VicMan Visage Lab for iPhone is an app that will give your portraits a complete makeover with just the tap of a button. I'm always fairly skeptical of these types of apps because they have the potential to produce results that look very fake and overdone, but not VicMan Visage Lab -- the results are very good!

VicMan Visage Lab includes two sample photos, one of a man and another of a woman. Here's the before and after on the woman model.

Here's the before and after on the male model.

Pretty good, huh?

Using VicMan Visage Lab is extremely easy. Just select the photo you wish to edit and let the software work its magic. When it's done, it'll zoom in on the photo and briefly show the original photo before applying the retouches.

The retouches that VicMan Visage Lab applies are skin makeup, eye makeup, teeth whitening, shine removal, wrinkle smoothing, and color enhancement.

After the retouches are completel you can pinch to zoom in and out of the photo and tap the little snapshot in the bottom left corner to switch between the original and retouched version.

If you are unhappy with the results, you can choose specifically which effects you want to apply. Unfortunately, this doesn't give instant feedback, so you'll have to wait for the retouching to happen again. This also means that there isn't a way to compare between different combinations.

VicMan Visage Lab also includes some effects that you can apply to your photo. A few of them, like Sunny Colors and Glamour Effect, are subtle but have a great impact on portraits. Other effects include Black & White, Retro Sepia, Poster Look, Xmas Bokeh, In the Wave, and Light Bokeh.

Now, I know that seeing great results on photos that were included with the app may not be very impressive, so here's a before and after comparison of a photo of me.

For this photo, I disabled Shine Removal and Wrinkle Smoothing because I felt they made my face look flat and lack dimension. I also applied the Glamour Effect.

The good

• Works surprising well
• Can select between 6 different retouching tools
• Many of the filters are subtle, yet awesome

The bad

• Each time you want to select a different combination of retouching tools, it goes through the entire process over again with no way to compare the different results
• Filters take too long to apply

The conclusion

VicMan Visage Lab is a fantastic app for improving portraits by removing flaws and giving them that extra little oomph. If you're planning to participate in this week's portrait iPhoneography contest, this is probably a great app to pick up!

VicMan Visage Lab comes in three different versions. The free version is ad supported and does not include all of the filter effects. The Pro versions have no adds and includes all the filters. The iPhone only Pro version of VicMan Visage lab is $0.99 and the universal version for iPhone and iPad is $1.99.

Free for iPhone & iPad- Download Now

$0.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$1.99 for iPhone & iPad - Download Now

The Google Search app for iPhone app was recently updated with a complete redesign that makes searching on Google a rather pleasant experience. It features a very stylish and snappy UI that's bound to impress anyone who uses it.

The home page of Google is very clean and Google-esque with barely off-white background and the Google search field directly in the center. Along the top of the screen you'll see what account you're logged into and find access to settings.

On the bottom of the screen you'll see icons for Apps, Voice, and Goggles. The apps section lets you access all the Google Apps on the web: Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Google+, News, Reeder, Photos, YouTube, Translate, Offers, Tasks, and Blogger. You can also find a list of other apps that Google has available in the App Store with direct links to download.

The Voice icon lets you perform a voice search. Just speak what you'd like to search for, and Google Search will type it into the search field for you! It's been extremely accurate in my experience.

Google Goggles is a neat feature that performs a search based on a photo you took. For example, if you want to look up a book, just take a photo of the cover with Goggles and Google will find it for you.

As you type into the search field, Google will automatically display popular search terms. If you see the one you want, just tap it instead of typing it completely out -- it's a huge time saver. When you perform the search, the results will be displayed in a similar fashion as on the web and Mobile Safari. Along the bottom of the screen you choose what kind of search you'd like to perform (web, images, places, news, etc…), but as you scroll down, the controls disappear. Google refers to this as auto full screen. As you scroll up, the controls will reappear. It's very cool.

When you tap on a result, the webpage will open in a tab on top of your results and a very thing blue line will progress underneath the tab while the page loads. Auto full screen works on web pages as well.

When the controls are displayed, you can navigate between pages, refresh the page, open in Safari, share via email, or perform a word search on the page. When doing a search, each appearance of the word will be placed in a yellow box. You can either scroll through the webpage to find each instance of the word, or tap the arrows next to your search to jump to the next/previous time it appears.

Search for images with Google Search is absolutely gorgeous. The photos are displayed as a collage. The collage is separated into distinct rows, but not all the rows are the same height. Each row will contain anywhere between 1 and 3 images in their original crop ratio. I think this is much more interesting than showing each photo cropped as a square.

The good

• Beatuiful design
• Extremely fast
• Voice search is very accurate
• Image searches are stunning
• Web access to all Google Apps
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• Can't have more than one tab

The conclusion

I never used to use Google Search for iPhone, but now I find myself using it quite often. The experience is much better than Safari -- and it's super fast!

Free - Download Now

Apple has made some minor changes to the layout of the App Store within iTunes; the same changes are reflected on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. With such a huge number of apps now available in the App Store finding what you are looking has gone from hit and miss to downright daunting. Apple has been rumored to be completely revamping its iTunes software but in the meantime, they're still tweaking what we have now.

When you visit the App Store you will now see two new features -- Editor’s Choice and App of the Week. Editor’s choice looks to have taken the place of the previous iPhone and iPad App of the Week. This week’s editor’s choices for the UK are The Thames, Air Mail, and Extreme Skater. In the U.S. different apps have been chosen and they are Facebook Camera (fairly fast, given it was only released yesterday...), Sketchbook and again Chillingo’s Air Mail.

The App of the Week for this week is Cut the Rope: Experiments. Apple’s App Store twitter account tweeted the information and included a new hashtag “#FreeAppoftheWeek”. We don’t know if the App of the Week will always be a free app, if it will be a paid app on temporary sale for free, or if -- as we assume -- it won’t always be free and that it will still be any app, paid or free.

These new changes may make things slightly easier to find apps that maybe of  interest to you but the App Store still has a long way to go before it becomes a great experience. Hopefully the rumors of an iTunes redesign will turn out to be true and Apple will use the acquisition of Chomp to offer a better version of the App Store; until then, we will take any improvements we can get.

Source: Touch Arcade

Facebook is the most popular photo sharing service on the web so it comes as no surprise that they released an app dedicated to the photo aspect of Facebook -- it's called Facebook Camera. With Facebook Camera, you can easily share multiple photos to Facebook, add filters to them, tag your friends, and view a newsfeed restricted just to photos posted by you and your friends. And, of course, you can also leave comments and likes on photos.

The main screen of Facebook Camera is the news feed, except that this news feed only contains photos, not status updates and links like in Facebook for iPhone. You can sort the stream to show photos posted by your friends or just your own photos.

The appearance of the photos in the stream is similar to the new look that was recently implemented into Facebook for iPhone. The photos are full-width and wider than the white background. Each photo is also cropped as a square.

At the bottom of each photo you'll see a thumbs up button to "like" it, a comments button to leave comments, and the number of likes and comments is also displayed. When you tap on the numbers, a popup will appear that shows who liked the photo as well as all the comments. You can also leave a comment of your own. This button actually does the exact same thing as the speech bubble button.

Tapping on the photo will display it on a black background with the caption at the bottom as well as buttons to "like", comment, and tag.

At the top of the feed, you'll see a strip of photos from your Camera Roll and a button to launch the camera. Sliding down on the news feed will slide it off the screen so you can scroll through all the photos in your Camera Roll.

Tapping a photo will display it bigger and allow you to crop, tag, or add filters to it. These filters are remarkably similar to Instagram's filters, but this is to be expected since Facebook recently purchased Instagram. Once you've edited the photo to your liking, you can select it with the checkmark button or share it. If you select it, you'll be taken back to the grid of your Camera Roll photos so that you can repeat the process with more photos.

Once you're ready to share the photos, just tap the share button. This screen looks similar to the photo sharing screen on Facebook for iPhone. It will display small thumbnails of all your selected photos, let you say something about them, add a location, add friends, and adjust privacy settings.

The good

• Beautifully designed
• News feed displays either your friends photos or just your own
• Upload multiple photos at once
• Edit photos by cropping and adding filters
• Tag friends
• Adjust privacy settings before posting
• Leave comments and likes on photos

The bad

• Speech bubble and comment/like count buttons perform the exact same thing

The conclusion

I must say that I'm rather surprised with how much I like this app. I do nothing but complain about Facebook for iPhone, but Facebook appears to have done an outstanding job with Facebook Camera. It's not an Instagram replacement, but it's as great addition to Facebook. Now I'm just curious to see how long before these filters become available on the web version of Facebook.

Free - Download Now

Bump is a very popular iPhone app that people use to share information like photos and contacts by "bumping" their phones together. It used to be restricted to only iPhone users, then it appeared on other mobile platforms, and now you can share photos with your computer.

To share a photo, you must first visit https://bu.mp/ on your computer's browser. You don't even have to connect your iPhone to the same wifi network.

Next, you open Bump on your iPhone, swipe to the right to see your photos, and select which photos you want to share. To "bump" with your computer, you simply tap the spacebar on your keyboard with your iPhone.

The first time you do this, you will be required to accept the bump both on your iPhone and your computer, but this is only for the first time. Although Bump claims you only need to lightly tap your keyboard, you actually need to do it harder than you may have been expecting. Basically, the bump needs be be strong enough to be noticed by the software.

Onc the bump is complete, you'll see the photos appear on the website with options to download them all or download individually. You can also just simply drag the photos to your desktop (or other folder) to quickly save them.

As of right now, only photos can be bumped to a computer. You cannot share contact information, nor can you chat with the Mac. I don't see either of these as a problem, since users will typically be using this feature to share their own photos to their own computer. Most people have contacts synced with their computer and there's no reason to chat with yourself.

Personally, I'm very excited about this update and have bookmarked https://bu.mp/ on both of my computers.

Free - Download Now

It's been about a week since Facebook released Facebook Pages Manager, and now Facebook has announced Facebook Camera -- an app dedicated to viewing and sharing photos to Facebook. The big talk on the internet, however, is that this app comes shortly after Facebook's acquisition of Instagram. This is particularly interesting because Facebook Camera allows you to add filters to your photos before uploading -- these filters are strikingly similar to Instagram's filers.

Let's take a look. Here's Facebook's Cream filter next to Instagram's Valencia filter.

And Facebook's Copper next to Instagram's Earlybird.

And Facebook's Cool next to Instagram's Hudson.

No words are even needed to describe the similarities.

So the real question becomes -- did Facebook copy Instagram before buying it, or did Facebook buy Instgram to copy it? I'm inclined to believe it's some combination of the two. There's no doubt that Facebook has been working on this app since well before it purchased Instagram, but my bet is that it was when they started working on the filters they would include with the app that they pursued an acquisition of Instagram. Although the Facebook Camera's filters are not identical to Instagram's, some of them are strikingly similar. As someone who regularly uses Instagram, I noticed the similarities instantly. In fact, before comparing them side-by-side, I thought they were exact replicas.

Which brings to my next question: will Facebook Camera ever include the exact same filters as Instagram? Is this something Facebook should even consider? Some have argued that Facebook is competing with itself by introducing Facebook Camera, which is true in many ways. But ultimately, I think even if both apps include the exact same filters, they will both be independently successful. With the risk of sounding like a snob, the quality of photos on Facebook are not generally as good as Instagram. People typically choose to use Instagram when they want to share a photo they think is particularly good or some fancy collage they created. Facebook, on the other hand, is where people share anything and everything, including random memes and photos from the internet.

What's your take on this? Did Facebook copy Instagram before buying it, or did Facebook buy Instgram to copy it? Was this even a good move by Facebook?

Free - Download Now

The extremely popular Twitter client Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad has just been updated to version 2.4. It brings a new search view, keyword mute filters, offline favorite and Read Later support, and more.

One of the coolest features of this update is offline favorite and Read Later support. Now if you're offline, you can still mark tweets as favorites or send a link to your favorite Read Later service. When you do so, you'll see a banner that says the favorite or link is queued. Once you jump back online, the action will be complete.

The updated search view of Tweetbot 2.4 now shows nearby tweets added with the ability to change location, location-based keyword searches, and improved search box, and a few other UI adjustments. To change your location, you simply scroll around the map. It's very cool.

Additionally, Tweetbot now has basic smart quote support including ellipsis and em dash. Also, when viewing a photo in full screen on an iPad, holding down on it will give you options to save or copy the image, view the website, or tweet the link.

Tweetbot has also added new gestures. Now you can dismiss web and map views on the iPad with a 2-finger swipe down gesture and if you swipe to the right in a profile view, Tweetbot will go back one level.

Last but certainly not least, their already incredible "mute" feature (which lets you stop seeing tweets without unfollowing someone) now supports keywords. Don't want to read about the Facebook IPO or the season finale of your favorite show, just add the right words to your filter and they'll be gone from your timeline. Better still it supports regular expressions (RegEX) so you have excellent, fine-grain control of your mute filters.

The best Twitter client for iPhone and iPad just keeps getting better and better!

$2.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$2.99 for iPad - Download Now

The highly anticipated FTP client, code editor, CSS editor, and previewer, Diet Coda for iPad has hit the App Store. Now you can make quick edits to your website while on the go or on vacation.

A while ago, we were going on vacation, and facing a difficult question: do we take the MacBook, or the iPad? 95% of what we needed was on the iPad, and it felt right to travel light. But what if we needed to fix or post something on our website? We'd be straight out of luck. So, the Macbook was packed. And work on Diet Coda begun.

With Diet Coda, you can edit documents right on your server or staging server, quickly edit works on your servers, insert chunks of codes with "clips" by a single tap, and take advantage of the built-in terminal. Diet Coda also features powerful FTP and SFTP file management and support for HTML, CSS, JS, and PHP.

In addition to the introduction of Diet Coda, Panic has also released Coda 2 for Mac. It features a brand new UI and better text editing, file management, clips, sites, design, and MySQL.

Diet Coda will normally be $19.99, but it's 50% off until the end of Thursday, May 24. Similarly, Coda 2 for Mac is available for $49.99 (regularly $99.99) for today only -- so you better grab these quick!

Diet Coda for iPad - $9.99 - Download Now

Coda 2 for Mac - $49.99 - Download Now

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best, absolutely free educational apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Looking for great educational app for your iPhone or iPod touch? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. Some of the most beneficial free apps are free educational apps.

iTunes U

The free iTunes U app for iPhone gives you access to courses from universities and schools. These courses are completely free and even include assignments. iTunes U and the instructors provide course materials, including audio, video, books, documents & presentations, apps, and books. iTunes U includes over 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology.

• Download Now

Khan Archiver: KhanAcademy Educational Videos On The Go

Khan Academy is one of the best products of education and the internet, and with the Khan Archiver app for the iPhone, you will have free access videos on topics ranging from kindergarten, advanced science, humanities, history, and more. Even more, you can download the videos to watch offline.

• Download Now

SparkNotes

SparkNotes is one of the most popular study guides for literature, Shakespeare, poetry, philosophy, drama and short stories. With the free SparkNotes for iPhone app you can access 50 pre-installed study guides in your library and hundreds of study guides online. You can also check-in at the place you're studying and indicate what subject your studying which could then result in impromptu study sessions with other SparkNotes users studying the same subject at the same place at the same time.

• Download Now

Quick Graph

If you're a student taking a math class, there's a good chance you could benefit from a graphing calculator. Unfortunately, such devices are very expensive, but the good news is that there are several app solutions for your iPhone -- the best being Quick Graph. It lets you graph multiple equations at the same time, change their color, trace along them, and more. Quick supports both 2D and 3D graphing in rectangular and polar forms.

• Download Now

Flashcards+

With school comes lots of studying. One of the most common studying techniques is to use flashcards. With the free Flashcards+ app for iPhone, you can say goodbye to the stacks and stacks of flashcards that accumulate over the course of a semester and use electronic flashcards on your iPhone instead. The beauty of Flashcards+ is that you have your flash cards with you wherever you go, which means you'll likely squeeze in more mini study lessons throughout your day and end up with better grades as a result!

• Download Now

The Official SAT Question of the Day

The free Official SAT Question of the Day for iPhone app is exactly what its name implies -- an app that gives you a new official SAT question every day. You can also view the questions from the past 7 days. When checking your answer, The Official SAT Question of the Day will give you an explanation as well as give you a statistical breakdown of how many questions you've gotten correct in that category.

• Download Now

More free iPhone apps

For dozens of additional free iPhone apps, including free social networking apps, instant messenger and communications apps, entertainment apps, finance apps, fun and games apps, health and fitness apps, kids apps, music apps, navigation and location apps, news apps, photography apps, productivity apps, reading apps, shopping apps, sports apps, travel apps, and general utility apps, see here:

• Best free iPhone apps
• Best free iPhone games

Rene Ritchie contributed photographs to this article.

Convert photos and drawings into coloring pages that can be printed and colored with real crayons

Printy is a cute little app that will turn anything you take a photo of into a coloring page that can be printed on real paper and colored with real crayons. It's is incredibly easy to use and does an equally incredible job at producing colorable PDFs.

There's literally only four screens included with Printy. The first one let's you choose between taking a photo or choosing one from your Camera Roll. In the next screen, you move and scale your photo to fit in the square. Yes, you must crop your photo to square.

Once you accept your crop, you'll be shown the first draft of your coloring page. There are two sliders you can adjust to make it look better. The first slider controls the thickness of the black lines and the second slider controls the darkness of the image.

Once it looks best, tap the checkmark to generate the final high resolution image. You should notice that the lines smooth out and look better than in the previous screen. You can then choose to print the image to an AirPrint compatible printer or email it has a high resolution PDF. Here's an example of a PDF created by Printy.

My only real complaint is that once you print or email the image, you can't save it anywhere. At the very least, you should be able to save it to our Camera Roll, but even better would be if you could export to a folder in Dropbox dedicated to Printy PDF files.

The good

• Does an amazing job
• Fine tune the image by adjusting the thickness and darkness of lines
• Print to AirPrint compatible printer
• Email high resolution PDF

The bad

• Forces a square crop
• Can't save to camera roll
• Dropbox support would be awesome

The conclusion

I am very impressed with how well Printy works. Now, if you try to take photos of things that aren't flat or that have have too much detail, the results will not be as great. But keeping in mind that the purpose of Printy is to create coloring pages, probably for a child, you wouldn't be taking photos of these types of things anyway. I anticipate that my daughter will want me to take photos of characters in her books when she gets to the coloring age as well as use screenshots from her favorite apps and books on the iPad.

$0.99 - Download Now

Motion Math: Wings is an iPad game with the focus of increasing conceptual understanding of multiplication. The goal is simple, tilt your iPad to guide the flying bird to the biggest number.

The catch is that the number isn't typically represent by its normal written form. Sometimes the numbers may presented as a grid of dots, a group of dots, a small group of dots preceded by "2 groups of", and more. There's a total of six different visual forms that a number can take. It's your job to fly the bird into the larger number. As the difficult increases, so does the speed of the bird and the size of the numbers.

As a math instructor, I can confidently say that lack of conceptual understanding is why so many people struggle with mathematics. Unfortunately, this often starts at a very young age, but games like Motion Math help fill that gap. Instead of just memorizing that four times 6 is 24, players will need to also be familiar with the many different visual forms that this operation can take. The mental exercise will absolutely have an impact on your child's understanding.

Motion Math: Wings may be free to download, but it's by no means free. The free download comes with the first island of 5 different levels of difficulty. These 5 levels can be played as many times as you wish and should be enough for you to decide if you want to purchase more levels. There are three different areas of learning that you can purchase: pre-multiplcation ($1.99), basic multiplication ($2.99), and advanced multiplication ($2.99). Or you can buy all the levels for $6.99.

The good

• Both educational and fun
• Numbers are represented six different visual forms
• Develops conceptual understanding
• 10 levels of difficulty
• players win feathers and twigs to color the bird and build its nest

The bad

• Boring graphics

The conclusion

Motion Math: Wings isn't your typical boring arithmetic game. Instead of sticking with the traditional form of numbers, Motion Math includes many different visual forms to represent numbers which will result in an increased conceptual understanding of arithmetic, versus just memorizing what the outcomes should be.

Free - Download Now

The classic and terribly addicting game Bejeweled by PopCap has made it's way onto the iPad. Bejeweled Blitz has been available on the iPad for quite some time, but the new Bejeweled HD offers 4 games modes: Classic, Butterflies, Diamond Mine, and Zen.

The general goal of all game modes of Bejeweled is the same: match gems that are the same color by swapping pairs of adjacent gems. There are two different ways to swap a pair. One is to tap one of the gems you wish to be included in the swap (it will be highlighted by a square around it) then tap the other gem you want to switch it with (they must be next to each other). The other option is to touch the first gem and drag it into the position of the other one.

The minimum number of gems of the same color that must be touching in order to qualify as a match is three. But if you create larger matches, you will get more points and gems with special powers.

In the Bejeweled Classic, the goal is to simply perform as many matches as you can. As you earn points, the bar at the bottom of the screen fills up and as time passes, the bar goes down. Your ultimate goal is to fill the bar before it drains.

In Butterflies mode, you start with one colored butterfly on the board. You can treat it just like a gem by matching it with same-colored gems. If the butterfly is included in a match, it gets set free. If it's not included, it moves up the board. Every move you make also introduces a new butterfly to the bottom of the board. If a butterfly reaches the top, it gets snatched up by a spider and the game is over.

In the Diamond Mine mode Bejeweled, the jewels are placed underground with a few layers of dirt at the bottom. Making matches along the bottom of the mine, will dig the dirt deeper. Each time all the column get below the line, you will be awarded 25 more seconds and the dirt will come up. You goal is to play as long as you can before the time runs out.

Zen mode is the "stress-free" mode of Bejeweled that doesn't have any pressure. There's no time limit, the bar at the bottom does not decrease, and there's no spiders taunting you at the top of the screen. Just sit back and relax and try to make the best matches you can.

As you may have notice, one of the most popular versions of this game, Bejeweled Blitz, is missing from Bejeweled HD. It is, in fact, represented on the main screen, but it's not actually included. Tapping on the Blitz icon will take you to the App Store to purchase Bejeweled Blitz separately (it's free).

The good

• Four games modes: Classic, Butterflies, Diamond Mine, Zen
• Fun
• Addicting

The bad

• Blitz mode is a separate app

The conclusion

I've always been a huge fan of Bejeweled and it's great to finally have more than Blitz on my iPad. My new favorite game mode is Diamond Mine. The Butterfly Mode is also very fun. Ok fine, I like all game modes of Bejeweled HD!

$3.99 - Download Now

Last week, I reviewed the new Facebook Pages Manager for iPhone app, but the secret is that I actually downloaded it from the Canadian App Store because it wasn't yet available in the U.S. Well, I'm happy to report that Facebook Pages Manager is now available in the U.S. App Store. It popped up earlier today, but almost immediately disappeared, but it seems to be here for good this time.

The introduction of Facebook Pages Manager has also brought some new changes to the "normal" Facebook for iPhone app via a stealth update. Now you'll see a message at the top that advertises the new app for Pages and a button that will take you directly to the App Store to download it.

left: Facebook for iPhone - right: Facebook Pages Manager for iPhone

There's also been a few other cosmetic changes in the past weeks that some users haven't seen until today. The most noticeable of these changes is the giant photos and that posts are separated by much more than just a thin line. Images are now wider than the rest of the post and shown at full width. The also have some subtle shadowing that makes it look like the photos are laying on top of the post. Additionally, if a user posts more than one photo at a time, Facebook for iPhone will display them as a collage of two or three photos like you're used to seeing on the web.

Strangly, this new look is not present in the the new Facebook Pages Manager app.

For those who have a Facebook Page, what do you think of the new app? Personally, I think it's a step in the right direction, but it's still missing some key elements like messages and news feeds, but hopefully we'll see those features coming in the future.

What about the new look to Facebook for iPhone? Do you like it? I'm a huge fan of photos and appreciate the new focus that Facebook is trying to place on them, but I do think it could've been done a little better cosmetically.

Free - Download Now

Thanks John

I spend a large part of each day in Panic's Coda app for Mac. It's an FTP client, code editor, CSS editor, and previewer -- and more -- all rolled into one. And it's coming to iPad this Thursday as... Diet Coda.

Diet Coda takes everything we've ever learned about world-class web code editing, and wraps it up to-go. It's packed with features, bathed in fun, ready to work.

So go on, take a vacation and only pack your iPad — you'll get your job done, quickly and delightfully. It's so good, you might never touch your desktop again.

The only concerns I have are those imposed by iOS. First, the continued lack of a persistent internet connection background API (only VoIP, streaming audio, and location can persist in the background). Second, iOS still doesn't support all forms of VPN, for example, OpenVPN, which means Apple have to build it in, leading back to the first problem...

Diet Coda is going to be $9.99, or half off for the first 24 hours. If it lives up to the demo, and the expectations set by the Mac app, it'll be more than worth it.

Speaking of the Mac app, the long anticipated Coda 2 for Mac is arriving the very same day.

Coda 2 represents a incredible overhaul of every facet of our venerable all-in-one web code editor. It’s a release packed with tons of improvements that will make you more efficient and faster at your job. And on top of that, it’s got brand new features that will make it an even more indispensable part of your process.

Coda 2 will also be half off for the first 24 hours, and available directly from Panic or via the Mac App Store.

That's an interesting way to work within the confines of the MAS. Users often don't like "paying again" for what they consider "the same app" even if it's a substantial update. Of course, the Mac App Store, like the iOS App Store, doesn't allow for upgrade pricing, and developers can't afford to undertake substantial development "for free".

If you saw Batman Begins, you don't get to see Dark Knight for free, so there should be absolutely no more expectation for free future versions of apps than there are free future versions of movies. By offering a one day sale, and publicizing it, Panic gives owners of the first version, and interested first time buyers alike, a chance to get in at a steeply discounted price.

Source: Panic

Every week iMore's editors carefully cull through hundreds of thousands of iPhone and iPad apps and games, and countless accessories, and pick only one of each -- one app, one game, and one accessory. Innovative, interesting, or just plain exciting, they might might be the latest and greatest or the most newly updated, or they might be classics or hidden gems. The only constants are, they'll always be among our very favorites, and they'll worthy to join the exclusive ranks of iMore's new picks of the week.

This week we have an old social favorite with new social hook, the sequel to the sequel of one of the best shooters ever, and way to give your iPhone an incredible new set of eyes...

App of the Week: Flipboard with SoundCloud

Flipboard is a dynamic, up-to-date, but highly personalized magazine created from everything being shared to you from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Reeder, LinkedIn, Flickr and most recently added, SoundCloud.

That's right, now you can enjoy amazing sounds created and shared by your friends and people you follow on SoundCloud as well as explore dozens of recommended audio feeds in new Audio category in the Content Guide.

Using Flipboard is joyous. You simply flip through the different stories in your feeds that are displayed with big images and an expert of text. When reading an article, advancing through pages also requires the act of "flipping". It's actually pretty fun.

Flipboard is one of our favorite personal magazine apps, and it also supports our favorite read later services: Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability.

Free - Download Now

Game of the week: N.O.V.A. 3

This week, there was really only iOS game worth talking about: Gameloft's N.O.V.A. 3. The franchise has long been meeting the needs of hardcore Halo fans looking for something similar on their iPhone, and over time, N.O.V.A. has very much come into its own.

You play the role of Kal Wardin, a reluctant (and supposedly retired) military man who's the only one with the skills to fend off the usual intergalactic threats. Your standard assortment of shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, grenades, and missile launchers are supplemented by superhuman abilities like slowing time, telekentic force pushes, and freezing enemies. Though there's a 10-level single player campaign, the real game takes place online, where you fight 6 v 6 across a variety of classic game modes, like team deathmatch, free for all, and capture the flag. As you play, win or lose, you gain experience points and level up, which unlocks new weapons, equipment, and add-ons to spawn with. One of the most exciting elements of multiplayer is the ability to hop into a variety of awesome high-tech vehicles, like walker mechs and jeeps.

This sci-fi first-person shooter boasts Retina-optimized graphics for both iPhone and iPad, but be warned new iPad owners - the price for razor-sharp textures is steep. In order to keep the framerate up, you'll be sacrificing lots of cool effects like depth of field and motion blur. Gameloft is also trying to push in-app purchases for guns, which is a trapping generally left to free games, but luckily you can earn all the in-game currency you need through regular gameplay.

N.O.V.A. 3 provides top-notch action, great multiplayer, and graphics that you will have a hard time finding anywhere else on iOS. Although many scoff at dual-stick shooters on mobile, I find Gameloft has done a great job at integrating gyroscope control since Modern Combat 3, particularly for fine aim adjustments. I also take zero issue with the "inspiration" they pull from sci-fi games on other platforms; if Halo isn't ever going to find its way to the iPhone and iPad, then more power to Gameloft for bringing it here. For action game fans, N.O.V.A. 3 is a no-brainer.

$6.99 - Download now

Accessory of the week: olloclip lens system

The olloclip is a compact, convenient lens system that easily slides over your iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S camera and turns it into a fun, flexible, photography powerhouse. The olloclip contains both a fisheye and wide-angle lens, and you can unscrew the wide-angle to reveal a macro lens as well. That's 3 extra options in one small package.

We used the olloclip extensively at both CES 2012 and Macworld|iWorld Expo 2012 and it worked fantastically well. The fisheye let us fit multiple people into frame for video interviews, and the macro let us get in really close for details. We even used the macro to capture the Retina display comparison shots for our new iPad review.

Combine it with the killer tips in our iPhone photography column and you're on your way to one fairly incredible ultra-mobile photo kit.

$69.99 - Buy now

Curated by Leanna Lofte, Simon Sage, Georgia, and Rene Ritchie

Cuboid is a fun 3D puzzle game for the iPhone and iPad of flipping and rolling a cuboid through a maze-like puzzle placed in the setting of mystic, ancient ruins.

Cuboid is available on the iPhone and iPad as a universal app, but the screenshots in this review will be from an iPhone, only.

For those who may not know, a cuboid a rectangular solid that is in the shape of a box. In this game, if you were to cut the cuboid in half (longways), the result would be two cubes.

The goal of the game is simple, roll the cuboid through the puzzle so that you get it to fall through the square hole. It's possible to roll the cuboid off the board, so be careful!

As you progress through the game, new elements such as buttons and teleports will be introduced to the game. When this happens, Cuboid has you play a simple tutorial level so that you understand how the new addition to the game works.

Once you succeed, you will receive 1-3 stars based on how many moves it took you to reach the goal. If you complete the level in the least number of moves possible, the level will also be marked as "etalon". (An etalon is actually a physics device used to measure wavelengths, so I'm not really sure why this word is used.)

If you're stuck and can't figure out how to beat a level, Cuboid includes a hint button that will quickly show you how to beat the level from the cuboid's current position. You are only given a few hints for free, though. If you want more, you must purchase them from the Cuboid Store.

Which brings me to the parts of Cuboid I do not understand. As you play the game, you earn coins. If you tap the button that says how many coins you have, or you tap the hint icon when you don't have any left, you are taken to the Cuboid Store. I was expecting to be able to purchase hints with the coins I've earned. Nope. My choices are to buy hints or to buy coins… but I can't figure out what I can do with my coins! Why do I want to buy 1500 coins for $4.99? As far as I can tell, these coins don't actually have a purpose.

The other horrible thing about Cuboid is ads. Not so much the ads themselves (all ads are always horrible), but the fact that it's not clear how to get rid of them. I've searched through every menu and there is no obvious method of purchasing an upgrade to remove the ads. However, through some trial and error, I discovered that if you tap the X on an ad, you'll get the offer to remove ads for $0.99. It's well worth the $0.99, in my opinion, but I can't believe how difficult it was to find this in-app purchase.

In general, everything except the actual gameplay is very poorly done. There's no written directions to be found (and that's a shame, because I'd really like to know why HeroCraft is using the word "etalon" when perfectly beating a level). I would also like to know what all the icons mean in Settings. Music, sound, and hints was easy enough to figure out, but I'm not really sure what the movie icon is for. Despite the ample space on the Settings screen, there is no written description for what settings are actually being changed.

When tapping the ribbon on the main menu, you are taken to the ranking section in Game Center for Cuboid, but there doesn't appear to be any way to exit this screen. It turns out that the "Done" button is just invisible. If you tap in the upper righthand corner, it briefly appears and activates.

The good

• Awesome graphics
• Addicting
• Challenging
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• No clear, written out directions
• To purchase the upgrade for no ads, you must tap the X when an ad pops up
• Not sure what the movie icon in settings represents. Again, no words to describe what it is
• Game Center ranking page has an invisible Done button. You can't see it, but if you tap in the upper righthand corner, it briefly appears and activates.

The conclusion

Luckily, none of the bugs I experience affect the actual gameplay of Cuboid. Cuboid is a very fun game and I really like how they've added a star value to each level. This allows the game to be played leisurely with the goal of just passing each level, or competitively with the goal of reaching "etalon" status for each level. With that said, HeroCraft does have some serious issues they need to address, mainly the horrible discovery of upgrading to no ads and giving an actual purpose to coins.

Free - Download Now

You’ve got the new iPad, you have tried out your front facing camera with FaceTime, but now you realize that many of your friends don’t live in the iOS world. So, how can you video chat with your BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone friends?

The good news is that there really are a bunch of options for video chatting with Android, Windows Phone and Windows and Mac PC users.  The bad news is that there aren’t, as of yet, a bunch of great options.   We will take a look at a good cross sampling to help give you some choices in the realm of video chat. The only caveat here is that you will need to pick an app tied to a service that your friends actually use or are willing to use.

Using Skype on the iPad

Finding and Adding Skype Contacts

1.  If you are not already in Skype, tap the Skype icon from your Home screen and log in, if asked.
2. Tap the Lists key along the left hand margin.
3. Tap one of the Contacts lists displayed, then touch the the “+” icon  at the top
4. Next, touch the Search Skype Directory and type someone’s name, email address or Skype Name. Tap Search to locate that person.
5. Once you see the person you want to add, touch his/her name.
6. Check the picture to make sure you have the right individual.
7. Tap Add Contact at the top.
8. Adjust the invitation message appropriately.
9. Tap the Send button to send this person an invitation to become one of your Skype contacts.
10. Repeat the procedure to add more contacts.
11.  When you are done, touch the Back key at the top or the Skype directory key if you are not already in your Skype group.
12. Tap the Contacts group you just added top from the Lists screen to see all new contacts you have added.
13. Once this person accepts you as a contact, you will see him listed as a contact in the group from which he/she was invited.

Making Calls with Skype on Your iPad

1. If you are not already in Skype, tap the Skype icon from your Home screen and log in, if asked.
2. Tap the Lists button.
3. Tap a Contact Group to see your contacts.
4. Tap the contact name you wish to call
5. Tap the Video Call or Voice Call button. Sometimes, you don’t want to “show yourself” so a voice only call can be helpful.
6. You may see a Mobile or other phone button. Making any other kind of call requires that you pay for it with Skype Credits.

Easily switch cameras using the Skype app

Switching Cameras with Skype

Free - Download now

Fring for iPad

Fring is a popular Android video chat app that has been around for a while for iOS users.

The killer feature of Fring is that it supports group video chat for up to four users simultaneously.

Like Skype, you can call landlines and other phone numbers for discounted rates – but our interest today is in video chat. Fring also works over 3G and 4G networks as well as over WiFi.

Adding friends in Fring

You add friends in Fring by looking for their User-ID. You can also add your networks, which will bring in your contacts. You can add your Address Book, your MSN Live account, ICQ, Google Talk, Yahoo or AIM.

Add contacts from many different networks

Placing a video call

Options on a call

Tap the Group video button and select participants. You can touch the + button to add friends to the call.

Tap the Group icon to start a group call in Fring

Get Fring here:

Free - Download now

ooVoo Video Chat for iPad

ooVoo is a newer service which tried to one up Fring by enabling group video chat for up to 6 people at a time. ooVoo has apps available for smartphones and tablets (iOS and Android) and Macs and PC’s. On Macs and PC’s, you can have up to 12 people on a video chat.

ooVoo also work over 3G and 4G networks as well as WiFi.

Adding friends to ooVoo

When you first start up ooVoo you are asked to upload your address book to their servers to look for friends. You can always Deny this request and input your contacts manually – or Allow it and ooVoo will search for your friends.

Choose to Allow or Deny ooVoo to upload your contacts and look for ooVoo users

Once ooVoo finds your contacts, you can choose which ones to add to your address book.

Placing a Video call

Just select someone from your Contact list and select Start a Video Call. Once they answer, the call is in session.

Options on the call

Using the Group Call option

Choose multiple users to initiate a group call in ooVoo

Get ooVoo here:

Free - Download now

Yahoo! Messsenger for iPad

People still use Yahoo! People even still use Yahoo! Messsenger, so having the option of video chatting with Yahoo! Messsenger friends is a great option for your iPad.

With Yahoo! Messenger, video calls and chats are free to your Yahoo! Messenger contacts. Yahoo! also gives you the option of low cost calls to  landlines and mobile phones as well as free international texting to a few places.

Adding friends to Yahoo! Messenger

When you sign into the Yahoo! Messenger app, all of your Yahoo contacts will show up. You can also add contacts individually by touching the + icon at the top right of the app.

Placing a video call

Tap the video camera icon to initiate a video call on Yahoo! Messenger

Options on the call

Yahoo Messenger is available here:

Free - Download now

Vtok – Google talk video calls on iPad

If you are a Google voice user, you might want to check out Vtok as an option for video calling using your Google Voice account.

As long as your friends are Google contacts using Google Video and voice chat- you can talk to them – and see them – for as long as you’d like.

Adding Contacts to Vtok

Simply sign in using your Google sign in information and all your Google contacts will show up.

Tap the + button at the top right to add contacts individually.

Placing a video call

If your friends are online, the video camera icon turns green. Simply touch the icon to start the video call.

Tap the green video camera to initiate a video call on vtok

Options on the call

Very much like the other apps, you can Switch the camera, Mute or end the call.

Vtok is available here:

Free - Download now

Tango Video Calls on iPad

Tango is yet another variation on a theme of apps that can be used cross platform for making Video calls. Tango adds some new features, such as the ability to send free video messages as well.

Tango works over WiFi as well as over 3G and 4G networks. Tango is an iPhone app that you need to run in 2x mode to fill up the iPad screen.

Adding contacts to Tango

When you first set up Tango you will be asked to let Tango match up your address book with emails and phone numbers of registered Tango users. If you allow Tango to do this, you will see all of your contacts who also have Tango accounts when you login.

You can also touch the + (invite) icon to send an email invite to friends to join you on Tango.

Placing a video call

The Tango video chat screen

Simply touch the Video icon next to the contact you wish to call and the video call will initiate.

Options on the call

Tango options are pretty limited. You can Switch the camera view, Mute or End the call.  The one thing that Tango adds is sort of a gimmick, but it can be fun; that is called Tango surprises. Tap the icon with the stars and you can choose animated surprises -  like balloons  - to come down during the call. You can purchase more surprises in the Tango store.

