App stores are crowded places these days, and because storage space on your phone is often at a premium, you’ll want to fill it with not only the best, but also the most helpful apps out there. Because they come and go quicker than the latest fashion trends, and digging through Google Play, the iTunes App Store, or any of the others is such a mission; a little nudge in the right direction is often very welcome. Here are the apps we think you need to check out this week.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and as cameras have improved — along with data speed and mobile network coverage — pictures truly have become a means of conversing with people. We’ve all had that moment in the middle of a text conversation where we’ve stopped typing and said, “let me just show you.”

Pixty is a messenger built around photos first. The app allows you to create photo streams with groups of people that you pick. It can be as few as one or as many as 200. Everyone in the group can share what they’re up to by snapping a picture and sending it into the stream. The process takes just three taps. Others in the group can comment or send a picture back. To save data, the photo-heavy app displays a compressed version of the photo until you’re connected to WiFi, then you can access the full resolution image.

iTunes, Google Play