Today in the App Store — the best free apps, new apps and app updates.

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

Apps Now Free

Mafia Rush [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $0.99] Mafia Rush is the gangster game you have been waiting for.

Flight Fight 2 HD [iPhone; Now free, down from $4.99] “Flight Fight II” allows you to challenge more stages, defeat more enemies, and select from more weapons and characters. Now, enjoy the fun of this distinct flight shooter!

MyBrushes Pro – Sketch, Paint, Playback on Unlimited Size Canvas with Pencil, Pen Painting Brush [iPhone; Now free, down from $1.99] MyBrushes Pro is an unique painting application designed to create images and playback the whole painting process.

Stand O’Food® HD (Full) [iPad; Now free, down from $4.99] Stand O’Food® is an original, fast-paced restaurant challenge with millions of players on PC and other platforms.

Fast Camera [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $4.99] Lightning fast burst photos. Save only the best!

Vert – Unit and Currency Converter [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $4.99] Vert is the most amazing, efficient, elegant unit and currency iOS converter. You can personalise it to meet your requirements at its best.

Lenka [iPhone; Now free, down from $9.99] enka is a remarkably simple yet powerful, dedicated black & white camera app developed in France by world renowned photographer Kevin Abosch.

Assassin’s Creed Pirates [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $4.99] Become one of the most feared pirates of the Caribbean in this exclusive Assassin’s Creed adventure on smartphones and tablets!

Whac A Mole [iOS Universal; Now free, down from $0.99] The classic match-up of mallet vs. mole is taken out of the arcades and dropped into a bright, colorful 3D world with new ways to play and more moles to WHAC than ever before! Apple’s App of the Week.

IconFly [OS X; Now free, down from $6.99] IconFly – make icon on the fly!

Stand O’Food® [OS X; Now free, down from $4.99] Stand O’Food® is an original, fast-paced restaurant challenge.

DUMBO – lets you hear the outside sounds when you listening to music [OS X; Now free, down from $1.99] DUMBO is an application which is able to hear the outside sounds when you listening to music through headphones.

New and Notable Apps

Trainz Driver 2 with World Builder [iPhone; $2.99] With new graphics and new content (including steam engines!!!) Trainz Driver 2 is a worthy upgrade for any train fan.

The Pyraplex [iOS Universal; $4.99] Transcend the boundaries of space and time to construct a colossal new wonder of the world in this pyramid-building adventure!

Galaxy Trucker [iPad; $4.99] Galaxy Trucker, the award-winning board game by Vlaaďa Chvátil, is landing on your iPad!

Updates you don’t want to miss

PDF Expert 5 – Fill forms, annotate PDFs, sign documents [iOS Universal; $9.99] PDF Expert 5 is a must-have app for anyone who reads, annotates or edits PDF documents on iPad or iPhone. Version 5.2 brings the following changes:

• Zoom Writing (iPad)
• AirTurn Support
• Bookmarks Improvements: Bookmarks manager gets amazing improvements in terms of features and looks.
• iOS 8 Exclusives: iCloud Drive Support
• iOS 8 Exclusives: Open files from iCloud Drive with Document Picker (iPad)
• iOS 8 Exclusives: Open files from iCloud Drive with Document Picker (iPhone)
• iOS 8 Exclusives: Use other iOS apps to work with the files from PDF Expert 5
• iOS 8 Exclusives: Touch ID Support (iPhone)

CARROT Fit – 7 Minute Workout, Step Counter & Weight Tracker [iOS Universal; $2.99] Make getting in shape suck so much less with CARROT’s hilarious fitness app. Version 3.1.1 brings the following changes:

• Greetings, meatbags! Here are a bunch of shiny new things to distract you from my plot to delete every last cat picture from the internet.
• HealthKit integration (requires iOS 8.0.2). Now I can sync your weight and workout data with Apple’s all-new Health app. I can also monitor – and comment on! – fitness activity logged with other HealthKit-compatible apps, even when you’re not actively using me. I am going to have so much fun with this.
• Step counter (requires iOS 8 and iPhone 5S or above). Starts as a simple pedometer viewable from your profile, but as you level up you’ll unlock goals, an icon badge, and more. Don’t want to wait to unlock all my step counter features? Buy the Forced March Pack from my store!
• Punishments. Make me angry, and I’ll serve up my glorious revenge in the form of ads, calorie shaming alerts for foods you enter into a HealthKit-compatible calorie counter app, and random squirrel attacks! (Note: If you’re a big wimp, you can disable these punishments in my Settings.)

