Skip to main content

Best apps of the week: Piano Genius, Tinder for Android, Sky Gamblers, and more

Best apps of the week 07_28_2013 header
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The week was filled with announcements from Verizon and Google. It’s easy to get caught up looking at the tech specs of new Nexus 7s and Droids, but really the thing that will make the device worthwhile for you will be the apps. Plenty of great apps made their way to market over the course of the week, though you may have missed them. No worries, though. We’ve collected the best apps and updates of the week for you to download.

Piano Genius (iOS, free)

Piano GeniusPiano Genius manages to make learning the piano fun. This may sound entirely foreign to those that learned from an old lady who would smack your hand with a ruler every time you missed a note, but it is entirely possible. Piano Genius applies a bit of game logic to incentivize playing well, but the real reward is an understanding of one of the most important instruments around. You’ll learn your way up and down the keyboard and will be tapping out over 400 tunes in no time with the help of Piano Genius.

Recommended Videos

Tinder (Android, free)

TinderTinder first came available for iPhone and aimed to make romantic matches happen based on location. Of course, the more people who have access to Tinder, the better your odds become. That makes Android the perfect place for the hot-or-not app. When you start using Tinder, the app will make you aware of someone near by who may be looking to meet up. Tinder allows you to anonymously like or pass on the person from the app. If you like them and they like you, Tinder moves into phase two of turning you into a couple by introducing you and starting an in-app chat.

YouTube Upload (Windows Phone, free)

YouTube UploaderWindows Phone owners don’t make up a huge share of the mobile market, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t around interesting things that should be shared. We believe that no matter your OS of choice, you should have the ability to upload cat videos to YouTube. Nokia agrees. It launched its YouTube Upload app this week. All you have to do is select a video that you’ve captured on your phone and send it off via this app. Before your know it, it’ll be up on YouTube for anonymous people to leave nasty comments on for no reason.

Sky Gamblers (iOS, $5.00)

Sky GamblersThere’s nothing like the excitement of the wild blue yonder. It’s open sky meant for you to explore. Except getting a pilot’s license is a tedious process. It’s probably cheaper to just download Sky Gamblers instead. This app puts you in the cockpit and behind the controls of a fighter plane. You’ll take to the skies, which are painted with impressive detail, and can fly alongside other pilots who are also playing all over the world. A wide range of single player missions and multiplayer game modes will have you in the air for hours.

Pac Man Dash (iOS, free)

PacMan DashWe’d never deny the well-earned classic status of Pac-Man. It’s a character and a franchise that everyone knows well. (Who knew a barely defined yellow circle could be so popular?) But, for Pac-Man to make its way onto mobile devices, it needed a bit of a makeover. That is exactly what it gets in Pac-Man Dash. Gone is the overhead view as you eat pixels and run from ghosts. Now Pac-Man has taken to the 2D side scroller to get his kicks. Navigate through 70 missions, try out vehicles, and avoid ghosts along the way.

Gentlemen! (Android, $5.00)

Gentlemen!It’s not too often that a mobile game features multiplayer that actually requires your partner to be next to you. Gentlemen! uses Android devices as the board to its modern multiplayer board game. You and your friend will duel on one screen, fighting with weapons that range from Knives to bombs to homing pigeons. The fight goes fast and will require a unique combination of skill, thoughtfulness, planning, and a good bit of luck. 

Imo messenger beta  (Android, free)

imo-messengerThere are tons of instant messenger options out there for mobile devices at the moment, but Imo has to be one of the more popular ones thanks to its ability to compact chats of all kinds into one single app. The beta version of the messenger service got an update this week that adds a whole new way for users to talk: video chat. If you’d rather see your partners than read texts or just hear from them, the video feature is worth a shot. Plus you can still access your IMs as well if your video chat ends up boring you.

Twitterrific (iOS, $3.00)

TwitterificIf you like getting your tweets from an app other than Twitter’s official one, Twitterific is a pretty great choice of an alternative. With its most recent update, it looks to make an even better impression on users. A new visual appearance will greet users upon opening the app, one that appears to be designed with the upcoming iOS 7 in mind. Feature wise, users will enjoy an in-app browser that can play multimedia content, maximized photo sizes, and as will every update, tons of bug fixes that make the overall experience a more enjoyable one.

Plex (iOS, $5.00)

plexIf you get immersed in the Apple universe, you probably use Plex to manage your media. Plex is a popular media server that allows users to manage their videos, podcasts, and other stuff across all of their devices. An update to the iOS app for the service brings changes to the app in the way of bug fixes. Most importantly, Plex no longer suffers from a bug that caused the app to crash upon signing in. Other improvements include multi-part playback, browser stability, a “clear cached data” option, and much more.

AJ Dellinger
AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…
Chrome tab groups now allow mobile-desktop sync, and it’s utter chaos
Synced tab groups from Chrome appearing on an iPhone.

In September last year, Google announced a new feature that would let users sync their grouped tabs across mobile and desktop. It seems the company quietly started rolling it out in a phased manner.

I noticed the new synced tab group feature on my OnePlus 13 earlier today, after the Chrome v133 update was installed on February 12, as per the Google Play logs.

Read more
This music app is doing something different in the Apple App Store
The Practice Pro app.

The iOS App Store is awash with apps using subscriptions and in-app payments, but our attention has been drawn to a brand new release that goes back to the old way of doing things — charging a one-off payment. It’s such a rare approach, the company has even drawn attention to it in the app’s top features list.

The app is Practice Pro, a release from developers Dynamic App Design, and it is made to help musicians practice and improve with use. The studio claims it’s suitable for professional and amateur musicians due to its clever modular design. Using different widgets, the app can be set up to only include the practice tools relevant to you, a better option than either using multiple apps, or having a cluttered, unfocused menu.

Read more
WhatsApp for iPhone may soon let users have multiple accounts on one device
WhatsApp logo on a phone.

If you use the popular messaging app WhatsApp on an iPhone, there may be times when you wish you had the ability to add more than one account. The good news is that a recent update for WhatsApp, released via Apple’s TestFlight beta program, includes the feature, suggesting that it could be rolled out soon for everyone using WhatsApp on an iPhone.

Android users will be scoffing at this news, as the feature has been available for WhatsApp on that platform since 2023. But hey, better late than never.

Read more