Tap the Surprises icon and choose from animated options like balloons

Tango is available here:

Free - Download now

Conclusions:

After looking at all these apps, there are certainly options for iPad and iPhone users if they want to video chat with non-iOS friends and family.

The simple reality is this; if your friends and family have an iOS device, you are hard pressed to beat FaceTime for ease of use and call quality. The one downside to FaceTime is that it can only be used over WiFi.

If your friends or family members are  non-iOS users, Skype may very well be the best alternative of the bunch.  It is popular, easy to set up and use and the picture and audio quality was generally pretty good – both over WiFI and over cellular networks.

Among the other Video chat services, the bottom line come down to where your friends, colleagues and families are.  If everyone is on Yahoo!, then maybe Yahoo! Messenger makes sense.  If everyone is on Google, then Vtok might work.

If group video chat is important to you on your iPad or iPhone, both ooVoo and Fring offer easy group video chat.  The challenge is that you need to get your friends and family to join the service and learn a new app.

Tango, Fring, Google (Vtok) and Skype are available as mobile apps for most, but not all platforms. Skype is not on BlackBerry and while it is on Windows Phone, it still can’t run in the background, which limits its usability on that platform.

Since each of the apps is free, try them out, see where your friends are and then enjoy yet another feature that helps make the iPad and iPhone so incredibly versatile.

Are you currently using a Video chat app regularly on your iPad or iPhone? Have you tried any of these out and can share your experiences? Let us know in the forums.

The Weather Channel for iPhone is the most popular alternative to Apple's built-in Weather app and it recently received a complete makeover. It still has all the great features of the previous design, but the new UI is much more beautiful and user friendly.

The main screen of the Weather Channel displays the location (with zip code) and the temperature in a nice big font. In smaller letters underneath the temperature, you'll find what the temperature "feels like" and the high and lows for the day. If you tap the + sign, you'll find more detailed information for wind, humidity, UV index, dew point, visibility, pressure, and sunrise and sunset times.

The background of the home screen will change depending on the time of day and current weather conditions. You can also customize it with your own photo.

In addition to the current conditions, The Weather Channel also has tabs for the hourly, 36 hour, and 10 day forecasts.

The other sections in The Weather Channel are Map, Video, Social and In Season.

The Map tab lets you layer radar, clouds, radar/clouds, temperature, feels like, 24-hr rainfall, 24-hour snowfall, and UV index over the map. There is a key at the top so you know what the colors on the map represent.

The Video section is filled with must-see, local, and world videos as well as videos that are on TV.

The Social tab lets you read tweets about the weather both nearby and regionally. You can also check out photos taken by other Weather Channel users in the iWitness section.

From the In Season tab, you can check pollen, hurricane, and tide forecasts. The pollen and hurricane forecasts include maps and diagrams and are very informative. The marine section breaks the down sea, waves, wind, and high tide information into a nice, easy-to-read 2-day forecast broken down into separate morning, afternoon, even, and night sections.

The good

• Much better design than before
• Current, hourly, 36-hour, and 10-day forecasts
• View maps of clouds, radar, and more
• Videos
• Read tweets about the weather
• View photos taken of the weather
• Check pollen, hurricane, and tide forecasts

The bad

• Ads are annoying. I would gladly purchase an upgrade that removed them.

The conclusion

The Weather Channel for iPhone was always a good weather app, but now it's a great alternative to Apple's built-in Weather app. The new UI is much better -- both on the eyes and to use.

Free - Download Now

Instacast, Downcast, and Pocket Casts all bring podcasts directly to your iPhone and iPod touch, which is one of the best ways to enjoy them when you're in the car, working out, sitting in the office, or simply lounging around the house. While all three allow you to browse and search for podcasts, which one has the best features geared towards the most users?

Let's listen and find out!

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Navigation and interface

When it comes to podcasting apps, it's important to have an app that not only lets you listen to the podcasts you already know and love, but search for and discover new ones as well. Of course, it also has to be visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Sometimes too many features and too many options are a hindrance and not a help.

Instacast's interface is super clean and very simple. Adding podcasts and browsing for new ones takes only a few taps. You can also sort by genre to refine what kinds of podcasts you're interested in.

Instacast has an easy to navigate interface that's streamlined and simple. Upon launching the app you'll be presented with a list of your current subscriptions. You can tap through the top tabs to view playlists and bookmarks as well. If you'd like to create playlists, you can do so easily but you'll need to purchase the premium in-app upgrade.

Tapping the "+" button in the bottom left of the main page let's you add new content. You can search through popular audio and video podcasts as well as sort by genre or search if you already know what you're looking for.

Downcast's main page and search page are easy enough to navigate but once you start digging through settings and other options, it can become cluttered and confusing.

Downcast also has a super simple layout. The tabs along the bottom are pretty much self explanatory and even those new to podcasts should have no trouble finding their way around the main portions of the app. Tapping into a podcast and tapping on an episode will cause the episode to play. This is a bit odd to me as I'd expect tapping into an episode to bring me to a detailed information list and show notes followed by an option to play.

You can tap the info button to view info but this feels like a more awkward layout. Once you've selected a podcast or viewed info, show notes and information are then presented.

As you start to get into other tabs, it can get a bit more confusing. While you don't have to pay an additional fee to create playlists, the amount of options presented is overwhelming and is probably unnecessary for most users. Those could be buried deeper for power users so the higher level remains cleaner for general users.

The settings sections of the app allows you to fine tune many things including refresh frequency, how you want the app to handle new episodes, and specific player controls such as skip intervals.

Pocket Casts has the most appealing interface of all three but may feel limiting to power uses.

Pocket Casts is by far the most visually appealing of the podcast apps. When you first launch Pocket Casts you'll be presented with your list of podcast subscriptions. Tapping on the tiled button again will switch from titles and descriptions to a list view of episodes. (You can toggle these views from the top as well.) Selecting a podcast will give you a list view of all the episodes in that group.

The top of the screen also gives you a quick view of how many podcasts you have total, how many are physically downloaded, and how many you haven't finished listening to. Tap on any of the numbers at the top to view only those episodes. The second tab shows you what is playing, allows you to skip and stop, and gives you access to show notes.

Finding podcasts to listen to is easy with Pocket Casts. Either search for what you're looking for at the top or browse categories. When you find one you want to subscribe to, just tap add.

Settings is also easy to navigate and doesn't present overwhelming options. This may feel limiting to power users who want to tweak every last option, but its the better choice for most users who just want to play their shows.

When it comes to navigation and which app is more visually pleasing, Pocket Casts nails it on both counts.

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Listening to shows and viewing show notes

No matter how slick the interface or granular the settings, a podcast app has to be judged on how easily it lets you play shows, control the playback of shows, and access additional information like show notes.

Instacast's player is not only visually appealing but gives you the most information in the most efficient way.

Instacast has a great player that's easy to use and nice to look at. It hides unnecessary controls out of view until you need them. Along the bottom you'll only see the play, skip, and back buttons. Slide them up and you'll see other controls you can use to fine tune scrub or jump back. While Instacast still seems to be struggling to nail proper touch targets for some of their controls, they're intuitive and when they work, they work well.

Accessing show notes in Instacast is simple. Tap the top left arrow on the play screen and you'll be brought back to the info screen, or choose the list icon in the upper right and view all links and bookmarks from the show notes. If you want to view a link within the show notes, clicking on it will bring up a built-in browser. You never have to leave the app while listening and following along but if you choose to close the app, Instacast will continue to play on in the background.

Downcast gives you the most player controls and options in one windows but feels cramped.

Downcast's player has a pretty straight forward player but it tries to pack too much onto one screen. You'll find the skip controls towards the top and some other controls towards the bottom. Show notes are located in the middle of the screen (when available). Downcast also has a built-in browser so clicking any links will take you to them within the app.

If you like having all your information on one screen at the same time, Downcast will give that to you, but at the cost of looking overly cluttered.

If you decide to exit Downcast, audio will also continue playing in the background until you choose to stop it.

Pocket Casts player shows a good amount of options, though some controls feel hidden.

Pocket Casts is less cluttered than Downcast but still squeezes a lot of information into a small amount of space. However, some of the controls feel hidden.

Tapping the left or right of the screen while playing a podcast brings up skip controls -- skip back 10 seconds or forward 45 seconds. Swiping to the left will bring up show notes. However, the show notes feel a bit cramped as they only populate the center of the screen.

Tapping any type of link will pull you out of the app and into Safari, while Pocket Casts will continue to stream in the background.

So this round goes to Instacast. It has the nicest experience when it comes to actually listening to podcasts and reading show notes.

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Streaming and downloading

Most podcasts in most podcast apps can be streamed or downloaded. Both serve a useful purpose. Streaming can save you local storage space on your iPhone, which can be particularly important if you have 16GB but still want to watch a lot of video shows. It can also give you access to the show you want, when you want, even if you're on 3G. Downloading means you have the show on your iPhone whether you're online or offline, and can be done ahead of time over Wi-Fi so you don't use up your 3G data.

Instacast allows you to easily control how you want new episodes handled, including separate options for audio and video shows.

Instacast allows you to easily choose whether or not you'd like to be able to stream or download when on a cellular (3G) network. If you don't want either of these options enabled, just tick them off and your podcasts will only download or stream when Wi-Fi is available.

If you don't want podcasts to physically download to your iPhone and prefer to stream, you can disable that within settings as well or tell Instacast to only download the most recent episodes.

Downcast's settings panel is again cluttered but gives you many options when it comes to streaming or downloading.

Downcast also lets you choose how you want it to handle podcasts when Wi-Fi is not available. If you don't want episodes to automatically download you can set it to never, or you can set it to only download when Wi-Fi is available. Otherwise you can stream when you'd like or decide to download at a later time.

Pocket Casts' streaming and download settings are much easier to navigate and presents options in an easy and streamlined way.

Pocket Casts won't automatically download episodes to your iPhone. It will add them to your subscriptions and you can stream them any time, or you can manually choose to download episodes when you like. You can also view how much available storage you have, and what episodes you are currently downloaded and stored locally on your device. If you're concerned about storage, you can also set cleanup to remove older episodes to conserve space.

While Instacast, Downcast, and Pocket Casts all allow you to adjust settings, Downcast continues to be the most confusing of the three. Instacast and Pocket Casts offer the easiest ways to manage download vs streaming when it comes to handling your content. Tie.

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Syncing between iOS devices

If you listen to a lot of podcasts and have both an iPhone and an iPad or iPod touch, you'll probably want the ability to pick up where you left off no matter which device you're on. That's where syncing comes in.

Instacast and Downcast both support iCloud sync for playlists, settings, and subscriptions.

Instacast and Downcast both support iCloud syncing and have iPad apps. While the Downcast app is a universal binary for both iPhone and iPad, the Instacast HD app is a separate purchase.

However, iCloud data syncing is still problematic and it doesn't work all the time. Apple needs to fix this.

Instacast has a music library feature that allows you to import your existing podcasts from iTunes into Instacast.

Instacast also allows you to sync podcasts from iTunes that may not be available as a standalone podcast feed. The Music App tab will show any podcasts that you've imported from iTunes. The first time you open the app it will ask you if you'd like to import any existing podcasts from iTunes into Instacast. Currently it only supports audio and not video. If you've got audio podcasts you listen to that may not have a direct podcast feed and are only available in iTunes, you can use this section to import your podcasts so you don't have to use two apps to listen to podcasts. You can also search for that podcast within Instacast's catalog and if it finds it, you can subscribe via the app and not have to use iTunes.

Pocket Casts currently doesn't offer sync, or an iPad app, but they do have an Android app.

When it comes to syncing, Instacast offers the best support. (When iCloud works.)

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Playlists

If you subscribe to tons of podcasts, playlists become increasingly important. Instead of scrolling through endless lists of shows, you can set them up to give you what you want, when you want it, in a nice and orderly manner. And that makes how playlists are managed an important consideration as well.

Instacast makes it simple to create a regular playlist or a smart playlist.

Instacast offers complete playlist support only if you're a premium subscriber. To create a playlist just tap the Playilst tab from your main screen. You can also tap the "+" button in the bottom corner to create a playlist. Name it and then check off the subscriptions you'd like to be a part of that playlist.

Smart Playlists are also supported by Instacast. Just choose to create a smart playlist instead of a regular one and you can automatically tell Instacast which types of podcasts to group in that playlist. For example, I've got one set to filter partially played podcasts by oldest first. It's a good way to remind me that I've got podcasts I haven't finished listening to yet.

Downcast has tons of settings when it comes to creating playlists.

Playlists within Downcast are a more customizable and allow you to group podcasts in several different ways. You can choose which podcasts you'd like included and then narrow that by which individual episodes you'd like to include by status. If you don't want played podcasts showing up, you can tick it off. If you don't want streamed podcasts showing up in a certain list, turn that off as well.

Most users probably won't use the extensive features that Downcast offers and, not surprisingly, they may appear confusing to those who are new to podcasts. Advanced users will appreciate the flexibility.

Pocket Casts doesn't have the native ability to create playlists but the organization of the app may make them unnecessary for many.

Pocket Casts doesn't support playlists as far as I can see. So if playlists are a feature you need to stay more organized, I'd rule out Pocket Casts as an option. Update: Pocket Casts does have playlists, they were just well hidden. I would, however, argue that the Pocket Casts interface is so simple and clean and easy to navigate that you may find yourself not even needing playlists.

When it comes to playlists, even though they cost extra, Instacasts has the best, simplest support.

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: New episode notifications

If you look forward to your favorite podcast becoming available each week, it's always good to have push notifications to remind you when it's ready for you to listen to.

Luckily, Instacast, Downcast, and Pocket Casts all provide push notifications and provide them well. Pocket Casts takes it a step further and handles them server-side.

Tie with a slight edge to Pocket Casts.

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Cost

Good apps should obviously cost more than bad apps, but all other factors being equal, what each podcasting app costs should factor into your consideration.

Instacast is $0.99 for the basic app, and an additional $1.99 for full playlist support (dubbed Instacast Pro). If you want iPad support, that'll cost you another $4.99 for Instacast HD. So, depending on your needs, you're looking at anywhere from $0.99 for he basic iPhone and iPod touch app, to almost $8 for the full Instacast "suite".

Downcast is $1.99 and is a universal app for both iPhone and iPad.

Pocket Casts is also $1.99 but is iPhone and iPod touch only.(There's also a free version, Pocket Casts Lite, that you can try before you buy.)

Instacast vs. Downcast vs. Pocket Casts: Conclusion

Instacast, Downcast, and Pocket Casts all provide a better and more powerful podcast experience than Apple's built-in iTunes and Music apps.

Pocket Casts has the best, most disciplined interface and is the simplest and easiest to use overall. If you're brand new to podcasts and just want something that works elegantly and well, check out Pocket Casts.

Downcast is the opposite -- complex to the point of being cluttered. That makes it best suited for power users who want to control and tweak as much as possible, and value accessibility over elegance.

Instacast is expensive if you want the full package, but it's also the best overall podcast app for iPhone right now. It strikes the best balance between simplicity and features, making it easy to use but still powerful. For most users, most of the time, Instacast is podcast app to get.

Instacast - $0.99 - Download Now

Downcast - $1.99 - Download Now

Pocket Casts - $1.99 - Download Now

Additional resources:

• Pandora vs. Slacker vs. Spotify: iPhone streaming music app showdown!
• Dropbox vs. SkyDrive vs. Google Drive: iPhone cloud storage app showdown!
• Instapaper vs. Pocket vs. Readability: iPhone read later app showdown!
• Even more app reviews

ScreenDIY is an iPhone app that lets you create unique Lock screens and Home screens from a wide variety of designer wallpapers, shelves, frames, icon skins and more.

The home screen gives you 5 different options: App Shelves, Icon Skins, Background, Lock DIY, and Home DIY.

The App Shelves, Icon Skins, and Background sections are simply backgrounds and cannot be customized. ScreenDIY has a good variety of backgrounds including many girly ones.

When viewing a background, you can view it with sample icons to get an idea of what it'll really look like on your Home screen.

In addition to the basic backgrounds, you can also make your own Home and Lock screens from the DIY sections of ScreenDIY.

In the Lock DIY section, you can mix and match backgrounds (excluding ones with skins and shelves) and calendars and frames. You can also choose one of your own photos from your Photo Library to use as the background. When creating your Lock screen, you can preview what it will look like with the time, date, and slide to unlock UI of the iPhone's Lock screen.

Customizing your Home screen is very similar, only instead of calendars and frames, you have icon skins and shelves.

The only real disappointment with the DIY sections is that you have to scroll through the all the choices. There's no option to browse through a gallery of choices like there is in the other sections.

The good

• Lots of backgrounds
• DIY sections allow for my customization
• A good selection of girly choices
• New backgrounds added weekly

The bad

• No iPad support

The conclusion

ScreensDIY is a great app for creating custom Home screens and Lock screens. I like to regularly change my backgrounds and really like the choices that ScreensDIY has to offer. It's also great that the devs are keeping the content fresh by regularly adding new backdrops.

$0.99 - Download Now

Now you can manage your Facebook business and fan Pages with a dedicated app that lets you view insights

Facebook for iPhone and iPad has a slew of problems, but now poor Pages management can be crossed off that list with the introduction of Facebook Pages Manager for iPhone. It's very similar to the normal Facebook app with the addition of being able to view Insights about your Page and manage admins.

Before Facebook Pages Manager, users would have to use the original Facebook app to view their Pages, but didn't have any access to admin controls. Now when you visit your Page with the Facebook for iPhone, you'll see an announcement at the top announcing the new app with a link to App Store.

As previously mentioned, Facebook Pages Manager is very similar to its older brother with the side-panel design and profile page view. Just like the main Facebook for iPhone app, Facebook Pages Manager also doesn't show the cover photo to your Page.

There is one thing you'll notice missing from Facebook Pages Manger, though -- messages. At the top of the screen you'll find the buttons to see who has recently liked your Page and notifications, but the messages button is absent. This is a shame, especially since Facebook's dedicated Messages app also doesn't support messages for Pages.

When viewing your Page's timeline, you can sort by everyone's posts, posts made by your Page, or hidden posts.

From the side-panel, you can select between the Pages you manage and look at the Insights for the selected Page and manage its Admins.

The Insights screen tells you how many likes you have, the number of people talking about your Page, weekly total reach, and a graph of your trends.

The good

• A dedicated app for Page management is great
• Facebook for iPhone users are already family with it
• View Insights, including graph of trends
• Manage admins

The bad

• No cover photos
• No access to page messages
• Can look up photo albums
• Can't upload photos to a specific photo album
• No iPad support

The conclusion

I'll admit that when I first heard that Facebook released a new app, I let out a little groan. But once I realized it was an app for managing Pages, I actually got a little excited since managing Pages on the main Facebook app is terrible. So far, I'm impressed with Facebook Pages Manager -- just rather surprised that they left out messages. But I guess I'd rather them leave it out then to introduce it with a bunch of bugs. Hopefully Facebook updates it soon.

Facebook Pages Manager is not yet available in the US App Store, but it should be soon. It's available now! Go get it!

Free - Download Now

Blogshelf II is a fantastic way to discover and follow websites and blogs

Blogshelf II is the successor to Bloglshelf, a uniques RSS and blog reader for the iPad. Imagine iBooks filled with blogs -- that's Blogshelf. It's a gorgeous and relaxing way to stay caught up with your favorite websites.

The main screen is a bookshelf, similar to iBooks, filled with all the blogs and websites you are following. To rearrange their placement on the shelf, simply hold your finger down on a blog to enter the edit mode.

At the upper right hand corner of each screen of Blogshelf, there is a question mark that when tapped, fades the screen and adds white pulsating circles to important areas of the page. Tapping one will give you instructions and information about that region. I really like this implementation of help.

When viewing a blog, you'll see a clean list of its post, each displayed with a thumbnail of the first image of the story. Tapping the website's name will let you edit its settings, including cashing behavior, how often to update, the ability to disable thumbnails, and more.

When reading an article, the page is very clean with option to change the font type and size. You can scroll through the article by swiping up and down, and switch between articles why swiping left and right. I really like reading articles on Blogshelf, but I don't like how it handles photos. Here's an example of an article I wrote on iMore, yesterday.

Although both of the photos shown were originally the same size, Blogshelf is showing them sized differently. At least when you tap them, thought, they become nice and big, like this.

One of the really neat features of Blogshelf is the that it's very easy to discover new blogs and websites by tapping Subscribe from the main blogshelf screen. Just like in iBooks, the bookshelf will flip around to reveal a subscription "store".

From here you can browse through featured blogs and top blogs by category. You can also search for a specific website and connect with Google Reader and Blogger to subscribe to blogs you've subscribed to on those services. (Tip: if you browse to the Apple category in the Top Blogs tab, you'll find iMore!)

Unfortunately, I must now tell you about another issues with photos. When looking closer at a blog that you may want to subscribe to, tapping on an article will bring up a popup that lets you scroll through the post. Often times, the photos will appear distorted, like this.

Although the picture issues are a little annoying, I trust that the developers can quickly fix these bugs.

The good

• Great way to discover websites
• Pretty
• Support for Google Reeder and Blogger

The bad

• Has issues with photos

The conclusion

There are lots of different RSS readers in the App Store, but I really like Blogshelf's approach -- it's relaxing. My absolute favorite feature of Blogshelf, however, is blog discovery. The blog "store" is really awesome and I've discovered some great websites because of it.

Free - Download now

Stunt Pear is a physics-based puzzle game where you catapult a cute little pear to smash, bounce, and spin your way through 144 levels. The objective is easy, get the pear in the barrel -- but that's easier said than done with gears, cannons, bubbles, tires, pinball bumpers, skateboards, and shopping carts as obstacles.

Stunt Pear is a universal app for the iPhone and iPad, but all the screenshots shown in this review will be from the iPhone.

Controlling the pear in Stunt Pear is very similar to Angry Birds. Just pull the pear with your finger and stretch out the rope to the desired length and angle, then let go. In every level, there is a bucket somewhere and it's your goal to get the pear in the bucket. Often times, this involves using various obstacles to your advantage or perfectly timing a spin or bounce.

A great feature of Stunt Pear is that as you're adjusting your shot, the power and aim (or angle) is displayed at the top of the screen. If you pay attention to this while you play, it will help in making the appropriate adjustments during your next try.

One of the things that annoys me about Stunt Pear is how it handles zoom. When the level starts, it's zoomed out so you can see the entire level. After a few seconds, it slowly zooms into the pear on the catapult. But by then, you're probably already adjusting your shot and may have been relying on the pulled back zoom to adjust your aim. So then you have to waste time to throw away the shot and reset, then tap the screen to zoom out. It would be much better of Stunt Pear kept the zoom the same, whether that's close or far, and left it up to the player to adjust the zoom, preferably by pinching.

Stunt Pear features 144 levels between 8 courses. As you beat levels, new courses get unlocked, and the good news is that you can unlock all the levels pretty quickly which allows you to skip levels if you get stuck. You can also choose to play a level at random.

The good

• Fun
• Good graphics
• Challenging, but not too hard
• Displays power and aim when setting up shot
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• Zooming is annoying. Would prefer a the more standard pinch-to-zoom method.

The conclusion

Stunt Pear is great little game. It's casual and the levels are short, making it easy to pick up and play for just a few minutes. But it's also addicting, so if you want to play for a long period of time, that shouldn't be a problem either. Plus, the little green pear is just adorable!

$0.99 - Download Now

Animal lovers, Cutest Paw for iPhone and iPad is for you! It's a fun app that's filled with thousands of photos of cute animals ranging from the common household pet to exotic animals like tigers, orangutans, pandas, and foxes.

Cutest Paw lets you sort photos by newest, popular, random, or animal type. The photos are organized into 3 columns, but each picture is a scaled down version of the original crop ratio, giving each page a collage feel. It's much more interesting than cropping everything to a square like many apps do.

When you tap on a photo, the photo is displayed nice and big with the caption under it. From here, you can "hug" it (similar to "like"), save it to your camera roll, share on Facebook, or leave a comment (must connect to Facebook first).

I have two complaints with individual photo pages. The first is that in order to go back to the results page, I have to scroll to the bottom and tap Back. I wish there was a back button at the top of the screen or even a gesture (like pinching) that took me back. On a similar note, in order to scroll, you cannot have your finger touching the photo (which often times takes up most of the screen). Instead, Cutest Paw requires you to be touching one of the small areas on the outside of the photo in order to scroll.

If you don't want to go back and select a photo, but want to simply browse through them all, swiping left or right on the photo will move to the last/next photo.

To sort the photos by animal type, you must go to the Search tab. From there, you'll see categories for dogs, cats, user submissions, mice, rabbits, squirrels, birds, monkeys, hedgehogs, tortoises, pigs, ducks, foxes, orangutans, pandas, bears, tigers, otters, ferrets, and deers. You can also type in a custom term to search through Cutest Paw photos.

To share your own photo, head to the upload tab. You must have a free account with Cutest Paw in order to upload. Once you upload your photo, you can view in the "Your Uploaded Photos" section so you can easily check on your photos and how many views and hugs they've received.

The good

• Lots of adorable animal photos
• Sort by newest, popular, random, or animal type
• Share your own photos
• Save photos or share to Facebook
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• Can't scroll down with finger on picture, must be on the background
• No landscape support
• Performance could use a little work

The conclusion

Cutest Paw is a must-have app for animal lovers and kids. The quality of photos can be hit or miss from the newest and random sections because these include user submissions, but when viewing specific categories, the photos are generally very good.

Free - Download Now

Clipping and saving coupons is the most classic way of saving money, but in today's digital world, it feels rather archaic. SnipSnap for iPhone lets you say goodbye to physical coupons by taking photos of them to carry with you at all times and store clerks can scan the processed bar code right on your iPhone.

To add a coupon, you simply take a photo of it, or "snip it". SnipSnap will then process the coupon for you by converting the barcode on the photo into one that can be scanned by a store clerk (this process may take a few minutes). SnipSnap will also look at the dates valid and display when the coupon is redeemable or expires on the main Coupons page.

When viewing a coupon, you'll see all the details like minimum spending requirements. You can also look up the important dates, bar code, promo code, offer details, consumer restrictions, and retailer legal. SnipSnap also allows you to mark coupons as a favorite and share to Twitter, Facebook, or email.

When redeeming a coupon with SnipSnap, you have two different options for the clerk. The easiest one is the barcode which can be scanned by a store scanner. If that doesn't work, you can also display the coupon's code in nice, big, easy-to-read text. And if the store clerk is still a little suspicious of your coupon, you can show them the photo you took and allow them to pinch and zoom to see the details.

Another cool feature of SnipSnap is the Discover tab that shows coupons being snipped by other SnipSnap users. You can also use the search field to search for coupons at a specific store. I really like this feature, but sometimes I get coupons that are one-time use only (like on a receipt) and don't want to share it publicly in fear of someone "stealing" it. SnipSnap does allow you to disable sharing snipped coupons to the community pool, but I wish it'd let you do it on an individual basis.

A feature that makes SnipSnap way better than keeping track of physical coupons is that it will remind you when a coupon is about to expire. You can choose the notification to be sent at 1-3 days or 1-2 weeks before expiration. Additionally, when you arrive at a store that you have a coupon for, SnipSnap will send you notification reminding you of your coupon.

The last thing I want to mention is that SnipSnap does not work with "manufacturer coupons". This is not a fault of SnipSnap, however. These coupons require stores to collect coupons and return them to the manufactures. Until manufacturers change their rules about these coupons, I don't expect to see manufacturer coupon support anytime soon.

The good

• Quick and easy to use
• Processing only takes a few minutes
• Reminders when coupon is about to expire
• Location reminders
• Discover coupons being snipped by other SnipSnap users

The bad

• Can't edit sharing options when uploading coupon. Must set a universal setting.
• Not compatible with "manufacturer coupons" (because these types of coupons must be physically collected and turned in to the manufacturer by the store)

The conclusion

Personally, I've never been much of a coupon user unless they come through my email inbox because I can't keep track of them nor remember to bring them. Now that I have SnipSnap for iPhone, I look forward to the savings in my future. But if I'm not careful, I may see myself making unnecessary purchases due to me "not wanting to miss out on a deal" before my coupons expire!

Free - Download Now

Sparrow for iPhone is an email client for iPhone that offers many more features than Apple's built in Mail app such as the ability to add attachments when composing a message, a multi-pane navigation layout, and custom signatures. The main new features in today's update is landscape composing, the ability to edit and create labels/folders, and easier navigation between messages. Unfortunately, the biggest feature that users have been waiting for, push notifications, is still absent from Sparrow.

The folks at Sparrow headquarters have been hard at work to bring push to their users. Sadly, their first attempt used a VoIP process that was entirely inappropriate for push email (it's meant for apps like Skype) and Apple rejected it. So, like instant message apps have been doing for years, Sparrow will have to handle Push Notifications on their end. But here's the catch - push will not be a free upgrade. It won't even be a one-time in-app purchase. Push for Sparrow will be integrated as a yearly subscription.

You were more than 16 000 helping us on our Apple quest to get the VoIP privilege. We can’t thank you enough for your support. Unfortunately, Apple has confirmed that they are not willing to do any exception to the rule and that Sparrow will NOT be granted with the privilege.

This means we’ll have to do Push on our side and that it will be integrated as a yearly subscription into Sparrow’s future update.

There's no word yet on how much the subscription will cost.

How much would you be willing to pay to have push included with Sparrow? Personally, I'll wait to see if Apple has any surprises for the built-in Mail app in iOS 6 before committing to a subscription with Sparrow. But if Apple doesn't address some basic needs like adding attachments and custom signatures, I'll jump ship to Sparrow in a heartbeat -- I already have for Mac.

$2.99 - Download Now

Source: Sparrow

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a jailbreak app to manage off-device media, a sheet music app, an app for social networking, a video player that lets you watch old-school movies, and a popular virtual pinboarding app.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

XBMC for iPad - Chris Oldroyd

This week’s pick is a jailbreak app that I use all the time and is the only reason I keep my iPad jailbroken. When it comes to managing off device media the iPad with App Store apps is just not good enough. Air Video and other similar apps do a decent enough job of letting you access media on a PC or Mac but everything that is in a non Apple approved format needs to be encoded on the fly and it means the process is slow and a little ugly.

With XBMC I can connect to my NAS (Networked Attached Storage) box and access all of my content straight over my network, it plays all sorts of file types like AVI and MKV as well as MP4 and M4V all without any encoding or delay; the picture quality is excellent too. XBMC is a highly customizable app and if you are prepared to invest a little bit of time with the app itself and how you store and name your media on your NAS it can look absolutely stunning with the correct meta data.

XBMC is available as a free download from Cydia and it works on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Steinway Etude - Gary Mazo

Last week I was in guitar mode, this week I am back in piano mode – my primary instrument. There are lots of apps for purchasing sheet music and others for instruction. What makes Steinway Etude unique is that it combines both functions in one app.

First off, Steinway Etude is a music store where you can purchase sheet music. There is a pretty good selection of music from pretty much every musical category. Most songs are about $3.00 which is not terrible compared to pricier services such as Musicnotes.

Once your music is purchased (and there are some free songs to download as well) you see it on a bookshelf – reminiscent of iBooks. Tap the song you want to play and you have the main screen. Touch the Play arrow and you will hear a midi version of the song play, following along the notes in the song. There is also a small keyboard at the bottom showing you which notes to play.

For beginners, this is a great feature; you can see how to play the song, hear how to play the song and then try to play it on your own. I usually maximize the window to just see the song – but its nice to know that if I ever did get stuck I could listen to parts of the music to help me along.

Options are a plenty in Steinway Etude. You can adjust the tempo, turn on or off the right and left hands on the keyboard below, differentiate the hands with unique colors, change the background and more.

Pages just slide left to right and page turns are quick (which is key for a music apps.) All in all, this is a very useful app with a good library of music to purchase and the ability to learn while you play.

Free - Download Now

Google+ for iPhone - George Lim

So, I’m one of those few people who still uses Google+. I’m also a sucker for gorgeous iOS apps, so when Google recently updated their Google+ app, I was happy.

The app is mainly a significant UI improvements. Its certainly easier for a human to understand, navigate and use, as well as overall being cleaner. Its clearer how you can switch between ‘Circles’ to get the posts you want. Instead of having multiple circles which you change by swiping side to side, you get one stream which is changeable through a simple drop down menu.

While not a new feature, I use Google+ hangouts on the iPhone all the time, and I think, for a 10-way video call it is implemented very well. I have a Google hangout with friends every weekend, with the app, I can join it where ever I am.

There are still some gaping holes in the app; the ability to post YouTube links and getting an embed preview, editing posts and comments, and the fact that your display picture is just a small landscape section on your menu-screen, so it doesn’t show your display picture properly.

However despite all these flaws, I still really like this app. Its certainly better than the Facebook app (even on iPad).

Free - Download Now

Video Time Machine - Seth Clifford

My pick this week is pure joy. Video Time Machine is a sweet little app that allows you to watch all kinds of things from years gone by. One of my favorite activities on YouTube (and the internet in general) is find and watch commercials and shows from my youth. The app allows you to do this with a great interface that makes searching for a time period easy. You just roll the dial back to the year you want, select the type of content you want to see (TV, music, ads, trailers, video games, sports, etc.) and the app serves up the goods. Sharing to Facebook and Twitter is baked in, so you can get your friends in on it quickly too. There's no direct search right now, but that's also what makes it kind of cool - it's kind of like a jukebox on random. And it's a universal app that supports AirPlay, so if you want to throw it up on the big screen, you can do so.

I'm really digging it, and I hope that more content gets added as time goes on. It's the perfect way to kill a few minutes and put a smile on your face.

$2.99 - Download Now

Pinterest - Leanna Lofte

When the Pinterest for iPhone app first released, I hated it. It was terribly buggy and miserable to use. It's had several updates since then and it's now a great app. It's beautiful and runs great. I go through phases with Pinterest, but now that they have a solid iPhone app, there's a good chance I'll use it more regularly. What would seal the deal, though, would be if they updated Pinterest to be universal for the iPad as well. Hopefully soon!

Free - Download Now

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it's your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Planning events and get-togethers is never a fun task because it's difficult to find a date and time that works for everyone. Invy removes this stress by doing the hard work for you. All you have to do is create the event with several possible dates and invite your friends. Once everyone responds, choose the date that works for most people.

When you first launch Invy, you are prompted to choose which email you want to be associated with Invy. You can add more emails as well. So if you plan to receive invites from both your personal and work emails, you can add both accounts to Invy so that all your invites are in one place.

The design of Invy is very clean and modern. On the main screen, you'll see all your invites and events. When creating an event, you are prompted to enter a title, location, and select recipients. Then you choose as many possible dates as you want. Obviously, the more dates and times you choose, the better chance you have one of them working for everyone.

Left: invite on the web. Right: invite in Invy for iPhone

When you send the invite, all the invitees will receive an email, and if they use the Invy app, they'll also receive a push notification informing them of the invite. For those who don't use the app, they can just click the link in the email to view the invite on the web. The web is formatted to look exactly like the app. Invitees must then check the boxes for the dates they're available.

If you select a date that conflicts with an event in the built-in Calendar app, Invy will warn you of the conflict. This is super cool, except for the part where Envy considers all-day events, including birthdays and holidays, as a schedule conflict.

Invy also includes a chat room for each event, so that invitees can discuss details (or whatever they want). This can be done both from the iPhone app and the web.

Once everyone has RSVP'd (or it's time to make a decision), you can view the invite to see who has RSVP'd to what dates and tap "choose this date". Once you do so, all the invitees will receive a notification (either by iPhone or by email) informing them that a date has been picked. Invy will also add the event to Calendar for you.

The good

• Pretty and modern UI
• Quick and easy to use
• Invy checks Calendar for schedule conflicts
• When you select the final date for an event, Invy adds it to Calendar
• Chat with invitees

The bad

• Invy considers all day events, including birthdays and holidays, as dates that you already have plans

The conclusion

If I ever have to plan any sort of meetup, even just coffee with a few friends, I'm turning straight to Invy. It's super easy to use and makes it much easier to figure out when everyone is available than speaking to each person individually. In fact, I'm now hoping that I'm given the task of choosing a date for some get-together just so that I have an excuse to use Invy. Is that weird?

$1.99 - Download Now

Noir Photo is a fantastic iPhone and iPad app for converting your photos into monochromatic images. This includes black and white conversions with the ability to add sepia, silver, blue-gray, or chartreuse tints to further set the mood.

Noir Photo has a very simple and easy to use UI. At the top of the screen, you'll see your photo. On the iPhone, if the photo is portrait, it will rotate to landscape so that you can see the entire image. The bottom half of the screen is where you'll find all the editing tools. Along the top of this section is 6 preset buttons. After choosing the one you think best works for your photo, you can fine tune the inner exposure, outer exposure, and contrast with the dials. You can also use pinch to zoom on the photo to fine-tune the placement and size of the vignette and drag the points to adjust its shape. Lastly, you can choose from the four different tints: sepia (brown-ish), silver, blue-gray, or chartreuse (green-ish).

You can also view your photo in full screen by hiding the editing controls. In full screen mode, you can still adjust the vignetting and choose from the presets. You cannot fine-tune the exposures and contrast, though.

Personally, I would rather have access to the different tints than the presets when in full screen mode. After I've adjusted my photo, I like to switch into full screen mode to get a closer look and see if it looks right. Because the presets are also color coated, I tapped them thinking I could see what my photo looked like with a different tint. To my dismay, all my settings I just finished perfecting got undone in favor of the preset. Noir Photo does not have an undo button, so this is annoying, to say the least.

The good

• Fast
• Easy to use
• 4 different tints
• Adjust outer/inner exposures and contrast
• Adjust the vignetting
• Maximum 2592x2592 output resolution
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• No undo button

The conclusion

Noir Photo does a great job at monochromatic and black and white conversions. If you're participating in this week's black and white photography contest, you may want to check this one out.

$2.99 - Download Now

Svpply offers fun, beautiful, and social way to shop from a a curated collection of products and stores from around the world from your iPhone and iPad. Featuring over 70,000 stores and brands and 1.1 million products, a gorgeous UI, and a way to follow what your friends buy and want, Svpply is a shopper's dream come true.

Svpply is broken down into six categories: men's women's, tech, media, home, art, and other. Selecting one of these categories will break down into even more categories, making it easy to shop for a specific type of item. Selecting a most specific sub-category isn't a requirement, however, so if you just want to browse general categories, you can.

In addition to browsing by category, Svpply also lets you search. I found this to be the only way to could shop for children and baby products, as there is no category for kids.

When viewing an item, a larger version of the photo is displayed, as well as it's price range, name, and which store it's from. You can then choose to mark it as something you want, collect it into a personal collection, or buy. Tapping buy will send you to the vendor's website in the built-in browser. Unfortunately, this is the only way to actually view more photos of the item. I wish Svpply gathered all of the photos from the store's website, not just one.

