By Daniel B. Kline
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Trivie
By: Trivie
Available on: iPad, iPhone
Price: Free (upgrades are available for a price)
Should you get it? Maybe

Trivie offers fairly basic trivia action in a game show-style format. Players must either create an account or log in through Facebook to play, and all games are head-to-head against either a friend you invite or a stranger you are matched against randomly.

The basic game play has players competing in a four-round match where the early rounds are multiple-choice questions and the final round is a single question a la Final Jeopardy. There are rotating free categories as well as a selection of topics that can be paid for. You can also buy other items in the game like fancier avatars or the ability to earn credits to buy even more stuff faster.

Trivie works much like Words with Friends or an online board game like chess or checkers in that once the first user completes a round, he must wait for his opponent to play before scores are compared and the second round becomes playable. This makes for somewhat unsatisfying game play as playing a round takes longer than many games with similar styles of play.

In addition, over the handful of games I played with strangers, it seems that if one player builds a commanding early lead, the other tends to not come back to finish. If that happens, instead of a forfeit victory, the player in the lead is simply stuck in an unfinished game. And, since Trivie does track how many victories a player has, creating a big lead only to have your opponent not finish can be somewhat frustrating.

Trivie's website claims the app has more than 75,000 trivia questions and in frequent play, I did not see a repeat very often. The questions are somewhat easy in general and the game is more aimed at the Wheel of Fortune audience than the Jeopardy crowd.

Trivie is a decent, but not great, app that suffers from the intermittent game play. A single player option would be nice, as would faster gameplay.

By Joel Abrams
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Tiny Tycoons
By: The Tab Lab
Available on: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes, if you like Farmville-type games.

I recently put in a bid for The Boston Globe, but was unsuccessful, so I bought Boston.com. Not in the real world, but in Tiny Tycoons - a sim where instead of growing crops, building a city or running an amusement park, you take over real-world real estate.

By Daniel B. Kline
Boston.com staff

Reviewing: OpenTable
By: OpenTable
Available on: iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes

Having a useful website does not always translate into having a useful app. Take countless travel apps that perform poorly when compared to their online versions. So just because OpenTable has an easy-to-use, especially useful website does not mean that would carry over to the app.

In this case, however, those fears were unfounded as the OpenTable folks have delivered a perfect, simple, and elegant app. Like its online parent, the OpenTable app lets you make restaurant reservations. And while the website can sometimes feel cluttered and a little hard to navigate, the app offers the bare minimum. There are no bells and whistles; but in this case, you don't need them.

The OpenTable app makes it incredibly easy to use your phone to make a restaurant reservation – be it for tonight in Boston, or six months down the road in San Francisco. After registering (or logging in with an existing account), you simply pick a location, a date, and time. Once you enter that data, a list of available times at various eateries come up and finishing the reservation is just a couple of clicks away.

There's nothing fancy about this app. It doesn't do much to help you decide between the restaurants (though you can see menus and read reviews from other OpenTable customers). You can also get directions by accessing the Maps app from the OpenTable app, but none of that is the point. This is an app that lets you make a reservation in a few simple clicks and it does that fabulously well.

OpenTable also has a rewards system tied into your account where you get points for every reservation you make and keep. Those points can be traded in for gift cards good at any OpenTable restaurant. Since the app offers a useful service without offering a kickback, the rewards system is simply icing on an already delicious cake.

By Kristi Palma
Boston.com staff

Reviewing: Kids Trucks: Puzzles - An animated truck puzzle game for toddlers, preschoolers, and young children
By: Scott Adelman
Available on: Android
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes

My 3-year-old daughter loves puzzles.

She will sit on the floor and do the same puzzle over and over again - putting it together, breaking it apart, putting it together, breaking it apart.

So you can imagine her delight over this animated puzzle app we recently downloaded on my Kindle Fire.

