• The best iPad apps to download: ready for 2021 (1/2)

    From TechnologyDaily@1337:3/125 to All on Mon Jul 5 12:00:04 2021
    The best iPad apps to download: ready for 2021

    Date:
    Mon, 05 Jul 2021 10:38:05 +0000

    Description:
    So you've got an iPad, you want the best iPad apps, but what on earth are they? We're here to help.

    FULL STORY ======================================================================

    While the iPad is undoubtedly the all-conquering best tablet range right now, without the best iPad apps it's basically just a souped-up Chromebook.

    Nobody wants that - so we're here to help you, whether you want the best iPad Pro apps to make use of the Apple Pencil, the best iPad mini apps to work on
    a smaller screen or just something to reinvigorate your time with a tablet.

    We've spent hundreds of hours testing the best free and paid-for iPad apps, and have helpfully split them into multiple categories on the following pages to let you browse for what you actually need.

    Of course, if you need a better iPad, our list of the best iPads around is there for you too - but if you've just been given a new tablet, then these
    are the titles that you need to be checking out - starting with our favorite new app this month.

    Oh, and if you're looking for something fun, then we've also rounded up the best iPad games you can download right now. Looking for an upgrade? Check out the best cheap iPad deals available now iPad app of the week: Infuse 7 ($0.99/79p/AU$1.49 per month) (Image credit: Firecore, LLC)

    Infuse 7 lets you play your digital video collection on your iPad wherever said videos happen to be stored. Point the app at a cloud service or folders on a home network and itll go through your files, adding cover art and descriptions. When you watch, you can pull down subtitles with ease.

    The app supports a wide range of formats, and optional Trakt connectivity enables you to sync your watch history, submit ratings, and sound off about what youve viewed. The revamped home screen makes for a more custom
    experience than before, with user-defined lists based on genre, age and ratings.

    For what you get, its good value and there are annual and lifetime discounts if youre a fan. Not sure about splashing out? You can always run the free version, which removes cloud service support and sync, but nonetheless excels for watching videos stored on your local network. These are the best photo editing apps you can download right now The best iPad art and design apps

    Our favorite iPad apps for painting, sketching, drawing, CAD, pixel art, graphic design and animation. (Image credit: PSOFT) Zen Brush 3 ($4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Zen Brush 3 is a next-generation painting app that focuses purely on the experience of working with East Asian ink brushes. Previous iterations of the app have been tactile and beautiful, but this release expands on the original premise in meaningful ways.

    The new water feature provides scope for blending and bleeding, and a greatly expanded palette removes the severe limitations on hues that plagued earlier versions of the app. Plenty of templates enable you to augment your artwork with everything from paper to 3D objects.

    Elsewhere, the brush action and ink emulation remain unsurpassed on iPad, making for a particularly beguiling experience when armed with an Apple Pencil. Great stuff for when you want to create Asian-influenced art, or just fancy something a bit different to relax with. (Image credit: Adrian
    Andreca) Voxel Max ($6.99/6.99/AU$10.99)

    Voxel Max is a pro-grade app for creating voxel art - essentially, pixel art in 3D. So instead of carefully placing pixels on a flat canvas, you plot
    cubes in a 256256256-pixel build area.

    Although compatible with iPhone, the Voxel Max experience revels in the iPads extra screen acres. You get more room to view and manipulate your creation, and Apple Pencil support for when getting all painterly with shaped brushes (spheres; larger cubes) rather than adding individual cubes one at a time.

    For professional illustrators, there are plenty of tools to dig into, including non-destructive transforms and face extrusions. But newcomers
    should find the app quite welcoming too, with its online help center and pre-built models to experiment with. (Image credit: Savage Interactive Pty Ltd) Procreate 5X ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    Procreate 5X is the latest iteration of the best painting app for iPad. Like its predecessors, this version has a minimal interface that gets out of your way while you work, yet packs a lot of power thats placed within easy reach.

