20 best iPhone and iPad apps this week

Infinity Blade III, Toca Cars, Hamlet: Explore Shakespeare, Grand Theft Auto V: iFruit, Angry Birds Star Wars II, Google Wallet, Axel Scheffler's Flip Flap Farm and more

Infinity Blade III concludes ChAIR Entertainment's trilogy of monster-battling iOS games

It's time for our weekly roundup of brand new and notable apps for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices.
It covers apps and games, with the prices referring to the initial download: so (Free) may mean (Freemium) in some cases. There's a separate roundup for Android apps, which was published earlier in the day.
For now, read on for this week's iOS selection (and when you've finished, check out previous Best iPhone and iPad apps posts).

Infinity Blade III (£4.99)

ChAIR Entertainment's epic trilogy reaches its conclusion, with more eye-popping scenery, more characters (two) and many more enormous monsters to stick a sword through. There's the usual levelling up, "massively social" clashmob challenges to co-operate with players around the world, and even a new song by Imagine Dragons on the soundtrack.
iPhone / iPad

Toca Cars (£0.69)

Children's apps developer Toca Boca's latest app is a sandbox driving app for 3-9 year-olds. One mode gets them to race around a cardboard world knocking things over, while the other lets kids create that world by placing houses, trees and other items. Then knock it all over again.
iPhone / iPad

Hamlet: Explore Shakespeare (£9.99)

Cambridge University Press and developer Agant have released a series of Shakespeare plays as iPad apps in recent months, with Hamlet the latest to get the treatment. The app offers the full text, an audio performance and photos of famous productions, with a host of interactive features all geared to better understanding the play (rather than just whizzy novelties).
iPad

Grand Theft Auto: iFruit (Free)

GTA V's official companion app should be an essential download, but be warned that a lot of people are struggling to sign in to it – as shown by its two-star average rating on the App Store. When it works, it'll provide news and social features, let you pimp your rides ready for use in the main game, and play a virtual pet mini-game to develop the Franklin character's dog Chop. And if you're playing GTA V on console, it's well worth downloading its separate manual app too.
iPhone / iPad

Angry Birds Star Wars II (£0.69)

Rovio's latest Angry Birds game is its second to be set in the Star Wars universe, with characters turned into birds and pigs, and 120 levels to fling them through. This time round, you can play as both sides, and there's a range of Telepods toys that interact with the game. Read our review for the full lowdown on the game.
iPhone / iPad

Google Wallet (Free)

This one's US-only for now, but it's a significant move from Google, bringing its payment app from Android to iOS. It stores your credit and debit card details, lets you send money to people in the US using their email addresses, and can be remotely disabled if your phone gets nicked.
iPhone

Axel Scheffler's Flip Flap Farm (£0.69)

Axel Scheffler was the illustrator for The Gruffalo, among other books. And Nosy Crow has made a succession of well-crafted book-apps for children. They're a match made in heaven for parents, then, and their latest app is great fun. Inspired by printed flap-books, it gets kids to make weird and wonderful animals from two halves (e.g a Shig from a sheep and a pig), with poetry to match.
iPhone / iPad

Crowded Fiction (Free)

Literature for older readers, here: an intriguing app that poses the question "what if reading eBooks and fiction was more like playing video games?" And while some gamers AND readers will roll their eyes at the idea, Crowded Fiction is the latest interesting attempt to explore the potential of interactivity in fiction. Journalist hero Jackson encounters fist-fights and car chases while investigating a museum curator's murder. Worth investigating.
iPad

100 Cult Films: BFI Screen Guides (£2.99)

The British Film Institute has teamed up with developer Aimer Media for this listy app profiling 100 cult movies – "from Akira to Withnail and I, from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls to This is Spinal Tap; from Italian cannibal movies to Japanese anime..." Details, stills, links to trailers and fan sites, and the ability to tick the films off as you watch them all feature. There's another app in this series too, for 100 American Independent Films.
iPhone / iPad

Disney Infinity: Toy Box (Free)

Disney Infinity is that company's ambitious attempt to compete with Activision's Skylanders: a video-game universe with its own range of physical toys that can be scanned in for use on consoles. In this case, those characters are Disney's famous faces, from Jack Sparrow and Lightning McQueen to the Lone Ranger and Mr. Incredible. Toy Box is the companion app for iPad, where children can build their world and scan in the same toys.
iPad

Mary Berry (£1.99)