If you keep scrolling down the items page, you can see which people want it and browse through similar items. If you added the item to a collection, you can also view that collection. Lastly, you can view any comments that have been made about the item and leave a comment of your own.

Once you've marked some items as "want" and created some collections, you can head over to the "You" tab to view these items. There is also a category of things you own, but I cannot figure how to actually add items to this category.

The feed is where you can see the activity of your friends (who have been added by connecting your account with Twitter or Facebook). You can filter your feed by category, gender, and price. As you scroll through your feed, you'll the products that your friends have recently said they want with options to want or collect them yourself.

The good

• Adds a social element to shopping
• Beautiful UI
• Create personal collections
• Lots of categories and sub-categories
• over 70,000 stores and brands
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

• No kids category
• Must tap buy and visit vendor's website to see more photos
• Can't figure out to mark that you own an item
• Can't connect to both Twitter and Facebook, only one

The conclusion

I really enjoy using Svpply to window shop for anything from clothing, shoes, decorations, and art. I haven't actually purchased anything yet, but Svpply is working as a bookmarking system for me to reference when I'm ready to buy. Creating personal collections reminds of Pinterest -- in a good way.

Free - Download Now

If you're looking to bake some delicious cake, pastries, cookies, or breads, look no further than The Photo Cookbook - Baking for iPhone and iPad. It's packed with gorgeous photos of not only the final product, but also of what each stage of the process should look like.

The Photo Cookbook - Baking is a universal app for iPhone and iPad, but I'm going to be using screenshots from the iPad version. Both versional offer the exact same functionality and content.

On the home screen of The Photo Cookbook - Baking you'll see four different columns, each one representing a different category: cakes & traybakes, pastries, small cakes & cookies, and breads. Each entry is represent by a gorgeous photograph of the delicious product. You can also scroll each column independently. There are 15 recipes in each category, totaling 60 total recipes.

When viewing a recipe, you'll first see a list of all the ingredients followed by a photo of all these ingredients separated into their portions. Tapping on one of the ingredients in the photo will pop up more info about it, including another photo, description, preparation, and designations.

As you scroll down this page, you'll see all the steps in the recipe. With each step, there is a photograph of how your creation should look at this stage of the baking process. Some of the steps are shown side-by-side, while others are shown full-width. At the end of each recipe, a gorgeous photograph will demonstrate what your final baked good should look like. For example, check out these double ginger cupcakes.

Yum!

At the top right of the screen, there are three icons that let you mark the recipe as a favorite, take notes, or email the ingredients list. In a perfect world, The Photo Cookbook - Baking would be able to create a new Reminders list titled "double ginger cupcakes" and list out all the ingredients needed. But, alas, the iOS 5 SDK does not allow this. Maybe in iOS 6?

The good

• Gorgeous photography
• Easy read and follow steps
• Pictures of ingredients in their portions are helpful
• Pictures with each step is helpful
• 60 recipes in 4 categories

The bad

• Would like to see more categories and recipes. No pie?

The conclusion

I feel like The Photo cookbook was designed specifically for me. Although I don't like to cook, I love to bake, and I also refuse to use cookbooks without pictures. I want to know what the final product is supposed to look like, and The Photo Cookbook - Baking takes that idea way farther by showing photos of ingredients and how your creation should look at each stage - and these photos are gorgeous!

Now excuse me. I have some double ginger cupcakes to make.

$4.99 - Download Now

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best, absolutely free ebook, comic book, and article reading apps for iPad

Looking for great free reading apps for your iPad? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. Some of the most popular free apps are free reading apps. We're talking ebooks, comic books, web articles, and more. So start reading, and then start downloading!

iBooks

iBooks is Apple's free ebook and PDF reading app for iPad. It's a stylish way to read not only books purchased from the iBookstore, but all the free books from the massive Project Gutenberg library as well as any of your own ePub or PDF files.

• Download Now

Readability

Readability offers a gorgeous way to read articles from your favorite website without the distraction of ads and other fluff -- for free! You simply set up your free account and add articles with a bookmarklet . A lot of other apps, like Twitter, offer Readability support so that you can add articles directly from those apps.

• Download Now

Kindle

The free Kindle App for iPad is Amazon's ebook reader. Unlike Apple's iBooks, Kindle is cross-platform. If you already have a large Kindle book collection, free or otherwise, or you just want to keep your options open for the future, Kindle is a great choice.

Comics

Comics isn't only the best way to buy new Marvel, DC, Image, and other comic books, but it also includes 500 free comics and one of the best reading interfaces in the App Store!

• Download now

Pocket

Pocket -- the new name for Read it Later -- is a free iPad app that lets you save optimized version of articles and photos and just about anything you encounter on the web and social networks for offline viewing at your leisure and convenience. (You can save videos too, but still need to be online to watch them later.)

• Download Now

More free iPad apps

For dozens of additional free iPad apps, including free instant messenger and communications apps, education apps, entertainment apps, finance apps, fun and games apps, health and fitness apps, kids apps, music apps, navigation and location apps, news apps, photography apps, productivity apps, reading apps, shopping apps, sports apps, travel apps, and general utility apps, see here:

• Best free iPad apps

Leanna Lofte contributed significant sections and photographs to this article.

Going to the supermarket has finally reached the 21st Century, thanks to the iPhone and Stop & Shop

If you live in New England, New York or New Jersey and shop at Stop & Shop, now you not only can you bring your own bags, but you can use your iPhone to scan your groceries and then check out of the store. When it works, it is a blast.

Now Shopping apps aren't new –- we highlight some in our recent best free apps post.  The nice thing about shopping apps is that they can really make our lives easier and allow us to see the iPhone for the productivity tool it can be.

I’m usually a pretty agreeable and social guy –- I like to talk and spend time interacting with friends and family; I just don’t enjoy interacting with most people who work at the grocery store or retail stores. When I shop (which I hate to do) I definitely employ the male stereotypical “hunter” mentality. I go in knowing what I want, I find it on my own, I buy it and I leave. Pretty simple.

Grocery shopping used to be a challenge for me – so I would make it a game with my kids. My goal would be to get in and out of the super-market without having forced human interaction with anyone. Usually I failed miserably.

Then, our local Stop & Shop introduced those little Scan it “guns” that you check out with your card, scan your stuff and then check out at a self check out. For the most part, this was a good solution – but you had to walk around with those dumb looking “wands” that inevitably ran out of charge or malfunctioned.

Stop & Shop has introduced the new SCAN IT! mobile app for iPhone and Android. The concept is pretty simple – download the app, input your loyalty card number and then connect to their special WiFi network in the store. Use the phone to scan your stuff and then scan an “exit code” and pay at a self-checkout. Sometimes, however, things in concept work better than they do in reality.

Once the app is downloaded, you will be prompted to input your Stop & Shop loyalty card number so that when you use the app –- it always knows who you are and credits your account with the loyalty points and coupons. Once the app is set up and ready to go, your phone will automatically connect to the Scan It mobile WiFi network in the store – you just need to make sure that you have WiFi turned on and have your phone set to discover available networks. .

Touch the Scan button to begin your shopping trip. Scanned item and any discounts are shown.

Once you are connected, just touch the Scan It icon along the bottom row. The screen changes and a yellow Scan   button appears. Touch the Scan button and simply point your iPhone screen at the bar code of the product you wish to buy. Any in-store promotions are automatically reflected in the price and the item gets scanned and put into your cart automatically. Just let the camera focus on its own on the bar code and it scans it, applies discounts and puts it in your cart – very simple and cool.

One of the more annoying features of the app is that occasionally as you walk by something that is on sale a loud cash register sound is played and a coupon for the sale item shows on the screen. You can always just ignore it – but clearly it tries to get your attention to things on sale and it does a pretty good job of that.

Promotional offers pop up when you walk in front of things that are on sale. Touch the Cart button to check and see what you have already scanned.

You can always touch the Check Cart button to see what you have in your cart, what your running total is and how much you have saved on this trip. There is also a button to tap to remove an item from your cart – just touch that button and scan the item you want to remove – so far, pretty simple and lots of fun.

Achilles was the classic Greek hero – part of the Trojan war and prominent figure in Homer’s the Iliad.  Achilles had that one weak spot, however –- an arrow to his heel did him in. The “Achilles Heel” of using the SCAN IT mobile app is the checkout.

In fairness, I had several successful checkouts using the SCAN IT! app.  There is one flaw in the system, however, and that is that when you scan the “end shopping trip” bar code with your iPhone, you are still then required to produce your physical loyalty card and scan that at the register. It makes much more sense – since they system already knows your card number – to have your final scanning using the phone accomplish that task – but, the extra step, and, thus, the need to still have your plastic loyalty card with you – makes this somewhat cumbersome at checkout.

I can live with all that – but one recent experience at the checkout was absolutely maddening. I scanned the “end shopping” code with my phone and I then got a code displayed on my screen.

The LCD screen on the register said “Assistance Needed” which is code word for the dreaded audit. An employee comes and has to manually scan five or six items to make sure you are not defrauding the system. I get it – but it happens every fourth or fifth trip to the store, which is annoying.

The dreaded secret code for "you have been audited". So much for getting out of the store without talking to any employees.

Using the iPhone and SCAN IT! app, however – the experience shows all the flaws in the system. First and employee came over and said “I don’t know what to do since you used your phone.” So, a second employee came over – now forcing me to interact with yet another grocery store employee – and said:” I need to take your card and go get a scanning wand and come back.” So, the iPhone app, which is supposed to eliminate the need for the card and the scanning wand, now created a situation where the card and the wand were necessary to check out. The employee scanned the requisite number of items with the wand – which is so 2011 – and then I had to rescan my plastic card and then I could check out. Essentially, for that trip, the app on the iPhone was almost useless.

The good

• Very convenient
• Easy to set up and use
• When it works, it makes shopping almost fun

The bad

• The checkout process is not well thought out
• When it works, it makes shopping almost fun

The conclusion

While SCAN IT! mobile shows lots of promise, there are still a few bugs to work out - especially the entire checkout process. This is a very usable app and really shows how stores are quickly understanding how consumers want to use their phones as productivity tools to make the little things in life easier - like grocery shopping.

Free - Download now

Do you use a grocery checkout app for your iPhone? We’d love to hear your experiences in our forums.

Instapaper is the original "read later" service that lets you save web pages for offline reading in a highly optimized, distraction free format. It also syncs them between your iOS devices and the Instapaper web site, so you can catch up on your reading pretty much anywhere. A recent update includes some very nice visuals with iBooks-style page-turning animations and gestures.

For those who don't like page-turning animation because they feel it's too slow, you'll be happy to know that the pagination mode has also been improved to be lightning fast and more accurate.

Some other changes include a new draggable dot bar to replace the scroll bat in pagination mode, new two-finger-swpie gesture to close an article, automatic full-screen switching, the ability to share Drafts and Quotebook apps, and you can now select the Twilight Sepia color tint at any time.

I'm a big fan of Instapaper. It's gorgeous and rock solid, but with other great contenders like Readability and Pocket, you may also want to check out our Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Read later app for iPhone shootout.

$4.99 - Download Now

Same gorgeous gravitational Astronut action of the iPhone version, now in impressive iPad size.

Astronut for iPad is an interstellar treasure of a game. Created by the amazing Iconfactory, the talented team behind Twitterrific and Ramp Champ, the premise is as simple as it is fun. You ricochet through deep space, using the gravity of planets and other celestial bodies to slingshot you in just the right direction to avoid hostile aliens and inhospitable singularities, and collect shards and other rewards.

Initially released for the iPhone and iPod touch, the iPad version takes all of the fun of the original and kicks it up to warp speed on the bigger, vaster iPad screen in full on Retina glory. What's more, if you already have the iPhone version, you can use it as a controller for the iPad version.

Play mechanics remain the same as the iPhone version. As your Astronut hurtles through the void, you can jump from one celestial body to another, and turbo charge your jump when your boost is available. Because the iPad is physically bigger than the iPhone, the controls have been repositioned. You hold the iPad in portrait mode and tap the virtual buttons on the side. Bonus levels can be controlled by tilting the iPad. (Or, as previously mentioned, you can also use the iPhone to control the action.) They're clear and consistent enough that, after a few tastefully inserted tips fly by in the early levels, you'll be all set.

Astronut boasts 6 sectors and 24 levels. Unlike the iPhone version where you can upgrade to the full version of Astronut via in-app purchase, the iPad version charges you up front and gives you all the levels right away. There are 40 challenging achievements to unlock, and full Game Center support so you can not only beat your friends, but let everyone know you beat them.

The design is gorgeous, as you might expect from an Iconfactory app. But Astronut is not just pixel pretty -- the sound design is fantastic as well.

If you liked Astronut on the iPhone, you'll love it on the big iPad screen. If you haven't tried Astronut yet, the iPad version is a great way to start.

The good

• Looks great, sounds great, plays great
• Casual but captivating
• iPhone controllable

The bad

• Settings are buried (I'm scrounging here.)

The conclusion

There are few things better in this world than native iOS games made by native iOS developers. From pixel to bit, Astronut for iPad captures every spark of awesome ignited by the iPhone original and translates it perfectly the iPad. I still can't tell you who'd win in a fight, a caveman or an astronaut, but I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that Astronut is all win.

$1.99 - Buy now

The Google+ for iPhone app received a major makeover earlier today, and boy is it beautiful! The new Stream shows off large photos and includes many new little animations that really catch the eye.

Each story in your stream is topped with the author's profile photo and name. Behind the name is a dark, transparent bar that also displays a zoomed, horizontal chunk of the user's profile picture. As you scroll through your stream, the photos in these banners will also scroll every so slightly. It's not super obviously, but if you pay attention, you'll see it.

While scrolling, when you reach a new story you haven't seen on your screen, yet, the banner will quickly fade into the screen slightly enlarged, then quickly fall back down to normal size. I think this animation is very cool, but others have complained that all the new movements make them dizzy.

If the stories published on your stream are photos, or links with hero photos, then the pictures will be displayed in full width, front and center. At the top of the photo, you'll see the caption or comment about the story. In the bottom left you'll see a comment button and count, and in the bottom right is the +1 count. Tapping the +1 count will add a +1 on your behalf.

I'm going to pause for moment here to mention something about sharing links. If you share a link to Google+ from the plus.google.com interface, Google+ will grab an image from the article to display with the link. But if you paste a link into the sharing screen with the Google+ app for iPhone, it displays as just a simple, boring hyperlink. (See the screenshot of Rene's status above). Lame.

When sharing a status or photo with your circles, you can choose which circles to include, whether or not to attach your location, and take a photo from within the app, or choose one from your Camera Roll.

From the main menu, you can quickly access you Stream, profile, messenger, photos, and circles. You can also turn on Instant Upload to sync the photos on your phone to a private Google+ album, video chat with up to 9 friends with mobile Hangouts in Messenger, chat with multiple friends at once, and check out Nearby and What's Hot streams.

The Good

• Gorgeous
• Instant Upload syncs photos from your phone to a private Google+ album
• Video chat with up to 9 friends with mobile Hangouts
• Chat with multiple friends at once
• What’s Hot and Nearby streams

The Bad

• Sharing links doesn't include a photo
• No iPad support

The Conclusion

I've very impressed with the new and improved Google+ for iPhone app. It's absolutely stunning and a joy to use. Sure, it has some annoyances like not showing photos when sharing a link, but it's still an improvements over the previous version. My biggest gripe about Google+, however, is the lack of users and activity. If all my friends and family used Google+, I'd be all over it. Unfortunately, they do not. So it looks like I'm stuck with Facebook for now.

Free - Download Now

PayAnywhere is not a new service. They have been around for a while, and process 10 billion dollars annually for hundreds of thousands of businesses already signed up. Now there are no shortage of options when it comes to processing payments on the go. Square has been around for a while, PayPal has introduced their services, and there are various others as well. While many have found comfort in the Square reader, the app itself is very basic and that can limit its appeal. Whether you are looking for a new service to test out, looking for something that offers added features, or just an app that looks better, you'll want to check out PayAnywhere.

So what makes PayAnywhere different? Well, the app is designed with the business user in mind. Receipts are customized with company information, users can input an inventory of items with set pricing to use, and there are a slew of other features as well. Take a beautiful and easy to use app, and then add in the fact that their processing fee is lower than anyone else out there, and it becomes quite enticing.

PayAnywhere is offering their reader for free when you contact them, and if you are in a larger business they'll send you as many readers as you need.

Recently, Google gave their social network, Google+, a complete makeover on its website, but the iOS app was still left in the cold. However, today, Google+ for iPhone received an well needed facelift.

The new user interface is entirely different to its predecessor, opting for a sleek black theme across the app. The stream now displays larger images with larger profile images so you can easily who is posting, or sharing. They’ve removed the old side-by-side navigation of ‘circles’ and replaced it with a simple single drop down menu which makes it much easier to change which circle you are viewing, so you can view the posts from the people who are important to you.

One massive update is that you can now finally start ‘Hangouts’ on the go through the messenger. Just start a conversation with a single friend or circle; and then tap on the ‘camera’ icon.

Unfortunately, there is still no sign of an iPad app.

Will this iPhone app update get you interested in Google+ again?

FREE - Download Now

Getting ready to take the written driving exam to get or renew your license? For many of us, this exam is very stressful and difficult to pass since it always asks questions involving scenarios that we don't regularly encounter. With DMV Genius, you can study for this exam while on the go.

DMV Genius is a free app to download, but restricts you to just one exam from three states. For $2.99, you can unlock four more exams in any state. Each state is a separate purchase.

Each sample test comes with 20 multiple choice questions. These questions are tailored specifically for your state and are very similar to what you would see on the real exam. In fact, many of the questions are identical to questions you'll encounter on the on the actual test.

Each question in DMV Genius has 4 multiple choice options. Simply tap the answer you think is correct. If you're right, it will highlight with green and receive a little checkmark. If you get the question wrong, a pop up will appear telling you you're wrong and an explanation of the correct answer. The selection will also be highlighted with red.

With each question, you can also ask for a hint.

Once you answer all 20 question in DMV Genius, you'll be informed if you failed or passed and the statistical breakdown of your score. Each time you retake a test, the questions get shuffled.

The Good

• Awesome way to prepare for the written driving test
• Questions are real questions that may appear on your test
• Hints and explanations for each question

The Bad

• If a choice is too long, it scrolls

The Conclusion

DMV Genius is a fantastic way to study for that pesky writing driving test, especially for teens or anyone who's taking the test for the first time. And since it's on your iPhone, you can study while experiencing those horrid wait times at DMV right before your test!

Free - Download Now

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best, absolutely free social networking apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Looking for great free social networking apps for your iPhone or iPod touch? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. Some of the most popular free apps are -- surprise, surprise -- free social networking apps. We're talking Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Path, and more. So start reading, and then start downloading!

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network on the planet, and it's always been one of the most popular free apps on the iPhone. Inside the free Facebook app, you can update your status, view photos, and check into your location. You can also keep up with your news feed, messages, events, pages, chat, as well as upload your photos and videos, and much, much more. (And if you're looking for more friends, check out our Facebook name swap thread!)

• Download Now

Twitter

Twitter and the iPhone go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and the free, official Twitter app for iPhone is the best way to get started finding cool celebrities and interesting internet personalities to follow, and trending topics to get involved with. (And be sure to check out our Twitter name swap thread to find other iMore members to tweet with!)

• Download Now

Twitterrific

Twitterrific was the very first Twitter app for iPhone and it remains one of the best to this day. With a combined view for the ultimate in Twitter reading experiences, Tweetmarker support, and and iPad and Mac version, If you're not brand new to Twitter and want at free Twitter app with a less mainstream, more traditional focus, then you want Twitterrific.

• Download Now

Google+

The free Google+ app for iPhone gives you instant access to your Google account, and instant uploads for your photos. Share to your circles, read updates from your stream, and join mobile hangouts.

• Download Now

LinkedIn

With the LinkedIn app for iPad, you will have on-the-go access to your professional network. You can keep up with the latest news and keep up with your groups and share content.

• Download now

Path

Path is a free Smart Journal app that helps you share life with the ones you love — your thoughts, the music you’re listening to, where you are, who you’re with, when you wake and when you sleep, and beautiful high quality photos and videos

• Download now

Pinterest

Pinterest is the new, rapidly growing, free social network that let's you pin photos, articles, recipes, or anything you think is cool, to your virtual pinboard. With the free Pinterest for iPhone app, you can view the pins of your friends, repin, like, and comment on your favorite pins, and pin directly from your camera.

• Download Now

Soundcloud

Almost every social networking app lets you share photos. The free Soundcloud app for iPhone lets you share music, voice memos, noises, and more. Record them where ever you are and share them to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and more.

• Download now

Find my Friends

Find My Friends lets you easily locate your friends and family from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Whether you're on a family trip to a theme park or just want to meet up with some acquaintances for a drink, Find my Friends can make sure everyone knows where everyone else is.

• Download now

More free iPhone apps

For dozens of additional free iPhone apps, including free instant messenger and communications apps, education apps, entertainment apps, finance apps, fun and games apps, health and fitness apps, kids apps, music apps, navigation and location apps, news apps, photography apps, productivity apps, reading apps, shopping apps, sports apps, travel apps, and general utility apps, see here:

• Best free iPhone apps

Leanna Lofte contributed significant sections and photographs to this article.

Instacast 2.0 is a significant update to one of the most popular iPhone podcast clients. It changes the user interface and user experience while lowering the entry price and adding an in-app purchase for additional functionality. Both of those things have caused some controversy. Our own Seth Clifford, co-host of iPhone & iPad Live and Iterate is clearly on the "ticked off" side of this particular equation. And he's clearly got his Hulk pants on for this one.

Instacast released its 2.0 update yesterday to some Twitter fanfare. As a regular user of the app, I updated immediately. Now, to be clear, I don't love Instacast. In fact, I have lots of personal issues with it. But as a regular listener of podcasts, it sucked the least of all the apps I've tried, and I've tried many. I wish so much that Apple would add even the most basic subscription support for podcasts to iOS within the native music app, but they haven't, and it doesn't look like they will any time soon.

What I found after updating was an interface that remained just as abstruse as the initial one, with the "added value" of reduced functionality. Most notably, the default behavior for podcasts downloaded within the app was altered. The original behavior of the app was that when podcasts were downloaded, they would stack up in a list, from oldest at the top to newest at the bottom. Now that order is reversed, to list the newest at the top. Which fundamentally changes the only way I listen to shows.

Read the rest of it via the link below. To be fair, there are some people who seem to really like the Instacast update. I haven't spent any real time with it yet, but plan to. The previous version, as Seth states in his article, had significant usability problems (as do all the iOS podcast clients I've tried).

Source: Seth Clifford

If you're a student taking a math class, there's a good chance you could benefit from a graphing calculator. Unfortunately, such devices are very expensive, but the good news is that there are several app solutions for your iPhone and iPad -- the best being Quick Graph.

Quick Graph is a fantastic graphing calculator that lets you graph multiple equations at the same time, change their color, and also view the mathematical notation of equations being graphed by nicely formatting fractions and exponents You can toggle equations on and off by tapping the symbol that looks like an eye.

When you add or edit an equation, a keyboard pops up with math symbols, operations, and functions. There are six available variables: x, y, z, r, theta, and phi, depending on if you are graphing 2D or 3D equation in rectangular or polar form.

After adding an equation, you can change its color from the 24 preset colors or from the color wheel. You can also adjust the opacity which is great for graphing inequalities.

In addition to graphing equation, you can also solve them. For example, if you want to solve 2x+5 for x=10, you type "x=5;2x+5" and the answer will appear right below your entry.

To trace a graph, simply hold your finger down on the screen and the points associated with the x value of where your finger is will pop up. If you have more than one equation, points will appear on all of them. The coordinates associated with the points will appear over the points.

You can also interact with the graph by pinching to zoom in and out and scrolling to pan around. If you want to reset the window, just tap the refresh button.

As previously mentioned, you are not limited to just 2-dimensional Cartesian graphs. You can also graph in polar form and 3D. Interacting with 3D graphs is quite awesome. I am impressed with how smooth the Quick Graph runs when rotating the object around.

One of the great (paid) features of Quick Graph for instructors is the support for VGA out. However, when projecting the app, only the graph is shown. This is disappointing because it would be helpful for students to be able to see how equations are entered since it can sometimes be tricky. Seeing which equations are graphed and the colors associated with them is also helpful for students.

Advanced Features

Quick Graph is a free app that includes a lot of features. However, if you want to plot more than six equations at once, graph inequalities and implicit equations, use 2D tracing and independent 2D zoom, and project the app with VGA, you'll need to pick up the $1.99 in-app upgrade. I must say, I am very impressed with how much is included for free and find the $2 purchase to be quite a steal.

The Good

• Rectangular an polar forms
• 2D and 3D graphing
• Dark and light themes
• Includes a very helpful user manual
• Advanced features are only $1.99
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Does not support iPad Retina display
• VGA out only displays graph. No mirroring option.

The Conclusion

Quick Graph is a fantastic graphing calculator for the iPhone and iPad. It runs super smooth and, as its name implies, is super quick. The biggest disappointment for me is that Quick Graph doesn't yet support the new iPad's Retina display, but I'm sure it's coming, so I still recommend that every math student and instructor pick this one up.

Free - Download Now

Twitpic for iPhone had the potential to be a really neat app and a possible Instagram alternative, but it missed the mark on too many levels

Twitpic is one of the most popular photos hosting services for Twitter and now they've released their very own iPhone app that lets you browse through the photos of all the people you follow on Twitter who have shared their photos with Twitpic, add comments, as well as add filters and effects to your own photos to share to Twitter and Twitpic.

Sounds a lot like Instagram, doesn't it? In fact, it's very similar, but I'm not ready to call it an "Instagram Killer" -- it falls short in too many ways.

There are three different types of feeds with Twitpic: your main timeline, the popular stream, and streams for individual users. All off them show rectangular thumbnails of the photos with a little icon that shows how many comments have been left on the photo. For the timeline an popular streams, you will, of course, also see which user posted the photo and their profile photo.

Tapping a photo will open it on a black background, and after a brief pause, the toolbars and caption will appear, and after another short pause, will disappear again. You can tap the screen to bring up the toolbars at anytime and tapping the comments icon will bring up all the comments for that photo and allow you to leave a comment of your own.

Unfortunately, comments on photos must have been made with the Twitpic app. I would've like to see all Twitter @replies to the tweet that included the photo be marked as comments in the Twitpic app. Since most people see Twitpic photos in Twitter, it makes perfect sense.

One thing that sets Twitpic apart from Instagram is that there are more editing options available. The "Add Effects" screen has tabs for effects, enhance, crop, orientation, and brightness. Crop, orientation, and brightness should be self-explanatory.

In the enhance screen, you can choose auto, night, backlit, or balance, and the effects tab has 10 different filters you can choose from. They're OK. Nothing amazing, but not terrible.

What is terrible, is the naming inconsistencies in the Twitpic editing screens. When you first take or choose the photo you want to upload, there is a button in the top right hand corner called "Add Effects", but this screen has five different tabs, one of which is called "Effects". When tapping on one of the tabs, the navigation arrow in the toolbar to take you back is called "Editor". But wait, I thought that was the "Add Effects" screen? Sure, I know what they mean, but it's the little details like this that make me think the app was thrown together.

The other thing that annoys me about Twitpic is the edits are destructive. Once you hit "Apply", there's no turning back. Returning back to that screen doesn't let you adjust your edits, just layer on new ones. The biggest problem with this is with effects. A lot of the effects apply some sort of special edging to your photo, which is fine, until you decide you want to crop your image. You'll either crop it completely away or, depending on how you crop, only crop it off a couple of the edges. The only way to fix it is to start over and make sure you save adding the effect for last -- even though it's the first tab. Yet another thing that makes me ask "was this app really put through proper testing?"

Once you have your photo edited to perfection, you can share it to Twitter with Twitpic and… that's it. Your photo isn't even saved to your Camera Roll! And what about the unique twitpic.com URL that is assigned to each photo? Nope, nowhere to get that either. What Twitpic was thinking, I have no idea. I guess they want to be greedy with your photos and not only not give you the means to share directly to another network, but not even let you share your photos separately to somewhere else like Facebook or Instagram.

The Good

• Browse through the Twitpic photos of who you're following on Twitter
• Upload photos to Twitpic and share to Twitter
• Edit photos with minor adjustments and add filters/effects

The Bad

• Inconsistent naming
• Destructible edits
• Can only share to Twitpic and Twitter
• Doesn't save to Camera Roll

The Conclusion

Twitpic for iPhone had the potential to be a really neat app and a possible Instagram alternative, but it missed the mark on so many levels it's not even funny. The editing experience is terrible and the restriction to only sharing to Twitpic and Twitter and not even your Camera Roll is a deal breaker for me. If they wanted to be exclusive to Twitter, they could've at least pulled in the replies to the tweets with Twitpic links to the comments, but not even that's the case.

Sorry Twitpic, that's three strikes -- you're out.

At least it's free - Download Now

Microsoft SkyDrive, Dropbox, and the newly introduced Google Drive all focus on storing your data in "the cloud" (i.e. in massive data centers) instead of on a physical hard drive in your home or office. That means not only can you free up some valuable internal storage space, but enjoy the piece of mind that comes with solid off-site backup, and the convenience of accessing your files from all your computers, many of the your devices, and almost any web browser. While Dropbox, Skydrive, and Google Drive will all get the job done, which one is the best choice for most iPhone and iPad users?

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: Interface and Experience

While you can access Dropbox, Skydrive, and Google Drive via the web, that's not usually not the best option for iPhone and iPad users. Apple severely limits what web browsers can do in iOS, so while web sites are great to view supported files, they're not much good for anything else. That means the first thing most iPhone and iPad owners will do when choosing a cloud storage service is to look at their native app offerings.

SkyDrive allows you to view files on your iPhone and iPad in either list view or as tiled icons.

SkyDrive is a universal app for iPhone and iPad users. The overall interface is incredibly straight forward and easy to use. Upon signing into SkyDrive, you'll be presented with your files and folders. You can choose to view them as a list or a grid. Tapping into a folder allows you to view the contents and open any documents inside that folder. You can also upload pictures to SkyDrive or create more folders.

If you need to edit a document, you can open it in a supported app by tapping the export button. Unfortunately you won't be able to sync changes back or save back to SkyDrive unless the individual app supports saving to SkyDrive. This is both a limitation of iOS and a product of SkyDrive's popularity relative to DropBox.

Dropbox's user interface is easy to navigate on both iPhone and iPad. Browse all your files via the main tab or star documents you frequently access for quick access from the favorites tab.

Dropbox functions in a very simliar way to SkyDrive and is also available for both iPhone and iPad. That's not surprising -- there are only so many ways to make a file browser. In the Dropbox app you can navigate through folders and mark things as favorites. Doing that stores a file locally for quick viewing later, even if offline. You can also pop into settings and set Dropbox to cache a certain storage amount locally for even quicker access to files you view regularly.

You can upload pictures and videos to Dropbox from within the app, but nothing else. (Again, that's an iOS restriction.) You will, however, be able to view many common files types from your iPhone or iPad such as Word, Excel, PDFs, and many image file types. You can also send supported files to other apps for editing or viewing.

Even though Google Drive doesn't have an iPhone or iPad app (yet), you can still access your Drive files via mobile Safari. Not the best solution for most but the up side is unlike others, you'll be able to actively sync and edit documents without using 3rd party applications.

Google Drive doesn't have a native iPhone or iPad app yet. (Google says they're working on it.) You can access your Google Drive files via mobile Safari though. It's not the most intuitive or functional solution and it has to make you wonder what exactly Google was thinking when they released Drive without an iOS companion app. (It's not like they lacked the time or resources to get it done for launch day.)

As a work around, you can use the Google Search app which provides access to Google Apps. It's not a full solution but it works. You could also add a homescreen bookmark to Google Drive for quicker access.

Until the iOS app arrives, iPhone and iPad users will probably shy away from Google Drive. Dropbox is easy to use but could definitely make do with an update. Right now, SkyDrive has the best design and interface.

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: Features

While SkyDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive are all cloud storage and sync services, they all work differently and offer a different set of features. Before you decide which one is for you, you need to figure out exactly which features you need most.

SkyDrive allows you to view most file formats and also supports media streaming. Sharing documents is easy. Open the document you'd like to share and you can send a link, view and edit permissions, and share with others.

SkyDrive boasts online file collaboration, public file sharing, and version tracking. You'll be able to edit files online via the Microsoft Office web apps, or from your computer via the traditional Microsoft Office suite, and have them all on your iPhone or iPad when you need them.

If your main purpose is to use a file storing service to free up space on your iPhone or iPad, SkyDrive can help you do that with built-in media streaming, which means you can upload music and video to SkyDrive and stream it into the app on your iPhone or iPad.

Dropbox allows you to easily upload video and audio content from your iPhone or iPad. It also supports media streaming and many other file types for easy access to the most common file types.

Dropbox also offers built-in media streaming in their iPhone and iPad app. You'll also be able to share files and folders online, create share folders publicly, and track document versions. However, Dropbox doesn't include the ability to edit documents via web-based apps, nor do they have their own desktop suite. You need to open any documents stored in Dropbox in a local editor on your desktop or mobile device.

Google Drive may not have a native app but the ability to edit documents and spreadsheets in mobile Safari may be a draw for some users. Some features are not supported in mobile view like spreadsheet view so you'll need to use the desktop version which is a bit clunky on an iPhone or iPad.

In addition to lacking an iOS app, Google Drive doesn't currently support media streaming. So, if you were hoping to unload some music and videos to Google Drive, that's not an option yet. You will, of course, be able to access everything on your iPhone or iPad via mobile Safari but that isn't an ideal solution. Google Drive does enjoy Google Docs support, however, but unlike SkyDrive it doesn't offer a native desktop document editing suite.

Google's lack of an iOS app hurts it again here. When it comes to features, Dropbox and SkyDrive are extremely comparable but Dropbox's inability to let users edit files on the web gives SkyDrive a slight edge.

Skydrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: Workflow and syncing

While mobile document creation has come a long way, most iPhone and iPad users will most likely still spend most of their time creating documents on their Windows or Mac PC, and will definitely need to access them there. So, a seamless workflow between desktop and mobile apps is a must.

SkyDrive's web interface, integrated with Microsoft Office Online

SkyDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive all offer both a native app for Mac and Windows as well as a free web portal. When it comes to the native Mac and Windows apps, all three apps have almost identical interfaces and functionality. They seamlessly integrate with your file system. You'll just notice a new folder in your main tree of files. They'll also all add a system tray icon to your Mac or Windows PC for quick access.

Google Drive's online interface, integrated with Google Docs.

To use these services from your Windows or Mac PC, you simply drag and drop, or copy and paste your files into the folder, and then work them the same way you did previously. You won't notice any difference, but the files and folders are syncing your data constantly with each respective cloud service.

When you return to your iPhone or iPad to pull up a document, it'll just be there. And if you ever need to access your documents from someone's else's Windows or Mac PC, you can do so easily by accessing the web based version of SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive.

Dropbox's online interface, not integrated with anything.

Google has the better desktop clients but their lack of an iOS app kills the overall workflow model. Dropbox has great apps but once again doesn't have online editors like Microsoft or Google. That makes SkyDrive the winner.

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: 3rd party app compatibility

Many iPhone and iPad apps integrate support for cloud storage. If you're looking to use text editors frequently, for example, it will matter a great deal which services are supported.

While SkyDrive and Google Drive are fully functional cloud services in their own right, neither enjoys anywhere near the support of Dropbox. Dropbox has simply been around a long time an many developers have chosen to embrace it. In fact, for many apps, you won't find support for many cloud services outside of Dropbox (and Apple's iCloud, which is not exactly the same).

Dropbox by far has the best support from other app developers.

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: Storage space and pricing

Using SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive means you get online storage that can free up local drive space, you get online backup that can keep you files safe, and you get remote access that lets you get to your files no matter where you are. All of them offer some amount of free storage, and the ability to buy more to suit your needs.

SkyDrive gives you a generous 7GB for free. If you'd like to add more storage on top of that, this is what you'll pay:

• 20GB - $10 per year
• 50GB - $25 per year
• 100GB - $50 per year

Dropbox gives users the smallest amount of free storage, coming in at only 2GB for a free account. They do offer a referral program that'll allow you to rack up an additional 250MB for each individual you refer up to 8GB total. Otherwise, to buy additional storage, here's what you're looking at:

• 50GB - $9.99 a month or $99 per year
• 100GB - $20 a month or $199 per year
• 1TB+ team accounts - $795 per year for the first 5 users

Google Drive gives you 5GB of free storage from the start. After that, here's what you can expect to pay -

• 25GB - $2.49 a month
• 100GB - $4.99 a month
• 200GB - $9.99 a month

There are sometimes special promotions or cross promotions where you can get additional storage bonuses for free, sometimes for a limited time. It's hard to predict when these will happen or for whom they'll apply, but it's worth doing a web search before paying just to see if there are any special offers available.

Otherwise, Dropbox makes for the most expensive service by far and gives the least amount of free storage to new users. Conversely, SkyDrive offers both the highest amount of free storage and the cheapest price for additional storage. However, Google Drive is extremely competitive, so if you're already a Google user, there's no compelling difference.

SkyDrive vs. Dropbox vs. Google Drive: Conclusion

If you take each individual category and weigh them equally, it looks like SkyDrive is the winner here. But not all categories should be weighed equally. A lot of free storage is great. Cheap additional storage is great. Arguably better desktop apps and inarguably better online document editors are great. But none of that matters if you need your cloud service to be supported by your iOS apps and that support simply isn't there.

Until Google Drive gets a proper iOS app with streaming media support, it's impossible to recommend it as anything other than a secondary or tertiary backup service to drop extra copies of your files for extra safe keeping. If you're already a heavy Google user, especially a Google Docs user, the free service is there for the taking.

If you're brand new to cloud storage and all you want to do is offload some media and documents to free up space on your iPhone and iPad, SkyDrive's combination of free storage and low additional storage costs make it the best option.

If you need to have your docs and data available in your iOS apps, then even though it's more expensive and doesn't have an online editor built in, Dropbox is still the only way to go.

Everyone's individual needs and priorities will be different, but for right now, for most users, most of the time, especially if you don't need anything more than the free storage they offer, Dropbox remains the best cloud storage solution for iOS users. iPhones and iPads are app-centric devices, and that's still where Dropbox shines.