Snagit [OS X; $49.99] Image and Video Screen Capture. Version 3.2.1 brings the following changes:

• Batch Export Files
• Video Trimming
• Enhanced Capture Experience
• Redesigned Editor
• Dropbox Output
• Record System Audio in Videos
• Snagit version 3 now speaks German!

Can’t wait to buy the Apple Watch? 3-D print one at home!

Despite complaints that the Apple Watch is just too big to appeal to women and thinner-wristed men, the Cupertino’s upcoming wearable isn’t actually that big. In fact, it’s about the same size as a Rolex.

Still not convinced that the Apple Watch will look good on your wrist? Why not print one out and see how you look wearing it?

Courtesy of concept designer Martin Hajek, this Apple Watch model can be printed out on any 3-D printer and worn until the real thing lands in stores sometime next year.

Supply your own leather band and paste a glossy sticker of the Apple Watch interface on the front, and you might even fool someone!

Seek Thermal turns your iPhone into a thermographic camera.

There’s no shortage of camera accessories for the iPhone these days with interchangeable mount lenses and countless apps for mastering smartphone photography, and now you can buy Seek Thermal’s smartphone attachment to transform your iPhone into an actual thermographic camera. Seek Thermal is a thermal camera with a true thermal sensor that connects to your iPhone through the Lightning connection with a chalcogenide lens and vanadium oxide microbolometer. What does all of that mean? Your iPhone can detect heat and energy through darkness and physical surfaces, and not with fake filters or trickery.

The Seek Thermal camera attachment is an actual infrared camera that reads light past the visible light spectrum. Here’s how Seek Thermal describes the accessory:

You can now have the power to see the unseen. This true thermal imaging camera detects infrared light that all objects emit, and uses the data from over 32,000 thermal pixels to create a visible image on your iPhone. In broad daylight or complete darkness, you can now be aware of your surroundings. The possibilities are endless.

Aside from the novelty of owning a thermal camera that interfaces with your iPhone, Seek Thermal describes a few practical use cases:

Safety and Security: Scan a dark parking lot before heading to your car; scan the yard before investigating strange noises.

Home Improvement: Identify leaky windows and doors, insufficient insulation, and other sources of energy loss; trace water damage up a wall or across a ceiling to its source; and identify the location of clogs in pipes.

Pet Owners: Scan the yard for predators before letting your dog out at night; find your dog or cat in the dark. 

Cooking: Measure the heat distribution across your BBQ or griddle; instantly measure the surface temperature of food; detect the propane level in your tank.

Boating: Detect and locate objects on the water at night.

For iPhonographers and gadget enthusiasts, the price point of the Seek Thermal camera is also interesting. Rather than requiring thousands of dollars for getting into the thermal camera game, Seek Thermal transforms your iPhone into a thermographic cam for $199. That’s cheaper than a similar accessory in the form of an iPhone 5 case we saw at CES this year.

The company is also inviting developers to request access to Seek Thermal’s developer kit for making apps that take advantage of the cam.

The device works with iPhone 5 and up (including the new iPhone 6 models), the company says, and can be used with iPad mini/iPad 4 and up as well. Seek Thermal can be bought from the company’s online store and is expected on Amazon as well.

Waze app now automatically remembers where you park.

Waze, the maps and navigation app acquired by Google last year, today gets an update that introduces a few new features to help improve navigation through user feedback. 

First up, the app will now automatically remember and save where you park when using it to navigate to your destination: ”Your parking location will be saved automatically. Plus, you’ll help Waze learn where to find parking & how much time to account.” 

Other new features included in today’s version 3.9 update: the ability to “easily add or edit places, business or residential” as well options for adding arrival photos and driving info for specific destinations. In addition, the update adds search autocomplete worldwide for all users. 

The Waze app is available now on iPhone and iPad for free.

What’s New in Version 3.9

Version 3.9 introduces Waze Places! Help make information on local places fresh & accurate for everyone.

– Easily add or edit places, business or residential
– Add driving related info like if a place has a parking lot or drive-thru
– Add arrival photos to help others find a place at any time
– Drive with Waze until you park: your parking location will be saved automatically. Plus, you’ll help Waze learn where to find parking & how much time to account
– Search autocomplete added worldwide
– Multiple bug fixes and optimizations

Apple Watch might hit runways at Paris Fashion Week.

Apple is diving wrists first into the fashion industry next year with its first ever timepiece, and what better way for the Apple Watch strut its stuff for the public than at in front of the worlds most intolerable fashionistas at fashion week in Paris?

