In a week in which Tim Cook was named the most influential gay man in America, Apple Stores went green in advance of Earth Day and much, much more, app developers continued to do what they do best: to churn out high-quality apps to improve all of our lives.
I’ve chosen four great apps for this week’s app roundup — including a smart calendar app, a truly awesome photography app, and some great new games. Check out our picks below.
Google Calendar
If you’re someone who spends long hours at work, it can be tough to set aside some time to hit the gym or get started on a new book for leisure reading. Fortunately, Google Calendar has your back.
Its new Goals feature allows users to tell Google what extra-curricula activities they want to achieve, after which Google will help map out the free time needed to achieve it.
It’s a useful feature, and flexible enough that it can intelligently move your calendar around if you need to add a last-minute activity which clashes with your goal. Best of all, the more you use it, the smarter it will get at helping you.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
vividHDR
Photo: vividHDR
This app writeup is brought to you by vividHDR.
Like taking gorgeous pictures with your iPhone? vividHDR is a high dynamic range camera app that makes it incredibly easy to capture extremely vibrant imagery. By combining exposures that straddle highlights, shadows and everything in between, it instantly produces images you might not believe your phone could have produced.
It’s the first true HDR app to allow for five brackets in a single shot. Automatic selection of five exposures enables unprecedented tapping of dynamic range of any given scene. vividHDR also features a user interface that makes the whole process intuitive and fast, with proprietary algorithms keeping up with your choices and making sure each shot is properly exposed, sharp and lovely.
A connected app offers the choice to instantly upload shots to an active Flickr community (or elsewhere, like Facebook and Dropbox), all without leaving the app. vividHDR is arguably the most feature-rich, intuitive HDR app out there. If you’re a photo fanatic, you’d do well to give it a try.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $1.99
Get it from: App Store
Warbits
A turn-based strategy games reminiscent of Nintendo’s Advance Wars, Warbits features a 20-mission campaign, encompassing five different environments. Your job? To conquer a range of factories, cities and airfields, while smashing you’re opponent into oblivion.
The single-player mode is great, but it’s the multiplayer that makes Warbits really shine. One of the best multiplayer experiences in all of iOS gaming, the multiplayer mode here boasts 29 maps for 1v1 games, as well as an extra 11 for four-player or 2v2 team battles.
Highly recommended!
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $2.99
Get it from: App Store
PKTBALL
An endless ping pong game where you smash a ball from one end of the screen to the other is never going to be considered the most original gaming idea ever. Which is why it’s just as well that PKTBALL manages to make up for that by being a whole lot of fun!
With an appropriately bouncy soundtrack, great touch-based controls, and some other nifty features, PKTBALL will certainly while away your Sunday in the best way possible.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
