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Today in the App Store -- the best free apps, new apps and app updates

Kelly Hodgkins
Contributor
Updated ·6 min read
0
App Store

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

Apps Now Free

Edge of Twilight - Athyr Above [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $1.99] Steampunk is one of those genres that we just don't see enough of. And with Edge of Twilight - Athyr Above, developer FUZZYEYES brings the genre to iOS.

DoubleDragon [iPhone; Now free, down from $0.99] Double Dragon spawned the golden age of the Beat'em Up in the late '80s and with its brutal street fighting and cooperative gameplay.

Spendbook - Personal Finance Tracker [iPhone; Now free, down from $1.99] Spendbook is a beautiful app for tracking your expenses and income.

Devious Dungeon [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $0.99] Devious Dungeon is a medieval action platforming game by the creators of Random Heroes and League of Evil!

mo.Today [iPhone; Now free, down from $1.99] mo.Today is a personal assistant that helps you see your daily events and to-dos in a very simple way.

ReadQuick [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $9.99] The world's best speed reading app. ReadQuick helps you read faster than ever before.

Studio 2 [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $2.99] Studio 2: Don't pay for studio time, Buy the Studio!

GridWars 2 [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $0.99] GridWars is a fast-paced and exciting space shoot game with twin stick control.

Republique [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $4.99] RÉPUBLIQUE is an intense, thrilling, and topical, stealth-action game that explores the perils of government surveillance in the Internet Age. Apple's app of the week, sale ends today.

New and Notable Apps

Audibly [iPhone; Free] Audibly plays your music in sync across nearby iOS devices

Broken Age [iPad; $9.99] The first graphic adventure by Tim Schafer in sixteen years, Broken Age began two years ago in a historic, record-breaking Kickstarter campaign

Great Little War Game 2 [iOS Universal; $2.99] Command your troops wisely and try to prevail against the massive 60 mission campaign that says you can't.

Down In The Deep (roguelike) [iOS Universal; $1.99] Down In The Deep is a REAL-TIME roguelike / RPG world dungeon crawler with quests!

Angry Birds Epic [iOS Universal; Free] Get ready for a bird-tastic FREE RPG adventure filled with "weapons" (whatever they could get ahold of), magic, bad guys and silly hats! Lead your feathery team into battle now – it's going to be EPIC!

(R)evolve [iOS Universal; Free] Life is evolving on an alien planet and it's your job to protect it!

Updates you don't want to miss

Halftone 2 [iOS Universal; $1.99] Turn your photos into comic book pages and videos with Halftone 2. Version 1.3 brings the following changes:

  • Added video export (we hope you love it!)

  • Increased maximum font size by 50% (frequent user request)

  • Added audio sound effect support for each panel with 50 included sound effects

  • Added "auto captions" feature in settings to automatically create captions when photos with descriptions are imported

  • Added panel order to the Effects tab of page options to control how the "camera" visits each panel in a video

  • Added video timing and transition options to the Effects tab of each panel

  • Added soundtrack support for video output

  • Added "auto stretch" feature to shorten or lengthen the video to match a soundtrack

  • Some output options from the last opened document are now automatically applied to the next new document

  • Performance improvements and bug fixes

Skype for iPhone [iPhone; Free] Remastered to put your conversations with the people who matter most at your fingertips. Version 5 brings the following changes:

  • Overall performance improvements - faster start up and fluid animations.

  • A new modern hub centric design putting recent conversations first - just swipe to see your favourite people or contacts.

  • Richer and more reliable messaging: create groups, share photos (even to offline contacts) and video messages.

  • In-app notifications for quick conversation switching, and in-app controls to manage notifications.

  • A new simplified, modern voice and video calling experience.

Breaking News + [iOS Universal; Free] Find out first when it matters most. Breaking News is now the only app that alerts you when a big story breaks near your location. Version 3.30 brings the following changes:

  • A first for a news app: proximity alerts for big breaking stories near you

  • Engaging new design with larger photos, infinite scroll, simple navigation and more

  • "Watchlist" makes it easy to monitor breaking news in your favorite topics

  • Improved search to find topics and stories faster out of 38,000+ available

  • Expanded the maximum number of custom alerts to 10!

Leaf - The News Reader [OS X; $7.99] Leaf is an amazing news reader for your Mac. Read, share, star and search your news by using a clean, intuitive, OS X Yosemite-style next generation interface. Version 3.0 brings the following changes:

  • Improved Sidebar: Easily browse your articles by folders or individual feeds. Quickly switch between All / Unread / Stared articles and simply manage your subscriptions.

  • Improved News Reader: Customize the appearance of your articles and easily switch between Article Summary, Clutter-free preview or even the original website of the article.

  • Beautiful Themes: White, Dark (night mode) and Coffee theme

  • Gestures: Swipe left/right over the News Reader to switch reading mode and up/down to scroll through the article list. Hide/show sidebar by swiping left/right over the article list. Switch All Articles, Unread, Stared by swiping left/right over sidebar

  • Keyboard Shortcuts

  • MORE SERVICES: We're working on adding new sync services like Feed Wrangler, Feedbin and Fever. Please let us know which service would you like to see in version 3.1.

Scanbot [iOS Universal; $1.99] Scanbot is your premium mobile scanner app for documents and QR codes. Version 2.0 brings the following changes:

  • NEW: Scan QR codes

  • NEW: iPad support

  • Optimized: Grayscale filter

  • Many small improvements and bugfixes

Skitch [iOS Universal; Free] Use Skitch to snap it, mark it up with simple tools, and send it on in an instant. Version 3.2 brings the following changes:

  • New swipable design for starting new Skitch markups

  • Swipe between Photo, Camera, Web, Maps, PDF, Drawing, and more.

  • Saving and Sharing from Evernote has gotten better! Now you can pick a notebook to save to or get a share link by saving and sharing from your account.

  • Evernote related favorites will show the notebook name and an icon to make it easy to tell which ones save to a Notebook and which ones save & share.

  • PDFs can be shared via social services. If you have an Evernote account and you try and share to Twitter or Facebook, then Skitch will automatically save the annotated PDF to Evernote and return a share link to use.

  • Improved the toolbar when annotating images. Crop is easier to access, and the overall look is much nicer.

  • Lots more tweaks and bug fixes.