free iPad apps - page 5

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This week, our picks include one that tells you when famous people die; a DVR for your commute; and pretty, pretty weather forecasts.

Here you go:

R.I.P. V.I.P.: The Death Alert App – News – $0.99

It’s the witching season and there’s a weird little app to keep you informed while you’re eating tiny versions of regular candy and watching horror movies of varying quality.

R.I.P. V.I.P.: The Death Alert App is as basic as its title is punctuated: It’s a news feed that updates every time a person of note passes away. So if you want to be the first among your friends to say, “Oh, no, that guy died?,” it has you covered. It’ll even send you notifications and you can instantly share any of the eulogies of Sausage Kings or 1960s character actors on social media and in text messages, if that’s your thing.

It all sounds pretty tacky, but it’s actually a pretty good resource for learning about interesting people that you can never, ever meet now. For example, did you know that recently deceased Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer, who produced Star Trek: The Animated Series and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, also provided the voice for Tracy the Gorilla in the unfortunate knock-off Ghostbusters cartoon?

Well, you do now.

R.I.P. V.I.P.: The Death Alert App

Nice Weather 2 – Weather – Free

I appreciate a simple, uncluttered interface and that’s why I hate the Weather Channel app. But I’ve replaced that table-laden monstrosity with Nice Weather 2. It’s a jumble-free program that has all the information you need that still manages to look neat and clean. The curved line at the bottom represents the temperature over time, and you can drag that little ball along it to get actual numbers. You can also check humidity and the wind’s speed and direction, and the high and low temperatures are marked for your convenience.

Beyond that, it’s just striking to look at. And I know I’m talking about the weather here; that’s how good-looking this thing is.

Nice Weather 2

My Mountain of Debt — Finance — $0.99 (50%-off launch sale price)

My Mountain of Debt, a new financial app by developer Fun with Data, believes that paying off your debt is as hard as removing a giant pile of bricks from over the opening to your anthill. At the start, you enter your total debt in up to four categories, and then adjust the amounts as needed.

Each time your debt shrinks, the formic hero mounts the pile with his trusty pickaxe and whittles down the stack. It could be a valuable tool to keep your debt in perspective and show your progress — plus that ant looks pretty cute in his little miner’s helmet.

My Mountain of Debt

Save Drives — Navigation — Free

You can prepare all you want, but accidents happen. When they do, Save Drives thinks that you should have documentation. It’s an app that turns your phone into a dashboard camera to log your drives. It maps your courses, tracks your distances driven, and records the last 30 minutes of your drive. You can cut the video into 10 or 30-second chunks as needed, which could come in handy if you need to present something in court or if something crazy happens in front of your car that you want to show your friends later.

If you are in an accident, it’ll even send out some e-mails or post something on Twitter to let people know, which is simultaneously handy and random. It’s handom.

Save Drives

Maps© — Social Networking — Free

If you want to use Google’s Street View function without having to go into Apple’s occasionally dodgy Maps, you might want to check out Maps©. In addition to letting you look at people’s lawns like you’re there, you can also drop pins between two points to calculate distance (this gets less accurate the farther apart your points are), check traffic, and get directions. And if you want to see where your friends live (which is creepy, but I’m sure you might have innocent reasons), you can import their addresses from your contacts and drop pins there.

It does a bit of everything, really.

Maps©

BestRoute Free — Navigation — Free

Now that Halloween is over, the rest of the holidays are clamoring for our attention. And some of them require shopping, which can mean a lot of driving all over town. And if you want to make sure you’re taking the most efficient route possible, you might want to plug your stops into BestRoute Free, a new app that lets you quickly and easily mark waypoints (by searching or just a long tap on the screen). It’ll then tell you the best order in which to make your stops.

It would probably also come in handy if you suddenly had to deliver a bunch of pizzas or something.

BestRoute Free

Maps© — Social Networking — Free

If you want to use Google’s Street View function without having to go into Apple’s occasionally dodgy Maps, you might want to check out Maps©. In addition to letting you look at people’s lawns like you’re there, you can also drop pins between two points to calculate distance (this gets less accurate the farther apart your points are), check traffic, and get directions. And if you want to see where your friends live (which is creepy, but I’m sure you might have innocent reasons), you can import their addresses from your contacts and drop pins there.

It does a bit of everything, really.

Maps©

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This week, we have something to keep you from getting lost, something to let you combine your photos, and another thing to help you breathe again after your traumatic shopping experience.

Here you go:

InstaPhotoBlend – Photo & Video – $1.99

If you’ve ever looked at two of your photos and wished that you could somehow transmogrify them into one Frankenphoto, you might want to check out InstaPhotoBlend. It’s image-editing software for your iOS device that uses a simple interface to let you combine and blend two photos together.

