Ready, set, app!

So you've just unwrapped a shiny new iPhone, switched it on and signed in with your Apple account… Congratulations! You're now an iPhone owner, and you must have been very, very good this year for Santa to leave this under your tree.

But what now? It's time to make the most of your new handset, and that means getting some top apps on it. Here's our pick of the 15 apps you need to download on your new iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, 6, 6 Plus or 5S.

• Want more? Check out our Best iPhone apps 2015

Amazon Kindle

Apple's iBooks is a solid book reading app, but there's a more fundamental problem than how swishy turning the pages is. The platform. Simply put, the iBooks catalogue isn't as expansive as Amazon's digital Kindle catalogue, so if you want the best selection of books to read you need to go with Amazon.

There's also the added advantage that if you stick with Amazon, your ebooks become device agnostic. As there's a Kindle app available for Android as well as the web browser, if you decide to make the move to Android in a few years you won't lose access to your bookshelf with it.

AccuWeather

Your new iPhone will have a built in weather app, which is fine for a quick glance at the forecast, but for those wanting more information you'll need to look elsewhere.

AccuWeather is one of the most accomplished weather offerings on the App Store, and its RealFeel data can tell you just how hot or cold you'll feel when you step outside. There's also an Apple Watch app too, giving you the latest info on your wrist.

Google Photos

It's important to keep your photos backed up. That way, if the worst happens and your phone is smashed or stolen, you won't lose your precious memories.

Google Photos is the app best positioned to help with this. The almighty Google in its benevolent wisdom offers free, unlimited photo storage space - and will automatically look at your camera roll and upload anything new.

Better still, once uploaded not only will your snaps be available on any device and the web, but Google will also index them to a creepy extent using its advanced machine learning to figure out what exactly is in the photos.

So there's no need to add labels: you can simply type someone's name and Google will find them.

Google Calendar

Another app that is better than the one Apple provides is Google Calendar.

Not only will it more reliably keep your appointments in sync than the built in calendar, but it also defaults on the "Agenda" view - which the official app refuses to.

If you make an appointment with an address Google recognises, it will shade the appointment box with a map. If you use a keyword like "Xmas", it will give it a Christmas theme, and so on. Essentially it is very elegant, and does the job it is supposed to nicely - and what more can you ask from a calendar?

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is one of the most essential apps you can install on your iOS device, especially if you have friends and family across the world.

Rather than worrying about your SMS allowance or signal, WhatsApp lets you send messages over any Wi-Fi or mobile data connection instead. You can also send and receive photos with no size restrictions, and if you're using Wi-Fi (or you have unlimited mobile data) they won't cost you any extra to send.

CityMapper

If you want to know how to get from A to B in one of the world's major cities, whether it's London, New York, Paris or a tonne of others, CityMapper is your best bet when it comes to mastering public transport like a local.

The app uses real time feeds from different public transport agencies to calculate your optimal route. It will show you all the different options, bus, train, metro etc, with details on which will be faster and which will cost more. Plus it can also show you a comparable taxi or Uber cost.

CityMapper is great because of all of the extra bells and whistles too: It'll even tell you the optimal place to stand on a platform for a quick interchange, and you can set it to vibrate and alert you when you get to the right bus stop.

PushBullet

The modern world is one of multiple devices. You might use a laptop at work, read using your phone on the bus and kick back on the sofa with your tablet… but what if you want to send something between them?

PushBullet is an under-appreciated yet super useful little app which makes sending content between devices a breeze. Simply attach the photo or paste the link or text and hit send, and you'll get a notification on other other devices.

You can even send and receive stuff with friends. There's essentially a built in messaging client too.

BitTorrent Sync

If you want to transfer files from your computer to your new iPhone, particularly if they are large, then one of the best ways to do it using Sync from BitTorrent. Don't worry - this isn't anything dodgy or piracy related - it's an app for transferring your own files using the BitTorrent protocol.

What makes it particularly useful for large files is the way BitTorrent works. It basically breaks down files into smaller parts and transfer them chunks at a time. This means that if the connection is interrupted for any reason, it can resume from where it left off.

