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Daily App: StackMotion lets you create dynamic photos by combining images, video, text and music
StackMotion is a new photo editing tool from Flambe Studios, the makes of PicPlayPost and PopAGraph that allows you to combine photos, videos, text and music. The app uses layers to let you create really unique projects. StackMotion has two main screens -- the playback screen that allows you to view your project as you build it and the editing screen, which is where you swap out your media and tweak it to your satisfaction. The editing screen is where you will spend most of your time, and it is chock full of options for editing your project. The first step in creating a project is choosing the correct media for your background image and your foreground image. The foreground is a static image, but the background can be dynamic with the option to add a panoramic photo, a slide show or a video clip. Once you have the media selected, you can add them to your project by importing them from the camera roll or taking them live using the camera. As you would expect, the background image becomes your canvas, while the foreground image can be masked to overlay neatly on the background. You also can add text to the project and music if you prefer. The building of the project has the feel of the a non-linear editor like iMovie, but it is much more simple with a short timeline and only one media element per type, i.e., one block of text, one track of music, etc. When you are adding each type of media, the StackMotion app has a few editing options that allow you to change the text, flip your photo, apply filters, and so on. You also can set the text timing so it appears in the beginning, end or is always on the screen. An undo button allows you to correct mistakes, while a clear button lets you start over. When you are done editing, you can share your project via social media, upload it to a vide service like YouTube, publish it to Tumblr or export it to your photo roll. Overall, StackMotion was enjoyable to play with as it allows you to do more than just prettify a photo. The ability to use a slideshow, a video clip or a scrolling panorama as your background adds a new dimension to the creation process. My only complaint with the app is a minor one -- when you edit an element like text and hit the "Done" button, the app brings you to the playback screen to review your project and autoplays the clip, which can be annoying when you are trying to edit quietly. I'd rather stay in editing mode and have the option to review by manually pressing play when I am ready. StackMotion is available for US$1.99 from the iOS App Store.
Daily App: Footpath is a routing tool that'll tell you how far and how high you'll travel
Footpath is for outdoor enthusiasts who want an easy-to-use route planning tool that measures how far and how high a route will take you. The iPhone and iPad app allows you to zoom in on a map and draw a route on a road, trail or river so you can plan your next outside adventure. Footpath then analyzes your route and calculates both the distance and the elevation that you will travel. It's handy for the outdoor runner, hiker cyclist or river kayaker. Footpath allows you to toggle between a street view or satellite view when you are drawing your route. The street view is part street and part topographic map, which is hit or miss for the area in which I live. I appreciate the topo maps as they allow you to see elevation and other aspects of the terrain, but the maps in the app are misaligned (see below), which makes it difficult to plan a mountain hiking route based on map details only. Though you lose the elevation details, the satellite maps are much easier to use for planning an off-road hike. If you are keeping to the road, then the street view is just fine for road runs and bike rides as the roads are very easy to follow on the map. The route planning tool has a few useful features that simplifies the route drawing process, including the ability to snap the route to known roads or trails. This feature allows you to draw your route loosely and let the app automatically select the appropriate roads/trails. You also can freehand your route, but this is difficult, especially in those forested areas where a trail or road is not already visible on the map. Besides snapping to a trail, Footpath also allows you to automatically fill in your route by selecting the "Loop" or "Out & Back" options when planning your run or hike. This feature will analyze the existing waypoints on your route and use a trail or road map to choose the best route back home. You should know that Footpath is a planning tool only that is best used before you start your run or ride. It does not include any navigation options that tell you which way to go when you finally make your way outside. Footpath is 99-cents in the iOS App Store, with limits on the number of routes (up to five) that you can save. You can open up both unlimited saves and the ability to export your routes for US$2.99 via an in-app purchase.