She doesn't even care that this app features trucks instead of princesses. What she cares about is the variety of puzzles offered all in one place (she loves to scroll through and choose them as much as she loves to do them) and the bonus of seeing the puzzle come to life after she's moved the last piece into place. Not only that, but little paint bubbles erupt when she finishes one, which she can pop with her finger. Her old-school cardboard puzzles certainly can't offer that!

The app features 13 different puzzles in the form of trucks, shapes, and numbers. The trucks and numbers have little eyeballs, to which my daughter Paige likes to say: "They're looking at their friends!"

This is a very simple app. Children drag a shape from the left side of the screen and fit it into the scene on the right side of the screen.

"See, mom?" said Paige after completing a puzzle. "It's easy!"

And it's easy to choose the puzzle you want to do or navigate back or forward through the puzzles if you change your mind.

But while my 3-year-old may delight in easy, her 6-year-old older brother gets bored. This game is geared for kids age 1 to 6 and may lose the interest of kids on the upper end of that range.

By Daniel B. Kline
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: SkyDrive
By: Microsoft
Available on: iPhone, Windows Phone, Android
Price: Free
Should you get it?: Yes, if your main computer is a PC.

Microsoft and Apple have worked together at various points, but it's usually a union full of mistrust.

In the past - before the iPod, iPhone, and iPad - Apple needed Microsoft. But in recent years, Microsoft has fallen behind its hipper competitor. Neither Microsoft nor Apple has ever seemed to want to work together. Even when Microsoft creates a version of its Office software for Mac users, both sides seem a little disgusted to need each other.

SkyDrive, however, is Microsoft admitting that some people will use Windows-based PCs, but refuse to adopt Windows phones or the Surface Tablet. Instead, these users will embrace Apple iOS or Android-powered products.

A few years ago, Microsoft would have made it hard on those users, forcing them to find workarounds to move their files between operating systems. SkyDrive, the generic name for Microsoft’s cloud-based storage product, shows that those times have changed and that the Windows-maker understands that it must allow users easy access to their files even on devices running competing operating systems.

The SkyDrive app (tested on an iPhone 4S) allows easy access to stored Windows files. In my case, the files were mostly Word documents created on a Microsoft Surface RT and pictures taken on a Windows phone. The SkyDrive app made those files readily available on my iPhone in a basic, easy-to-understand file folder structure.

Unfortunately, available is all that they were as the SkyDrive app does not offer the Web-based editing services the Web version of the product offers. To edit a Word or Excel document through the app, iPhone users must also have an app that allows for editing that file type. And even though there are lots of options for apps that allow for that, not having basic in-app editing tools in the SkyDrive app is disappointing.

Of course, Windows phones come pre-installed with a mobile version of Office, so this won't be a problem if you are one of the few who have one. Still, the SkyDrive app lets you read documents or forward them to another device – not perfect, but still useful. And if you have any of the apps that let you open Office files in iOS, you'll have full editing access and SkyDrive becomes an even better product.

By Daniel B. Kline
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Pandora
By: Pandora
Available on: iPhone, Android
Price: Free (paid version available without ads for $3.99 a month)
Should you get it? Yes

Pandora knows my musical tastes better than I do.

The app/website works off a simple premise: Tell it an artist or two whose songs you like, and Pandora feeds you music it thinks you will enjoy. Give a song a "thumbs up," and Pandora serves you more like it. Give a "thumbs down," and not only does the song stop playing, but Pandora knows to steer its choices away from that type of music.

I signed up for Pandora after downloading the free app in the iTunes store on an iPhone 4S. After a simple registration, I built a "radio station" by inputting a few bands I liked, starting with Buffalo Tom, The Lemonheads, The Replacements, and John Hiatt. Pandora used that info to start serving me songs from those artists and others its extensive database thought I would like.

Even the initial mix was pretty good, delivering me cuts from my selected artists along with some songs I had never heard, but liked. Yes, I gave the thumbs down when there was a little too much Weezer and my selection of Hiatt led to a bit too much country for my taste, but the choices were 80% accurate, and Pandora learned my tastes very quickly.