Once the files are on your iPhone, you can then either open them in the app if they are pictures or videos, or send them to other apps on your phone to open there instead.

Instapaper

The great, yet frustrating thing about the web is that there is so much to read. How can we find the time? Instapaper helps solve this problem in two steps.

First, you install the Instapaper bookmarklet on your computer and when you come across a great #longread that you don't have time for, simply hit "Read Later". Then if you head over to the app, you'll find it has appeared there for reading, and has been automatically formatted for paginated reading like a book.

You can even read offline and sync it later, so is perfect for taking on a plane or train too.

Snapseed

While mobile devices will never fully replace the desktop Photoshop experience for image editing (no matter what an iPad Pro and Pencil stylus may try to persuade you), Snapseed is great for making small tweaks on the go.

Crop out that awkward thing in the background, adjust the contrast or exposure - or apply Instagram style filters, so you can be sure that your photos aren't too embarrassing.

VLC

The best movie player for desktop is also available on iOS. Supporting a dizzying array of codecs and filetypes, if VLC can't play it nothing will.

The iOS app has baked in support for playing files direct from Google Drive, Dropbox and other services - as well as wifi transfer with a PC.

Tweetbot 4

If you use Twitter, you owe it to yourself to get Tweetbot 4 for your new iPhone. Sure, it'll set you back £3.99 unlike the official Twitter app, but it is a vastly improved experience.

With support for multiple accounts, syncing timelines across devices (so you can continue reading your tweets from where you left off), and a more sane approach to mentions and other activities (like favoriting), it makes Twitter a joy to use.

Scanbot

Inexplicably, some people haven't got the memo that it is 21st century and still insists on doing things with paper. Fortunately, your 21st century device can do something about it.

Scanbot will enable you to use your iPhone camera as an ersatz scanner, to photograph and organise documents in a way that is easier to look back through later.

Uber

Taxi firm (sorry, Private Driver firm) Uber is a hugely controversial company… but annoyingly, like all big and controversial companies (looking at you, Amazon), the service provided is really, really excellent.

If you live in a big city, this app is essential to helping you get around. A massive improvement on the traditional taxi experience, you can track your driver in real time, tap in your destination to save awkward descriptions of where to go and even share your location with the person you're travelling to meet.

Periscope

And finally… some showing off. Periscope, which is made by Twitter, enables you to live stream video from your phone straight to the web, with all of your followers getting a notification so they can join in and chat with you live.

Whether there is much utility in Periscope remains to be seen, as the app is rather new, but as a statement of what our phones are capable of it is hugely impressive.

Just remember one thing though: Friends don't let friends film in Portrait mode.

If you're holding off upgrading your phone because you're waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S7 then good news - you don't have too long to wait, if reports are to be believed.

China Mobile appears to have accidentally let the cat out of the bag, according to posts by Chinese social media users that were picked up by Slashgear.

During a company press conference, it appears that the network flashed up a slide showing the products that were coming to the network soon - and included the S7 pencilled in for March.

If this is accurate, it strongly suggests that we'll catch our first official glimpse of the new phone at the MWC 2016 in Barcelona, which takes place 22-25 February.

Hardly a surprise

This wouldn't actually be massively surprising as Samsung has used MWC as an excuse to wheel out its latest flagship handsets for the past few years.

In fact, if last year's reveal of the S6 is any indication, we can perhaps expect a huge, glitzy Samsung launch event on the evening of Sunday February 21 - immediately prior to the main show opening.

It also wouldn't be an insane prediction we'll see the curved screen Galaxy S7 Edge unveiled at the same time, given the S6 Edge has proved to be so popular.

The same China Mobile leak also suggests that a number of other phones will be released around the same time: Samsung's premium-looks/mid-range-guts Galaxy A5 and A7, and the 2016 Huawei flagship, the Huawei P9 too.

So the only bad news here is for those hoping that the new Samsung flagship landing in January - but come on, that was never likely to happen.

• Everything we know about the Galaxy S7.

Could Sony have finally solved one of the biggest problems in technology? Or is it just the latest in a long line of wild battery claims?

According to the Japanese site Nikkei, the company is working on a new type of smartphone battery that lasts 40% longer on a single charge compared to a normal lithium battery.

