On the hunt for some of the better new iOS apps to arrive on the scene over the past month? Look no further. Here’s 15 of the best to hit the App Store in February.
Outread
Last month, Outread launched its own take on what speed-reading should be about – however it was for iPhone and iPod touch only. But now, it’s available for iPad too.
Also, while Outread initially adopted a yellow highlighter to make key text stand out on the page – this has now been replaced by a dimming function that makes the words on the rest of the page less prominent instead.
➤ Outread
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Wonders of Life
Remember Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe app? The multimedia, 3D beauty that redefined what an iPad book should look like? Well, as we approached the two year mark since its launch, publisher Harper Collins rolled out the welcome mat for its follow up – Wonders of Life.
The Wonders of Life is optimized for both iPhones and iPads and, as with its predecessor, is based on the TV series of the same name, which was produced by the BBC and aired in early 2013. Based on our initial dabblings, we have to say – it’s pretty special.
RealPlayer Cloud
RealNetworks kicked off Mobile World Congress this year by announcing that its RealPlayer Cloud service was now available to users around the world.
RealPlayer Cloud is a storage locker optimized for video playback, with one of its main selling points being that it supports a wide range of platforms, including iOS. It supports all the usual formats, including FLV, WMV, DIVX, XVID, MOV, AVI and MP4.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is a well-known brand in the online survey sphere, and it finally launched a native iOS app for users to create, monitor and analyze surveys on the go.
SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg says that the company has seen a fourteen-fold increase in mobile traffic over the past three years — so this app is a natural progression.
Hop
Hop, the iPhone app formerly known as Ping that turns your inbox into an IM-like feed to make email more manageable and fun, introduced a notable update this month, one that included support for iPad, as well as a unified inbox feed for multiple email accounts.
Moreover, you can also now send photos and documents directly to Dropbox, Evernote and Twitter.
➤ Hop
Pop
Pop for iPhone mashes up reaction GIFs with your videos.
The general gist of Pop is that you record a short skit directly with the iPhone camera, then attach a GIF which appears only when the user holds their finger on the screen.
➤ Pop
Musx
Musx taps YouTube’s gargantuan arsenal of music to create a social network around good tunes. While that may not sound overly innovative on its own, Musx does actually bring a nicely designed app to the table.
There are many services that cater for individual listening, but when it comes to sharing a song they all rely on social platforms such as Facebook. However, people typically don’t visit social networks to listen to music, and these networks don’t save or record music that is shared, thus they tend to get lost in the foggy ruins of time. This is where Musx wants to help.
➤ Musx
Haiku Deck
After launching a version of its iPad presentation app on the Web back in November, Haiku Deck returned this month with a new incarnation for the smaller screens of the iPhone and iPod touch.
Haiku Deck lets anyone create and present professional, well-designed slideshows for free. The iPhone version focuses on the latter, giving users a simple means of reviewing and playing their presentations.
Tocomail
Available for iPhone, iPad and the Web, Tocomail officially unveiled its child-focused email client this month.
While email may not traditionally be associated with something that younger kids do, Tocomail reimagines the medium very much with children in mind, giving parents ultimate control over their emailing activity.
➤ Tocomail
PAUSE
Shuffler.fm doubled-down on curation this month, with an all-new multimedia music magazine for iPad.
PAUSE is a curation of the already-curated music service, so this in theory should offer the crème de la crème of the best new music. It highlights the best songs, videos, albums and charts, as well as some of the best music writing.
➤ PAUSE
QuizUp
QuizUp, the game that lets you challenge friends and strangers to test your general knowledge, finally arrived for iPad this month.
While the latest incarnation offers mostly the same experience, the company did update the app with a redesigned Topics page, added emphasis on your friends in the overall rankings, and a few other bug fixes.
➤ QuizUp
Rewind Radio
Looking for ways to rediscover music from days of yore? Well, Rewind Radio for iPhone could be up your street.
Rewind Radio lets you search for music by decade (going back to the swinging sixties), specific year, or season. So, for example, you can select ’1974′, ‘the 1980s’ or ‘winter 1992′, and then it will stream random music from that period.
The one caveat is that it only plays 30 seconds of each song for free – unless you have a Rdio subscription,
Distiller
Distiller for iOS serves as your companion for all things ‘whisky’.
Distiller delivers personalized whisky/whiskey recommendations from around the world, while letting you search manually too. It claims to analyze tens-of-thousands of data points across flavors, price, reputation, and even how well suited it is to ‘gifting’.
Handpressions [US only]
Handpressions lets you capture, store and print your kids’ hand and footprints directly from your iPad.
Though it remains US-only for now, you can create individual profiles for everyone in the family, tracking the growth of their hands and feet as they progress from babies through to, well, whenever they start complaining about your obsessive growth-tracking.
Final Fantasy VI
Square Enix launched Final Fantasy VI for iOS this month, and she’s a beaut.
Indeed, as we noted in our launch report, Final Fantasy VI is a true work of art – though it will set you back $15.99.
If you’re on the hunt for more iOS apps, check out some of the best ones from January, or put your feet up and peruse through our pick of the bunch from the whole of 2013. Alternatively, you can also check out some of the best Android apps from this month too.
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