Apps

App Store highlights Sochi 2014 apps and music

With just one week left until the February 7 opening ceremony for the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, Apple's editorial team has published a conveniently curated App Store section which highlights some of the best iPhone and iPad applications to follow the Games, along with some Olympics related music.

"Immerse yourself in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics with this collection of official apps and music," writes Apple. "Follow the progress of your favorite athletes, track each country’s medal, listen to the Torch Relay anthem, and much more"...

Wallgram lets you create parallax wallpapers from Instagram pictures

Ever since Apple updated its mobile operating system to iOS 7, I’ve both loved and hated the parallax effect. I love having moving backgrounds via the dynamic wallpaper. I love having images that appear to move with me. However, I hate that the technology has broken my ability to use my own photos without needing some third party app.

Wallgram is one of those third party apps that make it possible for you to use your own pictures as wallpaper while maintaining the cool parallax feature. Plus, you can use images from Instagram…

Tales of Phantasia review: it’s not as bad as super fans are claiming

Nearly two decades ago, Namco launched a fun little role-playing game that incorporated traditional plot-heavy story development with real-time battle engagement. By 2006, the title made it to the U.S. where it generated a small, but fierce following.

The English version of Tales of Phantasia finally launched in the App Store last week. It has garnered praise for existing on Apple’s mobile platform, while simultaneously being cursed for its free-to-play format. Fans of the original are raging about having to pay in game for a free download, instead of paying full price up-front. What where they thinking?...

2K Games’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown and other titles on sale

Good news for folks looking to check out some new games this weekend. 2K Games has kicked off a sale on some of their most popular iOS games in celebration of the beginning of the Chinese New Year.

Headlining the sale is XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a highly rated turn-based action-strategy game, which normally costs a hefty $20. But for a limited time, you can grab it and other titles for half off or more...

Hopeless: The Dark Cave is an adorably frightening arcade shooter

Pow! Pow! Pow! Arcade shooters are a blast. Especially when there are zombies, mutants, or terrorists involved. Who would have thought killing monsters could be so cute?

Hopeless: The Dark Cave is an arcade shooter where the adorable glowing blobs are about as cute as animated marshmallows (think about it) and the monsters are so adorable they could have been hiding in Disney’s closet…

PopAGraph goes free as Apple’s Free App of the Week – make your photos pop now!

Like every Thursday, today Apple gets to slash another app to $0 in its ongoing Free App of the Week promo. A week ago today it was Disney's Where’s My Mickey? puzzler and now the App Store editors have named PopAGraph this week's Free App of the Week.

Released in April of last year, this nicely done photo-editing app for the iPhone and iPad by Flambe Studios LLC wants to make your photos pop, by allowing you to mask objects and pop them out to give them an impression of depth.

Grab it free in the App Store until next Thursday...

Foursquare now lets you order in from local restaurants

A fresh update to Foursquare’s free iPhone and iPad application has enabled an interesting new feature: from now on, whenever you fancy a bite - be it breakfast, lunch or dinner - you can use either the mobile app or the web interface at foursquare.com to find nearby restaurants that accept orders from Grubhub Seamless, the popular U.S. based online food ordering company.

You'll notice a new GrubHub or Seamless icon when browsing a place in Foursquare. Just tap it to place your order through GrubHub Seamless. To retrieve a list of nearby restaurants that will bring food to you and your hungry friends, simply search for 'delivery' (example: 'taco delivery')...

WordPress app updated with exclusive iOS 7 support, new design and more

Wordpress has posted an update for its iOS client today, bringing the app to version 3.9. The update should please users of the blogging service, as it brings about a number of improvements including a new, simpler user interface and exclusive iOS 7 support.

The new UI can be seen all around the app, from the enhanced login screen and notifications, to the streamlined tab menu. The editing for posts and pages has also been redesigned, and you'll notice comments, alerts and Reader have all received some TLC...

Yahoo refreshes Sports app with 2014 Sochi Games coverage, snappier navigation

With the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia peeking at us from around the corner - opening ceremony is on February 7 - Yahoo has updated its Sports iOS app with related 2014 Games content and a couple other improvements.

Among other changes: Yahoo Sports 5.0.2, now available free in the App Store, adds a new settings option to hide Top Loop on game details and features an improved news feed and article navigation. People with disabilities will appreciate accessibility improvements and everyone should dig snappier loading and just all-around smoother navigation.

Yahoo buys Donna virtual assistant maker Incredible Labs, will shut down app

Yahoo's shopping spree continues as the company announced Thursday its newest acqui-hire: San Francisco based Incredible Labs, the team behind a rather compelling virtual assistant app named Donna.

Incredible launched Donna on iOS last summer. Named after Donna Moss, the popular assistant from the TV show The West Wing, the software is basically a cross between Google Now and Siri.

The application strives to manage your day with features like smart notifications, an anticipatory calendar and in-app directions, to mention but a few. Donna would proactively tell you about upcoming appointments, dial into conference calls for you, let others know when to expect you by analyzing traffic conditions and your frequent locations - even taking into account the little things like the current parking situation.

In November, Donna got updated with Lock screen calling, smarter meeting scheduling and other features. Nothing indicated at the time that Incredible would slow the pace of Donna development, let alone sell out to Yahoo.

Unfortunately, there is some bad news for Donna fans out there: the Internet giant will be shutting down the application following the acquisition...

Evernote updated with customizable Home screen, UI themes, faster sync and more

Evernote has updated its free iPhone and iPad application with the much-welcomed ability to customize the user interface, skin it with themes, use more colorful notes and more. There are other changes and bug fixes, such as a new quality setting for audio notes for either sound or file size, or the ability to automatically save business card scans to your contacts. The company has transitioned to a new server infrastructure so you should be seeing up to four times faster sync between Evernote devices...

Launch Center Pro arrives on iPad

Launch Center Pro is a handy iPhone tool that can speed up common tasks and improve your productivity by allowing you to create complex actions and even chain them together to support advanced workflows by way of URL schemes.

Responding to customer feedback, Contrast, the team behind the app, on Thursday released a long-awaited iPad edition. Launch Center Pro for iPad, $4.99 in the App Store, offers more real estate to edit your actions and shortcuts.

The app makes it easy to carry over the actions you've built in the iPhone edition, integrates with Dropbox, supports the Fleksy keyboard input method and more...