AppShopper

After a prolonged absence, an official AppShopper app is back in the App Store! Our original AppShopper app was removed from the App Store due to a conflict with a new set of App Store rules introduced last year. Since that time we’ve been hard at work creating a new app to continue to provide useful functionality to our users and also remain in compliance with Apple’s rules.

Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve released AppShopper Social [iTunes Link]. The new version of the app still contains the core Wish List functionality that we’ve always had, but also introduces a social discovery portion to the app. This is a brand new app, so it is a separate download (not an update). You will be able to keep your existing AppShopper app on your device as well.

New Social Features

The main view is now composed of your Friend Stream which shows you apps that your fellow AppShopper friends have added to their Wish List or My Apps lists.

With AppShopper Social, you can maintain a Friend/Follower list. When you add a friend to your list, your personalized stream becomes composed of apps that that they have added to their own lists. While you can add any other AppShopper user to your friends list, we’ve created a few special accounts for you to get started with.

In the screenshots above, you can see we are friends with:

• 148apps
• appshopper
• macrumors
• toucharcade

These are specially created AppShopper accounts that are automatically populated when apps are mentioned or rated on their respective websites.

Our stream shows Dungeon Hunter 4 because it had just been reviewed by TouchArcade.com. Similarly Skitch and Yahoo! Mail where mentioned on MacRumors, and Golf Star reviewed by 148apps.com. These appear on your list as soon as they appear on their respective websites. If you’d like to link your own website automatically to an AppShopper account, please contact us.

In the case of TouchArcade and 148Apps, we already have review integration in the app, so you can read the reviews right from the app:

Same Old Features, Some Coming Back

Long time AppShopper users will be happy to know that the core Wish List and My App features remain in place. You can still get Push Notifications for updates and price changes to your apps. You can also search for any apps. Following the appshopper user will get you a list of the AppShopper Featured apps.

A few features didn’t make the first cut. “What’s New” and “Top 200″ were temporarily dropped while we sought re-approval. We will see about returning those features in a future version.

Also, in the interest of time, we haven’t yet updated the iPad version yet. In its present form, AppShopper Social is not a Universal app. We will be working on a Universal update soon.

More to Come, Please Spread the Word

In the 1.0 version, we’re aware that there are several obvious features that are absent. Top on our priority list is the ability to browse friends’ lists individually by tapping on their name. Also, an easier method for friend discovery and friend recommendation are also something that is clearly necessary. Even without these features, AppShopper Social is an incredibly useful tool for App Discovery, but there’s a lot of potential to be even better.

We lost a lot of momentum with the removal of our App Store app, so we’d ask you to spread the word on AppShopper Social. A large user base will guarantee future updates and improvements.

Download now: iTunes Link

For press inquiries, please contact us by email

As in previous years Apple is shutting down iTunes Connect, the tool through which developers manage their apps available in the Mac and iOS App Stores, for the holidays from December 21 through December 28. This means that Apple isn’t approving or releasing any new apps, app updates, or allowing price changes during this entire period. Since AppShopper gets its information in real-time directly from Apple, our price drop, updates, and new apps lists on our site and in our app will consequently not change during this time.

So if you see these lists look the same to you over the next few days, don’t worry – nothing’s wrong or broken on our end. Our site and app are just reflecting the lack of activity in the App Store because of this closure. You’ll start seeing new apps, updates, and price changes on December 29 when iTunes Connect opens back up. Note that our Popular lists will continue to change during the closure since they rely in part on other data that doesn’t come from Apple.

As some of you may have noticed, our official AppShopper App has been removed from the App Store. The App was removed by Apple due to a conflict with some new rules that Apple introduced with the iOS 6.

Current users of the AppShopper App will be able to continue to use the app, and we are working on a new version that we hope will be approved by Apple.

That new version will support the taller screen of the iPhone 5, that I know many have been waiting for:

We don’t have any more details quite yet, but will post more when we can.

Readers should also be reminded that Apple shuts down their iTunes Developer portal around the holidays, so from the dates of Dec 21 to Dec 28th there will be minimal to no activity in the App Store. As a result, AppShopper will also show little activity during that time.

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  AppShopper

  Last Changed:

  10 months ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (138)

  Version:

  1.4.4

  iOS Universal

  The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

The iPhone 5 has been out for a little over a month now and developers have been updating their apps to add compatibility with this device’s larger screen ever since. We here at AppShopper are also trying to update our own official app but it’s taking a little more time than expected due to some changes in Apple’s app approval guidelines.

