What do you do with all the photos you take on your mobile phone? Turn them into fun slide shows with effects and music, and share them with all your friends with these great iPhone apps.

You could post your photos to Facebook or Instagram, or share them in other ways, but single photos or even a collection of photos is sometimes a bit dull and lifeless. Years ago I used Flipagram for the iPhone and iPad, an app that enabled you to turn photos into great slide shows that can be shared with family and friends. Whatever happened to that Flipagram app? It was hugely popular at the time.

There are many replacements and some are fantastic. Just search for 'Slide Show Maker' or 'Flipagram' - although there is no app these days, a search turns up many similar ones and some even using the name.

The idea is that you create a story by selecting photos, adding titles, choosing music to accompany them, and applying fun filters for special effects. Text, stickers and emoji may be added to the photos and the whole lot is turned into a movie which can then be saved or shared on social media and by other means.

When exploring apps like these, be aware that they try extremely hard to get money out of you. One app I tried (and discarded) would not start until I had signed up to a free trial. It was a 3-day trial and would have charged around $50 if I didn't remember to cancel. Some apps require 24 hours notice when cancelling a subscription, so you might need to cancel on day 2 - install today, cancel tomorrow or you will get a big bill with no refund on day 3. Watch out!

However, I found some good apps that let you try them for free before you hand over any money, and you don't need to set reminders to cancel subscriptions.

SlideShow Video Maker & Editor

Price: Free | By: Flipagram LLC | Size: 208 MB | iOS: 9.3 or later

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SlideShow Video Maker & Editor is a free app, but you have to be careful to avoid the many prompts to sign up to a subscription. It costs $3.99 a week, which doesn't sound much until you multiply it by 104 to get the cost of two year's use. That is a lot of money, but I found it to be a good app with some great features.

On the home screen, which will eventually hold all your slide shows, is a large Create New button and this starts the video production process. The first task is to select photos and they are shown as thumbnails like in the Photos app.

The video is produced instantly and plays through with slide transitions and music. Although this is a finished video, the idea is that you customize it using the many features available. For example, there are around 15 free themes to choose from that have different effects and music, and if you are a paying user, there are dozens more in many categories like Fun, Stylish, Classic, B&W, Occasions and so on. One tap applies it instantly.

The toolbar at the bottom of the screen enables you to select transitions, set the duration, reorder the photos and choose the music. Music is organized into many categories, like Blues, Dance, Dramatic, Happy and others. Only two tracks are available for free, but dozens are available to paying users. You can also select music from iTunes and you can record a voice-over.

When you have customized the slideshow, it can be saved to your photos, shored on social media, sent as a WhatsApp message and more. This is a good app and I would recommend trying the free version. However, the subscription is too expensive for me.

SlideShow Maker with Music Fx

Price: Free | By: Debotosh Dey | Size: 111 MB | iOS: 11.0 or later

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This app is so similar to the previous app that they must be related in some way. Not identical twins, but probably siblings because there are so many similarities. The price is different and this app costs $9.99 a month, which makes it much cheaper.

It tries hard to get you to pay, but there is an option to skip it and you get a small number of free styles, free music, and a five-photo limit. Paying gets you dozens of themes, music tracks and unlimited photos.

The first task in creating a slideshow is to select photos from those stored in your Photos library. The video quickly appears and is ready to go, but the idea is that you then customize it. There are many styles (themes) to choose from if you pay and a small number of free ones organized into several categories like Stylish, Lively, FX, Classic, Fun and so on.

The Manager section shows all the photos and the order can be rearranged, more can be added, and images edited. The editor provides effects filters, crop, rotate and flip functions. Seven filters are free, the rest are paid.

The slideshow duration can be set, background music can be added from a large library, you can select music from iTunes or record a voice-over. When you are happy with the results, the video can be saved to the Photos library or shared on social media, messaging and so on.

This is a good app for creating slideshows from photos and it is cheaper and has more features than most apps of this type.

Fast & Easy Slideshow Maker

Price: Free | By: Grassapper | Size: 94 MB | iOS: 9.0 or later

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Fast & Easy Slideshow Maker is a bit frustrating in free mode, but it is possible to create short slide shows from half a dozen or so photos. It has limited features as a freebie and a lot of ads, but the one-off fee of $9.99 to remove ads and unlock all features makes this reasonably priced and much cheaper than the other apps, especially if you intend to keep it for a long time.

A slideshow is started by selecting photos from your Photos library, unlimited if you pay, but only a few for free. They are shown as thumbnails below and they can be rearranged by dragging them around.

Tapping an image opens it and there are tools to add text in a variety of fonts, apply one of 18 interesting filter effects, or draw freehand on it using simple drawing tools. The transition used between photos can be selected from a collection containing dozens, eight of which are free. Background music can be added to the slideshow and a small collection of tracks are provided. However, music can also be selected in your music library if it is on the iPhone (not online).

The resulting video can be square, landscape or portrait and the image and transition durations can be set. There is an Auto-sync With Music option which is worth trying.

One problem I had was knowing what was free and what wasn't and you only find out right at the end and cannot save the video. Apart from that, this is a good app and although it is very limited and ad-laden for free, it doesn't cost much to buy.