AppShopper

Amazon has released a new app to allow users of its online cloud storage service to automatically upload and store photos from an iPhone and access photos saved to the service from other devices. Amazon Cloud Drive Photos hit the App Store today and is free to download.

Amazon offers 5GB of storage at no charge – all you’ll need is an Amazon account to take advantage of this freebie. Of course, you can purchase more storage if you’d like, upping to 20GB of storage for $10.00 per year or 50GB for $25.00 year all the way up to 1000GB for $500 per year. Amazon Cloud Drive Photos will use whatever storage level you’ve selected to save pictures from your iPhone. You can also save documents, videos, music, and other items to Amazon Cloud Drive through your computer.

When you first open Amazon Cloud Drive Photos, you’ll be asked to grant the app access to your iPhone’s photos. By default, the app will upload and save pictures from your iPhone’s Camera Roll whenever you open the app. You can even select to allow uploads only when you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network in case you’re not on an unlimited data plan.

If you’re one of the 10 bazillion people with an Amazon account, taking advantage of the free 5GB storage offered should be a no-brainer, especially if you want an easy way to back up the precious photos taken with your iPhone. I’ve found Apple’s Photo Stream service to be less reliable than I’d like and I appreciate that Amazon offers a ridiculously easy way to back up the multitude of pictures captured with my iPhone.

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  Photography
  

  Amazon Cloud Drive Photos

  Last Changed:

  3 hours ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (60)

  Version:

  1.1.56

  iOS iPhone

  Protect and store all of your photos in one place with Amazon Cloud Drive Photos. Access your photos from your iPhone or iPod touch, your computer, or any web browser. Take a picture on your iPhone...

Impending, the same developers who brought you Clear for iPhone (in partnership with Realmac Software and Helftone), and Warner Brothers have released Heads Up!, an iPhone game played by Ellen Degeneres on her TV show. The game hit the App Store this morning and costs $.99.

Heads Up! gives you seven virtual decks of cards in various themes, like movies, pop stars, and accents. Each card has an answer on it and you hold your iPhone up to your forehead where you can’t see it but other players can and their job is to give you clues so you can guess the answer. Their clues should not contain any words actually on the card nor rhyme with any of them. If you guess correctly, you tilt your iPhone down to flip to the next card. If you want to pass, you tilt your iPhone up to skip to the next card right away. Your goal is to make as many correct guesses in the allotted time.

Here’s a video of Ellen playing the game with actress Alison Sweeney:

Heads Up! also records video of each round and you can choose to save the video to your camera roll or share it via email or Facebook. There’s also an option to send your video to Ellen if you think it’s worthy of her attention. Who knows, maybe she’ll actually play it on her show?

Though I’m not a huge fan of Ellen Degeneres, Heads Up! has the potential to be a ton of fun with a group of friends (or strangers, if that’s how you roll) and it’s definitely worth $.99. Right now, there are 11 additional decks available via in-app purchase at $.99 each in case the seven included decks aren’t enough for you. To play Heads Up! you’ll need an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (though note the game isn’t optimized for the iPad’s larger screen) running iOS 5.0 or higher.

• $.99Buy Now
  Games
  

  Heads Up!

  Last Changed:

  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (481)

  Version:

  1.0.1

  iOS iPhone

  Heads Up! is the fun and hilarious new game that Ellen DeGeneres plays on her show -- and now you can play it with your friends! From naming celebrities, to singing, to silly accents -- guess the...

The third version of Delicious Monster’s popular media cataloging app, Delicious Library, debuted in the Mac App Store today, along with a companion barcode scanning app for iPhone and iPad.

Delicious Library made its first appearance in 2004, with version 2 released in 2008. The core functionality of Delicious Library remains in version 3: easy scanning and cataloging of your books, CDs, DVDs, and games. Version 3 goes well beyond this with the addition of recommendations of new items based on your ratings of items in your current media library and the ability to create wishlists to keep track of what you’d like to get in the future.

Your library is displayed on a virtual wooden bookshelf, a design motif present in the app since 2004 that has been mimicked by many others, including Apple in the iBooks app.

If you lend items to friends, Delicious Library 3 will help you keep track of who borrowed what and when. You can also share your library with others and see the libraries of your friends (all the better to know what you can borrow from them).

Getting items into your Delicious Library, um, library is easy, particularly if you have an iPhone or iPad. The free Delicious Scanner app will let you roam around your house to scan things willy nilly, and as long as your iPhone or iPad is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Mac, these items will be added to your library automatically. If you scan items with the app while you’re away from home to, say, catalog items you own at work, they’ll upload automatically to Delicious Library 3 once you’re home and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, you can use a compatible USB or Bluetooth scanner, or even the iSight camera on your Mac. You can also add items manually if you have that kind of time or come across something in your collection that can’t be scanned.

