Top Gear, Fantastical, Etsy, FxCamera, Winnie the Pooh, Minecraft Reality, Played in Britain and more
Welcome to our weekly roundup of brand new iPhone and iPad apps released in the last seven days, from cars, productivity apps and crafty shopping through to photography, theatre and uber-violent cartoon cats and mice.
As ever, games aren't included, because they have their own separate weekly post covering all platforms. This week's roundup included iOS games like Jet Set Radio, BattleFriends at Sea, Arcane Legends and Word Derby.
What about Android apps? They have their own weekly roundup, and you can find the latest one here. November's Windows Phone roundup will follow early next week. In the meantime, here's this week's selection of new iOS releases:
Top Gear Magazine: Aston Martin One-77 Special (Free)
This one-off digital magazine from the Top Gear team focuses on Aston Martin's new supercar (a snip at £1.2m). Expect lots of photos, videos and information on the car's design and inner workings, as well as "a blast of its mighty 7.3-litre V12" engine. And since it's free, you'll save a few quid towards the car itself...
iPad
Fantastical (£1.49)
Lots of buzz this week around Flexibits' Fantastical, which is a smarter, whizzier version of the default iOS calendar app. That includes voice dictation, a "DayTicker" view of your daily schedule, lists of events pulled down from Facebook, and support for iCloud, Google Calendar and Exchange. If you switched to Sparrow from the iOS Mail app, this may be your next move.
iPhone
Etsy (Free)
Already available on iPhone, crafts website Etsy now has a fully iPad-optimised version of its app. It works for both buyers and sellers, browsing the 11m-strong catalogue and buying for the former, and listing new items and following orders for the latter.
iPad
FxCamera (Free)
Photography app FxCamera has been hugely popular on Android, with more than 20m downloads. It's now made the leap to iPhone, and looks to have the features to take on the established competition there. There's a range of effects, the ability to record voice messages to accompany images posted to Facebook, and other social features.
iPhone
Winnie the Pooh Wonder and Wander (Free)
Disney's latest iOS app for Winnie the Pooh and friends looks lovely, with a characterful visual style, and lots of playful interactivity for children to enjoy. It's less a book and more a wander around Hundred Acre Wood, tapping and swiping the scenery and characters, with additional colouring sections.
iPhone / iPad
Minecraft Reality (£1.49)
This is most definitely a niche, but a rather marvellous one. It's an augmented reality app for people who play Minecraft, helping them project their blocky creations into the real world. And here's the thing that is getting geeks (yes, me) excited: the ability to save Minecraft worlds to real-world locations, for other people to find and explore.
iPhone / iPad
Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays, 1945-2010 (Free)
This is the latest iPad app from the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum in London, drawing on its collection of theatrical photographs. It's a guide to 100 post-war plays in Britain – you may have guessed this already from the title – with the photos complemented by text extracts, reviews from the Guardian and Telegraph, essays and audio interviews from experts, and video commentary from Guardian critic Michael Billington. [Disclosure: I spotted this go live on the App Store, nobody at Guardian HQ has been leaning on me to cover the app].
iPad
Grazia UK Magazine (Free)
Women's magazine Grazia has launched an official iPad app for its UK edition, offering weekly digital issues for £1.99 a pop, or a choice of longer subscriptions. The key feature, though, is that the articles are also shoppable: you can tap on items to browse, buy or share with friends.
iPad
KORG iPolysix (£10.49)
What's the secret to bucking the downward pricing pressure on the App Store? Lots of knobs! No, not that kind – Apple wouldn't allow it – the electronic music instrument kind. KORG has published several apps based on its famous instruments, with iPolysix being the latest. It's an analog polyphonic synthesizer based on the real-world Polysix, with a new step sequencer and all manner of kno... controls to twiddle.
iPad
Tom and Jerry: Stickers with Sounds (£0.69)
Hot on the heels of similar apps for Batman and Superman, this children's app is the work of Night & Day Studios. Kids choose characters and items from a carousel at the bottom of the screen, slap them onto scenery from the famous Tom and Jerry cartoons, then save/share the results. And if Tom and Jerry aren't your bag, there's a Looney Tunes version out this week too.
iPad
UberSocial Pro for iPhone (£2.99)
UberSocial made its name as one of the better unofficial Twitter apps, and despite ructions around how third-party apps are being restricted by Twitter, its publisher UberMedia has released a new Pro version for iPhone. It has a slick design, more rich media, and some power features still lacking from Twitter's own iPhone app.
iPhone
Toca Tailor Fairy Tales (Free)
Toca Tailor is excellent: a recently released children's app that gets children making virtual clothes, including using the camera to capture patterns from the real world. This is a new, completely separate free version with a fairytale theme, designed to give kids and parents a taste of the main app.
iPhone / iPad
Robots for iPad (£2.99)
Talking of parents, this is exactly the kind of app that people will buy "for the children" while really intending to spend a few hours browsing it themselves. Released by the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers, it's a comprehensive guide to robots from around the world with 360-degree photos, tech specs, videos and other information.
iPad
500px (Free)
Already available on iPad, 500px has just made its iPhone debut on the App Store. It's a photo-sharing service but with more of a focus on creatives and photographers than the likes of Instagram (although that attracts plenty of creatives too). So it's more about browsing lots of amazing photos and sharing them with friends, than snapping your lunch.
