"If there is an app for that"

Loop by Seedling, Houseparty, Lisn, and other apps to check out this weekend

October 01, 2016 by macjeff

It’s the weekend again, and you know what that means: it’s time for another edition of our Apps of the Week roundup. This week we have some awesome selections, including a video editing app that makes stop-animation a breeze, a fun new group video chat platform, a new app for listening to music with friends, and two great new games.

Loop by Seedling

This one is for the amateur filmmakers and aspiring directors out there. Loop by Seedling allows you to create and share a looping animation in seconds. Features include the ability to view overlays of your previous photo to assist with stop-motion animations, various filters and layouts, and quick sharing. In fact you can go from snapping to sharing in seconds, and it’s even easier in iOS 10, where you can send loops from right within the Messages app. Loop is available for free.

Houseparty

The team behind the pioneering-but-long-forgotten streaming app Meerkat is back with a new project called Houseparty. The tagline for the app is “Welcome to the House, where the Party is always on,” and it’s essentially group video chat. The idea is for you to be able to hop in a video chat with your friends with a single tap, and invite others to join you. A friend of a friend can join, or you can lock your room for privacy. Like Meerkat, the app has gotten a lot of early attention, but the question is how long will it last? Houseparty is available for free.

Lisn

Lisn is an app that’s built on an interesting concept: don’t just send links to your friends of your favorite songs, play it for them live. The app allows you to play tracks for other users in real time while chatting. There’s a few caveats here. For one, Lisn requires a Facebook login (although the developers say they’re working on other methods), and two it only works with Spotify Premium or SoundCloud. So if you send a song to a friend that isn’t a Spotify Premium member, the song will only play for 30 seconds. If this doesn’t bother you, this is definitely worth checking out. Lisn is available for free.

Zip—Zap

Looking for a simple, well-designed puzzle game to play this weekend? Check out Zip—Zap. The premise is simple: touch the mechanical ‘being’ to make it contract (zip), and release it to let go (zap), with the goal of bringing the mechanical beings home. There are over 100 levels, with no ads or IAPs. And that’s pretty much it. As you can see in the screenshots, the graphics are charming and polished, and the early reviews rave about the game mechanics and excellent level design. Again, if you’re into these types of puzzlers at all, give this one a shot. Zip—Zap is available for $1.99.

Pumped BMX 3

The final installment of the smash hit BMX game is here! In Pumped BMX 3, you’ll ride through sets of jumps pulling off crazy stunts in order to complete challenges and beat high scores. There are over 720 challenges and achievements, spread across 60 all-new levels and 6 amazing environments. There’s also 15 riders to choose from, from style gurus like Chase Hawk to tech wizards like Dennis Enarson, and each is capable of pulling off 24 insane tricks. This definitely seems like a fun way to pass the time on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Pumped BMX 3 is available for $3.99.

More apps to check out

• Infinite Tanks, a military sim by Sky Gamblers creators, hits iOS, Mac & Apple TV
• Apple’s free app of the week: Flowing
• How to get the bokeh effect in your photos, no iPhone 7 Plus needed
• Leaf for iPhone review: a new, design-focused way to browse Twitter
• Google announces YouTube Go app for watching and sharing videos without using any data

Apps updated this week

• Alto’s Adventure now supports haptic feedback via iPhone 7’s new Taptic Engine
• Skype for iOS updated with Siri, Phone, Contacts and Lock screen integrations
• Adobe updates Lightroom for iOS with support for iPhone 7 Plus dual-lens camera & more
• MacID update brings improvements for iOS 10, watchOS 3, and macOS Sierra
• Spotify’s new continuously updated playlist combines your favorites and new music

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 09/30/2016

September 30, 2016 by macjeff

Audio Spectrum , Animal Puzzles for Kids with Skills: The Best Activity Preschool Shape Games for Toddlers, Boys and Girls , BlackCam - Black&White Camera and more

Universal:

Audio Spectrum is a real-time FFT spectrum analyzer. It provides you with a visual representation of what you’re hearing, and can be used to measure the response times of audio equipment or analyze various sounds. The app includes three sampling rates to choose from, the ability to zoom and pan charts, and the ability to export and share charts. External microphones are also supported and are highly recommended for better results.