    The existing and hugely impressive brush editor has now been augmented with a range of draw-on filters, including noise, blur, glitch and chromatic aberration. You can swiftly add a gradient map to any layer, auto-fill selections with color, precisely transform selections, and instantly create palettes from favorite snaps.

    For newcomers, this is an immediate, intuitive proposition; and for long-time fans, Procreate 5X further pushes the apps ambition and opens up yet more creative options. Either way, its a huge bargain at this low price. (Image credit: Steven Troughton-Smith) Pastel (free + $4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Pastel is an iPad app for any amateur or professional artist with a thing
    for color palettes. The second you open the app, you can peruse a collection of pre-loaded examples, which mix reference material (such as colors used on games systems) and hues that simply look great together.

    Creating your own palettes is easy. Load a photo and Pastel will extract key colors or you can start with a blank canvas. An existing palette can be edited at any point, using built-in color pickers. Furthermore, palettes can be exported to PDF, and individual values copied or dragged to other apps.

    Pastel is every inch the modern, refined iPad app. Its simple, usable, and makes excellent use of modern iPad conventions. Generously, you can also try it for free, adding up to 20 items before going 'unlimited' with a one-off IAP. (Image credit: The Iconfactory) Linea Sketch (free or $0.99/99p/AU$1.49 per month)

    Linea Sketch reasons that sketching on iPad shouldnt require you to be inundated with too many features. This app therefore gets out of your way so you can get on and draw.

    Tools sit at screen edges, making it a cinch to access colors, pen tools, and layers. You can import images to sketch over, work with grids and custom backgrounds, and record your masterpieces creation to export and show off on social media later.

    With Apple Pencil , the app is especially lovely to use, with straightforward transform controls, responsive line thicknesses, and the superb ZipLine that turns wobbly scribbles into perfect polygons, just by having you pause for a second when youre done.

    Note that the free version is full-featured, merely watermarking exports and reminding you to support development - so youve got no excuse to not check it out. (Image credit: Eran Hilleli) Looom ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    Looom cleverly rethinks frame-based hand-drawn animation for iPad. Rather than aping desktop tools, it fully utilizes the touchscreen. Ideally, you
    draw with an Apple Pencil , and use your other hand to move between frames. The process feels fluid - we agree with the creators suggestion that its akin to playing an instrument rather than using software.

    Although a Pencil is preferred, its possible to use a finger to paint. And either way, your creations are likely to resemble wobbly scribbles. But Looom is nonetheless a superb entry point for animators, due to its ease of use,
    and a useful sketchpad for veterans - not least when you consider you can run up to five layers, each with their own unique number of frames.

    The lack of share options (such as GIF) is a pity, but SVG export to desktop software is at least provided for pros. (Image credit: science-to-touch) iOrnament Pro ($6.99/6.99/AU$10.99)

    iOrnament Pro resembles a hugely powerful customizable kaleidoscope. As you draw, the app repeats your strokes across the screen on the basis of rulesets you choose to define symmetry types. Theres a range of pen types and brushes, along with bling-like glitter effects; and if you dont fancy going freehand, you can use geometric shapes or import a photo.

    The basics are simple enough for a child, but iOrnament Pros toolset lets seasoned artists delve deeper. Theres a layers system, an option for wrapping your work around a sphere, and several export options, including the entire image, single tiles, and a time-lapse recording.

    In some ways, iOrnament Pro is a curious beast. Its not an image editor you necessarily need; but as everything from an experimental design tool to a relaxation aid, its one you may well want. (Image credit: Savage Interactive Pty Ltd) Procreate ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    Procreate is a painting app that marries the kind of clout pros need with an immediacy that makes it approachable for newcomers. The interface is stripped back, with tools accessed from a bar at the top of the screen, and brush size/opacity from sliders on the left. Two-, three- and four-finger taps trigger undo, redo, and full-screen respectively.

