This Week’s Must-Have iOS Apps: WowFX, Giftly, Scrapnote & More [Roundup]

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A great new photography app, which allows you to add more than 100 stunning effects to your images, is kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup. It’s accompanied by Giftly, a clever app for sending all kinds of gifts; a new note-taking app called Scrapnote; and a great new update to Adobe Photoshop Touch for iPad.

WowFX — iPhone ($0.99)

WowFX is a brand new photography app that allows you to add stunning effects to your images. I’m not talking vintage effects here, either — there are plenty of those in Instagram. I’m talking light bursts, smoke, fire, clouds, explosions, tornadoes, and more. Check out the video above to see WowFX in action.

There are more than 100 effects to choose from, all of which you can scale and rotate to fit perfectly inside your image. You can also specify the opacity for each effect you use, so that they’re not too overpowering on your image.

Once you’re finished, you can export your pictures to your camera roll, or share them with your friends via Instagram and more.

Giftly — iPhone (Free)

Giftly is a “revolutionary way to send and receive gifts.” You can use it to gift any item or experience, at any place — including local restaurants and chain stores — instantly from your iPhone. Here’s how it works:

When you receive a Giftly, all you need to do is go to the place indicated and buy what the gifter wanted you to get. You don’t show anything to the merchant. The gifted amount is credited directly to your credit card. You’ll be prompted to share where you went and what you got with the gifter.

So technically, Giftly is almost as good as giving money, but it’s a much better way of doing so. Gifts can be delivered via text message, Facebook, or email, and the best thing about this app is that once your gift has been claimed, you can see where the recipient spent it, and what they bought. You can even recommend purchases when sending your Giftly.

Not only is Giftly handy for purchasing gifts for friends who have everything, but it’s also great for last-minute gift buying when you’ve almost forgotten that special day; it’s a life saver!

Scrapnote — iPad ($2.99)

Aside from a bit of gaming here and there, my iPad is mostly used to word processing and making notes. It has replaced the notepad in my house, and is used for everything from jotting down telephone numbers to drafting articles. Scrapnote is another great new app that’s perfect for the former.

It’s a note-taking app that aims to replicate traditional note taking by focusing on handwriting and drawing. You can use it to sketch out plans and ideas, jot down your thoughts, annotate pictures and articles, and lots more. It works great with a stylus (Sorry, Steve!), but also supports keyboard input.

My favorite Scrapnote feature is its ability to pull data from all kinds of different sources, including YouTube, the web, Evernote, your camera roll, and more.

Adobe Photoshop Touch — iPad ($9.99)

It took nearly six months, but Adobe Photoshop Touch finally boasts high-resolution visuals for the new iPad’s Retina display. In addition to this, its latest update supports images up to 12 megapixels, adds two new languages (Russian and Brazilian Portuguese), two new effects, support for Photo Stream, and more.

What’s Your Favorite?

So that concludes our list of this week’s must-have iOS apps. If you’ve picked up something that you think we should have included, be sure to let us know about it in the comments.

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