Apps

iPhones. iPads. Android. We've updated all of our essential apps lists to include a few forgotten favorites, some long awaited arrivals and, as always, even more amazing apps. Check them out! If you want to jump to see the best apps in a specific platform, click here: The end of the month is here, and that means it's time to do a little housekeeping on our list of the absolute best iPhone apps. Who will be inducted? Hardest Shot: Using the iPhone's microphone, the NHL's new Hardest Shot app can actually...

The weather is just the weather, right? There aren’t many ways to make a weather report more interesting, or so we thought. Weather Zombie is an app that puts a…

Looking for a quick last-minute gift? Not feeling up to fighting the holiday traffic, crowds and checkout lines? Just too lazy busy to shop? Then you may want to consider giving the gift of an iOS app. You can gift any paid app from iTunes on your computer or from the app’s description page on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Just scroll down past the screenshot and look for the “gift this app” button. All you’ll need is the recipient’s email address to complete the transaction.

The U.S. Government isn’t exactly known for smart spending, but at least that $10,000 hammer actually works. That’s more than the Department of Labor can say after they blew almost $200,000 on an utterly crappy app for the iPhone and Android.

A London and Boston-based startup is setting out to help facilitate the world’s most popular ice-breaker, and has built a social app in its quest to do so. Weathermob was…

Today's government waste story isn't about stealth fighters, but the slightly less exotic world of smartphone software. How much would you guess a little app to generate the local heat index, and provide appropriate "tips." Price tag? $200,000. What. The app, courtesy of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, does extremely little. Its interface looks like a dog's ass, if that dog read a fifth of an HTML manual from 1994. It works based on free data. And it provides expert...

We’re all familiar with what the built-in iOS Weather app looks like for iDevices. It does exactly what you’d expect, giving you updates on the weather for any location you…

The iPad’s not shipping with a built-in weather application saw the proliferation of a staggering variety of third-party weather apps for the tablet. It is, therefore, fundamentally impossible to review…

Attempting to gain some of the visual flair that iPad apps such as Weather HD have, the Weather Channel went and revamped their own app, endowing it with stylized animations which visualize the current weather outside your window. There's also a 3D globe chock full of weather reports to go along with full screen weather maps and news. If you have an iPad, the app is free, so you can download it here and decide for yourself whether or not it's up to snuff.

iOS 5 is here and most apps are slowly updating to include iCloud support, Newsstand, Twitter integration and more to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches all around the world. Here's our list of apps updated for iOS 5. Let us know if we're missing any apps! • Twitter - Photos upload to pic.twitter.com, DMs are re-designed on iPad and more • Foursquare - Updated with a new Radar feature to alert you when you're near some friends, a place you wanted to try, or a list you followed • Soundhound - iCloud...

When you’re not using your iPad, there are are a few creative and unique uses ways you can put the tablet to good use, when it’s simply placed by your…

TapNav: It's a GPS app that cleverly uses Augmented Reality to show you which direction the road is going to go. Once you fire open the app, you'll see what's literally in front of you IRL (it uses a live feed from the camera like other AR apps) and a series of "AR" discs that paint the direction you should be going. So not only do you know which way to turn, you won't get lost as long as you follow the blue disc road. $3 Play Dead: Play Dead is an app that fakes like your iPhone is dead with a loop of...

Weather can be such a fickle bastard. A rainy forecasts turns good, a supposed great day becomes terrible. WHO KNOWS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN. Still. I use weather reports to give me a general idea of the temperature. WT360 for iPhone let's me know the weather nearly a year into the future. There's enough apps that tell you what the weather is right now or what it will be in the near future but WT360 thinks a little more long term. Of course there are hourly forecasts (95 hours out) and specific daily...

While doing a little browsing in the Apple App Store this morning, I came across a cute little application that I can totally see myself using just about every day: WillItRain. In most cases, I have no use for the direction of the wind or the level of humidity. I just want to know if it will rain.

Jackass: Tens Years of Stupid: Jackass: Ten Years of Stupid for iPad is a behind the scenes look of the biggest Jackasses we know: Knoxville, Steve-O, Pontius, Wee-Man, etc. There's video clips, gross photos, and essays on the entire history of Jackass. It's awesome to re-watch some of the epic skits, look back on the history and see the creative-yeah, I said creative-process behind the show. There's also two super simple games to waste your time on too. $5 Hound: Hound is a voice recognition app that'...

Most of the time I settle for checking weather on the web at whatever site I happen to remember at that moment. That’s before I saw Weather HD over at…

There are hundreds of weather apps on the iPhone that will tell you in immense detail exactly how the weather is in any location around the world. Weddar does the…

The iPhone comes with a pre-installed weather application that takes its data from The Weather Channel. While it looks okay, it isn’t exactly crammed with features, it doesn’t go into any detail, it doesn’t come with the iPad, and I find its weather forecast to be far from accurate. That being the case, over the years I’ve been trying out all sorts of third-party weather apps that do a far better job – here’s my list of the App Store’s best weather apps.

Kicking off this week’s roundup of must-have iOS applications is the brand new TweetDeck app for iPhone, which its creator claims has been completely re-imagined and rebuilt from the ground up to be fast, flexible, and powerful. Fring is the popular video chat and VoIP application for iPhone and iPod touch. It deserves some recognition this week thanks to its recent update that makes it the first application for iOS to offer group video calling with support for up to four people. Fahrenheit – or Celsius...

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for...

The weather is easy to come by these days, what with mobile apps and desktop widgets and the windows in your wall and all that. But sometimes that dry meteorological data can be deceiving. Weddar tells you how it feels outside. Weddar, free, iPhone. It's crowdsourced weather, basically; instead of checking what the temperature is, you scan the map for reports from iPhone-wielding weather "reporters" nearby. They'll have selected one of nine options, ranging from "perfect" or "great" to "freezing" or "...

Apple’s iOS home screen may be simple and effective, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of dynamically updating content. Two new apps, Fahrenheit and Celsius, do the best with what Apple provides to offer live local temperature readings without ever opening an app.

One of our favorite applications to make it in to the App Store this week is Google’s latest iPhone app, Google Shopper. By recognizing products by barcode, voice and text search, and even cover art, Google Shopper helps you find the information you need on millions of products, including online prices, reviews, specifications, and more. Also to feature in this week’s list of must-haves is The Daily, the first digital news publication created exclusively for the iPad. The long-awaited publication boasts...

It’s raining beautifully designed, simple weather apps. Earlier this week I spoke about Swakett, a Mac App that shows you how many layers of clothes you need to wear. Today…