Flipboard updates iOS app, revamps Cover Stories to surface cool content

Flipboard, the wildly successful magazine-format news aggregator, has updated its iPhone and iPad application with a pair of tweaks while announcing a redesign of Cover Stories aimed at making your story highlights resemble newspaper front pages. In addition to some bug fixes and performance improvements, Flipboard 2.2.3 now makes it possible to add bookmarks to your Safari Reading List.

Another minor change: you can now copy an article’s URL in your device’s browser, then open Flipboard for the option to add it to your magazines. You’ll be more interested in the redesign of Cover Stories which Flipboard hopes will surface more relevant content from your subscriptions…

The new-look Cover Stories taps smart algorithms which surface content based on how frequently you visit the section. Now key highlights from your subscriptions are presented in a condensed newspaper-like format.

The stories are organized by source, social network and topic, with story groups neatly indicated at the top of each page. If you want to dive deep into the story, just tap the More link at the bottom of the page.

See some flips by a friend you don’t like? Worry not, you can easily mute anyone.

The algorithms adapt to your reading habits so your Cover Stories get more relevant the more you use the section.

Here’s a quick video walkthrough.

Flipboard says the new design is available on iOS/Android smartphones/tablets, with BlackBerry and Windows Phone versions being under consideration. This is a staggered roll-out so not everyone will get the new Cover Stories right away.

Flipboard 2.2.3 can be downloaded free in the App Store.

Infuse gains more video formats for free users, variable speed scrubbing and more

FireCore‘s versatile iPhone and iPad media player, Infuse, recently received a massive version 2.0 update sporting iOS 7-friendly interface while going free for everyone, with a couple advanced features locked behind a Pro in-app purchase. In today’s free update, Infuse 2.1 unlocks more video formats for free users while adding variable speed scrubbing option, support for an additional subtitle format, better translations and the usual assortment of bug fixes and performance improvements…

Free users can now play a wider variety of video formats and take advantage of subtitles in .smi format. The HTML-formated SAMI subtitle file type was developed in 1998 as a Microsoft accessibility initiative and is used nowadays to provide closed caption support for multimedia formats.

Content artwork as well as Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian and Spanish translations have been improved in this Infuse release. Another handy new feature is the variable speed scrubbing option which works just like the iOS system media player.

This lets you fast-forward or rewind your movie with precise control, simply by holding the playback position dot and dragging your finger down for finer control (or up to increase the scrubbing speed).

Like before, advanced features like network streaming, AirPlay, Dolby Digital mobile surround sound, support for even more file types and other perks are available as a one-time in-app purchase.

As far as the sound goes, Infuse supports AAC, AC3, FLAC, MP3 and OGG audio tracks and sports licensed Dolby Digital Plus mobile surround sound support. Though DTS isn’t supported, that feature is being prioritized so it’s a matter of when, not if.

The application will happily crunch 3GP, AVI, ASF, DVR-MS, FLV, M4V, MKV, MOV, MP4, OGM, OGV, WebM, WMV and WTV video formats and render DVB, DVDsub, PGS, SSA/ASS, SRT, SUB, Timed Text, VobSub, XSUB and MSI subtitle formats, with perhaps the most robust implementation of AirPlay subtitle streaming I’ve seen yet.

The app takes media files via the iTunes File Sharing method or directly, from FTP, WebDAB or network-attached storage. More on streaming from other devices, including Time Capsule, can be found here.

Other features in the works for Infuse 2.2: metadata for shared files, lots of networking improvements, sound boosting, support for Synology NAS along with folder creation and the ability to copy files directly from a NAS (or SMB) to the app and more.

Infuse 2 is available free in the App Store.

Yelp updated with local movie listings, in-app ticket purchasing, and more

Yelp has posted a nice little update for its iOS client today. The update, which brings the app to version 7.4, sports a number of new features including movie listings and in-app movie ticket purchasing courtesy of Fandango.

Also new in the app is in-line review business photos. Yelp now shows business photos taken by Yelp users next to their review, so you can get a better idea of how popular a club is, or how delicious a particular entree was…

Here’s the full 7.4 change log:

- We’re now showing business photos from Yelpers next to their reviews. No more needing to imagine just how decadent the dessert was or how hoppin’ the club was, just take a look!
- We’re also now showing current movie listings and showtimes at your local theater. Thanks to our friends at Fandango, you can purchase your ticket right from the page. So stop stalling and go see the new Hobbit movie, we know you want to.
- Happy holidays from the Yelp Mobile team!