What Sony has managed to do, it seems, is develop a battery based on a sulphur compound rather than lithium - which means more power can be stored.

Sulphur batteries aren't a new idea - they've been tried before but the problem has been that electrodes dissolve power at a faster rate than in lithium cells. With this latest development though, Sony has apparently managed to change the electrolyte solution.

Turning lead into gold

The upshot of this technology could be longer lasting batteries but it could also mean smaller batteries - as they will be more efficient. This could mean even thinner phones in the future.

Battery technology has long been the "turning lead into gold" of the tech industry. In recent months we've heard about Huawei's supposed faster charging technology, LG and Samsung battling to double battery life and scientists reckoning they can quadruple batteries.

Sony's said to be currently safety testing its sulphur technology, and we'll be waiting until at least 2020 for it to arrive in phones we can buy.

• The Huawei battery tech is very impressive looking

Samsung is readying a new phablet which looks set to be one of the company's largest phones yet, according to reports.

PhoneArena says the Samsung Galaxy A9 will have a 6-inch AMOLED screen which runs at 1080p, and will be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 620 processor, with 3GB of RAM.

The phone will come with a fingerprint scanner and 32GB of storage, and camera-wise will sport a 13MP sensor on the rear, and 8MP on the front.

A couple of years ago such specs would have been hugely impressive, but Samsung has already released phones which have surpassed it on a technical level. The Galaxy S6 and Note 5, for instance, both have 2K screens as well as faster processors.

So, as far as the A9 goes, Samsung must be hoping that inner beauty doesn't count, and that it's what's on the outside that matters.

Perhaps most interesting is the claim that the A9 will sport a whopping 4000mAh battery – almost double the capacity of the Galaxy S6's 2550mAh power pack.

Bringing its A game

The A9 is part of Samsung's A series, which launched last year. A-series devices were originally created in response to criticism of the Galaxy S5 for feeling too cheap – so Samsung stuffed the innards of their phones into classier metal cases.

The A3, A5 and A7 are also being refreshed for early next year, and are expected to likewise be positioned as affordable yet premium-looking devices.

• More on the Galaxy A8

Apple has opened a top secret laboratory to develop new display technology for future iPhones.

Bloomberg reports that the facility - which is sadly not inside a volcano but in Taiwan, a few miles out of Taipei - has at least 50 engineers already working there.

Apple has recruited people from display maker AU Optronics Corp as well as Qualcomm - which used to own the building.

The speculation is that this facility could be key to Apple developing its own OLED displays for use on a future iPhone or iPad, which mean thinner screens and better picture quality than the device's existing LCDs. Previously there have been rumours that Apple wanted to make the switch up to OLED for 2018 -we'd presume that to be the iPhone 8.

Frenemies

Other than improving its devices, the other major benefit of Apple running its own facility is that it might eventually enable the company to stop having to use rival companies for iPhone display parts.

Apple currently relies on the likes of Samsung and LG to make the screens for their devices. If Apple can do a lot of the legwork itself, then it will be able to outsource production to smaller companies that pose less of a threat to Apple's dominance.

It seems that work at the facility is well underway. Bloomberg has discovered that the new lab is already looking to hire more people, and it also notes that the new building is only an hour away from the headquarters of Foxconn, the company that will be likely tasked with manufacturing any new Apple devices.

• OLED TVs: All you need to know

OnePlus is yet to give us a small smartphone, and for some that is annoying. The OnePlus 2 boasts a sizable 5.5-inch display while the OnePlus X still pushes your palm with its 5-inch offering - but salvation may be around the corner as details of the supposed OnePlus 2 Mini leak.

Dutch site TechTastic reports the phone was discovered on GFXBench, an app that runs benchmarks on phones to check performance, with the OnePlus 2 Mini showing up in its database despite no official announcement from the Chinese startup.

According to the details revealed in the benchmark results the OnePlus 2 Mini is tipped to pack a 4.6-inch display, which would see it compete with the iPhone 6S when it comes to screen size.

iPhone competition

On the inside, the phone is apparently identical to the full size OnePlus 2, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 CPU on the inside and 4GB of RAM.

