Apps: Take Care

Feast On News
If you are a glutton for news, join News Republic, a news app on Android and Apple's App Store that's making an aggressive push into a space that one could quite safely say is crowded.

It's intuitive enough to use — you select your topics of interest, approve sources of content, and choose some layout customisations. Your screen will be populated with tiles of news and content. Basically, News Republic is filled with options and though they get a little messy sometimes, it's an app that can quickly become your go-to for news. Swipe to switch from one piece of content to the next or choose what you want to see. Read a digest of content customised for you, comment, share, and generally have your fill of news. It's great for those who like to glance at a huge volume of content.

Audify To Notify
notifications are on the rise and through the day they just don't stop — unless you've turned them off. If you like to keep up with the ones that matter without picking up your phone to look each time one comes along, try an Android app called Audify. This basically reads out notifications for you. And there's a ton of options and customisations to make this happen just the way you want. First, you can set the reading out to happen when you plug in a headset. Or opt to use the speaker of the phone. Select apps to speak and apps to be silent. Mail, social media posts, and even some system actions can be spoken out.

The free version has a limit of 250 instances of notification readings, after which you pay a mere $1 to unlock the lot. Not a bad deal if you see yourself using this often.

Don't Have A Heart Attack
setting too much store by health apps and tracking devices can be misleading and dangerous, but don't dismiss them either. The Heart App, developed by Dr Rathi of Max SuperSpeciality Hospital in Delhi, is hardly meant to make you open up an app when you think you'd better rush to the hospital — but it is meant to educate you if you are at risk or feel discomfort that you suspect could be heart related. The main idea is not to become some solution to an ongoing heart attack but to keep at-risk people well aware of what symptoms are and get help well in time. The focus is prevention.

The Heart App is really very modest and un-flashy and based on conveying text information. You could as well find it all on the web — but here's all the homework done for you.