Since I had a free, not paid, account, Pandora served an audio ad every six songs or so and the app had plenty of graphic-based ads that got in the way when I glanced down while driving to see what song was playing. Non-paying customers also have a limit on how many songs they can skip in an hour. (A Pandora subscription offers an ad-free experience for $3.99 a month.)

Pandora has almost no learning curve. It's a very simple app to use, and while I appreciate that it gave me songs by my favorite artists, I also enjoyed that the app exposed me to bands and artists I was unfamiliar with whose work I now plan to explore further. This piece actually elevates Pandora above other music services as it does not merely play a mix of stuff I already like; it broadens my musical horizons in a way that rarely happens to a 39-year-old guy who never listens to music radio (and who wouldn't like much of what gets played anyway).

By Kristi Palma
Boston.com staff

Reviewing: Fruit Ninja Free
By: Halfbrick Studios Pty Ltd
Available on: Android
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes

My kids love fruit. And they love ninjas. So I figured a game called "Fruit Ninja Free" would be right up their alley. And I was right.

I downloaded it for free on my Kindle Fire. It's not new, but it's new to us. The point of the game is to slash fruit with your finger as it flies across the screen. You can choose from three different modes: arcade (fast-paced), classic (no timer), and zen (no bombs = "peaceful and relaxing" ninja action). My kids love the fast-moving arcade mode because of the power-up bananas. They love bananas. And these special glowing bananas do things like double your points and send eruptions of more fruit.

When I read the reviews for this app, the biggest complaint was all the ads on the free version. But I haven't found the ads to be too intrusive. Sure, an ad pops up now and again. But my little gamers know how to hit "skip" quickly and make them go away.

At 3 years old, my daughter takes joy in the simpler aspects of this game. The graphics are pretty good. She loves the splatter action and giggles when the juicy-sounding fruit - watermelons, coconuts, strawberries, and more - splatter on the wall after she cuts them. I mean, c'mon, kids love making a mess with food (even a virtual mess!).

Now my son, who is almost 6, pays attention to the points. He has this technique where he scribbles on the screen with his pointer finger to slice multiple fruit at the same time, which scores combos and earns bonus points. But he has to watch out for the bombs mixed in! If he hits those, they will subtract 10 points.

There are more levels to this game that my young kids haven't used and that adults and older kids probably enjoy. Fruit Ninja Free offers OpenFeint support, which lets you post your scores online. You can go into the dojo and unlock swag with enough points. There are fun facts about fruit. You can find your friends by importing them from Facebook.

But my kids simply love slashing fruit.

And that works for me when I'm stuck waiting at the doctor's office and need something to keep them happy and still.

By Martine Powers
Globe Staff

Reviewing: Sunrise
By: Adair Systems
Available on: iPhone
Price: 99 cents
Should you get it? Yes, if sunlight is kind of your thing.

The "Sunrise" app is so bare-basics, it feels like it should come pre-uploaded on every iPhone, a la "Weather" and "Stocks."

It's been a staple on my iPhone for years, but I was flummoxed when a co-worker - brooding about daylight savings - announced that she'd never even heard of the app, which functions as a solar calculator.

The concept is simple: "Sunrise" uses your GPS coordinates (or one of hundreds of pre-uploaded locations worldwide) to determine the exact moment of sunrise and sunset at your spot, as well as moonrise and the end of twilight.

Since I downloaded this almost-freebie, I use it way more often than I ever anticipated. Will you have time for a post-work run before it gets too dark? Trying to time your lighthouse visit to coincide with a romantic sunset? Planning a road trip and want to hit the road before dawn? This app has answers.

And there are a few features other than sunrise and sunset: Data on lunar phases helps plan when to go on that moonlit walk. And I'm not really sure I ever cared to know when "solar noon" takes place, but it's a fun fact to have handy!

