before you visit.

If you always have your iPad on you, Google Maps can save maps for offline use as well, so you don’t even need an internet connection to use it. Alternatively, sign up for a Google account, and the searches you make will be synced with the app on your iPhone.

Momondo

There are two things a good flight comparison apps needs to be: easy to use, and useful results. Broadly speaking, Momondo ably does the job in both cases.

Looking for flights is simple; the app allows a pleasing amount of vagueness regarding locations (including regions with multiple airports, such as ‘London’, or even entire countries, such as ‘New Zealand’), and it’ll happily enable you to search for singles, returns, or multi-city jaunts.

As search results gradually load in, the app points you to the cheapest and quickest options, along with what it considers ‘best’ when taking into account price, time and convenience. For some routes, a calendar graph lets you check nearby dates to see if you can snag a bargain.

Additional filters are available to further refine your results, and you can create an account to save favorites and receive fare alerts – plus hotel listing can be added in too, should you want a more comprehensive.

Townske

Townske seems to bill itself as an app akin to Foursquare – a place to find the best local cafes, restaurants, and sights in major cities. But really it’s more of a place where photo-bloggers can publish their unique take on amazing locations, thereby providing you with gorgeous photos and succinct chunks of writing to devour.

You can jump right into the main feed, or focus on a specific city. You then tap on a photo to open an individual story. Every one we tried was rich in superb imagery, with just enough text to add meaningful context without interrupting the flow of the visuals.

Neatly, you can tap a map icon to see where the various photos were all taken; and if you sign up for an account, favorite stories or individual images can be bookmarked for later. But even if you simply treat Townske as a regularly-updated lean-back digital take on a newspaper travel supplement, you can’t really go wrong.

Weather Underground

With a native weather app bafflingly absent from iPad, you need to venture to the App Store to get anything beyond the basic daily overview Notification Center provides. Weather Underground is the best freebie on the platform, offering a customizable view to satisfy even the most ardent weather geeks.

Current conditions are shown at the top, outlining the temperature, precipitation likelihood, and a local map. But scroll and you can delve into detailed forecasts, dew point readings, sunrise and sunset times, videos, webcams, health data and web links. The bulk of the tiles can be disabled if there are some you don’t use, and most can be reordered to suit.

Although not making the best use of iPad in landscape, the extra screen space afforded by Apple’s tablet makes the Weather Underground experience a little more usable than on iPhone, enabling faster access to tiles. And for free, it’s a top-notch app, although you can also fling $1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99 at it annually if you want rid of the unobtrusive ads.

XE Currency

XE Currency is a currency converter that’s far from the prettiest of its kind – but it is useful and has all the right features.

Initially, it lists a few currencies, with the base one at the top. Tap an item in the list to select it as the new base currency; you can also adjust the base figure – tap on the number, and then enter something new in the calculator. The list of currencies can be changed at any point, and an item’s position adjusted by tap-holding and dragging it.

Beyond that, you can analyze rates, by punching in an alternate exchange rate, view graphs that outline rates for a pair of currencies over the past decade, and sign up to free rate alerts, which notify you when specific points are hit.

Now check out the best paid iPad apps

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You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

After wandering around Schiphol Airport for three hours, I finally located my hotel, YOTELAir Amsterdam. Keep reading to learn the truth about my stay at this cabin based hotel located inside Schiphol Airport.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Is NOT a Pod or Capsule Hotel

Before we even arrive at YOTELAir Amsterdam, let’s just address what the haters will want to say. “Why would I ever want to stay at a pod hotel?” Pod or capsule hotels were created in Japan and are basically small pods for sleeping. Think a box with a bed inside and nothing else and that’s a pod or capsule hotel.

For clarification’s sake, YOTELAir Amsterdam is a regular hotel and NOT a pod or capsule hotel. It’s a “small, but smart hotel located in the transit area of Schiphol Airport.” Now that we’ve addressed that, let’s try and find the hotel.

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

Located on the way to D gates, look for the escalator with the sign for Yotel hotel on it. You won’t be able to see the hotel from here, but this was the first signage I had seen in the airport with the hotel’s name on it anywhere.

On the Schiphol airport’s website, you’ll see that there’s Departures 2 and 3 and while I had gone through security in Departures 3, the YOTELAir Amsterdam was located in Departures 2. It’s only a short walk, when you’re lost and confused after an overnight flight, it can seem like it’s in another country altogether.

TSG Tip: In all fairness, the YOTEL website gives explicit instructions on how to get to the hotel from anywhere in the airport. There’s even a handy PDF download you can store on your phone to prevent the mishaps I had. I highly recommend downloading it when you book your cabin so you can reference it once you’re in the airport.

Arriving at YOTELAir Amsterdam

YOTELAir AMS entrance

Located in the back left hand corner of the food court is the YOTELAir I had been thinking of for hours. You’ll recognize the telltale funky neon lighting and cool YOTEL font on the exterior.