Yelp has been making some major moves with its service, and subsequently its mobile app, over the past several months. In November, it added a new SeatMe feature for making reservations at popular food and drink locations.

If you’d like to check out the new Yelp app, you can find the latest version in the App Storefor free.

Instapaper goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Apple has named the popular read-it-later app Instapaper its App of the Week for this week. This means that through next Thursday, you’ll be able to pick up the application for both your iPhone and iPad, for free—a savings of $4.

For those unfamiliar with the app, Instapaper bills itself as the simplest way to save and store articles for reading. You can save content on virtually any device, like a bookmark, and return to it later for reading at your convenience…

Here are some of Instapaper’s more notable features:

Instapaper Core Features:
- Save most web pages as text only, stripping away the full-sized layout to optimize for the iPhone and iPad screens.
- Store up to 500 articles on your iPhone or iPad, and store unlimited articles on the Instapaper website.
- Read offline, even on airplanes, subways, on elevators, or on Wi-Fi-only devices away from Internet connections.
- Send to Instapaper from 150 other iPhone and iPad apps.
Additional Features:
- Adjustable fonts, text sizes, line spacing, and margins
- Dark mode and brightness control for night reading
- Automatic Dark and Sepia Mode switching for sunset times in your location
- Sort your list of unread items by popularity, date, article length, and shuffle
- Filter your list of unread items by reading time

And here are a few more screenshots for good measure:

I personally use Pocket myself, but the tower of accolades for Instapaper is tall. It’s been featured in both Apple’s iPhone and iPad App Hall of Fames, as well as several publications, and it has won a number of Editor’s Choice Awards.

I’d recommend grabbing it even if you don’t plan on using it right away. Instapaper isavailable in the App Store for both the iPhone and iPad, for a limited time, for free.

You can now control iTunes Radio via Remote app

After refreshing its free Remote app for the iPhone and iPad with some radical redesign to match the overall iOS 7 aesthetics, Apple has just put out a minor update adding a nicely done ability to control iTunes Radio from your iOS device.

But rather than stream iTunes Radio songs directly (and what would the point be in doing so knowing iTunes Radio is available within the stock iOS 7 Music app), the application simply controls the feature running in iTunes for Mac or Windows.

Previously, you could only control playback of music and other media kept locally in your iTunes library. If anything, this update will go down in history as a handy little enhancement that makes it ridiculously easy to control your iTunes Radio stations, skip songs and more, right across the room…

As long as your Mac or Windows PC running iTunes is on the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad device running the new Remote 4.1, you’ll be able to access the new iTunes Radio tab at the bottom (see the images top of post).

The Now Playing screen for iTunes Radio in Remote 4.1 for iPhone and iPad.

Hitting the More… button lets you star a song like you would on a computer (or in the stock iOS 7 Music app), create a new station from the currently playing song, choose to never play this song again, play more songs like this or start the iTunes visualizer.

One caveat: you can’t use Remote to control iTunes Radio on your Apple TV.

In other Apple app updates today, iTunes Movie Trailers has been refreshed with performance improvements and bug fixes. And in a similar vein, the iTunes U app has resolved an issue where the playback speed button would not work as expected.

Google Maps now lets you see flight, hotel and restaurant reservations from Gmail

It’s been some time since we’ve seen a meaningful update to Google Maps for iPhone and iPad, especially givenGoogle Maps is probably the Internet giant’s most popular product, afterSearch.

As if reading our mind, just an hour ago the firm has quietly pushed a minor update into the App Store. The new Google Maps version 2.5 comes with a few bug fixes and brings with it a cool new feature which lets you see your reservations from Gmail on the map.

Say you made a flight, hotel or restaurant reservation. Upon receiving the confirmation email in Gmail, Google can now take this information (they are already doing this for Google Now cards, by the way), extract the address and show you precise locations for these items within the Google Maps iOS app.

It’s a minor, albeit welcome, enhancement that will up competition a notch for Apple’s own iOS Maps app. I love how little things like this make Google Maps more integrated with other Google apps. We’ve seen Google do this frequently and my guess is they’ll continue to leverage their premium iOS apps to build a platform on top of iOS, so to speak…

iTunes release notes list no changes aside from this new feature and bug fixes.

By the way, you haven’t forgotten about the caching trick, have you?

To make the currently viewed map and the surrounding areas available offline, tap the search box and type in ‘ok maps’ and hit Search. There should appear a large Google Maps icon that’s progressively filling as the area gets processed for offline caching.