SkyDrive - Free - Download Now

Dropbox - Free - Download Now

Google Search - Free - Download Now

Additional resources:

• Dropbox for iPad review
• Instapaper vs. Pocket vs. Readability: Read later app for iPhone shootout
• Pandora vs. Slacker vs. Spotify: iPhone music streaming app shootout

Evernote, makers of the widely popular note-taking and idea management apps for iPhone, iPad, and pretty much every platform you can think of, have bought Penultimate, one of the premiere hand-written note-taking apps on the iPad. Evernote will be keeping Penultimate as a separate app, however, and will be moving to push it out to other platforms as well. Ben Zotto, Penultimate's developer, has written a blog post about the acquisition:

Penultimate has come a long way since its launch as the original dedicated handwriting app for Apple’s first iPad two years ago. It now offers scores of powerful features within that same accessible and attractive design. It’s remained a top-selling app, and millions of people have showed us that they’re doing things with Penultimate we never imagined. I’ve been amazed and humbled by all of the passionate users I’ve encountered— you have offered your valuable feedback, support, and candid (!) critiques. Penultimate would not be what it is without you. I believe that this partnership makes a lot of sense, and Penultimate is only going to get better from here. Not just incrementally better, but WAY better, and quickly. I’m excited about the future of the app, and I sincerely hope that you will be too.

Zotto also notes, interestingly enough, that core members of the Evernote team have been involved in mobile handwriting recognition technology going back to the days of the Apple Newton.

The main Evernote app is currently iMore's favorite way to enter text, record voice, and take photos (and be able to search text in photos) for every day productivity. Evernote has branched out into other, more specific apps as well, including Evernote Food and Evernote Hello. Penultimate added basic Evernote support earlier this year, but that will no doubt increase now that they're a member of the Evernote family.

Here's the full press release.

Mountain View, CA – May 7, 2012 – Evernote, the company that's helping the world remember everything, today announced the acquisition of Penultimate, the most popular digital handwriting application for iPad, and the fourth best-selling iPad app of all time. The acquisition will allow Evernote to expand its handwriting capabilities, while also making Penultimate available on more platforms and devices.

"Digital handwriting has been around for decades, but it has never gone mainstream because the hardware and software simply weren't aligned. Thanks to Penultimate and the iPad, that's all changing," said Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote. "For the first time ever, writing on a tablet is really great, which is why we chose this moment to make the acquisition. We have big plans for Penultimate that will both enhance the app and bring more capabilities into Evernote. It's already the best handwriting app out there, and it's only just getting started."

The Penultimate app is designed to resemble a physical notebook. Individuals can use a finger or stylus to take notes wherever they like. The application allows users to choose from a variety of paper types, ink colors and line thicknesses. Notes taken in Penultimate can be saved directly to Evernote with a single tap.

"Technology often distances us from things that feel natural and human. With Penultimate, our goal was to use the most advanced tools to enable something that was at once powerful and familiar," said Ben Zotto, creator of Penultimate. "I’m thrilled to join the Evernote family. Their vision and expertise will help bring exciting improvements to Penultimate, and together we’ll elevate the importance of handwriting within Evernote."

AT&T has announced a new home security and automation service called Digital Life that comes with an iPad and iPhone app with a bunch of security and remote control options. With it, you can change the temperature, switch the lights, manage the alarm system, control the window blinds, shut off the water main, and even remotely unlock doors. Here's the full feature list:

• Professional installation of the platform, sensors and other devices
• Integrated, wirelessly enabled platform that combines home security and automation capabilities
• AT&T owned and operated 24/7 security monitoring centers
• A state-of-the-art user interface application, which allows customers to customize a solution based on individual needs, and the ability to manage and control their services from the U.S. or while traveling abroad
• The option to experience and purchase the service in AT&T’s distribution channels, including AT&T company-owned retail stores. The service will also be made available for purchase on att.com when available commercially.
• The ability to add more features and services after the initial installation, hassle free

Trials for the system are kicking off in Atlanta and Dallas over the summer. Want to sign up? Hit the link below.

Source: AT&T's Digital Life registration page

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections includes a way to monitor your electricity usage, an app that helps you learn some awesome blues licks on the guitar, a godsend for regular air travelers, an app and service for listening to your favorite music, and a beautiful way to read articles on the web.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Meter Readings - Chris Oldroyd

This week’s pick is a little utility that helps me monitor and manage my electricity usage. I have just received this quarters bill and as usual it was a shock to see how much I am paying for electricity. With this app I can now log my meter readings as often as I like and see what I am spending and how it changes during the year.

The app makes it easy to monitor your homes utility meters including water, electricity and gas; if you have it. Once you start logging your readings, you can view usage costs etc. in highly visible graphs. If you are in the UK like I am, an added feature is the comparison check. This allows you to see if you can get a better deal and what savings you can make by switching suppliers. You can even make the switch from the app!

$0.99 - Download Now

Blues Licks Lessons from Guitar Jamz - Gary Mazo

I’ve written before on iMore how I have used my iPad – pretty much exclusively – to teach myself how to play the guitar. This was a new hobby I started back in November, which has now turned into more than that.

I’m continually looking for ways to improve, things to learn and tips and tricks for my guitar.

There is a plethora of stuff in the App Store for guitar lovers; tuners, chord charts and apps, sheet music, simulators and more.

Guitar Jamz has been my go to site for watching the guitar guru – Marty Schwartz – teach me quickly and easily how to play some of my favorite songs. This week I was ready for more – I was ready to progress into the acoustic guitar blues.

Blues Licks is divided into five sections; Licks Lessons, Blues Chords, Blues Scales, Guitar Licks and a Blues Guitar Manual. I progressed through each of the lessons and slowly, I am getting the hang of the blues.

This app is great for learning those quick little licks that make you look like you really know how to play cool stuff on the guitar!

Free - Download Now

WorldMate - SimonSage

WorldMate launched for the iPad this week, and having spent my fair share of time in airports, I can safely say it will be a godsend to regular travelers. WorldMate can scan your incoming flight confirmation e-mails to automatically populate your travel itinerary. WorldMate includes a full suite of useful travel tools, including mobile hotel booking, a currency calculator, local weather forecasts, restaurant search. The app is optimized for the new iPad's Retina display, and can stay synced with your iPhone at the same time.

TripIt offers similar functionality, but there's something about the WorldMate style that I always preferred. The one downside to WorldMate is that most of the sidebar options pops open a window that's pretty much the iPhone app, rather than making use of the big display with full panes on the right. At least the trip itineraries are well-formatted.

The core app is free, but to celebrate the launch on iPad this week, they're slashing the price of the ad-less Gold version from $9.99 to $2.99. Definitely worth it.

Free - Download Now

Spotify for iPad - Ally

I've been using Spotify for about a month now and while I have found it to be a great service it left out iPad. Now that Spotify has released their iPad app I feel like it's the type of service I can actually use on a regular basis. The apps still need some work to compete with the likes of Slacker and Pandora but the Mac app is really what got me hooked.

The integrated social networking is a feature users will either love or hate. I personally don't mind it and have found it to be useful as I've found a lot of great music through my Facebook friends. The iPad app allows me to now stream to all my devices. I'd still like to see Spotify integrate some of their Mac and PC app features into the mobile apps but it's a good start. I think adding the ability to view stations and popular playlists would really complete the apps. But for my personal needs, I do fine creating playlists and starring tracks and listening to them on the go. If you haven't checked out Spotify, make sure you do and let us know what you think.

Free - Download Now

Pocket - Leanna Lofte

I am way late to the game when it comes to "read later" services and completely regret that. Since picking up Pocket (formerly Read It Later), I've become hooked. The app gorgeous and being able to save articles that I find anywhere, be it Twitter, Facebook, some random website, or my RSS feed. I'm even using Pocket as a way to bookmark my favorite articles that I think I'll want to revisit, like tutorials.

Here's another weird purpose I've found with Pocket. I have extremely sensitive eyes. I can't go out in daylight with sunglasses -- I get a headache and squint all day. Anyway, part of that sensitivity carries over to light-on-dark themes. I don't care how great the article is, if the background is dark and the text is white or very light in color, I won't read it. My eyes scream in pain and my brain starts to sting. But now I just send these articles to Pocket and read them there! It's awesome.

Free - Download Now

Screenshot Journal - Rene Ritchie

Screenshot Journal is handy little utility for developers, designers -- and bloggers. The idea is simply this -- automatically collect your screenshots in one handy place. That's right, no more digging through your Camera Roll. Screenshots are grouped by months, but you can also favorite specific screenshots to keep them even closer at hand. Zoom is available at 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, and 32x with an optional grid overlay so you can double check everything from margin width to the precision of each and every pixel.

You can also share to Twitter, email, or to the clipboard.

If you're away from Photoshop and aren't doing near-real-time preview, but still want to check over your screens -- or take a peak at the screens of others! -- Screenshot Journal is a very good, very mobile tool.

$1.99 - Download now

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it's your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

i Learn With - Planet Boing! HD is part of a series of iPad apps that combine learning with fun for toddlers and young children. This particular app in the series is great for the younger players and is the central zone for both parents and kids with a free-play environment filled with lots of bright colors, music, and interactivity.

Before jumping into the fun, bouncy, colorful world, you can customize your character's look. This includes the shape of the torso, head, feet, hands, ears, and more, as well as his or her color. You can also roll the dice for a random customization.

When making customizations, you'll discover some that aren't available. If you tap it, a window will popup tell you how to unlock the item. This typically must be done by completing levels in other apps. This is a great way to motivate your child to play these learning games, but it can also get annoying for the younger kids who don't understand why the window popped up or what it says.

The main part of this app is Planet Boing, the fun world where you take your character to bounce around and gather bubbles that release things like music, shapes, characters, colors, and more. You can drag your character around the world with your finger or flick the character and watch him or her fly and bounce around.

In addition to interacting with your character in Planet Boing, you can also interact with different elements in the world, like trees and flowers, by tapping on them. You can also add more bubbles to the screen by tapping on the magic chest.

One of the fun elements of Planet Boing, is that if you have the new iPad or an iPad 2, you can use the front-facing camera to bring the fun to your world. My daughter thinks this is just hilarious.

In the Parents Center, you can see how your child is progressing in the other "i Learn with" apps and see recommendations of which apps you should get next. (Must register for a free account). These other apps are only $0.99 each and offer a lot of fun, educational content. I'll briefly share some features of i Learn With Boing: Ice Land Adventures! with you.

i Learn With Boing: Ice Land Adventures!

i Learn With Boing: Ice Land Adventures! has three main mini-games: Letters, Phonics, and Words.

In the Letters game, you have to pick the polar bear that's holding the letter shown at the bottom of the slide and guide him down the slide to help him collect all the ice cream balls.

In the Phonics game, you are given a sound, like "ma", and one letter of that sound. It's your job to fling your letter at the penguin that has the other letter on his hat. For example, if you are given the letter "a" and the sound "ma", your goal is to use the slingshot to hit a penguin with the "m_" on his hat.

In the Words game, you are given a word with a blank spot above each letter of the word. This word is actually on the back of a whale, and there are seals swimming in the water with a letter on each of their hats. It's your job to drag the penguins to their corresponding spots on the whale. When you get it right, the whale jumps up in excitement.

The Good

• Colorful
• Musical
• Fun
• Parents section is helpful for tracking kid's learning

The Bad

• Too much nagging to register and download other apps
• The location of the register button on the home screen is in the same location as the home button on the other screens. Young children like to push buttons over and over again, and my daughter hits the home button several times to go back to the home screen, but ends up at the register screen and gets frustrated.

The Conclusion

At only 20 months old, my daughter really loves this app. It may seem boring to the average adult, but for a young toddler, bouncing characters around on the screen and seeing bursts of color and shapes provides endless entertainment. She's still a little to young for the educational apps in the series, but I'm sure she will love them once she gets a little older, especially since she's already familiar with the characters.

i Learn With - Planet Boing!, Free - Download Now

i Learn With Boing: Ice Land Adventures!, $0.99 - Download Now

The Ness is a both a gorgeous and effective way to find places to eat near you

The Ness Dining Guide for iPhone is a gorgeous way to discover restaurants and cafes that you'll like. The Ness will make recommendations based on the ratings you've given to various places. You can also read reviews, add reviews of your own, and browse photos from Instagram that are matched with the places in Ness.

The first time you launch Ness, you will be asked to rate a bunch of places near you. You must give 4 or 5 stars to at least 10 locations before Ness has enough information to start giving recommendations.

The search screen is the main screen on Ness -- and boy is it beautiful! It features six pages, each with six categories. Each category is represented by a tall, gorgeous, and vibrant mouthwatering photo. You can tap on a category or type into the search bar in the center. The results page uses the photo for that category in the background and has the results overlaid on top of it. Each result shows its star rating and how far away it is from you.

Tapping on the place is where you'll find more information like contact info, your rating, reviews of "what's good" and "what's bad", how many times it's been mentioned on Facebook or Twitter, and a photo gallery of photos from Instagram that are matched with the place.

From the side panel, you can refine your personalization by rating more places, check out where your friends are going from the newsfeed, edit your profile, add friends, and look up your saved places. Unfortunately, The Ness doesn't let you connect with Twitter, so you can only add friends from Facebook, or via text message or email.

The Good

• Gorgeous, mouthwatering photography
• Makes recommends based on what you do and don't like
• Share favorite locations with friends
• Views photos from Instagram that are matched with the places on Ness
• The more you use it, the smarter it gets
• Connect with Facebook and Foursquare

The Bad

• Can't connect with Twitter

The Conclusion

You're probably sick of me saying it, but The Ness is beautiful! With these types of apps, the experience improves as more users jump on board, so please, pick this one up!

Free - Download Now

With OmniGraphSketcher for iPad you can create stunning, impressive graphs and charts with ease

OmniGraphSketcher is an iPad app that makes it easy to create gorgeous and precise graphs with lines, curves, shaded regions, and more. Instead of using specific equations, like a graphing calculator, OmniGraphSketcher let's you use multitouch gestures to chart your points and draw cuves and bar graphs.

OmniGraphSketcher comes with four sample documents so that you can easily see how they are created or just manipulate them as your own. You can use these as templates be duplicating the document you want to use before editing it.

There is also a fifth document that works like a tutorial and explains the different tools included with OnmiGraphSketcher and how to use them.

To create a text label, just double tap the screen. You can edit the font type, size, color, and choose the exact (x, y)-coordinates for the label.

To create a line, select that drawing tool and tap the screen. This will place a marker for your first point. You can drag this around precisely where you want it to be -- the exact (x, y)-coordinates will pop up as you drag around the marker and it will also snap to coordinates that are marked on your axes. Once you have it placed where you want, tap the location you want your second point to appear and adjust it like you did the first time. You can do this as many times as you want. When you're ready for the lines to be drawn, tap the last marker and the dotted lines become solid and each of the point markers become actual points.

An alternative method to selecting specific points to plot is to simply freehand the curve and OmniGraphSketcher will smooth it out into a beautifully for you. This is great for the times when precision is not important, but when want to use your graph to explain a concept or general idea.

The line style can be changed to be linear or curved and you can change it from being a solid line to one of the multiple dotted line styles. You can also adjust the thickness, and color, and whether there are arrows at the ends. You can make similar adjustments to the points as well as enter their exact (x, y)-coordinates. This helpful for those times when you may be plotting points that are hard to precisely drag to. For example, if you wanted to plot the point (2, 47.5) when the range of your y-axis is 0 to 1000.

Speaking of the x and y-axis, you can adjust their ranges by simply double-tapping the first or last number on the line and typing in what you want to change it to. You can also drag an axis after selecting it to get the same result. When an axis is selected you can also adjust the tick mark spacing.

In addition to creating curves and lines, you can also make bar graphs with OmniGraphSketcher -- and it's super easy. After plotting your points, simply choose the option that looks like a bar graph from the point's option menu. You can choose either horizontal or vertical bars and adjust their thickness and color.

To shade a region of your graph, tap the shading tool. Then tap a boundary point of the desired region and drag your finger to another boundary point, pause, and drag to the next one. Once you've selected the desired location, release your finger to complete the shading. OmniGraphSketcher lets you adjust the the color and opacity of the shaded regions.

If you're creative with your use of lines, curves, and dots, you can also use OmniGraphSketcher to sketch piecewise functions. As a math instructor, this excites me because this is very difficult to do with traditional graphing calculator apps and programs. No longer will I be hand-drawing these types of graphs for quizzes and exams -- I'll create them with OmniGraphSketcher instead!

The Good

• Beautiful
• Easy and intuitive to use
• Different line and point styles
• Create horizontal or vertical bar graphs
• Freehand sketching
• Sketch piecewise functions
• Adjust x and y axes
• Import from iDisk or WebDAV
• Share to email, photos, iDisk, WebDAV, iTunes
• Send to another app as a graph, PDF, or PNG (including Dropbox)

The Bad

• No native DropBox support

The Conclusion

I'm not going to lie, when I first picked up OmniGraphSketcher, I was a bit disappointed. I wanted the ability to graph specific equations. But the more time I spent with OmniGraphSketcher, the more I liked it and appreciated it's value of not also playing the role of a graphing calculator. It's a very simple-to-use and gorgeous app that creates very impressive graphs and charts. You may not be able to graph complicated equations, but that's ok -- there's graphing calculators for that.

$14.99 - Download Now

The Daily was the very first custom daily news app created for the iPad back in 2011, and now you can get all that great content on your iPhone. The Daily for iPhone is beautiful and extremely easy to use app for Newsstand -- no fluff or complicated UI's to distract from reading your news!

If already have a subscription to The Daily for the iPad, your subscription will carry over the iPhone for no additional cost. A subscription to The Daily is $1.99/mo or $19.99/yr. If you don't want to pay for the subscription, you will still have access to great, daily content, just not all content.

When browsing through The Daily, swiping left and right will switch between categories and swiping up and down will scroll through the stories in that category. The categories include news, business, gossip, opinion, arts & life, apps & tech, sports, video, and pictures.

To read a story, view a photo, or watch a video, you simply tap on it. The Daily include 3 different font sizes that can be changed while reading each post. You can also read comments and leave a comment of your own. For stories you want to share with your friends, you can easily send them to Facebook, Twitter, or email with just the tap of a button

This really is The Daily in a nutshell. It's super easy to use and very basic -- which is a good thing.

The Good

• Swipe up and down to scroll through stories in a category
• Swipe left and right to switch between categories
• multi-panel UI to quickly jump to a category
• Read and leave comments to stories
• Beautiful photos
• Videos
• 3 different font sizes
• Share to email, Facebook or Twitter

The Bad

• I have no clue why "Switch to New Issue" is displayed. Tapping it does nothing.

The Conclusion

The Daily is a great news app for the iPhone with great journalism. If you don't want to sign up for a subscription, you'll still have access to great, free daily content. Not only is the content great, but the UI is as well. The Daily found a great balance between being visually appealing, simple to use, and efficient.

Free - Download Now

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best, absolutely free apps and games for iPad

Looking for great free apps and games for your iPad? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. That's free as in free of charge to buy, free of subscriptions to use, and free of any crippling or time-bombing to make you pay later. They're just free. But which free apps are the best? Which are the top free apps you just absolutely have to download right now?

That's where iMore comes in! Here's your ultimate, authoritative guide to the top, 100% free iPad apps for social networking, IM and communications, education, entertainment, finance, fun and games, health and fitness, kids, music, navigation and location, news, photography, productivity, reading, shopping, sports, travel, and general utility.

Whether you're new to iPad and looking for a fast, free way to get started with apps, or you're just bored and looking for a little free fun, check out the apps and games below. And hey, since they're free, you can download them all!

Best free social networking apps for iPad

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network on the planet, and it's always been one of the most popular free apps on the iPad. Inside the free Facebook app, you can update your status, view photos, and check into your location. You can also keep up with your news feed, messages, events, pages, chat, as well as upload your photos and videos, and much, much more. (And if you're looking for more friends, check out our Facebook name swap thread!)

• Download Now

Twitter

The free, official Twitter app for iPad is the best way to get started finding cool celebrities and interesting internet personalities to follow, and trending topics to get involved with. (And be sure to check out our Twitter name swap thread to find other iMore members to tweet with!)

• Download Now

LinkedIn

With the LinkedIn app for iPad, you will have on-the-go access to your professional network. You can keep up with the latest news and keep up with your groups and share content.

• Download Now

Best free IM and communications apps for iPad

Skype

The free Skype app for iPad lets you make free audio and video calls and exchange text chats from your iPad to other iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, as well as Android, Mac, Windows, and millions more Skype users around the world. You can also buy Skype credits to call conventional phone numbers at really low prices.

• Download Now

IM+

IM+ from Shape Services gives you free access to Facebook, Google Talk, WLM, AIM, ICQ, and more right on your iPad. It also includes free Mobile to mobile Beep service, and works as a free alternative to SMS. Group chats, message history, multimedia messages and more are also included.

• Download Now

imo instant messenger

imo is another great, free iPad app for those who love traditional instant messaging (IM). imo supports Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Skype, MSN, ICQ/AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, Hyves, VKontakte, Myspace, and Steam. You can send text, images, and voice as well.

• Download Now

Best free educational apps for iPad

iTunes U

The free iTunes U app for iPad gives you access to courses from universities and schools. These courses are completely free and even include assignments. iTunes U and the instructors provide course materials, including audio, video, books, documents & presentations, apps, and books. iTunes U includes over 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology.

• Download Now

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is one of the best products of education and the internet, and with the Khan Academy app for the iPad, you will have free access to over 2700 videos on topics ranging from kindergarten, advanced science, humanities, history, and more. Even more, you can download the videos to watch offline, keep up with what the teach is saying with organized captions, and earn achievements as you learn.

• Download Now

Flashcards+

With school comes lots of studying. One of the most common studying techniques is to use flashcards. With the free Flashcards+ app for iPad, you can say goodbye to the stacks and stacks of flashcards that accumulate over the course of a semester and use electronic flashcards on your iPad instead.

• Download Now

Best free entertainment apps for iPad

Crackle

While apps like Netflix are free, you still have to pay for a subscription to actually use them. Not so with Crackle! The free Crackle app for iPad lets you watch hours and hours of Hollywood movies, from Resident Evil to A Few Good Men, and TV Shows from I Dream of Jennie to the Tick, absolutely free. And it supports AirPlay so you can watch on your big screen TV.

• Download Now

IMDB

IMDB's free iPad app means you're always only a few taps away from the latest show times, trailers, movie and TV rations, and cast and episode lists. It's the perfect couch-side companion for any serious entertainment buff, and the perfect mobile app for cinema buffs!

• Download now

TED

The free TED app for iPad blurs the lines between education and entertainment, showcasing riveting talks from experts in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design. With the TED app, you can browse their complete catalog of talks, bookmark and download your favorites, and share individual talks and playlists with your friends. It's like holding genius in the palm of your hand. For free.

• Download now

Best free financial apps for iPad

Bloomberg

Bloomberg for iPad is a great way for casual traders and investors to interact with their stocks and stay up to date with world news. Whether you need to casually monitor stocks on your iPad or just find the urge to check out financial news, the free Bloomberg app has you covered -- for free!

• Download Now

Mint.com

The free Mint.com for iPad app gives everything you love about the web site on the go and in the palm of your hand. You can track, manage, and budget your money, connect your bank, credit, and other financial accounts, and safely, securely keep it with you wherever you are. It also syncs with the Mint.com website so you're always up-to-date.

• Download now

Checkbook HD Free

If connecting your checking account to a third party service isn't your style, Checkbook HD Free lets you use your iPad as a checkbook registrar and more. You can also track your spending on credit cards, savings accounts, cash on hand, or any other account types you may have. While you track your spending, Checkbook HD will create pie and bar charts and reports about your spending and where your money is going.

• Download Now

Best free games for iPad

Angry Birds HD Free

The free Angry Birds app lets you play one of the most popular games in the world right on your iPad -- for free. Yes, it is supported by adds, but you'll be too busy catapulting birds and destroying pigs to even notice them!

• Download Now

Draw Something Free

Draw Something is a sensation and you can play it on your iPad for free with Draw Something Free. In Draw Something, you have a partner and you take turns drawing pictures with the goal of getting each other to guess the correct word. Just like Angry Birds Free, Draw something Free is supported by ads.

• Download Now

Hero Academy

Hero Academy is a great turn-based free iPad game where you and a friend (or random partner) take turns moving and attacking each other with various army pieces on a checked board. You have a set number of action points with which to move your pieces, bring in fresh ones from your stash, upgrade your pieces, and, of course, attack. The main goal is to either whittle down a few crystals on your opponent's side of the board, or run them out of troops.

• Download Now

Best free health and fitness apps for iPad

Epicurious

One of the biggest aspects of living a healthy life is to eat healthy food, and with the help of Epicurious Recipes and Shopping List for iPad, you shouldn't have a problem conjuring up healthy choices. This gorgeous recipe app is packed with recipes and regularly updates with new ones.

• Download Now

WebMD

WebMD is a reputable and accurate online source for medical facts and advice, and with the free WebMD iPad app you'll have complete access to mobile-optimized health information and decision-support tools including WebMD’s Symptom Checker, Drugs & Treatments, First Aid Information and Local Health Listings.

• Download Now

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is is free, the MyFitnessPal account is free, and if you’re dedicated enough to stick with them, the positive effects they can have on your health are priceless. Keep track of what you eat, how much you are working out, etc. If you’re looking to take better control of your weight or your fitness, get MyFitnessPal and get one step closer to a healthier lifestyle.

• Download Now

Best free kids apps for iPad

PBS KIDS Video

The free PBS KIDS Video app brings all your child's favorite shows right to your iPad. Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, Dinosaur Train, SUPER WHY!, Sesame Street and Wild Kratts and are all here and ready to entertain and educate.

• Download now

Squiggles!

Squiggles! is a very fun interactive drawing iPad app for kids. Each drawing page asks the child to add squiggles to the picture to make cars drive, give nests to birds, create cotton candy, add water for fish to swim in, etc. When the child is done adding their squiggles and other additions to the picture, they press "GO" to watch it come to life. It's very fun and actually amazing that this app is free.

• Download Now

Best free music apps for iPad

Shazam

How many times have you been listening to the radio, or attending a party, or watching TV when you hear a song that you like but have no idea what the name of the song is or even who the artist is? With the free Shazam app for iPad, all have to do is let your mic listen to the song for about 30 seconds, and Shazam will tell you exactly which song it is!

• Download Now

Slacker Radio

Don't have much music stored on your iPad? Don't fret! With the free Slacker Radio iPad app you can stream radio to your iPad for free. The Slacker music library features millions of songs from thousands of artists and you can customize your own radio stations with your favorite artists and songs. In addition to music, you can also listen to ESPN Radio, ABC News, comedy and more.

• Download Now

TuneIn Radio

The free TuneIn Radio app for iPad gives you on-the-go access to over 50,000 radio stations worldwide. From the local station where you may live now to the far away station where you may have grown up or simply visited and always remembered, TuneIn radio has over 120,000 free shows for you to choose from, right on your iPad.

• Download now

Best free navigation and location apps for iPad

Waze social GPS & traffic

The free Waze app for iPad uses Open Street Map data, which means you're contributing to building a map as you drive, and you also get to view the things added by others. The crowd-sourced nature of Waze lets users share information about traffic jams, accidents, speed traps, and other pertinent data. It includes standard turn-by-turn navigation, but the accuracy can vary depending on the quality of the maps in your area.

• Download Now

Google Earth

The free Google Earth app for iPad lets you, literally, hold the world in your lap. Spin the globe, fly over Antarctica, zoom through Tokyo, or simply check out your own back hard. Google Earth beautifully melds satellite and aerial mapping and imagery to give you just a glimpse of how Superman might feel.

• Download Now

Compass++

You iPad is equipped with a compass, yet Apple chose not to include the Compass app that can be found on the iPhone. Compass++ HD is a free app that will fill that void. It features a huge beautiful compass in the middle of the screen with the digital degree vales for true north and magnetic north. Compass++ also has 5 different themes that you can swipe through.

• Download Now

Best free news apps for iPad

Flipboard

The free Flipboard for iPad app shows you the news that matters to you, along with recommendations from your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram friends. That makes it a dynamic, up-to-date, but highly personalized magazine, right in the palm of your hand! It's also makes it easy to share the stuff you like most back with your friends and social circles.

• Download Now

Pulse News

Pulse News, from Alphonso Labs is an awesome free newsreader for iPad that brings all your news together into one place. With Pulse News, you choose the categories you want to display and the specific content for each section. For example, you might want to add a Gaming, Sports, News, Tech, Science, Art and Design any number of additional categories.

• Download Now

AP Mobile

The free AP Mobile app brings the Associated Press right to your iPad. With comprehensive, timely coverage of local and global news it's not like having a newspaper or TV station in the palm of your hands -- it's like having their news sources. Plus, if you find yourself in the middle of the news, you can even send the AP your tip!

• Download Now

Best free photo apps for iPad

PhotoToaster Jr

The iPad is an awesome device for editing photos, so if you're looking for a fantastic app that lets you make impressive edits -- for free -- look no further than PhotoToaster Jr for iPad. PhotoToaster Jr allows to choose from 14 different effects and different white balance presets, and add vignetting and frames. All of the filters and effects also allow you to fine tune them to your liking by adjusting saturation, sharpness, color filters, cross processing, and more.

• Download Now

Pic Stitch

There are a lot of collage apps in the App Store, but what's great about Pic Stitch is that it's free! With Pic Stitch for iPad, you can create beautiful collages that tell a story in just a few taps. It features 32 different layouts and after you've finished your masterpiece, you can share it to your favorite social network or another photography app.

• Download Now

Best free productivity apps for iPad

Adobe Reader

With the free Adobe Reader app, you can have all your PDFs stored right on your iPad. What's more, you aren't limited to just viewing PDFs, but you can annotated them with text, handwriting, strikethroughs, highlights, and more. You can also fill out forms and add your signature.

• Download Now

Evernote

Evernote isn't just a great free note-taking app for iPad. It's a great free note-taking app on almost every platform. That means no matter where you are, or what device you have access to, your notes are always there for you. You can also add pictures and search for text in the images, add voice notes, and easily share what you've collected.

• Download Now

Dropbox

The free Dropbox for iPad app gives you access to all your files stored in your Dropbox account (free up to 2GB). You can mark items as favorites to store them locally on your iPad for offline viewing, save photos and videos to your Dropbox account, and easily share them with family, friends and colleagues.

• Download Now

Best free reading apps for iPad

iBooks

iBooks is Apple's free ebook and PDF reading app for iPad. It's a stylish way to read not only books purchased from the iBookstore, but all the free books from the massive Project Gutenberg library as well as any of your own ePub or PDF files.

• Download Now

Readability

Readability offers a gorgeous way to read articles from your favorite website without the distraction of ads and other fluff -- for free! You simply set up your free account and add articles with a bookmarklet . A lot of other apps, like Twitter, offer Readability support so that you can add articles directly from those apps.

• Download Now

Comics

Comics isn't only the best way to buy new Marvel, DC, Image, and other comic books, but it also includes 500 free comics and one of the best reading interfaces in the App Store!

• Download now

More free reading apps

• Best free reading app for iPad

Best free shopping apps for iPad

Catalogue by TheFind

Say goodbye to the giant pile of catalogs on your coffee table and pick up Catalogue by TheFind for iPad to meet all your department store shopping needs. You will find all the top catalogs for men, women, kids, beauty, toys, home retailers, and more. Catalogue features a simple, clean interface makes shopping easier than ever!

• Download Now

Ebay

When you're not shopping catalogs and department stores, you probably head to eBay to search for the items you need. With the free eBay for iPad app, you can browse, buy, and pay for items on the popular auction service.

• Download Now

Gilt

Who doesn't love a good deal? With Guilt for iPad, you can find sales for up to 60% off on today's best labels. You can shop for anything and everything -- and fast. Shopping has never been so fun and easy. And since you're getting such great deals, you can push those feelings of guilt aside when shopping with Gilt!

• Download Now

Best free sports apps for iPad

ScoreCenter XL

ScoreCenter XL is a free iPad app by ESPN that brings you the latest scores, standings, and news for dozens of sports and hundreds of teams around the world. If you have a free myESPN account, you get automatic access to all your favorites. If you don't, you can choose baseball, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, rugby and soccer teams to follow right on your iPad.

• Downlaod Now

MLB.com At Bat

Although it has premium options, the free or “lite” version of MLB at Bat for iPad still gives you access to lots of great content. You can watch the scoreboard during every game, see news and highlights from recent games, buy tickets to upcoming games and check in around the league for other scores and highlights. While diehard baseball fans will want to buy the full app, the Lite version is great for casual fans on the go.

• Download Now

NBA Game Time Courtside

NBA Game Time is sort of like MLB.com At Bat – but for basketball. During games, you can follow the game practically play by play – seeing who is on the court at every moment and then seeing the scoring plays displayed on the iPad. You can also check the scores around the league, watch video highlights, check the standings, look at the schedule for every team and get information on each arena.

• Download Now

Best free travel apps for iPad

Yelp

If you're searching for a place to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, the free Yelp for iPad app will provide you with a map or list of exactly what you're looking for. Each location is also filled with reviews by users who have been to that place before. When you decide on a place and have finished your visit, you can leave a review of your own for other users to read when in the same predicament that you were in.

• Download Now

TripIt

The free TripIt app for iPad, when paired with a free TripIt account, becomes your virtual travel assistant. Simply email any flight or hotel confirmations to TripIt and they'll automagically get logged and displayed on your iPad, along with helpful maps and additional information to make your travel safer and easier.

• Download Now

Google Translate

While there are a lot of language courses and travel references available for the iPad, the free Google Translate app lets you find the right phrase, in the right language, right when you need it. Text translation is available in 64 languages and voice translation in 17. Yup, you can talk instead of type! Fantastique! Hen hao!

• Download now

Best free utilities for iPad

Find my iPhone

The free Find my iPhone app by Apple will help you locate your iPad in the unfortunate event that you misplace it or it gets stolen. You can track your iPad from another iOS device or from the iCloud website. You can also send a message and alert to your iPad to help you find it or to provide contact information in the even that someone found your iPad. If you're concerned about the security of your data, you can remotely lock your iPad or even wipe it with the free Find my iPhone app.

• Download Now

Nightstand Central for iPad Free

Obviously your iPad knows how to tell time, yet Apple didn't include a dedicated clock app on the iPad like they did the iPhone. No worries, though, with Nightstand Central for iPad Free, you can use your iPad as an alarm clock each morning. It has a beautiful UI, plays a slideshow in the background, and includes current weather information.

• Download Now

The Weather Channel

Here's yet another app that Apple left off the iPad -- Weather! The Weather Channel app is a great replacement. It features interactive maps and radar, severe weather alerts, and hourly and 10 day forecasts. You can also watch videos of breaking news and weather coverage and upload and view photos of the weather taken by other users. And you get all of this for free!

• Download Now

Your favorite free iPad apps?

Did we miss any of your favorite free iPad apps? If so, head on over to our iPad apps and games forum and add yours to the favorite free iPad apps list! We'll be updating this post often, so your pick could be next!

InstaGamer is a great companion to Instagram that lets you play the traditional matching game with photos from Instagram

InstaGamer is a fun iPhone and iPad game that's just like the classic matching game, only the things being matched are instagram photos. You can play with photos from the popular feed, specific tags, your own feed or photos, or photos you've liked.

Before you play a game, you must select which photo set you want to play from. The popular and featured sets come with InstaGamer for free. The featured set lets you choose from a list of popular tags.

In exchange for $0.99 as an in-app purchase, you can play with photos from your feed (the people you follow), your photos, photos you liked, or search for a specific tag.

After you've chosen your set, InstaGamer to choose 20 random photos from that set. Once it's done, you can scroll through all the photos before tapping play. This is probably a good idea so that you're familiar with the photos before starting the game. It might be helpful to know if there's any similar looking photos. Not to mention, it's a great way to look at Instagram photos!

Each game is a four by five grid with two copies of each of the 10 photos and you simply tap the squares to flip over the photos. You choose photos in groups of two, and if they don't match, both of them flip back over. When a match is made, those photos permanently stay facing up. Once all the photos are matched up, you've won!

At the end of each game, you are given a score somewhere between 0 and 1. Specifically, this number is 10 (the number of pairs) divided by the number of tries it took you to win. So the closer you are to 1, the better you did. As you play more games, you'll see your scores charted on a graph so you can see if you're improving. You'll also be given a quote that is somehow related to you score. For example: "What's got nothing on you!", "Nice Work!", and "A honeybee can fly at 15 mph" are all quotes that I've seen.

The Good

• Very fun
• Neat sounds
• Can access popular and featured sets for free
• Looks amazing
• Full version is only $0.99

The Bad

• Doesn't support landscape orientation

The Conclusion

InstaGamer is a great twist to the classic matching game. Using you and your friend's photos makes the game much more interesting and the little words of encouragement make you want to play over and over again. Although you have to spend $1 play with photos from your feed, it's worth that $1.

Free - Download Now

Squiggles! for iPad is an adorable children's game that instructs the child user to draw squiggles on pictures so that they can come to life. For example, after drawing squiggles behind a few cars and tapping "GO", the squiggles will act as springs that push the cars across the screen -- with sound effects and all.

Squiggles! includes an intro video of a little monkey and bunny explaining what a squiggle is, how they can be large, small, colorful and be used to make spaghetti, clouds, cotton candy, or anything to make pictures come alive.

There are six different pictures included with Squiggles! In the one shown above, you are supposed to draw cotton candy for the kids. (In the screenshot, the cotton candy has already been drawn in). You can do it very simple with just some little squiggles on the sticks, or you can get more detailed and add even more to the scene. There's no limit on the creativity. Tapping go on this picture will make the kids float up in the air with their cotton candy.

The Squiggles! includes 4 different drawing mediums and 10 colors. You can also delete all your squiggles at once with just the tap of a button and save your drawings to your Squiggles! gallery. In addition to drawing, Squiggles! also allows user to add cute stickers to their pictures.

The Parental Zone is where you'll find the Squiggles Gallery, options, and ability to share pictures to Facebook, Twitter, email, or pinter.

As if the really fun pictures that come to life wasn't enough, Squiggle's also includes a book featuring Bobu and Miku from the intro video. It's interactive and incorporates squiggles into the story. You can choose to have the book read to you or to read it yourself. If you choose to have it read to you, you still have to turn the page. This is great for kids who want to interact with the story before turning the page, but I wish there was a way to have the pages automatically turn for the younger kids or to share with Apple TV.

The Good

• Pictures come to life with squiggles
• Six different pictures
• Bold, bright, and colorful
• Parental Zone lets you share pictures with Twitter, Facebook, and more
• Intro video is very cute
• Includes a fun book

The Bad

• "Read to Me" book feature doesn't have an option for automatically turning pages

The Conclusion

I'm just going to come right and say that Squiggles! shouldn't be free. I'd easily drop $5 on it for my daughter. It's very fun and exciting for kids to see their drawing come to life. Combined with the video and book, Squiggles! is a must-have iPad app for children.

Free - Download Now

The popular music streaming service Spotify has updated their app with proper iPad support. Now you can enjoying millions of songs and discover and share music on your iPad's larger screen. The iPad version isn't simply a big version it's iPhone counterpart either -- it's optimized to take advantage of the larger screen and looks amazing.

