APPS
Mini meme
● Webcams
Let’s start with the simple stuff. If you just want to veg out and pretend you’re somewhere else, fool your eyes with Webcams. This app — as its name suggests — lets you select from a huge range of cameras that you can peer at on your phone or stream to your TV. There’s a small selection of free views, featuring everything from leading tourist spots to curious wildlife, while IAP unlocks the rest. Free (IAPs) / Android, iOS
● Expeditions
Fancy going on a self-isolating safari? Want to see dinosaurs, but inconveniently don’t own a time machine? Then try this app’s many VR tours and AR objects. Essentially it’s a bunch of 360° photos to thumb around; but glue your phone to your face with Google Cardboard (or similar) and you can gawp at all manner of immersive marvels, from gorgeous remote islands to the inside of a space station. Free / Android, iOS
DREAD LOCKED HOLIDAY
Pining for sunny beaches, exotic culture and maybe the occasional ear-smashing rock gig? There are some apps that can help with that…
● Civilisations AR
British museums are littered with wonderful objects thanks to the country’s colonial/klepto past (and there’s the odd home-grown marvel too). But that’s no good if you can’t get to one — hence this AR gem. Thanks to the BBC, you can project into your bedroom everything from Rodin’s Kiss to an Egyptian mummy, making for a memorable fusion of history, education and tech. Free / Android, iOS
● Shepard Fairey
AR – Damaged
This digital take on an exhibition by the bloke behind the famous Obama ‘Hope’ poster is far more than static images on a screen: the entire warehouse-sized project is squeezed into your phone. There’s a huge sense of space, and you can even walk around everything in 1:1 style if yo have the room. If not, tap to zip up to artworks, while Shep himself narrates. Free / Android, iOS
● Google Maps
Most people use Google Maps to avoid getting horribly lost, but with Street View you can instead lose yourself in virtual ambles. You’re not limited to roads either — with varying degrees of success, you can hoof around major landmarks like the Pyramids of Giza and the Taj Mahal, peer inside famous museums such as the Guggenheim, and check out the view from Tokyo Tower. Free / Android, iOS
● MelodyVR
If not being able to get out of the house has left you pining for gigs, playing bootleg footage on your iPad at the end of the garden and charging yourself R60 for a warm beer just won’t cut it. So try MelodyVR instead. It offers a bunch of concerts to experience in 360° form — and multiple viewpoints, for when you want to be right up on the stage rather than staring at it from a distance. Free (IAPs) / Android, iOS 33
