With the new iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro announced, it was a big week for Apple. But it’s also been a good seven days for developers, with a slew of super-awesome apps arriving in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV.
Whether you’re looking for a great productivity tool for staying on top of task management, a fantastic port of an arcade classic, or the best weather app for Apple TV, check out our “app of the week” picks below.
What better way to spend your Sunday?
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX
There’s something weirdly circular about seeing games I remember playing for the first time on a television set come full circle and wind up back on our TV screens. Last week I wrote about SEGA’s classic Sonic the Hedgehog, and this week we’re going back even further in time with the arrival of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX in the Apple TV App Store.
As my colleague Evan Killham phrases it, this “TV version of the sequel to the mobile port of the console remix of the classic arcade title” originally hit iOS back in July, but its arrival on Apple TV is certainly worth dropping a few bucks on. The game lets you play through 132 different mazes, with a total of 10 zones and three different game modes to be explored.
There are plenty of versions of Pac-Man out there, but this is certainly one of the best.
Available for: Apple TV
Cost: $4.99
Get it from: Apple TV App Store
Pomodoro Time Pro
Photo: Pomodoro Times
This post is brought to you by Pomodoro Time Pro.
Staying on task, it seems, is a real challenge for our screen-bound generation. The Pomodoro Technique has been around for decades, breaking up individual tasks into discrete, 25-minute intervals separated by short breaks. it’s a surprisingly effective way to retain motivation and focus. Pomodoro Time Pro brings this method to mobile devices and Macs, and it’s a great fit.
Pomodoro Time Pro works with iOS and OS X, making it easy to create pomodoros — the individual task intervals — and automatically track your progress via regularly generated reports. The intervals, schedules and all other aspects are fully customizable, so you can set up the app in a way that works for you.
Spend a few days dividing your tasks and setting micro-deadlines, and you’ll be amazed how easily and swiftly you can set up and take down goals. Everything is synced between devices, so it’s a workflow that can be easily and seamlessly adopted. And right now, for a limited time, you can get 60 percent off the normal price — just one more reason you should give Pomodoro Time Pro a try.
Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, Mac
Cost: $0.99 for iOS, $1.99 for OS X
Get it from: iOS App Store or Mac App Store
Onshape
Photo: Onshape
Onshape’s new app lets iOS users carry out full-on 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) modeling using nothing more than their iPhone.
While the app is also available for iPhone, it’s at its best on the iPad Pro — where the Apple Pencil accessory can be used as a unique drawing/zooming tool that’ll transform the way you carry out 3D solid modeling.
“A sizeable percentage of our professional customers are heavy mobile users,” says Onshape founder and Chairman Jon Hirschtick. “Apple Pencil lends itself beautifully to a two-handed workflow. You can rotate or pan a model with one hand and use Pencil to sketch, select and interact with your 3D models. Onshape and iPad Pro will transform the way engineers work.”
iPad Pro users also have the ability to use Split View to look up specifications from a supplier catalog, while working on a model at the same time.
Available for: iPad, iPhone
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
Forecast Bar
Photo: Forecast Bar
There are some great weather apps out there, but if you’re looking for one with the perfect interface for Apple TV may we suggest Forecast Bar. We reviewed Forecast Bar for Mac back in September, and heartily endorsed its down-to-the-minute precipitation forecasts and plethora of features.
The main selling point of Forecast Bar for Apple TV is that it supports Home screen widgets. This means that, should you place Forecast Bar in your Apple TV’s first row of apps, it gives you a look at the weather forecast for your most recently viewed locations without you even having to open it. You can see current temperature and conditions, plus the day’s high, low, chance of precipitation and more — making it incredibly useful for showing you the weather at a glance.
Open up the full app and Forecast Bar displays the current weather and seven-day forecast over beautiful scenes from nature. We’ve tried numerous apps for Apple TV and very few come close to this amount of detail. The app is even heavily customizable — with dozens of languages, a 24-hour clock, colored icons (instead of monochrome), still photo backgrounds instead of videos, and even a dark theme reminiscent of OS X’s dark theme.
In short, it’s definitely worth your time!
Available for: iPad, iPhone
Cost: $4.99
Get it from: Apple TV App Store
