There is a thirst to keep up with the best new apps, and for anyone who is unfamiliar with apps for mobile phones you may wish to take a look at their potential practicalities if you need further convincing. Apps can be educational and practical as well as fun and whether you own apple’s new iphone or the latest android handset here are some that may constitute a top 5.

Song Beats

Song Beats from Yamaha is one of the types of musical educational tools that we have seen become prominent in the last few years. It can be treated as a bit of fun or it can be seen as a serious instructional tool for the aspiring drummer. You download a virtual drum kit onto your mobile phones and are encouraged to play according to the coloured prompts.

Tiny Piano

The Tiny Piano app is similar in the sense that you download a piano keyboard onto your phone and then play popular songs via coloured prompts. You can play songs, learn scales or even play your own compositions in free play mode.

Tiny Guitar

Tiny Guitar is from the same publisher as Tiny Piano and it broadly resembles the same principles – coloured prompts, single notes and chords. Learning music can be real task in terms of theory and practical work and these apps bring the two together to some extent.

Weird but True

Following the educational theme Weird but True is available courtesy of National Geographic Kids. It downloads 300 weird facts to your mobile and presents them in a charming way with weird-ometers and the like.

Mobile Banking

For the practical amongst you most of the high street banks offer banking apps for your mobile phones, and in the main they get very good reviews – offering something different and more portable than the actual websites. You can locate your nearest cashpoint or see mini statements as well as transferring money between accounts. Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Santander all have well reviewed banking apps.