I downloaded Delicious Library 3 this morning and am finding it to be more fun to catalog my media collection than I was expecting, mostly thanks to the Delicious Scanner app. If you frequently find yourself lending stuff to your friends and would like to keep better track of what you own, or if you simply want an easy way to catalog what you own for insurance or other purposes, Delicious Library 3 is a simple yet robust app that can handle the job easily.

Note that version 2 of Delicious Library is still available in the Mac App Store today for those running OS X Lion or earlier and while it’s cheaper than version 3 at just $9.99, it lacks many of the new features in version 3 and won’t work with the free Delicious Scanner iOS app. Delicious Library 3 requires Mac OS X 10.8.3 or higher while Delicious Scanner requires iOS 6.1 or later.

• $2499Buy Now
  Reference
  

  Delicious Library 3

  Last Changed:

  2 hours ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (44)

  Version:

  3.0.2

  Mac OS

  Catalog your books, movies, music, video games, gadgets, and more. Delicious Library helps you create a comprehensive inventory, share it with friends, and get holistic recommendations based on your...

• FreeBuy Now
  Reference
  

  Delicious Scanner

  Last Changed:

  4 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (15)

  Version:

  1.0

  iOS Universal

  Delicious Scanner is a companion app to Delicious Library 3 for OS X that scans UPC and EAN barcodes. If you don’t own Delicious Library 3, do not get this app, it won’t do anything useful...

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

If you’ve been keeping an eye out for the newest entry in EA’s Real Racing series for iOS that was first revealed last September at the Apple keynote event when the iPhone 5 was announced, today is your day to hightail it over to the App Store. Real Racing 3 for iPhone and iPad debuted last night in the App Store in all its free download glory.

Real Racing 3 lets you race virtual versions of real cars on virtual versions of real tracks around the world. You can compete against others using Time Shifted Multiplayer, a feature that lets you race against other players even when they’re not playing the game right at that moment. There are over 900 events you can compete in and you earn in-game currency to buy new cars or upgrade and repair cars when you complete events.

The graphics of Real Racing 3 are crazy good. As shown in its first demo at Apple’s keynote last year, you can actually see the other cars behind and next to you in the mirrors as you drive and details and lighting are realistic and crisp. It’s truly a treat on a retina display device like the iPhone 5. Here’s the trailer to give you a peek (and yes, it looks this good as you’re playing):

While Real Racing 3 is free to download and you can play it to your heart’s content without spending a dime, you do have the option of putting down real money to speed things along. You do earn in-game currency when you complete races but it can take time to rack up enough to buy stuff. Repairs and upgrades to your virtual cars take time to complete and if you don’t want to wait for them to finish, you can spend the in-game currency you’ve earned or buy more via in-app purchase to get them done immediately. The same goes for buying new cars and upgrades if you don’t wait to wait until you’ve earned enough from completing races.

If you want to keep your Real Racing 3 experience as low-cost as you can, check out ‘Real Racing 3′ Tips on How to Spend as Little Real Money as Possible over at TouchArcade. While you’re there, check out their full review if you’re not convinced it’s worth the time to download.

I’ve spent some time playing Real Racing 3 today and it’s been super fun and more realistic than I was expecting. I haven’t come across any tracks that I’ve actually been on yet but the interior of the BMW 1 Series M Coupe I chose (which cost me $1.99 in real money that I don’t regret spending one bit) looks just like the ones I’ve seen in real life. If you like cars and racing, Real Racing 3 offers an excellent experience for a mobile game and you should hit that Buy Now button below toute de suite and get it. And if I see you on the virtual version of Laguna Seca where I’ve had the pleasure of flogging a sportbike a few times, I will give you a run for your money.

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  Games
  

  Real Racing 3

  Last Changed:

  4 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (7010)

  Version:

  1.1.1

  iOS Universal

  **#1 Top Free App in over 90 countries** Real Racing 3 sets a new standard for mobile racing games – it really must be experienced to be believed. Trailblazing new features include officially...

Though more than 60 million people in the US alone use Craigslist every month, the incredibly popular classifieds site does not have its own iPhone app in Apple’s App Store. However, there are at least 50 apps in the App Store that let you access Craigslist on the go and Silicon Valley-based Mokriya has added another selection for your downloading pleasure: Mokriya Craigslist debuted in the App Store this morning.