After choosing a scene, cork board cutouts will begin to appear. Your child must drag and drop the pieces into place to fill each cutout. Once complete, the scene will become animated and they can tap on different items and characters to see what happens. The game includes 11 scenes to enjoy, and a new baby play time mode.

BlackCam does one thing and does it well. It provides you with dozens of lens filters to choose from, all of which are shown live on your feed. You can also add simulated grain and vignette, and adjust the contrast, brightness, and exposure at will. The app outputs at full resolution, providing you with the best possible results.

Peter Potato’s adventure will test your speed, skill, memory, rhythm, and intellect through 70 fast-paced mini-games. The charming and quirky story sets up each mini-game. The dialogue is not only amusing, it’s also loaded with more than 150 vegetable facts. Along the way you’ll be able to unlock new characters, clothes, and accessories.

The beauty of Maze Zen is in its simplicity. Just tilt to roll the ball through circular mazes in order to reach the center. If you want, you can compete against the speed records, but it’s not a requirement. After completing each maze you’ll receive an inspirational quote. You’re able to match the color of the mazes to your mood with a two-finger pinch. The game is also a blast to play on Apple Watch.

Henry’s granddad has been accused of being a pirate and has been condemned to death as a result. It’s up to you to help Henry collect the tools that will save his granddad while uncovering all sorts of secrets buried in exotic locations. Each scene has a variety of objects to discover, and the faster you work, the more points you’ll score. Just try to avoid mindlessly tapping the screen, as it will freeze up and cost you valuable time. Bandits will also enter the scene at random, and you must tap on them to fire and protect yourself to earn extra hints.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Apple’s free app of the week: Flowing

September 29, 2016 by macjeff

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the app Flowing. This means that for the next 7 days, you can get the popular meditation and mindfulness app for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $3.

For those who aren’t familiar with Flowing, it’s a health and fitness app that promises to help you upgrade your sleep, focus, and productivity. Its features include guided meditation, 3D parallax scenes, and customizable white noise.

From the App Store Editors’ Notes:

What good are guided meditation and mindfulness? To start, they’ve helped us sleep better and be happier. That’s why Flowing is so valuable: it provides three guided meditations, peaceful illustrated landscapes, and customizable white noise (you can mix in music, bird chirping, and rain). Now, we’re relaxed—and that’s pretty exciting.

And here’s a clip of the app in action:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdWOIQJiQ9w?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

Flowing is available in the App Store for free.

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 09/29/2016

September 29, 2016 by macjeff

Split Wizard - Bills & Shared Expenses , LoryStripes - Add 3D Ribbons and Stripes to Your Photos , Drop The Chicken 2 and more

iPhone:

No matter how simple or complex the bill, SplitWizard will help ensure everyone pays their fair share. Start off by entering the total bill amount, how many people are included, and the quality of the service to determine the tip total. You’ll then see the amount everyone has to pay including tip. If you don’t want to deal with exact change, tap the up arrow in the bottom left corner to round up the bill. SplitWizard also allows you to split bills between multiple people with different expenses. It includes four currencies to choose from, two rounding options, and two decimal separation options.

Universal:

LoryStripes transforms your photos into 3-D works of art. It allows you to import any photo from your library, and then choose a stripe that fits with your photo’s theme. You’re able to move and resize the stripe using common gestures. Stripes can appear as if they’ve been weaved into your photos by erasing portions. It’s a pretty neat effect. You’re able to choose from 70 stripes, 70 colors, and 10 shading and blending options.

Chuck has been captured by an evil monkey ring master. To escape from the circus, you must help Chuck perform pool diving tricks while catching bugs along the way. While Chuck is on his platform, you’re required to move a wide variety of objects to ensure he safely lands in the pool. When you believe you have everything just right, flip the switch and see how he performs. The game includes 100 puzzles, five bonus levels, and in-game helping hands.

