If you’ve been following along my musical album odyssey over the past few months, you’ll have noticed that a lot of inspiration for the choices recently has come from the time shifted repeats of Top of the Pops that are available via the BBC. Currently they’re airing episodes from 1994, and I’m loving (almost) every minute of it. It’s one of the biggest problems with streaming music, the vast amount of choice that is out there and how best to curate it.

Procrastination can be a bit of a problem when you’re trying to get something done, and focusing on one task at a time can be a challenge in this world full of endless distractions. There are lots of apps out there that can help with focusing, lots of timers and distraction-less environments and that kind of thing. My chosen one is the Bear Focus Timer, because Tom the bear is just adorable.

As I am now mildly obsessed with knitting, I bought a handful of balls of wool and various knitting needles and quite quickly realised I wasn’t sure what I had and what I needed for future projects. As you can imagine, there’s an app for that! My choice at the moment is YarnBuddy which seems like a simple enough app that has just enough detail to keep things ticking along nicely.

The latest iPhone software update introduced the concept of widgets - an ability for apps to take up a bit more space on the home screen and display more useful information than just a link to the individual app. The software was rolled out quickly and at the expense of time for developers to do what they do best, so it’s taking a while for apps to be updated, but the few that I’ve seen so far have been really good.

This is the time of year when people start talking about the C word - that festive period where you will either be wondering how much cash you might receive as a gift, or pondering how much it might be wise to spend on eggnog, or maybe even thinking about how you can revamp your finances for the new year. I’ve thought about money and finances a lot this year and it’s been an interesting, frustrating and sometimes rewarding process.

Many moons ago, I wrote about Duolingo, the language learning app that uses short lessons, goals and badges to encourage you to reach your targets. I’ve dipped in and out of that app over the years and for some reason, just recently, the obsession grabbed me once again. I downloaded the app and was impressed with some of the new content since the last time I looked at it. Not only are there the standard lessons – with each topic of the language broken up into a specific area where you can learn and gain skills via typing, speaking and listening – but now there are stories and audio lessons too.

Add this app to the pile of really useful things that I didn’t know I needed. Hindsight app’s sole goal is to give you a countback timer from the last time you did something. So it might be that you are trying to break a habit – the last time I smoked a cigarette – or that you are trying to keep to a goal – visit my friend every two weeks – or simply that you want to have a way of being accountable for something – last time I stacked the dishwasher and forgot to switch it on.

If you’re ever reviewing your finances, it’s easy to look at the bigger picture: current accounts, savings, mortgages. But as the saying goes, it’s useful to look after those pennies as well because they can start to add up to more meaningful numbers. The Pennies app helps you do just that, with a super simple and clean interface that sets up a budget and tries to ensure you stick to it.

There are all sorts of weather apps available out there, from the quirky Carrot forecasts to the more staid Met Office offerings. Their use very much depends on how you like your weather forecasting – long range and high level, a broad overview of the country at large, or as I prefer, very localised to-the-minute weather predictions. That’s where Rain Today comes in. It’s a great app for one purpose – telling you whether it is raining, or whether it’s going to in the very near future.

I’ve long been of the mind that AR is a far greater useful tool to humanity than VR will ever be - particularly since I had a go on the PlayStation VR equipment for just a couple of minutes and subsequently had to lie down for half an hour. That being the case, I’m trying to keep an eye out for awesome developments in AR apps, and PeakFinder is one of those.