Music apps will never lose their novelty. For most of us, having Spotify, iTunes and Last FM at the tips of our fingertips is sufficient, though. For the more dedicated musicians amongst us – there is sometimes the demand for something a little more niche.

The history of jazz

This iPad app is an essential for any jazz cats. This app offers an interactive timeline, detailing the history of jazz. It also includes music samples, videos and playlists. This is the perfect excuse for putting your feet up, getting the speaker docks out and listening to the best jazz music there is, whilst swatting up on your knowledge.

PocketGuitar

Another iPhone app, PocketGuitar is also compatible with the iPod Touch. This app will turn your device into a virtual guitar, so you can practice on the move without having to drag the real thing around with you. The app allows you to strum strings just like a real guitar, and offers six different sounds – including electric and classical.

Midomi Ultra

This iPhone app can identify music in an instant. If you hear a song that you recognise – or perhaps you’ve had an unknown song in your head for days, but, frustratingly, can’t remember for the life if you who sung it or what its name is – take your phone near a speaker and this app will cleverly identify the song within five seconds. Relief will ensue.

Cleartune

If you find yourself at band rehearsals without your guitar tuner – fear not. This app acts as a powerful chromatic tuner, displaying a note wheel and a fine-tuning meter to achieve pitch-perfection. The app works for electric and acoustic guitar, as well as piano, bass and many other instruments – just in case you’re not the only forgetful one!

Bloom

This iPhone app allows you to create music by the simple touch of a screen. The app features a colourful screen, combining composition with visualizations. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork – this app boldly covers new grounds.

This Day in Music

This is a must-have for all music fanatics. It was voted number 2 on the UK iTunes music chart in 2010, and number 1 on the Australian iTunes music iPad charts.

If you are a die-hard music lover, there are a number of new apps out there for your consideration, and few are still on their way. Take a look around, hunt and try out others till you find something that meets your needs.

I have always been fascinated by those beautiful designs on the surface of the latte which they call latte art. I never tried knowing how it was all done until i got a hands on experience as a professional barista with “HB Latteland” .

HB Latteland is a game with a fresh concept and a great experience of preparing caffe latte. The game is divided into three sections- School, challenge and freestyle drawing/etching. You start with the school and play as a trainee who gets trained by the experts of the Holly Brown cafe.  Starting with some simple and basic latte arts you come across a variety of challenges in the game. Right from creating a simple heart, to designs like feathers, flowers and some that resemble animals and character, you will also be able to make your own designs with free hand just in case you want to try it over a real coffee cup.

The game is played by holding your iPhone in one hand just like a pitcher of milk while simultaneously tilting it in corresponding direction to give a design over the surface of latte. The game is build with just 2 simple controls which are tap and tilt. You tap the pitcher to tilt it over the cup and later tap to etch the latte art if required while also keeping using the accelerometer of device to adjust the position of milk pitcher. The game is not really that strict on rules of physics and chemistry but if you lose a lot of time you are out of the challenge anyways. For each practice session or challenge you are awarded a rating in range of 1-3 coffee beans just like the star rating system themed for this game.  Generally ratings are calculated based on the moves made, time taken and the final design achieved.

The game has other sections like profiles which are fun to read for once and get an idea about the trainers and experts in each level. The social sharing functionality would be really cool to send the design of latte arts and score but unfortunately are not included in the game.

The next time you make a caffe latte of just have one at a coffee shop around you, you will definitely imagine each shape you have done over HB LatteLand.  If you are looking for something fresh and interesting HB LatteLand is definitely worth your attention whether or not you love coffee.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: HB Latteland
App Category: Games
Price: $0.99
Developer: HB Latteland

A wonderful kids app , an interactive story book or a fun educational app is what i look for as a parent to gift both of my kids on their vacations so that they can not only get to learn new things but also enjoy their vacations the way  it’s meant to be.  That’s how i came across Builda the Re-Bicycler and gifted my  kids before reviewing it on iPhoneFootPrint.  Every time my kids come and tell me about the book i just wanted to try it personally and make a review. And now, here it is.