The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. Click To Tweet

Inside YOTELAir AMS

As I approached the front door dragging my bags behind me, I spotted two monitors in front of a large brightly colored muraled wall on the right. The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. They’ve also done it in such a way so as not to make it look cheap or trendy, which I love.

Mission Control

On the left was Mission Control, where the front desk person was assisting another customer. Then it was my turn, I was quickly checked in, and given the rundown of what to expect during my stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam.

Instruction sheet

This instruction sheet shows the various controls inside the room, which I took a pic of for later reference. Free hot drinks like coffee (lattes, cappuccinos, espressos), tea, or hot chocolate are included in your stay and if you need a hairdryer, just ask at Mission Control. Drinks, snacks, and food are also available for purchase from Mission Control. While there isn’t a rooftop Sky Lounge like at YOTEL Boston, remember — you’re staying at an airport.

Card for cabin 14

With my cabin card in hand, I headed off into the luminescent pink hallways that make YOTELAir Amsterdam feel incredibly futuristic.

TSG Tip: Not only does the cabin card open your room, but to get back into the hotel each and every time, you’ll need to swipe your card to open the front doors. As a woman traveling alone, I love this added layer of security.

YOTELAir AMS hallway

Check out the fancy pink-hued ultra modern hallway. Not like anything else you’ve ever seen before, right?

Cabin layout grid

On the back of my cabin door was the layout of the hotel showing that there are a total of 59 cabins located in YOTELAir Amsterdam. Guests can choose from Standard (sleeps 1), Premium (sleeps 2), or Family (sleeps 4) cabins as well as one of the two shower and changing facilities available for an hourly fee.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Cabin 14

When you first arrive to your cabin, you’ll notice that the shade is up. I immediately closed it for privacy.

Inside my cabin

When you enter the cabin, you immediately notice the small, but efficient sized cabin laid out in front of you. This 110 sqft (10sqm) Premium cabin has everything I could want or need for my stay. While smaller than my cabin at YOTEL New York, it offered everything I could need or want for an overnight short stay.

Cabin 14

While it’s designed for 2 people, I totally enjoyed stretching out and having it all to myself.

Wall area

The wall area in the cabin is cool because there are inserts for the chair and that purple square is yes, a table! Take them out as you need them to enjoy the extra space. In addition to the flat screen TV and multiple power points, YOTELAir Amsterdam also offers free super fast WiFi, too.

Bathroom

The private en-suite bathroom was spacious and even had a Monsoon rain shower.

The Adjustable SmartBed™

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™.Click To Tweet

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™. In the upright position, it is up and out of the way to take up less space and allow you to pass through and not worry about tripping over yourself or the bed. The bedding itself is luxury bedding on top of a Serta gel mattress. In plain English, we’re talking super comfy and when I crashed, I was out within seconds.

View toward door

This is the view toward the door of the cabin standing in the bathroom. Can you see at the foot of the bed the little cut out underneath for storage? In addition to the two bedside tables and storage in the wall, the room offers an abundance of storage options.

Feeling Hungry?

Food court area

Inevitably, you’re going to get hungry at some point during your stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam. Maybe because you had a long flight or maybe because your body doesn’t know what time zone it’s in.

Food court area

Since you’re staying in a food court area, you’ll find that there’s a ton of food choices available including healthy options that offer fruits and vegetables.

McDonald’s inside food court

And some less healthy options like McDonald’s that everyone seemed to want. Whatever you desire, it’s here in the food court.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Offers “Eat When You Want To”

But what if you don’t want to get up and get food? Order meals, drinks, or snacks from your cabin 24 hours a day. Decide on what you want and then head to Mission Control to pick it up.

TSG Tip: I perused the menu and the prices were less than what you might expect and cheaper than the food court. Unfortunately, there weren’t any real options for me so I had to look elsewhere for food, but some of the options included:

Chicken Masala

Margarita Pizza

Dutch Syrup Waffle

Panini combo including crisps and soft drink

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream pots

Stroopwafels! Image via Flickr by rhodes

Breakfast items are also available, including a speedy breakfast you can have ready for you at check out. We’re talking fresh squeezed orange juice and baked croissants, as well as:

Eat Natural muesli bar

A selection of Dutch pastries

Fruit yoghurt

An apple

Apple or orange juice

Any hot drink – coffee, tea, or hot chocolate

TSG Tip: Pre-order your breakfast by email and have it added to your booking to save you time and trouble while traveling.

Why You Should Consider YOTELAir Amsterdam

Premium cabin 14

If you’ve got a long layover between flights, you’ve probably thought about staying at an airport hotel. Whether you stay overnight with rates starting at €92 or 4 hour stays starting at €52, how can you go wrong? Maybe you’re only looking for a shower cabin for 1 hour with rates at €15 to let you clean up and get on your way. Either way, YOTELAir Amsterdam offers you a variety of options, all of which are perfect for frequent flyers, families, couples, or solo travelers.