The universal Google Maps app is free in the App Store.

The download comes in at a rather paltry eleven megabytes. The app is universal so all your form-factor iDevices are supported natively, as long as they run iOS 6 or later.

Twitter 6.0 is out with new design, DM photo-sharing and more

Twitter has updated its official iOS client today, bringing the app to version 6.0. The update is a fairly significant one, bringing about a new look and feel for the app, as well as photo-sharing for direct messages, improved search and more.

The new look pushes the UI of the Twitter app further into iOS 7 territory. There’s more white spacing—the menu bar at the bottom is now all white— and texts and graphics seem flatter. And Twitter has added various other enhancements…

Here’s the 6.0 change log:

New design.
- Refreshed look and feel. Home, Activity and Discover now available by swiping in Timelines. Easier access to DMs.
Share photos in Direct Messages.
- Send and receive photos via DMs.
Notifications from your network.
- Choose to view replies, retweets, and favorites from only the people that you follow.
Search got even easier.
- Access tweets from people you follow and near you, directly from search results.
Safari Reading List support
- Save web articles to read later with Safari Reading List

I actual really like the design tweaks Twitter has made today, and I especially like that they’ve simplified the menu bar. Where as before it read Home-Connect-Discover-Me, now it reads Timelines-Notifications-Messages-Me. Much more clear.

Fantastical 2 updated with support for TextExpander 2.3 and Waze maps

My favorite calendar app for iOS—Fantastical 2—has been updated with a few new features that you should know about. First up is support for the latest version of TextExpander. As we told you about in an earlier post, TextExpander was forced to change its approach to sharing snippets. As a result, any app that features TextExpander support must be updated to retain snippet functionality.

The second feature to be found in Fantastical 2′s latest update is support for Waze. If you have the GPS and navigation app installed on your iPhone, you can now upon location links using Waze instead of Apple Maps or Google Maps. These, and other changes make the cut in Flexibits’ latest update to Fantastical. Check past the break for the full change log.

New TextExpander Snippets link and Open Locations in Waze support

Along with the aforementioned updates come the obligatory bug fixes, including a fix for editing recurring Google Calendar events. Here’s a list of everything included with Fantastical 2.0.3

• TextExpander support now requires TextExpander 2.3 or later
• Added option to open maps in Waze
• Fixed problems when editing recurring events with Google Calendar
• Fixed an issue where future events wouldn’t load if lots of reminders exist
• Various bug fixes and improvements

Fantastical 2.0.3 can be downloaded right now from the App Store. The total size of the update is 16.4MB, and it’s a free update for existing users. New users can get in the game for $3.99, a fair price for what is widely regarded as the best calendar app available on iOS.

The 10 best weather apps of 2013

As 2013 inches closer to its last days, we take time to reflect on everything that we have experienced over the past year. With 365 days of apps and games to sift through, it is hard to figure out which ones are the best. Don’t worry, you are off the hook. We took care of it for you.

Take a look at our list of weather apps that the writers of iDownloadBlog consider the best of this year’s releases. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite one for the Best Apps of 2013 list…

Yahoo Weather

When Yahoo launched its weather app ahead of the iOS 7 release, the iOS world went wild for it. The beautiful design mixes stunning photography with minimalistic graphics and made this app more popular than Apple’s animated native weather app. You can bookmark cities to keep track of weather around the world, see an hourly prediction of the day’s temperature, and check out a 10-day forecast for future planning. This app is available for free.

Perfect Weather

The app’s description says it all. Some weather apps are designed to look pretty, but don’t offer a lot of functionality. Some are overloaded with information and don’t make it easy to look at. This app combines a little of both categories to offer a comprehensive weather tracker, while maintaining the attractive simplicity we’ve come to love. View radar maps, check detailed current conditions, and access the temperature chart for hourly forecasts.This app is available for $2.99.

Weather Line

Not everyone needs pretty pictures and simulated rain clouds in order to read the weather forecast. Sometimes, graphs and charts are better understood than illustrations of kids in hoodies and scarves. Weather Line takes the weather imagery out of the equation and replaces it with line graphs to give you a better understanding of the day’s changes. See temperature, condition, and precipitation on a single graph with a forecast from 36 hours up to 12 months. Check monthly rainfall averages for a particular region. Get severe weather warning reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This app is available for $2.99.

