@app-review Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Riot: League of Legends Mac client ready 'within a month,' and why it's so late

by Mike Schramm (Jan 28th, 2013)

As promised, I went by Riot Games today in Los Angeles, and got the lowdown on the long-awaited (but soon-to-be-released) Mac client for the company's popular game League of Legends from PR manager Chris Heintz. Heintz told me that the Mac version of the game is already up and running on the ...

View the winds with Windscape for iOS

by Mel Martin (Jan 27th, 2013)

At first glance, this might seem like a silly app. However, I have to say Windscape is interesting, entertaining, and educational. Windscape (US$0.99 app) gives you a graphic representation of global surface wind patterns, which are rendered as moving particles. There are thousands of particles ...

Daily iPhone App: Food Run wants you to play with your food

by Mike Schramm (Jan 25th, 2013)

If the name Food Run sounds familiar, you've got a good memory. We featured it about a year ago (via the developer's blog post) as a gorgeous example of Retina display graphics. Now, a year later, the game is available from Pixels on Toast, and you can see those gigantic graphics in ...

Daily iPhone App: They Might Be Giants gives away some songs for free

by Mike Schramm (Jan 24th, 2013)

I'm a big fan of the band They Might Be Giants -- for years and years now, they've been putting out slickly crafted folk pop songs, complete with a good sense of fun and absurdity. The band has hosted a "Dial-a-Song" service for years, in order to let you hear their music over the phone, and ...

Twitter introduces Vine app for sharing video

by Steven Sande (Jan 24th, 2013)

Haven't been able to post enough videos of your adorable cat, baby or girlfriend on Twitter? Fear no more, Twitter has introduced Vine, a free video-sharing iPhone app that takes short snippets up to 10 seconds in length and blasts them to Twitter, Facebook and/or the Vine.co website. Those ...

Over HD for iOS puts beautiful typography over your photos

by Mel Martin (Jan 24th, 2013)

There are lots of apps that let you add text to your photos. Over HD (US$1.99, but currently on sale for 50 percent off) does it with grace and style. Pick or take a photo, open it in Over and add your text. The font choices are very artistic, not just the standard off-the-shelf variety. You ...

CoPilot and Bad Elf offer GPS to Wi-Fi iOS devices

by Mel Martin (Jan 24th, 2013)

Here's a nice idea. If you have a WiFi iPad but would like to use that big screen for navigation, now you have a solution. With a small hardware plug in, and the CoPilot Live software, you can navigate without needing a data plan. "People have always been so disappointed when we've told them ...

Daily iPhone App: Wave Trip flies through a musical world

by Mike Schramm (Jan 23rd, 2013)

Wave Trip is the newest title from developer Lucky Frame, probably best known for the underrated rhythm-meets-tower defense game Bad Hotel. In the same way that Bad Hotel is a tower defense game, Wave Trip is sort of a Jetpack Joyride-style platformer, in that you're navigating around the ...

Tonido can put you in touch with all your files from any iOS device

by Mel Martin (Jan 23rd, 2013)

Tonido is a free iOS app that, when paired to your home computer, gives you access to all your files when you are away from home, and even allows playback of video and audio files. You run an app on your home PC or Mac, create a free account and a portal is created that can be reached through ...

Picmatic makes your iOS device a flashy picture frame

by Mel Martin (Jan 22nd, 2013)

I don't know how digital picture frame sales are going these days. A few years ago, they were all the rage, but I would think that the ability to carry and display your favorite photos on a portable device may have dulled desires for them. Of course, the stunning Retina displays on iPads and ...

EazyDraw: A hidden OS X gem of an app

by Erica Sadun (Jan 22nd, 2013)

We last covered EazyDraw back in 2006. Flash forward to 2013, and the age of Mountain Lion -- and this can-do app is still roaring. Selling for US$140 for a full license from the developer's website or $95 from the Mac App Store, EazyDraw is now shipping in version 5. In a world where ...

Heart Beat Rate Pro measures pulse with iPhone camera

by Erica Sadun (Jan 22nd, 2013)

Heart Beat Rate Pro (US$1.99) represents one of a new breed of iOS apps that measures your pulse using the iPhone's built-in camera. It works by holding your finger over the camera. With the built-in flash illuminated, the app counts your heart beats, automatically detecting your pulse. I tested ...

Cut the barcode scanning cord with CLZ Barry for iPhone

by Michael Rose (Jan 22nd, 2013)

Did you have a New Year's resolution to organize your book collection (again)? It's definitely on the list in our household, but it's a daunting job; we have thousands of books (literally and literarily) scattered across many shelves, basement boxes and a home office, plus another whole library ...

Airendipity: The app that took 10 days to win my heart

by Mike Wehner (Jan 22nd, 2013)

This review is a little over a week late. Well, not "late" per se, but about a week later than I had intended to write it. Normally this is something only my editor would need to know, but in the case of Airendipity, it's a good way to explain my experience with the app. The concept behind ...

iTrace offers kid-friendly stroke-ordered handwriting tutorial

by Erica Sadun (Jan 21st, 2013)

Last week, the TUAW back room got into an incredibly extended debate regarding the merits of iTrace (US$3.99), a kid-centric app that teaches kids basic letter-writing skills. In the end, I pinged the developer and requested a promo code to give the app a try. I'm glad I did, because even though ...