    Beyond the basics, Procreate has a range of tools for all kinds of creative endeavors. Animation Assistant converts layers to frames in a GIF. Quickline snaps strokes to straight lines and shapes. Powerful transform and adjustment tools allow you to warp a selection and tweak colors.

    For artists, Brush Studio will be the real prize. It can import Photoshop brushes (and run them faster than Photoshop), or you can fashion custom creations from a dizzying array of settings and sliders. So whether youre an old master or a budding artist, this is a superb, affordable, powerful,
    usable app. Imaengine Vector (free + $2.99/2.99/AU$4.99)

    Imaengine Vector is two apps in one. In its most basic form, its a photo filter app. Load a picture or use your iPad to take a photo, and you can select from a number of filters. Most of them are eye-popping, transforming your image to anything from ink sketch to abstract art.

    That alone is worth the outlay, but tap the editor button and Imaengine
    Vector transforms into a full editing package, enabling you to adjust every stroke, and add to the image with lines and shapes of your own.

    The apps interface is a touch esoteric, and would do better if it avoided shoving all the buttons right at the edge of the iPads display. But thats the only major shortfall in this powerful app, which can produce some seriously arresting visuals. Live Home 3D (free + IAP)

    Live Home 3D is for people who fancy partaking in some interior design. Whether you want to experiment with your own home, or design an entirely new one, there are plenty of tools here for doing so in 2D and 3D alike.

    Even for free, theres loads to delve into, from creating bespoke floor plans to projecting your finished masterwork on to real-world surroundings in AR. Thousands of materials and models are available to deck your virtual home out so that it resembles the real thing.

    There are two paid tiers: Standard ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99) removes watermarks and is flexible regarding import/export; Pro ($19.99/19.99/AU$30.99) gives
    you more customization in terms of drawing, output quality, and light
    editing. In all versions, the app is powerful, usable, and entertaining.
    Linea Sketch ($4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Linea Sketch carefully balances power, ease of use and control to help you capture visual ideas.

    Rather than drowning you in features and toolbars, tools sit in slimline strips at the side of the screen.This makes it a cinch to select colors, work across five layers (into which you can import photos), choose backgrounds and grids, and get on with sketching. You can adjust the thickness of pen lines, block in areas with a fill tool, use a blend tool to make your work feel less digital, and convert rough scribbles to adjustable geometric polygons by way of ZipShapes.

    This still isnt a full-fledged artist package youd need Procreate for that but as a base for visual notes, quick design sketches, and drawing without fuss, theres nothing better on iPad. Affinity Designer (US$19.99/19.99/AU$30.99)

    Affinity Designer brings desktop-grade vector illustration to iPad. Its huge range of tools are ideally suited to anything from high-end illustrations through to interface design. Every stroke always remains editable, and you
    can zoom to an absurd degree, and never lose detail.

    The app works nicely with Apple Pencil or your own digits, and has a smart gestural system where holding fingers on the screen mirrors desktop keyboard modifiers. Elsewhere, you can pinch layers to group them, or drag one layer
    on to another to create a mask.

    This is an app you can get lost in but in a good way. The more you use it, the more you realize its sheer scope. And it even shares a file format with Affinity Photo, so you can bounce documents between the two without losing anything. Core Animator ($5.99/5.99/AU$9.99)

    Core Animator is an app for creating motion graphics on your iPad. If youve ever seen Adobe Animate (formerly Flash), youll feel at home. If not, the app might take longer to get to grips with, but youre helped along by built-in tutorials and Core Animators usable, logical interface.

    The basics involve adding objects to a canvas and manipulating them at
    various keyframes on the timeline. You can adjust each ones position, rotation, scale, and opacity, and Core Animator deals with all the frames in between.

    Its worth noting there are no drawing tools, so you must import elements created elsewhere. The app also demands time and patience, but give it both and you can end up with superb results. Concepts (free + various IAP)

    Concepts is an advanced vector-based sketching and design app. Every stroke remains editable, and similar flexibility is evident elsewhere, with varied grids (dot; lined; isometric), definable gestures, and an adjustable interface.