We don’t have a timeframe yet on when this update will be released, but we wanted you to be aware that we are working on it. I personally know how disappointing it can be to have a favorite app that doesn’t quite take advantage of the glorious 4-inch display of the iPhone 5 and I’m right there with you. As soon as we have more details on the timing to share, you’ll be the first to know.

In the meantime, the official AppShopper app still works to show you the latest price drops and updates and lets you add and remove apps from your Wish List despite this, so do get it if you haven’t already. The official app of our sister site, TouchArcade, which focuses on iOS games exclusively has gotten the iPhone 5 treatment already and is a great resource if you want to stay on top of the best and hottest iPhone and iPad games, so get that too if you haven’t already.

• FreeBuy Now
  Utilities
  

  AppShopper

  Last Changed:

  10 months ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (138)

  Version:

  1.4.4

  iOS Universal

  The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

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  Entertainment
  

  TouchArcade - The Best New Games

  Last Changed:

  7 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (18)

  Version:

  1.1.4

  iOS Universal

  Find the Hottest new games for your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad before everyone else! Save money by bookmarking games to your own personal Watch List which notifies you of any sales, updates, and...

With the release of iOS 6 yesterday and the impending release of the iPhone 5 tomorrow, there’s been a frenzy of app updates this week. Of particular note are apps that have been updated to work with Apple’s new Passbook app that acts as a “holder” for boarding passes, movie and sporting event tickets, and store loyalty cards.

At its most recent media event, Apple demonstrated Passbook showing Starbucks, American Airlines, Sephora, Fandango, and others as participating businesses. Apps for many of these companies have been updated accordingly in the last day or so to add Passbook compatibility. To keep track of all apps that have been updated with Passbook compatibility, you can use this Passbook search query to automatically find all the latest apps with this feature right here on AppShopper.

If, like me, you have not been able to get the Passbook app to do much of anything but show you a broken link to the App Store when you try to find compatible apps, check out this possible fix over at MacRumors.

For another way around this issue or to simply see how Passbook works, check out this overview of how to purchase a digital movie ticket and get it to show up in Passbook over at Techcrunch.

If you’d rather not spend any money to test it out, you can get some free mobile coupons from Target to show up in Passbook by downloading the free Target app and opting in to mobile coupons from the My Target menu. Once you’re opted in, there’s an option to add the coupons to Passbook, which will give you a single virtual card in Passbook with a scannable QR code that you can use at Target to redeem any of the coupons.

At the time of this post, the company with the loyalty card I use most often, Starbucks, has not yet updated its app with Passbook compatibility. While this will not stop me from indulging in my grande no-water, no-foam chai tea lattes in the meantime, I’m looking forward to trying out Passbook with my Starbucks loyalty card when it’s compatible.

More and more apps are getting updated for the iPhone 5′s larger screen as well. As we mentioned earlier this week, you can check out a list of apps that have been updated to fill up its 4-inch screen using this pre-defined search query. At the time of this post, this list has nearly 1,000 apps on it with several big-name apps making an appearance including Flipboard, Pinterest, and Navigon. If you’re getting an iPhone 5 tomorrow, you’ll have no problem filling it up with apps that will take full advantage of its 4-inch screen.

Apple’s iPhone 5 will become available in the US and eight other countries this Friday, September 21 and will feature, among other things, a larger screen with a resolution of 1,136 by 640 pixels. If you got your pre-order in early enough or will be standing in line bright and early that morning to ensure you get your shiny new wonder phone on release day, know that many app developers aren’t resting on their laurels and are already updating their apps to add iPhone 5 compatibility.

Instead of searching for these iPhone 5-compatible apps manually, use this handy “iPhone 5″ search query to see a near real-time list of recently-updated apps here on AppShopper. Note that there may be some false positive results on that list in cases where developers added “iPhone 5″ to the description of what’s new in their most recent app update without actually adding compatibility.

Don’t fret if your favorite or most-used apps aren’t iPhone 5-ready yet––they’ll still work and will simply be centered on the larger screen with black letterbox bars on the top and bottom or left and right sides accordingly based on the iPhone’s orientation. Apple showed what this would look like at last week’s media event using algoriddim’s djay app (note the arrows that point to the letterbox frame):

At the time of this post, there are more than 100 apps updated with iPhone 5 compatibility including my favorite Twitter client, Tweetbot, RSS feed reader Reeder, OmniFocus, and many more.

