Ever questioned the way it felt prefer to personal a fortress? Surprise no extra with The Elder Scrolls: Castles. Should you worth your privateness, then Startpage — Non-public Browser is simply the factor for you. In search of a simple strategy to monitor your hydration with a click on? Waterllama has you lined. Microsoft Designer permits you to conjure some snazzy-looking pictures in double fast time. Android customers can try Notes: Notepad, a self-described note-taking app that’s easy but efficient sufficient in your note-taking wants.

Every of those apps has been fastidiously reviewed by our editors to make sure they’re free from malicious microtransactions and annoying adverts. Should you want fully free apps and video games, check out our “Free Apps of the Week” article, revealed twice-weekly.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles (Android & iOS)

Managing a fortress is not any small feat, and The Elder Scrolls: Castles affords a recent tackle gameplay with its fortress administration simulation. In contrast to the standard RPGs from The Elder Scrolls sequence, this recreation focuses on constructing and operating your fortress whereas embarking on quests to collect loot and expertise.

Whereas managing your topics, I needed there was an choice to banish and even execute troublemakers, particularly when dealing with inner plots. The choice is sending them on harmful missions, but it surely’s not as satisfying.

• Worth: Free / Promoting: None / In-app purchases: Sure ($2.99 — $19.99) / Account required: No

Whether or not you take pleasure in strategic administration, inside ornament, or coping with the completely different races in your fortress, this recreation has one thing for everybody. Finding out the conflicts and sustaining peace, even when pressured, is a part of the problem—and enjoyable.

Water tracker Waterllama (iOS & Apple Watch)

• App suggestion by Camila Rinaldi

I used to be on the lookout for a easy, dependable strategy to sync my water consumption with my well being apps, and since hydration is vital to any health routine, Waterllama was an ideal discover.

Briefly, on iOS 18, you’ll be able to shortly add water consumption instantly from the iPhone’s management middle. It additionally tracks different drinks like espresso, protein shakes, tea, and even alcohol, like wine and beer. Should you use an Apple Watch, it’s even simpler to log your consumption straight out of your wrist.

Should you’re like me, you may recognize that the Well being app syncs the water tracker knowledge with different sensible gadgets, just like the Whoop 4.0 (evaluation).

• Worth: Free / Promoting: Sure / In-app purchases: Sure ($0.99 — $24.99) / Account required: No (however really helpful)

Waterllama is free, however many options require a subscription, with a 7-day free trial for these desirous to discover premium choices. I’m impressed by its big selection of options and academic content material on how completely different drinks have an effect on hydration.

Startpage — Non-public Browser (Android & iOS)

Startpage is a brand new contender in cell searching, branding itself as a Non-public Browser. It feels light-weight and easy, very like Chrome did when it first launched. Startpage protects every search, deleting private knowledge and IP addresses each time.

One standout function is Nameless View, which helps you to go to web sites and see search outcomes with out revealing your location, IP, or DNS. You’ll be able to open and handle a number of personal tabs securely with out fear.

The perfect half? No focused adverts. Utilizing Startpage seems like a return to the less complicated, ad-free days of the web.

• Worth: Free / Promoting: None / In-app purchases: None / Account required: No

I suppose a longer-term use of Startpage would solely be honest to gauge simply how good this app is by way of privateness. To this point, the period of time I’ve spent with it was sufficient to make me hold this app on my smartphone, which is one thing that I hardly ever do.

Microsoft Designer (Android & iOS)

AI is in every single place, and Microsoft isn’t lagging behind. With Microsoft Designer, you’ll be able to faucet into your creativity and design absolutely anything, powered by AI—particularly, generative AI. This software enables you to create beautiful designs proper out of your cellphone, whether or not it’s personalised birthday playing cards, vacation greetings, or customized wallpapers.

You’ll be able to even improve your chats with distinctive stickers, or use AI options like eradicating undesirable objects, blurring backgrounds, and resizing photos for social media.

For instance, I used the immediate “Cyclops firing an optic blast in a forest.” Out of 4 outcomes, three depicted Cyclops holding a pistol, however the fourth obtained it proper.

• Worth: Free / Promoting: None / In-app purchases: Sure ($1.99 — $99.99) / Account required: Sure

Total, that is fairly the excellent app. For sure, the bigger the viewing actual property in your gadget, the better it’s to make use of. That is solely logical. I discovered the generative erase perform to be lower than passable, and at occasions, it’s laborious to inform what is chosen and what is not when utilizing AI object choose. Maybe such kinks shall be ironed out sooner or later.

Notes: Notepad (Android)

I do know that note-taking apps are a dime a dozen, however right here is one more one that may simply be the precise match for you in case you are nonetheless on the lookout for the ‘excellent’ word app on Android. Notes: Notepad is simple to make use of, being a light-weight obtain that launches nearly instantaneously. It mainly enables you to jot down your ideas in word kind wherever you’re, with the flexibility to incorporate photos for simpler reminiscence retention.

You may as well have a nearly limitless variety of classes that will help you higher set up your notes. What I like about this app is how one can allow the password or biometric safety choice for chosen notes. By doing so, I’m able to forestall prying eyes from testing my most personal ideas and even perhaps passwords ought to I lose my handset.

• Worth: Free / Promoting: None / In-app purchases: None / Account required: No

This app additionally helps emojis, so simply in case you can’t keep in mind what you wish to say, or wish to say one thing in a sooner and extra economical method, simply throw in some emojis. In actual fact, in case you may share your ideas in simply emojis, that may be an incredible achievement!

Earlier than you realize it, the tip of this week’s High 5 Apps of the Week has come. Our fingers are crossed, hoping that the checklist right here is sweet sufficient to grace your smartphone. Be a part of us subsequent week for one more checklist of 5 apps and video games.