Happy day of rampant commercialism, everyone!
Ah, Valentine’s Day; where love blossoms and so do corporations’ bank accounts, where couples tread the delicate ground between what’s over board (a solid gold jet) and what’s stingy (a plastic singing trout).
If you’re unsure what to do or just plain forgot, What Mobile’s put together a list of top Valentine’s Day apps for your perusal, rated not only on their appiness, but also whether they’re appealing on Valentine’s Day.
Dinosaur War: Valentine’s Day
Ying Liu
Free on Apple iOS
With a title like Dinosaur War: Valentine’s Day and the tag line “Survivors are determined to unite with dinosaur allies and expel the evil [from] the land”, it’s hard to see what not to like about this game.
In the style of resource building games such as Warcraft and Command and Conquer, you erect buildings which produce troops and workers, and you fight the bad guys with your soldier units (generally velociraptors and the like).
Released in November and updated at Christmas (“Dinosaur War: Merry Christmas!”) and now for February 14th, the app combines savvy marketing with, well, dinosaurs.
Like any resource game, it can get boring and the lack of any real discernible plot doesn’t help tide the player over these patches.
There’s also no reference to Valentine’s Day so far as I can see, but if you have to choose a Valentine’s Day app, Dinosaur Wars may just have you enraptored.
Love Poems – The Most Romantic Poems for Lovers and Couples
Mario Guenther-Bruns
Free on Apple iOS
An app which does what it says and presents you with a selection of love poems from famous poets, including Emily Dickinson and Shakespeare, after a home page featuring a pretty bleargh graphic.
It’s a short selection but unlike many other poetry offerings the poems are a) by actual poets and not of the ‘Roses are Red, Violets Are Blue, I Ran Out of Money, Will This Do?’ variety, and b) doesn’t cost anything. There are, of course, various sharing options, such as email and Facebook.
However there are ad banners at the top, so reading about “my Pretty Rose-tree” underneath a badly rendered “Get a better broadband deal for your plan” banner is not very romantic.
There’s also an incessant pop up inviting you to purchase the full version of the app, which is probably enough to make the person reading the poem let out some choice words of their own.
Google Maps
Free on iOS and Android
The ultimate in last minute Valentine’s Day options. Type ‘Florists’, ‘Wine’ (hint: avoid ‘alcohol’ – it seems to only show rehab centres) or perhaps ‘Amateur Duck Painting’ (hey, I’m not judging) and Google Maps’ll show you how to get to what you need, fast.
Just plain useful, particularly on days when you really need to be other places but have forgotten your gesture of affection.
Re:Beat
Rebtel
Free on Android and Apple iOS
Ultra cheesy and therefore could make your sweetie either smile or vomit, this app measures your heartbeat, ostensibly through your phone’s camera, and then sends it to your loved one with a nauseating message of your choice, including ‘My heart beats for you’ and ‘I’m just a heartbeat away’ (Oh Lord..).
While the heartbeat measurer is pretty hit and miss, this app gets props for allowing you to enter your heartbeat manually – meaning some good natured cheating is an option.
Pretty basic but a fairly cheap option if you’ve forgotten the flowers and good for a laugh.
toptable
Opentable
Free on Apple iOS and Android
An app to find you a place that does all the fish at 8pm, toptable finds restaurants near you for a given time and amount of people (I’m guessing two).
There are filters such as type of cuisine, price, specific areas (if you don’t use current location you can select ‘East London’ etc which is kind of annoying – why not just enter a post code?) and then shows a picture of the restaurant (sometimes), menu, reviews (which didn’t load when I tried) and a map.
Book online using a toptable account to avoid spending the night in the pub dodging zombies and bad jokes. In case of an apocalypse, bookings can also be cancelled online.
Airbnb
Airbnb Inc
Free on Apple iOS and Android
Search for your choice of accommodation in a given location, filtering by proximity, price, date range, guests and type of accommodation (shared room, entire house etc).
You can view photos of the places, read reviews contact the host and book online – for those with a little extra cash or planning a little somethin’ special, it’s a neat app for searching a whole range of accommodation and coming up with something you’re pretty sure will suit your tastes and your budget.
Dragon Story: Valentine’s Day
TeamLava LLC
Free on Apple iOS
You’d think dragons + Valentine’s Day = awesomesauce but alas, this is not always the case.
A sort of tamagotchi-resource builder, this game requires you to raise a whole ton of dragons to repopulate the lands. It’s easy to play, sure, but the graphics are pretty shudderingly, well, pink (I suppose appropriate to Valentine’s Day) and the dragons don’t reign down destruction-by-fire and majesty in scaled form so much as bounce around and eat apples while smiling chirpily.
For those who like nurturing adorable dragons who frolick in pink settings. Otherwise, avoid.
