From time-lapse videos to 360º photo spheres, we covered a lot of ground with new iOS apps in August.
Here, we filter through the noise to present you with our selection of the best App Store newcomers from the past month.
Photo Sphere Camera (Google)
Google introduced a dedicated Photo Sphere Camera app to the iOS realm last month, letting users create 360º images and share them with anyone, while also letting them publish to Google Maps.
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Google’s existing camera app already brought photo spheres to Android users, so it’s nice to see it finally arrive for the iPhone fraternity too.
Sporty
Sporty makes it in here for its potential more than anything else. In a nutshell, Sporty wants to make it easy to create and join different sporting activities, based on your location. So if you’re organizing a game of football and looking for more players, then Sporty wants to be your go-to helper – conversely, if you’re one of the aforementioned ‘more players’, Sporty’s there to help hook you up to games in the area.
As with any similar app, its success will ultimately depend on the number of people using the service. If it can crack that nut, then Sporty could be onto a winner. It also needs to drop the requirement for Facebook to sign-up.
➤ Sporty
Hyperlapse (Instagram)
Instagram returned last month with a brand new standalone app for iPhone, called Hyperlapse.
Hyperlapse delivers an easy way to record tracking shots and time-lapse videos, and includes built-in stabilization so all your photos are kept smooth as you move around.
Skyscanner Hotel Search
Perennially popular flight search engine Skyscanner unveiled a brand new standalone app last month, focusing on hotels.
The new app is slickly designed, with the homescreen featuring basic search parameters such as destination, dates and number of guests. You can elect to view your search results in a list format, or plotted on a map, while you can ‘Heart’ (bookmark) your favorite hotels too.
SideChef
SideChef is an iPad app that uses audio and visual cues to guide you through the cooking process, and as of last month it arrived for iPhone users too.
Kickstarter-funded SideChef serves up photos, instructions and voice commands to help you prepare dishes from 1,000 recipes. Perfect for when your hands are covered in flour and you don’t want to muck-up your iPhone.
➤ SideChef
Quora
You know Quora, right? If not, it’s the mega popular Q&A service that lets you ask just about any questions, with the collective knowledge of the world’s Web users merging to deliver answers. It’s now available on iPad, in addition to iPhone.
Acorns (US only)
Unfortunately, Acorns is a US-only app for now, but it makes it in here as it’s fairly unique (and should be going international eventually).
In a nutshell, Acorns wants to help you get rich by micro-investing your spare change. The service connects up with your credit or debit card and links in with any purchase you subsequently make. Acorns then ’rounds up’ to the nearest dollar and invests this for you in a “diversified portfolio of index funds,” offered by the likes of Blackrock, Vanguard, and PIMCO.
➤ Acorns
Product Hunt
Product Hunt has made something of a splash in recent months, helping its community of users find the best new products and companies. And it gained its first mobile app last month too, kicking off with iPhone.
It’s kind of like a Reddit specifically for cool new apps, with the platform’s passionate users upvoting the best of the best.
Star Walk 2
Software developer Vito Technology already had a success on its hands with Star Walk, the popular stargazing app that launched back in 2008. In August, it lifted the lid on a brand new standalone app called – wait for it – Star Walk 2.
The basic principle remains the same for the sequel: you can find and identify stars, satellites, and comets in real-time, by holding your device up to the sky. The revamped incarnation has had a big makeover with fresh artwork depicting constellations, and generally been given a big fine-tuning.
Swing Copters
Swing Copters is notable mainly as it’s the handiwork of Dong Nguyen, the man behind the popular Flappy Bird game that was pulled from the App Store earlier this year for being “too addictive”.
With Swing Copters, rather than navigating a bird sideways, you are tasked with guiding a little helicopter’s vertical flight while avoiding hammers that swing from each gate. Like Flappy Bird, you get a point for every gate that you pass through.
Album of the Day (Sony)
With its new Album of the Day app for iOS, Sony discounts (and thus promotes) one album from its arsenal of tunes every 24 hours.
The price-cut could be anything up to 70 percent, and it serves up a direct link to iTunes to procure the album.
Camoji
Camoji for iPhone isn’t a life-changer, but it is insanely fun and makes it extremely easy to send animated ‘reaction’ GIFs to your friends.
Using simple wipe gestures to find your way around, Camoji is a treat to use. In camera mode, tap to record up to five seconds of video, and voila.
➤ Camoji
Foursquare
It was less of a new launch than it was a rebirth of what is still a very popular service. With Swarm already siphoned off for checkins, the Foursquare brand lives on chiefly for location-based recommendations.
A new tagging system called ‘tastes’ is designed to let you choose specific food, drink and venue types that interest you most. Foursquare delivers a list of suggestions based on your prior check-ins, though you can search for new ones too. It’s kind of like Yelp, on steroids.
What…you want more?!?
If you’re on the hunt for more iOS apps, check out some of the best ones from July, peruse through our other monthly roundups so far, or put your feet up and check out our pick of the bunch from the whole of 2013. Alternatively, you can check out some of the best Android apps from the past month too – some of which you may recognize from the iOS incarnations listed here.
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