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X-Plane 10 is out for iOS and it is terrific
X-Plane is the premier flight simulator for Mac, Windows and Linux computers as well as iOS. It's accurate enough to have received FAA certification for some phases of flight training, and TUAW editor...
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ClipDis: Letting movie clips do your messaging for you
ClipDis for iOS (free) is about as different from the typical messaging app as you can imagine. You type your text, and the app replaces every word you type with a clip from a popular movie. You can...
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Microsoft updates Bing iOS apps with fresh look and translations
Microsoft continues its make nice to Apple with a solid update to the Bing Search app for iOS. There are separate versions for the iPad and iPhone. The GUI has been slightly reworked, and the biggest...
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Need to crop or add zoom to a video after the fact? Try Video Zoom
Video Zoom (US$1.99) is a just released app that will let you take an existing video and crop it, or add a smooth zoom. The app also lets you record a new video from within the app. Give the app access...
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Hive launches a free social cloud storage platform
While there are a lot of great cloud solutions out there, Hive is offering something different that many people may find compelling. The "different" is free unlimited storage for documents, photos,...
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2 new weather apps just in time for your holiday sojourns
Apalon has released two weather apps that could make your holiday travel more predictable. Weather Live (US$1.99) features animated, customizable backgrounds that look great and a widget for quick...
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The Monster PowerCard Turbo - Great for holiday travel
With all the traveling many of us do over the holidays, we're often in search of power for our iDevices. Monster has come up with a really high quality external battery to keep your iPhone running when...
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Artful for Mac: Desktop art that matches your taste
Artful (U.S. $4.99) is a well thought out app that lets you have any of thousands of public domain artworks as your desktop based on parameters you select. The app works as a menu item, and you pull it...
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Pocket Drive turns your iOS device into an external drive
Pocket Drive (free with in-app purchases) is an easy to use app that lets your iOS device connect wirelessly to any computer on your network and move files, photos, music or videos between them. The...
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My favorites from 2014: Mel Martin
So many apps and gadgets - where to begin? Well, let's start with some apps. Topaz Impression for Mac Expensive at U.S. $99.00, but this app beautifully transforms your images into what looks like...
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SpotCam is a capable Wi-Fi camera for your home
SpotCam is a new entrant in the cloud-based home webcam parade. The U.S. $149.99 camera has easy setup and features like sound monitoring, plus the ability to speak to the camera remotely and have the...
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LifeBox for iPhone is strange and addictive
I'm not quite sure how to describe LifeBox (free until Mid-January). It's a bit like the infamous Pet Rock of years ago or the more recent Tamagotchi. It just sits there, but unlike the Pet Rock,...
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Translator Speak and Translate Free gives you a simultaneous interpreter in...
Translator Speak and Translate Free (free) is a universal iOS app that translates spoken language bi-directionally in 66 languages. The app automatically detects the spoken language it hears and then...
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iSmartAlarm rolls out new devices and features
I looked at the iSmartAlarm system last year and found it really useful and easy to install. I appreciated that, unlike most security systems, there was no subscription or recurring charges. Buy the...
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Air Camera + lets you stream your iDevice camera to you AppleTV
Here's something a little different: Air Camera + (US$2.99) is a streaming app that captures the video and audio from your iPhone or iPad and streams it to your AppleTV. Beyond that, the app allows you...
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Stay Focused provides focus stacking on your iPhone
(Image by Muhammad Mahdi Karim CC BY-SA 3.0) Stay Focused (free with in-app purchases) is an interesting app that does a very complex function for photographers called Focus Stacking. You take a...
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Custom Keyboard for iOS gives your keyboard a totally new look
With all of the new iOS 8 keyboard apps, we're seeing new functions, languages and features. Custom Keyboard (US$0.99) gives the standard iOS keyboard a completely new look based on what you want. It's...
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Airmail updates a popular Apple Mail alternative
While Apple Mail for OS X is in widespread use and generally popular, it hasn't stopped developers from coming out with competing products that add to or extend the Apple Mail feature set. Postbox and...
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Microsoft courts iOS users with Office Sway
Office Sway (free) is a personal or business presentation app for iOS that lets you easily create simple web-based canvases of photos and text on your iPhone and share them on any mobile device or the...
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iPhone 5 is the top Flickr camera in 2014
It used to be when you thought of the top cameras being used by photographers, you probably thought of Canon and Nikon. That's not necessarily true these days. Thanks to the EXIF data that is embedded...
