New Apps & Games

This week's edition of our App of the Week roundup features a new map-based social app, a to-do list with a twist, and a new app that keeps you informed on new music releases from your favorite artists. And as usual, we've selected two great new games for you to check out.

YouMap

Events are constantly shaping the way we interact with each other and helping us decide where we go on any given day. With YouMap, you can let the world know what you’re thinking, seeing and feeling, while getting the latest updates at a moment’s notice. Obviously we're skeptical anytime a new social network comes on the scene, but YouMap seems to have the UI and user engagement needed to gain some traction. The early reviews are glowing, with one user saying this is the first social app to "get the map thing right." So if you're feeling adventurous this weekend, see what's going on around you with YouMap. It's available for free.

Purp To-Do List & Goal Tracker

Purp is a well-organized helper, to-do list and task manager app that allows you to achieve your goals and complete your daily tasks. Whatever your goals are—like completing projects, managing daily tasks, work todos, learning languages, mastering skills, sports or travel—Purp will help you to collect, keep, organize and track them, so you can reach them. Features include iCloud sync, task timer, progress dash board, and much more. The first reviews on iTunes are pretty rough, but the UI are feature set are unique enough that I think it's worth checking out. Purp To-Do List & Goal Tracker is available for free.

RecordBird

Record Bird informs you about new and upcoming music releases of your favorite artists and genres. Be the first to know of a new album or single by your favorite bands and musicians and share the news directly with your friends. With Record Bird, you will never miss a new release again. There have been more than a few apps that have tried a similar strategy, that didn't gain much traction. But the early user feedback (4.5 stars on 90 ratings in iTunes) suggest this one might have finally gotten it right. RecordBird is available for free.

Mini DAYZ - Survival Game

How long can you survive in a post-apocalyptic world? Find out in Mini DAYZ—an official pixel art rendition of the massively successful PC survival game (played by over 3 million fans). It's you against the world in Mini DAYZ: explore a randomly generated map and scavenge for food, ammo and supplies. Use anything you find to craft advanced items. Protect yourself against aggressive infected and ferocious wolves. But most important of all: make sure to stay dry, warm and well fed at all times. The weather out there can quickly get under your skin and your wounds will not heal without you treating them. Mini DAYZ - Survival Game is available for free.

Flippy Hills

Flippy Hills is an original arcade game with cool physics that will give you plenty of thrills, spills, epic wins, fails and tricks in two modes of your choice: campaign or arcade. Campaign mode features an adventure spanning over dozens of levels that get progressively harder, and arcade mode puts you in an endless barrage of assault courses to compete with your friends and gain records. The gameplay is surprisingly addictive, but you are going to have to put up with some annoying ads unless you're willing to fork over a few bucks via an in-app purchase. Flippy Hills is available for free (with some IAPs).

More apps to check out Apple’s free app of the week: Ridge Racer Slipstream You can now reply to Instagram Stories with photos and videos

This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a new artsy-photo editor, a new app for making stop-motion and animated videos, and an app for redacting sensitive information in a photo. And as usual, we've selected two great new games for you to check out.

Arty

I know what you're thinking: come on Cody, not another photo editor. But hear me out. Unlike other editors Arty does more than just apply filters. You can use it to create accurate line drawings, zoom in to view and edit tiny details, and pick out colors. It even tracks how long you've been working on your project. Other features include Faber Castell Polychromos color-matching, custom color swatches, shadows, outline, overlay grid, and much more. Turn your device into a Lightbox and trace your image or print your photo to an AirPrint printer from within the app. Arty is available for free.

Frame App

If you're looking for something fun and new to do this weekend, try making a stop-motion or animated film using Frame App. Here's how it works: open Frame App and take a picture. A transparent overlay of the first image will appear on top of your live camera view in a ghost-like manner. Use this ghost image as your guide to easily align and frame your next shot. Take as many photos as you need, then select the ones you like, and staring them together to make your movie. You can edit playback speed, direction and image size, and then export your clip into a GIF or MP4 video. Of course there are other apps that perform similar functions, but I appreciate the simple design here, and the early reviews are glowing. Frame App is available for free.

Redacted

Want to share a hilarious screenshot of your Facebook feed, but afraid to expose your friends or family? Check out Redacted. Yes, I know iOS has built-in image annotation tools and there are countless apps that do this for free, but it's a bit of a chore and it never seems to look right. Redacted makes it quick and easy to redact parts of an image by simply clicking and dragging. You have three options, pixelate, blur and black bar, and once you're done you can share the image to your favorite social network and other apps in the iOS Share Sheet. The app doesn't support PDF files yet, but the developer says it's working on it. This obviously isn't going to be for everyone, but the folks I have shared this app with bought it instantly. Redacted is available for $0.99.

