App Store - page 80

Finding apps is hard work. Seriously, folks, there are over 500,000 of them out there, each with their own iTunes page, ratings, and version history. It’s confusing, disheartening at times, and just plain difficult. There are several discovery apps out there, including the recently purchased Chomp and AppShopper. Today’s tip is about the discovery app that won the Best App Ever Award for Best App Bargain, the app that voters thought was worth way more than they paid for it.

One of my favorite jailbreak tweaks for the iPhone 4S (before I updated to iOS 5.1 and lost my jailbreak) was called Lingual, which enabled Siri to connect to Microsoft’s Bing Translate API and immediately translate words or phrases into a number of different languages.

Thanks to iTranslate Voice, you can now get the same functionality and more for any iPhone from the App Store. This excellent $0.99 app listens to you speak, then quickly translates your sentences into one of 31 languages. It’s super quick and incredibly accurate.

Gameloft has blown us away with its N.O.V.A. 3 teaser trailers over the past few weeks, and today one of the most anticipated iOS games so far this year makes its App Store debut. The series has always been up there with the best first-person shooters for iPhone and iPad, but this release promises to deliver a new benchmark for graphics and gameplay on iOS.

N.O.V.A. 3 could be the best $7 you’ve spent on mobile gaming to date.

Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 4 can now be bought from the Mac App Store. The RAW photo editing app joins Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, and is Adobe’s first full-featured flagship application to make it into the store.

Facebook just announced the App Center, a place for discovering and installing social apps/games that tie into Facebook’s developer platform. Apps offered in the App Center will be available on the web and mobile, including Android and iOS devices.

If you think Facebook is trying to take on Apple and Google’s storefronts directly, fret not. The App Center will be part of the official Facebook application and send mobile users to their respective storefronts, whether it be Apple’s App Store or Google Play.

Just hours after announcing its acquisition of Penultimate, Evernote has released an update to its iOS app that promises to deliver some major improvements to note taking on the iPhone. It has improved the way in which the app handles attachments and checkboxes, added support for Photo Stream, redesigned the audio recorder, and more.

PlayForge, the developers behind the popular undead farming sim Zombie Farm, have confirmed that a sequel will make its App Store debut within the coming weeks, bringing plenty of “changes and upgrades.” It’ll also let you transfer all of the progress you’ve already made in Zombie Farm — including your stock of brains — so that you can pick up right where you left off.

When Daniel Chase Hooper posted the concept for his simple text editing technique on the iPad, he most likely had no clue it would snowball into something so huge. After nearly every tech site on the internet posted the concept, a jailbreak tweak was made available a couple days later. Jailbroken iPad owners can use the editing techniques Hooper outlined right now (yes, they’re that good), and we’re hoping that Apple will add the functionality in a future version of iOS.

Now Hooper’s concept is making its way to the App Store in the form of an upcoming iPad app called SlideWriter.

Let’s hear that again. Apple is taking in 84 percent of all mobile gaming revenue in the US.

With all the fooferaw about how many more Android handsets are selling than iPhones, it’s easy to think that Apple may be on the way out. Not so, says a new report from NewZoo, a market research company in the gaming space.

Instacast, undoubtedly the best podcast manager for iOS, just got a whopping update that includes a long list of new features and improvements. In addition to a “revamped and improved” user interface, the update brings episode archiving, a sleep timer, a download manager, and lots, lots more.

Lego Harry Potter is finally back on iOS to play out his final years at Hogwarts, and he’s at the top of this week’s pick of must-have iOS games. Toothless from DreamWork’s How To Train Your Dragon also makes his App Store debut in a terrific physics-based puzzle game, and we’ve chosen one of the cutest adventure games you’ll ever play.

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Facebook has updated its Facebook Messenger app in the App Store with several new features. You can now see when someone is replying to a message with a live typing indicator, much like iMessage in iOS. Read receipts will also reveal when a message has been read and by whom in a group message. Location information has also been added for showing where someone was when they sent a message from their Apple or Android smartphone.