Daily App: Squiggle Racer makes 8-bit car racing frustratingly fun
Squiggle Racer is an 8-bit game that challenges you to race your car around a small circular track. The gameplay is simple -- use the two large buttons to control your steering and move that car around the track to complete laps. As you complete laps, you open up additional tracks. Squiggle Racer may appear simplistic, but don't let those basic graphics fool you. The racing game takes a page from Flappy Bird and is surprisingly difficult, so difficult that you'll find yourself slamming your phone down in frustration and then picking it right back up again because you know you can complete the lap this time. It takes the right combination of button taps and hold to maneuver around each track. Don't give up if you can't get it on the first try, you will eventually figure it out. It's taken me about a week to unlock two tracks, and I'm close to finishing the third. If you'd rather not challenge yourself, you can unlock all the tracks and remove ads via an in-app purchase of US$0.99. Squiggle Racer may be 8-bit, but it is a frustratingly fun car racing that's difficult to put down. If you enjoy that genre of throwback games, then it definitely worth a download. Squiggle Racer is available for free from the iOS App Store. There are small ads at the bottom that don't interfere with gameplay, and they can be removed via an in-app purchase.
Weekend App: Ski Tracks logs your performance when you hit the slopes
Winter is still going strong in most parts of the country, which means there is plenty of time to hit the slopes before the big spring thaw. If you have plans to go skiing in the near future, then you should definitely check out Ski Tracks from Core Coders. Ski Tracks is a tracking app that uses GPS to help you analyze your skiing. Just turn it on while you are skiing, and the app will track your runs in the background using location, speed and elevation information. It supports alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and a handful of other outdoor winter sports. You can view statistics about each run as well as a summary of each day you spend skiing. Stats including altitude, vertical, slope, duration, and speed. Data is presented in a combination of tables and charts that make it easy to analyze a run right from the trails. You also can wait until you are home and take a deep dive into each run, looking at them individually or comparing them throughout the season. Besides stats, Ski Tracks also lets you take photos that you can add to a track/run. This is a great way to remember an extra steep descent with knee-busting moguls or a memorable moment with friends. There's also a music feature that taps into your iTunes library, allowing you to listen to tunes while you ski. The run-by-run statistics that Ski Tracks compiles while you ski are useful for the casual skier who wants to remember the day and indispensable to the competitive skier who wants to improve their times. The app is easy on your battery allowing you put in a full day on the slopes and still have some battery left for the drive home. About the only feature missing from Ski Tracks is a ski resort database that auto-recognizes the location and trail that you are skiing. Ski Tracks is available for the iPhone from the iOS App Store for 99-cents.
Monkey Boots is stealing my minutes and turning them into hours
Even before Flappy Bird turned the App Store on its head, there was a bit of a casual gaming renaissance taking place on iOS. When I say "casual," I mean games that are easy to learn, but not necessarily so easy to master. Monkey Boots fits perfectly into that category, and its single game mechanic can feel both subtly brilliant and frustrating at the same time, which is all the more reason give it a try. In Monkey Boots you play as a cute, cube-shaped monkey on the run from an endless herd of elephants. You auto-run by default, and the simple touch controls let you jump, pounce downward quickly, and slow your speed. As elephants come barreling across the screen it's up to you to dodge them. Getting struck by a scampering pachyderm means instant failure. The longer you last, the more points you gain, and bonus points are rewarded for bouncing on top of the fleeing elephants. Speaking of the elephants, the ponderous beasts come in all shapes and sizes, from ones just barely larger than your primate to massive wooly mammoths that require a huge jump in order to clear. Failing isn't the end of the world, though, and as soon as you find yourself trampled and dead, you can instantly start another round. This softens the blow a bit when you ruin an especially solid run and besting your previous run is always the "carrot on a stick" that keeps you pushing for one more try. If you're looking for a more personal incentive to repeatedly sacrifice your little friend, there's also a leaderboard to check how much better (or worse) you are than your friends. Monkey Boots is free and includes ads that occasionally pop up after a round has ended. They're not invasive and never appear on the screen during gameplay, so it's a totally reasonable trade-off. If you've become addicted to ultra-simple games as of late, Monkey Boots definitely deserves your attention.
