Every smartphone has a built in camera app and some of them are very good, but how good are your photographs? Could they be better? Microsoft thinks so and it has the iPhone app to make it happen.

The iPhone and iPad come with a Photos app that is pretty good, but Google Photos beats it by a wide margin and if you haven’t tried it recently, you should. It is brilliant.

A Better Camera is an app for your Android phone that is designed to be better than then built in app. If you find the controls fiddly on the phone’s camera app, this one could be the answer.

Chromecast is a dongle from Google that plugs into your TV and enables you to watch videos, listen to music, view photos and more. It is designed for Android phones and tablets, but it works with the iPhone and iPad too.

It is a mystery why after all these years there still isn’t an iPad version of Instagram. It is only available for the iPhone, which is really irritating. Fortunately, there are alternatives and Padgram is one of the best, and it is free.

The iPhone’s camera does not have as high a resolution as some phone cameras, but it does take excellent photos and the camera app has some clever features. Here are some you may not have discovered.

Google+ and OneDrive can automatically backup your photos to online storage as soon as you take them. This sounds like a great idea, but there are problems with both services that you might not like. Is it time to ditch them?

A fisheye lens is an extremely wide angle one with a short focal length that captures distorted, but interesting photos. A real fisheye lens can only be mounted to a traditional camera, but InstaFisheye is an app for the iPhone that simulates the effect.

The camera on the iPhone is excellent and it is easy to point, tap and shoot high quality video. Apple has an excellent video editing app and iMovie can do all sorts of wonderful things with videos. However, Replay is a different type of video editor and you can have maximum fun for minimum effort.

There are so many photo editing apps to choose from, it is hard to know which to install on your iPhone. Your choice is made even harder because so many of them offer similar features. Typically you can take a photograph using the iPhone's camera or load a previously taken one, crop it, apply various filters and then save it or share it. LensFlare can do all of this, but it also has some extra features that set it apart from the crowd.

There are many apps that offer similar features to the ever-popular Instagram and it can be difficult choosing which one to go for. EyeEm is one option and this popular app is like Instagram in some ways, but there are differences and the possibility of making money

Everyone likes free stuff right? Well, now you can get a tone of free stuff courtesy of Adobe. For a limited time only, everything is free for the Aviary photo editor for Android and iOS. Photo Editor by Aviary (Android / iOS) is a great free photo editor for mobile devices and there is a huge range of extras available through in-app purchases. Until the end of November 2014 they are all free!

There is a fantastic full moon tonight, with a perfectly clear sky. The moon looked fantastic, so I decided to see which mobile phone could take the best shot of the full moon. I used a Samsung Galaxy S4 and an iPhone 6. The Samsung has a higher resolution camera than the iPhone, so the expectation was that it might produce a better moon shot, but did it?

There are so many photo editing and enhancement apps in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store it can be hard to decide which one(s) to get. With dozens to choose from and, it has to be said, all very similar, which one is best? Google Snapseed is an excellent tool that can be used to apply special effects to your snapshots and bring out the colour and detail.

What do you do with all the photos you take on your mobile phone? You could post them to Facebook or Instagram, or share them via email, instant message and other ways, but single photos or even a collection of photos is a bit dull and lifeless. Flipagram for the iPhone and iPad enables you to turn them into great slide shows that can be shared with family and friends.

Many top end mobile phones have cameras of 8 megapixels or more and in theory they should take fantastically detailed high resolution images that are superb. The reality is that taking good photos with a mobile phone isn't easy. The fact that you can hardly see the screen on a sunny day doesn't help when you are trying to frame the subject. There are bigger problems and if your snapshots are fuzzy, here is what you can do to improve them.

Let’s face it, the Camera app bundled with the iPhone is basic to say the least. It is designed to be super simple, quick and easy to use. You can fire it up in a flash and take a quick snapshot in no time. If you are serious about photography and want to take better shots, but don’t want the hassle of carrying a bulky digital SLR, ProCam is the answer.

Digital cameras are great, except when you want to take a series of photos in rapid succession. You might want to take an action shot at a sporting event, capture your pet dog jumping for a Frisbee, or something similar. You need a camera that can capture that split second with a high degree of accuracy. High-Speed Camera, a free app for Android phones, is designed just for this type of situation.

There are countless camera apps in Apple’s App Store for the iPhone, so which ones should you install? There is so much choice it is difficult to know where to start. One app that is worth considering is VSCO Cam. This is a free app that has some useful features.

How would you rate the iPhone's camera app? On a scale of one to ten, what score would you give it? Seven, eight? How about three or four? It takes photos, it has flash on/off/auto, it displays a grid of thirds and has HDR (high dynamic range) on/off. That's it. If you are serious about photography using your iPhone you should consider a more powerful camera app that has more features.