Builda the Re-Bicycler is a book that aims to teach the kids ‘why go green’. The story starts in a town where the most trending thing is bikes. The people of the town have gone crazy and just need another excuse to buy a new bike.  Every time a bike is broken, it’s just tossed into the dumb which gets even worse when older bikes are dumped just for the latest replacement available in the market. This is all that accounts for the dump that’s has takes a shape of a mountain and start to overflood the city. Builda the bicycle factory owner takes the initiative to reduce, reuse and recycle the old bikes.

With the beautiful graphics, animations and interactions this app is very appealing to kids. Kids will actually enjoy the melodious music and cute sound effects in the book. The book can be enjoyed in auto-play mode with narration and turning pages automatically, or the Read to Me mode where the story lines are highlighted while the kids reads it simultaneously or the Read by myself mode which excludes the text highlighting and narration seen in previous two modes while the sound, music and animations still accompany the kid in every reading mode. While reading the book the reader can quickly navigate to a specific page by making use of navigator and also change reading options, turn on/off sound, change reading options or replay a page. The story book also includes several discussion questions asking children about opportunities in their own homes for reusing, creative repurposing, and community service.

Builda the Re-Bicycler is a well crafted story book for your kid that available for just $1.99 on the iPad.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: Builda the Re-Bicycler
App Category: Book
Price: $1.99
Developer: Midlandia Press

Securing your personal data can sometimes be the most important feature you would like to mould according to your needs. Especially when it comes to unfortunate situations like losing you iOS device or just lending it to someone be it your colleague or your friends, you wouldn’t want your personal pictures be accessible to.

oneSafe Photos does everything you would have seen on other secure digital lockers, be its robust AES 256 bit encryption of files stored, hardware encryption with pin, password or visual pattern and even destroying the data in case of security breach. Actually the visual pattern feels really good to use at the same time its easier to remember when choosing it over long complex passwords and pincodes that can be easy guessed out. The visual pattern lock is much advanced with multiple and repeated selection of points with the same 3×3 matrix pattern we have seen on Android phone. In this way your data is secure from both internal as well as external attacks. But in case you leave your device attended and someone desperately tries to access your private data, each time they enter a wrong password their image will be captured from the front camera and saved in the break-in report section where each wrong passcode entered with time & data is recorded.

Codes are just for access, the real beauty is inside the safe vault of the app. The app has a beautiful and simple UI which will give you a glimpse of an actual metal vault with animation like opening and closing door and a rotating lever. All your pictures, videos or other documents reside within the locker organized into categories like family, holidays, finances, confidential, office etc. Each category can also have a second authorization if you feel information stored is highly sensitive or your main password/pin is simple. Or you can use the default double protection folder which will guard your ultra-confidential information and keep them off the search results too.  The search functionality can search through all the image files based on their names and additional image information provided by you. Image files can be marked as favourite to quickly access them via the favourite window.  Additionally the app offers settings like auto-lock period, password change reminder, self destruction on 3 unsuccessful passcode attempts or a temporary lock which will disable the lock for 15 seconds each time a security break occurs. New users can get started with the documentation to get a better idea about the features and usage of the app.

“oneSafe Photos” from LunabeePte. Ltd. Is one of the most secure way of storing your secret pictures and videos and having total control over your personal data within this safe on your iPhone and iPad.  For just 99 cents we found this app not only cheaper than the competition but also highly affordable for the loads of advanced features it offers.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: oneSafe Photos – Secure Vault for Secret Pictures and Private Videos
App Category: Photo & Video
Price: $0.99
Developer: Lunabee Pte. Ltd.

InStudios iPad app is a clean and simple way to play around with your creative ideas. The way inStudios works is, it lets you choose the pictures from the vast library by doing a simple keyword search. All the pictures are fetched from online resources or you can also use the camera to save the picture in the store within the app.