A Spotify premium subscription is needed to use the service on the iPhone or iPad, but you can try it out for free for 48 hours -- and can be extended to 30 days. The free trial didn't work for me the first time I logged in, but once I logged out and back in, it worked like charm.

On the What's New tab, you'll see a bunch of album artwork along the top that can be scrolled though. These are new songs and can be played instantly. As you scroll through the page, you'll discover trending playlists and top tracks among friends, new releases, and trending playlists and top tracks near you.

Tapping any of the music or playlists will slide out a panel on the right that lets you find out more about it and stream it if you wish.

If you're listening to music, you'll see the "now playing" toolbar at the bottom of every screen. You can also blow this up to full screen so that you can view the album artwork nice and big and in all its glory.

From the Playlists tab, you can access playlists that you have set up on iTunes and playlists you've created with Spotify. Selecting a playlist will also slide out the window on the right and display a collage of artwork of songs that appear in the playlist as well as a lists of the songs in the playlist.

The People tab is where you go to see what your friends are listening to. If you connect Spotify with Facebook, all your Facebook friends who use Spotify will automatically show up in your list. Tapping on a friend will again slide out the column on the right and display your friend's top tracks, top artists, and published playlists.

In Settings, you can enable offline mode, switch to a private session (which expires after 6 hours of inactivity), choose whether you want to show what you listen on Facebook, and more.

The Good

• Clean, pretty, and easy to use UI
• Multiple panels are very well implemented
• Lots of album artwork
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Must have a premium subscription to use Spotify mobile. No free radio available.

The Conclusion

Spotify did a fantastic job with this app. There is a sense of uniformity when using it and the multi-panel design is very implemented. My only issue is that if you don't have a premium subscription, the app is completely useless. Spotify really should include free radio in their mobile apps.

Free - Download Now

Apple is currently rejecting apps that use the Dropbox SDK to provide integration with the popular cloud storage solution. The reason for the rejections is apparently that, under a specific but not inevitable set of circumstances, someone using an app with Dropbox integration could end up on Dropbox's web site and find a way to pay Dropbox for additional storage. That would violate Apple's prohibition against using external websites to circumvent Apple's 30% cut of subscriptions. Dropbox attempted to patch the problem by removing links that would make getting to the full version of the website and finding and buying additional storage possible, but the rejections seem to have continued. Dropbox is now working to try and find a more satisfactory solution and says they'll have more information on that next week.

On the surface, Dropbox broke a rule, caused a problem for developers using their SDK, and is now correcting the mistake. It doesn't appear to have been an intentional or obvious violation, but it was eventually discovered and now Dropbox and their developers have to deal with it.

It's that latter part that highlights some of the continued frustration with Apple's App Store policies, frustrations that persist some 5 years after the introduction of the App Store. The review and rejection process is still, as often as not, impenetrable and capricious. Plenty of apps with Dropbox integration are already on the App Store, presumably using the same SDK as the apps rejected today. That they weren't rejected as well doesn't excuse Dropbox or the apps that were rejected today, but it shows that what one (or many) reviewers let in, another (or many others) may reject.

One of the rejections listed account creation for both Dropbox and Google. (You can pay Google for Google Apps or Google Drive, among other things.) It makes you wonder what would happen if an app linked to store.apple.com...

That's part of what causes frustration with Apple's system. Another part is things like the recent scam app plague. Apps that should have been obvious candidates for immediate rejection to any reviewer who laid eyes on them, were let onto the store to violate intellectual property rights and cheat users out of money.

One absolutely doesn't excuse the other, but people have innate senses of fairness, and for rules to be respected they need to be perceived as being far. (As the old saying goes, people don't mind paying taxes only because it's generally believe everyone pays taxes.)

We want and need real humans reviewing App Store apps, but developers need to believe those reviewers are being fair, and applying broadly consistent standards with generally predictable results.

To their credit, Apple is continually improving the App Store review process. Because the process is human, they recognize they can't always predict all of the edge cases, all of the time. They've made changes over the years, sometimes major ones like un-banning the use of cross-compilers, sometimes small ones like un-banning satirical political cartoons.

So far, however, they haven't changed the policy that affects Dropbox -- the requirement that Apple get 30% of all subscriptions, and that apps can't link to external websites where the same subscriptions can be purchased without Apple getting that cut.

Again, Dropbox knew about it, accidentally broke it, and is now working to fix it. In the meantime, Apple will catch some criticism, both for the policy, and for the way the App Store handles policies. And given the power Apple wields, that kind of ongoing discussion isn't a bad thing.

Source: Dropbox via @sethclifford

Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify are three of the most popular streaming apps available. But which one is the best option for iPhone users?

While iTunes is the undisputed king of digital music, it doesn't offer streaming or subscription services, leaving the field wide open for a wide variety of contenders, including Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify. That's important because not everyone wants to buy their music. Some iPhone users want more variety and a better way to discover new music, or simply re-discover old favorites. That's because music is personal. It has to suit both our general tastes and our mood at the moment. A good streaming music app needs to reflect this. It needs to have music available that we like, when we like, and the better it does that job, the better it is.

Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify each have their own unique take on streaming music, but which one does it best?

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: User interface and experience

When it comes to streaming music, users want to find what they want to listen to easily and start listening quickly. If you have to dig through tons of menus or spend lots of time figuring out how to find music, you're just as soon switch to something else. It needs to be accessible and even better -- customizable.

Pandora is extremely easy to navigate and use but doesn't have a ton of options. Pick from a station, like or dislike items, and create stations from a track or artist. Other than that, functionality is pretty limited.

Pandora's layout is relatively straight forward and simple. The first tab will aggregate all the stations you've listened to and a "quick mix" that will play a mix of your stations. You can tap the edit button and easily remove anything you don't want. The next tab allows you to add new stations. You can search by either artist or genre. Tapping on a station or artist will instantly start streaming that content. It will also add that station to your playlist tab.

The bookmarks tab does exactly what you'd expect -- it allows you to bookmark tracks and artists. This feature is handy if you want to keep lists of tracks for future purchase (you can jump straight into iTunes from Pandora to buy content). While Pandora doesn't allow you to go back and stream that exact track, you can create a station based on that artist or track. This is great for fine tuning the Pandora app to play content you like. Make sure when listening to tracks that you use the thumbs up and thumbs down feature to filter in content you're more likely to enjoy and filter out things you don't like.

The free version of Slacker shows ads along the bottom. Paid users won't see these. The main menu is where all your content will be located which makes the app extremely easy to navigate through. Overall, it flows together nicely.

Upon launching Slacker you get a home page that allows you to browse some pre-defined stations or create your own custom stations. Premium users will also have the option of creating custom playlists (that's a feature Pandora does not offer in their iPhone app).

After choosing a station or creating a custom station, you can like or dislike songs or artists just as you can with Pandora. When disliking a track, you can either dislike just a specific song or the artist in general. So if you detest Rihanna in all forms, just block her from ever showing up for you in Slacker again.

Slacker also gives you the ability to check out what artists and tracks are featured on a station. Tapping into a station allows you to view info on the station, check out the artists, and check out the song list. Tapping the play button next to the station name will instantly start streaming that station. Overall, the entire layout of Slacker flows nicely. There aren't tons of menus to navigate and all of your presets and content are accessible via the main page.

While Spotify is the most pleasing to the eye, the functionality is still rather limited. You can't search by genre or listen to pre-populated stations. You'll need to create playlists to get going.

Spotify for iPhone is quite a bit different when it comes to overall design and the manner in which you interact with your content. The main homepage shows you a slider of top tracks and new releases with news underneath. The first tab shows any playlists you've created as well as your inbox, starred, and local tracks (we will get more into these later). The next tab allows you to search for artists, tracks, and albums. Once you find what you're looking for you can either stream it, add it to a playlist, or star it to play it later.

Spotify also integrates Facebook to allow you to view what your friends are listening to under the Friends tab. You can, of course, disable this feature (if, like some of the iMore staff, you don't want your friends to know you secretly listen to the Spice Girls...)

I actually prefer Spotify's layout and interface to the others but there's one big downside -- you can't browse genres. If you don't know what you're looking for or find things in "what's new" or "what's hot", there's pretty much no other way to find music from the iPhone app. This doesn't make for a great experience.

Between the three, Pandora is somewhat plain and Spotify lacks the ability to find music productively. Slacker is a nice middle ground. It doesn't overwhelm you. It might look a bit busy at first but after using it, everything just flows nicely together.

When it comes to user interface and experience, Slacker takes the prize.

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: Content

Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify all focus on music, yet present content in very different ways. If you want a random selection and don't care for playlists, Pandora provides that. But if you want to customize your listening experience right from the start, Spotify and Slacker are the best bets.

Pandora for iPhone has tons of presets to choose from when it comes to radio stations. But if you want to be able to customize your listening experience, there aren't many controls to help you do so other than liking or disliking tracks and hoping it'll play more of what you like.

Pandora at its core is an online radio streaming service. You can choose the types of music you like as well as like and dislike individual songs or artists. If you come across and artist or song you really like, you can listen to a mix based on that song. What Pandora doesn't do is give you the option to add individual songs to playlists and make your own. It attempts to learn what you like by the ratings you give content. Sometimes those ratings aren't so accurate.

If you want a more radio-like experience and don't want to put too much work into finding and playing content, Pandora is great. Beyond that, it's lacking features even for premium users.

Slacker for iPhone comes equipped with radio stations just like Pandora. You can also like or dislike artists or tracks. Paid users can also favorite tracks to play instantly later or cache stations for offline playback as long as you've got storage room on your iPhone.

Slacker is simliar to Pandora from the standpoint that you browse through stations and like or dislike artists and songs. From there, Slacker will show you custom content based on your own tastes. You can like and favorite songs which will show up under your favorites section off of the main menu. If you are a premium subscriber, you'll be able to listen to songs on demand.

Slacker allows offline streaming of up to 25 stations at a time (as long as you have room on your iPhone to store the content). You'll need to be a plus or premium member, but you'll be able to listen to your favorite stations without using up your data plan. To access stations you've saved for offline playing, just select the cached content section on the main menu and you're good to go.

Spotify for iPhone doesn't have presets built-in. You'll need to add playlists and customize your experience. You can actually only access Spotify from your iPhone if you're a premium subscriber. This may be a road block for users who don't necessarily wants to pay to stream.

Spotify concentrates on a more tailored experience. When it comes to the iPhone app, you can either search for content to play one song or album at a time, or build playlists. There are no stations to weed through or genres to choose from. This may be a deal-breaker for users who want the ability to browse music instead of having to find something specific. There are many times I just want to start playing music and don't really know exactly what I want to listen to. I just know what type of music I want to listen to.

If you'll only be using your iPhone to stream, Slacker will provide you with the best content selection and ways to sort and listen offline. While they don't have custom playlists, you can favorite songs you hear that you like and listen to and access them under your favorites tab on the main menu.

When it comes to content, Slacker wins.

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: Cross-platform syncing & streaming

If you plan on listening not only on your iPhone but on your computer or other mobile device, such as an iPad, you may want to consider what each service offers on other platforms, especially if you're contemplating a premium membership.

Pandora One gives you access to Pandora's desktop application for Mac and Windows. While it's better than web-based streaming, it's very minimal and nothing to get too excited about.

Pandora has a wide array of mobile apps available for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. You can also listen online. When you sign into your account all your information and saved content will be there.

Pandora One is Pandora's premium subscription model. It gives you access to the desktop application for Mac or Windows. The desktop app really isn't anything to get excited about and s quite dull. There's not much to interact with and it doesn't offer you any particular benefits over using the web-based player.

Slacker doesn't have a native Mac or Windows application but you can stream directly from the website. Paid users will not see any ads after logging in.

Slacker also has applications for most platforms and a few more than Pandora offers, namely a native iPad client. They also offer support for Windows Phone 7, Nokia, Palm, BlackBerry, Android, and many more. Slacker will save all your content under your login and it will be there regardless what app or platform you sign in to.

Slacker does not have a Mac or Windows app but you can, of course, stream straight from their website.

Spotify for Mac is by far the best way to enjoy streaming to your computer. If you spend a lot of time on your computer and need a good client, Spotify is what you want.

Spotify also supports popular platforms such as Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry, and iPad.

While I have an issue with Spotify's lack of a search feature on the iPhone, it makes up for that with the Mac and Windows app. It's by far the best desktop app of the three (especially considering Slacker doesn't even have one). You can view popular playlists, star tracks, see what's popular in your area, and monitor what your friends are listening to.

My favorite feature of Spotify's desktop app is the ability to wirelessly sync your starred tracks and playlists whenever your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your desktop computer. I frequently use this feature when I'm listening to music in the office or at home. I'll star music that I particularly like and have my iPhone set up to download starred tracks for offline use. I launch Spotify while on my network, the desktop app recognizes it instantly, downloads any changes, and I get in my car and start listening without having to worry about using my data (offline mode requires premium subscription).

You can also use the Spotify desktop client to sync local tracks from your computer. It'll pull everything in from your music library. While I don't typically use this service, it will be a nice addition for users who don't have to have to manage music in two separate apps. Spotify can handle it all.

When it comes to cross-platform support, Spotify takes the win due to their robust Mac and Windows app. When they launch their anticipated iPad app, it'll just be that much better. The iPad app is available now.

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: Audio quality

One of the most important aspects of listening to music for many is how good it sounds. There's no exception when it comes to streaming content. It's really hard to give a consistent rating considering many things can influence the actual rate at which music stream, such as your internet connection and whether or not a specific track is even available in a higher quality format.

Pandora streams at at average rate of around 64kbps for free listeners on the web, and at 192kbps for premium subscribers. They make no guarantee about mobile listeners, such as iPhone users, considering so many external factors can affect the bit rate.

Slacker doesn't have much information on the exact rate at which they are streaming but they do say that regardless of what platform you are streaming on, you should experience "near-cd quality" audio.

Spotify is a bit better at explaining what they stream. Premium users can get up to 320kbps on the desktop app and within the iPhone app. Of course, actual quality may vary given internet connection and other variables. They say the typical average and free users usually get around 160kbps.

Spotify wins when it comes to audio quality.

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: Pricing & features

While content is super important, so is the price you have to pay for it. While Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify all have a free ad-supported version, they also all offer premium subscriptions.

Pandora's premium service, Pandora One, weighs in at $36 a year or $3.99 per month. So if you can buy yearly, you'll get a bit of a discount. Pandora One will get you the following additions over the free version:

• Higher quality streaming - 192K bits per second
• Removal of ads
• Unlimited skips per day (but you'll still be limited to 6 skips per hour due to licensing issues)
• Access to the desktop player
• Extended timeout (listen up to 5 hours while not by your computer or iPhone)
• Custom skins

Slacker has 2 subcription models to choose from. The $3.99/month plus subscription will get you the following over the free version:

• No ads
• Unlimited song skips
• Mobile station caching (offline playing)
• ABC news
• ESPN radio

The $9.99/month premium subscription will get you everything listed above as well as the following:

• Songs on demand
• Albums on demand
• Single artist stations
• Caching of albums and playlists
• Create custom playlists

Spotify also has two subscription models outside of their freemium model but we're only going to cover the $9.99/month version because, sadly, that's the only version that will even allow you to stream to your iPhone. There is a 48 hour free trial if you'd like to check it out first. Just download the app to activate your trial.

• Manage your local MP3s
• Take your music abroad
• Artist radio
• No ads
• Play local files on your mobile device
• Offline mode on your desktop & mobile
• Enhanced sound quality & content

Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify all provide access to play content through your home or office systems such as Sonos. They're all widely accepted and you shouldn't run into issues with any of them when it comes to a lot of the popular music systems.

When it comes to price, Slacker offers the most for only $4/month but Spotify offers much more in their $9.99/month package. You'll just have to weigh out what you need and what services you'll really use. Go with the one that has a better value for you personally.

When it comes to cost, it's a tie between Slacker and Spotify.

Pandora vs. Slacker. vs. Spotify: Conclusion

Pandora, Slacker, and Spotify all offer streaming experiences in very different ways. I can't help but feel that Pandora is lacking when it comes to functionality and customization. I know many users just want to listen and go, but access to previously listened to songs and stations would be a welcome addition.

Slacker provides a nice streaming service for free with an easy to maneuver through interface. You can even get offline caching for only $4/month. That's a very sought after feature for many users who want to be more conservative with their carrier data. You won't get it cheaper than you do with Slacker.

Spotify is the new kid on the block but packs a punch. While I think they have the best desktop experience of all three, we're talking iPhone app here. And sadly, that's lacking. There is no way to browse for and discover music. That's a deal-breaker for me. So is having to pay $9.99/month just to use the iPhone app. If Spotify could fix these two issues by beefing up the iPhone app and giving iPhone users access either for free (ad-based) or at a cheaper rate, they'd be the best choice, hands down.

Only one of these apps seems to be a happy medium between discovering and customizing the streaming experience, and that's Slacker. It'll suit most users needs and offers the flexibility most users need.

Slacker is the best streaming app for iPhone.

Pandora - Free - Download Now

Slacker - Free - Download Now

Spotify - Free - Download Now

Since Instagram still has no official iPad app of their own, Iris App is a fantastic alterative

Instagram may not have a native app available on the iPad, but Iris App is here to fill that void. You may not be able to upload photos to the popular photo sharing service, but Iris App does allow you to browse your feed, featured photos, "like" and comment photos, and more.

Along the left hand side, you'll see a thin column that give access to your main feed, featured photos, your profile, search, and the photos you've liked.

Your home feed is displayed as a grid of polaroids. Each Polaroid shows who's photo it is and the number of likes and comments. These images are nice and big and the design is very clean looking. If you want to "like" the photo, just double tap! You can also tap the heart and a sidebar on the right will slide out that lists all the users who have liked the photo, links to their profiles, and the option to "like" the photo. Tapping the speech bubble is very similar, except for comments. If available, you can also view the photo's location on a map.

Tapping on a photo will slide a larger version of the polaroid up from the bottom of the screen that looks exactly the same with the addition of an excerpt of the caption. Which leads me to my biggest disappointment -- if the caption is more than about 40 characters, the only way to view the caption is in the comment view. I think captions should be viewable from the polaroid/thumbnail view. I like to see caption as I casually scroll and browse through my feed.

If you tap on a user's avatar, you'll be taken to their profile. Along the top, you see their name, bio, number of followers and following, a button to follow/unfollow, a "thumbs-up" to recommend the user via email, and a button that lets you view all the user's photos on a map.

The photos in profile mode are displayed much smaller than on your main feed -- there is 4 photos per row vs. two photos per row. But there's a trigger on the bottom of the sidebar that lets you switch to the larger, more detailed thumbnails if you prefer.

The featured photos and liked photos pages also feature these smaller thumbnails, but oddly, there is no option to view them larger.

The Good

• Pretty
• Browse main feed, featured photos, profiles, and favorites
• Like and comment on photos
• Search for users and tags

The Bad

• Can't tap tags
• Can't change thumbnail size for main feed, featured tab, or favorites tab (main feed is big, featured and favorites are small)

The Conclusion

I often use Instagram to browse through photos even when I'm not sharing my own photos and have always longed for an iPad version. Given the fact that Facebook now owns Instagram and that the Facebook iPad app took ages to release, I'm not expecting an official Instagram iPad app anytime soon. I'm just glad to have Iris App as a fantastic alternative.

$1.99 - Download Now

The widely popular twitter client for iPhone and iPad, Tweetbot, has been updated to version 2.3 and brings with it some great new features, including a new tweet detail view with both inline conversations and replies, the ability to stop retweets from individual users, new gestures, and more.

The new tweet detail view is very neat, but I admit that I actually very rarely look at tweet details. I'm more excited about the new conversation view that also includes replies. Many other Twitter apps mix all replies into the conversation stream making it hard to follow, but Tweetbot clearly labels which tweets are in the conversation at hand, and which ones are replies to the specific tweet you are looking at. Very nice.

The other extremely awesome feature is the ability to block retweets from individual users. That person you are following who has the tendency to retweet what seems like everything in their Twitter feed can now be silenced! If you block their retweets, you only see the original tweets from that user in your feed-- some of the people I'm following better watch out!

Tweetbot has also made some adjustments with regards to tweeted videos. Video thumbnails will now show a play button over it as a way to indicate that it's a video and not a photo. Thumbnail support for Vimeo links has also been added.

Some of the other new features include Droplr support, higher res image uploads when connected to wifi, support for $stock links, improved email format, reorganized tweet drawer, the timeline sync bookmark icon is now optional, and holding down the Compose Tweet button will quickly open last draft.

I've always been a huge fan of Tweetbot. Occasionally, I switch to a different client, but I always end up returning to Tweetbot. Fellow Tweetbot users, what's your favorite new feature in this update?

$2.99 for iPhone - Download Now

$2.99 for iPad - Download Now

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a utility, a unique Twitter client, a classic video game, a social networking iPad app, a fun photography app for creating comics, and an addicting puzzle game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

FileBrowser - Chris

This week’s pick is a little utility that helps me manage the files and folders on my NAS (Networked Attached Storage). I have just bought a D-Link NAS to store all my movies, TV shows and photographs and was looking for a way to access the content from my iPad or iPhone. FileBrowser does it all and more.

FileBrowser lets you enter the address of your NAS and then view all the files and folders right on your iPad iPhone or iPod touch. It lets you manages files, delete files, rename files and also download files and open them in apps installed on your device or even stream media in Apple approved formats.

$4.99 - Download Now

TweeTV - Chris Parsons

This week, I decided to go ahead and choose just a simple app that to me, really has no purpose yet I use it almost every day. TweeTV does nothing more than show a bunch of streaming tweets based on any number of things. It can be from a topic, a person or even just a word. I like to go ahead and airplay it to my TV while I'm working and looking for things to write. For example, set it to only pull in Apple tweets and you'll catch headlines and tweets from all over the world about Apple. It's not overly functional for collecting "up to date" info but it's fun to just watch tweets from everywhere on any chosen topic just roll by. It has themes built in just in case basic black isn't your thing but really, basic black looks the best. It's available for free in the iTunes App Store for free right now for iPhone or iPad.

Free - Download Now

Battlelog - Simon Sage

I'm a big fan of EA's Battlefield 3, so when they announced that their social network for virtual murderers was coming to iPhone, I was pretty excited. Through Battlelog for iOS, you can view the battle feed of your friends to see their latest achievements, launch directly into chat with friends online, drill down into player stats, and check your progress with various weapon and skill unlocks. There's a sub-section for checking out the latest stories on the Battlefield 3 news feed, but for the most part, this is just a good way to see which of your buddies are online and ready for a few rounds. I'd love to see some more advanced stuff like what's available in the Call of Duty: Elite app, like customizing your classes and tracking challenge progress, but this is a good start. If you're in BF3, definitely download this freebie, and feel free to add me to your buddies list.

Free - Download Now

LinkedIn for iPad - Gary Mazo

I spend a decent amount of time on various social networking sites – using my iPad as the primary tool. It is amazing that now, two years after the iPad was introduced, one of my most used social networking sites finally has an app. LinkedIn for the iPad just launched this week and while it is a bit late to the party – I am really enjoying this app.

First off, it is optimized for the retina display on the iPad – which is great. There are some new features that are very useful – one being the calendar feature. Say you have a meeting at two with someone important and you want to be prepared. With the calendar feature, you can see his/her LinkedIn profile and get set for the big meeting.

The home screen is very clean – just three large buttons to tap on the screen; All Updates, You and Inbox. Inside the All Updates section is where you find the new calendar, updates from your contacts and key news headlines from LinkedIn today.

Inside the “You” section is where you post your own updates, see who has viewed your profile and search all your LinkedIn contacts. You can also easily email your profile to a potential connection, which can be helpful, if you are searching for a new job.

Your inbox is simply where you LinkedIn messages are stored and where you will find pending invitations to connect.

All ion all, I really like the new interface and find it very useful, easy to navigate and uncluttered. It is too bad it took them so long to get this on the iPad – but, now that it is here - it is my pick of the week.

Have you tried the new LinkedIn app? Now that there is a dedicated, usable app, will you use it instead of whichever way you now access LinkedIn? Let us know in the forums!

Free - Download Now

Halftone - Rene Ritchie

When I was a kid, I'd buy comic books and read Sunday comics printed in four colors. Not four color process, mind you, but four colors and four colors only. Everything else had to be simulated by using dots of smaller or larger sizes. Looking back, it was horrible. Looking back, it was wonderful. Halftone is the name of the process used -- the smaller and bigger dots -- to make those old style comic books and Sunday comics. It's also the name of an iOS app that lets you convert photos into retro-looking comic images.

You can add filters, of course, and control the size of the dot patterns. You can also add captions, word bubbles, paper types, and special effect text.

It's not an every day app, but it's a fun one, especially for those of us who were once kids and deeply in love with halftone comics.

$0.99 - Download now

Polymer - Leanna Lofte

This week I've got yet another puzzle game! This one is called Polymer and it's a shape-creating puzzle game that is highly addicting. The goal is to slide the rows and columns around so that you create a complete, closed shape. It's very challenging.

Polymer also has really awesome, calming-like, music and sound effects. Be sure to check out my full review!

$0.99 - Download Now

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it's your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Contacts Journal is a CRM (contacts relationship management) app for your iPhone and iPad. It allows you to log information about your contacts, add to-dos associated with them, and even attach documents to specific contacts. You can add contacts from the built in Contacts app (and keep information in sync between the two apps), or add contacts separately that you don't want in your main Contacts app.

Contacts Journal is available for the iPhone and iPad (separate purchases), but all screenshots in this review will be from an iPhone. Both versions have the exact same features.

Adding contacts to Contacts Journal is very easy. You just tap the plus sign and either manually add a contact, or select some or all of all the people stored in the built-in Contacts app. When you add contacts that were already stored on your iPhone or iPad, Contacts Journal and Contacts will stay in sync.

The contact screen shows the photo you have stored for that person as well as buttons to call, message, or email that contact from directly within the app. You will also find buttons that cycle between logs, to-do's, and documents that you have associated with that individual. To add an entry or document, simply tap the plus sign.

When adding a to-do, you can choose to sync it with the built-in Calendar app and also to receive a reminder notification. You can also choose specific locations for your logs and to-do's.

The easiest way to add a document to a contact is to browse to the document from somewhere else on your iPad, like email or Dropbox, and "Open In" Contacts Journal. You will immediately be prompted to select a contact to attach the document to. The other option is to directly send a document from your computer to the app by connecting both devices to the same Wi-Fi network and typing a special URL into your browser.

The Logs and To-do tabs are simply filled their respective lists. The Maps tab show a map filled with green, red, and purple pins. The green ones represent the addresses that you have stored for your contacts. The red pins indicated places that have to-dos, and purple pins are places associated with a log.

Contacts Journal let's you backup and sync your data with Dropbox. Unfortunately, Dropbox sync is not automatic and you must manually force Contacts Journal to send or receive data from Dropbox. When I expressed my concern about this to the folks at zaal, however, they let me know that the reason for this is because an automatic sync would take up a lot of data. The good news is that Contacts Journal does add a badge to the more tab of the app with the number of changes that I have not been synced with Dropbox. This works as a great reminder -- especially for people like me who must make sure all badges get cleared.

It's also unfortunate that Contacts Journal doesn't support iCloud sync, but the developers let me know that this is actually something they are diligently working on, but are running into issues due to bugs on Apple's end. Once those are worked out, iCloud sync will be available in an update.

The Good

• Add logs and to-tods to contacts
• Attach documents to contacts
• Create groups of contacts
• Keeps contacts synced between Contacts Journal and built-in Contacts app
• Keep devices synced with Dropbox

The Bad

• Dropbox syncing isn't automatic. Must manually send and retrieve data.
• iPad version has a boring UI
• No paid universal for iPhone and iPad version available, even though the lite version is universal

The Conclusion

Contacts Journal is a great way to manage important information about contacts, make notes about meetings and assign documents to them. I'll admit to approaching this app with a "when will I actually use this" attitude, but my thoughts changed as I started exploring the app. Personally, I will probably use Contacts Journal to manage photography clients and attach contracts and receipts to each client as well as make notes about the photo sessions and client requests.

It's somewhat annoying that the iPhone and iPad version are separate, rather expensive purchases. I'm willing to pay a premium price for premium software, but since the iPhone and iPad versions are virtually the exact same app with no UI differences, I would've liked to see a universal version available, even if at just a discounted price than if I were to buy them separately.

The good news is that there is a free, universal version of Contacts Manager available for the iPhone and iPad that restricts you to just 10 logs, to-dos, and documents. It's a great way to take the app for a test drive and see if it'll meet your needs.

$9.99, iPhone - Download Now

$9.99, iPad - Download Now

Free Lite universal version - Download Now

Twitter for iPhone isn't your early adopter, power user app. It's not designed for the gadget nerd with tons of followers who engages in non-stop repartees with like-minded friends, peers, and colleagues all day. It for the new mainstream Twitter user who has very few followers, follows tons of celebrities, and is looking for more and better ways to find something... anything... to do on Twitter. Like it or not, since the last redesign, that's the the official Twitter app's target user now. And that's who they're improving things for with this update.

Discover promises "more interesting and timely content that matters to you". Basically that means you see a paid placement on top (mine's a Yahoo! add I could not possibly care less about out), a hashtag (mine's #NewFront, which is impenetrable to me), a trending tweet (mine is something about an Ex-Liberian president that it says is trending but I've never expressed any interest in), a trio of recent friend activities, including their retweets, follows, and favorites, a trio of additional trending hashtags and terms, and a trio of people Twitter recommends you follow.

Activity appears below the redesigned stories in Discover. Now you can tap any story once to see Tweets about a particular trend or news article. You can then read the entire story or join the conversation by replying, retweeting or favoriting related Tweets.

Again, I'm not the Lady Gaga following nouveau Twitter type, I'm not their target user, but all of this is completely lost on me. This tab could disappear tomorrow and my enjoyment of the app would only increase.

Search has also been improved, and claims to be simpler and more error-proof with different spellings and related terms. The search box is present in both the Connect and Discover tabs, the former of which prioritizes @names and full names, the latter of which prioritizes #hashtags or keywords. You can also get a search history in the Discover tab.

We’ve also made a few improvements specifically for iPhone: when you tap the search box in Discover, you’ll see your most recent queries. You can also go directly to someone’s profile when searching for a username in Connect.

I usually prefer one search box to rule them all, Twitter optimizing different search boxes for different types of content works well, even if it adds extra cognitive load by making users choose the "proper" tab before they can query the system.

Notifications have also been made more robust, and you can now be alerted to tweets, retweets, and follows, in addition to the usual @mentions and direct messages (DMs). It brings Twitter for iPhone up to parity with some other clients, but is also a power user feature in what's clearly a mainstream targeted app. Unless Lady Gaga is retweeting and favoriting me left and right, this feature would have felt far more at home in the older version of Twitter.

Overall, the user interface remains gorgeous, the functionality solid, the implementation silky smooth, and the focus on Twitter's new mainstream audience commendable. It's just not the good old Twitter many of us knew and loved, and it's a little sad there's no official Twitter Pro app that could have somehow melded the new experience with the old, more power-user centric functionality and layout.

Free - Download now

Source: Twitter blog

Here's another gem to add to your puzzle game collection - Polymer for iPhone. In Polymer, your goal is create shapes, called polymers, by sliding around the rows and columns. A polymer isn't complete unless all the ends (which are marked with black dots) are closed.

As I was playing polymer and thinking about what I was going to say in this review, my mind kept wandering into thoughts of a Rubik's Cube and the similarities it has with Polymer. I was pleased to discover Polymer's description in the App Store claims the game "combines the logic of Rubik’s Cube, the sliding mechanism of Chuzzle, and the creativity of Lego." Bingo - that's a perfect description.

Polymer has three game modes, but only one of them is initially available. It's called Two Minutes, and as its name implies, you are given two minutes to create as many polymers as you can. To create a polymer, you simply slide around the rows and columns to match up the pieces. All the black dots on the pieces must be connected for a polymer to be complete -- or, as I like to think of it, all the ends must be closed up. Larger polymers give more points.

The more you play, the more points you earn and the more features you can unlock, including additional shapes (which make game-play more difficult), and more game modes. If you're impatient, you can also unlock these features with in-app purchases, but it's not required.

The other two game modes are called One Polymer and Bombs. In One Polymer, you have as much time as you want to create the biggest, highest point-value polymer that you can. In Bombs, you must destroy the pieces that are bombs before they destroy you. Again, these game modes will be unlocked as you earn more points by playing the game, or you can unlock them for $0.99 each.

There is also an in-app store where you can purchase other color schemes for $0.99 each, or you can unlock all content, including all game modes and color schemes for $2.99.

The Good

• Very fun and challenging
• Great music and sound effects
• In-app purchases aren't required to gain content
• More color schemes available as in-app purchases

The Bad

• Two minutes is great, but would love to see longer time options

The Conclusion

Polymer is my new go-to puzzle game. It's a lot of fun and very challenging. Combined with the beautiful colors and awesome music and sound effects -- I'm hooked.

$0.99 - Download Now

One of my favorite PDF annotating apps for iPad, Remarks by Readdle, just got even better with the addition of automatic two-way Dropbox syncing. With the new update, a new, blue folder named Remarks and labeled with Dropbox will appear in your notes once you link your Dropbox account with Remarks. Any notes you create in this folder will automagically sync up with Dropbox -- you no longer have to manually send a note to Dropbox. It works like a charm.

When I compared Remarks with Noteshelf and Notability, one of my complaints about Remarks was that the handwriting wasn't all that spectacular. The good news is that this update has also brought major improvements to the handwriting, bringing it up to par with all the major iPad handwriting apps.

These two additional features are huge improvements to Remarks and I'm looking forward to even more updates. I already know that the next one is going to be pretty awesome.

As mentioned above, I have always been a huge fan of Remarks. As a math instructor, I frequently use it to handwrite solutions to quizzes, exams, and worksheets that I then make available to my students in electronic form.

Giveaway

The good folks at Readdle have given us 5 promo codes for Remarks to give away to you, our awesome readers! For a chance to win, just head on over to the iMore forums and leave a comment in the official giveaway thread letting us know why you'd like to win a copy of Remarks and what you plan to use it for.

ENTER NOW

$4.99 - Download Now

Snapseed is a photo editing app for iPhone and iPad that not only offers tons of features, but is extremely easy to use. Not familiar with RGB Curves, histograms, and other professional editing tools? Not a problem! What makes Snapseed so great, is that anyone can pick it up and produce amazing results even if they aren't familiar with professional editing techniques.

Snapseed is a universal app for iPhone and iPad, but I will be sharing screenshots from the iPad version in this review. The iPhone version has the exact same features.

General layout

The layout of Snapseed is very straightforward and easy to navigate. In landscape orientation, you'll see a two-column sidebar of editing tools on the left and your photo on the right. In portrait orientation, the photos is on the top and a scrollable toolbar with your tools is on the bottom.

The editing tools are displayed as simple thumbnails with their names clearly labeled and an image that's related to the adjustment type. This is a refreshing approach as many photo editing apps use a bunch of icons who's meanings you have to memorize.

There are 13 different adjustment tools. With all of them, swiping up and down lets you chose the enhancement that you're editing and swiping left and right adjusts that chosen enhancement. This gives Snapseed a very clean UI that's free of sliders and other distractions.

Another feature of each tool's screen is the Compare button. Holding this down will show what your image looked like before applying the tool you're using. To compare with the original image, hold down the Compare button on the main screen.

Auto Correct

The first and most basic available tool in Snapseed is called Auto Correct. It consists of two enhancements: contrast correction and color correction.

Selective Adjust

Selective Adjust is a fantastic tool that lets you focus your adjustments to a specific area, called a control point, of the photo. You can add as many control points as you wish. Pinching and zooming will adjust the size of the control point and while you do so, Snapseed will show a red mask over your image so you can see exactly where the adjustments will take place.

If you look closely, you'll see that this mask is actually bigger than the circle. This is because the circle designates where the photo will receive the adjustments at full strength and where the fading will begin. Without a good fade, the images would look terrible with a focused editing region. Snapseed does a fantastic job of fading so that your image looks good.

The adjustments you can apply to each focus point are brightness, contrast, and saturation.

Tune Image

Snapseed's Tune Image tool lets you adjust the brightness, ambiance, contrast, saturation, and white balance of your photo.

Straighten & Rotate

The Straighten & Rotate editing tool let's you, well, straighten and rotate your image. You simply swipe up and down or left and right to straighten. The new cropped region will be kept straight and your image will tilt behind it. Unfortunately, you cannot fine tune the final crop by moving the image around. Sometimes there's room to shift the crop left or right, but you can't.

Crop

Snapseed comes with 7 different crop ratios -- 14 if you count landscape and portrait orientation of each ratio separately like many apps do. You can also constrain the crop to the original ratio or use free transform.

Detail

The Detail tool is where you go to adjust sharpening and structure of your photo. What's extra special about this tool, however, is that it comes with a loupe that lets you zoom in on a section of the photo so that you can get a good look at the pixels and how sharp they are.

Black & White

As expected, the Black & White section of Snapseed lets you convert your photo to a black and white image. It has six different presets: neutral, contrast, bright, dar, film, and darken sky, and five different color filters: neutral, red, orange, yellow, and green. You can also make adjustments to the brightness, contrast, and grain.

Vintage Films

The Vintage Films tool in Snapseed is basically 9 different vintage filters that you can apply to your photo as well as 5 different textures. The adjustments that can be made are brightness, saturation, texture strength, center size, and style strength. The center size adjustment is Snapseed's way of referring to the strength of the vignette.

Drama

Drama is yet another set of filters: two each for drama, bright, and dark. The adjustments that can be made are saturation and filter strength.

Grunge

The last set of filters is Grunge -- and grunge is the perfect description for them. Instead of a popup of filter options like the previous filter packs, the Grunge tool actually uses a slider to change the style. This lets you fine tune it to the exact color that you want. It also comes with 5 different grungy textures that make your photo looks like it's been through quite a beating. The other adjustments you can make are to brightness, contrast, texture strength, and saturation.

Center Focus

The Center Focus tool is similar to Selective Adjust in that you have a center point with an adjustable radius around it. The difference is that the things are you are adjust about this point are blur strength and outer and inner brightness. Snapseed also includes 6 different presets if you don't want to spend time find the perfect combination of adjustments: portrait 1, portait 2, vignette, blur, old lens, and foggy.

Organic Frames

In the Organic Frames section of Snapseed, you'll find 8 different frame styles with the ability to adjust their width and offset.

Tilt-shift

The final tool in Snapseed is Tilt-Shift. People love adding fake blur to their photos and Snapseed definitely does not disappoint in this department. In fact, since this section includes a radial (circular) blur, there is a lot of similarities between this and blurring effects you can do with the Center Focus tool. The linear tilt-shift is different though. With both types, you can adjust the transition, blur strength, brightness, saturation, and contrast.

