Apps

This week’s roundup of iOS gear has a focus on style—heck, even your dock-connector cables can be snazzy. Here are the new accessories we’ve come across this week....

Apps are the wave of the future, man. Soon every classroom will be filled with apps of all shapes and sizes, replacing your books, and maybe even your friends. But until then, you need apps on your computing device to succeed this school year. Whether you're reading, taking notes, annotating photosynthesis PDFs, or typing up a long paper on the juxtaposition of thing A and thing B, here are the best apps to get your schoolwork done. Of course, it's still up to you to actually do work, but with these...

If you live in an area where unpredictable weather is a problem, the free SkyMotion app for iOS is a reliable resource for precipitation warnings, and now the service is available on the desktop and non-Apple mobile devices. Residents in the United States and Canada can the SkyMotion web app to keep up with Mother Nature's behavior in one, five, and 15 minute intervals while checking out the current temperature to help you decide if you need to bring out your galoshes. Sky Motion Research uses a...

Claiming over 35,000 users, weather app Dark Sky has come a long way since its Kickstarter success, and today received its first major update that adds push notifications and a national weather map. Dark Sky's 2.0 update includes various bug fixes and performance tweaks, as well as minor changes like VoiceOver support and the ability to change your forecast location. The most significant change, however, is Dark Sky's new location-specific weather notifications, which notify users when it is likely...

Most weather apps try to convince you to ditch the default Weather offering in iOS by adding more features. Solar takes the opposite approach, stripping down its weather report to essentially offer time, temperature, and condition-appropriate color patterns. Whether Solar tops what you already get for free from Apple’s built-in app depends on the value you place on aesthetics.

It's Friday, meaning it's time for the best iPad apps of the week. This week, we're wowing you with a navigational app for boaters, one that will teach you something, and another that will test your knowledge of pop culture. IBM Think: How did we get from the invention of the wheel to the personal computer? It's been a long road, marked by very important developments along the way. Based on IBM's Think exhibit staged in NYC last year, this app maps innovation in a beautifully-designed package. Free...

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. Which ones were tops? Brewster: There are about a dozen ways you can get a hold of someone, which can make for...

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a stunning new weather app called Solar, which boasts a simple, intuitive user interface