TSG Tip: In addition to their YOTELAir Amsterdam Schiphol Airport location, you can also find other YOTELAir locations at London Gatwick, London Heathrow, and Paris CDG Airport with more locations coming soon.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Overall Final Thoughts

With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you'll save time by not leaving the airport. Click To Tweet

Overall and the absolute truth of it all is that I found my cabin immaculate, the service professional and courteous, and the hotel perfectly located. I didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for a shuttle to take me off airport, which meant I could get right to my cabin. While things would have been a lot smoother if I didn’t have a checked bag, that was my fault, not YOTELAir‘s. I always equate time with money and often have to balance out which is more important to me. With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you’ll save time by not leaving the airport.

Have you stayed at a YOTEL or YOTELAir lately? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Then take a moment to read some of the other travel tips and hotel reviews on the website.

While I was generously provided accommodations by YOTELAir Amsterdam, as always all opinions and photographs, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

The post You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know appeared first on Travel Shop Girl.

You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know published first on http://ift.tt/2wmAGMc

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You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

After wandering around Schiphol Airport for three hours, I finally located my hotel, YOTELAir Amsterdam. Keep reading to learn the truth about my stay at this cabin based hotel located inside Schiphol Airport.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Is NOT a Pod or Capsule Hotel

Before we even arrive at YOTELAir Amsterdam, let’s just address what the haters will want to say. “Why would I ever want to stay at a pod hotel?” Pod or capsule hotels were created in Japan and are basically small pods for sleeping. Think a box with a bed inside and nothing else and that’s a pod or capsule hotel.

For clarification’s sake, YOTELAir Amsterdam is a regular hotel and NOT a pod or capsule hotel. It’s a “small, but smart hotel located in the transit area of Schiphol Airport.” Now that we’ve addressed that, let’s try and find the hotel.

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

Located on the way to D gates, look for the escalator with the sign for Yotel hotel on it. You won’t be able to see the hotel from here, but this was the first signage I had seen in the airport with the hotel’s name on it anywhere.

On the Schiphol airport’s website, you’ll see that there’s Departures 2 and 3 and while I had gone through security in Departures 3, the YOTELAir Amsterdam was located in Departures 2. It’s only a short walk, when you’re lost and confused after an overnight flight, it can seem like it’s in another country altogether.

TSG Tip: In all fairness, the YOTEL website gives explicit instructions on how to get to the hotel from anywhere in the airport. There’s even a handy PDF download you can store on your phone to prevent the mishaps I had. I highly recommend downloading it when you book your cabin so you can reference it once you’re in the airport.

Arriving at YOTELAir Amsterdam

YOTELAir AMS entrance

Located in the back left hand corner of the food court is the YOTELAir I had been thinking of for hours. You’ll recognize the telltale funky neon lighting and cool YOTEL font on the exterior.

The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. Click To Tweet

Inside YOTELAir AMS

As I approached the front door dragging my bags behind me, I spotted two monitors in front of a large brightly colored muraled wall on the right. The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. They’ve also done it in such a way so as not to make it look cheap or trendy, which I love.

Mission Control

On the left was Mission Control, where the front desk person was assisting another customer. Then it was my turn, I was quickly checked in, and given the rundown of what to expect during my stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam.

Instruction sheet

This instruction sheet shows the various controls inside the room, which I took a pic of for later reference. Free hot drinks like coffee (lattes, cappuccinos, espressos), tea, or hot chocolate are included in your stay and if you need a hairdryer, just ask at Mission Control. Drinks, snacks, and food are also available for purchase from Mission Control. While there isn’t a rooftop Sky Lounge like at YOTEL Boston, remember — you’re staying at an airport.

Card for cabin 14

With my cabin card in hand, I headed off into the luminescent pink hallways that make YOTELAir Amsterdam feel incredibly futuristic.

TSG Tip: Not only does the cabin card open your room, but to get back into the hotel each and every time, you’ll need to swipe your card to open the front doors. As a woman traveling alone, I love this added layer of security.

YOTELAir AMS hallway

Check out the fancy pink-hued ultra modern hallway. Not like anything else you’ve ever seen before, right?

Cabin layout grid

On the back of my cabin door was the layout of the hotel showing that there are a total of 59 cabins located in YOTELAir Amsterdam. Guests can choose from Standard (sleeps 1), Premium (sleeps 2), or Family (sleeps 4) cabins as well as one of the two shower and changing facilities available for an hourly fee.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Cabin 14

When you first arrive to your cabin, you’ll notice that the shade is up. I immediately closed it for privacy.

Inside my cabin

When you enter the cabin, you immediately notice the small, but efficient sized cabin laid out in front of you. This 110 sqft (10sqm) Premium cabin has everything I could want or need for my stay. While smaller than my cabin at YOTEL New York, it offered everything I could need or want for an overnight short stay.

Cabin 14

While it’s designed for 2 people, I totally enjoyed stretching out and having it all to myself.

Wall area

The wall area in the cabin is cool because there are inserts for the chair and that purple square is yes, a table! Take them out as you need them to enjoy the extra space. In addition to the flat screen TV and multiple power points, YOTELAir Amsterdam also offers free super fast WiFi, too.