Daily App: Bridge Constructor challenges you to build radical bridges
Bridge Constructor is bridge construction game developed by ClockStone Studio and published by Headup Games that challenges you to build a bridge that is strong enough to support the weight of cars and trucks. Each level in Bridge Constructor presents you with a different building challenge. You have different materials you can use to construct your bridge and budget that allows for a few mistakes. If you are stumped, you can use your coins to purchase a hint that'll show you either a partial plan or the full plan for a bridge. There is no tutorial, but the UI is intuitive enough that you will know what to do after a few taps. On the right hand side of the screen are the materials that you can select. Early levels only provide wood, while higher levels give you steel, cables and concrete pillars. Once you have your materials in hand, you can tap and drag to start laying down the framework of the bridge. You can zoom in on the bridge structure and turn on the grid to help you precisely place your parts. There's also an undo button if you make a mistake. When you are done constructing, you can test your bridge by pressing the "play" button on the bottom right. This will test your bridge to see if it can stand on its own and withstand weight. The game uses color to show you weak areas in your construction, moving from green to red-brown on a scale of strong to weak. If you think your bridge is ready to traffic, you can tap on a car in this test mode and see if it can drive safely over the bridge. If the test drive is successful, you move onto the next level. If it fails, the car is destroyed in a fiery crash. The app is forgiving and allows you to rebuild and test a few times before you run out of cash in your budget. The physics behind Bridge Constructor is realistic enough to be fun, but it is not a true physics sim like TrussMe!. A few times in the early levels I built a bridge with no support and cars drove it successfully. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the challenge of thinking logically while building, and was entertained by the animation of the cars as they crossed my bridge. Bridge Constructor is available in the iOS App Store for US$0.99. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad. It has in-app purchases, the occasional ad for the developer's other games and links to Facebook to post your high scores. Really enjoying this logical construction game. The tutorial could use a little more detail, but the game has an intuitive user interface which makes up for the tutorial. Each successful construction adds to your knowledge of techniques to utilize for solving future bridge constructions. The graphics are good, as is the "zoom-in" feature, but the physics of the automobiles and trucks crashing are far from realistic, if that matters to you. Plenty of chances to correct a poorly constructed bridge & rebuild. I love the feature that you can back out pieces from the construction & regain your budget that was previously "spent". So a bridge can be repeatedly rebuilt and tested. The "test mode" shows weak areas of construction by a color shift from green to red-brown before a car/truck "tests" the bridge. Separate from the "construction budget" are "coins," which can be spent for hints on how to solve the bridge construction. More of these "coins" can be purchased as an in app purchase.
Daily App: Numerity is a twist on the paint by numbers game
Numerity from Zedarus Entertainment takes a paint by numbers game and turns it into an entertaining puzzle game that challenges you to find the object hidden in a cluster of numbers. The gameplay is easy, which may be a turn off for folks looking for more than a hidden numbers game. In each round, you are presented with numerals in a series. You must find each numeral and tap on it to highlight it on your screen. It's not easy as it sounds as the numbers are clustered together in a jumbled mess. You must scan and zoom to find the correct numeral hidden on the screen. When you have located all the numerals in the series, the app zooms out on your canvas and reveals the character you have outlined on the screen. You are scored based upon the amount of time it takes you to solve each puzzle. If you do well, you are rewarded with stars and coins, which can be used to purchase hints if needed. Playing Numerity is an interesting experience as you have relaxing music in the background and a timer on the screen that tracks how long you take to solve a puzzle. You want to relax while scanning for numbers, but that timer ticking in the corner reminds you must do it quickly. Numerity is available from the iOS App Store for US$0.99. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 6.0 or later. There are no ads, but the game does include in-app purchases for coins.