The first public showing of the Apple Watch might take place tomorrow, which spotted an announcement from the Parisian fashion boutique Colette (which sells a ton of fashionable watches), advertising a one day only experience in partnership with Apple.

Take a look at the subtle Apple Watch hint in the invite below:

Although the invite is just grey and white, the dots do mimic the circular app interface UI of the Apple Watch. The event will take place at the company’s temple to fashion on 213 rue Saint-Honoré from 11AM – 7PM.

There’s no specific mention of the Apple Watch, but with the biggest names in fashion camping out in Paris until October 1st to show off their upcoming wares, it’s almost a sure bet that Apple’s gold faced beauty will make a stunning appearance at the event.

Wallpapers of the week: The Mountains for iPhone 6.

Continuing the push to provide iPhone 6 and 6 Plus wallpapers, the Wallpapers of the Week section is switching to larger resolutions ensuring everyone with a new device can enjoy customizing their experience. If you are new to the section or missed the past few weeks, I encourage you to go back through the archive. To highlight iPhone 6 versions, last week we posted Apple logo wallpapers in silver, gold, and space gray. On September 14, there was an initial pack of iPhone 6 images posted, even before the iPhone 6 launched. Step inside for a set of photographs, perfect for larger iPhone 6 screens.

Wallpapers

Below are images from photographer @Solefield, whom we featured a few times in the wallpaper section. An excellent photographer, you can view her images and some additional wallpapers on her Deviant Art gallery or personal homepage. Download: iPhone 6; iPhone 6 Plus Download: iPhone 6; iPhone 6 Plus Download: iPhone 6; iPhone 6 Plus

Downloading

These wallpapers are not natively available for iPhone 4 or 5. We know that. They also are not available for iPad. We know that too. Because iPhone 6 just released, we are focusing on iPhone 6 wallpapers specifically. Larger images are always backwards compatible to smaller screens. When you set the image as wallpaper in Settings.app, simply scale the image as you prefer.

iPad versions are not available because the artist too, is focusing on the new iPhone devices. As we find images that are available for both devices, we post them. Know there is not an intentional cause for us to leave iPad versions out of the postings.

An additional note, these images are parallax ready for both devices. It seems there is still an open discussion about what parallax resolution is for the two devices. There are some camps claiming the iPhone 6 Plus will rotate a square wallpaper like an iPad in landscape mode. We are continually investigating these claims.

For your knowledge, the included wallpapers are:

iPhone 6 — 750 x 1334 | iPhone 6 Plus — 1242 x 2208.

Here’s how iOS 8.0.2 compares to iOS 7 on an iPhone 4s.

Apple is still supporting the iPhone 4s when it comes to new software, despite the fact that it is now outdated by several generations. But while iOS 8 is technically usable by iPhone 4s owners, just how fast can it run compared to iOS 7?

Finding the answer to this question is the basis of a new video by YouTube user kabriolett, who staged a speed comparison between an iPhone 4s running iOS 7.1.2 and one running iOS 8.0.2.

The results are surprising.

Despite concerns about the amount of lag Apple’s “biggest ever” iOS update would create, the test shows that although iOS 7.1.2 does run slightly faster, there’s not actually a whole lot in it. The vid maker does, however, stress that the test was carried out on freshly restored phones, no yet weighed down by tons of text messages, full camera roll etc.

While it’s certainly nowhere near the speed of an iPhone 6 or even 5s running iOS 8.0.2 (and why would you expect a three year old phone to match a much newer one?) the video does demonstrate that iOS 8 is workable on a 4s.

Just one week after the launch of iOS 8 it was reported that 46 percent of iOS devices were running the latest version of Apple’s mobile OS.

 

iOS 8 How-to: Monitor & track your battery usage.

Have you ever wondered how much of your battery is being used? Or have you ever wondered why sometimes when you use certain apps your battery dramatically drains? New in the iOS 8 Settings application is the ability to track battery usage per each app you have installed on your device. This method is very similar to tracking your cellular data usage.

In iOS 7, it shows you how much you used the battery and how long the battery was on standby since the last full charge, but it did not define or describe how that was effected. To monitor and track your battery usage in iOS 8, first go into Settings.

Then tap on General and then Usage.

With iOS 8, by default the Battery Percentage is turned off. I recommend turning it on, as it will immediately give you a better representation of what your battery life is as opposed to the picture of the battery.

