When I was first asked to check out the Knowhow App Centre (hosted by PC World and powered by Intel’s AppUp service) I was about to head out to a game of football. But, since I had half an hour to kill, I thought I would get the App Centre setup first. Mercifully, the entire process was very straight forward, so much so that I even had a quick dabble on the free app I had been given. I’m sure you’ll have heard of it, it goes by the name of Angry Birds!

I had only recently jumped aboard the Angry Birds mobile phone bandwagon, but despite my limited history with the game it still felt pleasantly surreal to play a sharp full screen version. Mobile gaming might be great for passing the time, but I was reminded that hunching over a small mobile display remains a world away from relaxing in front of a big screen.

The Knowhow App Centre however offers far more than a beefed up version of Angry Birds. You can find an incredibly diverse range of free, or premium rated titles, grouped into a diverse range of 24 categories. Interestingly, these cover a remarkably broad set of areas, Games, Education, Books, Music, Travel, etc, are just a few of the sections you can browse. People can really expect to find a massive catalogue of apps (3,000+ according to the site), relevant to different aspects of their lives, and suitable for a variety of ages (the site is pitched as family –friendly).

Let’s take one example. I’ve always been fascinated by the learning potential of apps and games so I decided to head to the Education section and see which free titles were available. The first one I spotted was BrainPOP and it promised to teach me something new each day with the use of a movie. Intrigued, I loaded up the app and enjoyed a short 5 minute animated presentation on Frida Kahlo. Who? I hear you ask. I hadn’t a clue either, but after the movie I did and a short quiz was available to reinforce the lesson (she was a 20th century Latin American artist by the way). All in all I was very impressed by this app, yes, its presentation had an odd child like quality to it, despite its content being more appropriate for knowledgeable students/adults at times, but it certainly proved educational.

With any large app service however you will find that the quality varies. When I returned to some light hearted entertainment I tried a game called Operation Victor, which included the tag line “...an interesting game of war”. Intrigued, I downloaded and launched the game. The use of the word ‘interesting’ however appeared somewhat generous, since the game turned out to be an incredibly basic shooter. I loaded it up and was simply told to kill the terrorists, homage perhaps to George Bush’s counter-terrorism policy?

Basic, plain, simple, but free apps often are and you can’t really grumble when something costs you nothing! The premium content will be where the majority of the higher quality apps reside, but it was the Knowhow App Centre itself that I was asked to examine, not the app catalogue as such, and having now navigated around the service I can vouch for it being a clean, easy to use and content rich piece of software.

I’ll readily admit that before I installed the Knowhow App Centre I was sceptical, I didn’t think it would excite me, especially as I’m accustomed to buying highly developed software from big name publishers. However, there is such a wealth of apps available now that anyone who isn’t regularly exploring them is effectively missing out. Whether it is entertainment, practical advice, learning, etc, there are apps available that can contribute to anyone’s life. The trick is to be able to manage and explore what’s out there without simultaneously getting lost in the ‘app jungle’. Having now experimented with the Knowhow App Centre I know it does this job and keeps you on the right path. Admittedly, its rather basic presentation feels a little uninspiring and restrictive at times, but it does give me access to the types of services I want in one relatively easy to use package and for that reason I’ll be keeping it on my PC well after I’ve finished with this review.

I’m especially curious to see what I will learn from BrainPOP tomorrow!