2016 in Review: The Year’s Best Apps

MORE than four million software programs are available in the Apple and Google app stores, including games, productivity tools and weather apps.

This year, only a few stood out. Some of these apps were exceptional; others were useful or funny or just well designed. Here are my picks for outstanding apps of 2016:

NUZZEL Though Nuzzel was released in 2015, it gained more popularity this year as people realized how clever it was. The app is a news aggregator with a trick: It curates news items users may be interested in because their friends or followers on Facebook and Twitter have already read and shared them. This social angle works well and I find Nuzzel’s home page is always worth scanning.

The concern with a news app that relies on social curation is that it can create an echo chamber — users may end up reading only the news they prefer. But another option is to read news shared by friends of friends, which is a wider social network that will deliver more diverse news articles. While people should not rely on Nuzzel exclusively for news, this free iOS and Android app is worth checking out.

NPR ONE This year, NPR added new features to its NPR One app that turned it from a popular radio-listening app into something broader. By connecting to audio content from other suppliers, including podcasts and locally sourced news programs, NPR One is now a one-stop shop for all sorts of fascinating audio.

The app even recommends related stories after users listen to a radio segment, which can offer more about a particular topic or give a more nuanced view about something in the news. NPR One has a clean and simple interface, and it is free on iOS and Android.