It will apparently come with 64GB of storage, a 12MP rear camera with laser auto-focus and optical image stabilisation, a front facing 5MP camera for selfies and like the OnePlus 2, no NFC - a feature that bizarrely was included on the OnePlus One but not its successor.

What seems slightly bizarre about any new device is that OnePlus already has a slightly smaller phone. The OnePlus X was released literally last month. It isn't clear when OnePlus will announce anything new - though we're guessing it probably won't be until at least after Christmas now.

• Here's our review of the OnePlus 2

10 truly terrible iPhone cases

If you want to know if Apple design guru Jony Ive took some time off this summer, joked one Twitter user, then simply have a look at Apple's new iPhone battery case.

It is by some distance one of the ugliest products Apple's released in some time. The unsightly bulge, the massive bezel effect… what has happened to the company that is usually the gold standard in design?

But Apple are by no means the worst offenders. Here's ten other mad, bonkers and hideous iPhone cases.

The Gun

The Metro called this "the worst idea anyone's ever had", and we're inclined to agree. The iPhone 6 case looks like a handgun, and when your phone is in your pocket, the handle and trigger poke out, as if to make it look like you have a gun.

Even the cops agree, as New York's 112th Precinct tweeted that they would "NOT suggest purchasing this cell phone case".

Really, if you're stupid enough to have this case and end up in trouble as a suspected murderer, it's your own fault.

The Lobster

Not the most practical of cases, the lobster case was apparently inspired by surrealist artist Salvador Dali. According to Incredible Things, in 1942 Dali remarked "I do not understand why, when I ask for a grilled lobster in a restaurant, I am never served a cooked telephone."

See, all you have to do is paint some melted clocks and decades later people will think your sub-Noel Fielding nonsense is worthy of commemoration in a case for something that hasn't been invented yet.

The Ugly Face

Say what you will about this case, but it probably stands quite a chance of putting anyone off of stealing your phone. If this is how you choose to identify your device to the outside world, imagine what horrors await once you unlock the home screen?

Sadly it is unclear who the person pictured actually is… but it is safe to say that we probably wouldn't want to get too close to him.

The Booty Call

Imagine being an important business executive, in an important business meeting, where important business is to be discussed. Just as you're getting to the part where you breakdown the crucial Q3 sales figures to the board your phone rings… and you pull out your iPhone "booty call" case.

The board would probably think that you're a "total legend", and invite you to take drugs with them, if The Wolf of Wall Street has taught us anything.

The Rhinestone

For years, the 'luxury' industry has been trying to convince us that by covering normal stuff in jewels, it suddenly becomes many magnitudes classier. But we're not really seeing it, to be honest.

Check out the Rhinestone case from Wanelo, which while it looks like it didn't hit every branch when falling from the ugly tree, certainly crystalised deep in the ugly cage.

The PhoneBalls

Now you can own your piece of American trucker culture - even if the closest thing you have to an 18-wheeler is a Nissan Micra. That's right - move over trucknuts… now you can get… Phoneballs.

If fairness, the makers are donating 10% of the profits to Testicular Cancer Research so at least you'll be mortgaging your dignity for a worthy cause.

The Banana Phone

Now you can re-live one the earliest internet memes in phone case form, as you can actually turn your iPhone into a banana phone. If you want to be really meta, why not play the video on the phone while in the case?

The Ear

Tired of your phone obscuring your ear? Well you're in luck, you weirdo. Now you can get an ear-shaped case for your phone.

It'll provide the perfect disguise, if you're actually a giant.

The SnifflePig

This almost - almost - seems like a good idea. SniffiePig will hold your phone and give you somewhere to hang your headphones when you're not using them.

Made of silicone and with a massive bulge at the back, it'll ensure that you'll never be able to lie your iPhone flat ever again.

The Trump

If you're wondering what the worst iPhone case is. This is it. Not just in terms of design, of the appearance of the person featured (though both are pretty hideous), but because of what it represents.

Not only does it suggest that you want Donald Trump to win the Presidency, but it suggests that so enthusiastic are you about such a prospect that you want Trump's face on your phone.

