The Week in iOS Apps: Wellness ahead

This week’s roundup features updates to apps that help enhance your health, teach you yoga, and more. Plus, there’s always a good game to take your mind off things, right?

The $10 Broken Age game for iPad is “a timeless coming-of-age story of barfing trees and talking spoon.” You can switch between the characters of Vella Tartine and Shay Volta, a pair of teens in similar situations played out on different worlds. The cast includes Elijah Wood, Wil Wheaton, and Jack Black, with a soundtrack recorded by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Only Act 1 of the puzzle-driven game is out now; Act 2 will soon be available as an in-app purchase.

Love pinball? Love Euroleague soccer? Check out FC Pinball, a $3 game for iPad and iPhone that lets you take on the legendary FC Barcelona team, well, not on the pitch, but in an “action-packed pinball simulation.” Integration with Game Center lets you compare your high score to other players from around the world.

Yes, the World Cup is already well under way, but futbol fans should still crave this iPad app, which lets you follow live action from games, participate in fan conversations, receive match alerts for your favorite games, and track FIFA’s live blog of the tournament, featuring extensive photo and video coverage.

This free iPhone app bills itself as “email at the speed of life,” displaying email threads in a format that looks more like chat messages. This week’s update includes “Hop Groups” to allow group messages, improved integration with the contacts on your phone, the ability to view attachments, and “smart notifications” designed to let “you know if you need to take the phone out of your pocket.”

Love Paul Krugman? This app is for you. Hate Paul Krugman? Well, this app might still be for you if you love to hate him. Have no idea who Paul Krugman is? Probably should move on.

When Parallels Access first appeared, flaunting its ability to access your Mac or PC desktop computer from your iPad, we called it “a nice, smooth iOS interface to Mac programs.” Version 2.0, released this week, offers some new twists, starting with the fact that it’s now a universal app also available on the iPhone. Other new features include a file browser to access documents from a remote computer, the ability to wake a sleeping remote computer, and improved stability features.

Version 5.0 of this iPhone health app moves WebMD beyond simply being a reference and into more of an active guide and trainer to improving your health. It includes the Healthy Target health improvement plan, which helps you create and sustain healthy habits. You can even use it as a pedometer in the iPhone 5s, tracking the number of steps you take daily.

The $4 Yoga Studio app for iOS hits version 3.0, with a new redesign for iOS 7, 35 brand new classes, and the ability to share custom classes with friends via email. You can also play music from other apps while audio from the class will continue to play in the lock screen.

Twitter has added animated GIF support to its app … Skype has updated with faster startup and a redesign … and Netflix has received a major update to its user interface.