"Sunrise" is particularly helpful for travel or hiking. If you choose one of hundreds of pre-loaded locations around the globe (rather than your real-time GPS location) the app has saved a database of solar data for years to come. That way, even if you're in a place with 3G or wi-fi access (think: a remote Caribbean island or the wilds of the Berkshires) you can still get the stats to maximize your daytime.

Of course, if you download the app, you'll discover that - surprise! - the recent "fall back" in daylight savings time means the sun now sets at 4:35 p.m. Which is kind of depressing. Seriously.

But at least you'll know that solar noon takes place at 11:29 a.m.!

By Robert S. Davis
Globe Staff

Reviewing: 360 Panorama
By: Occipital
Price: 99 cents
Platforms: Available on iOS (tested on iPhone and iPad) and Android
Should you get it?: Yes.

From a viewer's perspective, there are few things more dramatic and immersive than a panoramic photograph. But for photographers, the production of such sweeping images can be an onerous task that at first required specialty cameras and film as well as time and expertise.

Digital photography facilitated production, allowing photographers to stitch together many photos in an image editor or via a camera's built-in software. And now app-laden smartphones that rival the image quality of point-and-shoot cameras make producing stunning panoramas easier than ever.

At 99 cents, Occipital's 360 Panorama app offers iOS and Android users a powerful tool to create not only standard panoramic photos, but truly immersive, 360-degree images with sweeping views from sky to shoes. Image quality is often excellent and the app offers several options for sharing photos.

By Eric Bauer
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Ad Hawk
By: Sunlight Foundation
Price: Free
Platforms: Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Should you get it?: Only if you're not already turned off by politics

We're all sick of campaign ads.

But let's face it, for the next few weeks you won't be able to avoid them unless you disconnect your TV, radio, computer, and phone. Your best defense against this political blitzkrieg is to be aware and informed.

Or so believe the makers of Ad Hawk, a free app that identifies the campaign ad you're listening to and tells you who's behind it, where their money comes from, and where they stand politically.

It relies on technology similar to Shazam, the hall of fame app that identifies the song you're listening to, and using it couldn't be simpler.

By Elizabeth Comeau
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: StandApp
By: Lyonel Douge
Available on: iPhone
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes, if you need a reminder to get up from your desk job

OK, I fully admit that the idea behind this app sounds foolish and unnecessary: An app that reminds you to get out of your desk chair and stand up at various intervals during the day.

But I'm a web producer. Other than the fact that I'm training for a half-marathon, my entire day is spent sitting down at my computer.

StandApp is really straightforward: Download the free app and tell it at which specific interval you would like to be reminded to get up.

By Rachel Raczka
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Epicurious
By: Conde Nast Digital
Price: Free
Platforms: Tested on iPhone, available for iPad, Android, Nook Color, Windows Phone, and Kindle Fire
Should you get it?: Yes.

Let me preface this review by saying: I cook a lot. And I bake more than I cook. So I spent a fair amount of time using this app. But don't let that scare you away; I recommend the app for the experienced cook as well as the kitchen novice.

Touted as a portable version of the popular website that proclaims it's "for people who love to eat," the Epicurious app features the same seemingly endless supply of recipes sourced from the Conde Nast treasure trove of the likes of Bon Appetit, Self, and Gourmet magazines.

By Joel Abrams
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: [WordHero]
By: SVEN Studios
Price: Free
Platforms: Android
Should you get it?: Yes, if you want to heroically swipe words

As the Schoolhouse Rock song about zero taught me many years ago, there are all kinds of heroes. A word hero is apparently someone who can find words in a four-by-four grid and quickly swipe them. The mind boggles at this definition.

Playing [WordHero], you test the speed of your brain and your fingers against hundreds of people around the world, all looking for as many words as possible in the same arrangement of letters.

The app puts you in a league based on your average score, so beginners don't end up competing against folks with freakishly large vocabularies. The app does validate your words against a dictionary that is quite sizable.

