Apps

Adventures of Poco Eco – Lost Sounds combines music and puzzle in a retro future

There have been a number of bands and artists that have collaborated with app developers to come up with a way to release an album digitally. There are apps with videos, scrapbook style content, and even strange visual elements.

Adventures of Poco Eco is a game created to coincide with the launch of Hungarian musician Iamyank’s newest six-song album, Lost Sounds. Players explore a visually dense dreamy atmosphere while listening to the album. Solve mini puzzles to unlock new levels and hear new songs.

Apple reportedly doing away with antivirus apps in the App Store

Apple has decided to eliminate the category of anti-virus and anti-malware products from the App Store, according to security firm Intego.  The company announced this week that Apple informed them of their decision after pulling their app 'VirusBarrier for iOS.'

"To be clear, this wasn’t an action directed specifically at Intego, we were one of several companies affected by Apple's decision," writes Intego's Jeff Erwin. Erwin adds that users will continue to get virus definition updates, but there will be no more updates to the app.

iPhoto for Mac updated before dying at hands of new Photos app

Apple has released an update for the iPhoto for Mac app on Thursday, updating the software that's on its death bed before Apple transitions users to the new Photos app.

The update, available through the Mac App Store's software update tool, will help users transition their photo libraries to Apple's new software when it's eventually made available to the public. 

Swifty helps you learn to code in Swift directly from your iPhone

Want to learn to code in Apple's new programming language, Swift? There's now an app for that, too! Swifty for the iPhone and iPad may be the best introduction to programming you've ever used.

Created by develop Johannes Berger, not only is the iOS app a great insight into Apple's new programming language for third-party iOS and OS X development, but a comprehensive guide which will tech you Swift basics and coding with more than two-hundred interactive lectures.

OmniOutliner for iPad goes universal

OmniOutliner for iOS has gone universal and is now available on both the iPhone and iPad, The Omni Group announced today. Previously an iPad-only affair, Omni Outliner 2.3 now lets you work with your outlines on the iPhone and iPod touch as well.

Although developers wanted to bring the app to the Apple smartphone for years, getting a robust syncing solution in place and modernizing the iPad app took much longer than expected — hence the unfathomable delay.

Atari releases fitness app that rewards your progress with games

Need another fitness app to put on your iPhone? How about a gamefied fitness software which motivates you to get in shape by providing unlockable games to play? Enter Atari Fit.

I know what you're thinking, Atari is a video game publisher. That was my first thought, too, and it seems Atari is keen to leverage the popularity of Apple's HealthKit platform to attract fitness buffs to its classic games in some novel ways.

Major Pixelmator for iPad update brings new watercolor painting mode, brushes and more

Pixelmator for iPad, the closes thing to a full-blown Photoshop tablet alternative, today received a massive update. Aptly codenamed Aquarelle, it's all about bringing watercolor painting features based on some pretty unique technology that can replicate real-life watercolor brushes.

In addition to a dozen artist-designed watercolor brushes and watercolor painting technology which allows creating real-life-looking watercolor paintings, Pixelmator 1.1 sports an optimized engine with up to two times faster painting performance, support for third-party styluses with enhanced pressure sensitivity features and much more. 

Dice Town comes to iOS: get ready to gamble

If you follow my reviews, you know how much I love board games that are ported to iOS. I am especially excited about the ones I’ve never had the chance to play in real life. I can find out whether I want to invest in the board game by playing a few rounds of the digital version.

Dice Town Mobile is an iOS port of the land grab game of luck and fortune. Just like in trading stocks, the more you risk, the bigger the win. But, the higher the stakes, the more chance you have of losing it all.

Fast Toggles 2, now with twice as many toggles and Yosemite support

The makers of the original productivity bundle Fast Toggles has just recently launched a brand new package with additional functions to make your daily computing actions a few steps easier.

Fast Toggles 2 is a file download package for Mac that is filled with quick button shortcuts for such things as Dark Mode, Do Not Disturb controls, and seven-pass erase for your trash folder.

Review: create iTunes affiliate links with Blink for iPhone and iPad

Whenever you click or tap on a link which leads to an iPhone/iPad/Mac app in the App Store/Mac App Store, or a movie, TV show episode or electronic book carried on iTunes, we earn a very small commission fee on each sale coming from that link.

Though not much, these things add up and anything that helps us run the site and keep the lights on for you guys is worth the effort from our standpoint.

For those not in the know, anyone can sign up to become an iTunes affiliate partner. Too bad Apple's web application for generating affiliate links is so tedious and a pain in the you-know-what.

Introducing Blink (or Better Affiliate Links) from Squibner, a nifty little iPhone and iPad application which eliminates the hassle of manually creating iTunes affiliate links with your own tokens and campaign tags.

Launcher is back on App Store as Apple’s stance on widget restrictions softens

Launcher, a tremendously useful iOS application by Greg Gardner for creating app, web and contact shortcuts available from a widget inside the Notification Center, is now back on the App Store following a six-month hiatus. The update is still propagating and it should hit all App Stores worldwide in the coming hours.

The original app was short-lived.

Following its App Store debut on September 17 of last year, the day iOS 8 was released, Apple removed Launcher just a week later citing a misuse of widget functionality.

Thankfully, the re-released app continues to offer the same features like its predecessor, indicating Apple may have softened its stance on launching other apps via the Today view of iOS 8's Notification Center.