Android vs. Apple, Apple vs. Android. It's one of the big technological showdowns of the 21st Century, and it's already clear that there never will be a definitive winner. Apple will always have the prestige and slick reputation, while Android will always have the raw numbers and geek appeal thanks to its openness and customisability. But one intriguing battleground in this eternal war has been in the app stores of the smartphone behemoths, as recently the Play Store supplanted the Apple App Store as having the biggest offering of apps in the smartphone world. Biggest doesn't necessarily mean best, of course, and the sometimes questionable quality control in the Play Store has made room for tens of thousands of useless, or even virus-riddled, apps to appear. To avoid the bad eggs, and feast only on the digital equivalent of succulent little quail eggs, check out our list of the best Android apps you need to get in 2016.
15. Twilight - Adjust Your Screen Brightness To The Time Of Day
If you use Flux on your computer, then you'll know straight away what to expect from Twilight, and how incredibly useful it is. This plucky display-tweaking app adjusts the colour temperature and brightness of your screen in accordance with the time of day, so when it gets dark in the evenings, it will automatically dim your screen and turn down the colour temperature to give it a reddish hue. Why is this useful? Because the default brightness and colour temperature of your screen is designed to replicate daylight, which is a very unnatural thing for your eyes and brain to be absorbing when it's dark outside. If you read your phone or tablet before bed, for example, a bright, beaming display tricks your silly eyes into thinking it's daytime. You can tweak the brightness and colour temperature so it's one you're comfortable with, and set different profiles depending on whether you're reading, watching a video and so on. To get an idea of how effective it is, when you're using it one evening, switch Twilight off for a second and see how searingly bright your screen is. Once you've started using it, you won't go back.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
