Power up your Apple with home-grown iOS apps

SINGAPORE - Due - $5.98

If you find iOS 7's Reminders and Calendar lacking, try this app, which makes it simple to set up complicated recurring schedules and reminders.

With the snooze function, you can set the alert to sound every minute or every hour until you tap on the circle to mark the task as done. You can also set recurring reminders to tell yourself to take your pills each night at 11.59pm.

Due lets you set up reusable timers for specific tasks. By default, it has a 20-minute timer for Power Nap and a one-hour timer for Parking. You can set a five-minute timer for a catnap or for cooking noodles.

FUZEL - free This photo collage app has earned many accolades from sources such as TechCrunch and MacWorld. Unlike other apps of its type, Fuzel makes it easy to create animated collages and set them to music in a stylish presentation.

You can choose from a multitude of layouts, or create your own. Then add your photos, let the app choose the best arrangement, and embellish it with stickers, labels, frames or patterns.

You can also edit the photos, controlling the contrast or adding a filter in layout mode.

Finally, jazz up your photo collage with some music from the app or an imported tune from your iTunes library.

IC PHOTO FOR SINGAPORE NRIC AND PASSPORTS - free Why waste time getting passport photos taken at a shop or a booth when you can do it yourself with your iPhone and this app?

The photos taken by the app will be accepted by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA).

The app guides you through the process so you can correctly align your eyes, mouth, head and shoulders. After you take the shot, it automatically resizes the photo to ICA's specifications.

If you need physical prints, you can get five for $7, ordering them through the app from the app developer.

RETRO FOR INSTAGRAM - free Specifically designed for iOS 7 and the iPad, this app has a clean, beautiful interface.

Instagram offers only a scroll-down interface, but Retro lets you view at a glance all the photos of the people you are following.

You can easily toggle between viewing just the photos and viewing them together with comments - a more convenient and elegant way to scan through them.

One section lets you view trending users, and photos of featured users and places.

The $3.98 premium version of the app lets you download photos and view everything without advertisements.

STARRY DUO - free The game takes you flying through an enchanted forest filled with stars, mystical creatures and villains, wielding a magic wand that lets you collect the stars.

You can play a male or a female character (he gets better wand upgrades; she gets superior spell upgrades). To control your character, simply drag him or her across the screen.

The gameplay is simple - collect stars of the colour indicated while avoiding the evil creatures.

Along the way, you can collect potions by gathering enough stars, earn new spells and acquire wand upgrades. There will be new villains to defeat when you reach the advanced levels.

This article by The Straits Times was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

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