This week’s roundup of new and updated iOS apps includes a couple of great new options for sharing your favorite photos. We’ve also got music, productivity, and education apps in store.
When Macworld reviewed AltaMail last year, we called it a “modest improvement over iOS’s mail app.” Well, iOS’s Mail app has stayed the same in the interim, but this week’s upgrade to AltaMail—$5, for both iPhone and iPad—is rather significant. It boasts new features designed to get you to “inbox zero” more quickly, including the ability to create custom smart folders where you can file emails for later action. Much like the popular Mailbox app, AltaMail lets users quickly swipe their way through an avalanche of communication.
Wanna feel old? It’s been 20 years since Bill Nye the Science Guy became a phenomenon. But he’s still beloved, and the new free Bill Nye the Science Guy app from Disney shows that he’s still teaching. The app is full of games and videos that show just how science works, and just how cool that can be.
If you’re a fan of Lytro and its funky “living picture” cameras, the new Lytro Mobile app for iPhone lets you wirelessly upload those pics from your camera (via previously secret Wi-Fi functionality) to Lytro.com, where they can then be shared to Twitter, Facebook, and other social services. You can also save photos as animated GIFs, to be shared by email or SMS.
Here’s a nifty iPad app that combines your morning newspaper and daily calendar. Morning, a $3 offering, gives you weather, reminders, traffic info for your commute, and some of the latest headlines, all in an elegant, easy-to-read layout that comes in five different themes.
Neat was already a, um, neat app—it let users scan and file receipts to help them track business expenses—but this week’s update makes it better: Users can more easily edit and share information with collaborators, add notes to scans, and even use filters to make the right information more legible. The app is free, but you’ll want to be a Neat Cloud subscriber to get the most out of it.
The $2 ProCollage app for iPhone already let you mix and match photos to create crafty collages of your favorite moments; now the app lets users add text to the collage, with 14 different text styles and 60 variations of text colors and patterns. Making memories just got a little easier.
The forthcoming arrival of iTunes Radio almost certainly has the makers of iOS-based radio applications nervous. Rdio is fighting back, though, updating its app to let users make radio stations out of any song or artist they’re listening to. It also includes an AutoPlay function so that when the album you’re listening to is finished, similar music will start right up. A nice addition, but you’ll have to be a Rdio subscriber to take advantage of it.
Once there was voicemail; now there’s video mail. Skype, the grandaddy of VoIP apps, now allows users to record up-to-3-minute video messages and send those messages to other Skype users. If you’re not a paid subscriber to Skype and only use the free service, you can send up to 25 video messages before you need to shell out.
Facebook offers more icons to add to status messages … Where’s My Mickey provides Disney fun to young kids … and Xoom (pictured) makes it easy to transfer money to friends and relatives abroad.
Author: Joel Mathis
Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.