Starting with a beautiful color transition effect, the app takes you to the main screen through which you can visit the gallery and watch an array of beautiful images in a slideshow pattern. Though it may not be really easy to start with the app for most if the users due to the lack of a complete tutorial, but having done a couple of sessions with the app and going through the individual help sections in the app we now find it pretty easy to get going and create new designs with the app. Once you have all the pictures you need in your store, you may proceed with the design section which lets you access all your store pictures over head but if you wish to use backgrounds you will need pictures from camera or camera roll for using during the design process.  You can use the store images by just a tap over them on the dashboard. The images can be placed anywhere on the design area and zoomed with the scale but not the traditional pinch to zoom control which is not supported by the app currently. You can also merge images with the transparency control over head but only the topmost layer can be edited thereafter. Sadly there’s no option to choose layers and you will have no way to correct your mistakes if any. Finally you can save your creation to the album in the app where you can view, manage and share them with your friends via facebook, twitter and email.

We used our camera and camera roll to choose high resolution background for our design and later choose images from the image search function of the app to add cartoon characters and effects like lightning in our one creation. And during this we found Instudio’s to be pretty quick and simple to use. Though the limitation of tools can be a setback for people who are looking for more than just basic use but the simple design and ability to quickly design new pictures on your iPad can be a good reason you will want to own it for just 99 cents which is cheaper than many other similar apps available for iPad.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: InStudios
App Category: Lifestyle
Price: $0.99
Developer: Veena Karthick

Who doesn’t like Doodles? Whether it’s exploring Google Doodles a minute before you get back to searching or just an advertisement which reflects creativity while it also leaves a meaningful message, doodles are an interesting medium to have fun while also spark your inner creativity.

Doodle Tales is not merely a drawing and painting app. The app comes with tons of tools to play with and a wonderful social experience. You can share your doodles with the whole world and let them rate and comment on it.

The app starts with a splash screen followed by the menu where you can choose between doodles or tales. The doodle section lets you create doodle freely and flawlessly while the tales section is where you can turn your imaginations into a colourful story even with sound effects that can make the whole experience really amazing and feel just like reading a well crafted multimedia eBook.  Within both the doodle and tale section there are options to create new doodles or tales, view your previous creations in gallery and also access the community gallery with doodles and tales from all over the world.

Doodles can be created using a wide range of colors and shades with the help of color pencils, crayons, sketch pens, brushes, colored chalk, stamp brushes and bucket fill. Just like any basic painting app Doodle tales also offers different type of shapes for quickly creating objects for example sun(circle), building(rectangle, stars and a few more. You will have a text writer to write notes on your doodles or to add expressions or speech bubbles to a character with the choice of colors available in app, beautiful font choices, font resizing, placement and free rotation controls to do it your way. The multi-touch ability to resize and rotate active element or zoom the complete doodle takes away the pain you may face when creating accurate graphics even with fat fingers. The active object and tool is always shown in the status box to avoid any confusion along with other tools like a universal size control for active tool/object, redo-undo buttons, duplicate layer, move layer below another layer, quick color selector, zoom button and more. The app includes and supports stamps with variety of objects, characters, animals and even more. Say you can use a character in your doodle without putting in too much effort to draw it yourself.

Are you planning to use Doodle tales to take classroom notes too? Well that’s wonderful to start with.  By choosing the type of paper you wish to have in the background and just your brand new pencil, you are ready to take notes with free hand drawing or just use the text type tool. Similarly you have pre drawn doodle backgrounds which can be painted with your choice of colors and are easy to use for anyone from right from your play school kids to grandma.

Sound can be added to your doodles by recording with microphone which finds great importance in doodle tales where you can create interactive kids story books or presentations for your professional needs right from your iPad on the go and the best part is, it’s really easy to express yourself with Doodle Tales.

Sometimes you may find the toolbar obstructing your painting that’s when you can reposition it at top or bottom to give you complete screen estate for drawing.

Your creativity can be shared to the world over the doddle tales community, saved locally for editing later or even emailed to anyone as a beautiful greeting or motivational quote.

