App Store Apps

Rocket Robo review: help a lonely robot reach the stars

Gaming on mobile devices has gotten better over the past few years. Things have really heated up since the launch of the iPhone 5s and the iPad Air. Graphics and performance have improved greatly, making it possible for mobile game makers to create some fairly incredible titles.

Rocket Robo is a puzzle game that features great graphics, unique movement mechanics and a sprinkling of arcade action...

Popular ‘Flappy Bird’ game earning $50k per day in ad revenue

While discussing the latest mobile gaming craze that is Flappy Bird on our recent Let's Talk iOS podcast, I wondered out loud how much money the developer was making from his newfound success. The game, which is free with ads, has enjoyed a spontaneous reign at the top of the App Store.

Apparently he's doing rather well for himself. In a recent interview with The Verge, developer Dong Nguyen says that Flappy Bird is earning an average of $50,000 per day from ads. It's been download over 50M times, and has been sitting atop iOS and Android app stores for nearly a month...

Threes mixes matching and math for a minimalistic strategy game

Sudoku intimidates me. It’s not that I don’t like math. It’s just that puzzle games based on numbers reminds me of middle school. I feel like some unseen teacher is hovering over me, judging my abilities.

Threes is a minimalistic matching game that doesn’t require you to solve any kind of puzzle, so you can get your math fix without feeling like you have to show your work…

Classic iPhone game Eliss gets remade for 2014

Avid gamers among you who owned the original iPhone surely remember Eliss. Created by Steph Thirion and released in March 2009, Eliss was one of the first iPhone puzzlers that wouldn't implement multitouch controls as an afterthought. It went on to win numerous awards and was called by many a multitouch masterpiece. Eliss challenged you to move around a bunch of planets and split/combine them with other planets of the same size/color.

On paper, the concept doesn't sound terribly revolutionary or exciting. But once you picked it up, however, there was no putting Eliss down - it was that addictive. Unfortunately, the creator stopped updating the game just three months following its release: the last refresh was in June 2009.

Turns out other projects have kept Steph occupied - among them a brand new and polished remake of the original Eliss game...

Apple pulls Bitcoin wallet app Blockchain from App Store

Apple on Thursday pulled from its App Store the last remaining Bitcoin wallet app that allowed transactions. Blockchain, the only Bitcoin trading and storage iOS app, has been downloaded 120,000 times. It can no longer be found on the App Store following the removal over an "unresolved issue".

Nicolas Cary, the CEO of London-based Blockchain.info which developed the app, told Bloomberg he didn't understand Apple's reasoning as his app's been on the App Store for two years.

Apple previously pulled Bitcoin-compatible apps from the App Store or asked their developers to remove the transfer feature because it's illegal in some countries...

Track your progress as you learn something new with Better Every Time app

I am big on crafting and do-it-yourself projects. If there is one think I’ve learned from my many attempts to create handmade stuff, it is that practice is the key to getting better. I fail nearly every time I try something new. However, by the third or fourth attempt, I’ve improved greatly.

Better Every Time is a journaling app that makes it easy for you to track your progress when attempting to get better at something. As you work at it, record what happens so that you will know what not to do the next time around…

Final Fantasy VI now available in the App Store

Great news this morning for all of you Final Fantasy fans. Square Enix's mobile version of the series' classic sixth episode is now available in the App Store and can be downloaded for both the iPhone and the iPad.

Final Fantasy VI first debuted in 1994, and is highly regarded as one of the best titles in the franchise. And for its iOS debut, the game has been completely rebuilt with easy touch controls and enhanced graphics...

Amazon app now lets you search for things by taking photos of them

Amazon has pushed an update to its iOS app, enabling a new feature called Flow. The feature allows users to search for items on the website by simply scanning them in the app using their iPhone's camera. Need a stapler? Just point your iPhone at one.

Flow recognizes via shape, size, color, box text, and general appearance, and can analyze multiple items at a time. Hold your iPhone up to a row of products and every recognizable item is placed in a queue that can then be added to your Amazon cart...

Major update to Tempo Smart Calendar adds People Insights, Smart Alerts and lots more

We were pretty ecstatic when Tempo Smart Calendar launched last Spring. Here was a comprehensive app that dared to think differently about what calendar apps for the iPhone should be like.

If you're not familiar with Tempo, the app couples your typical to-dos and calendar items with phone, email and SMS functionality while providing the smart-assistant functionality to look up flight statuses, extract meeting data from emails (Mailbox is supported) and more.

In today's update, Tempo has brought out three major new features and a whole bunch of nice-to-haves, adding up to its arsenal of the already strong productivity features...

Battletoads-inspired game ‘Toad Rider’ hits the App Store

Good news for those longing to relive their glory days in the form of a nostalgia-evoking video game. Toad Rider, a new iPhone and iPad game inspired by the classic NES title 'Battletoads,' is now available in the App Store.

The game was actually modeled after one specific part of the original Battletoads game—the notorious Turbo Tunnel level that has you maneuver your hoverbike around obstacles. And it makes for a great endless runner...

How to read iDownloadBlog from Facebook’s new Paper app

I'm usually not much of a Facebook user but I have to admit I have been spending more time on the social network in the last two days than I have in the whole last month. Why is that? It's simply due to their new app named Paper, which lets you browse Facebook in a beautiful and intuitive way. If you haven't tried it yet, I really encourage you to have a look at it. It might change the way you see Facebook, at least until they slap a bunch of ads on it.

Although there is no way to customize the sections of Paper with the content of your choice besides the default ones, I want to show you how you can browse through iDB's latest post using Paper...

BlackBerry rolling out Find Friends feature to BBM for iOS

Troubled handset vendor BlackBerry today issued an update for its cross-platform messaging software, BBM, bringing out a new Find Friends feature.

Whereas previously you had to punch in a person's BlackBerry ID or email address to add him or her to your list of BBM contacts, today's update simplifies the process by detecting which contacts in your iPhone's Contacts are already using BBM, so you can quickly send them an invite to join your BBM contact list.

The free update is going live in the App Store later today so make sure to grab it (if you're still using BBM, that is)...