Yes, that Mary Berry: of The Great British Bake Off fame. This is her solo app with a festive theme: 15 recipes for Christmas, taking in Traditional Roast Turkey, Apricot and Chestnut Stuffing and a nut roast for vegetarians. Berry's app gives you the necessary shopping lists, step-by-step instructions and kitchen timers to ensure Christmas Day goes with a bang.
iPhone / iPad

BBC Wildlife Bumper Book of Answers (£4.99)

The latest BBC app-mag is tailor-made for parents facing difficult wildlife questions from their children, promising as it does to explain what evolution is, why crabs walk sideways and why people are scared of spiders (among others). The app offers hundreds of questions and answers in a slick tablet app.
iPad

Carnage Racing (Free)

This iOS racing game comes from the developers of console series Midnight Club, and the production values are accordingly top-notch. It combines racing with stunts and combat, with weapons including a flamethrower, bombs and road sludge to nobble the opposition. Solo skills can then be tested against other people in the eight-player online racing mode.
iPhone / iPad

Women's Health 28-Day Fat Blaster (£1.99)

This app comes from Women's Health magazine: a 28-day programme made up of sessions under 30 minutes each, promising to "turbocharge your metabolism, build lean muscle, and torch tons of calories". Instructions and timers are included.
iPhone

Heroes of Camelot (Free)

Kabam's The Hobbit is currently one of the most popular mobile games in the world, up there with the likes of Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans. This new game may find plenty of players then: it's a card-battling RPG set in Arthurian times, with multiplayer battles and (of course) lots of dragons to fight.
iPhone / iPad

Looptical (£10.49)

MooCowMusic was one of the first developers to ever have an app shown off by Apple: fun musical app Band was demoed at the App Store's announcement in 2008. Five years on, it's still working in music, but several leaps on. Looptical is a full mobile-studio app for musicians, recording and mixing up to 24 stereo tracks, and helping you create loops and share them with other apps.
iPhone

The Good Pub Guide 2014 (£4.99)

Pubs. Yes, fellow Brits, there is an app for them. It's the official iOS version of The Good Pub Guide, offering reviews of 4,800 ale-houses across the UK, including images and the ability to add your own comments. Listings for another 20,000 pubs are also included, with everything plotted on a map. Extra points to Random House for the release version of this app being 2014.0.0.
iPhone / iPad

Niko and the Sword of Light (Free)

This is another take on bringing fiction to the iPad in an interesting form. Niko and the Sword of Light is an animated comic book by a team of designers who previously worked on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film. It sees hero Niko setting off on a quest to save his kingdom by finding a magical sword – complete with voice narration and a soundtrack by DJ Yoda.
iPad

Jake's Never Land Shapes and Patterns (£2.99)

Jake and the Never Land Pirates is Disney's modern TV show reboot of Peter Pan, and this is its first educational app. It gets children to recognise shapes and patterns through three piratical mini-games starring the characters from the TV show.
iPhone / iPad

Captain Bubblenaut (£1.49)

Developer Dean Tate has decent form, having worked on the first two BioShock games, then Dance Central. He's since teamed up with another developer, Owen Macindoe, for this characterful action game, where you guide the titular hero through a series of colourful levels battering "erfling" enemies out of the way as you go. It's hoping to be the next Tiny Wings, and doesn't suffer in that comparison.
iPhone

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Autumn brings a chill for BlackBerry

 

Thorsten Heins took over BlackBerry after the founders were ousted, but does not escape criticism. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP

