App Store Apps

Top Bot review: this multiplayer racing game challenges gravity

Jim Gresham ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Slowly, I am becoming more of an iOS multiplayer fan. Original hesitancy spawned from my unwillingness to invest large quantities of time hovered over my iOS device learning the ropes on a new app. As I have said time again, there is no personal interest in long complicated games for my portable Apple products.

Because of my predilection for quick pick up and play games, multiplayer was typically out of the question. However, with the advent of time shifted multiplayer, made famous but not created by Real Racing 3, I now dabble in other similarly crafted apps. For example, one of my new favorite games, that I never knew existed, is Top Bot, a multiplayer robot racing challenge for best speed...

Make your photos pop with PopAGraph

Lory Gil ∙ April 12, 2013

Since the dawn of the camera phone, photography hobbyists have found ways to turn low-resolution, pixelated images into works of art. When Apple put a camera in the iPhone, it literally changed the photography landscape, allowing anyone to turn the most mundane images into interesting photos using a wide variety of apps.

PopAGraph is a photo-editing app for the iPhone and iPod touch that takes it one step further by allowing you to mask objects and “pop” them out. This gives the impression of a virtual three-dimensional picture that you can share immediately on social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter...

Mittens by Disney pounces onto iPhone and iPad [review]

Jim Gresham ∙ Updated February 18, 2018

Disney made quite the name for themselves in the iOS app world with hit titles like Where's My Water?, Where's My Perry?, and more recently Monsters, Inc. Run. Christian previously mentioned Disney's new physics puzzler Mittens would be a good one to keep your eye on. After spending a bit of my weekend with my new favorite feline friend, alley cat Mittens, I am happy to report that Disney has done it again.

The physics based puzzler is everything I have come to expect from my preferred iOS games. I'm not one to sit on the couch and plow through games on my iPad mini, but I do really like the pick up and play nature of this particular genre. It seems Disney may be perfecting this style game as it continues to develop quick, fun, and pleasing games anyone can immediately play with a small learning curve...

AppGratis rejection may point to wider App Store enforcement

Ed Sutherland ∙ April 10, 2013

Apple may be preparing to scrub its App Store of companies offering to promote other apps through paid partnerships with their developers.

The removal of the AppGratis curation software from the App Store earlier this week "was the first step" by Apple to enforce the recently-announced portions of the App Store Review Guidelines, according to one tech news outlet.

And while the AppGratis teams argues this is “far from finished,” looks like the legitimacy of the App Store's ranking feature is at stake. On the surface, it seems Apple believes it is being threatened by third-party software for iDevices designed to recommend other apps, including promoting apps via social media.

Although developers debate the meaning of two clauses in Apple's guidelines, the iPhone and iPad maker wants to head off any confusion by consumers, the Wednesday report suggests...

Stone Age: The Board Game builds empires on your iOS device

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

I consider myself an avid board gamer. I’ve always loved them. Family night at my house meant hours and hours of monopoly. Even road trips required some travel version of Hasbro’s greatest hits. As I got older, I discovered some of the more complex board games and began what can now only be considered an unhealthy fascination with the genre.

I think of it as unhealthy because I will regularly fork over between $50 and $80 for a game that will inevitably end up on a shelf, having been opened once. You see. My friends don’t play board game. They either prefer role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, or just don’t waste time with games at all.

That’s why I love board game apps so much. Most of them let you play a full game against one or more computer-generated opponents. Some of them even allow you to compete against others through Game Center. Stone Age: The Board Game by Campfire Creations is one of those board game apps that let’s you play alone, with friends, or against perfect strangers online.

The goal of this empire-building game is to earn more victory points than your opponent. To do so, collect buildings, workers, tools, and specialists through collecting resources and trading with other tribes. The more bountiful your land, the more points you earn. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins...

Chrome for iOS updated with fullscreen iPhone browsing and new print options

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 11, 2018

Good news Chrome users, Google has updated its popular browser for iOS today. The update, which brings the app to version 26.0.1410.50, features a few handy new additions, including fullscreen browsing for the iPhone and iPod touch.

The app includes a few UI changes that make the new fullscreen browsing mode work, and a few new print and save options. Users can now print web pages with Google Cloud Print, or AirPrint, and save pages as PDF files to Google Drive...

Apple claimed $3 out of each $4 top app stores made in Q1

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

In the latest sign of the importance apps play in smartphone adoption, more than thirteen billion downloads were recorded during the first three months of 2013, according to a Monday report.

The survey of the four leading app stores also found Apple, Google and others earned $2.2 billion from apps, an eleven percent increase over the final quarter of 2012.

Whereas Apple leads in terms of revenue - and by a large margin, too - Google's Play Store, thanks to a large installed base of Android devices, has the upper hand in terms of download count. Specifically, the App Store collected 74 percent of the revenue of top app stores, while Google Play led registered 51 percent of apps obtained...

AppGratis CEO sheds further light on App Store removal

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 11, 2018

As most of you have probably heard by now, Apple pulled the popular app discovery app AppGratis over the weekend. There's been a few reasons given for the removal, including notification abuse, but not much else has been said about the situation.

Until today, that is. AppGratis CEO Simon Dawalt took to the company's blog this morning to talk about the recent removal of his team's app, and shed some light on what it means for them moving forward. And to be honest, it doesn't look good...

App Store app works with jailbreak theme to create custom Lock screens

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 28, 2018

Trying to find a decent Lock screen theme in Cydia is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of them in there, and there are way more bad ones than there are good. So you're forced to spend hours browsing.

But what if I told you there was an app in the App Store that, when coupled with a jailbreak theme, allowed you to either create your own custom Lock screen themes, or download hundreds of free themes, with a few quick taps?

Well, such an app exists. And if you haven't seen it yet, this post is going to make your day...

Apple yanks China app carrying books critical of the government

Ed Sutherland ∙ April 4, 2013

Apple has again moved to prevent anger from China. The Cupertino firm has pulled one bookstore app from the China iTunes store which hosted several titles by authors critical of the government.

Among the ten titles affected by the bookstore app's removal were three by a banned Chinese author and political activist. The books focus on the long-running dispute over China's occupation of Tibet, as well as the author's detention by the country's state security.

The action follows an apology by Apple CEO Tim Cook, after criticism over the iPhone maker's warranty policy for smartphones sold in the country...

Track down the elusive Mister X as he wanders through Scotland Yard

Lory Gil ∙ April 4, 2013

Scotland Yard is a cops-and-robbers style evasion game that is a digital replica of the 1980s board game of the same name. Players take turns trying to figure out where the elusive “Mister X” is hiding out by tracking his possible whereabouts based on his movement abilities. If you can’t find him after 22 moves, then he has successfully outwitted his opponents. If you choose to play as Mister X, your only goal is to stay hidden until the cops give up.

The Scotland Yard app has been a popular board game app for iOS since its launch in May of 2012. The original European distributor of Scotland Yard, Ravensburger, has recreated the complex board game for iPad and iPhone and we wanted to know how it compares on both devices.

As a die-hard fan of the board game genre, I’ve spent some time with Scotland Yard on the iPhone, as well as the iPad and have an in-depth look at how the game plays on both devices...

Rdio launches new Vdio streaming video service

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Last week we heard a rumor that music subscription service Spotify was looking to get into the streaming video space. But it looks like their rival has beat them to it. Today, Rdio has launched its own streaming video service called Vdio.

But unlike what we heard about Spotify's plans, Vdio doesn't really look like a Netflix competitor. It's actually a lot more like iTunes, in that it will let you rent and purchase videos from the service and then stream them to your devices...