Daily App: SpeedTracker records your daily drive so you don't have to
SpeedTracker from AppAnnex falls into the navigation category of apps, but the app doesn't help you find your destination. It allows you to see on a map where you've been driving, how long you've been in the car and how fast you drove on your way. The tracker also has a real-time heads-up-display that shows you your current speed and driving direction. When you launch SpeedTracker, you are brought to the speedometer page, which shows the current speed of travel, the direction of driving and the mileage of the current trip. For the app to track your trip, you must tap on the red tracking button in the top left corner. It'll be solid red and say "Tracking Off" until you start the tracking feature. You will know when it is on as the button will flash red and the caption will say "Tracking is ON." When enabled, the tracking uses GPS to record the speed and distance of your trip. It also maps your route and save it for later review. While driving, you can switch between four different screens that show your trip progress. Switching is easily accomplished either by tapping on the bottom of the screen or swiping across the screen. The four screens include a speedometer as described above, a map showing your route, a trip summary and a HUD, which allows you to display the speed and driving direction on your windshield by placing your phone on the dashboard. This HUD feature didn't work so well for me as I don't have a way to secure my phone on my dashboard and it slid every time I took a corner. When you stop, you can turn the tracking off and are given the option of ending your trip or pausing it for a short time. This resume feature allows you to halt the tracking when you have to make a stop that you don't want recorded. When you are done tracking, the log of your trip is saved to your iPhone. The log includes your distance and elapsed time, which is broken down into travel time and stopped time. The app also calculates your average speed and displays your maximum speed. Data fans will appreciate a graph that shows your speed for the trip and a map that displays your route. You can share your trip data via email, Twitter or Facebook. You also can export the data as a CSV, KML or GPX file. SpeedTracker is an easy to use trip tracker for the driver who wants to log their car trips for business purposes or just for fun. Once you turn on the tracking in SpeedTracker, you can forget about it until you arrive and the app will do all the monitoring on your behalf. Besides using it in your car, you also can use SpeedTracker to log trips while snowmobiling, or ATVing. You even can drop your phone into an RC car and use SpeedTracker to measure driving performance. SpeedTracker is available from the iOS App Store for US$3.99. It is compatible with the iPhone and iPad and requires iOS 6.0 or later. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: Lovely helps you find a killer apartment and pay for it, too
Looking for a new apartment and an easy way to pay for it? Then you should look at iPhone app Lovely, which was recently overhauled for iOS 7. Lovely launched its iOS app in 2012 and has steadily improved its mobile platform, adding keyword search and a renter card to make it easy to find and secure a new place to live. Lovely pulls in real estate data from a variety of sources, providing a robust list of rental options to the apartment hunter. Though it didn't provide any listings for my very rural area, the app had over a hundred listings for Portland, Maine, which is the closest city to me. Lovely displays the listing for your area using a map and a zoomed-out view that shows the number of rentals in a particular neighborhood using a blue dot. Tapping on the blue icon will zoom you into that cluster of listings and allow you to view them individually. Each listing is represented by a different color allowing you to tell in a glance whether this is a new listing, an old listing or one that you have viewed or favorited. Each individual listing is chock full of details, including images of the property, the price, location, aunties and a description. A map allows you to get directions to the property and handy buttons for email and phone allows your to contact the landlord in just a few taps. You also can sign up for a Lovely account and "Favorite" a listing to save it for later. Other useful features in the app include alerts that notify you when a new apartment meeting your criteria hits the market and a renters card that contains all your pertinent renter information, like income, credit score and contact info. This renter card is an easy way for you to send your information to a prospective landlord so you can get first dibs on a new listing. The latest version of the app adds a new "Pay Rent" feature that lets you setup automatic payments for your monthly rent. To enable payments, you must sign up for the service with your payment account information and then contact your landlord so they can enter their deposit account information. Once both accounts are added to the service, the payments will be sent on time every month with no effort on your part. Lovely is available for iOS for free. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: 5by picks the best videos based on your personality