Today Weather

Sure, you can just look outside to get an idea of whether it is cold, hot, snowing, or windy. However, most people leave the house for hours at a time, which means they may be walking out during heavy rain, but will be sweating by the time they go to lunch because of the sudden change in temperature (it happens in California all of the time). This app gives you a simple, but useful outlook on today’s weather forecast. Check for hyperlocal precipitation information, get hourly details on weather conditions, and prepare for your day with the “Today” section. This app is available for $1.99.

Shade

Going back to what I mentioned above under Weather Line, some people prefer visually attractive weather apps with good illustrations and a minimalistic design. Shade fits right into that category with a clear overview of the day’s forecast, displayed with simple graphics and varying colors to represent the temperature. If it is hot, the screen will turn shades of red, orange and yellow. If it is cold, you’ll see blues, green, and purple. You can also see the changes in weather listed on a line graph. Tap the graph to get a look at more detailed information on weather conditions. This app is available for $1.99.

Nice Weather 2

Another example of an attractive, minimalist design with accurate weather information is Nice Weather 2. This app uses gradients and particle effects that are dependent on the weather conditions. The particles move across the screen, depending on the speed and direction of the wind. Using gesture-based controls, users can interact with the forecast. Slide your finger along the graph to watch the weather predictions evolve. Slide along the timetable to change days. Tap the thermometer, cloud, wind, or compass to change their values. This app is available for free.

Haze

You want to talk about a minimalistic weather app… this one is about as minimal as they get. You can easily see the current temperature just by opening the app. The screen is brightly colored with a hue that represents the temperature and the exact degree is displayed in the center. You can also see a five-day forecast, check out wind speed using the gyroscope, and navigate using motion. Background animations will show you the following day’s weather trends. This app is available for $2.99.

Weathertron

This is the perfect app for the no-frills business-minded user. You get a live and infograph of the entire day’s weather. You’ll be able to see hour-by-hour, what to expect in the day’s weather forecast, including clouds, rain, snow, and temperatures, all on one graph. See a seven-day forecast with visual reports and narrative summaries. Weathertron gets its data from 16 different weather data sources and statically aggregates them so you will have the most accurate weather conditions in your area. This app is available for $0.99.

Blue

This is another visually stunning minimalist app that looks great and does very little. That is a good thing for some people. Blue gives users a 36-hour forecast for their current location. Swipe upward to see the color gradient change based on the hourly change in weather conditions. Colors are based on temperature, humidity, and sunrise or sunset times for your current location. The temperature is automatically set to Fahrenheit or Celsius, depending on where you are at. This app is available for $0.99.

NOAA Weather Radar

The NOAA is the U.S. federal agency put in charge of predicting weather conditions across the nation. They use all of the resources at their disposal to predict and track weather conditions, storm activity, air quality, and more. This app lets you track storms, check weather predictions, and view radar and satellite maps that offer precise weather data. You can customize locations, see hourly forecasts, and see what the temperature feels like.This app is available for free.

There are now 1 million apps available in the US App Store

During its October iPad event, Apple announced that it had crossed the 1 million app milestone in its worldwide App Store. This meant that, not counting duplicates, it had over 1 million apps available around the globe at that time.

This week, Apple passed the same milestone here in its US App Store. According to data from app discovery firm Appsfire, there are now more than 1 million live apps in the App Store. 1,006,557 to be exact at the time of this writing…

MacRumors was the first to spot the landmark:

“Apple’s U.S. App Store has reached one million live apps, according to data from app discovery platform Appsfire. Our own app discovery site AppShopper lists the same one million milestone. [...]

Apple has approved a total of approximately 1,439,451 apps since the App Store opened in 2008 and over the course of the year, has been creeping towards the million milestone. Of the 1 million apps available for download, more than half a million are available for Apple’s iPad, and over 900,000 are available for the iPhone. The company has now paid out more than $13 billion to App Store developers.”

Apple has surpassed a number of major App Store milestones over the past two years. In March of 2012, it announced that it had hit the 25 billion app download mark. And in May of this year, it celebrated its 50 billionth app download.

Google updates Search iOS app with support for French, German and Japanese

Google issued a major mid-August update to its free Search app for the iPhone and iPad with new Google Now cards for flights, reservations, package delivery information and more.

And last month, the firm followed up with another sweet update that implemented ‘OK Google’ hands-free voice control functionality, support for single sign-on, reminders, alerts for delayed flights and upcoming appointments/events and other perks.

This afternoon, the Internet giant pushed a minor update which expands international support to three new languages: French, German and Japanese…

As per Google’s blog post announcement, the Search app now supports French, German and Japanese for both voice queries and spoken answers.

