Friday's here, and unless you're in the southeast corner of the U.S. where it's nice and warm, you're probably staring at a weather report full of wintry gloom and frozen precipitation of every hellish variety. Charge up your phone, download these cool new apps, and hope the power doesn't go out.
Multi Platform Updates
Double Dragon Trilogy
Flash back to 1987 with this $3, mobile-optimized compilation boasting all three Double Dragon arcade games. Arcade mode lets you go for the high score in one setting, while Story mode lets you unlock stages and achievements. Link up with a friend via Bluetooth and fight as Billy and Jimmy side-by-side. [Android] [iOS]
Circle - The Local Network
Promising to surface real-time, relevant information based on your location, Circle's latest update now lets users sort updates by topic (trending, family, nightlife, and so on). Photo sharing is coming soon, as well. [Android] [iOS]
Android
VSCO Cam
The popular, robust and gorgeous mobile photo editor finally lands on Android (4.0 and higher). With fine-tunable exposure, temperature, contrast and more, and buyable Preset Packs, this pro-style app is what Instagram wants to be when it grows up. [Free]
Cal - Calendar by Any.do
Another recent arrival from iOS land, Cal seamlessly pulls events from Google, Outlook, Yahoo and other calendars into one place, and integrates tasks from your Any.do list. Above and beyond all that, integrated in-app Uber hailing and social integration mean you'll never miss a downtown birthday party again. At least not unintentionally. [Free]
Quip
Quip bills itself as a word processor that reaches across phones, tablets and desktops. Collaborative documents have a newsfeed listing who's opened, read or edited a document, and syncing across devices and offline editing mean you'll never be a version behind. [Free]
Amazon MP3
This week brought Android users a faster, smoother, nicer looking Amazon MP3 app. As always, your first sign-in loads all the Amazon MP3s and AutoRip CDs you've bought since 1998. Now, a handy widget gives quick access to your list of recently listened tunes, and you can now share your song choices with your Facebook friends. Because without bragging about your music taste, you might as well not listen to music at all. [Free]
iOS
Inbox Cube
Inbox Cube visually organizes your Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo and AOL email into three "cubes:" Emails (message thumbnails with one-touch reply), Attachments (all sent and received files in one place, with one-touch access to the associated email), and Contacts (sorting emails and attachments by sender or recipient). Perfect for folks who juggle a lot of hefty emails on the go. [Free]
Sunnycomb
This fun visual weather app puts user-sourced sky shots in a honeycomb background for an artsy, real-time weather wallpaper. It also, more puzzlingly, claims to crowdsource "emotional details" on the weather (Buffalo: gloomy. Forever.), and of course, it's got social integration. [Free]
Luna
A delivery service built around an app, Luna lets you schedule package deliveries in the hours when the standard box-droppers are off the clock. Packages go to Luna's secure facility, then you pick a time when you'll be home and a Luna driver will deliver the goods to you. Much handier than having your embarrassing online shopping spoils shipped to the office. [Free]
Heyday
Having thousands of pictures and videos trapped on your phone is no better than stowing them in a shoebox. Heyday pulls them together into a collage, allowing you to note your thoughts, companions, and location. And when you return to a favorite place, or on a special date, Heyday reveals the collected digital memories of your past experiences. [Free]
Windows Phone
Mint
This popular money-managing app is new to WP this week. Linking all your accounts in one place, it lets you view balances, track spending, set budgets, and get alerts for upcoming bills. Windows Phoners get live Start Screen updates, too, and with syncing across devices, if you ever lose or misplace your phone, you can just deactivate the mobile app from the Mint website. [Free]
Track Runner
Track Runner claims to have the most accurate GPS tracking in its class, allowing you to monitor split times and fastest laps on the track and tracking your performance in a diary with notes. With the McMillan method-powered Performance Genius, you can even figure out your potential achievements in distance runs up to the full marathon. [$2]
Today's Word
Instead of staring at your dumb friends' dumb statuses, use your phone to learn a new word every day! Today's Word gives you the definition, pronunciation (including audio) and derivation of a vocabulary-expanding word, right in a live tile. How perspicacious! [Free]