App Store - page 68

We’ve been waiting for someone to make a great iOS Gmail app ever since the Sparrow team was bought by Google this year. Sparrow is still great, and the Gmail app has gotten better, but the experience of  using email on a smartphone still feels unnatural and archaic.

A few apps have tried and failed to change mobile email, but app development company Orchestra thinks they have the right answer with their new app Mailbox. Blending an email inbox with a Clear-styled to-do list, Mailbox provides a modernized take on mobile email that is simply beautiful.

Here’s what the app looks like in action:

Year in review lists are usually pretty exhausting, but with millions of apps to choose from in the App Store there’s a pretty good chance you missed some great new apps that came out in 2012. Apple just unveiled their App Store Best of 2012 page and it’s packed with goodies.

The App Store Best of 2012 is divided into numerous categories of apps so everyone will find something they enjoy. Apple didn’t stop with just the App Store though. The Best of 2012 list also includes selections from Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, and even Podcast.

You can check out all the goodies right here.

Readdle has today updated its popular PDF Expert app for iPad to introduce a number of new features that include Google Drive syncing, integration with the PDF Converter app, faster PDF rendering, and more. It also promises “dozens” of other improvements, and it’s available to download from the App Store now.

Amazon has updated its Instant Video app for iOS today, introducing support for the iPhone and iPod touch. The service has been available on iPad since August, but this is the first time it has come to smaller iOS devices, giving Amazon Prime subscribers more than 30,000 free videos in their pockets.

Google released an official Google Maps app for the iPhone on Wednesday evening — I’m sure you’ve already downloaded it to your device — and as you might expect, it’s already incredibly popular. Users have since been rushing to reclaim the mapping service that Apple booted out of iOS with its latest iOS 6 update, helping Google Maps rocket to the top of the App Store’s free chart in just seven hours. It has knocked Apple’s own 12 Days of Christmas app down to second place.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

It’s Day 12! That means KitCam, one of the best camera apps for the iPhone.

After rolling out a redesigned Yahoo! Mail on Tuesday, Yahoo! has launched a brand new Flickr app for iPhone this morning that appears to be going head to head with Instagram. It’s a completely redesign of the previous version, and it promises to be easier to use and more beautiful. It also offers new features, including 16 filters for your photographs.

Earlier today, it was revealed that Apple rejected an update to Microsoft’s SkyDrive iOS app in the App Store. The reason was rumored to be because Microsoft didn’t want to share a percentage of subscription revenues from inside the app, and Apple has a blanket policy about all App Store developers sharing a 30% cut.

While the two companies are indeed arguing about Apple’s App Store policies, the issue actually surrounds the upcoming Office for iOS suite that Microsoft plans to launch in early 2013.

Coming on the heels of the new Instagram update, Twitter announced yesterday that their iPhone app was coming soon and that it would have all kinds of photo filters. The updated Twitter app just hit the App Store and is ready to be downloaded.

The free Twitter 5.2 update comes with photo filters powered by Aviary. The eight different filters will make your Twitter pictures more like Instagram photos, which is kind of nice seems how Instagram decided to stop displaying their pictures inside of a Twitter, but does the world really need more filters?

Here are the full release notes on Twitter for iOS version 5.2:

The original Angry Birds game for smartphones, the title that started it all back in 2009, celebrates its third birthday this week. And what better way to do that than with lots of new content. In addition to support for Apple’s new iPhone 5 (finally!), you can look forward to 30 brand new levels and more on Android and iOS.

The future of Microsoft’s SkyDrive service on iOS looks bleak today as the company appears to have entered into a fight with Apple over its 30% cut of App Store revenues. Microsoft recently gave iOS users the ability to upgrade their SkyDrive subscriptions from their iPhones and iPads, but until the company agrees to give Apple a 30% cut of the in-app purchases, it won’t get any future updates approved.

A critical bug fix that prevents the app from crashing has now had to be placed on hold. Should Apple’s rules be a little more flexible in certain cases?