iPhone
George R. R. Martin's A World of Ice and Fire (Free)
Who's what? Well, this is an official companion app for the books by author Martin that have been turned into an obscure TV show called Game of Thrones. Yes, that one. Released by Random House, this app has more than 540 character profiles, 380 place profiles and interactive maps – great for figuring out who's who and where they are when reading or watching.
iPhone / iPad
Fodor's City Guides - Expert Travel Advice (Free)
More Random House here, in the form of Fodor's City Guides, which have been turned into an attractive iPhone app. It covers destinations including New York, London, Paris, Rome and San Francisco, with listings for hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs and tourist hotspots, and data drawn from Expedia, OpenTable and other sites.
iPhone / iPad
Yplan – London (Free)
Anyone who's been covering the apps space for a while is probably suffering from social/location fatigue, but Yplan does look interesting. Focusing on the capital only for now, it offers daily lists of interesting events with buttons to book tickets, integration with Apple's Passbook, and referral features to earn money when friends spend.
iPhone
Expect More! (Free)
Bauer Media's More! magazine is the latest publication to experiment with augmented reality technology. In this case it's an Aurasma-powered app designed to be used with the current issue of the glossy magazine, offering videos and other content when pointed at the pages.
iPhone / iPad
Squeebles Maths Bingo (£0.69)
Making a good educational app for children can be a fine line between information and entertainment – a lot of attempts end up dry and boring. Squeebles Maths Bingo walks that line well though, with a storyline blending bingo and ice cream, and maths exercises for kids that lead to sweet-snack creation.
iPhone / iPad
Spun: City News (Free)
Spun is an interesting new spin on the city-guides genre: "a constantly updated urban guide, insider tip sheet, and local news jacked on steroids". So rather than a pure tourism guide, it's as much for locals, as well as people who've emigrated elsewhere but want to keep in touch with hometown goings-on. Covered so far are New York, Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Austin, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
iPhone
When I Grow Up (£1.49)
It's another storming week for new children's apps, including this from Spanish developer Sanoen Publishing. Aimed at early readers, it focuses on the jobs they might want to do when they grow up, with vocab in six languages, and a range of reading modes depending on the child's age and skills. The illustrations are full of character, too, so it's not dry.
iPad
Garmin BlueChart Mobile (Free)
This is a more serious affair: a marine navigation and mapping app from Garmin, which can be used to plan and view routes, read reviews of locations and hazards on the high seas from other sailors, and transfer data to Garmin's separate chartplotter device.
iPhone / iPad
Rounds Video Chat Hangout Network (Free)
This popped up in last week's Android roundup, but it's since been officially launched for iPhone too. It's a free video-chat app that ties in Facebook to connect to friends. Besides basic video chat there are photo-sharing features and the ability to watch YouTube videos or listen to music with those contacts.
iPhone
Perch – For Your Home (Free)
Perch is another app focused on video chat, although it does it with a twist requiring an extra iOS device. The idea: "By mounting an iPod, iPhone or iPad in your home, you can easily send video messages and record memorable moments as they happen." Which basically means wandering up to the device and talking to record a message.
iPhone
The Whole Truth About Santa Claus (£1.99)
One last festive children's app for you this week, from French developer La Souris Qui Raconte. This one's "not recommended for younger children who still believe in Santa Claus", mind, due to its myth-scotching storyline about Santa really being a bloke called Fred who gets his mates to help deliver presents. Quirky, colourful and great fun.
iPad
ReferenceME (£0.69)
This is a very nifty app from British startup T & Biscuits, aimed at students and academics. The idea: scan book barcodes to create automatic citations and bibliographies when working on essays, with a choice of several referencing styles (Harvard, Chicago, Oxford etc) to suit even the most demanding lecturer.
iPhone
Turntable DJ Deck (£3.99)
There is no shortage of nifty DJing apps on iPad, with djay the current reigning steel-wheels champion in this household. Turntable DJ Deck is talking the right talk though, billing itself as "the first professional DJ deck for iPad" with a range of pro features.
iPad
iYoga – Premium (£1.99)
Taking an iPad onto the yoga mat may sound like a strange idea, but iYoga may convince you otherwise. It's a guide to more than 190 poses, with a motion-captured person showing you how to get each one right. Poses can be strung together into routines, and it plays nice with Apple TV to project everything onto a bigger screen if required.
iPad
Movellas Poetry (Free)
This is an offshoot from mobile writing site Movellas, gathering some of the poetry written by its community. That means more poems, haikus and sonnets than you can shake a stick at, with the ability to post feedback, save them to favourites lists, and get notified when a preferred poet has new verse available.
iPhone
SongSheet (£4.99)
Finally, and on a vaguely-related note, SongSmith is an iPad app for songwriters to "compose, organise, perform and share your songs". That includes a composition editor for writing, the ability to create and edit setlists for gigs, and lots of customisation and drag'n'drop features.
iPad
That's our selection this week, but what about you? What iOS apps have you been using and enjoying, or what do you think of the ones above? Make your recommendations in the comments.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/nov/30/best-iphone-ipad-apps-30nov12
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