BendyBooth allows you to use 28 crazy effects to distort your face. The effects are applied in real-time, and you can adjust the position and intensity to ensure your photo or video comes out just right. The non-destructive editing also allows you to edit your face and voice even after you record. Captured clips can be sped or slowed down as well.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Leaf for iPhone review: a new, design-focused way to browse Twitter

September 28, 2016 by macjeff

Ever since Apple integrated support for Twitter sharing into iOS, I’ve been an avid Twitter user. It’s where I get the majority of my tech headlines, an occasional dose of national or world news that makes it past my Tweetbot mute filters, and how I discover most of my new apps and friends, even. It also happens to be where my app discoveries, tech opinions, and bad jokes get posted. If you’re not following me on Twitter, you’re probably better off for it, but I’d appreciate you giving it some consideration regardless.

All this results in me becoming keenly interested when a new Twitter app is released, and the latest addition to the many clients I’ve tried is Leaf, a brand new app designed by Surenix and developed by iPlop, both prominent members of the jailbreak scene. Based on my experiences thus far, Leaf is best described as an alternative to Twitter’s official client rather than an opponent of Tweetbot, the Twitter power user’s app of choice. If you dislike Tweetbot for whatever reason but aren’t entirely satisfied with Twitter’s default option, Leaf may be for you.

The strong points of Leaf are in its design, simplicity, and the fact that its name isn’t a derivative of “Twitter”, “tweet”, or some species of bird. There are subtle visual cues throughout in Leaf that lead me to truly appreciate the effort put into the design and development of the app, while the lack of some features that I use often leaves me waiting for an update.

I must disclose early on, though, that while I have my quibbles with Tweetbot, I consider it to be the best Twitter client available on iOS for my personal needs, and I take advantage of its power user features on a daily basis. I don’t feel that the two can be fairly compared due to the obviously varying feature sets, and therefore the varying audiences, each app targets, so I will attempt to avoid contrasting the two directly.

Design

Leaf has several subtle touches that give the user a real appreciation for the attention to detail that went into the design and development of this app. Right away, you’ll notice the translucent Leaf emblem in front of the gradient background of the app’s icon, a trademark of Ayeris, Surenix’s jailbreak theme, and this emblem remains translucent in the menu bar of the app.

Opening the app to the main timeline presents an array of vertically-narrow tweets, an effort to display as many statuses as possible in a single few. It’s worth noting, however, that these screenshots were taking on a Plus-sized iPhone with a text size that is one level below halfway, so your results may vary.

Swiping right on a tweet invokes a reply sheet, which contains a preview of the tweet to which you are replying above the compose field. A short swipe left displays retweet and like options and a details button, with a longer right-swipe jumping directly to the details view of the tweet, displaying information such as its timestamp and the client with which it was posted.

Image previews are thin but edge-to-edge and have a gradient that gradually transitions from the tweet’s text to its image, creating an interesting visual effect. I’m personally not a huge fan of this design from a utilitarian standpoint, as it sometimes obscures enough of the image’s contents that I have to tap on the photo in order to tell what it is. Some users may value its visual appeal, however, so draw your own conclusions.

The tweet compose view has a pleasant design, with the card taking up only as much screen real estate as is necessary and the remaining space being a simple Gaussian blur that provides context of where the user is within the app. Attached image previews line up neatly below the tweet’s text, and each can be expanded or removed individually.

The upper portion of the profile view displays information about the user, while the lower area displays the user’s tweets and accounts they recently followed – or if you’re viewing your own profile, you’ll see an account switcher (if you’re signed into multiple accounts), a settings button, and a night mode toggle.

Yes, Leaf has a night mode, a standard in Twitter apps that makes evening scrolling much more bearable. Leaf’s night mode consists of a black background rather than a dark blue or gray, with a dark Gaussian blur replacing its white counterpart. Naturally, black text changes to white, and light backgrounds change to dark, but hyperlinked text and other colors remain the same.

