This week’s roundup of iOS apps includes new and better ways to draw pictures, take photos, check the weather, and more.
It’s time to fight the Führer: The free 1941 Frozen Front recreates classic World War II battles between the Soviets and the German Army in a turn-based strategy game. (You’ll spend money on “gold coins” that aid your progress.) The only problem: It’s Nazis versus Communists. They’re all bad guys! Who do you root for?
The $2 AllowanceBot allows you and your children to track your weekly payments to them, as well as their progress toward earning their allowance. The app is protected by a parental password to ensure Bobby can’t increase his own allowance.
This $2 app has always been one of our favorite ways for diverting a young child. Now Drawing Pad for iPad sports some new improvements. A recent update added text tools, advanced brush control, sketch pencils, and more. This week’s upgrade adds to that feature list two coloring books to appeal to children still trying to learn to color inside the lines.
Here’s a nifty app for iPhone: IFTTT can perform one action automatically whenever a trigger is met. (Thus the “if this then that” code name of the app itself.) Example: You can program the app with a “recipe” to email certain friends when you check into restaurants on Foursquare. There are many variations, but this is a productivity app that will automate many nagging little processes for you.
This $5 game for iPhone and iPad features a boy searching for his sister in a beautiful, stark black-and-white silhouetted universe. Introduced on iOS last month, Limbo is still working out the bugs—the latest update fixes some of them, while also making clear that the iPod touch is not a supported device.
Oflow is a $4 “creativity app” for iPhone and iPad that tries to get your imagination jump-started with more than 150 methods and questions to get your brain thinking outside the proverbial box. This week’s update lets you view a menu listing all of those methods, and also fixes bugs found in previous versions of the app.
The $5 iPhone app lets young users paint Minnie and Mickey Mouse (among other creatures) with “unlimited” combinations of tools, colors, patterns, stickers, and more!
The $1 PhotoMagic app for iPhone and iPad is another photo effects app, trying to differentiate itself by quantity: There are more than 30 each of filters, light effects, and frames to use on your photos. This week’s update adds five new “textures” to the app, as well as support for adding text to your photos.
The free WunderMap app for iPad has always stood out among the ocean of weather-oriented apps; Version 2.0 launches this week with an overhauled user interface and the inclusion of even more weather stations and webcams to make sure you can keep a digital eye on the weather, no matter where you’re at.
Author: Joel Mathis
Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.