Top #bants with the #lads are not uncommon in the phone industry, as demonstrated by Asus's latest broadside at Apple.

The company has taken aim at Apple's ugly new battery pack case for the iPhone, which will not only give your phone some extra juice when you need it, but will also look like it has a tumour.

In a tweet sent to promote Asus's new-ish ZenFone Max, the company said "You don't need that extra pack when you have the maximum power in one. #ZenFone #Max".

What the Juice?

The Max was released back in August by the company, and sports a massive 5,000mAh battery - which compared to a tiny 1,715mAh battery in the iPhone 6S. Of course, it is not what you've got but how you use it - but on this count Asus claims that while the iPhone 6S with the battery pack will get you 25 hours talktime, the Zenfone Max will get you a whole 37 hours.

Of course, the phones aren't really that comparable. As PhoneArena notes, on the inside the Max is a much more mediocre affair - with a mid-range processor and a much thicker body.

These sorts of combative missives are fairly common in the phone industry - with one of the most fierce rivalries between Apple and Samsung. Samsung has repeatedly mocked Apple's slow integration of new technologies in a long running series of ads.

• How does the ZenFone Max battery compare to its nearest rival?

Good news if you hate the stop-start-stop-start when trying to watch YouTube on a slow connection: Now the Android YouTube app will buffer videos all the way to the end.

Android Police is reporting that a new version of the Android app has been pushed out to a random selection of users for testing. In the new version, hitting pause while watching a video will cause an overlay to appear saying "Buffering" and showing how much of the video is left to download. Once the video is fully buffered, it will say "Ready to Play".

Previously, the app would only buffer a few seconds ahead, meaning that your connection would have to be fairly consistent to watch long videos without being driven insane.

Coincidental Timing?

Interestingly, the new feature comes just as Google has launched YouTube Red, a subscription service that in addition to premium content offers users the ability to download videos to watch offline (currently only available in the US).

The potential downside to such a new feature could be that it will hurt people with low data allowances: One sufficiently long video could conceivably eat through all of your data even if you don't intend to watch all of it.

But broadly this seems like a good idea to us - not least because it should make it easier for you to watch all of our videos.

• More on YouTube Red

Supposed specs for the LG's new flagship suggest it could have an iris scanner to help you unlock your handset.

The 'news' comes from user Zealer on the Chinese social media site Weibo, so the veracity is going to be called into some question - but what follows seems to make sense.

Perhaps most plausibly, the claim is that the G5 will finally add a fingerprint scanner to LG's flagship device - something that was missing from last year's G4, though was present on the LG V10, which was introduced a few weeks ago.

The expectation is that the phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 820 CPU, Adreno 530 GPU (upgrades on the G4's Snapdragon 808 and Adreno 418), and will sport a 5.6 inch 2K display (a whole 0.1 inches larger than the G4).

Camera-wise, the new device would receive a massive bump up to a 21MP camera (up from 16MP) on the rear. Curiously, the Weibo user suggests that the front camera will only be 5MP, despite the front camera in the LG G4 weighing in at 8MP.

Seeing something new

The iris scanner would be the biggest surprise addition if LG can manage it: Unlike fingerprint scanning, which is now pretty much standard on top end smartphones, iris scanning has only previously been seen before on a handful of Windows phones that have Microsoft's "Hello" Camera- and it's a lot slower as a way of logging in.

TechGrapple says the release date is set to be around February at Mobile World Congress - which would be significantly earlier than last year's April release for the G4, and would almost certainly see the handset going head to head with South Korean rival Samsung's inevitable Galaxy S7 - a flagship battle LG has usually avoided in order to bring it's own event later in the year.

• Here's our review of the LG G4.

Via TechGrapple

Like a late 19th century car owner euthanizing his horse, it appears that Google has put a bullet into its former flagship phablet, the Nexus 6.

Droidlife initially spotted that the massive phone has now been removed from sale in the Google Play store. But don't shed a tear, as since this autumn the device has been rendered obsolete by its successor, the Nexus 6P.

At the time our review noted that while great, the phone was perhaps a little too large. Even for a phablet given that the screen was a gigantic 6 incher.