Although some voice queries still yield spoken answers in English, Google says customers will now get spoken answers to many of their questions in French, German and Japanese with the updated Search app.

To try it out, simply tap the microphone in the search box and ask for anything you’re looking for. If you need some coffee in Munich, just say “Wo bekomme ich Kaffee in München?” to get a list of local options.

Wondering what the height of the Eiffel tower is? Get a quick answer by asking, “Quelle est la hauteur de la Tour Eiffel?”.

Maybe you need to know who invented the transistor ? Try asking in Japanese for “トランジスタを発明したのはだれ？”

The search monster is working on adding more languages in the future.

Download the standalone Google Search app free from the App Store.

The universal app requires an iDevice capable of running iOS 6 or later.

Billy and Jimmy are back in Double Dragon Trilogy for iOS

Fans of the late 1980s hit fighting game series Double Dragon (and awesome Scott Wolfspinoff movie) will be happy to know that the first three titles have just launched on iOS.

Double Dragon Trilogy is a cooperative fighting game that includes Double Dragon, Double Dragon 2: The Revenge, and Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone. Punch, kick, and elbow your way to rescuing the damsel in distress in this port of the classic trilogy…

All three games in this app come with two game modes; Arcade and Story. In Arcade mode, players start from the beginning and play straight through for the highest score possible. In Story mode, players unlock new stages and achievements while playing through the game.

Players control either Billy or Jimmy with a virtual joystick and attack buttons. You can customize your controls for the perfect setup. You can increase or decrease the size of the buttons, reduce their opacity, and relocate them anywhere on the screen that makes you feel more comfortable.

Punch, kick, knee, elbow, and head-butt your enemies. Don’t forget to pick up nearby items to use as attack weapons. Grab crates, chains, and whatever else you can find to throw at the bad guys.

There are also three levels of difficulty; mobile, original, and expert. Mobile is specially balanced for mobile games. Original is nearly identical to the classic arcade version. Expert is self-explanatory.

The iOS version of the Double Dragon Trilogy comes with a newly remastered soundtrack. However, if you are a purist, you can switch over to the original 8-bit version for total flashback fun.

Of course, Double Dragon wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t include co-op mode. Connect your game with a friend in the same room via Bluetooth to fight as both Billy and Jimmy at the same time for double the damage.

This iOS game is compatible with most Bluetooth enabled game controller devices.

Doubel Dragon Trilogy is available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It is on sale for $2.99 to celebrate the official launch. Download it in the App Store today.

Did you play the Double Dragon games when they first came out? Are you excited to see the iOS launch?

Plex app updated with new look for iOS 7

Plex for iOS has been updated with an all new design taking cues from iOS 7. As expected, translucency, new buttons and icons are at the heart of this update, which doesn’t really bring anything new in terms of features, besides a new player for music and videos and the ability to detect URLs on the clipboard for quick queuing to myPlex.

This update also brings the usual performance and stability improvements that are to be expected.

The app is a free upgrade for existing users. For everybody else, it is available in the App Store for $4.99.

Google Wallet gets single sign-on, lets you add credit card via iDevice camera

Following a significant delay, the Internet giant Google finally released its free Wallet for iPhone app back in September 2013. But in bringing its troubled mobile payment service to Apple’s platform, Google left out some of the capabilities found in Wallet’s Android counterpart, such as the ability to make in-store payments with the app (not surprising considering iPhones lack NFC). The company added a few new features via two recent updates and today the Wallet app has been refreshed with some new functionality.

For starters, you can now instantly sign on to Wallet if you use other iOS apps from Google. Google previously rolled out this rather useful feature to its popular iOS apps, allowing you to, say, just tap your Google Account already used in Chrome in order to log in to the Gmail iOS app.

Go past the fold for additional details…

Google Wallet version 2.0.12117 has another cool feature: now you can add a credit or debit card to your Wallet account simply by taking a picture of it using your iOS device’s camera. This will capture automatically not only the credit card number, but the expiration date as well.

In line with rumors, Google recently launched a physical prepaid debit card to users in the United States, which can be used to make payments with your Wallet account. If you own a Google Wallet Card, the app will now allow you to use it to spend your Wallet Balance at millions of MasterCard locations.

As a bonus, you’ll be also able to withdraw cash at any ATM.

Google Wallet is free in the App Store.

The universal app weighs 10.4MB and requires an iOS device capable of running iOS 6 or later.

