Earlier this week, gadget makers blew our minds with new products at the Consumer Electronics Show that will hopefully come out sometime in 2016. We also finally found out how much Oculus Rift costs and when we will get our hands on it.
It was a bigger week for hardware than it was for apps. Although, if you were lucky, you downloaded Vidyo before it was pulled from the App Store. As the weekend rolls by, if you are looking for apps and games that are still available, check out our list below.
IGN has named independent developer Amirali Rajan's chart-topping atmospheric adventure title A Dark Room its new Game of the Month, meaning you can download it at no charge for a limited time. The game currently retails in the App Store for 99 cents.
A minimalist text-based game, A Dark Room has some role-playing game elements and invites players to “come light the fire and escape into a world you'll never forget”.
Super Hexagon is one of my favorite iOS games of all time. Its controls are perfect for touch screens, its learning curve is simple, and its challenge is legendary. Terry Cavanagh's creation is so good that I was actually inspired to make a video just to talk about Super Hexagon–something I wouldn't normally do.
Needless to say, Apple must feel like I do about the game, and it wants more people to get to know it and appreciate it. This is actually the second time that Super Hexagon, a game that normally sells for $2.99, has been made available for free as a part of an Apple promotion. Previously, the game had gone free inside of the Apple Store app, but as of yesterday, Super Hexagon is now featured as Apple's Free App of the Week.
A lot of times when downloading and trying out games from the App Store, I find myself dissatisfied with the game just minutes or hours after playing it. It's not always easy to find those hidden gems that Apple fails to give the spotlight to, but when stumbling across one, I'll easily get addicted to the game and not want to put the game down.
One such game is Atomas, which is a beautifully-crafted puzzle game by Max Gittel that is centered around the elements of the periodic table and allows you to combine groups of like elements with lower atomic numbers to form elements with larger atomic numbers.
Facebook Messenger has reached a new milestone as the service now claims 800 million monthly users, according to an announcement from Facebook itself on Thursday. “I’m happy to report that we’ve made a good step in that direction, and toward the end of 2015, we crossed the milestone of 800 million people using Messenger each month,” according to David Marcus, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging Products.
The new milestone, according to latest Nielsen data, makes Messenger the fastest growing app of 2015.
Vidyo is a new screen recorder app that recently appeared in the App Store. First discovered by MacStories, the $4.99 app is not cheap, but it works.
By simulating an AirPlay Mirroring connection to itself, Vidyo is able to capture any screen displayed on your iPhone. Once recording is completed, users have the option of doing additional post processing and saving the video to the Photos app.
If you want the ability to record your iPhone's screen natively without relying on jailbreaks or external hardware, then you better act fast and purchase and backup Vidyo. This app will likely be removed soon, as it features functionality that Apple's reviewers have previously rejected apps for once discovered.
On Wednesday, CloudMagic released an OS X version of their minimal email client, which is also available on iOS, Android, watchOS, and Android Wear. Like its mobile counterparts, CloudMagic for Mac supports email accounts from Google, Exchange, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, and any IMAP-hosted account, making it a well-rounded client for managing several accounts in one place.
In a decade of immediate gratification, where conversations take place 140 characters at a time and games are scored by how fast you complete them, it's nice to come across an app that does nothing but tell a story so you can slow things down, even if it is just for a moment.
Flewn is a highly stylized book with dozens of illustrations that you access with very little effort, but still feels significantly interactive just the same. We've got a full app review of Flewn for you right now.
Late last year, we showed you how to downgrade App Store apps directly from Apple using iTunes. The method was anything but straightforward, but it did indeed work.
Today, I'd like to show you a brand new method for downgrading App Store apps. Not only is it much easier than the old method, but it runs right on your iPhone, so no computer is required. The only "downside" is that you must be jailbroken to use this method, as it relies on a jailbreak tweak that's now in beta. That said, it's way easier than the prior method that doesn't require a jailbreak.
Want to see how easy it is to downgrade virtually any App Store app using only a jailbroken iPhone? Watch our video and see UnlimApp's new jailbreak tweak, App Admin, in action.
I am a coloring book enthusiast. I have dozens of them, ranging in skill level from kid's books with wide lines to coloring books for adults, which are intricate and complex. I have a wide variety of tools from Prismacolor pencils to brush tip markers. I've been coloring since I was a toddler and I've never stopped. Ever.
So, when Pixite told me about its new coloring book app, Pigment, I immediately scoffed at the idea. Coloring book apps are a joke. They don't get it. They don't provide the stress-relieving comfort that actual coloring does. However, after testing the app for about two weeks now, I'm singing a different tune. Check out my full app review of Pigment below to find out what changed my mind.
Following iTunes holiday freeze, Apple has now discounted Colorburn camera app to $0 as part of its regular Free App of the Week promotion in the App Store. With more than a thousand filters to choose from, an easy to use interface and advanced features like split photography, this app lets you experiment with different looks for your photos to your heart's desire. Colorburn for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad is available free until next Thursday.
It is officially 2016. Hopefully, last year treated you well, or at least didn't cause you too much pain. With a new year, comes a new hope of things to come, and new apps and games to fill your time.
This week, thanks to the holidays, the App Store was a little dry. So, instead of focusing on brand new titles, we are presenting a general list of apps and games that we just think are cool.