App Store Apps

Bricks – Arcade Game review: a brick breaking game with a twist

The brick-breaking genre is decades old. Breakout was one of Atari’s early runaway hits in the mid 1970s. It spawned generations of clones and homages (Did you know that, if you type “Atari Breakout” into a Google image search, you can play the game with the image results?).

Bricks is a version of the brick-breaking genre that bucks tradition and leaves you with a completely new love of the arcade classic. Your iPhone is the paddle and the wall surrounds you in this new take on an old favorite. We’ve got a review of Bricks – Arcade Game for you below…

Start your morning off right with WhatAlarm [sponsored]

The folks at B&G present WhatAlarm, the alarm clock app that helps you get going in the morning by reading you the news, your reminders, appointments, weather conditions, as well as your horoscope.

WhatAlarm not only aims at waking you up but also telling you what your day looks like so you know ahead of getting out of bed. After opening the app to stop the alarm, WhatAlarm will kindly greet you and inform you about the weather for the day. Then it will read your reminders, the main news headlines, your horoscope, and finally will play your favorite radio station until you stop the app...

Apple updates WWDC app with 2014 conference schedule, confirms June 2 keynote

Apple's free WWDC app for iOS has been updated with relevant 2014 conference schedule and related content ahead of its upcoming developer-only event.

The 5-day Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off with a keynote on June 2 and will give us previews of iOS 8 code-named Okemo and OS X 10.10, code-named Syrah after a wine.

Version 2.0 of the WWDC app for the iPhone and iPad includes a brand new icon, a revamped design with an aesthetically pleasing orange theme and, more importantly, content support for the upcoming event. If you're not attending WWDC, the app is a nice way to follow the announcements as they happen, watch session videos uploaded throughout the week, browse floor plans and more...

Google Maps gains faster Street View transitions

Google last night issued a minor but welcomed update to its free Google Maps for iOS app. In addition to some bug fixes, version 3.1 now offers "smoother, faster transitions when you move through Street View."

The latest update arrives two weeks after the Internet giant issued a major 3.0 update, bringing the much-needed offline mode to Google Maps in addition to lane guidance, Uber integration, Voice Search, pins and more...

New ‘Notifyr’ app pushes your iPhone notifications to your Mac

A new iPhone app has surfaced in the App Store that offers a fairly unique feature: the ability to push notifications to your Mac. It's called Notifyr, and it utilizes a companion OS X client and Bluetooth LE tech to automatically send your iOS notifications to your desktop.

The whole thing is fairly easy to set up. After you've downloaded both the iOS app and the Mac client, you'll follow the usual bluetooth pairing procedure. And once that's done, you should start seeing all of your iOS notifications pop up in your Mac's Notification Center...

Southwest Airlines app now supports mobile boarding passes in 28 airports

Southwest Airlines posted an update for its official iOS client last night, bringing the app to version 2.4. The update includes a handful of improvements, such as faster access to tools like Checkin and Mobile Boarding Pass options.

Speaking of mobile boarding passes, the 2.4 update also adds support for the popular feature to a total of 28 airports. Previously, Southwest's mobile boarding passes could only be used in Austin, but now they're available nationwide...

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos updated with new album view, photo sorting and more

Amazon updated its Cloud Drive Photos iOS client this afternoon, bringing the app to version 3.1. The update brings about a new album view, as well as a new sorting feature, upload status indicator and various other improvements.

The new album view will allow Cloud Drive users to quickly scroll through their albums with large cover photos. And the new sorting feature brings the ability for users to sort their photos by either oldest to newest, or newest to oldest...

Kik messenger app gains handy new ‘new people’ section

Kik users will be happy to hear that the cross-platform messenger has updated its iOS client today, bringing the app to version 7.2. The update brings about a handful of new improvements, such as a new block and report feature and the ability to send stickers faster.

But easily the biggest change in 7.2 is the new 'new people' section. This allows you to easily manage your conversations with people who aren't in your contacts, and it blurs out photos and other content files from them until you decide that you'd like to view them...

Adobe Photoshop Touch updated with new brushes, Quick Selection tool and more

Adobe has updated its Photoshop Touch app for iPhone this afternoon, bringing it to version 1.2. The update includes new brush types, and a handful of popular Photoshop features including the Quick Selection tool and auto-recovery for unsaved documents.

The Quick Selection tool has the ability to automatically detect the edges of shapes within an image, meaning you won't have to manually outline the shape to select it for editing. This will really come in handy on touch devices, where selection can be tough...

Sky Force Anniversary remake landing June 5

Vertical scrolling shooter Sky Force will relaunch in the App Store as Sky Force 2014. The game is set to hit the international App Stores on Thursday, June 5, following the removal of Infinite Dreams' original Sky Force and its sequel Sky Force Reloaded from the App Store over iOS 7 incompatibility issues. "We're polishing some things up for the final release and will be submitting the binary next week," said Infinite Dreams...

Sega announces new Super Monkey Ball game coming this summer

Japanese games maker Sega has confirmed that a brand new Super Monkey Ball is set to bounce onto iOS this summer.

Unlike Sega's existing Super Monkey Ball arcade platformer for the iPhone and iPad ($0.99 Universal), the upcoming Super Monkey Ball Bounce represents an all-new way to play and includes the familiar characters such as AiAi and his crew.

You must basically rescue his playable monkey friends as you bounce, slide and rebound your way through jungles, volcanoes and glaciers, with game mechanics borrowing heavily from the classic mechanical game, Pachinko.

Super Monkey Ball Bounce soft-launched in the Canadian App Store yesterday. The game will be hitting international App Stores this summer, Sega said...

Twitter to try the music thing again, this time by buying SoundCloud?

Twitter last month discontinued its poorly received Twitter #music app, but that doesn't mean the micro-blogging giant has given up on music.

According to a report Monday by Re/code, Twitter is considering a deal to buy Berlin-based SoundCloud, the increasingly popular service enthusiasts use to upload, record, promote and share their originally-created sounds.

With a rather cool iOS app available in the App Store and installed user base of over 250 million people (as of October 2013) who turn to SoundCloud to listen to music and audio for free, the service/app has a lot to offer but can it possibly make Twitter relevant in the music space?

Read on for the full reveal...