The Good

• 13 different editing tools, most of which include many different adjustment options
• Share to email, Flickr, Facebook Twitter, printer, or "Open In" another photography app
• Compare button lets you quickly and easily see how your edits compare with the original photo
• Universal for iPhone and iPad
• Supports the new iPad's Retina display

The Bad

• Can't move the cropping region when straightening
• Blurring with Center Focus and Tilt-Shift are very similar

The Conclusion

Snapseed is a fantastic photo editor that's powerful, yet easy to use. Snapseed is best for users who want to play around with adjustments, but who don't understand (nor care to understand) how to use more advanced and professional tools. Snapseed makes it easy for anyone to beautifully and artistically edit their photos on their iPhone or iPad.

$4.99 - Download Now

OneReceipt is an iPhone app that gives you a very organized way of keeping track of and saving receipts. It will automatically grab emailed receipts (from, say, Amazon or iTunes) from your Gmail account and add them to your OneReciept account or you can take a photo of a physical receipt.

When you sign up for a free OneReceipt account, you get to store your receipts in the cloud and access them from the web on the OneReceipt app. This service is technically still in beta, but it's off to a great start. You will also be given an @onereceipt.com email address for you to forward receipts that were sent to a different email account than your Gmail. OneReceipt will then automatically add them to your collection of receipts. Unfortunately, Gmail is the only email service that can be synced with OnceReceipt.

The personal @onereceipt.com account is a great idea, but it still needs some work. I forwarded an iTunes receipt from my iCloud email to my personal OneReceipt account, but it's showing up in the receipt list as being "unparsed". This is strange, because the iTunes receipts that were already in my Gmail account when I performed the initial sync were parsed perfectly. So it seems that OneReceipt is just not correctly handling the quote syntax that is commonly associated with email forwards. I imagine this is something that OneReceipt can easily fix. Even though these receipts are unparsed, I can still view the forwarded email receipt with OneReceipt.

For in-person shopping, you can take a photo of your receipt and send it to OneReceipt and they'll process it for you. I tested this out with a two different receipts, but they are currently still processing. The strange thing is that even though I did this only a few hours ago, the date on my iPhone that is being shown is "yesterday", but on the web, it's "today". Just another little bug that needs to be worked out. (I'll update once the receipts finish processing).

If taking a photo of a receipt isn't an option, or you just don't like that option, you can also manually enter a receipt. The disadvantage to this method is that you are not able to add each item on your receipt. If all you care about is the total, then a manual entry works just fine, but sometimes you also need to save the prices of each individual item on the receipt. Those are the times that photos are the superior option.

After a receipt has been added to OneReceipt, you can categorize and tag it so that it's easily searchable. OneReceipt will also create spending summaries that you can view on the web that breaks down your monthly spending amounts by totals and category.

The Good

• Automatically retrieves receipts from your Gmail
• Receipts stored in the cloud and accessible from the web
• Personalized @onereceipt.com email address to forward receipts to
• Spending summaries
• Take photos of receipts and OneReceipt adds it automatically
• Manually add receipts

The Bad

• Only supports Gmail
• Not all forwarded receipts are recognized by OneReceipt
• Can't force a sync to look at past emails again

The Conclusion

Even though OneReceipt has a few kinks to work out, I'm still impressed with it. The app and service is completely free, so it's not like you've got anything to lose. Keeping track of receipts is something I'm terrible at, yet need to do for many of my jobs, but I expect to be much more organized with them now that I have OneReceipt.

Free - Download Now

To celebrate the introduction of Google's new cloud storage service, Google Drive, they're simultaneously bumping free Gmail storage to 10GB. That's right, Gmail already had one-and-a-half as much free storage as Google Drive, and now it has twice as much!

However, if you also pay for Google Drive, that gets bumped again to 25GB.

Today, we're happy to announce that we're increasing everyone's free storage in Gmail from 7.5 GB to 10 GB (and counting) to celebrate today's launch of Google Drive. The increase will take effect over the next 24 hours. We hope you all enjoy the little bump!

The disparity between free Gmail and free Google Drive is a bit perplexing. Is Google encouraging us to inefficiently store most of our content in harder to access, impossible to collaborate in Gmail rather than Google Drive, which was purpose-built for sharing and searching? Have they simply not thought this through? Or is there some plan at work that will one day make one giant pool for all our Googlestuffs?

Who knows. It's free. It's embiggened. And that's all there is to it.

Now excuse me while I go mail bomb Phil Nickinson a couple million more 10MB blobs...

Source: Gmail blog

One of my favorite iPad photo editing apps, Photogene, has finally been updated with support for the new iPad's retina display. Photogene is a full featured photo editor that allows you to make a lot of common adjustments, add special effects, and make collages.

Presets

If you're looking for a way to quickly add an artistic look to your photo, Photogene has the following presets:

• Colors: cool, warm, crimson sunrise, improve dark photo, day into night, landscape
• B&W: simple, high contrast, extreme, light, dark, dramatic, infrared
• Vintage: noir, 20's vintage, 40's vintage, 70's vintage, lomo, cross processed, morning glory, redscale, retro, golden, old pink
• Frames: classic, classic 2, gloss, gloss 2, glow, glow 2, glow 3, drop shadow, fade-in, thin line
• Fun: oil painting, cinema, stamp, psychedelic, pencil sketch, reflection, dream, mars, icon, foggy, sunset, and purple haze.

You can also create your own presets.

Crop

Photogene comes with 6 different common crop ratios, but the really neat feature is the one that lets you create your own crop ratio. The ratio choice with a star will let you choose between 1-20 for your width and height. So if you want to crop your photo with a 5:11 ratio, you can!

Rotate

The Rotate tool is pretty self-explanatory. You can rotate in incriments of 90 degrees, flip horizontally or vertically, and straighten (or tilt) your image. Personally, I think the straightening tool would be better placed in the cropping section since using it results in a cropped image. In fact, the crop and rotate tools could actually be grouped together in the same section.

Adjustments

The Adjustment section of Photogene for iPad is where you'll find tools for clarity, brightness, colors, sharpen\denoise, histogram, RGB, and curves.

The clarity tool has a single slider.

The brightness tool has sliders for exposure, contrast, shadows, and highlights, and an auto option.

The colors tool has sliders for saturation, vibrance, color temperature, and tint.

The sharpen tool lets you adjust the sharpen amount, sharpen radius, luminance denoise, and chroma denoise.

The histogram lets you adjust the ends and middle of the histogram and also has an auto option.

In the RGB section, you can adjust the red, green, and blue offset levels.

Lastly, the curves tool will overlay the curves grid over the photo and let you adjust it how you wish.

Retouches

The Retouches section of Photogene is very extensive. It includes healing and red eye tools, masks for dodge, burn, clone, blur, grayscale (selective coloring), and effects. The included effects are dream, painting, comics, posterize, sepia, smooth, pixelate, dynamic curve, light up, cross process, redscale, and extreme B&W. When applying a mask, you can adjust the brush's size and opacity and choose to see your brush strokes by tapping contour. You can also choose to invert your mask.

Text

Photogene for iPad allows you to add various text bubbles and annotations to your photo in the Text section. The text boxes and bubbles are fully customizable with the ability to edit the color of the outline, fill, and text, add shadowing, choose fonts, and adjust the justification. You can also adjust the size and rotation of the shape.

For annotations, you can add arrow, circles, rectangles, and other shapes and adjust the color and width of the outline.

Enhance

The last section of Photogene is called Enhance. It is here that you'll be able to add vignette, tilt-shift effects, gradients, frames, filters, and more. The available filters are the same as the effects that can be painted in the Adjustments tab. The difference is that adding a filter applies the effect to the entire photo instead of just the area that you paint.

Collages

Photogene also includes a few templates for turning your photos into collages. Just select which photos you want to build into a collage and Photogene will do it automatically. It will then show you a list of other available templates. There is only 3 templates of each size (meaning 3 templates for 3 photos, 3 templates for 4 photos, etc), but you can purchase 61 new templates for $1.99.

With each collage, you can editing the outline width and color, add an inner shadow, and choose between 6 ratios. You can also add text bubbles and annotations just like you can in the Text Section of Photogene.

Go-PRO features

Everything mentioned so far in this review comes included in the $2.99 version of Photogene for iPad. It's quite a steal if you ask me. But if you're looking for even more professional tools, there is a Go-PRO version available as an in-app purchase for $7.99. This brings the following addition features: star-ratings, watermarking, FTP history, RGB curves, JPEG quality, white-balance color picker, custom localized effect, and IPTC sets and batch paste.

Star rating

When browsing through photos in your albums, holding down your finger on an image will pop up a menu that lets you rename the photo, view metadata, or export. In the metadata screen, you;ll find the general information of the photo and the Exif, IPTC, and GPS info. You can also assign 0 to 5 stars to the photo. Then you can choose to arrange your photos by star rating.

Watermarking, FTP history, JPEG quality, and IPTC sets and batches

If you have a watermark for your business, Photogene Go-PRO lets you easily add your watermark automatically when exporting. You can adjust the opacity, padding, relative size, and choose between 9 different positions. Unfortunately, this process must be done automatically and Photogene doesn't offer a large preview of what you can expect the watermark to look like on your image. If you have a light, transparent watermark (like iMore), then it's very hard to see the watermark in the tiny preview thumbnail.

I hope to see a more advanced watermarking system implemented in the future.

In addition to adding a watermark upon export, you can also setup Photogene to save FTP configurations that you've exported images to.

Photogene GO-PRO also allows you to adjust the quality of exported JPEG files.

If you store IPTC info into your photos, you'll be happy to know that with Photogene for iPad Go-PRO, you can create IPTC data sets and copy them into any photo that you wish. It's a great time saver.

RGB curves

The extra RGB curves feature of the Go-PRO Photogene package adds the options of adjusting the curves for red, green, and blue separately from the general curves.

White-balance color picker

The white-balace color picker feature of the Go-PRO add-on in Photogene for iPad is a great way to adjust the color balance of your photo. There are also sliders for color temperature and tint, but the color picker at least gets you in the correct neighborhood. To you use it, you simply hold your finger down on a neutral-colored area of the photograph.

The Good

• Packed with robust editing tools
• Includes easy to use presets and filters
• Works directly with iPad's photo library so you don't need to import photos
• Collages
• Non destructive editing
• Go-PRO in-app purchase adds even more features
• Supports the new iPad's Retina display

The Bad

• Waiting for adjustments to take place can sometimes take a long time because actions happen in real time
• Straightening tool would be more appropriately placed in the cropping section

The Conclusion

Photogene for iPad is one of the best photo editing apps on the iPad. It is full-featured with loads of editing tools ranging from basic, one-touch filters and effects, to more advanced tools like curves, histograms, and healing. And I'm not one to often discus the price of an app, but considering you can pick up Photogene for iPad for less than the cost of a fancy drink at Starbucks, I'd say it's quite a steal. Add on the Go-PRO in-app purchase, and you've got yourself an excellent photo editor.

$2.99 - Download Now

If you're planning a trip to a national park or want to learn more about one, National Parks by National Geographic is a gorgeous guide for your iPhone that offers beautiful photography and loads of information, including photo tips, park secrets, must-see attractions, and things to do.

Included with National Parks is one free guide to the national park of your choice. Additional guides can be downloaded for $0.99 or $1.99 each. Park info, camping and lodging information, maps, weather, stats, and a few photos are included with each national park without purchasing its guide. Included with each guide is photo tips, park secrets, what to see, and what to do sections as well as many addition photos. These photos will also be added to the photos section of the app.

When viewing a national park's page, you will find a photo gallery at the top that can be scrolled though. Tapping on the photo will strip away the distractions by opening it on a black background and also give more information about the photograph in a caption underneath it.

Back on the main screen national park screen, the photo gallery is overlaid with a weather icon and a stats icon. Tapping on these will pop up their respective information. The weather section shows the current conditions and a 5-day forecast. The stats section shows the number of visitors, the park size, and the local time.

The Photo Tips section of National Parks is very cool. The Yosemite guide includes 5 photos with the photographer of each photo giving information about the shot, including GPS coordinates, time of day, camera details (camera, ISO, focal length, shutter speed, aperture), and difficulty. Following this information is the photographer's write-up about the overview of the setup and a list of bullet points for getting the shot. It's extremely helpful and I suddenly have a huge urge to go to Yosemite to take photos.

The Parks Secrets section is simply a list of random fact about the national park. For example, one of the nine secrets for Yosemite is that the giant sequoia trees can live to be more than 3,000 years old.

The What To See section is a basically the same photos in the initial gallery presented as a list and location's name. Tapping the photo will, again, open it up on a black background and include a button that lets you see it on a map.

In the What To Do section of National Parks, you'll find a list of common hikes and places to visit in the park. Tapping one will provide a nice write-up of why it is something you should do.

The parks included in National Parks are Acadia, Arches, Bryce Canyon, Death Valley, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Smoky Mountains, Haleakala, Hawai'i Volcanoes, Joshua Tree, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Shenanadoah, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion.

The Good

• Gorgeous UI
• Stunning photography
• Photo tips are awesome
• One free guide, each additional guide only $0.99 or $1.99
• Add attractions to your itinerary
• Works offline

The Bad

• Photo gallery and What To See sections are basically the exact same thing, just presented differently

The Conclusion

National Parks by National Geographic is a must-have app for anyone planning to visit any of the park included in the app. The guides will help you plan your trip and makes sure you don't miss any of the must-see and must-do attractions.

Free - Download Now

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include an iPad note taking app, a utility for toggling Bluetooth on your iPhone, an app for relaxation, an app for knitters, a tower defense game, an alternative to cable television, a great iPad drawing app, and an addicting iPhone puzzle game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Notability - Alli Flowers

If you want to use your iPad instead of carrying around a clipboard or pad of paper, you have quite a few choices, but Notability is right at the top of the list of available apps. Notability's latest update includes Dropbox sync, so there's not much missing.

You can write, you can type, you can add in shapes. You can change the color and size of anything you've done if you change your mind. Of course, you can import .pdf files and take notes on them - particularly useful for, well, anyone who uses .pdf's! You can import your .pdf's email attachments, Safari, other apps that take advantage of "open in," and Dropbox.

Writing is super smooth, and there are even plenty of options within the pen tips you choose. Not only is Notability one of the best in its class, at $.99 it is also the least expensive. In plain English - you can't go wrong buying Notability.

$0.99 - Download Now

BluetoothOnOff - Chris Oldroyd

This week’s pick is a little utility that came out this week. It is called Bluetooth OnOff and was somehow approved by Apple and is still available. All it does is put a Bluetooth icon on your homescreen and it then allows you to use it in two ways.

The stock way, when you click on it, a screen loads with a Bluetooth toggle switch, you can then turn Bluetooth on. If Bluetooth is already turned on then loading the app will give you the option to turn it off. The best way of using the app is to go into the apps settings and turn the OnOff switch to on. This enables you to now toggle Bluetooth On / Off from your home screen with one tap of the app icon. There is no delay or intermediate screens just a straight on/off.

This sort of feature should be standard in iOS 5 but it's not; so if you want a quick Bluetooth toggle you have to either jailbreak or pay extra for an app. This one does what it says on the tin!

$0.99 - Download Now

Serenity - Seth Clifford

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

-- Ferris Bueller

Of course, Ferris was talking about actual life, not life's quieter moments viewed through the lens of your iPhone or iPad screen. But if that's all you've got for the moment, then by all means, revel in the peace and tranquility that Serenity can offer you. It's an app by the venerable developers tap tap tap, and displays the usual level of visual polish as their other apps. It's basically a series of really pleasant, relaxing video clips that loop over and over again. You just stare at them and feel your blood pressure drop as the soft sounds wash over you.

If you're snickering and thinking this is really dumb, believe me, I get it. At first I was skeptical too. But there is something profoundly nice about watching flames just dance in front of you, or flowers swaying in a calm breeze, or a little sleeping kitty. You can set sleep timers if you want to zone out at the end of your day, and the apps support AirPlay if you'd rather let a giant version of the videos blanket your entire room. I think good headphones are probably the way to go, though, for the full experience. And since the interface has an easygoing 70s woodgrain feel, they should probably be big over-the-ear cans.

The iPhone and iPad apps are two separate versions, presumably for the reason that combined, the video clips would total about 700 MB. So keep that in mind before you purchase, but at $1.99, you'd hardly regret it if you grabbed both. Relax wherever you are, with whatever you're holding. I think Ferris can close this one out, too.

"It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

$1.99 - Download Now - iPhone

$1.99 - Download Now - iPad

Knit Handy - Jessica Moss

Knit Handy is handy! This app gives you an estimate of yarn requirements for your projects. It has many project categories from which to choose. Using this app couldn't be easier. Choose your project category, gauge, and size and you are set. Before Knit Handy became an app it was first a pamphlet called Knitter's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements. I have the pamphlet and I can honestly say I like the app better. It's way more convenient to have it on my iPhone than it is to carry the pamphlet around while planning and shopping for a project. I have a knack for either forgetting to bring the pamphlet with me or losing it all together. I never lose my iPhone. I really have no issues with the app except I wish it gave a wider range of gauges to pick from.

$0.99 - Download Now

iBomber Defense Pacific - Chris Vitek

For my pick of the week, I am going with one of my standby game types - a tower defense game. Yes, there are many of them out there, but each one has it's own flavor and interesting game twists. The tower defense game iBomber Defense Pacific is a great new game that add some of it's own ideas to the tower defense genre. You have multiple upgrade options that you need to spend victory points on. You get special power ups. You even have secondary objectives (such as protecting a airplane hanger or destroying an enemy base). I have been playing the game on the iPad, and it looks great. The graphics are crisp, and on the retina display the game is beautiful. It is a universal app, but I found that after playing on the iPad, the iPhone screen is just too small to work with. If you enjoy tower defense games, iBomber Defense Pacific should definitely be on your short list of game to try.

2.99 - Download Now

Paper by FiftyThree - Gary Mazo

I have spent a good part of this week testing our various stylus pens for the iPad, iPhone or, really, any touch screen phone or tablet. The best way for me to try these all out was to use the best apps available for both writing and drawing/painting.

That brings me to Paper by FiftyThree. This week I really dove into this app and was just amazed by what I found.

Paper is a “freemium” app; it comes with one tool and all the colors, but to really take advantage of this app you need to buy more tools. You can individually purchase the color, sketch, write and outline tools for $1.99 a piece – but it makes sense to just spend the $7.99 to buy the whole “essentials” package with all the tools.

When paired with the right stylus, this is as close to actually “drawing” on your iPad as you can get. If I moved the stylus quickly – the line was thinner. If I drew a line from top to bottom and lifted up, you could see a small ink deposit at the bottom of the line – just like using a fountain pen.

I loved using the Color tool – it was sort of like using a watercolor brush. Colors actually blended when combined on screen. Once the masterpiece is completed, just pinch to reduce the image and then you can easily send it to Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter or via Email.

One function that is a killer feature in this app is the rewind tool. Just use two fingers and make a counter-clockwise motion on the screen to undo what you last did. Keep doing that to undo more. This is a great idea and avoids the need to continually use the eraser and possibly erase more than you might want to.

Have you used Paper? Do you have any of your drawings posted? Let us know in the forums!

Free, with in-app purchases - Download Now

Global Video for iPad - Rene Ritchie

I cut the cable cord months ago. We have pretty much a-la-carte cable channel selection where I live. You need to get a base package of channels, then you can get 10, 20, etc. channels a-la-carte on top of those. So it wasn't a matter of choice, it was a matter of technology. Cable still runs on a schedule. You can only watch what it's showing at the moment. Sure, PVR/DVR can let you time-shift, but that's a horrible, high maintenance, error-prone solution. The real solution is on-demand.

And that's what I'm getting with iPad (and iPhone) apps.

Global Video lets me watch most of the programs on the Global television network (a Canadian network that re-broadcasts a lot of U.S. network programming), on demand. No daytime, no primetime, no late-night windows to contend with. Just the show I want to watch, when and where I want to watch it.

To their credit, Global has also left AirPlay intact so I can, if I want, stream the video to my big screen HDTV in the living room via AirPlay and the Apple TV. (The other major Canadian network apps, CityTV and CTV shamefully disable AirPlay due to "licensing conditions" -- to which I respond, "negotiate modern licenses".)

Their in-program ads are also decent, the kind of stuff you see during regular network broadcasts. They're highly repetitive, however, which means they may not have a lot of advertisers buying in to this model yet. That's a shame. This is the near-future of content presentation and more advertisers should be getting behind it. At least if they want our attention. (And Global, and other companies doing it right, should reap the rewards.)

Global Video isn't perfect -- it hasn't updated to Retina yet, and while some new shows post almost immediately after they're broadcast over-the-air, others take a few days. But at least they seem to get it, and they're getting there.

Free - Download now

(It's Canadian only, but search the App Store for the networks in your country and you should find quite a few.)

Addidoku - Leanna Lofte

I cannot get over how addicted I am to Addidoku right now! It's a simple number puzzle game that I reviewed earlier this week that's in the same genre as Sudoku, but totally different. The goal is to group all the numbers so that one of the numbers is the sum of all the other numbers. For example, the number 3, 5, and 2 form a group because 3 plus 2 equal 5. The premise of Addidoku is very straightforward, but solving the puzzles can be quite challenging -- and it's super addicting!

Free - Download Now

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it's your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Dock is an iPhone app that acts as as screensaver of information when your iPhone is not in use. While your iPhone is docked at your desk, Dock will scroll through weather, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Clock and Stock widgets.

Dock is a very simple and easy to use app. You can either have Dock scroll through the information in one widget (like tweets from Twitter), or you can have Dock randomly scroll through information from all the widgets you've selected. If you are interested in something that scrolls by, tapping it will give you more options. For example, you can enlarge photos, reply to tweets, "like" Facebook photos and comment on them, and more.

In Settings, you can choose to have the information scroll by every 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 seconds and mark which widgets you want active. You can also adjust the refresh rate of each widget, but unfortunately, the fastest refresh rate for Facebook and Twitter is 5 minutes. I'd like to see that reduced down to at least a minute.

My other little complaint is that Dock doesn't include a light colored theme. I have never been a fan of light-on-dark color schemes because it hurts my eyes and makes me squint (I have very sensitive eyes).

The Good

• A great way to use your iPhone when you're not really using it
• Information is displayed big and is easy to read
• Can post status to Facebook and tweets to Twitter

The Bad

• No light colored theme. Only white-on-black.
• Slow refresh rates

The Conclusion

Dock turns your iPhone into a fantastic little utility while it's docked. It runs great and displays information nice and big so that it's easy to read.

$1.99 - Download Now

Addidoku is new puzzle game that has some similarities to Sudoku, but is also very different. In each level, you are presented with a several numbers set in a broken up grid. The goal is to group the numbers so that they add up according to the rules of the game. Each number can only be in one group and each puzzle has only one solution.

So what exactly are these rules? Well, in each group of numbers, all of the numbers (except for the biggest number) must add up to the biggest number. For example, the numbers 3, 2, 6, 1, form a group because the sum of 3, 2, and 1 is 6. You can also pair numbers, like two 5's, because 5 equals 5. The numbers 4, 3, 5 do not form a valid group because 4 plus 3 does not equal 5.

Only numbers that are adjacent to each other can form a group. This means that if a number is diagonal to your group or separated from your group by a space, it cannot be added to your group.

That's it! The rules are simple, but the levels are challenging. Even though they're challenging, they're completely doable which makes the game extremely addicting. Because each level can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, you are always willing to play "just one more".

The Good

• Challenging
• Addictive
• 60 puzzles for free
• 140 additional puzzles available as in-app purchase

The Bad

• None

The Conclusion

Addidoku is such a fun and addicting puzzle game! The object is both familiar and unique at the same time. It's also challenging -- something I find essential in a good puzzle game. It took a lot of self control to pry my hands off my iPhone to write this review.

Now excuse me while I play "just one more level" of Addidoku.

Free - Download Now

The Bible is the most read book in the world, and tiny Bibles with microscopic text have always been popular because of their portability. But, now, today, thanks to ultra-portable devices like the iPhone and iPad with their awesome Retina displays, and apps like Olive Tree's BibleReader, the Bible is more portable and easier to read than ever.

If you search for Bible in the App Store, you will be flooded with an overwhelming amount of app choices, from good to bad to just plain different. There are so many that it's almost impossible to figure out which one to get. So I went on the hunt for the perfect Bible app. It had to gorgeously rendered, packed with features, highly customizable, and run perfectly smooth. And I kept coming back to Olive Tree's BibleReader for iPhone and iPad.

Olive Tree BibleReader is a universal app for the iPhone and iPad, but I will be using screenshots of the iPad for this review. The iPhone version has the exact same features as the iPad version.

The integrated in-app store

Included in all of the Olive Tree Bible apps is an integrated store where you can buy more books including other version of the Bible, commentary, reference materials, devotionals, and more.

All books that you purchase will be synced to your Olive Tree account so that you can download them to another device at no additional cost or re-download them if you accidentally delete them or need to restore your iPhone or iPad.

Split screen UI

One of the really neat features of BibleReader is that you can split your screen into two panels. If you're using BibleReader in portrait, the screen will split horizontally, and when in landscape, it will split vertically. In each panel, you can have any of the books you have in your Olive Tree Library.

Here's a few different situations that one may find the split screen to be useful:

• While at church, your pastor has one main passage that he's covering, but also references other verses. You can use one panel for the main passage, and the other to browse to the other verses.
• You want to compare two different versions of the Bible side-by-side -- basically converting BibleReader into a parallel Bible.
• You want to read another book, like a devotional, while having your Bible open to reference at the same time. Or maybe the Bible is the main book you want open, and you want to have easy access to a reference book.

If you don't want the split screen, you can simply slide the one you don't want off the the screen. This is also nice in case you want the split screen, but not the entire time. You can keep your secondary book open in the second panel, but keep it hidden until the moments you need it.

You also have control of where on the screen you want the split to take place -- it doesn't have to be directly down the middle.

Navigation

It's no secret that Bibles are huge and that people don't typically read them from front to back like other books. Often times, someone is looking for a specific book, chapter, or even verse in the giant book, so having a good navigational system is extremely important for a Bible app -- and Olive Tree has nailed it with BibleReader.

The "Go To" button at the upper-left of the screen is how you navigate to a specific section of the Bible. Tapping it will pop up a menu that lists all the books of the Bible in chronological order. You can also pull it down to discover a search field that allows you to type in the verse. It does recognize abbreviations, so, for example, "1 Cor 13:4" will take you to 1 Corinthians 13:4. You can also choose to see the books of the Bible displayed as a grid with their abbreviations.

Another trait that most Bible's have are superscripts that reference other relevant verses. In a printed version, you would check the bottom of the page to check the reference, then flip to the verse. With BibleReader, you simply tap the superscript and a list of all the verses associated with the nearby superscripts will appear. Tapping on one of the verse references will navigate to that verse right inside of the popup. It's very cool. You can then either read it in the popup, or choose to have it opened in the main or split window.

Highlights, underlines, and notes

People love marking up their Bible with highlighters, underlinings, and notes -- BibleReader lets you do all these things.

To select a verse, you simply tap on the verse number. Or if you want more or less than one verse, tap your finger on a word to select it, then drag the handles to extend your selection. You then see a popup of choices: copy, highlight, note, bookmark, or share. These choices are pretty self explanatory.

Highlights in BibleReader are so much cooler than with physical highlighters. You can choose for your highlights to have a traditional look, or you can customize the intensity, color, and highlighter style. For underlining, you can have the underline look like it was made with either a thin highlighter or with a pen. You can do this every time you add a highlight, or you can create your favorite looks and save them for quick access.

When you create a note, a little note icon will be placed in front of your selection as an indicator of there being a note present. Tapping the icon will popup the note.

Customizations

One of the great features of Olive Tree's BibleReader is that its look is very customizable. The default look is very traditional and easy to read, but if you want to change the font type, size, color, or background, you can. Want the words of Jesus to be in something fun like pink or green? Not a problem!

You can set different customizations for each of the three different window types: main screen, split screen, and popup.

Which version?

Olive Tree has many different Bible versions available in the App Store and making a decision on which one to buy can be a big overwhelming if you don't know which version you want, or if you're interested in more than one version. The good news is that since each app allows you to sync your Olive Tree library, it ultimately doesn't matter which one you choose.

If you are only interested in a specific version, I recommend just buying that one as it will be the quickest way to get it on your iPhone or iPad.

The most confusing part of the available apps is that it isn't clear what the difference is between the free Bible+ version and $0.99 BibleReader version. BibleReader includes the ASV, KJV, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary, and Jamieson, Faucett, and Brown Commentary. Bible+ comes with ASV and KJV and the Matthew Henry’s concise commentary is available for free in the integrated store. The Jamieson, Faucett, and Brown Commentary is also available, but not free. So, to sum it up, the main difference is that BibleReader comes with The Jamieson, Faucett, and Brown Commentary.

The other difference is, of course, what it will be named on your Home screen. For example, since I purchased NIV BibleReader, the icon on my Home screen is called NIV BR.

The fact that there are so many apps is confusing and overwhelming. If you're at a loss, I recommend just downloading the free version and browsing the in-app store for what you want to purchase.

The Good

• Content is stored locally to your iPhone or iPad, so an internet connection is not required
• Highly customizable
• Lots of highlighter and underlining options
• Two pane UI is very convenient.
• Keep notes and customizations synced between devices
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Too many apps to choose from. Would be less confusing for users if there was only one app.

The Conclusion

Olive Tree's BibleReader is a fantastic Bible for your iPhone and iPad. The Bible has always been one of those books that I wanted to continue to read in print because of how much marking-up I like to do and I always thought it felt more personal. Since discovering BibleReader, it's the only Bible I ever read. I even bring my iPad to church and make notes and highlights into the app while my pastor gives his sermon. And not to brag or anything, but I can also navigate to verses faster than anyone else with BibleReader on my iPad.

Bible+, Free - Download Now

BibleReader, $0.99 - Download Now

NIV BibleReader, $9.99 - Download Now

All Olive Tree Bible Apps - App Store dev page

Panes is an iPad app that lets you easily multitask between Twitter, Facebook, RSS, the web, and more. All of your widgets can be found at the bottom of the screen, like a dock, so that the one you want to switch too is literally just a tap away.

The widgets included with Panes are Twitter, RSS, Facebook, weather, web, YouTube, tasks, notes, units converter, calculator, stopwatch, calendar, Google reader, Read It Later (now Pocket), stocks, clock, and Simple Note.

The UI is very basic and easy to use. Along the bottom of the screen is your dock of widgets, similar to the dock of apps on a Mac. What's great about Panes, is that I actually don't have much to say about it. It does exactly what you expect. Panes doesn't run perfectly smooth, but still pretty good. Some of the widgets, like Stocks, could include a little more information, but since the idea behind Panes is to multitask, you probably don't want want all the features of every service included in it. If you need more functionality, you can just hop over to a dedicated app for that and give it your undivided attention.

Although Panes does what it claims, and does it well, I'm not that compelled to use it. I guess I just don't find it too difficult to bring up the multitasking bar by double tapping the home button and switching to the app I need, or better yet, just swiping with four fingers to my most recently used app. This is my personal opinion, however, and I understand how others may be very excited about Panes and its implementation of widgets.

The Good

• Widgets for Twitter, RSS, Facebook, weather, web, YouTube, tasks, notes, units converter, calculator, stopwatch, calendar, Google reader, Read It Later (now Pocket), stocks, clock, and Simple Note
• Switching between widgets is very fast

The Bad

• Boring UI
• Scrolling isn't perfectly smooth

The Conclusion

If you've been desiring an app that lets you multitask between different services and task that you regularly do on your iPad, Panes does a great job.

Addenda

Panes comes from the legendary webOS developer, Inglorious Apps, and was built using the now open source webOS framework, Enyo. While Apple, unfortunately, has very strict rules as to how widget systems can be implemented on iOS, it's fantastic to see webOS developers and webOS style apps live on after HP's disastrous and, frankly, disgraceful handling of so elegant and innovative a platform.

The Easter Egg

Because of these strict rules by Apple, the developer behind Inglorious app was not able to release the real, original version of Panes into the App Store, so he included an Easter Egg that transforms Panes into the app that it was supposed to be that he's named the Developer's Cut. With the Developer's Cut version of Panes, you can have multiple widgets shown at once. Suddenly, the UI becomes much less boring! The name "Panes" also makes a lot more sense.

To unlock the Developer's Cut, all you have to do is email Inglorious Apps, and the dev will reply with directions on activating it. You can do this from directly within Panes.

$3.99 - Download Now

Instapaper, Pocket (formerly known as Read It Later), and Readability are all great ways to "read later", or time-shift the Web articles and other content you don't have time to read now. (Think of them as TiVo for the web.) Some are highly focused on text, others also prioritize photos and videos. Some are highly focused on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad only, others offer more cross-platform and Android support. Each one tries to solve the same problem -- letting you enjoy the content you want to enjoy, when you want to enjoy it -- but goes about it in a different way. So which one does it best, and for whom?

Note: Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability all have support for both iPhone and iPad but we're focusing exclusively on the iPhone versions for this shootout.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Design & Interface

Reading is a personal experience for most of us, and one that should always be be enjoyable. More than likely, you'll want to kick back and relax while catching up on the day's stories. While content is king, the experience you get while interacting with that content can be just as important for most.

Instapaper for iPhone uses a standard list view for separating sections. Clicking into the Read Later section presents you with a list of articles. The main page also contains any folders you've created listed at the bottom. While useable, the interface is rather boring.

Instapaper approaches saving articles in a fairly straight-forward way -- the table view and the file system. You can create folders on your iPhone to categorize and archive articles. Tap into the section you'd like to view and tap on an article you'd like to read. Your top tab, labeled Read Later, is where you'll find all the articles you've saved to the service. Articles are displayed in an a stripped down format, devoid of ads and other cruft, and that makes them really easy to read.

Instapaper also integrates a feature called tilt scrolling that, as the name implies, will scroll the page up and down as you tilt your iPhone. Tab into font settings to switch from light and dark mode, change the font type (with some beautiful new typefaces to choose from), increase or decrease font size, change line spacing, and to widen or narrow margins. Overall, Instapaper does a good job of formatting articles nicely. I have run into a few issues with how it formats images or headers on websites which can be bothersome at times.

Readability's name is well suited as it's obvious that their main goal is to make articles as readable as possible. This includes making menus and navigation as unobtrusive as possible while you're reading content.

Readability approaches things a bit differently when it comes to menus and organization. The main home screen will aggregate a list of your saved content. Tapping on the reading list button will allow you to navigate to items you've marked as favorites or view archived articles.

Readability also allows you to switch between light and dark modes and change the font to customize the experience. Their font choices are beautiful but not always optimal for long form reading. Where Readability really shines, however, is how it makes sure the focus is on having a seamless reading experience. When you tap into an article all the menus and navigation options disappear, leaving you with nothing but the content you want in front of you. Tap anywhere on the screen to bring up the menus. Swipe to the right to bring up your main reading list again.

Pocket for iPhone takes a new approach with their re-designed and re-named application. The interace is very clean but colorful and useful at the same time. Organizing articles by tags, archiving or deleting them, and changing settings is straight forward. Pocket also makes it easy to switch between a scaled down and full blown version of a web page with the tap of a button.

Pocket has newly designed interface to go with its new name. Just like Readability and Instapaper, you can change the margins, fonts, switch from dark to light mode, and customize the experience. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.

Pocket treats photos and videos as first-class citizens alongside articles. You can sort by articles that contain images, video, or just plain text articles. You can also bulk edit from the main screen. Simply tap the edit button and either trash articles, mark them as read, or tag them with categories.

When inside an article, Pocket allows you to quickly switch from a scaled down version and the full blown web version of a saved clip. And toggling between them is super fast. It's also great at rendering inline images, and is really smart about what content should and shouldn't be presented.

While all three have easy to use interfaces, their designs are very different. Instapaper is almost old-school in its presentation, but incredibly focused in its choices. Readability looks very good but the edge goes to Pocket which has the best mix of presentation of functionality. The ability to easily edit and sort articles is great and the interface is both powerful and accessible.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Cross-platform support

If you have multiple devices, whether it's an iPhone and iPad, or iPhone and Kindle Fire, or some other combination, being able to access the content you saved on the platforms you use is important. Here's what Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability support:

Instapaper

• iPhone
• iPad
• Kindle Fire

Readability

• iPhone
• iPad
• Android
• Kindle Fire

Pocket

• iPhone
• iPad
• Android
• Kindle Fire

Instapaper doesn't provide official support for Android and none of them seem to officially support BlackBerry or Windows Phone. So for now, it's a tie between Pocket and Readability as far as native mobile app support goes.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: 3rd party app support

In order for a "read later" service to be of service, it has to be readily available from the apps you use all day. Because Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability have all been around for a while, in one form or another, you can find support for all three services in many of the most popular Twitter, RSS, and similar apps.

Tie.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Desktop Support

Instapaper, Readability, and Pocket all provide web browser plug-ins to easily save content to read later, and all offer a web-based way to access this content when and where you want to access it. Just like the mobile apps, however, the experience will be different across each client.

Instapaper on the web sticks to the standard format of just listing articles on a page. You can click into them to view the full blown desktop version or view a text version as well. It gets the job done but it's nothing too exciting.

Instapaper's website sticks to the standard table view of articles. Clicking one takes you to the full article. You can also choose to view a text version or to archive it. It gets the job done and does it well but just like the app, it isn't very exciting to look at.

Readability on the web provides a simliar experience to Readability on the iPhone. The layout and icons are very simliar and easy to find. Each article also has sharing options directly underneath it.

Readability's website also provides an experience that's a closely tied to their iPhone app, and that makes it really usable. It doesn't hide navigation the way the website does, but due to the bigger canvas they have to work with, that's not a problem. You can find your main navigation off the to left and each article will have sharing options and edit options directly underneath it. Easy to use and easy to maintain.

Pocket provides an experience on the web that's a bit different. It looks almost exactly the same as the iPhone and iPad interface. The experience is seamless regardless what device you're reading on. Users will appreciate that.

Pocket's website also tries to be as close to the mobile experience as possible. At least when it comes to layout and format. You can, of course, view full blown articles but the layout feels very simliar. You actually don't even feel like you're on a website for the most part. It feels like you're browsing right from your phone but with the bigger screen real-estate of your computer monitor. Same functionality, same basic layout, just full blown articles.

Since the websites all mirror the apps to a greater or lesser degree, just like with the app, Pocket has the edge here.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Cost

If cost is a factor to you, you'll be happy to know that both Pocket and Readability are available for free. (At least up front, at least for now.)

Instapaper costs $4.99 but it's a universal app so you'll only need to purchase once. There's also an optional subscription service that offers additional functionality.

Readability also has a -- now optional, still controversial -- subscription service.