Bathroom

The private en-suite bathroom was spacious and even had a Monsoon rain shower.

The Adjustable SmartBed™

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™.Click To Tweet

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™. In the upright position, it is up and out of the way to take up less space and allow you to pass through and not worry about tripping over yourself or the bed. The bedding itself is luxury bedding on top of a Serta gel mattress. In plain English, we’re talking super comfy and when I crashed, I was out within seconds.

View toward door

This is the view toward the door of the cabin standing in the bathroom. Can you see at the foot of the bed the little cut out underneath for storage? In addition to the two bedside tables and storage in the wall, the room offers an abundance of storage options.

Feeling Hungry?

Food court area

Inevitably, you’re going to get hungry at some point during your stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam. Maybe because you had a long flight or maybe because your body doesn’t know what time zone it’s in.

Food court area

Since you’re staying in a food court area, you’ll find that there’s a ton of food choices available including healthy options that offer fruits and vegetables.

McDonald’s inside food court

And some less healthy options like McDonald’s that everyone seemed to want. Whatever you desire, it’s here in the food court.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Offers “Eat When You Want To”

But what if you don’t want to get up and get food? Order meals, drinks, or snacks from your cabin 24 hours a day. Decide on what you want and then head to Mission Control to pick it up.

TSG Tip: I perused the menu and the prices were less than what you might expect and cheaper than the food court. Unfortunately, there weren’t any real options for me so I had to look elsewhere for food, but some of the options included:

Chicken Masala

Margarita Pizza

Dutch Syrup Waffle

Panini combo including crisps and soft drink

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream pots

Stroopwafels! Image via Flickr by rhodes

Breakfast items are also available, including a speedy breakfast you can have ready for you at check out. We’re talking fresh squeezed orange juice and baked croissants, as well as:

Eat Natural muesli bar

A selection of Dutch pastries

Fruit yoghurt

An apple

Apple or orange juice

Any hot drink – coffee, tea, or hot chocolate

TSG Tip: Pre-order your breakfast by email and have it added to your booking to save you time and trouble while traveling.

Why You Should Consider YOTELAir Amsterdam

Premium cabin 14

If you’ve got a long layover between flights, you’ve probably thought about staying at an airport hotel. Whether you stay overnight with rates starting at €92 or 4 hour stays starting at €52, how can you go wrong? Maybe you’re only looking for a shower cabin for 1 hour with rates at €15 to let you clean up and get on your way. Either way, YOTELAir Amsterdam offers you a variety of options, all of which are perfect for frequent flyers, families, couples, or solo travelers.

TSG Tip: In addition to their YOTELAir Amsterdam Schiphol Airport location, you can also find other YOTELAir locations at London Gatwick, London Heathrow, and Paris CDG Airport with more locations coming soon.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Overall Final Thoughts

With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you'll save time by not leaving the airport. Click To Tweet

Overall and the absolute truth of it all is that I found my cabin immaculate, the service professional and courteous, and the hotel perfectly located. I didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for a shuttle to take me off airport, which meant I could get right to my cabin. While things would have been a lot smoother if I didn’t have a checked bag, that was my fault, not YOTELAir‘s. I always equate time with money and often have to balance out which is more important to me. With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you’ll save time by not leaving the airport.

Have you stayed at a YOTEL or YOTELAir lately? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Then take a moment to read some of the other travel tips and hotel reviews on the website.

While I was generously provided accommodations by YOTELAir Amsterdam, as always all opinions and photographs, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

The post You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know appeared first on Travel Shop Girl.

You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know published first on http://ift.tt/2uCE2ez

[jifsy]

You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

After wandering around Schiphol Airport for three hours, I finally located my hotel, YOTELAir Amsterdam. Keep reading to learn the truth about my stay at this cabin based hotel located inside Schiphol Airport.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Is NOT a Pod or Capsule Hotel

Before we even arrive at YOTELAir Amsterdam, let’s just address what the haters will want to say. “Why would I ever want to stay at a pod hotel?” Pod or capsule hotels were created in Japan and are basically small pods for sleeping. Think a box with a bed inside and nothing else and that’s a pod or capsule hotel.

For clarification’s sake, YOTELAir Amsterdam is a regular hotel and NOT a pod or capsule hotel. It’s a “small, but smart hotel located in the transit area of Schiphol Airport.” Now that we’ve addressed that, let’s try and find the hotel.

Escalator up in Departures 2 to YOTELAir AMS

Located on the way to D gates, look for the escalator with the sign for Yotel hotel on it. You won’t be able to see the hotel from here, but this was the first signage I had seen in the airport with the hotel’s name on it anywhere.

On the Schiphol airport’s website, you’ll see that there’s Departures 2 and 3 and while I had gone through security in Departures 3, the YOTELAir Amsterdam was located in Departures 2. It’s only a short walk, when you’re lost and confused after an overnight flight, it can seem like it’s in another country altogether.

TSG Tip: In all fairness, the YOTEL website gives explicit instructions on how to get to the hotel from anywhere in the airport. There’s even a handy PDF download you can store on your phone to prevent the mishaps I had. I highly recommend downloading it when you book your cabin so you can reference it once you’re in the airport.