Apple has added a new Food & Drink category to the iOS App Store. Apple told MacStories earlier this month that this category is for apps that had previously been in the Lifestyle category and is now home to “apps that help users cook and bake, mix drinks, manage recipes, find new restaurants and bars, and learn what their friends like to eat and drink”.

Food & Drink is home to the free Starbucks app, which is one of my most-used apps, as well as offerings from the Food Network, restaurants like Chipotle, Domino’s Pizza and many others, as you’d expect.

The new Food & Drink category is now available here on AppShopper in the category drop-down menu so you can browse it to your heart’s content. Or, you can browse this category right in iTunes through this link. At the time of this post, there are more than 2,800 iPhone apps and 1,200 iPad apps in this category.

There are thousands of games for the iPhone and iPad and finding the true gems among the existing offerings in the App Store –not to mention the new titles that are released every day– can be a daunting task. If you’ve ever looked around for unbiased and reliable game reviews to help you make your purchasing decisions, you’ve probably come across our sister site TouchArcade. While accessing TouchArcade is hardly a chore from any device with a web browser and an internet connection, it’s now even easier for iPhone owners with today’s debut of the official ToucArcade app.

The TouchArcade app offers instant access to the most recent reviews and articles posted on the site, which is staffed with writers around the clock to catch new releases as soon as they hit and offer exclusive previews of upcoming titles. The app also offers access to the site’s forum where more than 140,000 members discuss games and share tips and strategies.

The app’s main view provides links to the most recent posts on TouchArcade’s home page, accessible through the News & Reviews link. Recently-reviewed games that earned the highest ratings from TouchArcade staff are accessible from the Top Reviews link. The scrollable Hot New Games strip on the right (the same list is accessible through the Hot New Games link in the main menu) has some extra goodness behind it – this list incorporates feedback from TouchArcade’s forum members, showing the most highly-rated games that have generated the most feedback and discussion.

If you want to do a little more digging among the most highly-rated games, you can customize what’s shown in the Top Reviews list. This list can be modified by timeframe to show the high-rated games reviewed within the past week to every single one since TouchArcade was founded in 2008. You can also change the view to narrow down the genre and paid or free status.

If you’re already familiar with how our own Wish List feature works here on AppShopper (if not, check out this article), then the Watch List feature in the TouchArcade app will be familiar to you. When you look at the details for a game or a preview article about an upcoming title not yet available in the App Store in the News & Reviews category, a Watch List toggle is available. This toggle will let you add the game to a list so you can stay on top of its release and any price changes or updates it receives, and be notified of any new articles published on TouchArcade about it.

You can create an account in the TouchArcade app, which is free. This account will let you post in the TouchArcade forums and will save the contents of your Watch List so you don’t lose everything if you switch devices.

If you’d rather use AppShopper to keep track of the apps you want or have using our own Wish List feature and already have the AppShopper app installed on your iPhone, there’s an “Open in AppShopper” link at the bottom of each app detail screen. Tapping this link opens the AppShopper app so you can add the selected app to your Wish List there.

The TouchArcade app’s settings also let you receive push notifications so you can be alerted when new articles are published or when there’s a change to an game on your Watch List. A Notifications Times setting lets you specify hours during which you don’t want to receive notifications so the app won’t interrupt your beauty sleep.

While the TouchArcade app is currently for the iPhone and iPod touch only right now (it works on the iPad though does not have an interface optimized for this device’s larger screen), a universal version is in the works.

There are plenty more features in the TouchArcade app that I haven’t covered here but I don’t want to delay you any longer from going to the App Store to download it. Which you should do. Right now. Because the official TouchArcade app is awesome and free. So get to it!

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  Entertainment
  

  TouchArcade - The Best New Games

  Last Changed:

  7 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (18)

  Version:

  1.1.4

  iOS Universal

  Find the Hottest new games for your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad before everyone else! Save money by bookmarking games to your own personal Watch List which notifies you of any sales, updates, and...

For those who like to shop, there are few things in life more satisfying than finding a great deal on something you want. Though it’s pretty much impossible to find tangible items in stores that are free without applying your own five-finger discount, this is not true for apps. From time to time, some developers get a little crazy and make their paid apps free. But how do you find these apps? While you can be notified of price drops for apps on your Wish List (a topic we covered recently), how do you find out about apps beyond those already on your Wish List? As you might have guessed, AppShopper can help.