Scrolling further down a profile shows accounts that the user whose profile is currently being viewed has followed recently. In reality this same information could be found by tapping the profile’s following count, which would display all the followed accounts, but it can be convenient to have that information readily available, although some users may prefer less easily accessible information, such as accounts both you and the profile are following.

Of course, design is more than aesthetically pleasing visuals, and it extends to the user experience, which is where I really begin to appreciate Leaf’s design. Direct messages have a unique side-scrolling UI, enabling users to switch between threads with a horizontal swipe, making for a convenient way to carry multiple conversations simultaneously.

Rich notifications in iOS 10 are also well done, as Leaf displays profile pictures inline and even loads your tweet after you reply to someone from a notification as a way of confirming that your tweet has been posted, a small detail that I find absolutely delightful.

What it has

Although Leaf isn’t yet as feature-rich as some of its peers, the Twitter client does have a few nice touches when it comes to functionality. Naturally, night mode is always a welcomed feature and may be considered necessary in Twitter clients today. The currently signed-in profile is easily accessible with a swipe down from the top of the app, and when viewing a profile’s tweets, users can filters those tweets by mentions. Viewing the search tab displays a long list of trending topics below the search options, which is a welcome interface for anyone who frequently checks popular topics on Twitter.

The direct message experience in Leaf is exceptional with sideways swipes being an easy way to quickly switch between threads without having to back out of an conversation in order to enter another. There is a dedicated button for dismissing the keyboard in the DM view, but it’s rather difficult to reach with one hand on Plus-sized phones, and I’d like to be able to swipe down to dismiss the keyboard as well.

In the app’s settings, users can enable streaming, a feature that is available over both Wi-Fi and cellular, and the “Pin To Top” option scrolls new tweets in as they’re streamed. Night mode can be automatically turned on when the device’s brightness is below a certain level, push notifications can be granularly controlled, Tweet Marker can be turned on or off, and in-app notifications can be enabled.

What it doesn’t have

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a few features missing from Leaf that other Twitter clients have had for a while. Some of these many people won’t care are missing, while their absence may be a deal breaker for others. I’m told that some of these features will be added in an upcoming update, but they simply aren’t present in the release version.

For a start, there is currently no way to mute tweets, users, or hashtags from within the app. Additionally, users cannot sign out of an account without deleting and redownloading the app, and signing into an account can only be done by adding an account that’s already signed into iOS. Further, while users can filter an account’s tweets to view only tweets in which they’re mentioning someone, there is not presently a media filter for viewing only tweets contain photos or videos. There are preview images for YouTube links but not Instagram links, and 3D Touch has yet to be enabled in the app in any form. Users can save a tweet as a draft, but Leaf only saves one draft at a time, and saving another draft will overwrite the previous draft.

It’s also worth noting that Leaf is iPhone-only at launch, with no iPad or Apple Watch app currently available. Naturally, any of the features listed as not present may be added in the future, and updates to the app are already in the works.

Conclusion

Leaf is a new Twitter client with novel ideas in a field that other apps have occupied for years, which may be considered a difficult feat that gives me hope for what else we might see come from Surenix and iPlop down the road. While it’s difficult for me recommend Leaf as a valid alternative for Tweetbot lovers or as a primary app for power users in its current state, the possibility remains that it could become the Twitter client of choice for iOS users after more work is done and more features are added.

My view from the beginning has been that enthusiastic Tweetbot users who couldn’t live without advanced mute filters or who love viewing their profile stats won’t get much use from Leaf, at least for a while. (A few feature-packed updates could change that rather swiftly, I’d imagine.) However, anyone who is dissatisfied with Tweetbot’s design or who gets by with Twitter’s official app but would like something new and refreshing should definitely consider Leaf as a primary Twitter client. Succinctly put, Leaf is a young but well-designed Twitter client that, with a few feature updates, has a gleamingly bright future.

You can purchase Leaf on the App Store for $4.99, and more information is available on the designer’s website.