Finding compelling videos on sites like YouTube can be a lesson in patience as you slog through video after video of mindless soliloquies, cats on pianos or music videos featuring stills of photos in an endless progression. If you want to avoid this mundane content and find videos more suited for your interests, then you should check out 5by. The video curation service builds a profile based on your interests and sends you videos that you would enjoy. It launched as a web-only service last year and rolled out an iOS app earlier this year. The app launches with a series of categories based on the time of day, your possible mood and common activities, like lying in bed. Tapping on a category such as "Insomniacs" brings you to a sub-category screen that breaks down the videos into distinct groups like "Extreme Sports," "True Story" and others. Tapping on a sub-category will start playing a video curated from services like YouTube or Vimeo. If you don't like the selection, you can swipe to move to the next clip in the queue. Before you advance ahead, remember to "dislike" the video, so 5by will remember this preference when choosing videos in the future. While watching a video, you can comment on it, like it on Facebook or react using one of three emojis. These emojis let other 5by users know whether you laughed at a video, hated a video or loved the video. You also can share the clip via email, messaging, or social networks like Facebook and Twitter. There's even an option to copy the URL of the video to the clipboard. The strong point of 5by is its ability to pull down videos based on the profile questions you answer when you first run the app and your interactions with the videos while you watch them. The app is owned by StumbleUpon, which acquired 5by in September of 2013. 5by's curation worked moderately well for me, with most videos providing entertainment in the categories that I selected in my profile. There were a handful of clunkers that I tagged with the dislike emoji, so I am hoping those videos will disappear from my stream. Just like any curation service, it gets better the more you use it, so you will want to respond to as many videos as possible to get the best possible experience. 5by is perfect for those free moments when you want some entertainment and don't want to play Flappy Bird. Open 5by and let the app serve up a new video that you might enjoy. 5by for the iPhone and iPad is available for free from the iOS App Store.
Daily App: Brian Cox's Wonder of Life provides an awe-inspiring look at nature's complex beauty
Professor Brian Cox is back again with a followup to his popular book, TV mini-series and companion iPad app, Wonders of the Universe. In his latest title, Wonders of Life, Cox, along with BBC Head of Science Andrew Cohen, explore the globe to reveal the secrets of life in the most unusual and stunning locations. The universal iOS app combines high-res images, HD video and 3D models of animals to tell the story of life and how it evolved. You start by picking highlighted locations from a 3D satellite view of the globe and then zoom into the part of world. You then can select from content which includes video documentaries produced by the BBC and stunning images. When viewing the media, you can scroll down to access detailed, written explanations about the topic. A top navigation bar makes it easy to switch between geographic locations and other topics. Topics include the vibration sensing ability of scorpions, the unique hopping of the kangaroo and the complex designs of plankton. This commentary mixes biology with physics as it explains some of the mysteries of life and how they have developed. You can share some of the content within the app by saving select photos to the photo roll, emailing them or sharing them on social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Box's Wonders of Life is a wonderful title for anyone with an interest in science. There is enough content to keep you busy for a while. All content is long enough to be informative, but not so long that it loses your attention. The app launched with over 2 hours of video, 1000 images and 30 locations and creatures that you explore. If you want more, you can access additional videos and information when you sign up for an account using your email or via Facebook. Published by HarperCollins, Brian Cox's Wonders of Life is available from the iOS App Store for US$5.99. It is a universal app and requires iOS 7 or later. There are no ads or in-app purchases.
Daily App: BugDrug is a visual cheat sheet for prescribing antibiotics
BugDrug was created as a cheat sheet for medical students and residents who needed a handy resource on prescribing antibiotics. The app is designed to help physicians-in-training learn which antibiotics are effective against which pathogenic bacteria. BugDrug uses a pie chart to display common bacteria encountered in a clinical setting. Bacteria are grouped by type in the chart -- Gram Positive, Gram Negative, Anaerobes and Atypical -- and are listed individually on the right side of the app. You can tap on this right-side list to select individual or groups of bacteria by disease in the pie chart. The left side of the app has a tappable list of antibiotics. You can select an antibiotic and the app will show which bacteria it covers. Green means it is covered, yellow means it should be used with caution, and grey means the bacteria is resistant to that type of drug. If you had a patient with a urinary tract infection, for example, you could click on urinary tract infection on the right and Amoxicillin on the left to see if that antibiotic would be an effective treatment. BugDrug's pie chart is extremely useful for visualizing antibiotic coverage, but the app could use some polish. The pie chart graphic is a bit pixelated and could use a refresh. The app also could use a longer list of diseases and maybe a few more antibiotics. It also would be handy to be able to tap on a bacteria in the pie chart and see the antibiotics that are effective against it. Nonetheless, BugDrug is still a useful tool both for medical students and patients, who would appreciate the app's ease of use. BugDrug is available for 99-cents from the iOS App Store. It's compatible with the iPhone and iPad. It works better on the iPad, but it supports pinch-to-zoom and has a movable canvas to make it easier to visualize the pie chart on the smaller screen of the iPhone.