First, we already have three RSS feeds set up to catch and list all paid apps gone free for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. These feeds are shown in the sidebar on the right when you’re viewing any page under the What’s New tab. You can subscribe to these feeds using your favorite RSS feed reader so you can stay on top of these apps without even needing to visit AppShopper. You can also get fancy and get push notifications of updates to any of these RSS feeds on your iPhone or iPad through a push notification app like Boxcar or Push 4.0, which we featured in our blog a few months ago here.

If RSS feeds aren’t your thing or you just want to browse apps in a more leisurely fashion, here’s how you can find paid apps gone free right on our site at any time. When you’re viewing the What’s New tab, a row of toggles and a drop-down menu are visible at the top of the page below the row of tabs. You can adjust these toggles to change what’s visible on the page to suit your needs if you’re looking specifically for apps for a certain device or your Mac.

Now, here’s the magic combination to find all paid apps that are now free: using the three sets of toggle on the right, select All between All/Popular, Free out of All/Paid/Free and Price Drops out of All/Updates/New/Price Drops. The toggles should now look like this:

Voilà! The list on the page will change to show you all paid apps currently marked down to free, the best price ever.

If you want to narrow this down to a specific category, you can do that as well. For example, choosing the Games category will show you all paid games that are currently free. Also, if you’re looking only for iPhone apps, you can choose that toggle to narrow down the results. Of course, choose the appropriate toggles to choose iPad-specific apps or universal apps that are made for both the iPhone and iPad.

Here’s an RSS feed trick you may not have known. When you customize the toggles and category drop-down, you’re also customizing an RSS feed that’s available in the top right corner of the page next to the links to your AppShopper profile.

After you’re done customizing the toggles and drop-down menu to your liking, you can just subscribe to this feed using your favorite RSS feed reader and have it for all eternity.

So there you have it. You are now armed with the tools to take advantage of the most drastic price reduction decisions app developers can make. Happy app shopping and don’t forget to check out our free AppShopper app if you haven’t already!

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  Utilities
  

  AppShopper

  Last Changed:

  10 months ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (138)

  Version:

  1.4.4

  iOS Universal

  The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...

With more than 500,000 apps in the iOS App Store and nearly 10,000 in the Mac App Store, finding and keeping tabs on apps you may want to buy in the future can be a daunting task. However, we’ve developed an easier way for you to do this right here at AppShopper.com. If you’re new to AppShopper or just want to make sure you’re taking full advantage of what we offer, this article describes how to use our Wish List feature.

First, you need an AppShopper account. Yes, it’s totally free. All we need is a valid email address and a password of your choosing. We won’t sell your email address or do anything else dastardly with the information you provide or send you spam. Use the Register link in the top right corner and fill out the form on the next page (the Register and other links are not visible here on our blog pages – you’ll need to go to the What’s New tab to see them).

You’ll receive an email after you’ve created your account to verify your email address. Click on the link in that email to finish setting up your account and then you’re done!

Next, when you’re browsing the lists on our What’s New pages, every app shown has two check boxes: Own It and Want It. Checking the Want It box adds that app to your Wish List. (We’ll cover the Own It box and what it does in a later article.)

Now, click on the purple Wish List tab at the top of the page. All of the apps you’ve marked as Want It will be listed here.

Now here’s the beautiful part – find the Price Drop Notifications dialog box in the sidebar below the ads:

Here’s where you can choose to get an email alert when the price of an app on your Wish List drops. There’s als an option here to choose to receive an email when an app on your Wish List is updated, which can be handy when you’re waiting for a developer to release a universal version of an existing iPhone app, for instance.

Below the Price Drop Notifications dialog box in the sidebar is the Share My Wishlist box. Here’s where you can automatically share your Wish List through a dedicated URL (don’t worry – that URL won’t allow access to your account settings to anyone else) via Facebook, Twitter, or even an RSS feed. You can also just copy the URL and email it to someone – a useful feature to share the apps you want to buy before your birthday or any other major holiday you celebrate.

We also have a free universal AppShopper iOS app through which you can also view and add to your Wish List. Our app can also notify you of price drops and updates to the apps on your Wish List via push notifications. This can be in addition to or instead of email notifications – it’s your choice.

That’s it! You’re now an AppShopper.com Wish List expert. If you have any trouble using our site or app, please submit your issue using this contact form.

• FreeBuy Now
  Utilities
  

  AppShopper

  Last Changed:

  10 months ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (138)

  Version:

  1.4.4

  iOS Universal

  The official AppShopper.com app from the creators of TouchArcade.com AppShopper keeps you up to date on the newest App Store apps, sales and freebies. Organize apps in your own customized Wish List...