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Watermark Plus adds watermarks to your photos quickly and easily
Watermark Plus ($19.90) is a nifty app that pros and others wanting to protect their digital image creations will appreciate. You can create watermarks on your own, or use any of several templates...
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CBS relaunches its news app for iOS
CBS has added features and done some cosmetic cleanup of its free CBS News app. The universal app adds live streaming from CBSN, the network's recently launched 24/7 live streaming feed. Other changes...
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So, how "engaged" are you with your apps?
That's a question app marketing platform Localytics was interested in, and they have provided some enlightening answers in a recent report. The firm defines "engaged" as using the same app 10 or more...
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PhotoTime: An incredibly powerful iOS photo organizer and tagging tool
It's not often an app really impresses me, but PhotoTime (free) does. While many apps, including Apple's Photos app, will tag photos and read EXIF data from your photos, PhotoTime goes a lot deeper....
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Google Maps for iOS gets a welcome update
Google has issued an update to its popular and free Google Maps app for iOS. The update to version 4.2.0 offers filtered restaurant searches that let you specify cuisine type, price and rating, and it...
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Spyglass: A full featured nav app for outdoor enthusiasts
Spyglass (U.S. $3.99 on sale) is a really complete GPS toolkit for people spending time outdoors or doing off-road navigation. Features are numerous; among them are a heads-up display, a high quality...
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Here's a new iOS app for sending personalized handwritten cards
There are plenty of greeting card apps for iOS, but this new offering called Lovely Handwritten Cards (free with one in-app option) is tasteful, and lets you truly personalize what you send to others...
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UNU ships an iPhone 6 case that can double your battery life
Battery cases for the new larger iPhones have been slow in coming, but UNU is now selling a beefy case for the iPhone 6, the DX-6, with great battery life and at a competitive price of US$79.00. The...
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Ava Photo cleans up those iPhone portraits
You have a lot of pictures of friends and families, but you know those pictures don't always capture them at their best. Ava Photo (free until Jan 31) is a sharp little iOS app providing several tools...
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iPhone Market share taking off in Japan and Korea
That's the report from Counterpoint Research. According to the Counterpoint Research, global Apple iPhone sales grew 26 percent annually crossing 20 million unit monthly sales mark for the first time...
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RiLAXapp let's you relax from the stresses of the day
RiLAXapp is a US$0.99 app with one mission: to provide an audio and visual experience to help you unwind. The app features three different scenes -- one with water, another with a crackling flame, and...
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Get the weather and a joke thanks to Funny or Die Weather app
And now for something completely different. It's a nicely performing weather app, with weather sourced from Weather Underground, and along with the weather you get a joke or funny anecdote. The app,...
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iFilebox is a nice improvement on Apple's notes app
iFilebox (US$0.99) is a well thought-out addition to your iOS bag of tricks. It lets you create folders, and write notes so you can get organized, and is a nice alternative to Apple's own Notes app....
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iFixit gives you thousands of repair manuals in your pocket
The iFixit app (free) is a handy little app that gives your Do-It-Yourself repairs a big boost. This app comes from the teardown experts at iFixit, who delight in exploring the inner secrets of your...
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Pandora app updated with a load of new features
Pandora has been around since 2008, one of the earliest apps offered for the iPhone. With millions of listeners in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, the streaming music service has always been one...
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The Lowdown meetings app for iOS is now free and improved
Lowdown (free) is an intriguing business app that provides briefings on participants and companies you are meeting with, helps you get to the meeting with location information, and tells you when...
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Wrise is a new and specialized word processor for Mac
There just aren't too many new OS X word processing applications appearing these days, with Microsoft Word and Apple's Pages ruling the roost. So it was with some interest that I took a look at Wrise...
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Hydra: A powerful and innovative iOS app for High Dynamic Range photography
I've seen so many High Dynamic Range (HDR) apps, some of which have been good, some not so good. Hydra (US$2.99 on sale) from Creaceed is a well thought out and terrific performing photo app with...
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Yahoo updates its news and lifestyle app with more interactive features
Yahoo has a bunch of apps for iOS, including Yahoo Mail, Weather, Finance and others. The primary Yahoo app (free) is what has just received an update. This app features a blend of news with Yahoo's...
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Some final thoughts...
It's been quite a ride for more than 6 years starting when Lead Editor Mike Rose invited me to come aboard after reading some things I had written. The iPhone had been out for less than a year... the...
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