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30 best iPhone and iPad apps this week
[February 11, 2013]

30 best iPhone and iPad apps this week


(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A couple of days later than usual, it's time for our weekly roundup of the newest and most notable new apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Apps and games are included, with the price in brackets relating to the initial download of each app, so those marked (Free) may include in-app purchases.

The latest Android roundup was published on Friday. For now, read on for this week's pick of new iOS apps: Marie Claire Runway 3 (£2.99) This is the latest iPad app from Marie Claire magazine, focusing on the Spring/Summer 2013 fashion collections. It promises videos of key clobber trends this season, along with live footage of the New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion shows.iPad Football Week (Free) A late-Friday release meant this just missed out on the last best iOS apps roundup, but it's well worth a look if you're a football fan. Future's digital-only magazine focuses on the English Premier League, with interviews and match previews, then live data piped in from the Press Association while matches are in progress. It costs £3.99 a month or £19.99 a year, with a new issue every week. Read more in our interview.iPad After Burner Climax (£1.99) Sega's famous dogfighting game franchise comes to iOS, promising an array of real fighter jets, 20 stages to fly through, and three game modes to test your airborne skills. It plays nice with Apple's AirPlay technology too, to play on bigger screens.iPhone / iPad Mailbox (Free) Big things are expected of Mailbox, an email app for iPhone promising that it "puts email in its place". That means swipe-simple archiving and deleting, as well as chucking emails out of your inbox temporarily to focus on the important ones. Mailbox is controversial, though, for its first-come first-serve reservations policy: if you download it now, there are more than 730k people waiting in a virtual queue ahead of you for access.iPhone Paddington Bear's Adventures (£2.99) Paddington Bear has already starred in a book-app for iOS, but now he's got his own game too. Officially licensed, it includes five mini-games plus a dress-up mode, with an array of London scenes featuring – not to mention some suitably-sticky marmalade. Good fun for kids.iPhone / iPad Dave (Free) British digital TV channel Dave – still "the home of witty banter" – has launched its first app. It's a simple but effective way to stream shows from Frank Skinner, Russell Howard, Dara O'Briain and others on an iPhone or iPad.iPhone / iPad The Little Mermaid (£2.99) Developer StoryToys has made a name for itself with cute digital pop-up books based on various Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Now it's turning its attention to Hans Christian Andersen and The Little Mermaid, with a mixture of pop-up scenes, mini-games and easily-readable text.iPhone / iPad Badoo (Free) Chatting and dating app Badoo has been very popular on smartphones – as in 150m-people popular – as a way for people with similar interests to hook up. Now it's been redesigned for a native iPad version. Expect lots of on-screen thumbnails of possible partners, with chat sitting neatly alongside.iPad Hinge (Free) More dating with this iPhone app, which is based on Facebook. The idea: "Just rate people in your extended friend network on Facebook, and Hinge lets you know whenever the feeling is mutual". Which, of course, does rather depend on lots of people signing up to Hinge if it's going to be useful...iPhone Timbre (Free) The Songkick Concerts app has been a proven success at alerting people to upcoming gigs by bands they like. Its latest competition comes from Timbre, which just expanded outside the US. It recommends local concerts while also playing music by the artists so you can gauge how good they are.iPhone Happier (Free) Gigs make me happy, but so do a lot of other things. Happier is an app that wants to help me (and you) track "happy moments you find in every day", while sharing them with friends and family who may or may not be a.) happy too or b.) interested. The theory behind it, though, is that focusing on happy moments and sharing them "makes you happier and healthier". Its challenge is to persuade lots of people they need a specific app for this, rather than just posting on Facebook or Twitter.iPhone Don't Be Scared LP (£7.99) DJ Vadim has had a long and respected career making hip-hop, but he's not resting on his laurels in 2013. This album-app is a collaboration with British startup Immersive Album, offering interactive music, lyrics, artwork and videos in a whizzy 3D interface. I might describe it as the next Biophilia, if that wasn't a bit of an ill-fated prediction.iPad Readmill (Free) Readmill has been available for a while on iPad, but this slick e-book reader app has now been squeezed down for iPhone too. It lets you read e-books in the ePUB, PDF and Adobe DRM formats, highlighting quotes, sharing to social networks, and commenting on other people's highlights.iPhone BBC Sport (Free) BBC Sport launched an iPhone app in the UK in January 2013, but now a separate version has been released for international users. Features include news, live scores and stats for a range of sports, as well as live text coverage of various international events. Video will follow (as will an Android version).iPhone