Apps

The best VR apps and games available on the App Store right now

For years, techy gifts have been on an unstoppable rise and these holidays more than ever, new VR headsets of all kinds were added to the mix. If you are one of the lucky receivers of a Cardboard or any other generic pair of VR goggles compatible with your iPhone, your first address to go for VR-ready apps should of course be the App Store.

To help you get on top the bulk of apps available and break the tedious ‘download, try and delete’ chain, we have been weeding through the vast app-scape and given VR-ready apps a hard look. If you want to put your new toys to good use, here is a list of some of the best VR games and apps we believe you will want to embark on first.

Picky, Dashpop, Timebomb Messenger, and other apps to check out this weekend

Happy holidays everyone! It's been kind of a slow week in terms of news and app releases, but don't worry, we were still able to put together a solid list of apps and games for you to check out this weekend. The roundup includes an app that uses AI to pick out your best photos, a new todo list app with a fun twist, and a messaging client that lets you decide when your messages can be opened.

Cuttlefish tints 3D Touch menu backgrounds on the Home screen to match the app color

Those who use 3D Touch to access the Home screen menu shortcuts from application icons know its usefulness for getting to specific app actions quickly. On the other hand, all of the 3D Touch Home screen menus are pretty bland, and no matter what app you use the 3D Touch gesture on, the menu is always the same color.

A new free jailbreak tweak called Cuttlefish aims to change that by dynamically colorizing the menu background blur to match the dominant color of the application icon you’re using the 3D Touch gesture on.

Video converter Handbrake exits beta after 13 years

In a better-late-than-never move, the free cross-platform video converter Handbrake has finally hit version 1.0. The app had been languishing in beta for more than thirteen years. Handbrake 1.0, a free download for Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and other platforms, lets you convert videos easily from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. With subtitle support, capable transcoding engine and built-in presets for devices like Apple TV, iPhone and iPad, Handbrake makes it easy to optimize videos for your specific hardware.

Spotify for Mac gains Touch Bar shortcuts

Spotify for Mac was updated this morning with support for Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro models, German outlet Giga.de reported. A few handy music-playback controls are now available in Spotify's Mac app directly from the Touch Bar, including common controls such as transport and search, as well as persistent Now Playing buttons like play, pause, shuffle, repeat and the volume slider.

Have any Health information at a glance with HealthFace for Apple Watch

The developer team at Crunchy Bagel has taken the wraps of HealthFace, a product designed to assist regulars of Apple’s Health app in monitoring their vital data on the fly. HealthFace is capable of reaching deep into your personal Health catalogue and displaying virtually any data point in form of a complication on your wrist.

For users constrained to keeping a close eye on their vitals, food intake or other health related parameters, the app sets out to become a quasi extension of Apple’s Health app.

Infuse 5 gains collections, 3D Touch actions, video deinterlacing, searching on Apple TV & more

Infuse 5 for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV [review] launched in the App Store a month ago with features like iCloud settings sync, Up Next, streaming from cloud-storage services, Split View and Picture in Picture multitasking support on iPad Pro, iPad Air 2 and other compatible iPad models and much more.

aTV Flash Black developer Firecore, the brains behind this versatile media player app, has now released 5.1 update for Infuse with support for a new Collections feature, search and video deinterlacing on Apple TV, 3D Touch shortcuts on iOS Home screen and more.

Email client Spark for Mac adds a bunch of new productivity features in latest update

Less than a month ago, Ukrainian developer Readdle launched Spark for Mac with Touch Bar support and many advanced features to help you achieve Inbox Zero Nirvana. Last evening, the app received a bunch of new features in the new 1.1 update. You can now assign a different color to each email account so it's easier to distinguish in the account list. Multiple messages can now be marked as spam at once, IMAP folders can be created directly from the sidebar, contacts now sync with your address book and more.

Revamped iCloud Photos web app rolling out to everyone

Apple today launched a redesigned Photos web app at iCloud.com/#photos following a period of testing when the software was available to beta testers via beta.icloud.com. The app runs in a web browser and sports several improvements to make it behave more like its desktop counterpart, such as a brand new sidebar on the left and a handy thumbnail scrubber when viewing an image.

djay Pro for iPhone is out: 4-deck mixing, waveform haptics, 3D Touch cue points & more

German developer Algoriddim today completed its lineup of apps for DJs by releasing djay Pro for iPhone following the launch of djay Pro for iPad a year ago and djay Pro for Mac two years ago.

The app puts the complete djay experience in the palm of your hand and provides some iPhone 7-specific features, like unique haptic feedback that lets you literally feel the beats while scratching and scrubbing the music, support for 3D Touch so you can quickly set a cue point by pressing and more.

djay Pro for iPhone is available on the App Store at the introductory sale price of $4.99.

Viber launches instant video messages, chat extensions, redesigned emoji & more

About a month and a half ago, Viber rolled out Public Accounts as a new way to reach brands. Today, the messaging service pushed another update to its mobile app on the App Store. With Viber 6.5.5 for iPhone, you can now send instant video messages to contacts, share interesting online content with chat extensions without leaving the app, enjoy completely redrawn emoticons and add up to 250 participants to a group chat.