Arriving at YOTELAir Amsterdam

YOTELAir AMS entrance

Located in the back left hand corner of the food court is the YOTELAir I had been thinking of for hours. You’ll recognize the telltale funky neon lighting and cool YOTEL font on the exterior.

The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. Click To Tweet

Inside YOTELAir AMS

As I approached the front door dragging my bags behind me, I spotted two monitors in front of a large brightly colored muraled wall on the right. The thoughtfully placed artwork and neon lights only add to the vibrant and contemporary feel of the hotel. They’ve also done it in such a way so as not to make it look cheap or trendy, which I love.

Mission Control

On the left was Mission Control, where the front desk person was assisting another customer. Then it was my turn, I was quickly checked in, and given the rundown of what to expect during my stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam.

Instruction sheet

This instruction sheet shows the various controls inside the room, which I took a pic of for later reference. Free hot drinks like coffee (lattes, cappuccinos, espressos), tea, or hot chocolate are included in your stay and if you need a hairdryer, just ask at Mission Control. Drinks, snacks, and food are also available for purchase from Mission Control. While there isn’t a rooftop Sky Lounge like at YOTEL Boston, remember — you’re staying at an airport.

Card for cabin 14

With my cabin card in hand, I headed off into the luminescent pink hallways that make YOTELAir Amsterdam feel incredibly futuristic.

TSG Tip: Not only does the cabin card open your room, but to get back into the hotel each and every time, you’ll need to swipe your card to open the front doors. As a woman traveling alone, I love this added layer of security.

YOTELAir AMS hallway

Check out the fancy pink-hued ultra modern hallway. Not like anything else you’ve ever seen before, right?

Cabin layout grid

On the back of my cabin door was the layout of the hotel showing that there are a total of 59 cabins located in YOTELAir Amsterdam. Guests can choose from Standard (sleeps 1), Premium (sleeps 2), or Family (sleeps 4) cabins as well as one of the two shower and changing facilities available for an hourly fee.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Cabin 14

When you first arrive to your cabin, you’ll notice that the shade is up. I immediately closed it for privacy.

Inside my cabin

When you enter the cabin, you immediately notice the small, but efficient sized cabin laid out in front of you. This 110 sqft (10sqm) Premium cabin has everything I could want or need for my stay. While smaller than my cabin at YOTEL New York, it offered everything I could need or want for an overnight short stay.

Cabin 14

While it’s designed for 2 people, I totally enjoyed stretching out and having it all to myself.

Wall area

The wall area in the cabin is cool because there are inserts for the chair and that purple square is yes, a table! Take them out as you need them to enjoy the extra space. In addition to the flat screen TV and multiple power points, YOTELAir Amsterdam also offers free super fast WiFi, too.

Bathroom

The private en-suite bathroom was spacious and even had a Monsoon rain shower.

The Adjustable SmartBed™

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™.Click To Tweet

My favorite part of the cabin, aside from the funky pink lighting, was the adjustable SmartBed™. In the upright position, it is up and out of the way to take up less space and allow you to pass through and not worry about tripping over yourself or the bed. The bedding itself is luxury bedding on top of a Serta gel mattress. In plain English, we’re talking super comfy and when I crashed, I was out within seconds.

View toward door

This is the view toward the door of the cabin standing in the bathroom. Can you see at the foot of the bed the little cut out underneath for storage? In addition to the two bedside tables and storage in the wall, the room offers an abundance of storage options.

Feeling Hungry?

Food court area

Inevitably, you’re going to get hungry at some point during your stay at YOTELAir Amsterdam. Maybe because you had a long flight or maybe because your body doesn’t know what time zone it’s in.

Food court area

Since you’re staying in a food court area, you’ll find that there’s a ton of food choices available including healthy options that offer fruits and vegetables.

McDonald’s inside food court

And some less healthy options like McDonald’s that everyone seemed to want. Whatever you desire, it’s here in the food court.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Offers “Eat When You Want To”

But what if you don’t want to get up and get food? Order meals, drinks, or snacks from your cabin 24 hours a day. Decide on what you want and then head to Mission Control to pick it up.

TSG Tip: I perused the menu and the prices were less than what you might expect and cheaper than the food court. Unfortunately, there weren’t any real options for me so I had to look elsewhere for food, but some of the options included:

Chicken Masala

Margarita Pizza

Dutch Syrup Waffle

Panini combo including crisps and soft drink

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream pots

Stroopwafels! Image via Flickr by rhodes

Breakfast items are also available, including a speedy breakfast you can have ready for you at check out. We’re talking fresh squeezed orange juice and baked croissants, as well as:

Eat Natural muesli bar

A selection of Dutch pastries

Fruit yoghurt

An apple

Apple or orange juice

Any hot drink – coffee, tea, or hot chocolate

TSG Tip: Pre-order your breakfast by email and have it added to your booking to save you time and trouble while traveling.

