David Phelan

We've been using the iPhone 6S (the smaller one) and iPhone 6S Plus (the massive one) for two weeks and though they look like last year's models, inside there's a lot of new stuff going on. Stuff like this: 1) The camera. The megapixels have been upped from eight to 12 (and from 1.2 to five on the front-facing camera), leading to more realistic images. And then there's Live Photos. You shoot your picture as usual, but the iPhone grabs frames for several seconds before and after you press the shutter. Result: a miniature video that adds a little context to the moment. Curious, but utterly captivating. You can now shoot 4K video, too. 2) The new touchscreen. It's as smooth and responsive as ever, but it now also responds to pressure. The feature, called 3D Touch, is a revelation. Firmly press on a message in an email list and it pops open, closing itself when you release. Or press hard on the Music icon and it'll offer you shortcuts to music playback.  3) The flash new rose gold flavour – it's stlyish without being garish.  4) It's tougher. A more robust casing and screen means clumsy folk needn't panic quite so hard every time it clatters to the floor mid-selfie. 5) The fingerprint sensor. It's now quicker and smarter – a godsend for anyone who's previously tried to use it to activate Apple Pay on the tube and ended up causing a pile-up at the gates.  Bottom line: Once again, the iPhone is the smartest smartphone around.

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: cut down your waiting time with queue-dodging app Skip the Line. What is it? This new London-only app is a community effort that aims to tackle out-of-control queues at no-bookings restaurants. Join the waiting masses at Bao or The Breakfast Club and you can post a guess at how long it’ll take to get a table – or more than a guess if you’ve asked the staff. Using GPS to pinpoint your location, the crowdsourced data goes live straight away so that other potential diners can decide whether to stand in line or head elsewhere. It also amalgamates past data to build up a picture of when queues are longest. Why do I need it? Skip the Line gives you something socially valuable to do while you wait. As well as museums it works for clubs, museums and bars, and you can add places and photos of people queueing if you fancy. But the best thing is that as more people use it, the data will be more plentiful and accurate. It’s a clever, bold crowdsourcing idea, and as it grows will include stations, airports and more. That British love of queueing? Forget it. Free. iOS. 59MB. Download it from the iOS App Store. There’s also a digital sommelier app for wine-loving Londoners.  

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: give your lungs a break with City Air. What is it? Developed by King’s College London and the City of London Corporation, City Air is a guide to getting around London in the healthiest way possible by dodging air pollution. With its new update (available on iOS, with an Android update due soon), the app maps the concentration of pollution on multiple routes. Input your destination and it’ll show you routes with low, middle and high pollution levels, thanks to information received every hour using data from monitoring stations. Why do I need it? In our choked-up capital, any way to reduce your exposure to pollution is worthwhile. Even if you can’t choose the least polluted route every time, it’s good to know which roads have consistently toxic air, as small regular changes can add up to major health benefits. The app can also alert you on days when the pollution is forecast to be high. The interface is still a little clunky, but as an idea this is a real breath of fresh air. Free. iOS and Android. 50MB. Download it from www.cityairapp.com. And here are five ways you can limit your exposure to air pollution.

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: get serious about wine with the help of Corkscrew. What is it? A digital sommelier. This new app suggests plonk to go with your food, either in a restaurant or at home. Choose a dish and Corkscrew will recommend the bottle: easy. If you like what you’re drinking, save it to your wine history (now that’s my kind of history). Why do I need it? Corkscrew’s coverage is broad, with more than 200 restaurants and counting in central London. For instance, select the cheeseburger at Joe Allen and Corkscrew suggests an Aussie shiraz cabernet sauvignon. There’s also a fancy algorithm that finds the best wine for the table even if everyone’s ordered a different dish. If you’re in the supermarket or at home, you can turn to a virtual restaurant called Chez Corkscrew to help you pick the right kind of wine to suit your supper. Becoming a wine buff just got dangerously easy. Free, with in-app purchases. iOS and Android. 4.7MB-12.6MB. Download it from www.getcorkscrew.com. Oh, and here are London’s best wine bars – cheers!

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: brush up your linguistic skills on your commute with Memrise. What is it? An enjoyable language learning app: ideal if you fancy a more productive commute, but find language apps like DuoLingo and Babbel hard work. Memrise aims to make learning fun: you watch a native speaker say each word, and choose the meaning or spell it out. Why do I need it? Because it’s a solid way to top up your language skills. There are clever extra memory helpers, including cleverly chosen LOLcats to assist with tricky words. The videos of real people are more helpful than Duolingo’s cartoons, and though there is a Pro subscription level available (at £6.99 a month) you can stay at amateur for free. It’s also gentle: make mistakes and you can keep going, where other apps fail you after too many errors. You can also switch between language courses if you wish, you clever multilingual show-off, you.  Free, with in-app purchases. iOS and Android. 15MB-41MB. Get it at www.memrise.com.

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: get from A to B with the ultimate transport app Citymapper. What is it? Oh, just the world's most useful transport app. Tap in your destination and itíll instantly show you the best ways to get there by tube, bus, bike, foot, tram, minicab and riverboat. It's not just London: 38 cities from Birmingham to Sydney are exhaustively covered. Why do I need it? Citymapper has been around for a while, but it's still top of the league thanks to frequent updates - like a new function called Telescope that shows photos of where you're heading. It'll tell you everything from hire bike availability to interchange times between tube platforms. It's absorbed aspects of rival apps (like which part of the train will land you nearest the station exit) and includes offline maps, rain-safe routes and how many calories youíll burn on your journey. It's a hefty download, but delete your holiday snaps: every Londoner should have this on their phone. Free. iOS and Android. 145MB. Download it from www.citymapper.com.

Time Out tries and tests the best apps for city living. This week: buy your dinner straight from the cook with meal-sharing app Trybe. What is it? A new, down-to-earth alternative to regular takeaway apps. Trybe lets users list local, home-cooked meals and dishes for sale. You can pick it up from the cook or have it delivered. Trybe currently has 500 London professional cooks and carefully vetted amateurs on board, serving north and east London postcodes with plans to go city-wide in the new year. This being 2016 there are all kinds of meals available, including vegan, gluten-free and health-conscious options. Why do I need it? Because it’s a more personal experience than Deliveroo and co, the prices are appealing and you can be sure your food is being made to order. It’s worth placing your order early: by 8pm many of the chefs had sold out or closed for the night. But I can report that Sara W’s sweet potato gnocchi with a warm salad of broccoli, peas and spinach arrived promptly, cost £7 and tasted delicious. Free. iOS and Android. 20MB-21.2MB. Download it from www.try.be.