Apps

Tumblr 4.0 for iOS gains blog creation, adds Today widget for trending tags and more

Yahoo-owned Tumblr today released a major update to its free iPhone and iPad client in the App Store. Tumblr 4.0 for iOS sports a number of new features, enhancements and nice-to-haves that make blogging from the palm of your hand a frictionless and more enjoyable experience than before.

For starters, you can now create new blogs (previously available through the web interface only), as well as delete entire blogs from inside the app. Video embedding has been made as easy as pasting a URL from YouTube or Vimeo or another such site.

Microsoft releases ‘Office Delve’ app for iPhone

Building upon its already enormous library of iOS software, Microsoft on Tuesday released 'Office Delve' for iPhone. The app serves as a mobile client to Microsoft's Office Delve service, which connects Office users to relevant people and documents.

The official tagline of the iPhone app is "find and discover documents through people you work with." Microsoft says the app will allow you to see what you and your colleagues are working on across Office 365 and suggest relevant documents to you.

VOX Music Player brings high-definition lossless audio to iPhone and iPad

VOX Music Player for Mac by Coppertino Inc. has gone iPhone. Available at no cost in the App Store, the application lets you enjoy high-quality music encoded in the lossless FLAC format on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Of course, you can play the usual assortment of lossy audio files, too, including MP3, AAC and just about any type of audio file format you could think of. For example, the app is capable of rendering music formats like APE, WMA and CUE which are not supported by iTunes natively.

Your music can also be cached for playing offline.

Kong for iPhone by Path developers lets you create instant memes from your selfies

A brand new app by Path creators (you do remember Path, don't you?), called Kong, is now available at no cost in the App Store. Billed as a piece of software designed to play with your selfies, Kong unleashes your imagination by letting you create GIFs of yourself in an instant.

You can make the bite-sized animated GIFs more interesting by adding text, applying filters to your selfie and more.

Your animated meme can then be shared with a private circle of friends or with the web at large through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other services. Kong is actually quite cool and addictive, let me explain why.

Glide becomes first app to bring one-way video calling to Apple Watch

Glide for iPhone has been updated on the App Store today with Apple Watch support, becoming the first app to bring one-way real-time video messaging to the wrist-worn gizmo. The app lets you see a preview of video messages up to five minutes long on your wrist and respond straight from your Apple Watch.

Other features include getting quick updates to the Watch when friends send you videos, texts or photos without needing to take out your iPhone, accessing all chats and missed events and more.

Smove review: use your best moves to get a high score

There aren’t many classic arcade style action games that are able to compensate for the iPhone's lack of physical buttons. The loss of tactile feedback is just too much to overcome, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy a nice score chasing romp on our phones. It just means that developers have to create new games that rely on completely different control schemes. Simple Machine’s Smove does just that.

You can now play Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft on iPhone

Fans of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be happy to hear that you can now play the game on your iPhone. Blizzard pushed out an update today for the popular card battler that, among other improvements, brings about support for Apple's handset.

Blizzard says the new iPhone version features an all-new intuitive interface, handcrafted specifically for smaller mobile devices. Those devices, however, are limited to the iPhone 4s, or later models, or the fifth-generation iPod touch (iPad 2 for tablets).

Activision bringing new Guitar Hero game to mobile this year

Gamers rejoice, Activision Blizzard Inc. has confirmed that it's reviving its Guitar Hero franchise this year, and it's bringing it to mobile. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that, after a five-year hiatus, the California-based publisher has begun work on a new version of the popular video game for consoles, tablets and smartphones.

"Now fans can unleash their inner rock star anytime, anyplace using a phone or a game console,” Activision Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick said in a statement. The new product is said to cost $99, and will follow tradition in allowing players to jam on a toy guitar to music from artists such as the Black Keys and Fall Out Boy.

FiftyThree’s Paper gains cloud journals, centralized social interactions and more

FiftyThree's iPad drawing app, Paper, has been refreshed Tuesday with a pair of new features (among other enhancements) — Backup and Activity Center.

The former lets you back up private copies of your journals in the cloud so you don't lose your Paper data in case your iPad is stolen or damaged (and you didn't have enough space on iCloud for full device backup via iOS).

The Activity Center is a new place in Paper's Mix service that collates all your social activity in one place. For those wondering, Mix is an online repository of Paper content posted by creative users from around the world.

Here’s 1Password for Apple Watch

Developer AgileBits on Tuesday announced an update to its freemium password-management app for the iPhone and iPad, 1Password, which now includes Apple Watch compatibility.

So, what's managing passwords, secure notes and other confidential information is like on your wrist? According to developers, “it only takes a couple of taps” to retrieve your stored items such as a combination for your gym locker or garage door, look up your credit card number or even retrieve a one-time password on websites that use two-factor authentication for stronger security.

Crowntakers brings tabletop RPGing to the iPad

There are plenty of dungeon crawl style role-playing games (RPG) in the App Store. Many of them are worthy of many hours of your time. Most of them follow a video game format of rules and alter the role-playing element of such tabletop classics as Dungeons and Dragons.

Crowntakers takes into account the little elements, like time passing or attacks of opportunity. In this adventure, every minute counts and every day brings more danger.