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Best app deals of the day! 6 paid iPhone apps for free for a limited time

By Lulu Chang Published January 15, 2019

Everyone likes apps, but sometimes the best ones are a bit expensive. Now and then, developers make paid apps free for a limited time, but you have to snatch them up while you have the chance. Here are the latest and greatest apps on sale in the iOS App Store.

These apps normally cost money, and this sale lasts for a limited time only. If you go to the App Store and it says the app costs money, that means the deal has expired and you will be charged.

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Mobile

HuggingSnap app serves Apple’s best AI tool, with a convenient twist

HuggingSnap recognizing contents on a table.

Machine learning platform, Hugging Face, has released an iOS app that will make sense of the world around you as seen by your iPhone’s camera. Just point it at a scene, or click a picture, and it will deploy an AI to describe it, identify objects, perform translation, or pull text-based details.
Named HuggingSnap, the app takes a multi-model approach to understanding the scene around you as an input, and it’s now available for free on the App Store. It is powered by SmolVLM2, an open AI model that can handle text, image, and video as input formats.
The overarching goal of the app is to let people learn about the objects and scenery around them, including plant and animal recognition. The idea is not too different from Visual Intelligence on iPhones, but HuggingSnap has a crucial leg-up over its Apple rival.

It doesn’t require internet to work
SmolVLM2 running in an iPhone
All it needs is an iPhone running iOS 18 and you’re good to go. The UI of HuggingSnap is not too different from what you get with Visual Intelligence. But there’s a fundamental difference here.
Apple relies on ChatGPT for Visual Intelligence to work. That’s because Siri is currently not capable of acting like a generative AI tool, such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, both of which have their own knowledge bank. Instead, it offloads all such user requests and queries to ChatGPT.
That requires an internet connection since ChatGPT can’t work in offline mode. HuggingSnap, on the other hand, works just fine. Moreover, an offline approach means no user data ever leaves your phone, which is always a welcome change from a privacy perspective.

Mobile

Apple could be forced to make major changes to how your iPhone works

The back of the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Apple is facing yet another landmark push in Europe that could open some of the signature features of its ecosystem. The European Commission has today detailed a couple of broad interoperability measures that Apple must follow, in order to oblige with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) guidelines.
These measures cover a total of nine connectivity features available on iPhones, covering everything from smartwatches to headphones. The idea is to give developers access to the same set of advanced features — such as immersive notifications on watches and quick pairing for peripherals — that is locked to Apple’s own devices.
“The specification decisions are legally binding,” says the regulatory body, adding that interoperability is “key to opening up new possibilities for third parties to develop innovative products and services on Apple's gatekeeper platforms.”

Hello, AirDrop alternatives!

Mobile

We just got our best look yet at the iPhone 17 Air

Face ID on the iPhone 16e

As the release for the iPhone 17 draws ever closer (expected in September 2025), more leaks have emerged — and now a set of dummy units give us a close look at the entire lineup, but specifically the iPhone 17 Air. This handset has been the source of quite a bit of speculation and rumors, and a peek at its profile shows a phone even slimmer than we had imagined.

The leaks come courtesy of Sonny Dickson, a well-known tipster. Dickson shared the images on X. It's important to remember that these units are chunks of metal; they have no electronics inside them, so we can't gauge specs based on the design. It does give us a firm look at the profile, however, and an idea of the placement of various components.