With the fall of Nokia looming over him, this weekend will be an uncomfortable one for Thorsten Heins, chief executive of BlackBerry. While the Finnish firm sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft for €5.4bn (£4.5bn) this month, questions are swirling as to how long BlackBerry – which signalled its distress in August by putting itself up for sale – can survive, and in what form.
Things are so bad that on Friday night, market rumours forced Heins to announce the top-line quarterly results a week early. And they are grim: an operating loss of up to $995m (£620m), including $960m of inventory writedowns on its new Z10 handsets released in January, a net loss of more than $250m, revenues half what analysts expected at $1.6bn, and phone shipments of 3.7m – which Apple will comfortably exceed with its new iPhones this weekend alone.
For a company that once dismissed the iPhone for having no keyboard (a key selling point for BlackBerry phones), it's a humiliation. The low shipment figure exposes Heins's claim in April that the new Q10 phone – the first keyboard-equipped model using its new BB10 software – would sell "tens of millions". It might have sold a million.
Now the question is turning to how long BlackBerry has to go. On Friday, the company said it will cut 4,500 jobs, roughly 40% of its 11,000 total worldwide, adding to 7,000 jobs cut in the two previous financial years. It will reduce its future phone portfolio from six to four.
One former insider asks: "How would BlackBerry win? There's no answer to that at the moment. A buyer? I don't see how they would make the case."
This weekend was meant to be a new start for the company, with an attempt to turn back the clock to when it was the star of the tech world by offering its famous BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) software free for iPhones and Android phones. But rivals such as WhatsApp are already on both, with more users, while BlackBerry's base is dwindling both among consumers and businesses. BBM's arrival on the other platforms is two years too late, says the insider.
Friday's bad news drove the stock down by 20%, to a market cap of just $4.5bn. Broken up, BlackBerry might be worth more: last quarter, it valued its patent portfolio at $3bn, and says it has $2.6bn of cash and no debt. The services business has around 35m business customers, who could fetch up to $4.5bn.
But who would buy it now? Silver Lake, the private equity company that facilitated the recent $24.8bn buyout of Dell, appears uninterested – and Michael Dell has said his company won't go back into smartphones. Reuters reported last week that while Canada's Fairfax Financial Holdings, a 10% shareholder, might try to stage a buyout, interest from other private equity players is muted.
So where did BlackBerry go wrong? Was it the PlayBook tablet, unveiled 18 months after Apple's iPad in September 2011 with the slogan "Amateur Hour Is Over"? That has devoured $750m in write-offs, but the insider says its software was essentially that used in BB10. So, costs aside, it wasn't a distraction.
Instead, Mike Lazaridis, who devised the first BlackBerrys, and Jim Balsillie, who ran the company with him, failed to grasp how quickly the change ushered in by the first iPhone in 2007 would overwhelm the smartphone industry. According to the former insider, BlackBerry underestimated the speed at which businesses would start letting staff connect their own smartphones to company servers for email and more. "BlackBerry didn't move fast enough on that, nor get BBM out soon enough," the insider says.
The key failing was that BB10 was two years too late. Lazaridis and Balsillie saw that BB7, which powers older BlackBerrys, was outdated, but the new version was not released until January this year.
Heins was installed in January 2012 after the board ejected the two founders, but he does not escape criticism either. He was the chief operating officer and so "had the reins of the smartphone business", says the insider. That means the delay in releasing BB10 can be laid in part at Heins's door.
Yet if BB10 had taken off, it would have cut the company's throat. That's because phones using that software don't generate any service revenues from sending emails, data and web pages – which amounts to between a fifth and third of revenues, and rather more of profits.
All eyes are on BlackBerry now. But the message is not a positive one. The turmoil in the smartphone industry is brutal; more casualties may follow.

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7 unexpected features in iOS 7

 

My review of Apple's iOS 7 went up Wednesday morning, but since then I've been writing posts about what I think are the seven best and seven worst things about the new mobile OS.

Here is the third and final part of this series, covering some unexpected or hidden features in iOS 7.

There are certainly a ton of things that people are finding as they use iOS 7, so this is just a list of things that caught my attention over the past couple of days. If you have other hidden gems, please let me know in the comments.

Also, check back in the coming weeks as I explore iOS 7 on iPhone and iPad, or if you have any questions, hit me up on Twitter at @jparkerCNET.

It's not a complete change, but it does give your iPhone a new feel when you change the background.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Changing your 'theme'
Okay, you can't actually change the theme of the new design, but it's surprising how much you can change the feel of your iOS 7 device just by changing the background. What happens is, the background changes the look of the lock screen, the dial pad when making a call, and the passcode screen by letting the background colors show through. Try a few different backgrounds to see what I mean. Another related trick, for those who find the new icons too bright, is to choose the darkest still background in the settings. I found it brings the colors down a notch.

Daily quick view in Calendar
When I wrote my review of iOS 7, I was thoroughly let down when I thought the daily overview had been removed from the app. Fortunately, I found out later that the daily list to view your appointments and meetings at a glance was indeed still there; it's just that it's kind of hidden away.

Now, to bring up the day's events at a glance, you need to hit the search magnifying glass at the top of the screen. It's not exactly intuitive, but I'm relieved it's still there.

Hiding Newsstand
Newsstand is useful for finding magazines and other reading materials, and you can set up subscriptions so you get new issues of periodicals such as The Economist every week. But in previous versions of iOS, people who were not interested in reading magazines on their iPhone couldn't put Apple's Newsstand app in a folder to save home screen space. The concept behind it was that Newsstand already was a folder of items itself and you couldn't put a folder into another folder. Last year CNET Blog Network author Jason Cipriani even wrote a how-to late last year with a work-around to hide Newsstand.