Voila screen recorder for OS X
OS X has a number of handy screen capture tools built in. There are standard keyboard shortcuts for capturing still images and QuickTime Player can capture basic screen recordings. However, sometimes you need a little more from your capture tools and, if that's the case for you, then check out the latest version of Voila, which is our Daily Mac App. Voila has just celebrated its fifth anniversary and developer Global Delight has released version 3.7 in honor of that. Among the updated features of the new version are a number of much-requested additions including the ability to record video in 60 frames per second, tighter social media sharing integration (Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo have been added), and a number of features related to OS X 10.9 Mavericks including Messages and AirDrop sharing and improved tagging functionality. Another nice improvement is for those with Retina MacBooks: Voila 3.7 allows users to scale down Retina display images by up to a factor of two. This is incredibly handy as it reduces file sizes and also ensures that your screen captures will look good on non-Retina displays. The main benefit of Voila is not the new features, but the continued improvement of existing features. For starters, Voila has an excellent content management system built in. Under its Organizer tab you can quickly sort your captures via images, videos, or even files you have trashed. Voila also has a number of Smart folders set up or you can create you own, all of which makes finding your captured media quick and easy. Voila also offers a ton of tools and effects to use on your captures. One of my favorites is the rubber stamp tool, which allows you to make it appear as if you've stamped a screen capture with, for example, a "PAID" stamp or an "APPROVED" stamp, among others. Another really nice features is that screen captures aren't just limited to fullscreen, a single window, or a cropped area of the screen. You can capture multiple windows at once and even have non-standard shape captures, such as circles and free-form shapes. When you're done capturing, Voila makes it a snap to import your captures to iPhoto, email them, print them, or share them via Messages, AirDrop, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Voila is US$29.99 in the Mac App Store.
Daily App: Photofy lets you express yourself through photos
Photofy is a photo editing app for creative types who want to express themselves through photos, but don't have the time or artistic talent to do everything from scratch. The app allows you to take a memorable moment captured by your camera or a stock photo and add your sentiments through the use of text, borders, stickers and sayings. Photofy is stuffed full of pre-made content including 4,000 stickers, 2,000 backgrounds, and 90+ fonts. A lot of this content, though, is provided by professional designers and is locked behind an in-app purchase. Very much like a stock photo app, Photofy promotes select artists by offering their photos, stickers and other designs for a fee. It's slightly annoying to see all the lock icons on the content, but that is how the developers decided to support the contributing artists. Pricing on the in-app purchases ranges between 99-cents and $2.99 and is very reasonable for the high-quality media that you receive. The app is very easy to use. Just add a photo by snapping it with your camera or importing it from either your photo roll or a third-party service like Dropbox, Flickr and others. Photofy also has its own stock photos that you can use for creations that are meant to convey a message and don't require personal photographs. Once you have selected your photo, you can add stickers, custom text, preset text sayings like "Go For It" and frames to your image. Each item you add to a photo is a distinct layer that can be rotated, edited, and moved to the forefront or back, which is extremely useful for positioning text so it overlays a sticker, for example. When you are done editing, you can save your creation to your photo roll and share it via messaging, social networks or third-party storage services. The list of supported services includes Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Flickr, Google+ and messaging. The app also supports sending an HTML version of the card via email as a passaGram ecard. Be careful when tapping the share button as you cannot go back and edit your creation. The finished prodcut is saved by default to the photo roll for safekeeping, though. Photofy is available as a universal app from the iOS app Store. It is free, but includes in-app purchases to unlock media like stickers and backgrounds within the app.