    With version 5, Concepts design revamp transformed the main toolbar into a space-efficient tool wheel, from which Copic swatches pleasingly explode when you switch colors. As such, the apps a touch alien at first, and can be
    fiddly if you dont have a Pencil.

    But Concepts soon becomes natural and fluid in use, and its apparent the apps been designed for touch, rather than a developer hammering desktop concepts into your iPad.

    If youre not a professional architect, illustrator or the like it might be overkill, but if youre unsure, you can get a feel for the app for free. IAPs subsequently allow you to unlock shape guides, SVG and PDF export, infinite layers, and object packs. Clip Studio Paint Ex for manga ($8.99/6.99/AU$11.49 monthly)

    Clip Studio Paint Ex for manga brings the popular PC desktop app for digital artists to the iPad. And we mean that almost literally Clip Studio looks pretty much identical to the desktop release.

    In one sense, this isnt great news menus, for example, are fiddly to access, but it does mean you get a feature-rich, powerful app. There are loads of brushes and tools, vector capabilities, effect lines and tones for comic art, and onion skinning for animations. It also takes full advantage of Pencil, so pro artists can be freed from the desktop, and work wherever they like.

    The app could do with better export and desktop workflow integration, and
    even some fans might be irked by the subscription model. But Clip Studios features and quality mean most will muddle through the former issues and pay for the latter. Pixaki ($24.99/23.99/AU$38.99)

    With visible pixels essentially eradicated from modern mobile device screens, its amusing to see retro-style pixel art stubbornly clinging on.

    But chunky pixels are a pleasing aesthetic, evoking nostalgia, and you know thoughts gone into the placement of every dot. Pixaki is an iPad pixel art studio, ideal for illustrators, games designers, and animators.

    At its most minimal, the interface shows your canvas and some tool icons: pencil; eraser; fill; shapes; select; color picker. But there are also slide-in panels for layers/palettes, and the frame-based animation system.

    Bar a slightly awkward selection/move process, workflow is sleek and
    efficient (not least with the superb fill tool, which optionally works non-contiguously across multiple layers), and the app has robust, flexible import and export options.

    Perhaps most importantly, Pixakis just really nice to use more so than crafting similar art on a PC or Mac, and although pricey its worth the money for anyone serious about pixel art. Stop Motion Studio Pro ($4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Animation can be painstaking, whether doing it for your career or just for fun. Fortunately, Stop Motion Studio Pro streamlines the process, providing a sleek and efficient app for your next animated masterpiece.

    It caters to various kinds of animation: you can use your iPads camera to capture a scene, import images or videos (which are broken down into stills), or use a remote app installed on an iPhone. Although most people will export raw footage to the likes of iMovie, Stop Motion Pro shoots for a full animation suite by including audio and title capabilities.

    There are some snags. Moving frames requires an awkward copy/paste/delete workaround. Also, drawing tools are clumsy, making the apps claim of being capable of rotoscoping a tad suspect. But as an affordable and broadly usable app for crafting animation, it fits the bill. Comic Life 3 ($4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    There are plenty of apps that enable you to add comic-like filters and the
    odd speech balloon to your photos, but Comic Life 3 goes the whole hog regarding comic creation. You select from pre-defined templates or basic page layouts, and can then begin working on a Marvel-worrying masterpiece.

    Importing images is straightforward, and you get plenty of control over sound effects and speech balloons. For people who are perhaps taking things a bit too seriously (or actual comic creators, who can use this app for quick mock-ups), there's a bundled script editor as well.