You can now use three fingers to quit three apps at a time by swiping upward.

Fortunately, in iOS 7, you no longer need to deal with work-arounds. Newsstand finally can be placed in a folder. It's even useful for those who use Newsstand all the time because you can drop it into a more general news folder to have a central location for all your news sources.

Quitting multiple apps
Sometimes you have to quit apps and the old method of double-tapping the home button and long-pressing the app to go into jiggle mode was kind of a tedious process. In iOS 7, you now can double-tap the home screen and flick the app preview thumbnail upward to quit. It's a bit faster, but in playing with my iPhone during the review I made another discovery.

Not only can you flick to quit an app, you also can use three fingers to quit three apps at a time with the same swiping motion. This will let you make sure apps aren't running processes in the background when you want the full power of your iOS device and it's a much faster method.

Infinite folders
In iOS 6 and earlier versions, you could only have up to 16 apps in a folder. This might be OK if you don't download a lot of apps, but if you're like me, you were forced to make folders like "Games 1" and "Games 2" if you wanted to organize your home screen.

Now, in iOS 7, you can put an infinite number of apps (or until you have no more storage space on your device) into a folder so you can truly organize your home screen. iOS 7 organizes your apps into groups of nine, and you can swipe to move on to each page. This should help limit the number of home screen pages you have to navigate and make for a more organized layout.

With a couple of changes to the Accessibility settings, fonts are much easier to read.

Make iOS 7 more readable
One thing I've been hearing since the update is that people with less-than-perfect eyesight have some trouble reading the thin fonts in the new design, especially when they're in front of bright backgrounds (Calendar app, I'm looking at you). Fortunately, there's a fix.

If you have trouble reading the fonts in iOS 7, go to Settings > General > Accessibility, then touch the switch for Bold Text and also the Increase Contrast switch right below it. It will require a restart of your iPhone, but now reading should be a lot easier -- even in the Calendar app.

Using the compass as a level
The compass app is a neat tool to have on your iOS device to help you get your bearings when you're outdoors, sailing, or doing any number of other activities. But a new feature of the compass app in iOS 7 will help those who work on things around the house with a feature that acts as a level.

To keep your household handywork from coming out crooked, you can now swipe to the left on the compass, and you get a digital level tool. With this page open, you can set your iPhone on a table you might be making or even on its edge when hanging a picture, and you'll be able to tell if it's truly level.

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Building An “About Us” Page That Reels Readers In – Tips and Examples

On the web you can’t communicate with customers and partners face to face. However you still can influence them with your website design and content. The home page of your website is like a new suit that attracts attention. It generates a client’s interest in your business, but for them to make a decision on whether or not to deal with your company, they need to know more about you.

That’s what the About Us page is for, to give them detailed and engaging information about yourself.
Question is: is your About Us page good enough to engage people?

Recommended Reading: 7 Types of "Coming Soon" Page Design (With Examples)

The Necessity Of The About Us Page

The About Page is a powerful tool to reach your target audience. Site owners should go ahead and use it like the many companies that do to communicate with their visitors. It’s not a secret that a lot of designers prefer creating home pages of websites, while neglecting minor pages. The problem is, the About Us page is not a minor page.

Most of the efforts in a web design is aimed at dealing with clients to make a profit. But how will you make visitors trust you if your About Us page looks weird? Remember that potential customers would like to know as much as possible about you and your business.
Nobody wants to trust their money with unprofessional and unknown organizations. Having a good About Us Page is a crucial component of success.

Who Reads Your About Us Page?

It’s not an idle curiosity, there are several types of readers who will want to find out more from your About Us page:

Potential clients and partners

Whether you work on B2B or B2C markets, you need to get new customers from time to time. For those who wonder who is behind the website, your About Us page is the first source of information.

Job seekers

If you care about getting good, professional staff you need to give them proper information online. Most likely before sending you a job application, a lot of professionals would like to check you out. If you don’t want to lose out on creative designers, marketers and developers, don’t resort to blah-ing on your About Us Page.
Instead, show off the photos of your office, your corporate perks and hangouts and other stuff like that.

Investors and donors

Would you like somebody to come and give you their money? If you’re looking for investments you should be ready to fight for them. In this competition a well thoughtout About Us page will give you a lot of additional points.

