Apps

Where is Machu Picchu? What is the largest African beetle? Smartphone users have the world at their fingertips and are able to answer trivia questions in seconds. While accessing information…

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale. SayHi Translate (iTunes) Previously $2.99, now 99¢. SayHi Translate for iOS recognizes your speech and speaks the translation in any of 23 languages (and growing) for on-the-spot conversation across language barriers. The app uses Nuance recognition and SayHi's own "special sauce" combo of translation engines for impressive accuracy. Get it for 99¢. (via Apps-aholic...

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 made the cut? Pick: Instagram is fun, but eventually you might tire of it. Japan's take on the photo...

Apple this week announced the winners of its annual Design Awards at the Worldwide Developers Conference, highlighting some of the best applications written for iOS.

Just how much does your brain functionality affect what you hear? Your gut reaction to that question might be “not a lot,” but the staff at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco, asks you to reconsider that position with its new Sound Uncovered app for iPad. According to the Exploratorium, you ultimately owe your sense of hearing “not so much to your two ears as to what’s between them.”...

Entertaining distractions for kids have come a long way since the early days of Concentration and Connect the Dots. That’s especially true if you’re an iPad user. Take a look at these masterpieces that highlight some game-changing graphics interaction and even how you buy them.

Sharran Deora said it took a lot of hustle to get his first job out of school. “I went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I didn’t have the right connections,” said Deora, who was dreaming of working in banking. He ultimately ended up at Lehman Brothers and then Barclays Capital in product marketing and product management. But now that he’s back out of the finance…

In the dead of winter, we all crave a little wildlife and outdoor adventure. For a breath of fresh air, invest in apps that could teach you more about trees, birds and everything in between. See also: 10 Apps for Enjoying the Great Outdoors Whether you're a citizen scientist or are just beginning to appreciate nature, these five apps can help you identify a tree by its leaf or test your outdoor nature skills.

There are things you can see and things you can’t see when you gaze up into the sky. With a little help from an app or two, you can identify all of them.

Tynker, a startup that teaches children the fundamentals of programming by having them build their own games, is now expanding its platform to allow kids to control connected devices, including drones, robots and other “smart home” products, like lighting systems. The company will introduce these capabilities this weekend at the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo, and the…

Use the new extension of Google Calendar to become a better you.

One of the best parts of summer is sitting outside on a warm night, glass of wine in hand (or bar of dark chocolate, whatever your pleasure), good company by your side and...

Interactive ebook publisher Inkling has updated its previously iPad-only iOS app with support for the iPhone and iPod touch. Inkling 3.0 optimizes the layout for smaller screens and adds automatic syncing between devices, storing notes in a dedicated Notebook. The new app also lets iPhone users download only a chapter at a time in order to save space and data. It's free on the iTunes Store, but you'll need to create an account and spend between $5 and $200 for each book, depending on whether you're...

The Daily App Deals post is a round-up of the best app discounts of the day, as well as some notable mentions for ones that are on sale. procreate (iTunes) Previously $4.99, now 99¢. Procreate for iPad is an app that provides artists (and wannabes alike) the opportunity to be more productive with their art by using the iPad as a sketchbook and/or blank canvas. Users are given 16 layers to work with along with the ability to create brushes via customized characteristics. Get it for 99¢. (via LogicBuy)...

The new iPhone 5 and its bigger screen is here. And to take advantage of all 4-inches of that taller screen, you need apps that are updated, optimized and ready to look bigger and better than ever. We got 'em all listed for you right here....

If you have a penchant for learning at home or on the move, 2012 saw a slew of handy apps that could help you in your endeavors....

Chegg has long been known as a textbook company, becoming one of the first companies to bring textbook rental online and reach widespread adoption. But with Amazon, Apple and others moving aggressively into the textbook market — and the market and textbooks themselves increasingly going digital — Chegg has been re-positioning. Today, the textbook company is eying EdTech’s Holy Grail of becoming…

iTunes U hasn’t been redesigned to mesh well with iOS 7 just yet, but Apple is still putting out a few feature updates for its educational app. Apple released a new version of iTunes U in the App Store today that adds pull to refresh, improved language support, bug fixes and more. The new update is available in the App Store for free. Here are the release notes:

If you can tear yourself away from the golden brown turkey on your Thanksgiving table and gaze skyward, you may just see a once-in-a generation sight: a comet, or what’s left of it, streaking brightly across the sky. ISON, the so-called comet of the century, has been the center of much fascination for space aficionados and those who get paid to pay attention: NASA. See also: Here's What NYC Would Look Like on Other Planets Seeing a comet is cool on its own.

While Apple’s iBeacon technology is already being adopted by both large and small retailers, we’ve started to see other use cases pop up for this new indoor positioning technology, which involves Bluetooth LE-enabled transmitters that can communicate with nearby iOS 7 devices in order to push alerts, or even interact with other devices in your home. Now a small team of developers…

Hot or Not founder James Hong has come a long way since building a site that helped people rank the attractiveness of others, ultimately paving the path for speed dating apps like Tinder. Today a father of three, Hong now has a different set of priorities. One of those was keeping his kids safe from the unsuitable, adult-oriented content that fills YouTube. To fix the problem for himself and…

Bug fixes.”“Jam packed full of Super Amazing Things.”“Every 3 weeks, we polish up the Pinterest app to make it faster and better than ever.”“To make our app better for you, we bring updates to the App Store every 2 weeks…Every update of our Facebook app includes improvements for speed and reliability. As other new features become…

All the apps.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is an incredible word processor called UX Write, which makes working with large, complex documents on the go a breeze. You’ll also find Simpsons Comics, the latest app from comiXology that brings Bongo’s Simpsons library to iOS; a wonderful app from NASA that allows you to get up close and personal with the spacecraft used to explore our solar system, and more.