The Week in iOS Apps: Jack London calling

This week’s roundup includes a cool new offering from the iClassics team—an app featuring short stories of Jack London, complete with new illustrations and a soundtrack. Read on!

iLondon ($3, iPhone and iPad) creates an “immersive Jack London experience” for those who truly feel the call of the wild. The app contains three original stories, animated with 47 illustrations and a 30-minute soundtrack. The app is part of the iClassics collection, which also features offerings for Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, and more.

Cosmic Watch ($4, iPhone and iPad) helps users understand the relationship between time and the apparent movement of stars in the sky. You can use the app to know the current real time of any location on the planet, or to determine planetary positions in the past, present, or future. It’s recommended for use with the iPhone 4 or later, or the iPad 3 or later.

Need some Zen? Flowing (free, iPhone and iPad) lets you “enjoy the sights and sounds of wonderful streams, waterfalls & rivers recorded in psychoacoustic 3D for headphones.” Chill out, and experience the wonder of nature from your airplane seat.

There are plenty of great note-taking apps, and Notebook (free, iPhone and iPad) looks like it might be joining the list. You can write notes, make checklists, record audio notes, and create “photo note cards.” You can also record audio notes from your Apple Watch, or use the watch to re-read recently created notes.

To some of us, the idea of being a writer on deadline is an all-too-real bit of life. Paperback: The Game ($4, iPhone and iPad) turns it into fun—really?—in this Scrabble-style game that lets your character, a paperback writer, take cards, use them to build words and earn money, which you use to buy even more cards. The developers say a multiplayer version is coming soon

Toca TV (freemium, iPhone and iPad) is a video app aimed at kids ages 5 through 9, offered in in an ad-free environment. Say the makers: “No third-party advertising or sponsored content—only videos that will make your kid laugh, be inspired and simply have fun!”

Virgin America (free, iPhone) lets you  book a flight, check-in, access your mobile boarding pass, receive flight alerts—and somehow feel stylish while doing so. There are even Spotify playlists included for each city Virgin flies to.

With the advent of iOS 10, Apple’s native News app is spiffier and more useful than ever. Competing apps have to up their game: Yahoo Newsroom (free, iPhone and iPad) tries to spiff up that company’s news offerings with an app that lets you choose your favorite news categories, called “Vibes,” and assembles the relevant headlines for you. Users can also post articles to the Vibes to spark discussion.

Shazam now lets you identify and share songs within iMessage … bthere (pictured) makes it easy to find friends when you want to hang out  … Habitify helps you (natch) create good habits for yourself.