Mokriya Craigslist is free to download and lets you browse Craigslist ads from around the world. With a $.99 in-app purchase, you can add the ability to post ads, set alerts so you can be notified when something you want is listed, and mark ads as favorites for viewing later.

Mokriya created this overview video that highlights the paid features of the app:

I’ve been using Mokriya Craigslist for a few days now and it’s got a polished and eye-pleasing interface. One of the most useful features is the map view for the housing section, which could make Mokriya Craigslist indispensable to anyone looking for a place to live.

Mokriya is not new to the App Store – the company has previously partnered up with Side.cr (to create SideCar Ride) and Path (the folks behind the social networking app of the same name). Mokriya Craigslist is another sleek notch in Mokriya’s App Store belt and it’s worth a download if you post ads on Craigslist frequently or like to keep an eye on those Missed Connections posts in case you think you may have passed by your one true love at the grocery store the other day.

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  Lifestyle
  

  Mokriya craigslist app for iPhone

  Last Changed:

  2 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (91)

  Version:

  1.8

  iOS iPhone

  The BEST, OFFICIALLY LICENSED craigslist app with NO ADS! ***** TIME ***** Mokriya Craigslist is a thoroughly slick, modern piece of software — one which looks like what Craigslist might be if it...

Kickstarter, the online crowd-funding platform that was launched in 2009, released an iPhone app today. Kickstarter for iPhone is free and lets you browse and back projects and keep up with any projects you’ve already backed.

Accessories for Apple products and even iOS apps have been funded through Kickstarter, including weather app Dark Sky (review) and the iPhone-compatible Pebble and Metawatch smartwatches, which each have their own companion apps, Pebble Smartwatch and Metawatch Manager, respectively.

I’ve personally backed several Kickstarter projects over the last couple of years and the new Kickstarter app makes it a bit easier to look for new projects and read updates on the projects I’ve backed. Not that it was incredibly hard to go to Kickstarter’s website before but I appreciate this kind of easier access and formatting optimized for the iPhone’s screen.

If you’re a Kickstarter user or if you’re a little curious about what new and crazy projects people are looking to fund, check out Kickstarter. My current favorite is the open source Death Star. Yes, a Death Star. How awesome is that?

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  Kickstarter for iPhone

  Last Changed:

  9 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (74)

  Version:

  1.1.2

  iOS iPhone

  Kickstarter is a new way to fund and follow creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. We love projects! Take it for a spin... * Discover new...

Orchestra released its heavily hyped and anticipated mail management app, Mailbox, to the App Store yesterday. The free app lets you access your Gmail account and turns email chains into chat-like conversations. Like Clear, you use gestures instead of virtual buttons to navigate, with swipes letting you delete messages or “snooze” emails to get them out of your inbox temporarily to reappear later when you can deal with them.

Here’s a teaser video showing how Mailbox works:

Orchestra first teased Mailbox for iPhone in December and it impressed TechCrunch enough to call it “the best email management app you’ll ever use” and prompted The Verge to declare it to be “nothing short of spectacular”.

The free app debuted in the App Store yesterday but there’s a significant snag you should be aware of. The parsing and formatting of your emails to show the chat-like conversation view and snooze your emails is handled by Orchestra’s servers and in order to avoid overloading their systems, the company is limiting access to the app’s functionality. So when you download Mailbox you’ll get in a virtual line and a countdown will show you how many people are ahead of you to get access and how many are behind you.

Orchestra offered the ability to register in advance for Mailbox in late January, sending you a text message with a couple of codes to use when the app became available in the App Store. I’d done this pre-registration on the day it was made available but forgot about it when Mailbox came out yesterday and at first the app told me there were about 170,000 people ahead of me to get access to actually use it. I found my pre-registration codes later and entered them (hold down the mailbox symbol in the app to display the code entry screen if you skipped entering them the first time you opened the app like I did). When I’d checked my status yesterday, there were 17,701 people ahead of me and as I write this post today, there are about 18,680 people ahead of me and over 580,000 people in line behind me. At this rate, I should have access to use Mailbox in about 17 days if the approval rate holds steady.

Holding back access to use Mailbox has had a negative effect on its App Store rating. Right now, there are over 300 1-star reviews for it and the overall average rating is just two stars. Clearly, many users are not taking the need to wait well at all. While I understand the need to make sure their systems can scale and work for all users, I have to think that there could have been a better way to release the app and avoid preventing most people from being able to even use it right away.

At any rate, if what’s shown in the teaser video intrigues you at all, download Mailbox today and be prepared to be patient and wait. It’s free, so you’ve got not nothing to lose in terms of money and only a little to lose in terms of time to take a few seconds to open the app and get in line.