Why You Should Consider YOTELAir Amsterdam

Premium cabin 14

If you’ve got a long layover between flights, you’ve probably thought about staying at an airport hotel. Whether you stay overnight with rates starting at €92 or 4 hour stays starting at €52, how can you go wrong? Maybe you’re only looking for a shower cabin for 1 hour with rates at €15 to let you clean up and get on your way. Either way, YOTELAir Amsterdam offers you a variety of options, all of which are perfect for frequent flyers, families, couples, or solo travelers.

TSG Tip: In addition to their YOTELAir Amsterdam Schiphol Airport location, you can also find other YOTELAir locations at London Gatwick, London Heathrow, and Paris CDG Airport with more locations coming soon.

YOTELAir Amsterdam Overall Final Thoughts

With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you'll save time by not leaving the airport. Click To Tweet

Overall and the absolute truth of it all is that I found my cabin immaculate, the service professional and courteous, and the hotel perfectly located. I didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for a shuttle to take me off airport, which meant I could get right to my cabin. While things would have been a lot smoother if I didn’t have a checked bag, that was my fault, not YOTELAir‘s. I always equate time with money and often have to balance out which is more important to me. With YOTELAir, I can honestly say that it offers the best of both worlds. The price is so affordable and you’ll save time by not leaving the airport.

Have you stayed at a YOTEL or YOTELAir lately? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Then take a moment to read some of the other travel tips and hotel reviews on the website.

While I was generously provided accommodations by YOTELAir Amsterdam, as always all opinions and photographs, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

The post You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know appeared first on Travel Shop Girl.

You, Me, and YOTELAir Amsterdam: The Truth You Need to Know published first on http://ift.tt/2vy5Wr0

[touristguidebuzz]

Language App Competition Is Growing But the Best Features Aren’t Free

Language apps let tourists do homework before reaching their destination, but all apps are not created equal. Pictured here is a promotional image for Mondly. Mondly

Skift Take: It's easier than ever to pick up some key phrases (or more) before a foreign trip, but travelers should do some research to figure out which option is best for their needs — and how much it will cost.

— Hannah Sampson

If you’re not careful about your pronunciation, it’s pretty easy to tell someone in France that you’re pregnant instead of saying you’re full. In Israel, you might ask someone to buy their daughter instead of buying a slice of bread. Saying you’re cold in German? It sounds a lot like saying you’re dead.

Even those poor conjugation skills make all the difference between trying to say “Let’s get on with it” and “Let’s get it on!”

Living like a local is all the rage for travelers, but speaking the local language is not always so easy.

Even having a few basic phrases can go a long way, depending on where you are. Last winter, when I found myself in rural Thailand, I had few words in my repertoire other than hello (“sa-wa-dee-kah”) and thank you (“kap koon kah”). Despite that paltry showing, I was surprised at how genuinely locals seemed to appreciate the effort. On a solo trip in Brazil, I managed a half-hour conversation with a cab driver using nothing more than my fluent Spanish. With middling Hebrew (which has much in common with Arabic), I was able to learn about ongoing Eid Al-Adha traditions when I arrived in Morocco last September.

Thanks to a rise in Rosetta Stone-style mobile apps, it’s easier than ever to pick up a new language—or at least get a grasp on the basics before your next trip. And thanks to push notifications that keep you coming back, gamified motivational techniques, and bots that help you practice without imposing judgment, they’re likely to get you speaking conversationally—and gaffe free—before you hop on the plane.

Here, the best ones to consider, depending on your personal learning style and ongoing goals.

For Short Attention Spans: Drops

Why we like it: No reading. No typing. Just five minutes a day. That’s how Drops promises to get you to learn one of 19 languages—spanning from French and Spanish to Korean and Arabic. (Esperanto, comically, is also included.) Lessons walk you through 120 word buckets covering food, drinks, numbers, and hotel terms. And instead of showing you flash cards with cheesy stock photos, the app focuses on clean illustrations, all in white, set against solid-colored backdrops. Whether you’re matching pictures to their translations, unscrambling letters to practice spelling, or swiping across a grid of letters to unearth the word that matches the picture, the exercises feel like quick games rather than classroom worksheets.

The caveat: Drops places a heavy emphasis on building vocabulary through nouns, which means you won’t get much in the way of grammar, usage, and conjugations. You won’t be quizzed on speaking or pronunciation, either. And though you can purchase unlimited time for as little as $48 per year, five-minute blocks mean that you learn at a relatively slow pace. That’s great if that’s all the time you have to spare, anyway—not so great if you’re actively trying to cram before a trip.

To Sound Like a Local: Busuu

Why we like it: Busuu offers the language-learning equivalent of pen pals—if you’re studying French, you can have your speaking exercises evaluated by Busuu students in France, so long as you return the favor and grade someone else’s homework in your native tongue. (With 70 million users around the world, it’s not a stretch to find a study partner you’ll love.) To extend the theme, lessons in 12 languages include insightful tips on local usage: For instance, this is the only app I tried that told me that French natives are more likely to use the plural “ons” instead of “nous” when conjugating “we” verbs.