Some users will no doubt prefer the presumed security that comes from paying for an app or service, most just want free stuff, no questions asked.

Tie between Readability and Pocket.

Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability: Conclusion

While Instapaper vs Pocket vs Readability all have great native apps, fantastic web sites, and excellent services, they all come to the table with very different focuses and approaches.

Power iOS-only users might love Instapaper's thoughtful functionality and no-frills design, while cross-platform users might find it too austere and limited.

New users might take a liking to Readbility's good looks and high level of integration, while power users might find it a bit limited. (Their business model, which we won't get into here, is also a turn-off to some.)

Cross-platform and multimedia users might enjoy Pockets wider device support, slick interface, and first-class handling of photos and videos. Dedicated iOS-centric, article-centric users might not like the broader focus.

So which is the best?

Pocket.

The re-design brought with it much greater attention to detail and it really shows. Pocket provides the best design and user experience for the broadest base of users, both on the app and on the website.

If you're already all-in on Instapaper and video isn't a priority for you, there's no reason to switch to anything else. If you want more than articles, or you're new to the whole idea of "read later" and time-shifting content, give Pocket a go. It's free, so there's no risk to try it out, and you may be surprised how quickly you start saving things you happen upon on the web.

If you've been "reading later" for a while and have a personal preference, let us know why in our iPhone apps forum.

Pocket - Free - Download Now

Readability - Free - Download Now

Instapaper - $4.99 - Download Now

If you've been on the hunt for an app to replace Apple's Clock app, Timegg for iPhone is a beautiful choice. It features a very stylish, easy to use UI and allows you to set up to 8 custom alarms, 8 custom timers (with intervals), due date reminders, and interval reminders.

When you first open Timegg, the interface is overlaid with help on how to use the app. It's very informative and is easily accessible for future reference.

At the top of the screen, you'll see the settings for the currently selected timer or alarm. Below that, you'll see a big dial with all the cost alarms, timers, or reminders inside. In each corner, you'll see an icon that represents each of the alarm types: Reminder, Alarm, Timer, and D-Day. You can also swipe along the top to switch between categories, if you prefer. In the center of the dial is a giant ON/OFF button that lets you enable/disable the currently selected alarm. If an alarm is set to off, holding your finger down on the circle associated with it will pop up options to edit or delete the alarm.

The alarm in Timegg can be customized to go off on any combination of days of the week. For example, I have one alarm for Monday-Thursday, one for Friday, and a third one for Saturday and Sunday. With each alarm, you can also choose if you want to have the ability to hit snooze. You may want to turn snooze off for alarm that are not intended to wake you up.

The sound options include with Timegg are nothing amazing. Most of them are really annoying. I prefer to wake up to something that doesn't want to make me throw my iPhone against the wall, but Timegg doesn't provide many such options. The makers of Timegg must really like animal sounds, because out of 16 provided sounds, 6 of them are of birds, cows, dogs, and ducks. As far as I'm concerned, all 6 of these sounds are worthless. Every alarm is also required to have a sound. There isn't a vibrate-only option.

The timer options in Timegg are very nice. You can set up to 8 presets for the things you time often. For example, I have one timer created and labeled for coffee, and another for laundry. With each timer, you can give it a label and also set an interval timer. For example, you can set an timer to go off in 1 hour, followed by 4 more timers every 10 minutes.

Timegg uses the term "D-Day" to refer to due date alarms, so don't confuse this with the Invasion of Normandy during WWII. A D-Day alarm is simply an alarm that reminds you of an important date (like your anniversary) one, seven or fifteen days before it arrives. Unfortunately, you can only set one alert for each D-Day.

Reminders in Timegg are actually rather disappointing. The reason is because you can't set a reminder for a specific time or day. The way that reminders work is that you set it up to remind you about something in intervals of 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month. The countdown will start as soon as you set the reminder. You're better off using Apple's Reminders app, instead.

The Good

• Stylish
• Set up to 8 alarms
• Preset up to 8 timers
• Set alarms for important dates 15 days, a week, or a day in advance
• Can disable/enable snooze for each individual alarm

The Bad

• Reminders must be set as a countdown. Reminders in general could us a lot of work.
• Not a wide variety of alarm sounds
• Sound effects (navigational) are audible even when iPhone is on silent
• Alarm, due date, timer, or reminder must be set to OFF in order to edit or delete
• Every alarm must have a sound. No vibrate-only option.

The Conclusion

Timegg is a great iPhone app for setting alarms and timers. The UI is gorgeous and very easy to use. Unfortunately, the reminders are essentially useless and have less features than Apple's Reminders app. Due date options are also very limited. But if you're looking for great alarm and timer settings that are better than Apple's Clock app, Timegg does a satisfactory job at just a buck.

I should also mention that Timegg must be running in the background in order to work. So if you want to rely on Timegg to wake you up in the morning, double check that it's running. If you have to turn off your iPhone for any reason (including resets), you must re-open Timegg. This is a condition of the iOS SDK and is out of the developers' control.

$0.99 - Download Now

Draw Something, the super-popular iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad app that lets players take turns guessing each others -- often comically bad -- pictures has been updated with a crayon box full of new features.

In addition to more words to guess, you can now "say something" by commenting on drawings. That's right -- no more need to sarcastically scrawl your trash talk by hand before getting on with your own drawing.

You can also "share something" by posting your drawings directly to Facebook or Twitter. Buh Buy manual screen shots and uploading! (Not that we were trying to get our friends and followers to help us guess, of course...)

"Save something" lets you keep copies of your favorite drawings, or all your drawings, for posterity. Again, without the need for a manual screenshot.

The eraser will finally get a rest with "undo something" so you can make your last line nothing more than a memory.

And "refresh something" lets you use the popular pull-down technique to make sure you have the latest turns ready and waiting for you.

There don't appear to any major changes to the core interface, which could certainly use them from a design-perspective (though that's never come in the way of their success). The now Zynga-owned property promises more updates in the future, however, so we'll keep that hope alive.

Both the paid, $0.99 and the free version of Draw Something have been updated.

Have you tried out the new Draw Something yet? If so, let us know how you like the new features and make sure you jump into the iMore Forums so you can swap usernames and get your drawing on against other members of the iMore nation!

• Read our Draw Something review

$0.99 - Download now

Free - Download now

We had a chance to sit down and talk to Pocket's (formerly Read it Later) founder, Nate Weiner, and developer Max Weiner about their recent re-branding and the transition from a read-later service to a read-, watch-, and generally enjoy-later powerhouse. With a newly redesigned app, continued cross-platform focus, and business model that includes giving the app away from free, it's a huge gamble for Pocket.

Doing a great app on iPhone and iPad is challenging. Doing a great app on iPhone and iPad and the plethora of Android devices Pocket decided to support is a huge challenge. But we live in a cross-platform world where Android phone users might have an iPad, or iPhone users might have a Kindle Fire, and being able to read the content you want on the device you want, when and where you want is hugely important. So, Pocket is doing an incredible amount of heavy lifting to make sure their users can just launch the app, tap, and never have to think twice about it.

Watch the video above for the full interview, and check out Leanna's authoritative Pocket review for everything you need to know about the iPhone and iPad app.

Debt Snowball+ for iPhone utilizes the snowball method of paying off debts to help eliminate them faster and cut down on the amount of interest paid over the life of a loan. If you need a quicker way to pay things down, or feel as if you're paying on loans and just aren't getting anywhere, apps like Snowball+ like this can help you set attainable goals within your budget.

Choose which method of debt snowballing you'd like to use. You can also view how applying additional payments will affect the life of the loan and how much money you can save.

For those not familiar with how debt snowballing works, it is based on the concept of paying something off and using that payment amount to apply towards another debt once it is paid off. You start by choosing whether you'd like to pay large debts off first or smaller ones. Typically, paying off smaller debts first will free up money quicker to apply towards larger debts but paying off larger debts first tends to save you more money as you're most likely not paying as much interest. Whatever method is right for you is what you should use.

Choose a category of debt you'd like to track and pay off - then enter the details of the debt in order for Debt Snowball+ to track it and help you pay it off quicker.

Debt Snowball+ allows you to enter your debt information into the app and categorize each one accordingly. You can set up payment reminders and record additional payments you decide to make. Once all your information is input you can tap on your total debt amount at the top to receive some interesting information. Move the slider up and down or key in amounts to see how much making an additional payment will save you money and time wise.

Once a debt is paid off in full, the concept is that you will then apply the amount you were paying towards the debt that is now paid off to the next debt in line. In essence, you can just pretend you still have the same amount of debts to pay, you're just applying more to each debt as you knock other debts out.

Use the app to determine how much money you can save if you add additional payments. Also record and track payments to see how snowballing your debt is helping you pay things off faster and more efficiently.

I've found Debt Snowball+ to be a great way to track debts on an ongoing basis as well as an easy way to calculate how much to apply in extra payments if you've got some extra coin laying around. I don't really use the reminders within the app as I've already got calendar alerts set up for bills in the default calendar app. I'm assuming most other people will too so that feature seems a bit redundant.

The good

• Great way to track debts
• Easily calculate extra payments

The bad

• Reminders may be redundant

Conclusion

If you're looking for a good way to pay off debts quickly and need something that'll help you be a bit more conscious about your debt to income situation, Debt Snowball+ is a nice way of getting an overall picture of your situation so you can make an educated decision of what snowballing method will work best for you.

$0.99 - Download Now

Apple has approved an app called Bluetooth OnOff that simply allows you to turn your Bluetooth connection on and off from your home screen. Apple hasn’t previously permitted any apps that connect and interact to stock settings until now; so this is an interesting development.

Did it take too many steps just to turn on/off bluetooth? You can now turn on/off just by launching this app. Just in a second, you can activate or deactivate Bluetooth.

The app is extremely simple to use, once installed you have an icon on your home screen. If you click on it, a screen loads with a Bluetooth toggle switch, you can then turn Bluetooth on. If Bluetooth is already turned on then loading the app will give you the option to turn it off. The best way of using the app is to go into the apps settings and turn the OnOff switch to on. This enables you to now toggle Bluetooth On / Off from your home screen with one tap of the app icon.

Shortcuts similar to this were very popular when iOS 5 was initially launched. You could use Safari Bookmarklets to add various on/off settings to your home screen. This type of interaction was broken by Apple with the release of iOS 5.1.

It is very interesting that this app is now available but we don’t know if it is a mistake by Apple. It may be pulled at any minute or it could be a sign that Apple is prepared to allow apps that make its users life easier. Let’s be honest, turning systems settings on and off should not be anywhere near as tedious as it is now.

I hope that Apple finally addresses this problem with iOS 6. In the meantime let’s see if this app stays in the App Store. Maybe we will start to see more approved apps that allow us to toggle Wi-Fi and other system settings too.

$0.99 – Download Now

Put all the articles, videos, and pictures that you can't get to now, right into your Pocket so you can enjoy them later

The service formerly known as Read It Later has been updated with a new look, a new name, and a new price -- it's called Pocket, and it's free! With Pocket, you can save articles, photos, videos, and just about anything you encounter on the web and social networks for offline viewing at your leisure and convenience, on your iPhone, iPad, or other devices.

The new layout on the iPad has a collage-sytle interface that gives spotlight to the images associated with the articles you save. It's very pretty and especially nice for users who plan to save a lot of images (from, say, Flickr) to their Pocket account. But this layout comes at the expense of informational density. Images take up more space than words, after all. So, Pocket also has a list view. This list view also displays small thumbnail images with each item, but it's a lot more condense than the other view. It's also the only view available on the iPhone. Personally, I really like seeing the images, but I'm sure there are users that would prefer a concise, text-only list -- which is not available.

You can sort your saved items in Pocket by articles, videos, or images, and you can also choose to allow Pocket to decided the best view to download for each item. In Article View, all the ads and sidebars of the original website are stripped away, leaving just the content of the article. It looks very nice.

If the saved item is not an article, Pocket will display the content in its original web view. Unfortunately, not all website articles are correctly being registered as articles by Pocket and default to Web View.

When viewing an article, there are options to adjust the font size and type, screen brightness, and toggle night time reading mode. Unfortunately, there are only two fonts to toggle at this time.

The Good

• Beautiful design
• New layout displays images and short excerpts of saved items
• Condensed list view with thumbnails available
• Sort by articles, videos, images, or all items
• Adjust font size
• Night reading mode
• Supported by hundreds of apps

The Bad

• Only two fonts
• There isn't a simple list view without images available
• Doesn't always recognize articles as articles

The Conclusion

Pocket is a great way to save content from the web for viewing at a later time. The interface is both functional and pretty while still being extremely simple to use. It is also already supported by hundreds of apps (most of which still refer to the service as "Read It Later", but that should change quickly). Now that it's free, there's no reason to at least give it a try!

Free - Download Now

SpellTower for iPhone and iPad is a fun word game that adds a fun twist to the classic word search game. Instead of being limited to spelling words vertically, horizontally, and diagonally, you can choose your letters in any direction.

Specifically, if the next letter in your word is in one of the 8 surrounding letters, then it's fair game. Perhaps an easier way to explain it is -- any word that is able to be spelled by sliding over each letter, in order, without lifting your finger, is playable in SpellTower.

There are other little rules for scoring and clearing rows, but SpellTower does an excellent job of explaining them in the tutorial.

SpellTower has 5 different game modes. Tower Mode the most relaxing and pressure-free. You are simply given 150 letters and it's your goal to spell as many words as you can.

Puzzle Mode reminds me of Tetris. Each time you make a word, a new row is added and your goal is to prevent any of the columns from reaching the top.

If a letter has a small letter in its tile, the number represents the shortest length your word must be in order to use that letter. In Ex Puzzle Mode, there are a lot more of these letters than in Puzzle Mode.

Rush Mode has the same overall objective as the Puzzle Modes, except that instead of adding rows every time you make a word, SpellTower adds a new row after a set amount of time. This is by no means a leisurely game mode!

The Good

• Fun
• 4 levels of difficulty
• Challenging
• Includes helpful tutorial
• Multiplayer over bluetooth
• Night mode

The Bad

• No online multiplayer

The Conclusion

SpellTower is a very fun game. I've always had a slight aversion to word games, because I'm typically very terrible at them, but I actually really enjoy playing this one. SpellTower is the best word game I've ever played.

$1.99 - Download Now

Cards is Apple's iPhone app that allows you to create custom cards to be printed and mailed to friends and family. The recent update includes some cute templates for Mother's Day. Apple has added new cards in many of the other categories as well.

Creating a card is super easy and only take a few minutes to do. Once you decided on a template, just tap the photo field to insert a photo. You can edit text in a similar manner. Once you make your personal adjustment to the inside and outside of the card, you can add addresses from your address book. Then tap the price of the card ($2.99), enter your password, and your card is on its way!

Well, in theory.

I've tried sending a card twice now with no luck. Both times, I've added the recipient address from my contacts and then tapped to edit it because I wanted to change the name of the recipient. After I made my changes and tapped done, Cards prompted me to select what country the recipient is from. Then it crashed. Both times.

I'm actually pretty sad about this. I've sent personalized greeting cards with Cards in the past and the quality is great. I hope Apple fixes this before Mother's Day, because I was planning to send my mom a Mother's Day card with this app.

It's also ironic that Apple claims that this update "improves accuracy of envelope address verification" and "simplifies and improves the checkout process".

And while I'm griping about Cards, anyway, can I just say -- where's the iPad version, Apple?!

Free - Download Now

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best, absolutely free apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Looking for great free apps for your iPhone or iPod touch? The App Store is home to over half a million apps and games, and a surprising number of them are available for free. That's free as in free of charge to buy, free of subscriptions to use, and free of any crippling or time-bombing to make you pay later. They're just free. But which free apps are the best? Which are the top free apps you just absolutely have to download right now?

That's where iMore comes in! Here's your ultimate, authoritative guide to the top, 100% free iPhone and iPod touch apps for social networking, IM and communications, education, entertainment, finance, fun and games, health and fitness, kids, music, navigation and location, news, photography, productivity, reading, shopping, sports, travel, and general utility.

Whether you're new to iPhone or iPod touch and looking for a fast, free way to get started with apps, or you're just bored and looking for a little free fun, check out the apps below. And hey, since they're free, you can download them all!

(Also, be sure to check out our best free games for iPhone rundown for even more great free iPhone apps!)

iMore app

What better way than to keep up-to-date with all the latest free iPhone app and game news than with iMore's own, absolutely free iPhone app! Not only that, you'll also get breaking news, helpful how-tos, app and accessory reviews, instant access to our podcasts, and more! This is the very best way to enjoy the best of iMore right on your iPhone!

• Download Now

Best free social networking apps for iPhone

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social network on the planet, and it's always been one of the most popular free apps on the iPhone. Inside the free Facebook app, you can update your status, view photos, and check into your location. You can also keep up with your news feed, messages, events, pages, chat, as well as upload your photos and videos, and much, much more. (And if you're looking for more friends, check out our Facebook name swap thread!)

• Download Now

Twitter

Twitter and the iPhone go together like chocolate and peanut butter, and the free, official Twitter app for iPhone is the best way to get started finding cool celebrities and interesting internet personalities to follow, and trending topics to get involved with. (And be sure to check out our Twitter name swap thread to find other iMore members to tweet with!)

• Download Now

Pinterest

Pinterest is the new, rapidly growing, free social network that lets you pin photos, articles, recipes, or anything you think is cool, to your virtual pinboard. With the free Pinterest for iPhone app, you can view the pins of your friends, repin, like, and comment on your favorite pins, and pin directly from your camera.

• Download Now

More free social networking apps

• Best free social networking apps for iPhone

Best free IM and communications apps for iPhone

Skype

The free Skype app for iPhone lets you make free audio and video calls and exchange text chats from your iPhone to other iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, as well as Android, Mac, Windows, and millions more Skype users around the world. You can also buy Skype credits to call conventional phone numbers at really low prices.

• Download Now

imo instant messenger

imo is a great, free iPhone app for those who love traditional instant messaging (IM). imo supports Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Skype, MSN, ICQ/AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, Hyves, VKontakte, Myspace, and Steam. You can send text, images, and voice as well.

• Download now

GroupMe

GroupMe is an excellent free group messaging app for iPhone that communicates over both data and SMS. GroupMe perfect for coordinating big events with friends that aren't all using smartphones. GroupMe generates a phone number which collects and forwards free messages to those authorized to be a part of the group. Those that do will be able to take advantage of a few extra features, like location and picture sharing.

• Download Now

Best free educational apps for iPhone

iTunes U

The free iTunes U app for iPhone gives you access to courses from universities and schools. These courses are completely free and even include assignments. iTunes U and the instructors provide course materials, including audio, video, books, documents & presentations, apps, and books. iTunes U includes over 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects from Algebra to Zoology.

• Download Now

SparkNotes

SparkNotes is one of the most popular study guides for literature, Shakespeare, poetry, philosophy, drama and short stories. With the free SparkNotes for iPhone app you can access 50 pre-installed study guides in your library and hundreds of study guides online. You can also check-in at the place you're studying and indicate what subject your studying which could then result in impromptu study sessions with other SparkNotes users studying the same subject at the same place at the same time.

• Download Now

Flashcards+

With school comes lots of studying. One of the most common studying techniques is to use flashcards. With the free Flashcards+ app for iPhone, you can say goodbye to the stacks and stacks of flashcards that accumulate over the course of a semester and use electronic flashcards on your iPhone instead. The beauty of Flashcards+ is that you have your flash cards with you wherever you go, which means you'll likely squeeze in more mini study lessons throughout your day and end up with better grades as a result!

• Download Now

Best free entertainment apps for iPhone

Crackle

While apps like Netflix are free, you still have to pay for a subscription to actually use them. Not so with Crackle! The free Crackle app for iPhone lets you watch hours and hours of Hollywood movies, from Resident Evil to A Few Good Men, and TV Shows from I Dream of Jennie to the Tick, absolutely free. And it supports AirPlay so you can watch on your big screen TV.

• Download Now

IMDB

IMDB's free iPhone app means you're always only a few taps away from the latest show times, trailers, movie and TV rations, and cast and episode lists. It's the perfect couch-side companion for any serious entertainment buff, and the perfect mobile app for cinema buffs!

• Download now

TED

The free TED app for iPhone blurs the lines between education and entertainment, showcasing riveting talks from experts in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design. With the TED app, you can browse their complete catalog of talks, bookmark and download your favorites, and share individual talks and playlists with your friends. It's like holding genius in the palm of your hand. For free.

• Download now

Best free financial apps for iPhone

Paypal

Love it or hate it, Paypal is the internet's default currency and the free Paypal for iPhone app is the best way to manage your Paypal account on the go. Whether you're sending or requesting money, checking your balance or reviewing your past transactions, or looking for a local retailer who takes PayPal, it's right here, right when you want.

• Download Now

Bloomberg

Bloomberg for iPhone is a great way for casual traders and investors to interact with their stocks and stay up to date with world news. Whether you need to casually monitor stocks on your iPhone or just find the urge to check out financial news, the free Bloomberg app has you covered -- for free!

• Download Now

Mint.com

The free Mint.com for iPhone app gives everything you love about the web site on the go and in the palm of your hand. You can track, manage, and budget your money, connect your bank, credit, and other financial accounts, and safely, securely keep it with you wherever you are. It also syncs with the Mint.com website so you're always up-to-date.

• Download now

Best free games for iPhone

For dozens of additional free iPhone games, check out our best free iPhone games special feature!

Angry Birds Free

The free Angry Birds app lets you play one of the most popular games in the world right on your iPhone -- for free. Yes, it is supported by adds, but you'll be too busy catapulting birds and destroying pigs to even notice them!

• Download Now

Draw Something Free

Draw Something is a sensation and you can play it on your iPhone for free with Draw Something Free. In Draw Something, you have a partner and you take turns drawing pictures with the goal of getting each other to guess the correct word. Just like Angry Birds Free, Draw something Free is supported by ads.

• Download Now

Hero Academy

Hero Academy is a great turn-based free iPhone game where you and a friend (or random partner) take turns moving and attacking each other with various army pieces on a checked board. You have a set number of action points with which to move your pieces, bring in fresh ones from your stash, upgrade your pieces, and, of course, attack. The main goal is to either whittle down a few crystals on your opponent's side of the board, or run them out of troops.

• Download Now

More free games

• best free games for iPhone

Best free health and fitness apps for iPhone

RunKeeper

The free RunKeeper for iPhone app uses your iPhone's built in GPS technology to track your running, walking, cycling and other exercise activities. RunKeeper also syncs up to its own web portal where you can view your history and stats in more detail. Integration with Facebook and Twitter means you can even show off your fitness prowess to your friends!

• Download Now

WebMD

WebMD is a reputable and accurate online source for medical facts and advice, and with the free WebMD iPhone app you'll have complete access to mobile-optimized health information and decision-support tools including WebMD’s Symptom Checker, Drugs & Treatments, First Aid Information and Local Health Listings.

• Download Now

Fooducate

The free Fooducate for iPhone app contains a wealth of information and user reviews about many of the foods we consume on a daily basis. Fooducate stresses the importance of eating foods that are good for your body as a whole. Sure, a calorie is a calorie, but if you give your body calories from better quality foods, you get the benefits of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that artificially processed foods with lots of additives, high fructose corn syrup, and other “empty” calories just can’t match.

• Download Now

Best free kids apps for iPhone

PBS KIDS Video

The free PBS KIDS Video app brings all your child's favorite shows right to the iPhone or iPod touch. Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, Dinosaur Train, SUPER WHY!, Sesame Street and Wild Kratts and are all here and ready to entertain and educate.

• Download now

Curious George at the Zoo

If your child is interested in animals, then Curious George at the Zoo is a great free iPhone app to educate and entertain them. Explore an interactive 3D zoo, learn about and interact with the animals, watch videos and play games, all on the iPhone or iPod touch.

• Download now

ABC Letter Tracing

The free ABC Letter Tracing app for iPhone is perfect for pre-schoolers just learning to write. It has both upper and lowercase letters, along with helpful voice-overs and illustrations of items that begin with each letter.

• Download now

Best free music apps for iPhone

Shazam

How many times have you been listening to the radio, or attending a party, or watching TV when you hear a song that you like but have no idea what the name of the song is or even who the artist is? With the free Shazam app for iPhone, all have to do is let your mic listen to the song for about 30 seconds, and Shazam will tell you exactly which song it is!

• Download Now

Slacker Radio

Don't have much music stored on your iPhone? Don't fret! With the free Slacker Radio iPhone app you can stream radio to your iPhone for free. The Slacker music library features millions of songs from thousands of artists and you can customize your own radio stations with your favorite artists and songs. In addition to music, you can also listen to ESPN Radio, ABC News, comedy and more.

• Download Now

TuneIn Radio

The free TuneIn Radio app for iPhone gives you on-the-go access to over 50,000 radio stations worldwide. From the local station where you may live now to the far away station where you may have grown up or simply visited and always remembered, TuneIn radio has over 120,000 free shows for you to choose from, right on your iPhone.

• Download now

Best free navigation and location apps for iPhone

Waze social GPS & traffic

The free Waze app for iPhone uses Open Street Map data, which means you're contributing to building a map as you drive, and you also get to view the things added by others. The crowdsourced nature of Waze lets users share information about traffic jams, accidents, speed traps, and other pertinent data. It includes standard turn-by-turn navigation, but the accuracy can vary depending on the quality of the maps in your area.

• Download Now

Foursquare

Foursquare is free app for iPhone that lets you check into the places you go, and see which friends are there now, or may have been there in the past. It's a great way to keep track of trips and photos of the places you've visited, and a fun way to earn badges and share and receive recommendations for where to go next.

• Download Now

Poynt

Poynt is a free location-based search app for iPhone with dedicated channels to a variety of different kinds of content. What makes it better than just a Google Maps search is that each experience is very closely tailored, so searching for a movie will immediately bring up options to buy tickets from your phone or view a trailer, while restaurant listings will include reviews and the option to reserve a table.

• Download Now

Best free news apps for iPhone

Flipboard

The free Flipboard for iPhone app shows you the news that matters to you, along with recommendations from your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram friends. That makes it a dynamic, up-to-date, but highly personalized magazine, right in the palm of your hand! It's also makes it easy to share the stuff you like most back with your friends and social circles.

• Download Now

Pulse News

Pulse News, from Alphonso Labs is an awesome free newsreader for iPhone that brings all your news together into one place. With Pulse News, you choose the categories you want to display and the specific content for each section. For example, you might want to add a Gaming, Sports, News, Tech, Science, Art and Design any number of additional categories.

• Download Now

AP Mobile

The free AP Mobile app brings the Associated Press right to your iPhone. With comprehensive, timely coverage of local and global news it's not like having a newspaper or TV station in the palm of your hands -- it's like having their news sources. Plus, if you find yourself in the middle of the news, you can even send the AP your tip!

• Download Now

Best free photo apps for iPhone

Instagram

Instagram isn't just a free iPhone app, it's one of the most popular social photo sharing networks on the planet. It features a large selection of vintage, hip, and fun filters as well as the ability to add the tilt-shift effect to your photos. You can also follow friends and photographers, "like" photos, and leave comments on them. (If you're looking for more great iPhoneographers to share with, check out our Instragram name swap thread!)

• Download Now

Pic Stitch

There are a lot of collage apps in the App Store, but what's great about Pic Stitch is that it's free! With Pic Stitch for iPhone, you can create beautiful collages that tell a story in just a few taps. It features 32 different layouts and after you've finished your masterpiece, you can share it to your favorite social network or another photography app.

• Download Now

Camera Awesome

If you're looking for a free app that offers more than the built-in iOS Camera app, look no further than Camera Awesome. This fantastic free iPhone app not only gives you a lot of powerful editing tools and filters, but it also gives more control while taking photos as well by allowing you to select separate points for focus and exposure.

• Download Now

Best free productivity apps for iPhone

Adobe Reader

With the free Adobe Reader app for iPhone, you can have all your PDFs in your pocket. What's more, you aren't limited to just viewing PDFs, but you can annotated them with text, handwriting, strikethroughs, highlights, and more. You can also fill out forms and add your signature.

• Download Now

Evernote

Evernote isn't just a great free note-taking app for iPhone. It's a great free note-taking app on almost every platform. That means no matter where you are, or what device you have access to, your notes are always there for you. You can also add pictures and search for text in the images, add voice notes, and easily share what you've collected.

• Download Now

Dropbox

The free Dropbox for iPhone app gives you access to all your files stored in your Dropbox account (free up to 2GB). You can mark items as favorites to store them locally on your iPhone for offline viewing, save photos and videos to your Dropbox account, and easily share them with family, friends and colleagues.

• Download Now

Best free reading apps for iPhone

iBooks

iBooks is Apple's free ebook and PDF reading app for iPhone. It's a stylish way to read not only books purchased from the iBookstore, but all the free books from the massive Project Gutenberg library as well as any of your own ePub or PDF files.

• Download Now

Readability

Readability offers a gorgeous way to read articles from your favorite website without the distraction of ads and other fluff -- for free! You simply set up your free account and add articles with a bookmarklet . A lot of other apps, like Twitter, off Readability support so that you can add articles directly from those apps.

• Download Now

Kindle

The free Kindle App for iPhone is Amazon's ebook reader. Unlike Apple's iBooks, Kindle is cross-platform. If you already have a large Kindle book collection, free or otherwise, or you just want to keep your options open for the future, Kindle is a great choice.

Best free shopping apps for iPhone

Apple Store

The free Apple Store app not only lets you shop Apple's online store from the comfort of your iPhone, but it actually lets you purchase accessories via your iPhone, iTunes account, and EasyPay at the Apple retail store. You can also make an appointment at the Genius Bar an automatically check in when you arrive.

• Download now

Etsy

Etsy for iPhone is a free app that gives you access to 11 million items from some of the internets most eclectic, most astonishing artisans and craftspeople. You can browse, you can buy, and if you're a seller, you can manage your Etsy account right from your iPhone.

• Download now

RedLaser

With the free RedLaser app your iPhone transforms into a powerful barcode and QR code scanner. If you see an item at the store, simply scan it and get instant results from Google, TheFind, eBay, Milo, American Express, and many more. It's one of the easiest ways to compare real-world prices online -- and it's free!

• Download now

Best free sports apps for iPhone

ESPN ScoreCenter

ESPN ScoreCenter is a free iPhone app that brings you the latest scores, standings, and news for dozens of sports and hundreds of teams around the world. If you have a free myESPN account, you get automatic access to all your favorites. If you don't, you can choose baseball, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, rugby and soccer teams to follow right on your iPhone.

• Download Now

MLB.com At Bat

Although it has premium options, the free or “lite” version of MLB at Bat for iPhone still gives you access to lots of great content. You can watch the scoreboard during every game, see news and highlights from recent games, buy tickets to upcoming games and check in around the league for other scores and highlights. While diehard baseball fans will want to buy the full app, the Lite version is great for casual fans on the go.

• Download Now

NBA Game Time

NBA Game Time is sort of like MLB.com At Bat – but for basketball. During games, you can follow along practically play by play, seeing who is on the court at every moment and who is scoring plays. You can also check the scores around the league, watch video highlights, check the standings, look at the schedule for every team and get information on each arena, right from the free iPhone app!

• Download Now

Best free travel apps for iPhone

Yelp

If you're searching for a place to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, the free Yelp for iPhone app will provide you with a map or list of exactly what you're looking for. Each location is also filled with reviews by users who have been to that place before. When you decide on a place and have finished your visit, you can leave a review of your own for other users to read when in the same predicament that you were in.

• Download Now

TripIt

The free TripIt app for iPhone, when paired with a free TripIt account, becomes your virtual travel assistant. Simply email any flight or hotel confirmations to TripIt and they'll automagically get logged and displayed on your iPhone, along with helpful maps and additional information to make your travel safer and easier.

• Download Now

Google Translate

While there are a lot of language courses and travel references available for the iPhone, the free Google Translate app lets you find the right phrase, in the right language, right when you need it. Text translation is available in 64 languages and voice translation in 17. Yup, you can talk instead of type! Fantastique! Hen hao!

• Download now

Best free utilities for iPhone

Find my iPhone

The free Find my iPhone app by Apple will help you locate your iPhone in the unfortunate event that you misplace it or it gets stolen. You can track your iPhone from another iOS device or from the iCloud website. You can also send a message and alert to your iPhone to help you find it or to provide contact information in the even that someone found your iPhone. If you're concerned about the security of your data, you can remotely lock your iPhone or even wipe it with the free Find my iPhone app.

• Download Now

Remote

Apple's free Remote app lets you control your iTunes or Apple TV right from your iPhone over your local Wi-Fi network. Browse or search your iTunes library or Apple TV content, choose songs, TV shows, or movies to listen to or watch, and control playback, skipping, and more.

• Download now

The Weather Channel

Apple's built-in weather app is great and all, but sometimes you're looking for more information about the weather than this app can provide. The Weather Channel app is a great alternative. It features interactive maps and radar, severe weather alerts, and hourly and 10 day forecasts. You can also watch videos of breaking news and weather coverage and upload and view photos of the weather taken by other users. And you get all of this for free!

• Download Now

Your favorite free iPhone apps?

Did we miss any of your favorite free iPhone and iPod touch apps? If so, head on over to our iPhone apps and games forum and add yours to the favorite free iPhone apps list! We'll be updating this post often, so your pick could be next!

Rene Ritchie, Ally Kazmucha, Gary Mazo, and Simon Sage contributed to this article

Every week the editors at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include apps a beautiful iPad weather app, apps for sports and politics, a fun camera app, an app filled with inspirations, a puzzle game, a music app, and an alternative to Instagram.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Living Earth HD - Seth Clifford

It's been a crazy week, so I'm going simple with my pick - simple and beautiful. Leanna reviewed a weather app called Living Earth recently and after reading her post, my need to see just how great this app really was took over immediately and I downloaded it. You might find a weather app that does more or has more geeky weather options for meteorology nerds, but with the possible exception of Weather HD, I've yet to see a weather app this cool.

It's a universal binary, so you get apps for both your phone and your iPad. The app has a nice forecast view as well as a cool alarm clock feature, but the interactive globe that loads live cloud and sunlight information from real-time satellite data is my favorite part. Sometimes just marveling at nature is all I've got the energy for.

You can read Leanna's review for all the gritty details, of which there are plenty. I'm just going to sit and spin the Earth and hypnotize myself for a while...

$1.99 - Download Now

FCB Mobile - Chris Oldroyd

This week’s pic is all about the beautiful game and the team that play's it in the most beautiful way. My first love is my local football team Newcastle United. My second love belongs well and truly with the most famous football club in the world FC Barcelona.

Barcelona play the game the way it should be played, one touch passing, instant control but most importantly they play it offensively with open attacking football that is an absolute joy to watch week in and week out. Anyway back to the app, I have a great app on my iPhone that keeps me up to date with all the goings on at Camp Nou and its caled FCB Mobile.

FCB Mobile is the official app for FC Barcelona and includes all the latest news, match previews, reviews, player profiles, audio, video and much much more. If you are a fan of Barcelona you need this app.

$0.99 - Download Now

Contact Congress - Gary Mazo

For years, I have been preaching to my kids (as they one by one turn 18) that one of the great things about this country is that we all do get a say; that voting is both a privilege and an obligation. I also try to impart that even if the candidate we want doesn’t get elected – we all have an obligation to still be part of the process and let them know how we feel about important issues.

Now, this is always easier said than done. Fortunately, there are some great apps to make being part of the process easier and more fun. I use Contact Congress by airship Software.

When you start up Contact Congress, it asks to either use your location or for you to input your home zip and then it finds your Senators and your Representative in Congress. Their political party is indicated by a little elephant or donkey and their picture and name is displayed in a tab.

Touch the tab with their name on it and you immediately have links to follow him/her on Twitter, go to his/her official Facebook page, Call Their Office or send them an email. It couldn’t be easier or more convenient. Because of this app, I follow all three of my elected officials on Twitter and I have fired off a few emails and even made a phone call or two along the way when something is important to me.

And there is a very fun opportunity for an in-app purchase; you can, for $.99 “Dress up Congress” by purchasing Google eyes or Horns to put on the images of the elected officials. I actually think this is sort of demeaning and takes away from the app, but I understand the need to try to “monetize” the app some how.

All in all, this perhaps the easiest way to stay involved in our political process, and, as I tell my kids, to become part of the solution.

Have you used Contact Congress? Do you use other apps to stay politically active and involved? Sound off in the iMore forum thread.

Free - Download Now

Videoscope - Alli Flowers

Back when I had my iPhone 3GS, I found a nifty little app that let me use the iPhone camera like a kaleidoscope. KaleidoVid cased to function when Apple released iOS 4, and the dev never updated it. I was disappointed, because although it wasn't a great productivity app, it kept me entertained for hours.

While browsing through the App store recently, I discovered several new kaleidoscope type apps, and one of them had much of the same functionality as that original app. Videoscope allows you to turn your iPhone camera into a kaleidoscope. You can increase or decrease the number of prisms by pinching the screen, and once you see the kaleidoscopic view you like, you can capture that view to your camera roll to use as wallpaper.

Videoscope has a feature that I recommend you not use if you've been drinking heavily or are on medication - it leverages the video camera of your iPhone and allows you to video the complete moving spectrum of the kaleidoscope. I shot some video through Videoscope while riding in the car the other night, and the results are breathtaking - and triply!

Videoscope also offers some alternate "scopes" including Pinscreen, Impressionist, and Brickbreaker. The Brckbreaker mode is particularly cool because you get to "break the bricks" by tapping on them and watching them fall away.

You are not limited to the rear camera with Videoscope. You can aim the front camera at yourself and become the Pinscreen image, or you can choose a picture from your photo library to turn into some awesome abstract art.

$0.99 - Download Now

Quotes! - Chris Parsons

Lots of people look for inspiration and motivation in different ways and one way that I enjoy is by reading quotes from others. Luckily, there is a beautiful iOS app available that offers plenty of quotes no matter what the topic may be. The app carries an obvious name, just simply -- Quotes. Love, Happiness, Motivation, Inspiration. All are covered in quotes with the ability to share and save your favourites all from within the app itself. It does cost $.99 but it's beautifully simple and enjoyable if you're into reading quotes from others.

$0.99 - Download Now

Lawnmower Challenge - Simon Sage

This week I tried out Lawnmower Challenge, a simple puzzle game launched by a Boston indie developer at PAX East 2012. The premise is simple enough: cut all the grass in the level in as few moves as possible. Things get complicated when you throw in rocks, reeds, tall grass that you can't walk through, mud you can't mow through, locked gates that require keys, and impassable rocks.

It's not fancy, but with 144 levels, you definitely won't be left wanting for a challenge.

$1.99 - Download Now

Spotify for iPhone - Ally Kazmucha

I've long been looking for a way to free up some physical space on my iOS devices. While streaming services are great, what about times where you don't want to eat up your data plan? I've found Spotify to be a great compromise. I've found most streaming services to be rather lacking or they don't let you choose want you want to listen to. Neither is the case with Spotify. You can search through millions of tracks, create your own custom playlists, and listen in seconds.

