This week we play GTA III on our iPad Pros with real playstation controllers, use the new keyboard shortcuts in Affinity Photo, sequence samples with WoodStepper, and create AR promos with Captum.
Grand Theft Auto III
The first of the 3-D go-anywhere Grand Theft Auto games came to the Playstation 2 in 2001. And the iOS version just got yet another update, this time to take advantage of the new screen shapes of the latest iPad Pros.
And as a bonus for anyone running the iOS 13 or iPadOS betas, you should be able to play this with a Playstation controller, as God intended.
Price: $4.99
Download: Grand Theft Auto III from the App Store (iOS)
WoodStepper
Woodstepper is a super useful new music app. It’s a sampler, and a sequencer, which is a combination more often found in standalone hardware. You can sample any incoming audio, from other music apps, say, and then set it to play on any step of the sequencer. You can also change the pitch, and many other parameters, of individual steps. A simple concept, and a powerful one.
Price: $12.99
Download: WoodStepper from the App Store (iOS)
Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo, probably the most convincing Photoshop alternative on iOS, finally has keyboard shortcuts. If you hold the the command key to see the standard iOS keyboard shortcut bezel, nothing happens. But you can enter the app’s help section to see which shortcuts are available, and maybe print it out for reference, like it was the 1990s.
Price: $15.99
Download: Affinity Photo from the App Store (iOS)
Captum – AR Photo to Video App
Sponsored: Captum is a tool that lets you add augmented reality to your advertising and promotional materials. First, you use photos and images to create the AR presentation. Then you just point the app’s camera at whatever it is you want to overlay that AR goodness upon — anything from a brochure to a business card to a building.
Lucky customers can then view these augmentations using their own phones.
Price: Free
Download: Captum – AR Photo to Video App from the App Store (iOS)
Find My
In iOS 13, Apple’s Find My iPhone and Find My Friends apps have been smushed into one mega-app called Find My. It lets you find all your devices, and all your friends, in one place.
But even neater is the tech behind it. In iOS 13, your devices constantly send out encypted Bluetooth pings. These are picked up by nearby Apple devices and forwarded straight to Apple’s servers, where they sit, still anonymous and encrypted, until you open the Find My app. Then, the app requests these packets of data, downloads them, and decrypts them.
The entire setup is ingenious. Apple just turned the entire installed base of iDevices into a network of detectors for your gear. Well, the entirety of devices running iOS 13. Your device doesn’t even need to be connected to the internet to be found. Never lose anything ever again.