Smartphones nowadays are used as the default device for photography purposes, due to its ease of use and ready availability in our pockets. To supplement this process, photographs can be viewed in the gallery apps that come preinstalled on our smartphones, which at times may not offer the features we are looking for. In order to simplify this process, a list of some third party photo management apps for iOS and Android are shared below:

1) QuickPic (Android free) / Quickpics Photo Manager (iOS (free)

Quickpic is vastly popular on the Android platform with over 10 million users who prefer it as their app of choice for viewing photographs. It offers powerful file management features, including sort, rename, create new folders, moving / copying data, along with the ability to back up your photos to your preferred cloud storage provider like Dropbox or OneDrive. Also supported are popular image formats like jpg, jpeg, jps, png, gif, bmp, wbmp, mpo, webp and more. The iOS version is from a different company but offers the same features such as the ability to search and / or sort by name, tag and date. It has the ability to name and / or tag each individual picture, offers extensive photo editing tools and can directly upload to cloud storage services like iCloud / Dropbox. For Android download from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder&hl=en & iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quickpics-photo-manager-your/id902341057?mt=8

Managing photographs on your smartphones is not as difficult as you may think; download the following apps and get started

2) MyPics (iOS free)

MyPics is a powerful app offering a variety of features that allows you to freely organise the photos and videos taken with your iPhone. From freely creating albums, to adding photos and videos, it allows you to set your favourite photo as the album cover, and choose a design for the app from 45 differently available themes. Calendar view is supported within the app, for example it will provide you with data of the amount of snaps you took in a given month, and when you import photos from the Camera roll it saves the original / unmodified data like timestamps / geocoding, which will be stored as it is. It also offers password protection, full-screen view and a photo editor as well. It has in-app purchases to unlock the filter app and finish the registration nag, costing $0.99 & S3.99 respectively. Download here: https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/mypics-powerful-photo-viewer/id504793067?mt=8

3) Cyanogen Gallery (Android free)

Courtesy of Cyanogen, it is one of the most popular custom rom providers for Android. This app organises photos by date, albums and moments, it creates smart folders around location and time. It offers the ability to add your cloud storage accounts housing your photos to its gallery to view, share and edit in one place. It supports cloud sync services with Flickr, Facebook, Google+ and Dropbox. It has a simplistic design and easy-to-use intuitive interface along with a not so steep learning curve. It can be used on any Android phone, and does not need Cyanogen OS as default. It can be downloaded from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyngn.gallerynext

The writer is a freelance columnist with diversified interests in Technology, Finance & History. He tweets@MohammadFarooq_

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, June 19th, 2016