Be Together (£0.69) Right from the earliest days – remember Rolando – iOS devices have been tailor-made for rolly-around physics-puzzler games. Be Together is just the latest colourful example, as you arrange props on-screen to unite two rolly characters named Maya and Ruby. iPhone / iPad Beastie Bay (Free) Released for Android in 2012, Japanese developer Kairosoft's freemium game has now made the leap to iOS. It's a cross between Pokemon-style monster-catching and battling and FarmVille-esque village building, with characterful pixelly graphics and addictive gameplay.iPhone / iPad Faces iMake – ABC (£1.49) Robots made from saucepans and a Santa with an aubergine for a nose Those are among the surreal charms available in Faces iMake – ABC. It's an educational alphabet app for young children, who have to reassemble the various characters made from household objects – one per letter.iPad Zombie Typomaniac HD (£1.49) The Typing of the Dead famously turned Sega's The House of the Dead zombie lightgun-shooter games into educational typing titles. Zombie Typomaniac does a very similar thing for iPad, getting you to slay hordes of the undead with touchscreen-typing skills alone.iPad It's Showtime! (Free) A great app for soul and jazz buffs or casual fans alike, this app serves up one-hour radio-style shows focusing on individual record labels, from Stax, Motown and Atlantic through to Prestige, Blue Note and Pablo, with DJs picking out choice tracks to stream to an iPhone.iPhone AudioBox (Free) AudioBox offers a new take on cloud music, since it doesn't lock you into one particular service. Instead, it streams music tracks from Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive, YouTube, SoundCloud and its own service – wherever you've chosen to store them.iPhone Go There Square: A Stella and Sam Adventure (Free) My two young sons spent a decent chunk of 2012 obsessed with Zinc Roe's Stella and Sam apps, which are based on a TV show and picture-book series. They used to be iPad-only, but have now been released in native iPhone / iPod touch versions. Go There Square is a good (free) introduction to the series, blending animation, mini-games and a choice of English or French-language voice narration. The other apps can be found here.iPhone / iPad Seesaw for iPhone (Free) In 2012, an app called LoveThis promised "recommendations with friends" – a quick way to get tips from friends on a range of subjects. Now Seesaw for iPhone does a similar thing, albeit more through push-polls where you ask friends for opinions, sending photos to illustrate it. The app works over Twitter and Facebook, or via text message for more privacy.iPhone The Tallow Candle - by Timbuktu (£1.49) Developer Timbuktu Labs has been making some stylish story-apps for children, with The Tallow Candle its latest release. It's based on a long-lost story by Danish fairytale-teller Hans Christian Andersen that was found in 2012, with light interactivity and lots of illustrations.iPhone / iPad Young Driver (Free) This UK-focused app comes from The Co-operative Insurance, and is aimed at young drivers. You may have guessed that from the name, of course. It runs on their iPhone and rates their driving from 1-5, with the aim of showing them whether they're eligible for the company's Young Driver insurance policy.iPhone Roar Rampage (£0.69) There are probably some bad games based on giant dinosaurs punching buildings into dust, but I've yet to find one. Roar Rampage takes its cues from classic arcade-game Rampage, but updates it for 2013 with more weapons, power-ups and boss fights, not to mention in-app purchases.iPhone / iPad Sylenth1: Synth Focus (£1.99) This iOS app is the work of publisher Future's Computer Music magazine – the first in a series of apps promising to explore the latest software synthesizers. Expect video tutorials, a developer interview and tips from the professional musicians who use the Sylenth1 synth.iPhone / iPad ProCutX for Final Cut Pro X (£17.49) Another app for professional creatives, albeit this time video editors rather than musicians. ProCutX runs on an iPad and controls the Final Cut Pro X software on the user's Mac, offering an elegant touchscreen interface for key features.iPad Metal Slug 2 (£2.49) One for retro-gaming fans this: the second Metal Slug game from SNK Playmore, brought up to date for iOS devices in 2013. New features include a mission mode to choose which level to play, and controls reworked to be less fiddly on a touchscreen.iPhone / iPad Song for my Valentine (£0.69) Consider me your shield from the hundreds of tacky tie-in Valentine's apps released (not to mention press-released) so far in February. This one's fun though: a karaoke app from PureSolo that gets people to sing along to Barry White's You're The First, The Last, My Everything then email the hopefully-tuneful results (with backing track) to their loved one.iPhone GoodBoy (£0.69) Okay, one more romance-themed app, this time very much tongue-in-cheek. It's "a relationship app for adults" based around men earning and losing "GoodBucks" for their behaviour. Tasks include "Quiche for lunch", "dinner with the in-laws" and "holding hands in public", with rewards including "burping pass" and "bowling and beer".iPhone That's this week's selection, but what do you think Make your own recommendations or post your thoughts on the apps above with a comment.




(c) 2013 Guardian Newspapers Limited.

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