By Kailani Koenig-Muenster
Globe Staff

Reviewing: Stitcher Radio
By: Stitcher
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, recent models from Blackberry, Palm, and Nook, Amazon Kindle Fire, desktop
Should you get it?: Yes, if you're interested in expanding the kind of content you get through radio

Sometimes you just don't want to stare at a screen anymore. If you're like me and you spend a significant part of the day surrounded by the glow of computers, TVs, phones, and other devices, your eyes can glaze over. When it's time to close them and just listen, back comes radio.

Until my smartphone, my relationship with radio had only stayed alive because of the car. I'd listen if I was driving and I didn't have a CD or MP3 plugin anywhere, or if I wanted to dip into the latest news headlines. But I'd almost always end up switching back and forth between the same four or five stations, and I could never call up a favorite show or a specific, contemporary topic on demand.

Now with several radio apps, you don't have to choose and settle. I started with TuneIn Radio, which boasts more than 40,000 stations and streamed seamlessly on my Android phone. Then as soon as someone recommended Stitcher Radio, I haven't gone back.

By: Kristi Palma
Boston.com staff

Reviewing: HT-C Flashlight
By: Health & Fun Appz
Price: Free
Platforms: Android
Should you get it?: Yes! If you have to be awake when the sun is down, it will come in handy more than you think.

One of my favorite apps on my Android is the flashlight app. It's one of those things you don't realize you need until you have it. Like a lint brush.

For starters, I wake up for work at 5 a.m. That means it's still dark and my hubby is softly, blissfully snoring. It means if I turn the bedroom light on, I may wake him up and face a confrontation that's less than blissful.

Enter the flashlight app. It turns on your camera's LED light so you can use it as a flashlight. With one quick click, I am peering into my jewelry box in the dark corner. I am digging for that green and silver necklace to match my skirt. And doing it discreetly (you're welcome, honey!).

By Martine Powers
Globe Staff

Reviewing: Splitwise
By: Splitwise
Available on: Android, iPhone
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes

Talking with friends about money is awkward.

There's always that moment at the end of an otherwise lovely dinner when the check arrives ("Sorry, we don't split bills!"), everyone throws down cash, and somehow the table is $15 short. Cue accusatory looks. Usually, the most weak-willed member of the group - rarely the one who underpaid - ends up footing the remainder.

Now there's help: Splitwise, the app that serves as an objective third-party arbiter and doesn't mind prodding friends to fork over the appropriate cash.

By Matt Pepin
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: ESPN Fantasy Football
By: ESPN
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android
Should you get it?: Yes, if your fantasy football league is run on the ESPN platform

Colleague Zuri Berry recently pointed out how lousy the NFL '12 app is, and I couldn't agree more. By the second week of the season, I'd abandoned it as my second screen on Sundays, which left the door wide open for something else.

Enter ESPN's Fantasy Football app, a far more entertaining and convenient experience than simply logging on to ESPN.com to follow your fantasy football team.

By Joe Allen-Black
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: DaysUntil
By: Stephen Jam
Price: Free
Platforms: Apple
Should you get it?: Yes, if you hate having to ask yourself "how much longer?"

My phone is how I keep track of phone numbers, addresses, food recommendations, my collar size ... (you get the picture). Anything I can file away digitally, I will. It leaves more room in my brain for important things like which Kardashian is which.

So when I started getting excited for a half-marathon in November, I wanted my phone to start telling me every day how much longer I have until I run 13.1 miles in Disney World. It was irritating for me to constantly look up the date and the do the math.

Enter DaysUntil. This free app for Apple products tells you how much longer until an event will happen. That's its sole purpose, and it does that extremely well.

By Swati G. Sharma
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Matchbook
By: Matchbook Inc.
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone
Should you get it?: For anyone who likes going out, this is a definite yes

It's Friday night. As usual, I have plans with a group of friends, and again, as usual, no one can decide where to go.