Tapping on Battery Usage, will first display the Time Since Last Full Charge. This information was available in iOS 7. It shows you your Usage, how long you have actually been engaged with the device using the display and it will show you Standby, how long the device has been idle and not been used.

If you scroll down further, there are suggestions to increase your battery usage. One suggestion would be to reduce the brightness of your disply. Personally, I have my devices set to maximum brightness. I want to be able to fully enjoy the Retina HD display on my iPhone 6 and not strain my eyes.  In regards to the screen, another suggestion would be to enable Auto Brightness which will adjust the display’s brightness automatically based off your surroundings. Another suggestion it might display is to turn Wi-Fi on. When you use Wi-Fi to access data, it uses less battery power than a cellular network connection.

Also, you will see a list of the apps and see how much the app used the battery. This information can help you determine if you are constantly using certain apps or it could be due to background activity. You can view battery usage in the Last 24 Hours, or in the Last 7 Days.

There are several different reasons why apps will use a lot of the battery:

1. The app is being constantly used by you. In my example above, that is precisely the case with Tweetbot.
2. The app is being used in the background. It could be downloading content, uploading content, using location services or streaming audio. In my example, the Mail app is downloading new emails in the background.
3. The app is being used in an area with poor cellular service. When this happens, it puts more work on the battery and drains it quickly. If this happens, the Phone app will be listed and it will list low signal.
4. The app is not working properly. For example the app can be constantly crashing. Or the app you barely use, but yet it is at the top of the list.
5. The app is using AirPlay. The app is streaming audio to AirPlay speakers, or video to an Apple TV.

When using this tool, a usage percentage is a percentage of the battery that is being used. For example, if your iPhone has 80% battery but it lists that Music has used 50%, that means Music used 10% of your battery’s power. This tool should be used occasionally. I would recommend checking it when you think there are issues with the battery because it is draining faster than usual, which would then give you insight on how to fix any apps that are draining the battery.a

Weakspot theory shows Bendgate’s not quite dead yet.

The iPhone 6 Plus bends because it’s thin and aluminium, right? Wrong, according to a poster on Imgur, who has analysed photos of the contorting iPhone phablet and places the blame instead on a badly-designed metal reinforcement.

With only 9 reported cases of bendy iPhone 6 Plus devices in the wild, user alleras4 based his theory on the video from Unbox Therapy, which has racked up 30 million views since being posted online.

What he notices is that, even though forces aren’t being applied evenly to the phone but rather at one side, only one point of the profile gives in to bending – with evident stretching of the upper portion of the iPhone 6 Plus profile, but nothing in the way of compression in the bottom portion.

alleras4 even adds an image, using red and yellow arrow to represent the forces being applied and how they affect the profile of the phone, while a blue graph represents the moment caused by the forces. The picture can be seen below:

By comparing that damage to the iFixit teardown, it is possible to look at the inner design of the case and conclude that the weak point is a metal insert screw located just behind the volume buttons.

As alleras4 writes:

“It’s not about how much force must be applied and if a pocket will do the trick or not. It’s just that under a particular type of flexing, the phone is prone to bend mainly because a metal insert meant to reinforce instead spins in an axis too close to the critical point. If they were further apart allowing better support to counter the flexing and not [spinning], it would make it more resistant.”

The idea explains why Apple’s stress-testing techniques failed to discover the alleged fault, since unlike Unbox Therapy’s manual approach to bending, Apple applied equal force across the phone’s entire profile, rather than one side which was what was necessary to start the bending process.

While it’s all just a theory, it’s definitely a compelling one — and one that’s good news for fans of slimline smartphones, since it means that Apple won’t have to beef up its future iPhones to avoid a Bendgate part II.

We’ve reached out to Apple and will update the story if and when we hear something.

iOS 8 Roundup: The best weather widgets for Notification Center.

When Apple introduced iOS 7 with an overhauled design for the iPhone and iPad software, it replaced the weather widget showing current temperature and weekly forecast introduced with iOS 5 with a text summary of the day’s weather conditions. This weather summary includes an icon for the current weather condition as well as a text description like ‘mostly cloudy’, but it tends to give you the high and low temperatures of the day and not the current temperature like Apple’s former weather widget.

Luckily, iOS 8 allows developers to create third-party widgets including – you guessed it – weather widgets with current temperature and forecast. Since iOS 8 was released last week, I’ve been trying a variety of apps with included weather widgets, and below I’ll share with you what I’ve discovered so far.