With a premium account for $9.99/month you can stream music as well as download it to your device for offline use so you aren't eating away at precious data. The free version is ad-supported and allows you to stream online, the unlimited version for $4.99 will allow you to stream with the iPhone or Android app in addition to removing ads. The premium version is the only subscription that adds offline mode. I've found that I can stream when I'm at home and just choose offline mode for the playlists I want to listen to while traveling or not near wifi. I'm saving tons of space on my iPhone by using the service.

Spotify comes with a full trial for 48 hours. Check it out and see what you think.

Free - Download Now

Tadaa - Leanna Lofte

With all the threatening on Twitter and comments to leave Instagram after Facebook acquired it, I went on a hunt for a decent alternative to Instagram. My favorite one so far is tadaa.

tadaa has a lot of what Instagram offers -- only more. It's a social network where other members can like and add comments to photos. There's a photo feed for all the friends you follow, as well as feeds for popular photos and new members.

What I really like about tadaa is that it has a lot of built-in editing tools in addition to filters. You can crop, adjust brightness, contrast, and saturation, add a tilt-shift effect, and when adding a filter, you can adjust how strong the affect appears on your photo. You also aren't restricted to square crops.

Free - Download Now

Tell us your pick!

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it's your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

There are a wealth of note taking apps for iPad already in the App Store, but the simplicity of Daedalus Touch is what makes it so great. It's got an excellent interface that focuses on allowing you to take notes and switch between stacks quickly. That makes it the perfect tool for taking class or meeting notes in an organized way.

Daedalus aims to make accessing and organizing easier with a stacking method as opposed to the traditional folders and notebooks method.

The main difference between Daedalus and other note taking apps is how it handles your notes. There are no notebooks or endless pages to scroll through. Instead, Daedalus sorts your collections into stacks and individual pages within those stacks. When you're ready to start typing on a new page, just swipe to the right. Go back a page by swiping left.

The same functionality is built in to stacks. Double tap to open a stack and just scroll through the pages within that stack from left to right. To exit a stack, pinch it closed with two fingers to return to the main screen.

If you're a student, stacks is a great way to sort notes by class. Make a stack for Calculus, Biology, Accounting, etc.. then quickly swipe between them and double tap into any stack to take more notes or view notes you've already typed out.

Daedalus allows you to search for keywords and sentences within stacks. You can also change font and the overall look & feel within settings.

For the most part, Daedalus keeps its options simple. There's a basic word and character counter in the upper right hand corner of each note. You can switch between three different types of fonts and make the text larger if you'd like. Daedalus also has 4 different layouts to choose from:

• Console
• Dark
• Light
• Sepia

You can choose to turn auto-caps, auto-correction, and spell check on or off. Tapping the eye in the upper left side of the screen will lets you search Google, Wikipedia, and dict.cc for information via a built-in browser. This makes it easy to look up information without having to jump back and forth between Safari and Daedalus.

You can also tap into any stack and type a search term into the top bar. Tap return and scroll through your stack to see the instances of that term. It'd be nice to see it aggregate a list of where the term was found instead of having to page through though.

Daedalus supports both iCloud and Dropbox syncing. You can also export notes into an e-mail, text, PDF, or ePub document.

Daedalus supports syncing with both iCloud and Dropbox. You can navigate to the folder you'd like to bring down and import folders you already have into stacks. Just choose the folder you want to turn into a stack and Daedalus will do all the heavy lifting for you.

From the main stack screen you can click the sync button to sync all the stacks you've created or you can individually sync stacks if you'd prefer only certain stacks be saved to iCloud or Dropbox.

You can share your notes under the export menu in the following ways - e-mail, text, PDF, or ePub. You can also print and copy to the clipboard. Notice there is no export as HTML option to support Markdown. So if you need to type in Markdown, you won't be able to export it directly from the app.

The good

• Fast, accessible interface gets you going quickly
• Excellent organization
• Selective sync is a great way to save space
• Built in browser is very convenient

The bad

• Search function could be better
• No Markdown support
• Can't important single documents, only complete folders as stacks
• No iPhone or Mac version

Conclusion

Deadalus aims to simplify and streamline the note-taking process. For users that don't care about Markdown support and just need the ability to take notes quickly in an organized fashion, Deadalus is perfect.

While I stil prefer applications like Byword for writing and Evernote for notes and lists, there are plenty of people who will prefer the focus of Daedalus.

$4.99 - Download Now

Additional Resources:

• Byword for iPhone and iPad review
• iA Writer for iPhone and iPad review
• iMore apps and games forums

Joe Danger, an Xbox Live Arcade and PSN game, is making the leap to iOS with fully optimized swipe and tap controls. The lighthearted romp takes a motorcycle-riding daredevil through a series of obstacles in colorful locales where you openly defy danger by doing backflips off big jumps and poppin' sweet wheelies. While driving through a course, you've got split-seconds to tap on letters as they pass by. If you can spell out "Danger", you earn one of the win criteria, while you earn another for collecting all of the stars on the course. That should offer plenty of replay value. Best of all, we'll be able to expect multiplayer support whereby both players trying to cut one another off and compete for stars and letters.

Joe Danger's gameplay on the iPad looked extremely smooth, and it looks like they've done a solid job of recreating the appeal of the top-ranked XBLA game of 2011  for mobile. There are way too many apps, like Soul Calibur, that simply drag and drop a virtual controller layer onto the game UI and expect everything to play the same, but it's good to see folks like Hello Games are taking the time to properly make the transition to mobile. It's also really nice to see a game that's not about killing people for a change, but is still lots of fun to play.

The developers were specific about release dates or pricing for Joe Danger on iPhone or iPad, particularly since this is a very early look, but they mentioned that it should be available "in a few weeks time".

At PAX East 2012, Halfbrick Studios was showing off an incoming update to Jetpack Joyride which will let you equip some very handy gadgets. Players can equip two, which offer a variety of functions, such as a slight boost in speed when taking off from the ground, or a protective bubble to improve your distance after crashing. A particularly useful one will be the coin magnet, which is currently only available for the game's vehicles. Counting the Feeze-o-Matic, Lucky Last, Nerd Repellent, Missile Jumper, Free Ride, Flying Pig, and Gravity Belt, there will be 15 gadgets available all told at launch, no doubt with plenty more to follow. As with other in-game items, you'll be able to buy gadgets in the Stash with coins collected as you navigate through a top-secret science lab in a freakin' sweet jetpack, or bought directly through in-app purchases.

Even though Fruit Ninja is Halfbrick's breakthrough success, I tend to spend a lot more time playing Jetpack Joyride, so this update has me pretty excited. Since most of the current in-game items are purely cosmetic, it's great to see a bunch of new options that actively change the way you play (though there are also going to be cosmetic gadgets, like the x-ray specs). Keep an eye out for the 1.3 update to Jetpack Joyride at the end of the month.

Free - Download now

Infinity Blade 2 for iPhone and iPad has been updated with a new content pack called ClashMobs that lets you complete challenges in Infinity Blade 2 with your Facebook friends. Interestingly, even your Facebook friends who don't play Infinity Blade 2 can help you complete your challenges by "liking" your posts.

After connecting Infinity Blade 2 to your Facebook account, you will have a set of new challenges called ClashMobs to choose from. Each challenge will need help from your friends, but the good news is that even though these challenges are scheduled, you don't have to play with your friends at the exact same time. For example, a ClashMob may only require 30 seconds from each participant, but each player can contribute during any time between Monday and Wednesday.

To get your friends to contribute to your ClashMobs, you simply post to your Facebook page with Infinity Blade 2. Most challenges only require a few friends or offer better rewards for more participants, but some challenges may need the help of as many as 500,000 players. With some ClashMob's, your non-Infinity Blade 2 playing friends can also help you out by liking your post. For example, each like received may inflict damage on the boss you're fighting.

Now, that last part sounds cool and all, but I'm willing to bet that most of these likes will be coming from Infinity Blade 2 players since Facebook users who don't play Infinity Blade 2 will likely be hiding all posts by Infinity Blade 2 from their Facebook feed (I sure will be).

For Infinity Blade 2 players who don't use Facebook or are put off by the idea of posting Infinity Blade ClashMobs to their wall, they can simply choose to ignore ClashMobs all together. Or they can participate in ClashMobs posted by their friends without a trace of their activity on Facebook. Infinity Blade 2 will not force players to post to Facebook.

So who's excited about ClashMobs? I'm sure you're looking for more Infinity Blade 2 Facebook friends, so head on over to the iMore forums and share your Facebook page with other Infinity Blade 2 players!

$4.99 - Download Now

Speed 2 for iPad is a new iPad app that converts your iPad into a speedometer while you drive. It features a gorgeous UI that integrates with Google Maps and will make you want to install your iPad directly into your dash.

Speed 2 has 4 main elements: the maps which take up the top third of the screen, and the compass, speedometer, and odometer in the bottom third of the screen. This area is like your dash. On the speedometer, you'll see a red marker that can be moved around. If you exceed the speed marked, the app will emit an alarm sound to alert that you're going too fast.

If you swipe your finger up the dash, it will slide up to reveal some options. Under the compass, you can select true or magnetic north. Under the speedometer, you can select an analog or digital display and enable/disable the speed limiter. Lastly, from this menu you can reset the trip or total of your odometer and select if you want to allow the app to track in the background.

Speed 2 require GPS as this is how it determines how fast you are traveling, so it's only compatible with 3G and LTE iPads. You also must have your 3G or LTE enabled in order for Speed 2 to work. This also means that Speed's performance is dependent on the strength of your connection. On Verizon LTE, Speed 2 worked perfectly for me.

The Good

• Gorgeous UI
• Slide-up panel is very convenient. It's nice to not have to navigate to a separate menu
• True North or Magnetic North
• Analog or digital
• Alarm will sound when you exceed a specified speed
• Tracks in the background
• Includes trip odometer
• Tap the speedometer to switch between miles, kilometers, and knots

The Bad

• Cannot insert addresses and map out directions

The Conclusion

Combined with an iPad car mount, Speed 2 will be a great speedometer for your car. The UI is gorgeous and being able to view Google Maps at the same time is awesome. It's a shame that you can't retrieve directions to a destination, but Speed 2 can pair nicely with a turn-by-turn navigation app running in the background.

Now excuse me while I hunt for the best iPad car mount...

$2.99 - Download Now

Byword, iA Writer, and Elements definitively compared to find out which type-written text editor and note-taking app is the absolute best for your iPad

Taking and sharing notes is a vital part of what many users will want to do on their iPad. We've already taken a look at the best handwriting app for iPad, but what about the best typing and text editing notes app? Let's find out!

The iPad App Store is filled with an incredible amount of high-quality text editing and note taking apps. There are so many that the problem isn't finding one -- it's finding out which is the best! Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, features and support. After a lot of heavy sifting, it came down to three contenders: Byword, iA Writer, and Elements.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Design

Byword is an app you can just open and start using right away. There's nothing tricky or complicated to learn, and everything you need is right in front of you, right where you expect it to be, all the time. Because the interface is so unobtrusive, you can really focus on the writing.

While all three have a great overall design, Byword has a slight edge due to the simplicity and clean interface. There's literally no learning curve.

While Byword and Elements not allow you to change the font or margins, iA Writer does not. Ai Write does, however, have a feature called Focus Mode that fades everything away except for the sentence you are writing. This is great way to avoid distraction and concentrate on the work. Since iA Writer's default font may not appeal to everyone, however, this doesn't make up for their lack of settings options.

iA Writer allows you to easily access files and the organization is simple. Users won't have design issues with any of these apps but Byword just seems to be a bit more thought out.

Elements has a few more options than Byword but also has few more controls to learn.

While Elements has a great interface, a lot of things users may need to interact with are buried in the settings menu. This is especially noticeable if you need to access documents across an iCloud or Dropbox account.

Byword, which is configurable yet still clear, powerful yet still usable, is the best when it comes to interface and design.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Markdown support

Markdown may not be important for every user but for those users who have come to depend on it for everything from blogging to writing to creating richly formatted emails, it's very important.

Byword and Elements both support Markdown and both apps allow you to access a Markdown preview straight from the edit screen as well as copy the HTML to your clipboard or export it.

Byword Markdown preview can be accessed by tapping on the settings menu within any document and tapping "preview markdown". iA Writer does not support Markdown at all.

iA Writer does not support Markdown preview. You can, of course, type in Markdown with iA Writer, you just won't be able to preview it inside the app. And if you're new to the Markdown language or want to start learning, that may not be a good thing. For writers that prefer having everything formatted so publishing or exporting is as simple as a button tap, Elements or Byword would be a better choice.

Elements allows you to view a preview of your Markdown content with just one tap. From there you can copy to HTML or exit preview and continue writing.

Byword also adds a line above the keyboard that gives quick access to many Markdown functions. Just slide the word count away to the left and you'll see keyboard shortcuts. Swipe one more time and you'll get popular options such as header tags, insert image and link code, and lists.

That's why, when it comes to Markdown support, Byword, its ease of use, and its shortcuts gives it the edge over Elements.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Organization

Byword, iA Writer, and Elements are all pretty much the same when it comes to organizing notes. They'll create default folders either natively or wherever you choose to store them, whether it be iCloud or Dropbox.

As with Byword, you'll need to choose a different directory within Elements in order to access different documents. iA Writer has the edge due to the extreme ease of browsing files across all syncing services without the need to change any settings.

All three also support the creation of your own folder or folders in Dropbox. That way, regardless of which text editor you're using, you always know where your notes are. This is especially convenient if you use a different notes editor on your iPad than you do your iPhone, smartphone, or Mac or Windows PC.

Byword allows you to change the default directory quickly but you'll need to navigate to that syncing folder each time and change the location which may be bothersome to certain users.

iA Writer is the easiest app to navigate. You can access any .txt file within your Dropbox account with a simple menu tap. If you saved something in a different location, no problem -- just go grab it from wherever it is.

iA Writer allows you to easily navigate around all your Dropbox documents for text files. The others aren't as intuitive when it comes to navigating around folders.

If you're storing things natively and don't plan on syncing, Byword, iA Writer, an Elements are all tied when it comes to organization. All of them provide an easy way to organize and access files natively. iA Writer, however, has the advantage when it comes to organization and accessing online files. If you have everything you write in one folder, you shouldn't have an issue with any three apps. iA Writer just makes it simpler to access things that may not be in the default path.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Syncing

Byword, iA Writer, and Elements all offer iCloud, Dropbox, and iTunes sync. All three apps perform well and sync seamlessly with Dropbox. Changes are brought down pretty much instantly. Byword does have the option to manually sync. So if automatic syncing isn't something you want, Byword may be a better option for you.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Cross-platform editing

Byword, Elements, and iA Writer are all universal apps, so if you buy them for your iPad you can also use them on your iPhone or iPad touch at no additional charge, and if you're syncing with Dropbox or iCloud, any changes you make on one device will be reflected on the others. Likewise, if you're saving everything in .txt format, you won't have any issue opening a document on your Mac or Windows PC with a native word editor.

Byword and iA Writer also have apps for Mac users as well. Elements does not. So if you'd like consistent environments between all your devices, Byword and iA Writer are probably the two apps you'd want to look at.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Cost

iA Writer is by far the cheapest of the three note-taking apps at just $0.99. Byword sits in the middle at $2.99. Elements is on top of the price range at $4.99.

Byword vs. iA Writer vs. Elements: Conclusion

While Byword, iA Writer, and Elements are all excellent choices for editing and sharing text, Byword is currently the best choice. It is a great balance between functionality and simplicity. It syncs everything seamlessly, and it's incredibly easy to get started with. Just choose your syncing option, a folder you'd like to save things to, and start writing.

If you are more concerned about writing without distraction, iA Writer may be a better choice (provided you can live with Markdown previews). If you want a dark mode to work with and a bit more customization, Elements is a great choice (provided you don't want a Mac client to go with it).

If you just want a well round, well supported text-editor for your iPad, get Byword and get writing.

Byword - $2.99 - Download Now

Elements - $4.99 - Download Now

iA Writer - $0.99 - Download Now

Mac companion apps

Byword for Mac - $9.99 - Download Now

iA Writer for Mac - $8.99 - Download Now

Additional Resources:

• Byword for iPhone and iPad review
• iA Writer for iPhone and iPad review
• iMore apps & game review forum

Jack Lumber made its debut at PAX East 2012, offering a fresh spin on the swipe-and-slash gameplay established by Fruit Ninja. Coming this summer to iPad, iPhone, and eventually Android, Jack Lumber follows a lumberjack whose grandmother was brutally killed by a malicious pine tree. After manifesting telekentic and time-warping superpowers, Jack Lumber has taken it upon himself to uproot entire swathes of forest and earn vengence the only way he knows how: chopping.

The gameplay will seem very familiar the second a bunch of logs come popping up into the air, but it differs from Fruit Ninja in that the movement of your targets slows when you press on the screen. You then have a limited amount of time to trace your finger through the logs, but you have to make sure that it's along the grain - otherwise, the logs drop to the ground, beligerant and unchopped. The game quickly complicates by throwing innocent woodland creatures to avoid, kegs of dynamite, knotted logs that require multiple swipes, and time bonus logs to extend the annihilation of your arboreal foes.

Even among the many console titles at PAX East 2012, Jack Lumber leaped out to me as the one with the most personality. Sure, it's a little derivative of Fruit Ninja, but that's not a bad thing, and they've added enough new mechanics to erase any feeling of oversimilarity. The lumberjack theme is a largely untouched in iOS games, and these guys were tackling it with panache by dishing out buttons at the show bearing a salty domain they snagged: "F-cktrees.com". I'm half-expecting some environmentalists to cause a lot of noise about this one, but Owlchemy Labs is no stranger to controversy; their last title, Smuggle Truck, was about getting Mexican babies across the border. That proved a little too spicy for Apple, so Owlchemy released a game with stuffed animals instead and called it Snuggle Truck.

When Jack Lumber launches this summer, we can expect it to have Game Center support, be universal, and be optimized for the new iPad's Retina display resolution. They have full intentions of launching the game on any platform with a touchscreen, so sit tight Android users.

One of the advantages of having a camera on your iPhone and iPad is that you can you use it with great apps like Scanner Pro that let you take photos of documents to "scan" them and store as PDFs. The result looks just as if you used a physical scanner to do the job.

To use Scanner Pro, you simply take a photo of the document you wish to scan, or upload a photo that you took at an early time from your Camera Roll. After you take the photo, Scanner Pro will automatically detect the edges and put a box around it. If it needs adjusting, you can simply drag the edges and corners to where they should be. In my experience, the detection has been very good. Even when I intentionally did a terrible job at taking the photo, Scanner Pro found a way to make it work.

Even though I took a terrible photo, Scanner Pro did a great job detecting the edges and produced a "good enough" result.

Scannner Pro also allows you to choose the document size before accepting the scan. Choosing an accurate paper size and border for your page is important for having the best looking scanned document for your result.

Tapping Done will bring you into the next stage of the scanning process. This is where you can decide if the document will be in color, black and white, or simply look just like the photo. You can also adjust the brightness and contrast to make sure the final documents looks good. Tapping Done at this stage will finish the scan.

After you've scanned your documents, you can share them to Dropbox, Evernote, or GoogleDocs. Scanner Pro also includes the "Open in" button so that you can open you scanned documents in any other apps that support PDFs.

The Good

• Easy way to scan documents on the go
• Does a fantastic job
• Auto edge detection is pretty accurate
• Set page size
• Support for multi-pate documents
• Option for password protection
• Sync with Dropbox, Evernote, and GoogleDocs
• Universal for iPhone and iPad

The Bad

• Edges can't go off the screen, so make sure your document is completely visible in your photo

The Conclusion

Scanner Pro does a great job at scanning documents into electronic form. It's a perfect solution for people who don't have access to scanner or for those time they're away from their scanner. I'm beginning to think I didn't need to purchase that all-in-one printer I bought last month.

$6.99 - Download Now

Everybody's favorite time-slowing vigilante, Max Payne, is now available on iPhone and iPad. Sure, the game originally launched on consoles and PC is a little old, but Max Payne Mobile comes complete with all of the dual pistol-wielding bullet-time action we know and love. There's support for the new iPad's Retina display, and compatibility with every iPhone going back to the 3GS. The gameplay itself looks pretty much identical, including the third-person perspective and comic-style cutscenes, but there's an added bonus for configurable controls, so you can drag and drop your fire button wherever is most comfortable. Max Payne for iOS will also tie in with Rockstar's Social Club community for sharing profiles and achievements.

I saw the Rockstar booth at PAX East 2012, but they were primarily interested in showing off Max Payne 3 for consoles and PC. While a whiff of nostalgia may convince many gamers to pick this up, 9 years really ages a game; I think it's safe to say that the iPhone and iPad can handle much more than what Max Payne Mobile is demanding in horsepower. Of course, if Rockstar had mobilized Max Payne 2 instead, odds are good that it would only be available on the latest iOS hardware, and even then, they might have had to dumb down a few aspects to keep gameplay smooth.

In any case, it's still nice to see Max's face on an iPhone, puckered as it may be. Anyone big fans of the franchise? You can download the game now at the link below. Keep an eye out for our review soon!

Max Payne Mobile - $2.99 - Download Now

Thanks to its big, beautiful screen, the iPad is a great way to read traditional Newsstand-style magazines in a new, digital way. Because the iPad is online, however, and can be hooked into everything from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it can also be a lot more. It can be a dynamic, personalized magazine filled with things that are important to you, recommended by the people you trust most, or updated based on your previous likes or dislikes. Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse have all sought to make dynamic, personal, sometimes even social magazine apps for the iPad, and they've all gone about it in a different way. Which one is the absolute best? Lets take a look!

User Interface

While all three have great layouts, you can literally see the attention to detail in Flipboard. Everything from the way pages flip downwards to how tiles fold to reveal sections is beautifully done.

Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse all have great interfaces that makes it easy for readers to navigate around and explore news and social sites.

Flipboard is just fun. The cover page is full of big, bold squares and rectangles that highlight photos and images and give you categories to choose from. You navigate by literally flipping the boards to drill deeper into sections and stories. The layout inside the sections is crisp and clean and you can easily flip through until you find a story that catches your eye. Tap a story you like and you're zoomed into a full-screen view. If you want to move tiles around or don't want a specific section, hold down on a tile just like you would to move around app icons on your homescreen. You can then move them around and delete sections you aren't interesting in reading (you can always restore them later via settings if you'd like). Once you're done deleting and organizing, just tap any tile to exit edit mode.

Zite keeps things simple by using white space so there is no distraction from content. Click into an article or view more of a category using the main navigation bar on the left. There's nothing to find hidden away. It's simple and clean throughout.

Zite uses lots of white space and it's Top Stories page looks like the table of contents of a contemporary, modern magazine. Sections are off to the side and rendered in big, beautiful type, and individual stories are shown in a spartan, stripped down, almost "read later" style.

Pulse has the most going on in terms of homescreen layout. While some users may consider it to be too busy, others may like having access to more information in just a few flicks.

Pulse has the densest cover page of the three, and is set on black instead of white. Not only does it fit a lot of content onto one page, but you can swipe through any of the horizontal sections to see even more stories. Tap on one you like and a panel slides over to show you the story. You can swipe sideways inside the panel to move between stories, and because the cover page remains visible, keep swiping between the sections as well to keep browsing even more quickly.

All three are very well designed. However, the award has to go to Flipboard. Everything from the carefully crafted icon to the way pages flip and tiles fold down to view sections is beautiful and intelligently thought out. It's one of those apps that you want to use just because the interface is so enjoyable.

Content

Flipboard allows you to add, order, and remove topics and sections that you want to read. Beyond that, there isn't too much customization for content.

Content is king for a reason. No matter how beautiful an app may be, if there's nothing in it, its value will be limited. When it comes to content, Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Flipboard integrates RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well. So if you're looking for an app that allows you to not only keep up with news but with friends and family, Flipboard offers an incredibly personalized experience.

Pulse takes it a step further than Flipboard and allows you to search for feeds or search from recommendations. But unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you won't get customized content.

Pulse allows you to add individual RSS feeds on their own as well as browse for news. There is no Facebook and Twitter integration, though you can sign in with your Facebook account. Pulse will provide suggestions for feeds but nothing that's very customized.

While all three allow you to pick general news feeds, Zite takes it one step further by allowing you to rate stories and authors. It will then show you more of the content you like and less of what you don't like.

That's where Zite comes in swinging. While Flipboard and Pulse basically pull in the information you've already decided you want to look at, Zite aims to personalize and improve your reading experience over time. When you first launch Zite you can grant it access to your Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious, and Read it Later accounts as a starting point. From there it'll provide you news that it thinks you'll enjoy. If you find a story you don't care for, tap into it and give it a thumbs down. Zite will then stop showing you stories simliar to those. If you find a story, subject, or writer you enjoy following, give them a thumbs up and Zite will pull in more articles that are simliar or by the same author.

Flipboard's Facebook and Twitter integration means you get to see things your friends and the people you follow like. With Zite, you get to see things their continuously refined recommendation engine thinks you'll like. I've found tons of new sites, stories, and writers I enjoy thanks to Zite that I may never have found otherwise, and since I already use Facebook and Twitter in their own sites, I don't feel like I'm missing out by not having them in Zite.

That gives Zite the edge.

Social sharing

You can share stories you enjoy straight to Twitter or Facebook from Pulse with the tap of a button. It does not, however, provide the deep integration for Twitter and Facebook so your streams populate in your feed like Flipboard does.

Zite, Pulse, and Flipboard all allow you to share stories to Facebook, Twitter, read later services, email, and many more. So there's really no clear winner in this category. Whichever one you decide to use, you'll be able to share things with anyone or any social circle you'd like. All three also support Instapaper and Read It Later.

Flipboard allows you to comment on stories as well as share them. You can also integrate your social networking feeds so you can keep up with friends straight from your main screen.

While Zite and Pulse only allow you to share stories to Facebook and Twitter, Flipboard actually allows you to pull in your Facebook and Twitter feeds. They'll filter in just like news. You can also see who is tweeting stories and you can comment on them as well as @ reply the creator if they're integrated into Twitter. So when it comes to social, all provide integration but Flipboard provides a more in-depth and personal experience.

When it comes to social networking, Flipboard gets the cake.

Cost

All three applications are free in the App Store so if you're debating between one or the other, there's really nothing to lose. Just download all three and stick with the one you find suits you the best.

Tie.

Conclusion

Flipboard is very well put together and integrates social networking in a way the other two don't. If you're heavily tied to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, this should be your go-to app. It's also got a unique layout that the others can't quite compete with just yet.

Pulse aims to pack a lot of information on the main screen by using tiles that slide horizontally and vertically. While quick access is important, so is what the app looks like. And to many users Pulse will be a bit too busy. If you're a power reader, you'll likely love Pulse. If not, it can be too much.

Zite has the simplest interface of the three and lets you really concentrate on reading. It may not be as fancy or fun, but for people who just want to read without distraction, it's fantastic.

While Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse all make reading news on the iPad an amazing experience, how they handle content is an important part of what makes one better than the other. For this reason, Zite takes the win. It's not only personal to each user, but it grows more personal over time as you use it. The way it recommends new content is something none of the other apps provide. Bottom line, Zite is the best social magazine app currently available on iPad.

Zite - Free - Download Now

Pulse - Free - Download Now

Flipboard - Free - Download Now

Additional Resources:

• Which magazine style news app do you use on your iPad?
• iPad apps and games forum
• Even more iPhone and iPad app reviews

The most popular photo sharing website is Facebook, yet uploading more than one photo at once is a repetitive process -- you must select each photo one at a time. PixUploader for iPhone does a much better job at streamlining the selection process and will even automatically select your most recent photos when you launch the app.

PixUploader is extremely easy to use. You can set up PixUploader to automatically add the most recent 1-8 photos in your Camera Roll when you launch the app. If you decide against uploading a selected image, you simply flick it away. To select more photos, just tap Add Photos.

Before starting the upload, you can select which Facebook album to upload the photos to, add cations, and tag your friends. If you tap on one of the thumbnails of the photos you've selected to upload, the image will open full size with a caption field to fill in. If you tap on the image, a list of your Facebook friends will slide up so that you can tag them in your photo. PixUploader will show a gray square on the area you can expect the tag to appear. Tapping this square will give you the option to delete the tag.

When your photos are ready to upload, just simply tap Upload and PixUploader will immediately start uploading them. They'll be uploaded one at a time at an acceptable rate. Eight photos will take more than a few seconds, however, but the good news is that PixUploader will continue uploading in the background if you want to switch over to another app.

The Good

• Easy to use
• Fast
• Upload up to 8 photos
• Add captions
• Tag friends
• Select which album to upload to
• Uploads in the background
• Choose to have PixUploader to automatically select your most recent 1-8 photos at launch
• Has two color schemes: blue and orange

The Bad

• Why limit to only 8 photos?

The Conclusion

PixUploader is a great way to share multiple photos to Facebook at once. The ability to add captions and tag friends makes it so you don't have to make any changes to Facebook after the photos have been uploaded. There have been many times that I only shared one photo to Facebook because it takes too long with the Facebook app. Now, I'll just use PixUploader.

There is also a free version of PixUploader that has a max limit of 4 images at a time and does not allow you to tag your friends and it's ad supported. The free version is a great way to test out PixUploader before you commit to buying it, though.

$0.99 - Download Now

Free - Download Now

Adobe Reader for iPad has recieved a great update and now allows users to fill out PDF forms, and mark them up with sticky notes, freehand annotating, highlighting, underline, and strikethroughs.

When viewing a PDF with Adobe Reader, you can tap the screen to bring up the toolbar at the top of the screen. This includes buttons for selecting the page turning style (continuous or single page), sharing options, text search, and annotation.

The annotation button replaces the toolbar with a new one that includes buttons to add notes, highlights, strikethroughs, underlines, signatures, and freehand drawing. For highlighting, striking, and underlining, you simply have to drag your finger across the text, and Adobe Reader will automatically add the markup as if it had been done with a word processor.

The freehand drawing isn't anything amazing, but it works find. The strokes aren't amazing, but they also aren't terrible. The biggest disappointment is that there isn't a zoom tool for smaller writing and there isn't an undo button.

When adding a signature, Adobe Reader will pop up a screen for you to sign. You'll want to make your signature nice and big so that it looks good. Once you're done signing, you can adjust the thickness before entering it into the document. Adobe Reader will keep your signature saved so that you can quickly and easily add it to another document (or the same document) in the future.

If you tap on a signature or handwritten annotation, options to change the color, thickness, and opacity will pop up. You can also drag them around, adjust the size, or delete them from your document.

Filling out forms is as simple as tapping the fillable field. The keyboard will slide up, allowing you to type into the field.

The Good

• Great tutorial PDF included
• Easily mark up PDF content with sticky notes, the freehand drawing tool or the highlight, strikethrough, and underline tools
• Add comments anywhere in your PDF file with sticky notes
• Fill out PDF forms
• Use Ink Signature tool to add signature or send PDF files to others for electronic signing using Adobe EchoSign

The Bad

• No zoom-in tool for handwriting
• Can't undo

The Conclusion

There are better PDF annotation apps out there, but most of them come at a price. If you're looking for a free solution, Adobe Reader will get the job done.

Free - Download Now

After the big news that Facebook acquired Instagram, some users rushed to delete their Instagram accounts because they were unhappy about the deal and don't trust Facebook with their photos. But where are these users to go? I set out on a hunt for a good alternative to Instagram for these users and found picplz.

Like Instagram, picplz is a social photo sharing app that includes several filters that can be applied to your photos. You can follow your friends from Facebook and Twitter, "like" photos, and leave comments.

One of the things I like about picplz is that you are not restricted to square crops. In fact, picplz includes a slew of editing tools, including cropping. Additionally, you can rotate, add memes, draw, adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and colors, add text, repair redeye and blemishes, whiten teeth, blur, sharpen and flip. There are 9 different filters to choose from, either with or without a frame. picplz displays them as 18 different filters though, instead of just have an option to trigger the frame on and off for each filter. This is annoying and gives you the false impression of having more filters to choose from than you do.

The Interesting tab in picplz is similar to Instagram's Popular tab and displays the photos as thumbnails. Tapping on an image will display a larger version of the photo with the caption above it. The font size of the caption is rather large, and with long captions, it's not very visually appealing. Underneath the photo, you'll see the buttons to "like" the photo and add it to a collection. If you keep scrolling, you can leave a comment at the end of the list of usernames have liked the photo. As you can imagine, sometimes this list can get rather long.

When you're ready to share your photo, in addition to the picplz network, you can share your photos to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, and Dropbox and check-in to Foursquare.

Another thing I really like about picplz, is that when someone clicks on your link from a computer, the browser window that it opens in allows picplz users to "like" and leave comments on your photo without having to use the app.

The Good

• Lots of editing tools
• 9 filters
• Can include location with photo uploads
• Can create collections
• My Network, Interesting, and Activity tabs
• Check into Foursquare

The Bad

• Captions have too large of font
• List of "likes" has the potential of being very long and annoying to scroll through
• Cannot select a photo from camera mode. You must instead navigate to your Camera Roll from the more tab. It's unintuitive.
• Filters aren't clearly labeled unless selected

The Conclusion

picplz is not Instagram. It's not as good as Instagram. But it has great potential as an Instagram alternative. In fact, it has some features about it that are better than Instagram. The UI needs a little work, but it's still a great app, and if you're an ex-Instagram user who is not happy with their deal with Facebook, you should give picplz a try.

Free - Download Now

Apple chose not to include clock, voice recording, weather, calculator, and stock apps, but luckily the App Store has great alternatives for each one!

When Steve Jobs introduced the very first iPad, one of his big statements was that the 75 million iPhone users in the world already knew how to use it. Well, many of those users were suprised to discover that four of the built-in apps that they had grown to love on their iPhone were missing on their iPad. Namely, Clock, Voice Memos, Weather, Calculator and Stocks. Rumor has it Apple didn't think those apps would scale to look good on the bigger iPad screen. Fortunately, many great developers have filled that void and proven that, not only can these apps look good on the iPad. They can look great.

In fact, there are so many great apps in these categories that it can be overwhelming. That's where we come in. We took all the top Clock, Voice Memos, Weather, Calculator, scrutinized them, and tested them some more and named a single app in each category as the best of its kind. So without further adieu, here they are!

Best clock app -- Night Stand for iPad

Night Stand for is a gorgeous clock app for the iPad the supports the new iPad's Retina Display. In the background of your flip-style clock, you can have a slideshow of included movies/animations or photos, or you can have it play through your own photos.

As for the alarm clock, you can add as many alarms as you need with custom interval times and wake up to your own music or one of the included sounds. There is also a large range of intervals for that precious snooze button.

But that's not all, Night Stand includes widgets for Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and weather, so that you don't even need to leave the app after it wakes you up to check up on all the social networks and news -- something you normally do before rolling out of bed anyway.

• Night Stand for iPad review

$2.99 - Download Now

Best voice recording app -- Audio Memos

If you're looking for a Voice Recorder for your iPad that offer great quality and professional features, look no further than Audio Memos. It in three different versions: a free one that does only the basics, a $0.99 version that does a little bit more with optional extensions available as in-app purchases, and a Pro version that includes all the extensions available in the $0.99 version. So whether you're looking for something basic, middle of the road, or full-featured, Audio Memos has got you covered.

• Audio Memos review

Free - Download Now

$1.99 - Download Now

$9.99 - Download Now

Best weather app - Living Earth HD

Living Earth HD is a gorgeous way to check the weather. It features an interactive earth in the background that can be rotated and zoomed in and out of with your fingers. You can also tap a button that keep the earth slowly rotated on its axis, and as it spins, you see which part of the earth is currently being hit by the sun.

Regarding weather, Living Earth HD will give you 10-day forecasts that are broken down into 2-hour intervals as well as show you sunrise/sunset times. There is also an option to have the current cloud formations overlaid on the earth, so that you can get an idea of any clouds that might be heading your way.

In addition to weather, Living Earth HD also include an alarm clock that allows you to wake up to your own music and set custom repeat intervals. It only supports one alarm setting at a time, however.

Living Earth HD may not be as fully-featured as some other weather apps, but it provides the information that most people want -- and does it beautifully.

• Living Earth HD review

$1.99 - Download Now

Best calculator app - Calcbot

Calcbot is a great scientific calculator for the iPhone and iPad. It features nice, large keys and a SwipePad that switches between the basic operations (including numbers) and scientific functions. It also keep track of all your calculations on a tape where you can copy and paste into a new calculation. Another nice feature is that it keeps a live history of what you type, so that you never get lost with where you are in your calculation.

• Calcbot for iPhone and iPad review

$1.99 - Download Now

Best stock app - Bloomberg for iPad

Whether you need to casually monitor stocks on your iPad or just find the urge to check out financial news, Bloomberg provides the best of both worlds combined with an easy to use interface. I've found that some of the applications in the App Store are quite hard to navigate and may be confusing for many users to figure out. Sometimes too many charts and graphs can be overwhelming. Bloomberg gives you what you want to know right up front.

If you're more interested in world and financial news than you are stocks, Bloomberg doubles up as a great resource for such information. It ties news and the stock market together in a fluid way that users will appreciate.

• Bloomberg for iPad review

Free - Download Now

Khan Academy is well known in the education world as being a fantastic resource for students to watch videos to learn more about topics covered in class. It's also great for non-students who are just thirsty for knowledge and want to study a subject on their own time. And for free. The Khan Academy iPad app is the best way to put learning in your own hands.

Khan Academy covers a massive number of topics, including K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even the humanities with playlists on finance and history.

Each video can be streamed to your iPad or downloaded for offline viewing. If you wish, you can even download all the videos in a topic at once so that you don't have to click each one individually.

Most, but not all, videos include subtitles with each video. This is extremely helpful for those times that you can't understand what the instructor was saying, or if you don't know how to spell some term that the instructor said but didn't write down. These subtitles are shown underneath the video and can be scrolled through.

If you log into Khan Academy, you can keep track of your progress and earn achievements for watching videos and completing topics.

As of now, there are not any practice exercises available in the Khan Academy app, but they promise to bring them soon.

I've always been a fan of Khan Academy and recommend it to all my students as a fabulous resource. The instructors are very qualified for the subjects they are teaching and do a great job at explaining and making the topics interesting to learn about.

The Good

• Over 2700 videos
• Covers a lot of topics
• Most videos include subtitles
• Share to Facebook and Twitter
• Free

The Bad

• Not all videos include subtitles
• Exercises are not yet available

The Conclusion

Khan Academy is a fantastic app for any one who wants to learn. It doesn't matter if you're a small child, college student, or a seasoned adult who hasn't been in a classroom in 30 years, Khan Academy is for everyone. And best of all -- it's free!

Free - Download Now