App Store Apps

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition review

Icewind Dale came out 14 years ago on Windows computers. In 2000, I still hadn’t even begun playing Dungeons & Dragons on a regular basis, so this title slipped past my view for many years.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition recently launched on iOS and it features all of the familiar settings of the Forgotten Realms, plus includes a few new spells, text options and other enhancements that bring the game to life in the mobile arena. We’ve got a hands-on game review of Icewind Dale for you today.

Ubisoft releases ‘Arcade Poker’ tie-in game for Far Cry 4

Ubisoft has launched a new tie-in title for the highly anticipated Far Cry 4, set to launch on consoles and PCs today, called Far Cry 4 Arcade Poker. It's a standalone app, but players can sync it up with the new Far Cry to earn currency that can be used in the game.

Arcade Poker is an interesting game that plays like a mix of tetris, poker and something else. Cards fall from the top of the screen, and can be randomly shuffled until they hit the bottom to build a 5-card poker hand. The better the hand, the more coins you'll be given.

eBay app update allows you to create, pay for and print shipping labels

Popular auction site eBay has updated its iOS client, bringing the app to version 3.5. The update brings about a handful of improvements, including performance and speed boosts and various new country-specific features.

The release adds new checkout features in Germany and Australia, and a new click and collect option for Argos in the UK. Users can now purchase something from Argos on eBay in-app, and choose to pick the item up locally.

WhatsApp updated with support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus

The Facebook-owned cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp has updated its iOS client today, bringing the app to version 2.11.14. The team says the new version fixes bugs and crashes, as well as adds support for the new iPhones.

The app now looks great on the larger display of the iPhone 6, and the larger, higher resolution display of the iPhone 6 Plus. WhatsApp, which Apple labels as an App Store "Essential," was one of the few remaining top tier apps to update.

Dropbox app gains larger photo thumbnails and more in latest accessibility focused update

Dropbox, the hot cloud-storage startup which a few years back turned down an acquisition offer from Steve Jobs, on Monday gave its mobile client for the iPhone and iPad significant new accessibility improvements to make sure it’s simple to get stuff done if your vision or hearing is impaired.

Based on both Dropbox's own customer research and feedback from the AppleVis community, the improved software makes it easier for people with disabilities to use the app with Apple's VoiceOver feature when logging in to Dropbox, navigating actions within the app and more.

The new accessibility features will be rolling out to users later today, the company said.

Dropbox is a free download from the App Store.

Spotify could soon start serving podcasts

According to code strings that developer Ethan Lee uncovered from a beta version of the Spotify 2.0 app, podcasts may be coming soon to the world's most popular streaming-music service hailing from Sweden.

Code strings directly reference podcast subscriptions, giving hope that users will be able to listen to the latest episode of their favorite podcast, in addition to streaming their music, right inside Spotify's mobile and desktop app.

Team17 slashes all Worms games to 99 cents in 19th anniversary sale

Team 17, a British video game developer behind the Worms series of games, has slashed all Worms games on the App Store to just 99 cents in celebration of the series' 19th anniversary.

Older readers will remember Worms as one of the best games for the Amiga personal computer in 1995. Team17 continued development of the various Worms games with Worms: The Director's Cut which arrived in 1997 with improved gameplay and graphics. The series has since made a jump to consoles and PCs.

Featuring cartoonish pixel art graphics, smooth multi-layered scrolling and an interesting mix of turn-based gameplay, humor and hilarious weaponry, the franchise has gone on to be very successful, selling over twelve million units worldwide to this date.

Apps of the week: Overglide, Golfinity, Endless Doves, and more

This was a good week for apps and games. Not only were there some new console-quality additions to the list, but also some of our old favorites received major updates, making them even better than ever. If you are looking for something new that didn’t necessarily show up on the radar this week, we’ve got a list of apps and games that we think are still worth talking about.

Tales from the Borderlands premier trailer and first details surface

Entertainment Weekly on Friday shared first details concerning The Walking Dead creator Telltale's upcoming game series, Tales from the Borderlands. Based on Gearbox and 2K’s Borderlands 2, Tales from the Borderlands takes place on the unforgiving world of Pandora after the events seen in Borderlands 2.

The five-part episodic game series puts you in the shoes of Rhys, a Hyperion ‘suit’ with dreams of being the next Handsome Jack, and Fiona, a Pandoran con artist looking to score her biggest ever swindle, as you follow the adventurers “on their quest for greatness”.

Type Nine keyboard lets you type like it was 1998

With all of these new iOS 8 keyboards now available, there is just too much fun to be had. You can translate text with Slated, code with UniChar Picker, and use ScribbleBoard because drawing is more fun than typing. It just keeps getting better. Now, the trend is for keyboards for fat fingers.

Type Nine is a big keys keyboard for those extra thick digits. Only unlike apps like Thick Buttons, this one harkens back to before there were such a thing as keypads for smartphones. So, all you old school flip phone typers will enjoy some retro texting.

Penultimate 6 is out with new UI design, improved search and more

Evernote updated its popular note-taking/sketch app Penultimate this morning, bringing it to version 6.0. As the build number implies, the update is significant, ushering in a complete UI redesign, new full screen and highlighting tools, and various improvements.

The new UI design is easily the most noticeable change in 6.0, and it makes for smoother writing and better organization. The new full screen mode is also a great addition, as it allows you to write continuously in full screen without stopping—eliminating distractions.

GoodReader introduces advanced text-to-speech for PDF and TXT documents

I rely on GoodReader to manage files and documents on my iOS devices in one central location. Being a heavy reader, I mostly keep various documents and e-books stored in GoodReader.

Today's update to GoodReader's iOS app contains a whole bunch of new features, improvements and fixes, chiefly a cool text-to-speech capability that speaks passages of text in text files and PDF documents.

It's customizable with different speeds, supports dozens of languages, has playback controls, highlights spoken words in real-time, lets you multitask while listening to spoken word and more. This update is being provided free of charge to existing GoodReader users.

Download GoodReader for the iPhone and iPad for $4.99.