The Heirloom app lets you preserve old photos.(Heirloom)

There are approximately 1.3 million apps available for our smartphones and tablets. Many are simply a bad idea. Most are average in use or scope. Fortunately, some very innovative developers have changed the way we used to do things for the better. Here are five mind-boggling apps that I know you're going to want.

1. Preserve old photos

You probably have photo albums and shoeboxes full of old print photos. If you take care of them they should last for decades, but during a move, house fire or natural disaster they might get damaged or destroyed. Plus, if they're sitting in a box or on the shelf, no one else can enjoy them.

That's why so many people spend hours scanning photos into a computer to preserve and share them. Unfortunately, scanning is a slow process.

You have to take the photo out of the photobook, put it on a scanner and wait for a while. Once you've scanned it, there's still a lot of work you have to do. You need to crop it, straighten it, color correct and clean up any scanning artifacts.

Now there's an app that makes preserving print photos a snap, literally. It's called Heirloom (Free; iOS, Android). You simply take a picture of a photo and it does the cropping and color correcting automatically. You can even leave photos in their albums, so you don't risk damaging or losing them.

Once the photo is ready,you can upload itto Facebook, Twitter or another site, or upload it to Heirloom's own social network. You can upload as many photos as you want. So, what are you waiting for?

2. Get better customer service

How many hours of your life have you spent on hold waiting for customer service? It's probably more than a few. You could be doing much better things with your time.

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5 mind-boggling apps