Favorite Apps From a Photographer and Columnist, Kit Eaton Let me tell you a story. Not too many weeks ago my son was doing something adorable and I was deeply focused on filming him with my phone so I could pop it on the social media app Viddy (one of the "Instagram for video" apps that are booming right now) and share his cuteness with the world. When the happy moment was over I delightedly swung around, phone in hand, and crashed right into the edge of the door that my other toddler had opened behind me, without my noticing. Cue one dropped and dented phone, one lost video clip, and one deep, scar-forming injury to an eyebrow. I do like my apps, you see. Having written about various aspects of the tech world for a while, and before that working in a laundry list of varied and exciting jobs, I am your new App Smart columnist. I'm a smartphone and tablet enthusiast, having owned the first Windows smartphone back in 2002, and I'm looking forward to exploring the best apps with you. To get an idea of what I'm like, let me tell you what apps I use regularly. Have you noticed you can tell a lot about people by the apps on their home screens? As a photographer, I've found myself dabbling more and more with my iPhone's 8-megapixel camera than my digital single-lens reflex. Like millions of other people, I'm a devoted Instagrammer. I actually slightly prefer the interface on Android, even if my Android camera is not quite as good. There is something fun about framing a picture you know other people will like to see, and thinking creatively about what it's going to look like in a square format and with special effect filters. Because I find the stock filters built into that app a little repetitive, I love to use Hipstamatic - an app often overlooked. It borrows more of the low-tech film camera ethos than Instagram does and provides dozens of lens effects, colored flash effects and even simulated old-school wet chemistry film. It's serious fun, particularly when you shake the phone to randomize the filters. And it even connects automatically to Instagram for sharing. Hipstamatic is $1.99 on Apple devices, for a basic set of filters - more are available through a very slick in-app purchase system. It's not available on Android, but in its place you may have some fun with Vignette. It's both powerful and free as a demo, although its interface is a little clunkier. Another new favorite app of mine is the $2.99 Frameographer. An app that lets you take time-lapse and stop-motion videos, it's perfect for making compelling short videos of clouds whizzing past the sunset or even, if you're brave, a short cartoon of your children's dinosaur toys battling it out on the bedroom floor. The app is simple to use, though it takes a bit of practice to make beautiful clips - and you definitely need to mount your phone on a tripod (or use a good case and wedge it into a rock, as I've tried). When I'm not snapping photos, you may find me playing games. Angry Birds Space is my latest obsession, because its strange gravity and orbiting pigs appeal to the physicist in me. I have to fight for my phone, as my children love it too. Rocket Weasel on Android taps that same vibe with rockets, and it has an Angry Birds-esque feel. You may be quickly hooked, as I was, with the free version and buy extra levels for 99 cents. When I'm in a more cerebral mood I've been playing a lot of Carcassonne recently. You might have heard of it: a $9.99 iOS app that is the official version of a board game based on a medieval French city. It's hard to explain, and complex to play, but satisfying. Another favorite app - Word Lens, free on iOS - is one I keep handy for two reasons. The first is the awed gasps from friends when you show them the app's trick: Hold the phone up so the camera points at printed text, and the words appear in the video feed with the letters reversed, as if by digital magic. The second reason is that a paid in-app upgrade lets Word Lens swap English words for the French and Spanish equivalents, and vice versa. Although it's a tiny bit cranky, it's a hint of bigger things to come, and a reminder of the amazing future of mobile apps my children will grow up in. In other free moments, I've been playing with a mind-bending music app called Nodebeat HD ($3.99 on Apple). It's all about generating music graphically: interconnected spots release chimes or beats at a timed interval. So that's me. If you're wandering in a metropolis and spot a chap with firetruck-red hair staring intently into his Apple, Android or Windows phones and tablets, it might be me. Do steer me around any obstacles I may be about to bump into, won't you?