The caveat: Most of the app’s best features, including unlimited exchanges with foreign students, are behind a paywall. But the plans are highly affordable: one month costs $8 and a year goes for $45, less than a dollar per week.

For a Long-Term Commitment: Duolingo

Why we like it: While all of these apps are free to download, Duolingo is the only one without a premium subscription model, which means you’re free to learn 23 languages at your own pace—even if that means spending several hours a day on your Italian. It’s also holistic in its teaching style: You learn vocabulary, grammar, and usage simultaneously, with illustrated flashcards and fill-in-the-blank exercises that really make you think. A new feature are chat bots, which stretch your skills. They might walk you through a conversation with a chef who’s deciding what to eat, or a model who wants help picking an outfit. Whether you need to refer to word cues at the bottom of the screen or not, they force you to use contextual clues to learn new words.

Elsewhere in the app, game-like elements are a valuable motivator. You lose points for wrong answers and gain them back by practicing your rustiest words. And sliding scales indicate whether you’ve fully mastered a lesson or are due for a refresh.

The caveat: If learning to speak is your priority, you’ll find the spelling exercises tedious. (They’re especially frustrating with romance languages that require lots of accent marks.) Pronunciation exercises are also too forgiving—you can be marked correct even if you completely botch your answers. And for travelers, vocabulary doesn’t skew towards the practical—you’re likely to learn how to conjugate “I read, you read, she reads” or “the cat is black” before learning to say “please” and “thank you.”

For a Quick Fix: Memrise

Why we like it: Beneath a kitschy narrative concept about unlocking the outer cosmos, Memrise shows a real concern for both fun and practicality. A highly customizable format lets you decide how many words you can absorb in a single lesson and positive reinforcement abounds; as you progress in your learning, you earn points for correct answers, graduate through a silly rank system, collect badges, and watch your skills grow from seedlings to flowers. Plus, the app favors everyday conversational skills over technical exercises—my very first lesson in French covered the phrase “bottoms up!” Also fun: Lessons in 18 languages include endearing video clips from native speakers so you can hear different voices and attune your ear to the way real people (not overly articulate teachers) speak on a day-to-day basis.

The caveat: The app offers little opportunity to practice your pronunciation, and it constantly nags you to upgrade to the “pro” version, which includes “speed review” games and extended lessons—at a cost of $60 per year.

The Closest Thing to a Classroom Education: Mondly

Why we like it: It’s not beautifully designed. And it’s not gamified. But what Mondly lacks in charm, it makes up for in comprehensiveness and rigor. Basic lessons walk you through the nuts and bolts of conversational language (“How are you?” and “My name is …”); they get progressively difficult and more involved, spending roughly two hours of instruction on each of 20 topics (animals, travel, shopping, for instance). As in school, you get as much out of Mondly as you’re willing to put into it: New words come with conjugation charts you can study, and daily lessons cover bonus materials and unlock weekly quizzes. It adds up to the most fulsome app-learning experience, if not the most riveting one.

The caveat: Like some other apps, Mondly keeps the majority of its lessons behind a paywall. (Plans start from $3.99 per month.) And its uninspired interface can sometimes feel like a chore. But with 32 languages to choose among—including such hard-to-find options as Persian and Afrikaans—it may be worth it.

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

  This article was written by Nikki Ekstein from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.

[rollinbrigittenv8]

Language App Competition Is Growing But the Best Features Aren’t Free

Language apps let tourists do homework before reaching their destination, but all apps are not created equal. Pictured here is a promotional image for Mondly. Mondly

Skift Take: It's easier than ever to pick up some key phrases (or more) before a foreign trip, but travelers should do some research to figure out which option is best for their needs — and how much it will cost.

— Hannah Sampson

If you’re not careful about your pronunciation, it’s pretty easy to tell someone in France that you’re pregnant instead of saying you’re full. In Israel, you might ask someone to buy their daughter instead of buying a slice of bread. Saying you’re cold in German? It sounds a lot like saying you’re dead.

Even those poor conjugation skills make all the difference between trying to say “Let’s get on with it” and “Let’s get it on!”

Living like a local is all the rage for travelers, but speaking the local language is not always so easy.

Even having a few basic phrases can go a long way, depending on where you are. Last winter, when I found myself in rural Thailand, I had few words in my repertoire other than hello (“sa-wa-dee-kah”) and thank you (“kap koon kah”). Despite that paltry showing, I was surprised at how genuinely locals seemed to appreciate the effort. On a solo trip in Brazil, I managed a half-hour conversation with a cab driver using nothing more than my fluent Spanish. With middling Hebrew (which has much in common with Arabic), I was able to learn about ongoing Eid Al-Adha traditions when I arrived in Morocco last September.

Thanks to a rise in Rosetta Stone-style mobile apps, it’s easier than ever to pick up a new language—or at least get a grasp on the basics before your next trip. And thanks to push notifications that keep you coming back, gamified motivational techniques, and bots that help you practice without imposing judgment, they’re likely to get you speaking conversationally—and gaffe free—before you hop on the plane.