The Nexus 6P, along with its smaller counterpart, the 5X, went on sale at the end of October. It added a fingerprint sensor, support for USB-C and front-facing stereo speakers. It also shrunk the device down a little to a mere 5.7 inch screen.

• Read our review of the Nexus 6P

Via Mashable

Three years is a long time in the world of technology, as we know, and it has emerged that Apple's once-disastrous mapping app is now doing okay.

The figures, which come from Apple itself (via AP), show that the app is used three times more than its Google competitor on iPhones and iPads. There's over 5 billion (yes, billion) map requests every month.

This makes a stark contrast with the situation Apple faced in 2012 when it introduced Apple Maps, dumping Google as a default option in the process, and was met with almost universal derision.

At the time, the app proved such a fiasco that Apple took the near unprecedented step of issuing a full apology for launching such a crappy app, and recommended alternatives from competitors.

The problem with the app was that essentially, compared to Google, its underlying data was lacking – leading to mislabelled buildings, fewer points of interest and dodgy route planning.

Since then things have evidently turned around: Apple has pumped cash into the app, and has bought a number of companies specialising in geographic and transport data to make it smarter.

User choice?

However, Apple's gloating should be tempered by considering other factors which could lead to thrice the popularity. For a start, since Google was canned in 2012, Apple Maps has been installed by default on every iPhone running iOS6 upwards – whereas Google Maps must be acquired in the app store.

Then there's the fact that for developers, if they want to include embedded maps in their apps, Apple offers developers the tools to embed Apple Maps directly, rather than Google.

For example, if you use CityMapper to plan your navigation, on iPhone the embedded map will be one made by Apple – so presumably users of third-party apps are also being counted as Apple Maps users, even if you've banished the actual app to the "annoying things I can't delete" folder on your phone.

So whether Apple Maps would still be the active choice of users is perhaps still up for debate. But Apple has the advantage here due to the two sweetest words in the English language, as explained by Homer Simpson:

• Our guide to sending maps to your iPhone.

Way back in 2009, then fledgling smartphone maker HTC released the HTC HD2, a phone that seems positively quaint by modern standards.

With just a single core 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 4.3-inch screen that only has a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, while powerful for its time is nothing compared to the likes of the Galaxy S6. Oh, and it originally ran Windows Mobile 6.5.

Some smart developers have now managed to get it to run the most recent version of Android, Marshmallow.

Custom Upgrade

The upgrade was not officially released by HTC (which probably lost the last HD2 it had down the back of the sofa some time in 2011), but was manually installed by the folks over at XDA-Developers.

And while yes, the OS technically works - it isn't a great user experience. The Wi-Fi, screen and audio all work fine, but everything else is something of a work in progress. Still, if you watch the video below you'll see how it doesn't run as slow as you might expect.

As a proof of concept, it is hugely impressive and shows how older devices could be given a new lease of life. To load on Marshmallow the hacker who goes by username 'macs18max' took CyanogenMod, the popular unofficial version of Android.

He then merged it with "Evervolv", a set of fan-created legacy codes to help older devices work with newer versions of Android. Now how about making iOS9 work on an Apple Newton?

• Here's our HTC HD2 review from back in the day

Are Google's flagship Android handsets not playing back video correctly? Reddit users appear to have spotted a bug which is causing videos to appear "washed out".

NDTV reports that Google has acknowledged the issue, which causes video playback to not appear as vivid and colourful as it otherwise would.

The problem appears to be affecting some Nexus 5X and 6P phones, as well as some Nexus Player set-top-boxes, all of which are running Marshmallow, the latest version of Android.

Video Nasty

The speculation is that it is caused by the software which decodes videos being played back - as whether or not hardware acceleration is enabled or not (essentially, using the phone's graphics chip rather than just software to turn video files into pictures) appears to affect the outcome.

At the moment it isn't clear exactly how widespread the problem is, or when a fix will be forthcoming (though we would expect it to be snuck into a future, broader software update).

Either way, it is bound to be a little embarrassing for Google which uses the Nexus line to show off the virtues of its pure, undiluted Android experience - without any of the modifications that third party manufacturers tend to add to the software.

• You can read our review of the Nexus 6P here.