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

What do we have in store for you for Day 9 (admittedly, going up a day late)? FTL for Mac, about the closest experience to sitting down in the Captain’s Chair on the U.S.S. Enterprise you’re likely to find on any platform for less than $10.

The all-new Twitterrific 5 is kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup, with a brand new look and a whole host of new features. It’s joined by the official YouTube client, which now supports iPad; an all-new Instacast; and a redesigned Gmail app.

This week’s must-have games roundup is by far one of our best yet; it’s filled with five awesome titles that you won’t want to miss. Three of those titles are classic games reborn on iOS, including Grand Theft Auto: Vice City — my personal favorite, Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, and Mutant Mudds.

We also have Gameloft’s incredible new first-person shooter, Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, and Minigore 2: Zombies, another terrific dual-stick shooter from Mountain Sheep.

Say you’re out and about and you find a link that you want to remember to download onto your desktop  once you get home. You could copy the URL to Notepad, email it to yourself, or add the page to Pocket, but you’re probably going to forget to do it later or lose the info.

A new utility called Transloader, created by Matthias Gansrigler, makes such situations easier to manage by allowing iPhone and iPad users to remotely download URLs to their Mac when they’re away from the house.

KitCam has quickly become one of my favorite photography apps for the iPhone — featuring in last week’s must-have apps roundup — and it has just been updated to add a number of handy features. In addition to photo importing from the camera roll, KitCam now has a time lapse timer, and better zoom functionality.

Google has been busy rolling out updates to its mobile apps this week, making big improvements to the Gmail and YouTube app for iOS. But it seems the company hasn’t quite finished yet. It just rolled out some major changes to Google Shopper for Android and iOS — including a new look and new features — which are sure to make Christmas shopping on your smartphone a great deal easier.

6Wunderkinder has announced a brand new version of Wunderlist that’s coming to Android, iOS, Mac, and PC just in time for Christmas. Wunderlist 2 has been “reengineered, rebuilt and redesigned, from start to finish,” its creators tease. Check out what’s new and get a glimpse of the new app in the preview video below.

Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, the latest addition to Gameloft’s awesome first-person shooter series, has arrived on iOS in a bid to push the boundaries of mobile gaming even further. It promises to be “the most memorable action thriller ever,” boasting an intense solo campaign and a completely redesigned multiplayer mode. What’s more, its console-quality graphics look incredible on Retina display devices.

Evernote has updated its Android and iOS apps today — just under a month after introducing a brand new redesign — to add support for Evernote Business, meaning those who subscribe to the service can now access it on their smartphones and tablets. The update also brings a new Business Notebook design and other improvements.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is finally available to download on Android (nearly!) and iOS, priced at $4.99. Rockstar Games has brought the hugely popular title to mobile to celebrate its 10th anniversary — as it did with Grand Theft Auto 3 last year — and it has made a number of improvements that will ensure you enjoy the game even more this time around.

When you combine all the titles in Apple’s App Store with those in Google Play, you have a catalog of more than 1.4 million apps from hundreds of thousands of developers. But incredibly, more than 50% of the revenue made by these stores in the United States goes to just 25 app developers.

When you think of hugely successful mobile games, Cut the Rope from ZeptoLabs is right up there with Angry Birds; it’s been a big hit on Android and iOS. With that in mind, we’re super excited about ZeptoLabs’s next game, Pudding Monsters, which it’s now teasing with a brand new trailer.

Amazon has issued an update to its Kindle app for iOS today, introducing its excellent X-Ray for Books feature which has been a big selling point for the company’s own Kindle hardware. If you’re not already familiar with it, X-Ray allows you to see the “bones of the book,” Amazon says, helping you learn more about its characters, places, and phrases.

Gameloft has announced that Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, the latest addition to its series of first-person shooters, will make its debut on iOS this Thursday, December 6, before arriving on Android “shortly after.” We’ve been following the title’s development since Gameloft released its first teaser tailer back in September, and we couldn’t be more excited. If you’re a fan of FPS games, this is the title to look out for.