Unfortunately, Guess The 90s is really, really good
There are already enough (or perhaps too many) trivia games on the iPhone. There are all-encompassing gems like QuizUp but most aren't nearly that well done, and to be honest, I was kind of hoping Guess The 90s would be a dud as well. I was born in the mid 80s, so the vast majority of my childhood memories took place during the decade that brought us Pogs and popularized snap bracelets. But to my chagrin, the trivia puzzler is fantastic, and so I've been reliving my childhood in 2-minute bursts for the past week or so. The puzzles in Guess The 90s simply ask you to name whatever object, musical group, tv show, or other piece of pop culture it displays on the screen. You have rows of letters with which to spell out the answer, and you can use a hint if you get stuck (but a simple Google search is usually a quicker way to find the answer if you truly get stumped). What really makes the game special is the wealth of 90s content on offer. There are some truly obscure items here, and you'll need a pretty robust knowledge of 90s media, with a huge focus on the TV shows that were popular at the time. There's also a ton of toys to name, one-hit-wonder bands, and even some fashion trends that will make you cringe. Guess The 90s is free to play, but includes in-app purchases of "coins" (which are used to gain hints), as well as the occasional pop-up advertisement. The cash-making features shouldn't hinder your experience too much, and if you don't want to drop a few bucks to score some cheap hints, you can always use the web. If you're a 90s kid -- or really anyone who wants to take a brief nostalgia break -- you might find yourself getting sucked into it.
Daily App: Weather Line shows you the weather trends for the day, week or month
Weather Line is a weather app from Off Coast that takes a different approach to displaying the weather. Rather than images, Weather Line uses a line graph to display the upcoming forecast. Weather Line takes your most important weather data points and presents them clearly to the user. With just a glance at the hourly view, I can tell whether the temperature is going to climb or fall precipitously in the next six to eight hours. This same ease-of-use is applied in the weekly and monthly views, where you can see the trends on a larger scale. Besides temperature, the graph also shows precipitation and cloud cover, letting you know whether it will be rainy, cloudy, snowy or sunny. Other parameters at the bottom include a Sunrise/Sunset chart, wind speed, precipitation and humidity. In the footer is the weather prediction for the upcoming hour. Weather Line is missing a few important features like push notification support that sends you NWS alerts and other niceties like radar or weather cams, but those hopefully will be added in future revisions. For iPhone owners who like to look at weather trends and don't mind the missing alerts, then Weather Line is a winner. Weather Line is available in the iOS App Store for US$2.99.
Dumb Ways to Die is a great way to live
Dumb Ways to Die is a microgame collection that follows in the footsteps of games like those in the WarioWare franchise. The idea is that by throwing extremely simple, short games at your in quick succession, your reaction skills and patience are put to the test. I've always been surprised by how enjoyable this format is, and despite trading a controller for a touchscreen, Dumb Ways to Die is certainly a worthy addition to the genre. The game is based on a popular web video featuring cute characters meeting their makers in extremely stupid manners. The short objectives are based on the various "dumb ways to die" from the video itself, including setting your setting your hair on fire, eating superglue, and poking a bear with a stick. But instead of simply watching each adorable little creature die before your eyes, your job is to keep them alive. For example, the character with his head on fire can run to put it out, requiring you to tap on the touchscreen as fast as you can, and the bear-poking moron can duck when the woodland creature goes in for a bite, but you have to time the duck perfectly. Each minigame takes just seconds to complete, and in the early going it's a fairly simple challenge, but the longer you last, the faster the games come at you. Eventually you're tasked with completing the objectives in a second or less, and the games themselves become more complicated as well; Instead of plugging two wounds with your finger to stop bleeding, suddenly you have to plug five or six. The game is free but features in-game advertising to pay the bills. Thankfully, the ads are non-intrusive and only pop up when you return to the main menu. This keeps the fast-paced action moving, and limits any frustration you might have from the money-making pop-ups. As a free title, Dumb Ways to Die is ridiculously fun and a great time waster. You'll want to play it over and over again once you start, and it's also the kind of game you can hand off between friends when you're bored. Give it a go, and try not to die.
