Sick of Pokemon Go? Here are some alternative apps to brighten up your weekend

By Abhilash Pavuluri July has certainly been an interesting month so far with the release of Pokémon Go. While some users are too busy trying to catch that Pikachu, others may be looking for a few alternatives or more work-related apps. Here are five such apps this week that we felt were worthy of your time. Moreover, none of them is Pokémon Go. Tracky Train  Do you remember the Indian railway sim we reviewed last time? How about an easier, more fun train game? Tracky Train puts you in the shoes of the tracklayer and your job is to, well, lay a train track. The twist is that you have to do this while the train is running on the incomplete track. It is a fun, pixel-shaded graphic environment with easy controls. Simply swipe the screen in the direction you want the tracklayer to move, whilst avoiding the many obstacles in the way like trees, buildings and the like. The main objective is to pick up passengers and drop them at stations while not running out of track, then going back and picking up more passengers to boost your score. Obviously, the more the passengers, the more coins you get to upgrade your train model and its carrying capacity. There are over 15 models to choose from, with the default model being the classic Flying Scotsman. Overall, Tracky Train is an adorable game that is minimalistic and does a good job of entertaining. Tracky Train is available for both iOS and Android. Lidow selfie and collage app  For those who hate spending time with Photoshop trying to put a collage together, Lidow is the app to go for. The app is for making collages, but it has some neat features for taking selfies as well. The collage options are diverse: you can choose the number of photos in the collage, the total resolution of the collage, the aspect ratio and picture placement i.e. horizontal, vertical or random. The selfie mode is not much to speak of, though it does have some interesting modes like a mirror mode, a fisheye mode (which seemed a bit awkward on a front camera) and the usual Instagram-style filters. Lidow also acts as a standalone photo editor, with the usual editing choices found in most apps. While the app itself is not as special as we hoped, the collage maker was useful, and it has perhaps, the sole reason you should download this app. Lidow is available for both iOS and Android. Twilight health app  Night owls, this one is for you. Does that phone screen of yours irritate you? Twilight is an innovative app that takes care of the user’s eyesight at night, by dimming the screen and turning the screen’s colour from white/blue to red, which is a colour range used widely for astronomy and night-vision lights or devices. You can set the intensity of the red colour, the colour temperature and the amount of dimming in the screen. The app lets you set a time for it to start, or you can have it on all the time to save that precious eyesight. Twilight also monitors sunrise and sunset times at your location and will set itself accordingly so you do not have to change the settings every time. You can also save each setting as a profile for different times of the day. There is a free version as well as a PRO version, that has 2 more pre-defined profiles to choose from, adjustable transition time, etc. Did it work? Yes! My eyes were much more relaxed after I used my phone in conjunction with Twilight. Of course, late nights will not make a difference to my eyesight. Twilight is available for Android. iOS user already have Night Mode. Reddit is fun  If you are using the last app a lot, chances are you could be a Redditor. In case you have never heard of Reddit, you might want to try this app out. It is a clean, user-friendly mobile version of the popular social networking site, albeit an unofficial app. Each popular subreddit shows up on the home screen with the most popular threads highlighted. Swiping right gives you access to the entire list of subreddits, and you can subscribe to or remove the ones you do not want. Once you log in, you can submit a post to any subreddit, upvote or downvote, all from the app itself. You can also set themes for the app; the default options are “light” and “black,” and then there are three more developer-made themes available for download. While this is still an unofficial app, and the original is already available, a no-nonsense lightweight app serves the purpose. Reddit is Fun is available on Android. Google Classroom  Google classroom keeps track of all your countless assignments, saves multiple trips to the Xerox centre and is a record-keeper, all in one. You need to have a Google Apps for Education account and use the code sent to the students and then both students and teachers can log in to the app. Students can finish assignments set digitally, add to their record and achieve goals set as well.  Teachers, on the other hand, can add or update these assignments, give marks for the assignments, monitor the student’s performance over time, and send class announcements. All assignments or documents sent are automatically stored on Google Drive. There is a page for viewing your progress as a student. You can also start a class discussion on the app itself. So, Classroom allows for classroom interaction even if you are not in the school campus now. The fact that you need an Apps for Education account can be a bit unnerving, but if you do have one, we highly recommend students and teachers try this app out. Google Classroom is available on Android and iOS.