    Oddly, Comic Life 3's filters aren't that impressive, not making your photos look especially hand-drawn. But otherwise the app is an excellent means of crafting stories on an iPad, and you can export your work in a range of formats to share with friends - and Stan Lee. The best education apps for
    iPad

    Our favorite iPad apps for learning something new from astronomy to human history. (Image credit: TechRadar) Codea ($14.99/14.99/AU$22.99)

    Codea wants you to use your iPad for creating things specifically other
    iPad apps and games. Built around the Lua programming language, Codea is a code editor with a friendlier face than most to change a color, you just tap and drag; if you get stuck, reference materials are built in. Once youre
    done, press play and you can watch your code run, and interact with what
    youve made.

    Although you cant expect to fire up Codea and be troubling the App Store charts within a week, there are many examples you can mess around with, which help you understand the fundamentals of a game or 3D graphics.

    If youre still a bit suspicious that an app exists for creating other apps,
    do be mindful that there are already apps and games made with Codea available for download. So why not make one yourself? (Image credit: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd / TechRadar) Brian Cox's Wonders of Life ($0.99/0.99/AU$1.49)

    Brian Cox's Wonders of Life hints at the future of consumable media. At its core, this is an educational journey into over 30 creatures and their habitats. You learn how living things on Earth are interlinked, and the way
    in which everything is constructed from the same fundamental building blocks.

    Its the presentation, though, that sets the app apart. The main interface comprises sets of 3D scenes you can twirl and explore. Embedded within, youll find over a thousand high-res images, short videos narrated by Brian Cox and engaging essays.

    The result is something that borrows from magazines, books, television and apps, successfully merging them all into something new. Especially on the larger screen of the iPad, the dazzling visuals and text alike all get a chance to shine. (Image credit: TechRadar) Solar Walk 2 - Planet Explorer ($2.99/2.99/AU$4.99)

    Solar Walk 2 is a digital orrery. It offers a stylized 3D view of the solar system, and tapping on any planet or moon whisks you toward it within
    seconds, like youre piloting a rocket from NASAs dreams.

    The view can be manipulated by standard iOS gestures, although this app is also really nice to just leave in a docked iPad so you can watch moons and planets orbit their parents.

    When you want to science things up a bit, though, the apps ready and willing. An interactive facts panel provides stats, graphs, and the means to crack
    open a planet to see whats inside. Add some IAP and you can travel with
    famous space missions like Voyager 1. In all, its a cracking alternative to a real-world orrery and a lot more portable and interactive, too! Human
    Anatomy Atlas 2018 ($24.99/23.99/AU$38.99)

    Human Anatomy Atlas 2018 represents a leap forward for iPad education apps and digital textbooks alike. In short, it turns your iPad into an anatomy lab
    and augmented reality extends this to nearby flat surfaces.

    You can explore your virtual cadaver by region or system. Additionally, you can examine cross-sections, micro-anatomy (eyes; bone layers; touch
    receptors, and so on), and muscle actions. If you want to learn what makes
    you tick, its fascinating to spin a virtual body beneath your finger, and dissect it by removing sections.

    But the AR element is a real prize, giving you a captivating, slightly unnerving virtual body to explore. Ideal fodder for medical students, then, but great even for the simply curious. And although its pricey for the latter audience, the apps often on sale, and has dropped as low as $0.99/0.99/AU$1.49. Snap it up if you see it cheap. LookUp ($2.99/2.99/AU$4.49)

    There are quite a few dictionary apps on iPad, and most of them dont tend to stray much from paper-based tomes, save adding a search function. LookUp has
    a more colorful way of thinking, primarily with its entry screen. This features rows of illustrated cards, each of which houses an interesting word you can discover more about with a tap.

    The app is elsewhere a mite more conventional you can type in a word to confirm a spelling, and access its meaning, etymology, and Wikipedia entry.

    The apps lack of speed and customization means it likely wont be a writers first port of call when working but it is an interesting app for anyone fascinated by language, allowing you to explore words and their histories in rather more relaxed circumstances. Redshift Pro (($17.99/17.99/AU$27.99)

    The pro bit in Redshift Pro s name is rather important, because this
    astronomy app is very much geared at the enthusiast. It dispenses with the gimmickry seen in some competing apps, and is instead packed with a ton of features, including an explorable planetarium, an observation planner and sky diary, 3D models of the planetary bodies, simulations, and even the means to control a telescope.

