Paid iOS Apps Gone Free, December 28, 2015

Are you still feeling the holiday spirit? I hope so! While the past several days were no doubt a mix of fun and stress, there are still more festivities to come, so keep that energy going!

To help with that – at least that’s our intention – here are some paid iOS apps gone free that you may enjoy.

Paid iOS apps gone free

MarcoPolo Weather

Let’s start with stuff for the kids. They may still be enjoying all the gifts and Christmas money they received, but a new app is always fun.

MarcoPolo Weather is an educational app that won’t worry you, parents.

Weather controls allow you to change atmospheric conditions such as temperature, wind speed, precipitation, cloud coverage and so much more. Every choice and combination creates a new weather experience!

•Control 9 different weather conditions: sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, rain, thunderstorm, snow, blizzard, tornado, and hurricane.
•Choose from 4 different wind speeds – make a pinwheel spin or even fly a kite!
•Adjust the temperature – see the environment change as you go from hot to cold in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.
•Play with 3 mini-games and 55 interactive elements. You can plant flowers and make them bloom, melt an igloo, or have a snowball fight!
•Interact with 3 wacky characters that respond to the weather choices you make: you can dress them in light clothes when it’s hot, give them hot drinks in the cold, or hand them umbrellas when they’re wet.
•Add flowers, birds, a snowman or a picnic basket to the scene and see how the different weather types affect them.
•Acquire new vocabulary and build an understanding of weather through age-appropriate narration.

Through self-directed discovery, we expose children to early skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), focusing on the following concepts:

•Observe and describe different weather conditions including temperature, cloud cover, and precipitation
•Identify ways in which weather affects daily routines, such as dress and activities
•Determine how weather affects the natural landscape
•Learn about the water cycle and how clouds are formed

Frax – The First Realtime Immersive Fractals

They got my attention with “immersive fractals”, and they certainly hooked me in with a statement from Stephen Fry: “This app is so beautiful it makes me want to weep.”

Frax is an art program that puts the “equations of nature” in the palm of your hand. Frax is powered by fractal geometry, the same principle that creates patterns of self-similarity in our natural world. From spiral galaxies to hurricanes, from tree limbs to branching blood vessels, the universe is filled with endless variation and staggering beauty. Frax visualizes this natural geometric code, so you can explore vast animating digital landscapes and make a masterpiece on your touchscreen.

EXPLORE
Zoom deep into your creations. Use multi-touch gestures to fly through and explore intricate shapes and patterns. Tilt-to-steer through animating digital worlds, as you challenge yourself to chart a course for a long and beautiful flight –all at a depth range of a trillion-to-one.

DESIGN
Unleash your inner artist with complex colour gradients to smoothly tint and shade your fractal shapes, two light sources for glossy reflections, and novel textures. The combinations are endless: supersmooth or wildly chaotic, metallic sheen or pearly white, subtle shades, stark monochrome or screaming supergloss. Or upgrade to Pro to access almost 100 parameters and controls!

AmpKit+

This one’s for people who can’t live without music – creating and listening, specifically guitar enthusiasts.

AmpKit+ transforms your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch into a powerful guitar amp & effects studio!

COMPATIBLE DEVICE:
• Ampkit Link, Ampkit Link HD (available on Amazon.com)
• Apogee JAM, Line 6 Mobile In, Line 6 SonicPort, iRiffPort, Alesis IO Dock
• iRig, iRig HD

FEATURES:
• Sophisticated recording capabilities with mixing and non-destructive re-amping
• Upload sessions to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and others
• Records sharing via SoundCloud, AirDrop, Copy-Paste, iMessage and email
• Ultra-low latency, virtually undetectable
• FREE Tuner and Metronome featuring technology used in GuitarToolkit
• Works with virtually all headset and dock guitar interfaces

Bitpoem – Photo Filters and Effects

Need to explore more photography tools? Bitpoem has been described as the “Photoshop for non-Photoshoppers” so that makes it particularly interesting for newbies.

It’s got so many effects that you can play around with your photos for hours on end to create the exact look you want: Color effects, Camera effects, Artistic effects, Blending effects, and Texture effects.

Screenyâ„¢

Camera rolls are the bane of smartphone users’ existence. For some reason, we just keep taking pictures and screenshots, many of which can be “thrown away” but we can’t make ourselves do it. That, or they just get lost in the pile.

Screeny helps with getting rid of unnecessary screenshots, cleaning up your camera roll.

It goes through your camera roll looking for screenshots – most of which are totally useless anyway – and then asks you if you want to delete them. Simple as that.

Buying a car for the new year? Check this out: Top Car Buying Apps for Your iPhone