We've just reached halftime for the year 2014. In the last few months, we've seen a slew of new apps for smartphones and tablets—some were hits, many were misses, and some should have been misses but inexplicably became hits. Complex has gone through these free and paid apps, and picked out the highlights of the year so far. From apps that focus on messaging, photography, social media, and productivity, these are the apps that will help guide you through the rest of the year. Here are The Top 10 Apps of 2014 (So Far).
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We've just reached halftime for the year 2014. In the last few months, we've seen a slew of new apps for smartphones and tablets—some were hits, many were misses, and some should have been misses but inexplicably became hits. Complex has gone through these free and paid apps, and picked out the highlights of the year so far. From apps that focus on messaging, photography, social media, and productivity, these are the apps that will help guide you through the rest of the year. Here are The Top 10 Apps of 2014 (So Far).
RELATED: Holiday Gift Guide: 10 Paid Apps We Want This Year
RELATED: 10 Apps That Will Improve Your Life Right Now
RELATED: The Best Apps of 2013 (So Far)
Related: Best Android Apps
Honorable Mention: LeBron App
Platform: Android; Free
For you 'Bron heads out there. (And there are a lot of them.)
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is one of the more beautiful games available for smartphones. The graphics are gorgeous, and they alone are worth the price of admission. As the player, your job is to guide a princess through a maze of architecture that's filled with optical illusions. It's a sure-fire hit for puzzle fans. It beats the other dozen or so rip-offs of Temple Run in the App Store. If you're looking for an artsy theme on a challenging game, this is where you'll find it.
Yo.
Platform: iOS, Android; Free
This app wouldn't have a place on this list if smartphone users hadn't made it as big as its become. Yo. only lets you send the word "yo" to select friends, so that they know you're thinking of them — without you having to engage in a full-on conversation with them. Just a little nudge, much like Facebook's Poke feature. Hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded the app, and the founders recently locked in a million dollar investment, so it doesn't look like it will be fizzling out any time soon.
Get Shit Done!
Platform: Android; Free
Having trouble getting things off of your to-do list? Then the Get Shit Done app will help you knock it out. This productivity app lets you set goals and time limits to break out of your procrastination habits, and you can organize goals into subgoals; so you can get the satisfaction of eliminating a few short-term things out of the way while you're working toward the bigger goal.
Rise and grind, friends.
Cinamatic
Platform: iOS; $.99
Cinamatic is brought to you by the same developers as the Hipstamatic app (remember that?). If Instagram's video features aren't cutting it for you, Cinamatic lets you record 3 to 15 second clips and piece them together, and then upload them to Instagram, Facebook, or Vine. You can purchase more filters to your liking inside the app.
Nike+ FuelBand for Android
Platform: Android; Free
It took two years for Nike to release its FuelBand app for Android after they released the iOS version. For those of you Android users who have fitness-centric lives, the app lets you connect your Nike FuelBand to your Bluetooth-capable Android phone, allowing you to access NikeFuel score data and track and receive progress updates. When it launched, it only supported a few Android phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, Galaxy S5, HTC One, Nexus 5 and Moto X.
Flickr
While the Flickr app has been out for awhile, the company completely redesigned it earlier this year from the ground up, to better compete with the likes of Instagram — and in our opinion, it's even better than its competitor if you enjoy great photography. The app looks modern, from square photos (that expand to full-size when you tap them) to a slew of filters, but the Flickr community is far different than the selfie-takers of Instagram, and they pride themselves on serious photography that can standalone without filters, which makes for a satisfying experience that's worth your attention.
Trunx
Is your smartphone memory getting a little full thanks to your hundreds of photos that you might not be ready to part with? Trunx solves this problem by offering unlimited storage of media in the cloud that they promise will be safe, private and secure. What separates Trunx from other cloud services is that the app presents your photos in a stylish viewer that organizes media by date, with your photos saved at their full resolutions. You also have the option to create photo albums with a pin-code you can share with family or friends.
Slingshot
Slingshot is Facebook's answer to Snapchat. While it may never get as big as Snapchat, it doesn't make it any less interesting. With Slingshot, users have to shoot a photo or video back to a sender in order to view what they sent. So if you're going to sext someone (please don't), they're going to have to send something back to in order to see it. So, no more sending out pictures and seeing that someone got it without getting nothing back in return.
FireChat
FireChat allows you to text people without the use of an Internet or carrier connection by using multi-peer mesh networking capabilities. This means you can chat in a "Nearby" mode for off-the-grid messaging with anyone up to 200 feet of your location. Perfect for classroom gossiping and the like.
Secret
Secret lets you post, well, secrets, in a Twitter-style social network while keeping you anonymous. If friends in your contacts lists are posting secrets, you'll be notified that a friend had posted it, but not who it was. This is the same for friends of friends and popular posts. There are many anonymous message boards on the Internet, but Secret has become one of the main places to drop some scandalous bombshells (or depressing confessions.)