Your competitors

A little bit of spying is ok on every online and offline market; it’s called intelligence gathering. To stay up to date you need to know what your competitors have just done and what they are working on. It’s a competition.
In this play your About Us page is your business card that makes competitors know your worth and respect you more.

Ideas for an Effective About Us Page

Forget about wordy stories. People are not interested in reading huge chunks of text. Viewers may look through your history, but more likely they won’t stick around for long. Time is of the essence. Give a clear explanation of what you do.
A lot of business websites fail to describe their goods and services, leaving visitors trying to understand what the website was created for.
Give people a reason to work with you preferably a cool reason. Do you have testimonials from previous customers or partners? Use them! They will add more value to your business info. Other aspects include:

1. Mission and vision

A lot of people will be eager to work with you only if your values coincide with those of their own. Showing your corporate mission and vision means you state your priorities clear. It helps you make the perfect business match early on in the game.

2. Staff Personalization

If you create a portfolio where you are the only star you need to identify yourself. It will reduce the distance between you and potential clients. In the case where there is a team of professionals behind the site, go ahead and put up personal facts; that would suit the About Us page just fine.
Group photos, personal portraits, interesting facts, positions – all these things will help you build trust in business relationships.

3. Photos and Images

Use photos and images to make your About Us page fun. Original graphics and professional photos attract more attention as opposed to a plain text. On this page you shouldn’t use pictures of bad quality or abuse stock photos. People will notice that the photos are not yours and you’ll look bad. The photos overuse can harm your design and your reputation.

Read Also: Large Background Images In Web Design: Tips And Examples

4. Use Keywords

Choose 1-2 words or phrases and optimize the page for them. It will be easy to do because when you’re talking about something you’ll naturally name it several times (but don’t overdo it).

5. Internal links

After the previous Google Penguin update website owners started taking a lot of care of their link profiles. Blind link-building doesn’t work anymore. When writing about yourself or your business, link to your Contacts page, Portfolio page, social media accounts, etc.
Don’t paste these links just because somebody says you have to. Make them look natural and user-friendly.

Showcase

Now let’s see how great your business can look on the Web. A lot of websites have already built adorable About Us pages, which showcases not just their vision but also their personality. Pick one that resonates with your own and adopt their practices with ease.
Google

MailChimp

Behance

Yellow Leaf

Less Films

Eight Hour Day

Duoh

Pulp Fingers

Doberman

Joe Payton

Mostly Serious

Pursuit

Moz

Letters

Emma

Reflection

You have probably noticed that all the shown About Us pages look different. There are no strict rules for their creation, but you can always look at your competitors’ designs to decide on which elements you should be paying attention to.
Hopefully this post will give you a better vision of your future About us design. Cheers and good luck!

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50 Funny & Creative Error 404 Pages

If a user sees a regular, plain error 404 page, there is a chance that he or she won’t hang around long enough to see what else your website can offer. The Error 404 page is like a little hidden world that you often hope no one will see. But if someone does, you should make sure that it’s amazing!

The ideal custom 404 page is helpful and creative. It will surely encourage your visitors to look further into your website instead of going elsewhere, helping your visitors return to relevant content. One more option is to make an error 404 page your little playground and creative space, where you can implement any your outstanding ideas.
I’ve handpicked 70 really funny and creative error 404 pages for your inspiration! Remember to click in to the pages and check out some of the added animation in the error pages. But first, you might want to check out some of these posts:
1. The Many Faces of 

2. Daniel Karcher

3. dario esteban brozzi

4. Audiko

5. The Movie Nerd

6. I Love Icons

7. Molome

8. Kikk Festival

9. Week done

10. Centresource

11. Jackrabbit

12. Twurn

13. OBJ + ADJ

14. Vasa Museet

15. Agens

16. MedicalMissions

17. Good Dog Design

18. Bluegg

19. Specialized

20. Carnation Group

21. William Csete

22. The Wall

23. Iamtiago

24. Pizza Milano

25. Pulp Fingers

26. H-ART

27. Habrahabr

28. Henrik Hedegaard

29. We are anonymous

30. Bored Panda

31. A List Apart

32. iStockPhoto

33. Red Bilby

34. distilled

35. ff0000

36. Focus Lab

37. ideapaint

38. Stickermule

39. Dribbble

40. Ines Maria Gamler

41. Humaan

42. Blogalization

43. Okostroy

44. Fastcentrik

45. The Fontain

46. Netico

47. TUTS Plus

48. Atlassian

49. Shamballa Jewels

50. DotSilo

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