The 10 best photography apps of 2013

The year is coming to a close. We’ve spent the past 52 weeks talking about jailbreaks, rumors, new products, gear, Apple news, and apps. Apps are my specialty around here. I find them, test them, and tell you all about them.

That’s why it is my job to tell you about apps and games that the writers of iDownloadBlog think are the cream of the crop for the entire year. For the rest of this year, and probably into 2014, we will have lists of our favorite apps in the most popular categories that released in 2013. This week, the category is photography…

Mextures

As soon as I tested this filter effects app, I knew it was different than the rest. The premade filters offer a wide variety of textures, gradients, and effects. Add as many or as few effects as your picture needs to create stunning, professional looking iPhone images. This app is available for $0.99.

Flipagram

Vacation slideshows will never be boring again with this fantastic photo-editing app. Grab photos from your camera roll, or take pictures using the in-app camera feature, and then set them to music from your iPhone’s music library. Once combined, you can edit your slideshow to fit perfectly with Instagram’s time limitations, or post full-length programs to Facebook. This app is available for $1.99.

Facetune

Nobody is perfect. We all know that. However, we are always looking for ways to make people think we are. Facetune is a photo-editing app that lets you hide imperfections, whiten teeth, and make your subjects look like they just stepped out of a salon. You can widen a smile, smooth out wrinkles, improve skin tone, change eye and hair color, and even reshape facial structures. This app is available for $2.99.

PicPlayPost

This app makes it possible for you to add multiple photographs, GIFs, and even videos to a single collage. Then, you can add your own music to create a mosaic of memories for your friends and family to enjoy. With 36 adjustable frames, 72 different background textures, eight imaged filters, and seven video filters, you will make any grandparent happy to see a little tyke running, skipping, and falling down to the perfect soundtrack. This app is available for $1.99.

Over

A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes it takes a little more to get the thought across. Now that social media has popularized poster-like photographs, you need an app that lets you express your thoughts better. Over offers a classy way to add text to photographs so that your newborn’s picture doesn’t look like a Grumpy Cat meme. The overlays include unique banners created specifically for the app, specially designed logos, icons, and clipart for practically any occasion, and customizable fonts to make your pictures stand out. This app is available for $1.99.

ProCamera 7

The recent update to one of the most popular photography titles in the App Store brought with it so many new features that it is considered a whole new app. This new app has been completely redesigned to take advantage of features exclusively in iOS 7.  It features 76 filters and effects that are viewable by using touch-based gestures. You can see your images in full-resolution so you can see every pixel as it will look on a larger screen. Adjust the shutter speed to get sharper, cleaner pictures at night. Rapid Fire mode lets you take up to 10 pictures per second so you will never miss a great action shot. This app is available for $2.99.

LoryStripes

A few years ago, the popular trend was to “put a bird on it.” Today, things have gone a more geometric route making circles, rectangles, and stripes the new hotness. This app lets you put stripes just about anywhere you want on your photograph. You can hide them behind objects, wrap them around subject matter, and create an explosion of ribbon-like imagery anywhere you like. There are 40 different Stripes with 120 preset styles so you don’t have to spend too much time crafting the right one, and 62 different colors with nine shades and blends. This app is available for $0.99.

Spark Camera

Capturing memories doesn’t have to take up a lot of space on your iPhone and doesn’t necessarily require a lot of editing. With this app, you can grab a few seconds of a moment, come back to it later to add more moments, and add songs from your device’s music library to create seamless montage videos that you can share with others through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and more. You don’t have to stick to one montage either. You could be simultaneously making a golfing montage and a pie eating montage and each project will be saved in a separate folder. This app is available for $1.99.

Tangent

If you want to mix the gradients and textures of Mextures with the overlay concepts of Over,this app has the right mix. It uses scalable shapes, color fills, light blends, and more to give you unique and interesting customizable designs for every picture. Pick from 35 fully customizable styles to combine shapes, patterns, and blends into a unique look. Incorporate 70 shapes, 68 patterns, and 350 combinations of blends and colors. Drag, zoom, rotate, and resize your photos to get just the right look. This app is available for $0.99.

Tadaa SLR

Sometimes, the simplest things can have the biggest impact on the outcome of something else. This app has one feature, but it is such a useful feature that you may never take another photo without it. First, take a picture or upload it from your camera roll. Then, mask out your subject. Finally, tap to focus. Tadaa. The subject that you’ve selected becomes sharply focused while the rest of the picture fades into the background, easily creating the impression of depth of field. This app is available for free.