But no worries - it's the Matchbook app to the rescue!

I open the application on my iPhone, and voila! A list of restaurants that I jotted down - either recommended to me by a friend or a spot I walked past at some point - appears on my screen.

The Matchbook app provides a simple service: It keeps track of restaurants, bars, or cafes you wish to explore at a later date.

By Zuri Berry
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: NFL '12
By: NFL Enterprises LLC
Price: Free (with in-app subscription)
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android
Should you get it?: Only if you don't know how to operate your mobile Internet browser.

I think everybody is done complaining about the NFL's impasse with the referees now that there has been a labor resolution. The zebras returned for Thursday night's football game, and harmony was restored on the playing field.

But not in cyberspace. The complaints are still streaming in from the NFL's mobile app (iOS, Android), which went from an incredibly useful secondary screen with video highlights from each game last season, to a slowly updated and now costly expense.

By Dante Ramos
Globe Staff

Reviewing: Settle It!
By: Times Publishing Company
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android
Should you get it?: Only if you're heroically optimistic about the ability of a little phone app to resolve profound ideological differences.

Sometimes, earnest isn't enough. While campaign truth-squad efforts like the Tampa Bay Times's PolitiFact provide a useful corrective to a political campaign - check out my previous post on PolitiFact's main mobile app - you tend to use them more out of civic obligation than because of the sheer joy of fact-checking claims about budget sequesters.

So to raise the amusement factor, PolitiFact repackages its content once again, this time as an app that purports to settle disputes about whether, for instance, President Obama really did go around the world apologizing for America, as Mitt Romney charges. The app designers presumably figured questions like that one would come up over family dinner tables and in ideologically integrated barrooms across America. Just search on "apologizing," and let the fun begin!

By Joe Allen-Black
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Hello Vino
By: Hello Vino
Available for: iPhone and Android
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes, if you don't know where to begin in picking out wines.

Pairing food and wine is an art that I wish I were good at on my own. Sure, I can do the basics of making sure to pair my meat with something red, and fruit with whites. But anything more advanced (like exactly WHICH red to pair) is not my specialty.

Now, thanks to the app Hello Vino, it doesn't have to be.

By Dante Ramos
Globe Staff

Reviewing: PolitiFact Mobile
By: Times Publishing Company
Price: $1.99
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry Playbook
Should you get it?: Sure, if you're skeptical enough about modern campaigning to doubt every statement a politician makes, but not so cynical that you think the truth or falsehood of campaign speeches is irrelevant.

As the election campaign intensifies, so, too, do the complaints that media outlets uncritically repeat claims that candidates make about themselves and one another - no matter how outrageous, disingenuous, or demonstrably incorrect some of those claims might be.

Enter the Tampa Bay Times (known until recently as the St. Petersburg Times), the Florida newspaper that started a project called PolitiFact to fact-check the substance of major claims made by candidates for high office, major lobbying groups, and even chain e-mails.

By Elizabeth Comeau
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Good Guide
By: The Good Guide
Available on: Android, iPhone
Price: Free
Should you get it? Yes

Being the health and wellness producer here makes me keenly aware of the possible impacts harsh chemicals can have on your system (think the risks associated with BPA and things of the like.)

So when I found out that one of my favorite sources for checking the environmental and health impact of products on the web had developed an app, I had to check it out.

By Teresa Hanafin
Boston.com Staff

Reviewing: Gigwalk
By: Gigwalk Inc.
Price: Free
Platforms: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android
Should you get it? If you have time on your hands and want to make a little extra money.

Sounds like a great match: Companies need research done to help them run their businesses, and lots of people can use some pocket change to help with expenses. That's the business model of Gigwalk, a mobile app where companies post "gigs" they need done, people apply, get accepted, do the gig, and get paid.

When you're a newbie, the gigs you are offered are low pay: $3, $5, $8. But the more gigs you do - and do well - the more lucrative the gigs are that you will be offered.