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  Productivity
  

  Mailbox

  Last Changed:

  3 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.50 (4794)

  Version:

  1.2.1

  iOS iPhone

  The fast, fun mobile inbox that puts email in its place.   Note: Currently for Gmail only. Other email platforms coming soon. Mailbox is a completely redesigned inbox that makes email light,...

Pixel Film Studios and LightWORKS Solutions have released ProCutX for iPad, an app that lets you control Final Cut Pro X on your Mac. ProCutX connects to your Mac via Wi-Fi and offers direct access to Final Cut Pro’s editing tools to adjust color, timing, audio, and more.

Built from the ground up to meet the needs of today’s creative editors, PROCUTX breaks free from the menus and tabs to streamline editor tasks. This application gives users control over all the FCPX editing tools in one clean interface, eliminating the need for clicking and searching through the Final Cut Pro X menus. From import to export, PROCUTX can control every step of the FCPX editing process.

Freelance videographer and photographer Paul Bunyard recorded this video of ProCutX in action earlier today:

Apple released Final Cut Pro X in June 2011 to a mixed reception over the lack of key features that were present in previous versions. Apple has since updated Final Cut Pro X several times, adding many of the features missing at its launch.

ProCutX debuted in the App Store yesterday and costs $24.99. It’s compatible with the iPad only and requires iOS 5.1 or higher.

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  Photography
  

  ProCutX for Final Cut Pro X

  Last Changed:

  7 weeks ago

  Rating:

  4.00 (34)

  Version:

  1.1

  iOS iPad

  ***Requires a Mac running 10.7 or 10.8 & Final Cut Pro X*** PROCUTX for Final Cut Pro X is an iOS iPad application that allows editors to control Final Cut Pro X on their MAC through an...

If you’ve been following the smartwatch scene at all, you’ve probably heard of the Pebble, a smartwatch developed by Palo Alto, California-based Pebble Technology. Pebble made headlines last year when its funding drive to develop its smartwatch through Kickstarter blew past its goal and hit $10 million in May 2012.

The Pebble smartwatch was originally slated for release in September 2012 but the project was plagued by delays. At CES earlier this month, Pebble Technology CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that Pebble smartwatches would begin shipping to Kickstarter backers on January 23.

Smartwatches are intended to be companions to smartphones, providing quick bits of information like caller ID for incoming calls and alerts for new voicemails, emails, and text messages at a glance. In order to know what to display, the smartwatch needs to connect to the smartphone and be configured and this can be done through an app. Pebble Technology just released its smartwatch manager app in the App Store today, just in time for the recipients of the first batch of Pebble smartwatches shipping out this week.

The Pebble Smartwatch app is free and available now in the App Store. You can’t do anything with it unless you have a Pebble smartwatch, which I don’t, unfortunately. The app’s description describes four things the app does:

• Notifies you when software updates for Pebble ready [sic] to install
• Installs and remove custom watchfaces onto your Pebble
• Sends ping test messages to your Pebble
• Helps you troubleshoot issues

We covered the release of another smartwatch manager app for another company, Metawatch, who has also released a smartwatch that works with the newest iPhone models. Metawatch Manager debuted in the App Store in October 2012 as the company’s own smartwatches started shipping out to customers.

If you’re wondering about the differences between the two when it comes to software, Pebble has opted to offer an SDK so that developers can create apps for the Pebble Smartwatch and these apps are installed directly on the Pebble and run on the watch itself. Metawatch also has an SDK but it’s for developers to create new or modify existing iOS (and Android) apps to interface with the Metawatch smartwatch. So with the Pebble smartwatch, its functionality will come from apps installed and run right on the watch itself while the Metawatch smartwatch will pull information from compatible apps running on your iPhone or Android smartphone.

I was tempted by the Pebble Smartwatch but didn’t participate in the Kickstarter for it. I did fund the Metawatch Strata Kickstarter project and expect to receive it within the next couple of weeks. The two watches are very different cosmetically but that aside, I’m interested in seeing how the functionality of each works out in the long run given the constrasting approaches the two companies have taken from the software side.

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  Lifestyle
  

  Pebble Smartwatch

  Last Changed:

  5 weeks ago

  Rating:

  3.50 (19)

  Version:

  1.0.6

  iOS iPhone

  PEBBLE - E-PAPER WATCH FOR IPHONE AND IPOD Pebble is the first watch built for the 21st century. It's infinitely customizable, with beautiful watchfaces and useful internet-connected apps. Pebble...