App Reviews: Color Zen, MyScript Calculator

By Hayley Tsukayama

The Tao of ‘Zen’

Color Zen isn’t the most complicated game, or the most challenging — but it certainly has the potential to be addictive. This graphically brilliant game presents players with colorful patterns and a straightforward objective: Get the whole screen to be the same color as the border of the level. The puzzles start off pretty easy but grow harder as players have to negotiate layers of colors to land on just the right finishing move. With soothing sound effects (which can be turned off) and devilishly simple gameplay, Color Zen is a pretty good candidate to be your next favorite puzzle game. And, as an added illustration of thoughtful design, the app is touted as colorblind friendly. Free for Android devices, 99 cents for iOS devices.

Easy to figure out

Having trouble figuring out the tip on that bill or the discount on that shirt? Getting frustrated fiddling with your calculator? MyScript Calculator offers the option of just scribbling down your equations rather than trying to remember how, exactly, to use the order of operations. The handwriting recognition on the app is strong and able to read a number of mathematical functions whether you’re puzzling with arithmetic or trigonometry. Users can switch the app to better fit the needs of southpaws, if needed, and can enable “palm rejection” to keep extraneous inputs from messing up your calculations. Free, for iOS and Android devices.