apps - page 34

Remember the hands-free Leap Motion Controller for Mac that everyone went on and on about how cool it was going to be? The one that got delayed until July?

Well, it’s been three weeks since it actually started shipping, and the team behind the 3-D motion controller is reporting some significant numbers, including 25,000 downloads of its software developer kit (which allows developers to include code for the device in their own apps), and 1 million downloads of apps that work with the hardware.

That’s pretty fantastic, right?

If Abbyy’s upcoming new Textgrabber+Translator app came in a tin, then the app would do exactly what it said on that tin. And the tin—to stretch the metaphor—would be a beautiful, iOS 7-styled container.

The updated app, which now comes in an iPad-shaped tin to match the iPhone-shaped one, uses the iPad/iPhone’s camera to scan text, turn it into actual editable text and—if you like—translate it into any of 40 languages.

When I pick up a guitar, pretty much the only thing I can do is tune the thing. Well, that’s not entirely true: I can coil the strings and keep a burning cigarette in there, Eric Clapton-style, but as I quit smoking a few years back that’s not so useful anymore.

However, I’m fully aware that there are people out there who can thrash some amazing sounds out of their axes, and yet have trouble keeping the things in tune. SteadyTune, a Mac app that’s always waiting in the menu bar, is there to help.

The last thing I want to do as I stumble into my bed through a bourbon-soaked fog is to set up my sleep-tracking device. It’s nice to have an app tell me how fitful is my kip, but the pre-sleep perambulations are a pain: you have to slip your Fitbit into a wrist strap, or plug in your iPhone and launch the sleep-tracking app.

Beddit takes a different approach. It’s a strap that stays permanently wrapped around your mattress, ready to record your snoozes.

Instapaper has a new beta website, and it’s the biggest change to the whole read-it-later Instaverse since the app was bought by Betaworks. In short, it’s gorgeous for reading, and makes the management of your account quite a lot better.

Adding textured filters to your photos: RAD!
Adding pre-made textured filters to your photos? Lame.

That’s why you need to make your own filters right now, and Geri Centonze from iPhoneLife is here to tell you how.

Inkflow 3.0 adds an amazing new feature to the vector-based sketching app: InkPort. Inkport lets you import your paper sketches from the real world and turn them into editable vector art, just using the iPad’s camera.

Grain, light leaks, color shifts, low contrast caused by lens flare—these are all familiar Instagrammatical filters which mimic the limits of film. And ironically, they were all considered Bad Things when people actually shot with film.

Now we try to avoid digital noise just as we add back fake analog noise (grain). But what about native digital glitches? There is—as you have no doubt predicted—an app for that. It’s called Glitché.

If you use Pinboard (and if you don’t, you should), then you might also consider using a Mac app to save and browse all those achieved bookmarks. Which brings us to Shiori, a very plain-yet-pretty iOS 7-inspired Mac app for your Pinboard.

Microsoft gave us a new anti-iPad ad yesterday, but there’s even more where that came from as the company released a new ad today that takes the iPad mini to task against the Acer Iconia W3.

The ad mostly focuses on the differences between iOS and Windows 8 and suggests that the iPad mini doesn’t have great games or productivity apps—which we all know is pretty much the exact opposite of reality.

Eventually the Siri-dubbed ad knocks on the iPad’s $429 price tag next to the $299 Iconia W3, even though Microsoft has conveniently forgotten that the W3 was originally priced at $380 before a series of price drops were introduced to try and get people to buy it.

Here’s the ad:

Grid is a pretty cool new app which brings a new approach to note taking. It uses a flat grid metaphor and some very easy-to-use gestures to add contacts, photos, notes and places.

There’s a new option emerging for mobile apps that want to sync to the desktop: Evernote. No, Evernote isn’t new, but it’s fast becoming the service of choice for app developers who don’t want to develop a companion Mac app.

And the latest of these is Adventures for iPhone, an app which lets you save the places you’ve visited into a location-based journal.

Komoot (like commute, only not) is a gem of an app for German bikers and hikers. Or rather, it was: with today’s v5.2 update, the navigation app now comes in English, and adds support for a slew of new countries.

The short form: If you ever take to two wheels, then you need this app.

Amazon expanded its digital software marketplace to the United Kingdom today, allowing Brits to download apps and games directly to their Mac or PC—just like U.S. users have been doing for some time. The process for purchasing digital items is no different, but once you’ve paid for your order, you’ll be able to download it right away.