Filmoji

The title explains it all. Filmoji is a game that presents you with a movie title written in emoji, and you have to guess what it is. As you can see from the screenshots, this is definitely a low-budget, indie-style game, but I thought it looked fun and it's nice to highlight lesser-known developers every now and then. I'm sure there's a similar title out there from Zynga (and if not they are probably working on one), but if you want to put your cinema knowledge to the test without a slew of ridiculous IAPs, this game is worth checking out. Filmoji is available for free.

Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow

Chances are, you've already heard about this game releasing this week, but it was still worth mentioning here. Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow is the next epic adventure for the popular animated franchise. Play with all your favorite characters, build your own New New York, combat against alien specials and explore unfamiliar planets on a mission to save the universe. The game is based on an all-new story, written by the creators of the original Fox series, and it features actual dialogue from David Cohen and his team. Yes, you're going to have to deal with pesky in-app purchases, but this is about as good as it gets for Futurama fans. Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow is available for free.

More apps to check out Enhance your iPad productivity with the new Prokeyboard app [sponsored] Apple’s free app of the week: Day One Journal Instagram unveils offensive comment filter, anti-spam tool in 9 languages Frustrated with Reminders? Taskful could be the answer to your woes New demos show how easy it is to bring 3D models to life with ARKit Skype for iPhone gains chat bots, its version of Stories, message & in-call reactions and more You can now edit text files right from Dropbox app Take notes on the fly with Apple Watch and SnipNotes

This week’s edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a fun augmented reality app, a deck of cards that will help you mix up your fitness routine, and a two-way radio client. And as usual, we've got two great new games for you to check out.

Holo

This app isn't new but with all of the augmented reality talk lately, I felt it was pertinent. Holo lets you add holograms of real people and animals into your world and take photos & videos to share with friends. Choose from a variety of holograms including movie characters, celebrities, athletes, musicians and comedians, as well as fun original characters and animals. New content added weekly. Now there are a few negative reviews complaining about performance, and this seems like something that could really benefit from Apple's new ARKit. But it's still worth checking out. Holo is available for free.

Sweat Deck

Sweat Deck is a deck of cards-style workout that will help you mix up your fitness routine with an endless combination of simple and effective workouts! The concept is simple: assign an exercise to each suit and perform them as cards are drawn from the deck—do you have what it takes to make it through an entire deck of cards? Features include a built-in list of common exercises to choose from, joker cards for adding an extra challenge, deck and rep multipliers for higher intensity workouts, and more. Sweat Deck is available for free (with one IAP).

Radio Callbox

Have an instant 2-way, push-to-talk audio connection with friends, family, or colleagues, without the burden of creating an account, logging in, or joining another social network. Now I know that there are other apps that do this, but the no-account needed really stood out to me. And some of you might be thinking if you have the cell service to download and use this app, why not just call the person? But I do think there are times and situations that are more conducive to 2-way radio-style conversations. Maybe a family uses this while camping, or at a theme park. Radio Callbox is available for free.

Touchdowners

Touchdowners is a simple, yet crazy physics-based sports game where you need to grab the ball and touch it down in your opponents end zone. You control a team of three highly trained Touchdowners who must pass, wrestle and jump their way to the end zone then slam the ball to the ground. Features include an arcade mode with global rankings, and a head-to-head 2 player mode. Touchdowners is available for free (with a single IAP).

Age of Rivals

Age of Rivals was inspired by strategy boardgames and designed to be ideal for 1 or 2 players to play in 10 minutes with plenty of depth and replayability. It's the "anti-deckbuilding" CCG, where having only minimal control over your deck encourages endless variety in each game and puts the focus on in-the-moment tactical decision-making. Unfortunately, there is no way to play this game offline at the moment (developers say they are working on that), but there are also no in-app purchases. All game content unlocks at a constant pace just by playing the game. Age of Rivals is available for $0.99.

More apps to check out The best iPhone apps for tracking steps Apple’s free app of the week: Telepaint Instagram testing private sharing feature

This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a new picture-in-picture sharing app, an easy-to-use beat-maker, and a task manager app with a unique twist. And as always, we've selected two new games for you to check out.

ClippyCam

ClippyCam is a new app that aims to make sharing photos and videos with your friends more fun. No, not with text or stickers or emojis—but with videos. Basically you record a video of yourself and it gets embedded in your photo or video in a picture-in-picture style. Think of it as a way to explain the photo or video you're sharing, or even as a way to brag about what you are doing. "Just hanging out in Hawaii, wish you were here!" The app itself is free, but you'll have to fork over $3 to remove the annoying watermark. ClippyCam is available for free.

