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If there's one weak security spot for most people, it is their phone. Carried everywhere and containing almost every major piece of personal information they have, a lost phone can be a security and privacy nightmare. So apps like Mecrets are very attractive, providing an extra layer of protection against loss or unauthorized access of your personal data on your phone.

Mecrets opens to a combination lock interface. The app quickly explains how to set your passwords on the combination lock, and while it is vaguely more complicated than a simple touch screen, the added complexity is welcome when … Read more

Notes & Tags attempts to provide a unique experience that builds on the platform used by note-taking apps like Evernote. Unfortunately, it does not offer enough new features or tools to go above and beyond Evernote, and because both are free, it's hard to recommend this new app over the former if you are already using it.

The app is very basic. It opens to a note-taking screen where you title and create a note. You can add tags for each note that will then be used for searching and organizing your notes. Each note can be e-mailed or … Read more

Photo Editor Fotolr is a unique app in many ways because it offers a very robust experience, including a number of editing tools, collage creation, and album curation--all for free. That, however, is tempered by sometimes-spotty performance issues and occasional crashes, combined with a limited and sometimes confusing menu system.

When you open Fotolr you can choose to edit an existing photo from your library or camera, create a collage on one of three templates, or create a new album. There are also sharing tools to send your photos or libraries to other users. The interface works well and the … Read more

With so many apps offering photo editing in some form, it takes a unique function to warrant downloading yet another app on most people's phones. Photo Mosaic Maker Free does a decent job of offering such an experience with a very easy-to-use mosaic creation tool that pulls directly from your photo library, but is it enough to warrant the download or upgrade?

When you start Photo Mosaic Maker, you're presented with the upgrade screen outlining exactly what features are missing from the free version. You can then immediately start creating your first mosaics. Assuming you've linked your … Read more

With so many to-do list apps for the iPhone, how do you know which ones are best suited for your needs? For the casual user, a free app is the best option, but there are hundreds of them to choose from, and some offer only marginal improvements over what Apple's Reminders app does. With Plain Tasks, you can enhance your to-do list creation without taking on dozens of tools you'll likely not need with this elementary yet effective, free app.

Plain Tasks operates exactly as you would expect. Upon opening, you are presented with a white screen and … Read more

The iPad is a natural task-tracking tool, and with dozens of apps released every year for just this reason, there are plenty of options for those that want to use it as such. While iDidIt is a very stripped-down version of some other task list and to-do list apps on the App Store, it is a fine looking and functioning app that will work well for anyone that needs only the basics.

The core functionality of iDidIt is limited, but it is immediately intuitive regarding what you should be doing, and for a free app, that is exactly what you … Read more

One of the most interesting aspects of the iPad is the increasing ability it gives users to interact with media that before would have just been consumed. From movies and games to trailers and music, you can share, comment on, and interact with multimedia content in new and exciting ways via hundreds of apps. GRAVIDI is designed to take this interaction to the next level by embedding additional clips, links, and information within music videos and movie trailers and connecting all of it to a social media interface.

When you first open GRAVIDI you'll need to register an account … Read more

InstaEffect FX Free is the lite, trial version of InstaEffect FX HD--an app designed so you can quickly and easily add special effects to the foreground and background of your images. The app is simple, straightforward, and in the trial version, relatively limited, but in many ways exceeds expectations, making it a good option for light image effect editing.

When you first open InstaEffect FX Free you'll notice that it's very similar to other free image editing apps. Load an image from your library or take a new one with your camera and you can start editing it … Read more

Movie editing on the iPad is inherently limited. Without the paid iMovie upgrade from Apple you can't do much of anything, and there are far fewer low-cost or free editing apps for the larger iOS device than for the iPhone. That's why Loopster is such an impressive tool, providing a huge number of powerful editing tools that allow you to produce quality videos fast and share them with friends.

When you open Loopster you can immediately tell it is more than just a quick clip editor. There is a timeline complete with four tracks--one for video, one for … Read more