20 best iPhone and iPad apps this week
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http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/12/best-iphone-ipad-apps-games-step-buy-step-seabeard Version 0 of 1. It’s time for this week’s roundup of the best new iPhone and iPad apps and games released on Apple’s App Store. As ever, the prices provided in brackets are for the initial download only: when an app uses in-app purchases, this will be listed as (Free + IAP). No, it’s not changing to “get” just yet. More interested in Android apps? They’re covered in a separate weekly Best Android Apps roundup. But if it’s iOS you’re after, read on for this week’s selection. APPS Step Buy Step: A Pedometer Adventure (£1.49)This could be in the games section, but I’m classing it as a fitness app, much like its developer Six to Start’s past apps Zombies, Run! and 7 Minute Superhero Workout. Here, your real steps earn “stepps” – a virtual currency to buy virtual animals to join you on virtual travels. “A pedometer adventure,” according to the company. Clever and fun.iPhone Workflow (£1.99)It’s hard to describe Workflow – even its App Store listing’s “personal automation tool” phrase doesn’t quite get its potential usefulness across. It lets you create combinations of actions you do on your iOS device, then automate them. Examples: turning Safari pages into PDFs, tweeting a song that you’re listening to, and turning a contact into a homescreen icon that calls them.iPhone / iPad Mickey’s Magical Maths World (Free + IAP)This is the first in a new series of educational apps for children by Disney: a collection of five mathematical mini-games hosted by Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy. They’re elegantly done, with lots of extra interactivity for kids to explore. Theres’ also a companion parental app: read more on that here.iPad PDF Office (Free + IAP)Readdle has made a succession of very-useful productivity apps: its Scanner Mini app remains the app I use whenever asked to print out, sign and then email forms, for example. This new app takes another angle: it creates editable PDF documents on your iPad, including by taking photos of physical forms and converting them.iPad bop.fm Music Player (Free)As a website, bop.fm has been trying to connect the various streaming silos: Spotify, YouTube, Deezer and so on, so that when you share a link from one with a friend, they can play that song in another. Its mobile app continues that mission, with Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube built in at launch, and playlists to help you sort and discover music.iPhone FitStar Yoga (Free + IAP)FitStar’s personal training app was impressive, and now there’s a companion one for yoga. It offers video guides to poses from trainer Tara Stiles, including Apple TV support to play them on a bigger screen as you work out. The app uses a subscription system: £5.49 a month or £27.99 a year.iPhone / iPad Curious Words (£1.49)This is an inventive and creative children’s app from developer Curious Hat that wants to help kids explore video. Not as viewers, but as filmmakers, shooting one-second clips in response to single words, then turning them into shareable mini-movies. It’s wonderfully fun for parents and children to share.iPhone / iPad Wakie – Social Alarm Clock (Free)Waking up with a stranger can be a disorienting experience. With Wakie, at least they’re on the other end of a phone call: the app gets you to set your alarm, then wakes you up with a call from a real person: one of its other users. Apparently there are already 1.5 million of them too. And calls are automatically cut off after 60 seconds, to ensure no excessive chattering.iPhone MySingleFriend.com (Free + IAP)Dating website My Single Friend has been around for years, but its app is only coming out now – can it hope to compete with mobile startups like Tinder? Even so, it looks very well done, with easy browsing, and the same ‘friends-as-wingmen’ theory as the site, including the ability for friends to veto unsuitable matches.iPhone First Direct Saveapp (Free)Online bank First Direct wants you to open a savings account, so this is clearly marketing. Even so, it’s also got the potential to be quite useful if you find it hard saving money: it gets you to set a goal, figure out what to cut back on, and then get reminders throughout the week – including triggered by location.iPhone GAMES Seabeard (Free + IAP)If you ever fell in love with Animal Crossing on Nintendo devices, Seabeard is the best attempt yet at bringing its charms to iOS – albeit with plenty more added on top. It’s a piratical adventure game that sees you exploring, fishing, fighting and meeting a host of characters. It’s beautifully-designed, and like Animal Crossing, has the air of a game that opens up the more you play.iPhone / iPad Papers, Please (£3.99)This “dystopian document thriller” has won sacks of awards, and deservedly so: it’s bleak but thought-provoking, as you play a border inspector for the fictional state of Arstozka, letting immigrants in or turning them away according to your orders from above. Its nude body-scanner may have been censored, but this remains an important – and a compellingly playable – game.iPad Marvel Contest of Champions (Free + IAP)Social games firm Kabam made its name with its Hobbit and Fast and Furious games, but it’s turning its attention to Marvel now. This is a free-to-play beat ‘em up starring some very familiar characters from the Marvel universe.iPhone / iPad Tales from the Borderlands (£2.99 + IAP)Episodic adventure-game maker Telltale Games is on a roll: Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones and now this: a spin-off from console franchise Borderlands. It’s set after Borderlands 2: a fascinating new way into the world of Pandora.iPhone / iPad The Snowman & The Snowdog 2014 (£2.99)This is an annual refresh to Channel 4’s official The Snowman & The Snowdog game, although unlike in 2013, there are no in-app purchases this time round. You pays your £2.99, and your children get unlimited walking in the air, swooping over London, San Francisco, Japan, China and Australia.iPhone / iPad Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1 (£2.99)Another adventure game, albeit one more influenced by the classic point-and-click-and-laugh games of the Monkey Island era. It’s set in Victorian London, with a cast of quirky characters and plenty of belly-laughs around its murder-mystery plot.iPhone / iPad Maritime Kingdom (Free + IAP)Publisher Game Insight has become a dab hand at the city-building genre, with Maritime Kingdom its latest spin on the idea of building’n’battling simulations. As the name makes clear, ships are a big part of the action, from trading to questing and conquering.iPhone / iPad Sneaky Sneaky (£1.99)When the word “stealth” is mentioned in connection with gaming, it tends to bring to mind very-serious games like the Metal Gear Solid and Assassin’s Creed franchises. Sneaky Sneaky is a cuter take on the idea, as you play a cartoon rogue who has to avoid detection and ambush his enemies.iPhone / iPad ShakePop (Free + IAP)ShakePop is the latest release from FreshPlanet, which had a huge hit a couple of years ago with song-identification game SongPop. This is another music-related game, but more physical: you have to copy actions shown on screen in order. Like Simon Says meets dancing games, a bit. And fun with it.iPhone / iPad The Adventure Creator (£2.49 + IAP)Finally, something that takes me back to my childhood messing around with a piece of software called The Quill, writing text adventures. This takes that idea to iPad, as you describe and connect locations, and add images and objects. You can also share the resulting adventures with other devices. It’s got potential, even if just for rose-tinted nostalgics like me.iPad That’s this week’s recommendations, but what iOS apps have you been using? The comments section is open for your thoughts. |