Groovebox

Groovebox is a free, beautifully designed music studio app packed with inspiring synths and drum machines. In minutes you’ll be making beats, melodies, and playing with world-class instruments. Play with touchable instruments to quickly create your own beats and melodies, or draw in notes. Need inspiration? Groovebox has hundreds of patterns and sounds to get you started. I know there are a ton of these types of apps on the App Store already, but this one looks sharp and appears to have the features to make it worth checking out. Groovebox is available for free (with some IAPs).

Taskful

Taskful is a smart to-do list and task manager app that helps you stay on track and meet your deadlines. It breaks down all of your tasks and only shows you what you need to do today, so you can stay focused and motivated. Whether you are trying to track your steps, drink more water, or read that book you haven't picked up in a while, Taskful is designed to help you get stuff done. This is another app that is competing in a super crowded space, but again I think the design and feature set here make it worth a look. Taskful is available for $2.

Flipping Legend

Unleash the power of your fists, spells and weapons in this pattern-based adventure game. Hone your reflexes and be one with the environment as speed and rhythm become second-nature. Play with powerful heroes and unlock all their abilities and secrets to help better dispense your foes. Reach new and faraway lands not yet discovered by fellow travelers. Be a Flipping Legend! The game does have some annoying IAPs, but it has a 5-star rating on nearly 300 early reviews. Flipping Legend is available for free.

forma.8 GO

For those who aren't familiar with it, forma.8 is a unique take on the proven Metroidvania action-adventure formula, with a striking visual style and a huge world to explore. As the small exploration probe forma.8 you're stranded alone on the surface of an alien planet. Separated from your companions by accident you have a life or death mission to accomplish: find and recover a lost, powerful energy source before it's too late. Ancient civilisations, great perils and dystopian visions await you. And not everything is what it seems... Forma.8 GO is available for $4 (sale price).

More apps to check out This 5-star Mac productivity tool is on sale for just $4.99 Apple’s free app of the week: Beat Stomper Twitter revamped with dynamically updated Reply/Like/Retweet counts, Safari Reader support & more Box introduces macOS client for its cloud syncing service

This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a new Instagram-based travel guide, an app for posting and accepting wild challenges, and a new social network for linking up with friends. And as usual, we've selected two great new games for you to check out.

Sherpa

Sherpa is a community-generated travel guide powered by photos shared on Instagram. It's actually a very clever idea: an app that scrapes Instagram for photos tagged in specific locations, organized into a travel guide. Sherpa allows you to discover over 15,000 cities, regions and countries through the authentic lens of world travelers, adventurers and locals. Save the places you want to visit, and put together the ultimate itinerary. There is one small caveat here: at the time of writing, the app requires an invite code. But it's pretty simple to download the app and request an invite, so this shouldn't be much of a problem. Sherpa is available for free.

Trybeo

Do you find your life bored or lacking direction? Would you like to step outside your comfort zone and discover exciting new people and adventures? Check out Trybeo. It's a social network based around challenges—you can either accept posted challenges or propose your own. These consist of anything from flipping water bottles to doing cartwheels down an isle at the grocery store, or trying to knock a cone off your friend's head with a football. Take on challenges to become the best player, or up-vote worthy opponents. Trybeo is available for free.

Beacon

Use Beacon to signal your availability to your friends and family. Going to be in town for work or just general visiting? Send out a Beacon. Have an extra ticket to an upcoming Concert or want to go see a movie Thursday? Beacon. Post your impromptu event in Beacon and your friends will be notified immediately. When your friends join the event, you're notified immediately. Everyone can comment in the thread, and you can tell people where to go and what to expect. Bored? You're only two taps away from hanging out with a friend. Beacon is available for free.

Cobi Darts

The Cobi games, for me, are always a good time. The gameplay is accurate, fast-paced and easy to learn. Even if you don't like throwing darts in real life, I imagine you can find some fun in the challenge of Cobi darts. Features include 9 awesome game modes, including classic 501 and 301 games, custom darts and characters and even iMessage support. Cobi Darts is available for free (with some IAPs).

Art of Conquest

Looking for something a little different this weekend? Check out Art of Conquest. This new strategy game gives you full control in a world full of dwarves, magic and monsters in a perfect marriage of MMO and strategy. Besiege enemy strongholds to expand your kingdom, slay nefarious dragons with a band of legendary heroes, and challenge players around the world in epic real-time battles. Command, summon, build and explore. Art of Conquest is available for free (with some IAPs).

More apps to check out Apple’s free app of the week: Framed Monument Valley 2 hits App Store Apple announces completely redesigned App Store