New Apps & Games

Nintendo: company’s second mobile game will focus on a “familiar” character

Following the continued decline in popularity of Nintendo's game consoles and portable gaming systems, the Japan-based game maker has been forced to make the tough financial decision of developing for smartphones and tablets despite never wanting to in the first place.

Nintendo plans to have at least five mobile games available for such devices by March of 2017 as a part of its collaboration with DeNA, and now details regarding Nintendo's intentions for a second mobile game have surfaced.

Ubisoft confirms action RPG Assassin’s Creed — Identity is launching on February 25

Following its soft-launch on the App Store in Australia and New Zealand in September 2014, action RPG Assassin's Creed — Identity will be finally launching worldwide on February 25, French games maker Ubisoft confirmed yesterday on Twitter.

Filed as the first Assassin’s Creed action RPG game for mobile devices, Identity features open sandbox levels and lets you create, evolve and customize your own assassins and play them in the iconic Renaissance Italy setting.

Revamped NHL app with HD live video, picture-in-picture support and more now available

Today, the National Hockey League (NHL) has rebooted its iOS application with tons of goodies, including full support for iOS 9 features like picture-in-picture mode on compatible iPad models.

The new NHL 7.0 app delivers high-definition live video streaming at a silky smooth sixty frames per second on the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6s Plus.

It also provides the ability to subscribe to NHL Premium, a new package that lets you watch the dramatic final minutes of NHL games, including 3-on-3 OT and shootouts, and extended highlight packages, and includes a bunch of other enhancements that hockey fans will very much appreciate.

Mac email client Airmail hits iPhone with snooze, 3D Touch, interactive notifications and more

Airmail, the popular desktop email client for the Mac, is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch. Lightweight and fast, Airmail by Italy-based developer Bloop packs in a number of advanced features such as support for 3D Touch shortcuts on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, interactive notifications, snooze features, customizable actions and appearance, iCloud sync and much more.

The app is available in the App Store for $4.99.

This app lets you type notes with a keypad on your Apple Watch

Yesterday, I reviewed a cool little Apple Watch app for creating notes on the fly with dictation which can then be shown as a complication on your watch.

In continuing with the same theme, today I take a look at Note Tapper by Mark Cotterill, which adds an interesting twist to taking notes on the Apple Watch—rather than rely on (at times unreliable) dictation feature, you can type out your thoughts using a rather effective built-in keyboard.

Dictate notes on the fly and display them on your watch face with WatchNotes

Yesterday, developer Michael Bischoff refreshed its nicely done iPhone application, WatchNotes, with the ability to create, schedule and display notes right on your watch face through a brand new Apple Watch app and a complication.

WatchNotes, which originally made its App Store debut in December 2015 as an iPhone-only app, also lets you dictate a new note directly into your Apple Watch, set up scheduling and travel through time using watchOS's Time Travel feature to look at notes that you've scheduled in the future.

If you've ever wanted to add a note to your Apple Watch face on the fly, you're wholeheartedly recommend to take WatchNotes for a spin, more so considering that watchOS currently lacks a stock Notes app.

Microsoft launches ‘News Pro’ app for iOS

Microsoft on Tuesday released a new app for iOS called News Pro. The company describes the app as "your work news brief," and says it will help you search for news around your work every day, and fuel your unique interests with over a million topics.

The app comes from Microsoft's experimental project group Microsoft Garage, and it looks pretty much like Flipboard and the slew of other news aggregating apps out there. You login using Facebook or LinkedIn, and pick which topics you want to follow.

ZCast for iPhone makes live podcasting with real-time feedback a reality

Billed as a new way to create audio podcasts, Zcast by Zula (which was co-founded by Jeff Pulver in 2013) is a sweet new application which allows anyone to produce a high-quality, multi-member podcast on their iPhone without prior technical knowledge.

The app's key advantage over other podcasting solutions is its ability to invite guest co-hosts, take comments and answer questions in real-time.

In taking the pain out of podcasting, Zcast could persuade people who don't normally run a podcast show of their own to start one in a few minutes, no special setup needed, because that's how easy to use and approachable this app is.

Having spent a few months in closed beta, ZCast is now available to everyone completely free of charge.

Apple releases Music Memos for iPhone, an app that lets musicians capture songs ideas

Apple today announced the release of a brand new iPhone and iPod touch application aimed at musicians and songwriters: Music Memos. As its name suggests, Music Memos was designed to “make it easy for people to tap into their musical potential and create incredible music no matter where they are.”

With Music Memos, musicians and songwriters can capture, organize and develop their musical ideas on their iPhone.

Square Enix announces Final Fantasy IX coming soon to iOS

Great news Final Fantasy fans! Square Enix on Thursday confirmed that FF IX is coming soon to iOS, Android and PC. As noted by TouchArcade, the studio has posted a teaser page for the game on its website, as well as an official trailer on YouTube.

Originally released in 2000, FF IX is the ninth title in the popular RPG franchise. The story follows a talented young thief named Zidane Tribal, who joins with others to defeat Queen Brahne of Alexandria, the one responsible for starting the great war.

Disney-funded Littlstar brings immersive 360-degree video to Apple TV

A Disney-backed virtual reality company, Littlstar, today launched an app for Apple's fourth-generation Apple TV box that lets users immerse themselves in a wide range of 360 video content from well-known brands, such as Showtime, Disney, Discovery, Fusion, PBS, Mountain Dew, National Geographic and Red Bull.

The app lets users control the videos’ angles using the Touch surface on the Siri Remote. Just like Littlstar’s other apps on the web, mobile and in virtual reality headsets (like the Samsung Gear VR), their Apple TV app lets your rotate videos in full 360 degrees.

Meet Wink, a new instant camera and ephemeral messaging app from Viber

Messaging platform Viber on Monday rolled out a brand new application in the App Store. Wink, as it's called, is an instant camera app that was designed for sending photo and video messages that disappear after they have been viewed, joining a seemingly growing selection of ephemeral messaging apps like Snapchat, Telegram and more.

As part of Wink's launch, Viber for iPhone was updated earlier this morning with support for Wink messaging.