Daily App: Stackables allows you to enhance a photo in layers
Stackables is a new image editing tool from Samer Azzam, the developer behind ProCam, that allows you to apply filters and other effects in layers. It's the layering and high quality filters that set Stackables apart from its competition. When you open Stackables, you are greeted with a launch screen that allows you to open an existing photo or take a new one for your canvas. Once you import a photo, you are brought to the editor, where you can add filters, shapes, blends, effects as well as adjust common settings like hue, contrast and more. The app ships with 23 presets for quick editing and you can create your own as well. The filters and effects are high-quality and enhance your photos with making them tawdry. It is the layering feature that makes all the difference in Stackables. You can add one effect or filter per layer, and there are settings that allow to change the intensity or size of the effect. The layers allow you to add effects incrementally in a way that is easy to modify. The layers can be easily turned off and moved to change the look of your photo. When you are done editing, you can export your creation to the camera roll or for further editing in antother app. You also can share the image on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or via email. Stackables is available for the iPhone and costs 99-cents. It requires iOS 7.
Feel like a real social engineer in Hack RUN
RUN is a big, evil corporation, and they're up to no good -- or at least that's what your new "employer" has told you -- and it's up to you to dig into its digital backyard for information. And with that very basic plot, the text puzzler Hack RUN sends you into command-prompt hell in search of some answers. It's a bit hard to explain exactly how you play Hack RUN; you quite literally fiddle around with a command-prompt interface and a few other digital tools in an attempt to find the truth behind a company's shady business practices. Clues are everywhere, and you'll use social engineering and outright snooping to find your way into various virtual realms where you should not be. Things start slowly, with access to a single employee's email account being your first test. After trying a few commonly used passwords, you'll crack the simple code and begin your journey. Soon you'll be browsing various "websites" for password clues, picking up info on a whole slew of RUN's workers, and piecing together a picture of what the company is really up to. All along the way, your employer updates you on your progress, offers vague clues as to his true motives and ramps up the mystery. If you ever get stuck, you can always ask for a hint, and depending on how good you are at trial and error, you may find yourself begging for help before too long. The game is remarkably well done and the fake world that you're poking around in really does begin to feel real. This makes every successful password guess and subroutine achievement all the more gratifying. Hack RUN is available on both iOS and OS X, and at the moment it's free. I'd honestly recommend the desktop version available through the Mac App Store as the best version, simply because tapping away at your keyboard while performing fake hacks seems much more appropriate than doing it on the iPhone or iPad screen. If you're looking for a unique puzzle game, it's an easy recommendation.
Dungeon Highway is a brilliant, bloody mix of new and old
Dungeon Highway is a ridiculous mashup of old school and new, pitting a single noble hero against a literally endless stream of enemies and environmental hazards. It also happens to be one of the few truly free high-quality games to be released for iOS so far this year. You play as a mage and start out with a very modest flame-slinging ability. Your character is always walking forward and can't be stopped, and tilting your device lets you move him back and forth on the pathway. As you proceed down the randomly generated highway, you'll see three things: static structures that jut out of the ground, enemies that block your path and items that can be picked up to change your attacks or appearance. Typically, touching an enemy or structure means instant death, but there are items that can allow you to take a hit and keep on walking. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Dungeon Highway is how brutal the game can be, mixing pixelated blood and gore with the otherwise charming and retro aesthetic. Dispatching an enemy results in a massive shower of blood and body bits, and the screen can quickly become inundated with red bits and blobs. It's nothing that will faze your average gamer, but probably isn't a good fit for the younger crowd. The game runs fantastically, and it's actually quite surprising to see so many moving parts smoothly cruising around the screen without a hiccup -- especially when the showers of blood begin. It's definitely a lesson in how retro sprites can be used in a modern game and still be visually stunning. As I mentioned above, the game is totally free, and there are no in-game purchases or any other nonsense to worry about. If you're down with some bloody, old-school endless questing, it's a fantastic fit.