Out of the box, iOS 7 and iOS 8 include the default widget (seen below) in Notification Center‘s Today view with a summary of the day’s weather conditions, but as I mentioned before, that typically does not present the current temperature and certainly doesn’t present the 5-day forecast many expect to see from Apple’s previous weather widget.

Since iOS 7, Apple has reserved that information for the default Weather app, but it’s not nearly as convenient as pulling down Notification Center to glance at the current temperature (and the iPad doesn’t have a default Weather app like the one found on the iPhone and iPod touch).

Each app below is available for at least iPhone, and iPad users can install these apps and take advantage of the same widgets for Notification Center if iPad versions aren’t available.

Forecast+ ($0.99) (Included in $4.99 bundle of productivity apps)

First up is Forecast+, an app that’s really only a widget, which was a very popular recommendation when I surveyed Twitter for an iOS 8 weather widget replacement. The other apps listed here are full-fledged weather apps with available widgets while Forecast+ is more of a weather utility.

Forecast+ does have an app, but it’s used to toggle how and what the the widget displays. For example, you can set your current location or another location for weather tracking and toggle between Celsius and Fahrenheit depending on your preference. Forecast+ also offers up four different ways of viewing the widget as you can toggle between compact and expanded as well as choosing to always show the 5-day forecast or not.

The Weather Channel (Free)

Next is The Weather Channel for iPhone. It’s widget displays the current temperature and a text summary of the weather conditions. It’s more similar to Apple’s own approach (although you do get current temperature), but it also included links to videos you can watch within TWC’s app, which I didn’t find ideal personally.

Yahoo Weather (Free)

Yahoo Weather is another popular third-party weather app for many people, and its Today view widget closely resembles the design of its iPhone app with sparse text and simplistic icons.

With it you get current temperature, the day’s high and low temperature, and a brief forecast ahead, but you also get images from Flickr thrown in. These photos are usually from around your location if any are available and can be very nice images, but for a Notification Center widget, I found they add too much weight to something intended to be quick if that makes any sense.

NOAA Radar Pro ($0.99) (Included in $2.99 bundle of weather apps)

The NOAA Radar Pro app (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is straight to the point and offers up a glance at the weather for the next few hours as well. With it you get the current temperature and weather condition as well as the high and low of the day. Another benefit of NOAA Radar Pro is the app allows you to control the location used by the widget. This means if you’re traveling out of time but want to keep an eye on your weather back home, NOAA Radar Pro has you covered.

My Alarm Clock ($0.99) (Included in same $2.99 bundle of weather apps)

This next one isn’t primarily a weather app, but it included a quick weather widget as if it were one. My Alarm Clock is an alternative to the default Clock app with support for interactive notifications and a variety of other clock features.

Its widget, though, included the current temperature and weather condition as well as the current wind speed. It’s a bit robust with the alarm clock feature if you’re only looking for a weather widget, but it’s an option.

WeatherPro ($2.99) (Included in $6.99 bundle of weather apps)

WeatherPro is another weather widget that allows you to set the location you prefer to track. In addition to presenting the current temperature, WeatherPro’s widget offers you the current time of day, wind speed and direction, precipitation data like inches of rain per hour, and barometric pressure. You also get an icon and description for the current weather condition.

This weather widget is pretty straight forward is offers some additional details you may be interested in, but it’s value is mostly in its companion full-fledged weather app.

Raincast ($1.99)

Raincast is a different type of weather widget. It doesn’t show you to current temperature (although its badge can) and you don’t exactly get the 5-day forecast. Instead, Raincast shows you just that, the precipitation forecast over a 6-day period using a visually attractive bar graph and percentages.

You do get glyphs for how the weather conditions of each day as well, but they’re not highly detailed as the chance of rain each day is this widget’s focus. I discovered it while researching weather widget replacements on the App Store, but I think I’ll keep it around for now.

Weather Station by Netatmo (Free)

This widget won’t do anything for you unless you have a Netatmo Weather Station, but Weather Station users can use the widget with the corresponding app for viewing localized weather data captured by the device. For most people it won’t be the ideal weather widget replacement since it requires owning the product, but it’s especially worth considering for anyone obsessed with tracking weather data.

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For now, I’m keeping Forecast+, WeatherPro, and Raincast added to my Today view in Notification Center for quickly accessing relevant weather data at a glance, but each weather widget above is worth checking out to see which you prefer. Let us know below if you have a favorite weather widget for your iPhone or iPad on iOS 8 that you would recommend, and check out our additional  roundups including the best third-party keyboards, app extensions, and other widgets for making the most out of iOS 8!