#22 Discovering Apps

I don't spend a lot of time "discovering apps", as I usually just read or hear about them/read about them somewhere and then go research them & try them out. Either that, or teachers will come back to work after being at a conference or workshop saying something to the effect of, "I found the coolest app! We totally need it on the iPads".  If it's not a paid one, I usually will try it out and see if it looks "do-able".  If it's paid, I might buy one copy of it to test, but will be VERY critical as I assess it.

When looking for or "discovering" apps, I find the most helpful thing is a basic Google search (if anyone had told me, before becoming a media specialist, that Google would be the best tool in my professional life, I would have chuckled.....)  Once I find apps that come up in my results, I go right to the reviews.  Very few apps are "hard" to use, so I'll look at reviews before I actually try out the app. Customer reviews are honest and blunt, and I like that. { I'm the same way when shopping Amazon....reviews often make my decisions for me when shopping.}

For this "thing", I downloaded Apps Gone Free.  I love that there's an app to help get apps.

Speaking of reviews, it had five stars and nearly 4,000 of them....

Anyway, it works pretty simply.  A number of apps (10 today), along with descriptions and ratings are listed and free for a short period of time.  I was surprised at the deals on some of these...one had been $10.99!

If you find one you like, you click it, read more about it, and it sends you out to the app store to download.  I downloaded 100 Cameras in 1 and Comic Story.  I haven't had a chance to play with them yet...but as a free app, it's worth the purchase price.

One thing I thought was cool about this app was the "bump" feature.  If there is a paid app you like, you type in its name and "bump" it.  I suppose if certain apps get enough bumps, them they try to get the company to make it go free.  Kind of a cool way to get an app out there or get it to take off a bit.

I'll keep this app on my device.  Pretty easy to open it every day or every few days and see if there's anything amazing out there for free.