You start by selecting two pictures — one top layer and one bottom layer — and then fiddle around with the controls to control opacity and adjust color until you’ve created the perfect thing that used to be two things. After that, you can post your masterpiece to social media, email or text it, or just hang onto it until the time is right. It’s a fun little app to play with, and it’s not hard to create some interesting effects.

InstaPhotoBlend

Backstep – Travel – Free

If you’ve ever traveled to an unfamiliar city, found a new café, or parked at a SuperTarget, you know the value of being able to get back to where you were. Backstep wants to help. It’s a new app by developer D Leak that lets you drop a waypoint at your current location with a single tap on your screen. You name the waypoint, then call up your various pins individually, and Backstep will show where you are in relation to it and update as you head back to your starting point. It’s a simple app with the cleanest of interfaces, and it might save you a few fights over which arbitrarily named row your car is in.

Backstep

Calming Breath – Health & Fitness – Free

Breathing is simple, right? In, out, repeat? It is if you’re a normal, healthy person with a positive outlook on life and no major stress, but if you’re an anxiety-ridden mess like I am, you occasionally have some difficulty.

Enter Calming Breath, a simple, one-screen app that sits you down and times your inhales and exhales. It works on a four-second inhale, six-second exhale system and includes an animation of a pair of lungs that fill and empty in time, if you’re a visual person.

If you prefer to have your eyes closed, you can also set the app to vibrate at the beginnings and ends of breaths, and all of this sounds completely ridiculous, but if you’re in the middle of a panic attack, you need all the guidance you can get. Calming Breath is simple, easy, and it does what it needs to do.

Calming Breath

Nice Weather 2 – Weather – Free

I appreciate a simple, uncluttered interface, and that’s why I hate the Weather Channel app. But I’ve replaced that table-laden monstrosity with Nice Weather 2. It’s a jumble-free program that has all the information you need that still manages to look neat and clean. The curved line at the bottom represents the temperature over time, and you can drag that little ball along it to get actual numbers. You can also check humidity and the wind’s speed and direction, and the high and low temperatures are marked for your convenience.

Beyond that, it’s just striking to look at. And I know I’m talking about the weather here; that’s how good-looking this thing is.

Nice Weather 2

Calming Breath – Health & Fitness – Free

Breathing is simple, right? In, out, repeat? It is if you’re a normal, healthy person with a positive outlook on life and no major stress, but if you’re an anxiety-ridden mess like I am, you occasionally have some difficulty. Enter Calming Breath, a simple, one-screen app that sits you down and times your inhales and exhales. It works on a four-second inhale, six-second exhale system and includes an animation of a pair of lungs that fill and empty in time, if you’re a visual person. If you prefer to have your eyes closed, you can also set the app to vibrate at the beginnings and ends of breaths, and all of this sounds completely ridiculous, but if you’re in the middle of a panic attack, you need all the guidance you can get. Calming Breath is simple, easy, and it does what it needs to do.

Calming Breath

Backstep – Travel – Free

If you’ve ever traveled to an unfamiliar city, found a new café, or parked at a SuperTarget, you know the value of being able to get back to where you were. Backstep wants to help. It’s a new app by developer D Leak that lets you drop a waypoint at your current location with a single tap on your screen. You name the waypoint, then call up your various pins individually, and Backstep will show where you are in relation to it and update as you head back to your starting point. It’s a simple app with the cleanest of interfaces, and it might save you a few fights over which arbitrarily named row your car is in.

Backstep

Sometimes you want to play a game on your iPhone, but you’re also carrying groceries or a bouquet of flowers or a sandwich.

Seriously, it happens.

And when it happens, it’s usually impossible. Some games demand two hands, or you can only play them in landscape mode, which is unwieldy. You end up looking like a person in the black-and-white clips of an infomercial, for whom opening a can of tuna or dusting are the most difficult acts imaginable. And nobody wants to be a black-and-white infomercial person.

But Rotato by Floor 27 Industries solves all of that by being easily playable with one hand. And ridiculous analogies aside, it’s actually pretty fun and addictive.