    Although more workmanlike than pretty, the app does the business when youre zooming through the heavens, on a 3D journey to a body of choice, or just lazily browsing whatever youd be staring at in the night sky if your ceiling wasnt in the way.

    And if it all feels a bit rich, the developer has you covered with the slightly cut down but still impressive Redshift , for half the outlay. Sky Guide ($2.99/2.99/AU$4.49)

    There are quite a few apps for virtual stargazing, but Sky Guide is the best of them on iPad. Like its rivals, the app allows you to search the heavens in real-time, providing details of constellations and satellites in your field
    of view (or, if you fancy, on the other side of the world).

    Also, when outside during the daytime (at which point stars are
    inconveniently invisible to the naked eye), you can use augmented reality to map constellations on to a blue sky.

    Indoors, it transforms into a kind of reference guide, offering further insight into distant heavenly bodies, and the means to view the sky at different points in history. What sets Sky Guide apart, though, is an effortless elegance. It's simply the nicest app of its kind to use, with a polish and refinement that cements its essential nature. Earth Primer ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    When you're told you can control the forces of nature with your fingertips that probably puts you more in mind of a game than a book. And, in a sense, Earth Primer does gamify learning about our planet. You get a series of engaging and interactive explanatory pages, and a free-for-all sandbox that cleverly only unlocks its full riches when you've read the rest of the book.

    Although ultimately designed for children, it's a treat for all ages, likely to plaster a grin across the face of anyone from 9 to 90 when a volcano
    erupts from their fingertips. Journeys of Invention ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    Touch Press somewhat cornered the market in amazing iOS books with The Elements, but Journeys of Invention takes things a step further. In partnership with the Science Museum, it leads you through many of science's greatest discoveries, weaving them into a compelling mesh of stories.

    Many objects can be explored in detail, and some are more fully interactive, such as the Enigma machine, which you can use to share coded messages with friends.

    What's especially great is that none of this feels gimmicky. Instead, this
    app points towards the future of books, strong content being married to
    useful and engaging interactivity. The best movie and entertainment apps for iPad

    Our favorite iPad apps for having fun with your iPad, whether reading, watching TV, using Twitter or delving into interactive art. (Image credit: Jean-Michel Jarre) EN by Jean-Michel Jarre ($8.99/8.99/AU$13.99)

    EN by Jean-Michel Jarre exists in a similar territory to the algorithmically generated audio apps released on iPad by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. Only instead of an endless river of generative ambient audio, you get something akin to an infinite Jarre remix.

    This all works better than you might think, with Jarres trademark synth washes, electronic beats, and flickering riffs dancing about in a mix that never repeats itself. Although there are quite clearly defined tracks of sorts, theyre different every time you fire up the app.

    On iPad in particular, the visual component gets a chance to shine. On the larger display, the resulting effect is a little like a desktop Jarre concert
    and unlimited iterations for the price of a single new album seems like
    quite the bargain. (Image credit: Tayasui.com) Tayasui Color 2 ($1.99/1.99/AU$2.99)

    Tayasui Color 2 is a rare iPad coloring app, in that its properly premium
    and doesnt delve into the murky world of subscriptions. That means its more limited than its contemporaries you get just 18 illustrations but youre not forking out for something you may only dip into on occasion.

    The app has other benefits, too, not least a beautiful design that makes it feel like the most tactile offering on the platform. The illustrations sit within a flip book of virtual stiff card pages. As you color, sound effects mimic real-world tools, which is especially mesmerizing if youre using a stylus.

