2011 has been the year of the app. It's the year in which Apple hit an average of 1 billion downloads from the App Store a month, the year in which the 10 billionth app was downloaded from the Android Market and also the year that Pocket-lint played Alan Sugar, judging the contestants' app-auling efforts on The Apprentice.

But it's time to put 2011 to bed now, forget the past and think about the new year. And nowhere else on earth says New Year's Eve more than New York City....

Times Square Official New Year’s Eve Ball App - 2012

Format

iPhone

Price

Free

Where

iTunes

You don't have to fork out a few hundred quid, sit on a plane for 7 hours (and queue at US Customs for around the same time too) and brave the crowds to experience New Year's Eve in Times Square. You can do it from the comfort of your own home - directly from your iPhone.

Sure, you'd have to stay up until 5 in the morning UK time to see the ball drop - but what a New Year's Eve that would be eh? Just you, your iPhone and a six-pack of Special Brew. What a life.

All jokes aside, the Times Square Official New Year’s Eve Ball App - 2012, to give it its full moniker, will take you to the heart of the New York NYE action. There's a couple of live streams on board you see - one for the Toshiba Vision screen that sits on top of One Times Square directly beneath the Waterford Crystal New Year’s Eve Ball and one for the live co-hosted official show featuring opening ceremonies, musical performances, celebrity appearances, hourly countdowns and, of course, the midnight ball drop.

The front screen has a countdown that allows you to see the time until 2012 where you are in the world, which you can personalise too. There's also a comprehensive database of Times Square NYE information, with interactive maps that'll be handy if you are in town.

You can also use the app to send Happy New Year media messages to your pals and there is, of course, the obligatory Facebook and Twitter features too.

Sure, it won't beat a night out in New York - but it's a darn site cheaper. And there's probably less chance of a drunken reveller being sick on your trainers.

Happy New Year Pocket-lint fans, here's to a tech-tastic 2012.....