OmniWeb has just been updated to v6.0. “What?!” I hear you scream? “OmniWeb is still around?” The answer is yes. And it seems like it’s as great as it ever was—in a retro-style kind of way.

Spinlister is like Airbnb for bikes. Instead of renting some piece-of-junk city bike for exorbitant rates while you’re on a city vacation, you can instead rent a hipstermobile from a private individual. For—it seems—equally exorbitant rates. And you can of course make some extra cash in your home town renting out your own spare steed.

We all hate iTunes—it’s the fashionable thing to do. The smarter amongst us have switched over to Rdio and Spotify or another streaming service, and use iTunes solely as a way to sync our iDevices.

But Vox is a new app (launching today) which will give you access to your iTunes library without all the cruft that makes it almost impossible to use for, you know, tunes. It’s pretty sweet.

Mobile payment startup Square has updated its Register app with several new features. Both the iPhone and iPad versions of the app can now record and track payments, including checks and gift cards. On the iPad, merchants can reconcile their cash drawers using the app’s clean interface. The portable SM-S220i printer can now be used to wirelessly print receipts from the app via Bluetooth.

The Apple Store and Best Buy recently started carrying Square’s iPad stand that helps turn the device into a point-of-sale machine.

Square Register is available for free in the App Store.

Source: App Store

As someone who has been testing iOS 7 for months, I can tell you that when it drops, some app icons are going to stick out like a sore thumb. Why? Because icon design that looked good in the house Scott Forstall built are going to look really out of place in the house Jony Ive knocked flat to the ground.

Unfortunately, unlike on OS X, there isn’t an easy way to swap out an app’s icon for a custom one of your choosing. That said, a new app called Iconical has figured out a workaround. The app lets you customize your homescreen, no jailbreak required, by taking advantage of the custom URL schemes of over 14,000 apps. This, my friends, is a clever idea.

Squaready is one of my most-used photo apps on iOS. It has one purpose: to take your rectangular photos and turn them into squares by padding the edges, letting you post them intact to Instagram.

The trouble is, it’s ugly as sin, with the kind of interface that you’d expect to see if Linux and Windows XP got drunk on cider one night and had a little “surprise” appear nine months later.

Happily, Squaregram exists, and its a lot prettier. It also now works with Camera+, and has had some UI tweaks to make it even better.

Did you ever find yourself pinching to zoom a paper map, or tapping and holding on an unfamiliar word in a newspaper trying to pop up a dictionary definition? It always ends in frustration, no? Not anymore. Not the second one, anyway: Meanings is an app that lets you use the iPhone’s camera to look up up real-world words in the fake-world dictionary.

For iOS users, the Pebble Smartwatch has largely existed as an exercise in frustration. While Android users can tie the Pebble Smartwatch into their smartphone’s central nervous system in all kinds of ways, the feature set of the e-ink proto-iWatch has been comparatively worse.

Case in point? Pebble Smartwatch owners who have an iPhone in their pocket couldn’t even get email notifications on the face of their watch. That’s a big deal: getting notified of new emails is seemingly one of the big things you’d want a second screen on your wrist to do. Luckily, that’s being rectified.

Quip is an odd new app that looks like it could be incredibly useful. It’s billed as a word processor, but it combines text editing with instant messaging, change tracking and sharing — plus it has a very cool interface.

Oh, and it works on your iPhone, your iPad and your Mac (in the browser).

Photowerks is a Smart Album app for the iPhone and iPad that you will actually use. Unlike previously-written-about SmartAlbums, Photowerks uses easy spinning dials to set criteria for your saved searches, and it is also quick and very nicely designed.

It’s happened to everyone. You’re typing on your Mac, and you suddenly get a phone call on your iPhone. But you only have two hands. On a deadline, you grab your iPhone, and try to talk to whomever is calling by clenching your phone against your shoulder with your chin, but it suddenly slips, and slides down your tucked shirt and into your underpants. And now, here you are, screaming at your crotch to call you back while shaking an iPhone down your pants leg. How embarrassing.

What, that hasn’t happened to you? How strange. Must just be me. Either way, though, wouldn’t it be cool if you could just route incoming iPhone calls to your Mac? Now you can, thanks to Dialogue.