We’re giving away some apps this week that will be sure to help distract you from work during the day, so listen up. Today’s apps are not for the faint of heart.  We’ve got stunt bikers, We’ll pick five random winners to win 6 great apps and if you want a chance to get your hands on some these iPhone and iPad apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:

1. Like us on Facebook AND Like Appular
2. Post a tip on our Facebook wall. The tip can be anything related to Apple/Mac or it can be a suggestion for an app that you’d like us to review
3. Your post on our wall will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm PST tomorrow tonight. We’ll contact the winners on Wednesday about how to get the codes!
4. Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:

Cult of Mac has been going nuts with iPad and iPhone app giveaways lately, and today is no different! Today, we’ve got some great apps for your iPhone and iPad. We’ll pick 5 random winners to win 4 great apps. If you want a chance to get your hands on some of these sweet apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:

1. “Like” Us On Facebook (you must do this, if you’re not a fan of us, we can’t contact you if you win).
2. Post a link to your favorite Cult of Mac article from the past week on our Facebook Wall. Make sure you post it on OUR wall, not your own.
3. Your wall post will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll contact the winners later this week and explain how to get the codes!
4. Optional step: If you want to go the extra mile, you can post it in your Facebook status and status tag us. Do it ’cause you love us.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:

Cult of Mac is blowing minds and iDevices with some great apps for your iPhone and iPad. We’ll pick 5 random winners to win 6 great apps. If you want a chance to get your hands on some great apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:

1. Follow us on Twitter (you must do this, if you’re not following us, we can’t contact you if you win).
2. Tweet this: @cultofmac and @appular are making it rain with FREE iPhone and iPad apps! #cultofmac
3. Your tweet will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll contact the winners on Tuesday or Wednesday and how to get the codes!
4. Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:

Isn’t it weird that when we see something at the store for $2.99, we don’t spend much time figuring out whether we should buy it, but when it’s a mobile app, we definitely hesitate. Maybe it’s because we don’t get a good chance to demo the product before we purchase. But, Cult of Mac takes away all of that hesitation, because we give away premium iPad and iPhone apps ALL THE TIME!  We’ll pick 5 random winners to win 6 great apps. If you want a chance to get your hands on some great apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:

1. Follow us on Twitter (you must do this, if you’re not following us, we can’t contact you if you win).
2. Tweet this: @cultofmac and @appular are hooking us up with killer iPhone and iPad apps! #cultofmac
3. Your tweet will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll contact the winners on Tuesday or Wednesday and how to get the codes!
4. Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:

It’s that time again for us to show our philantropy to our loyal readers and give back in the form of some sweet applications. Today, we’ve got some great iPad and iPhone apps to give out. This week, we’ll be doing something a little different when it comes to giving out the app codes. We know that you all have questions as experience Mac users and as newbie Mac users. We know this, because our writers and editors get emails every day with your questions, but unfortunately, we can’t always get back to you with answers. We want to organize a better way for you to get your questions answered by our own Mac geniuses and other readers, so here’s how the giveaway is going to work.

1. Become a fan of our Facebook page.
2. Click on the “Discussion Tab” and then click on “Start A New Topic”. Here’s a quick link for those of you that are already fans. Discussion Tab
3. Post a question or discussion topic about Mac Hardware, Mac software, iPhone/iPad apps, or anything else Mac related that has been a burning question deep within your soul.
4. Our Mac genius will come into the discussion throughout the week and will answer some of these questions, and some of the best topics will be featured in upcoming posts
5. Extra brownie points for those Facebook users that comment on other topics other than their own.
6. We’ll randomly select Facebook users and give you one of the following codes listed below. We’ve got about 50 app codes to give away (10 of each app), so get talking!

**Must be 18 years old to enter the giveaway, and these codes are only good in the United States iTunes app. No purchase is necessary.**

Special thanks to Brian and Appular for helping provide the app codes to giveaway. Got a new iPhone app that you just developed? The iPhone/iPad app marketplace is HIGHLY competitive, and you need competent professionals to help you market it. Appular can help you get your app the exposure it needs. Contact them today if you’re a seasoned or aspiring Mac app developer.

Over 1 million iPads have been sold since it first came out almost a month ago, and we’re guessing that many of our readers have one, am I right? If you don’t, sorry to rub it in your face, but we’ll be giving away 4 iPad apps today as part of our ongoing Monday Giveaway series. We want to thank Brian from Appular for putting this app bundle together. If you’re an iPhone or iPad app developer, make sure you consider Appular for all of your marketing efforts. First, let’s go through how to enter to win the apps:

1. Become a Fan of our Facebook page.
2. Find your favorite article from the past week or two, and copy the link to it.
3. Log in to your Facebook profile, go to your status messaging box, and tag our Facebook page in your status, and write a sweet message to us. Then, attach a link to your favorite CoM article, and click “Share”.
4. We’ll pick 5 profiles that tagged us in their status at random and you’ll win 4 iPad app codes!

We’ve done the status tagging thing in the past, and some of you have had issues with it. So, I’ve taken the precious time out of my day to put together a short demonstration on how to do it. Remember, the privacy settings of the status message must be set to “Everyone” or else the status tag won’t show up on our page, and we’ll have no idea that you tagged us.