THE smartphone era has made almost every aspect of everyday life much easier with efficient apps and functions.

Now apps are also taking over the realm of eating. Finding a restaurant entails reading reams of reviews and scrolling through dozens of photos. Following a recipe means watching step-by-step instructions on video and not spilling oil on a cookbook. Making a grocery list involves no more paper to forget or lose.

Sharing a passion for food is also part of the modern lifestyle. Diners never tire of using smartphones to snap photos of the food on their table or sharing a favorite recipes on social networks.

This week, iDEAL will walk you through some of the food apps that can make life more delicious.

Recipe apps

Cooking new dishes is a learning experience. In the past, recipes were jotted down on cards or in notebooks. Creative cooks had shelves lined with cookbooks. All that is no longer necessary. Tens of thousands of recipes are now at your fingertips.

Cooking apps feature step-by-step descriptions, often with photos or video tutorials. Many apps include a grocery list function.

Panna

This cooking app brings recipes created by award-winning chefs to you via easy-to-follow videos.

The user interface is a sleek, easy to navigate and has a visually interactive magazine style multimedia design.

There are a few sections on the top menu bar featuring not only the recipes, but also useful and creative kitchen tips shared by professionals, such as how to eliminate watering eyes when dicing onions and how to whip cream in a cocktail shaker.

In the Chefs tab are introductions to professional chefs and famous restaurant owners around the world as well as their recipes.

When you subscribe as a paid user, you can also ask the chefs questions about their recipes.

The videos are concise, informative and load quickly.

Price: Free 30-day trial, then US$1.99 per month or US$19.99 per year for subscription

Platform: iOS

Jamie Oliver’s Recipes

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s app features collections of recipes he has created under different themes, such as alfresco eating, the epic curry night, Asian delights and more.

Each collection features 10 to 25 recipes as well as tips to make cooking easier. You can search desired recipes by names or ingredients.

When you decide to follow one recipe, there is “Cook Now” tab to enter for step-by-step photo instruction. You can also take notes.

Below the main photo, there are detailed steps on how to assemble a dish as well as a sidebar on required ingredients and equipment. The “add to shopping list” function allows you to instantly create a shopping cart to take to markets to buy the necessary ingredients.

Price: Free for limited access to recipes, US$1.99 per month to unlock all recipes and tips

Platform: iOS

Xiachufang

Xiachufang is the most popular Chinese online recipe-sharing community and the place to go to find recipes for authentic Chinese dishes as well as Western cuisine.

The recipes on the app are only in Chinese, however. The design is clean and easy to navigate with featured recipes.

Price: Free

Platform: iOS and Android

Big Oven

Big Oven is a cooking and grocery-shopping app wrapped into one. It provides more than 350,000 recipes from a wide selection of cuisines around the world.

The menus are sorted by collections, cuisines, diet, weather, holidays, seasons and levels of difficulty.

You can save favorite recipes, plan menus and organize grocery lists when signing up as a member for free. The app runs smoothly and loads quite rapidly.

Price: Free to download and become a member; US$15 to upgrade to the pro version

Platform: iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows Phone

Kitchen Stories

This modern photo and video cookbook, with the motto “anyone can cook,” is also a platform for sharing favorite recipes.

You can discover inspiring recipes from the minimalism grid design UI that features a search bar and filter tab on the top right corner, where you can cross out ingredients you don’t eat, set a calorie count limit and glean ideas from recipe packages, such as street food and office bites.

Some recipes are in video format. The beautifully shot tutorials also include detailed recipes, required utensils, wine pairing tips and nutritional information on the left sidebar.

You can also create a shopping list by clicking on “shopping basket” of any recipe and add any ingredients you might want.

The “How-to” section features kitchen tips in video format. The videos load quickly but sometimes the app closes itself while playing the videos.

Price: Free

Platform: iOS and Android

Basil

This cooking app is pricier than others, but its mouthwatering recipes may be worth it to many. You can share recipes, create your own recipe book and import recipes from other websites.

Basil offers the option of crossing off ingredients as you cook, which comes in handy when you are trying to execute a complicated recipe.

Price: US$4.99

Platform: iOS

Cuisine photography

With social networks like Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, Weibo and Instagram, sharing what you have cooked or eaten has become an important way to communicate with friends and family.

There are many image-editing apps that provide a wide selection of filters and tools to perfect your photos, and there are also tips on how to take the best pictures.

Ellen Ma is a food lover who lives in Shanghai.

She said she enjoys taking photos of everyday life with her iPhone and editing them using different apps.

Her favorite photo editing apps are Snapseed, Meitu, Butter, Shise and VSCO.

“Snapseed is great for toning the colors,” she explained. “You can adjust the light, contrast and saturation, which allows you to salvage most photos you took with a cell phone with the wrong exposure or high contrast.”

While VSCO has a lot of filters, it’s more suitable for scenery and still shots. Shise, on the other hand, has more filters designed for food pictures, but also has the downside of limited customization in the word templates.

Taking a photo of food from an angle directly above the table is not usually the best option.

“When taking photos of food, you need to compose the frame,” Ma said. “It’s not always about taking the photos from above. Most of the time it’s better to show the layers of the food by placing the camera closer to the food so you can get details of texture and color.”

And you can also add blurriness to the dishes for interesting effect.

“You don’t need to include the whole dish in a shot,” she said. “A photo is best when you capture the right details.”

Her trick of toning the colors before applying filters that often decrease saturation or add brightness is to increase the saturation in the first step to balance the colors.

“Sometimes it’s better to leave some space in the image and don’t place the dish in the middle of the frame,” she said. “Focus on the most delicious part of the dish.”

In Snapseed, there’s a function where you can adjust the exposure of certain parts of an image.

“I also love to add some interesting, fun comments to the photos,” Ma said. “It makes for better interaction with friends.”

In addition to Butter, apps like WordSwag also provide ways to customize your photos and add interesting notes.