I already know I'm addicted to my smartphone, and if you've ever absentmindedly reached into your pocket and switched on the screen without realising it, you're probably just as hooked as I am. These devices have become so ingrained into our lives that it's hard to tell how often we check them, but a new Android app lets you dig into the data to see exactly how much time (and battery life) you're wasting on a daily basis.

The slimmer version of the Facebook app for Android, Facebook Lite, has been available in select countries since 2015. This however excluded the likes of the US, Australia and the UK. Yesterday, the social networking giant opened the app to the aforementioned nations -- including Australia -- if you're keen on the lightweight version.

If you've been thinking about purchasing a Galaxy S9 but aren't quite sure you're ready to bite the bullet, Samsung has created a way for you to give the phone a test drive using your current device.

Snapchat recently released a redesign that hasn't exactly been a hit with its most loyal users. With most apps, if you opt for the upgrade you're stuck with the new version until the developer puts out something new.

iOS/Android: I hate mobile browsing. When I open Safari, I'm usually trying to google something quickly, then go back to my other apps. Lately I've been trying the mobile browser Cake, publicly released for iOS and Android today and it's made searching much faster.

Most of the time, when a notification pops up on my phone I can decide in a split second whether I need to deal with it immediately. But every once in a while I make the wrong call, swiping away an important alert that sends me digging through Gmail or Twitter to type out what should have been a quick response.

Most of us end up getting a ton of email during the day. As it turns out, I see a lot of that email via the notification bar on my phone. I want to know what emails have come in, but not enough to go into the Gmail app on the phone, and so browsing them in Notifications is a quick and easy solution. When I see something in there I want to read or respond to, I launch the app.

There's nothing like hitting the beach or the pool on a hot day and soaking in some rays -- that is until you get home and realise what you've soaked in is an epic sunburn. Sunburns
suck, take way too long to get rid of and can make you the joke of the office come Monday when you show up looking like a lobster.

When you're heading home from a night out with friends, sharing an Uber often makes a lot of sense. However, up until now, you'd have to verbally tell your driver you were going to make a few stops, and then input a new address each time someone gets out of the car. It's a process that works, but tends to be pretty frustrating for both you and the driver.

If you get breaking-news notifications on your phone, you'll often find you disagree with what Apple about what constitutes news. Instead, you can turn use news aggregation app Nuzzel, which can notify you when a certain number of your Twitter friends link to the same URL, no matter the source.

Both Google Play and the App Store are now saturated to the point that picking the right app for the job comes down to trial and error. Given two apps of equal functionality and price, you're going to want the faster, more stable one. Reviews can help make the decision, but Google is going a step further by tweaking its search algorithms to favour "higher quality" products.

With an eye towards the developing world where people are more likely to own cheap phones and have spottier wireless data access, the big names in tech are developing simpler versions of their apps. These apps are lightweight, use little data, and don't burn through battery life. Sound good? It does to us too, and here's how to give them a test drive.

Pinterest has unveiled a new feature that will find you a recipe with just a click of your smartphone's camera: "Dish recognition."

You've got data pouring in from your connected fitness tracker, your smartphone, your smartwatch, the smart scales in your bathroom and the dieting app you use to log your meals -- so how do you get all of this information in one place? It isn't easy, but here are a few pointers to help.

Podcasts have become one of the best forms of entertainment around, but it's tough keeping track of the ones you like, ditching episodes you're not interested in, or even managing what you want to hear. Pocket Casts is one of the best apps for helping you organise your podcasts, but you'll need to experiment with it a bit to get it to work for you.

Android's always given developers more elbow room when it comes to hacking into its mobile OS. Here's a case in point: putting a connection speed indicator in the Android status bar (and notification tray).

Equations may as well be a different language, considering how cryptic they can look to the untrained eye. Fortunately, just like the various apps that can use your camera to live-translate, say, Spanish or German, so too does a handy mobile tool exist for mathematics.

Android: If you use a Bluetooth headset with your phone, you'll want to know when its battery is about to die. BatON can monitor your accessories and give you a notification when you need to charge them.

Every week, we share a number of downloads for all platforms to help you get things done. Here were the top downloads from last week.