Here, the best ones to consider, depending on your personal learning style and ongoing goals.

For Short Attention Spans: Drops

Why we like it: No reading. No typing. Just five minutes a day. That’s how Drops promises to get you to learn one of 19 languages—spanning from French and Spanish to Korean and Arabic. (Esperanto, comically, is also included.) Lessons walk you through 120 word buckets covering food, drinks, numbers, and hotel terms. And instead of showing you flash cards with cheesy stock photos, the app focuses on clean illustrations, all in white, set against solid-colored backdrops. Whether you’re matching pictures to their translations, unscrambling letters to practice spelling, or swiping across a grid of letters to unearth the word that matches the picture, the exercises feel like quick games rather than classroom worksheets.

The caveat: Drops places a heavy emphasis on building vocabulary through nouns, which means you won’t get much in the way of grammar, usage, and conjugations. You won’t be quizzed on speaking or pronunciation, either. And though you can purchase unlimited time for as little as $48 per year, five-minute blocks mean that you learn at a relatively slow pace. That’s great if that’s all the time you have to spare, anyway—not so great if you’re actively trying to cram before a trip.

To Sound Like a Local: Busuu

Why we like it: Busuu offers the language-learning equivalent of pen pals—if you’re studying French, you can have your speaking exercises evaluated by Busuu students in France, so long as you return the favor and grade someone else’s homework in your native tongue. (With 70 million users around the world, it’s not a stretch to find a study partner you’ll love.) To extend the theme, lessons in 12 languages include insightful tips on local usage: For instance, this is the only app I tried that told me that French natives are more likely to use the plural “ons” instead of “nous” when conjugating “we” verbs.

The caveat: Most of the app’s best features, including unlimited exchanges with foreign students, are behind a paywall. But the plans are highly affordable: one month costs $8 and a year goes for $45, less than a dollar per week.

For a Long-Term Commitment: Duolingo

Why we like it: While all of these apps are free to download, Duolingo is the only one without a premium subscription model, which means you’re free to learn 23 languages at your own pace—even if that means spending several hours a day on your Italian. It’s also holistic in its teaching style: You learn vocabulary, grammar, and usage simultaneously, with illustrated flashcards and fill-in-the-blank exercises that really make you think. A new feature are chat bots, which stretch your skills. They might walk you through a conversation with a chef who’s deciding what to eat, or a model who wants help picking an outfit. Whether you need to refer to word cues at the bottom of the screen or not, they force you to use contextual clues to learn new words.

Elsewhere in the app, game-like elements are a valuable motivator. You lose points for wrong answers and gain them back by practicing your rustiest words. And sliding scales indicate whether you’ve fully mastered a lesson or are due for a refresh.

The caveat: If learning to speak is your priority, you’ll find the spelling exercises tedious. (They’re especially frustrating with romance languages that require lots of accent marks.) Pronunciation exercises are also too forgiving—you can be marked correct even if you completely botch your answers. And for travelers, vocabulary doesn’t skew towards the practical—you’re likely to learn how to conjugate “I read, you read, she reads” or “the cat is black” before learning to say “please” and “thank you.”

For a Quick Fix: Memrise

Why we like it: Beneath a kitschy narrative concept about unlocking the outer cosmos, Memrise shows a real concern for both fun and practicality. A highly customizable format lets you decide how many words you can absorb in a single lesson and positive reinforcement abounds; as you progress in your learning, you earn points for correct answers, graduate through a silly rank system, collect badges, and watch your skills grow from seedlings to flowers. Plus, the app favors everyday conversational skills over technical exercises—my very first lesson in French covered the phrase “bottoms up!” Also fun: Lessons in 18 languages include endearing video clips from native speakers so you can hear different voices and attune your ear to the way real people (not overly articulate teachers) speak on a day-to-day basis.

The caveat: The app offers little opportunity to practice your pronunciation, and it constantly nags you to upgrade to the “pro” version, which includes “speed review” games and extended lessons—at a cost of $60 per year.

The Closest Thing to a Classroom Education: Mondly

Why we like it: It’s not beautifully designed. And it’s not gamified. But what Mondly lacks in charm, it makes up for in comprehensiveness and rigor. Basic lessons walk you through the nuts and bolts of conversational language (“How are you?” and “My name is …”); they get progressively difficult and more involved, spending roughly two hours of instruction on each of 20 topics (animals, travel, shopping, for instance). As in school, you get as much out of Mondly as you’re willing to put into it: New words come with conjugation charts you can study, and daily lessons cover bonus materials and unlock weekly quizzes. It adds up to the most fulsome app-learning experience, if not the most riveting one.

The caveat: Like some other apps, Mondly keeps the majority of its lessons behind a paywall. (Plans start from $3.99 per month.) And its uninspired interface can sometimes feel like a chore. But with 32 languages to choose among—including such hard-to-find options as Persian and Afrikaans—it may be worth it.

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

This article was written by Nikki Ekstein from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.