After months and months of waiting, Spotify finally released its iPad app this week, and it does not disappoint. It features a terrific interface optimized for the iPad’s larger screen, plus plenty of other great features. There’s no wonder why it’s at the top of this week’s must-have iOS apps roundup.

Other picks include a great little app for controlling Bluetooth from your home screen, an impressive photography app from Polaroid, an innovative new web browser, and more.

An iTunes customer who was billed twice for the same song has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple after the Cupertino company refused to refund his money. Robert Herskowitz $2.58 for Adam Lambert’s pain-inducing pop song “Whataya Want From Me,” but he should have paid just $1.29.

He’s now taking Apple to court in an effort to make refunds easier for iTunes customers.

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Although several rather bizarre rumors have claimed Apple will integrate a projector into a future iPhone, it seems a little unlikely — at least for many years. But thanks to PoP Video, you can add your own projector that displays 960 x 540 video for just $99.

Apple released a slew of iOS app updates today in the App Store. iMovie, iPhoto, Garageband, Cards and iTunes U were all updated with various improvements and bug fixes.

All of the updates can be downloaded for free and are available now.

The jailbreakers among you will undoubtedly already be familiar with DreamBoard, an awesome tweak that quickly applies custom themes to an iOS device. It’s probably the easiest way to give your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch a nice new look, and therefore it’s extremely popular.

One shameless iOS developer is attempting to cash in on that popularity by creating a DreamBoard knockoff that is now available in the App Store for $2.99.

Having already treated himself to the hugely popular photo-sharing service Instagram earlier this month, there’s talk that Mark Zuckerberg could now be eyeing up a potential takeover of Viddy, a service that is often described as “Instagram for videos.” It would be the perfect companion to Facebook’s latest purchase.

Bluetooth OnOff, an incredibly useful app which does one thing — toggle your iPhone’s Bluetooth connection on and off — has inevitably been pulled from the App Store. The 99-cent Universal app used private APIs to work its magic, and is now sadly consigned to the trashcan, along with data-tethering apps and other much-missed utilities.

If you visited the site yesterday, you’ll already be aware that Cult of Mac’s weekly must-have apps and games roundups are now back. This is where we choose our pick of the best new releases and updates to hit the App Store in the past week.

This week’s feature includes the official Klout app, which has finally made its way to iOS; a great service for storing and syncing your passwords from security specialists Norton; a beautiful weather app, and more.

I hate jogging, but if popular culture has taught me anything, it’s that come the inevitable zombie apocalypse, a trim physique, muscular calves and a five minute mile might be the only thing between me and having my guts stuffed into the rotting maws of some reanimated ghouls. Maybe you won’t run to lose weight, but will you run to save your life?

That’s the idea behind the awesome looking “fitness” app Zombies, Run!. It’s like Runkeeper with a twist: you’re not jogging to burn calories, but running to escape the undead.

Earlier this week, Boston’s commuter rail system announced plans for a program that will allow riders to purchase tickets right on their iPhones and display a scannable code as proof of purchase. The model follows the success that Starbucks has had in using its iPhone app as a virtual gift card.

Not to be outdone, drugstore and pharmacy chain CVS recently added similar functionality to its CVS Pharmacy app.

Apple’s iOS devices have been stealing market share from portable consoles since the day the App Store opened its doors. Four years later, they have led Nintendo to report its first ever annual operating loss of $454.4 million.

Ken Segall’s new book, Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drive Apple’s Success, made its debut this week, and one of the more entertaining anecdotes within details Steve Jobs’s plans to celebrate the one millionth iMac purchase.

Rather than a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card like the company usually offers up for milestone App Store downloads, Steve wanted to play Willy Wonka and provide the lucky customer with a golden ticket that would entitle them to a full refund on their iMac purchase and a personal tour around Apple’s Cupertino campus.

You know how it is. There are a bunch of apps out there that allow you to open and edit different types of files on your iOS device. Look, we get it. You just want to view the file, right? No need to edit or collaborate or whatever. Just, you know, look at it. Sadly, while iOS is fairly magical, it only has a few file types it can view natively. Which is where today’s tip comes in.