    There is one minor issue, in the illustrations not scaling as well as they might when you zoom in they get a bit blurry. But otherwise, this is a wonderful premium take on iPad coloring. Reeder 4 ($4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Reeder 4 is a premium RSS client. You subscribe to website feeds, which can be browsed individually or as a whole, ensuring you never miss an article
    from favorite sources.

    Although you can opt to view the original web pages, youre better off with Reeders own reader, which removes cruft, leaving you with just text and images. For sites that only provide synopses, entire articles can be loaded with a touch of a button. Theres also a Bionic Reading mode can also be invoked, emboldening specific letters in words to slow you down, so you take in more of the text.

    Despite the odd flub (a default theme that very much needs the increase contrast option on; finicky animations), Reeder remains ahead of the pack.
    Its a must-buy if you want a better way to take in news and other articles on your iPad. David Bowie is ($9.99/9.99/AU$14.99)

    David Bowie is takes 2013s blockbuster Bowie exhibition and stuffs it inside of your iPad as an AR experience.

    Curated by theme rather than chronologically, the exhibition is a set of interactive scenes, projected onto your desktop. Optional narration by Gary Oldman adds backstory as you examine lyrics, costumes and videos, exploring the life of a music icon.

    On iPad, David Bowie is works especially well. The screens squarer aspect ratio makes examining content less awkward than on iPhone, and the larger display lets everything shine. The only thing that might give you pause is
    the price, but for far less than a ticket to the original exhibition, you get unlimited access to all the goodies including dozens of songs and videos without having to peer over other peoples shoulders. Bloom: 10 Worlds ($7.99/7.99/AU$12.99)

    Bloom: 10 Worlds is the follow-up to 2008s Bloom, which never made it to iPad. That app had you tap the screen to simultaneously play notes and create spots of color. The former looped and slowly evolved; the latter disappeared into the background like ripples in a pond.

    10 Worlds expands this premise out from a single into a full album. There are 10 takes on the format to enjoy, each with its own visuals and audio. The visuals in particular have been significantly improved from the original Bloom, replacing that apps hard geometric forms with a more painterly approach.

    However, its the intriguing mix of instrument, album, and art that still shines through. The result is an essential addition to iPad, perfectly complementing existing Eno/Chilvers collaborations Scape and Reflection . Shepard Fairey AR - Damaged (US$4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Shepard Fairey AR - Damaged takes a warehouse-sized art exhibit and transforms it into a virtual space. This means instead of getting a digital book, where you swipe between stills, you instead experience the context and atmospherics of the original show, dragging the screen to move, or actually walking around in AR, adjusting your view on the basis of where you hold your iPad.

    Fairey creator of the iconic Hope image of Barack Obama is on fine form here, exploring issues relating to social media, celebrity, and the notion of constructing your own reality. Optionally, his narrative can accompany your journey around his work, adding extra insight. But however you check out Damaged, it proves itself to be the finest example of a virtual gallery on mobile, looking to the future rather than the past. Tweetbot 5 (US$4.99/4.99/AU$7.99)

    Tweetbot 5 is a premium Twitter client. Unlike Twitters own client, which is determined to present tweets as it sees fit, Tweetbot lists tweets in order, omits ads, and doesnt clutter up your mentions feed with notifications about retweets and likes. Theres a night mode, for tweeting in the dark, iCloud
    sync across devices for keeping your place, and nice sound effects that make the app feel alive.

    On iPad, the app of course supports Split View and Slide Over, but it also
    has its own built-in column view. This means if youre the kind of person who lives on Twitter, you can, for example, simultaneously scroll through your feed in the main pane, while chatting with people via direct messages in another. Top stuff for power users or anyone who wants to avoid social network noise. Chunky Comic Reader (free or $3.99/3.99/AU$4.49)

    There's a miniature revolution taking place in digital comics. Echoing the music industry some years ago, more publishers are cottoning on to readers very much liking DRM-free content. With that in mind, you now need a decent iPad reader for your PDFs and CBRs, rather than whatev
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    * Origin: Physics (1337:3/125)