Doodle Tales comes with unlimited power and possibilities but at times you may desire to add effects like patterned brushes, stamps and backgrounds to the app and would like to have more choices on your finger tips. That’s when you can visit the content store where you can find a huge collection of content packs with different themes, but they are totally worth their low price stating from 99 cents.

Doodle tales offers an amazing social experience with a vast community to share creations and achievements to collect. You will also need to create a profile to use the app to its full potential on the first launch and you are ready to go with tooltips that can assist you until you get the hang of the app.  Doddle tales offers highly descriptive video tutorial for beginners that are easy to understand and thus cut off the need to read boring text notes. Though Doodle Tales is a fairy new app and any updates are yet to be seen, we found the app highly stable and working without any known issues.

For Free Doodle Tales is a unarguable at price point and an app you shouldn’t afford to miss.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: Doodle Tales
App Category: Games
Price: Free
Developer: Europress

There are a lot of well crafted and useful kids apps & games on the app store providing your kid the fun and education he/she needs. But it can be really difficult  to choose the best apps for your kids if you are looking forward to leave them independent to let them learn and build their basics while they also experience the fun and excitement of  game.

Riddle Wheels is an educational game for kids which aims to teach them new shapes, colors, creatures, apparels, household items and more with visual and audio aid. Riddle Wheels uses a recognize and recall approach which builds a strong foundation of basics for your kids while also improves the skills of your child with the aid of practice exercises.

Riddle Wheels is split into 4 sections – Shapes, What they like, pair and missing.  The Shapes section has all common shapes including circle, triangle, rectangle, square and oval. The What they like section is basically where kids will learn the eating habits of creatures and match their food by dragging it over creators just like feeding them. Then comes the Pair section which is brings variety of cups to be matched with their saucer, apparels to be matched with their identical pattern and colors and also matching family of animals like a chicken with the Hen , a puppy with dog and more. The learning curve in these exercises is that each time a kid taps on a choice , the name of object/creature is spelled in a sweet voice with an associated sound effect, like a bark and its name(dog) when a dog is tapped and so on. The Find Pair sub-section within Pair is three in one matching game where there are three different types of object that need to matched to their associated items. The fourth and last section is the Missing section where kids will be matching the missing items in the picture say the wings of a butterfly, find the tail of animals within three choices or complete a piece of cloth by finding its appropriate patch.  Each level can have 4-10 quizzes that come one after the other and offer collectibles on successful competition. Your kids can view the collectibles any time and arrange them in the virtual gift room.

There are lot of advantages of interactive learning, besides their primary benefits of being more engaging, easy to learn, easy to remember and cost effectiveness.  And Riddle Wheels has got it all what your kid will love to learn while he/she enjoys the bright and colorful graphics for hours together. Your kids will quickly get accustomed to the gameplay and controls which are simple and maintain same pattern of drag and drop throughout the app providing a friendly experience. Riddle Wheels comes with plenty of unique puzzles that will last for weeks and months together before he/she completes them all. For just 99 cents, Riddle Wheels is much cheaper and engaging than the most colorful image book you could come across for your kid.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: Riddle Wheels
App Category: Games
Price: $0.99
Developer: Olga Romenskaya

Like many other iPhone users i never expected more from the basic search functionality i was accustomed to on my iPhone for years until i lately discovered Cloudmagic. CloudMagic is a fantastic productivity app that lets you search all your personal data from one spot. You do not need to go to Gmail and look for your emails or dig deep to find your tweets made on a specific subject in the last few months, neither will you need to do the same for documents, events and your contacts. All you need to do is configure CloudMagic and just type in your query. You will be presented with every possible result that includes the keyword or a hint of it. And CloudMagic does it all online, so basically when you are searching it not just the device results you get but everything from your actual online account.

CloudMagic supports Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Gmail, Gtalk chats, Google Apps, twitter and Microsoft exchange for seamless cloud search functionality from one search bar. You just need to grant access to CloudMagic once after you login to any of these services and you are ready to go.

On firing up CloudMagic, the homescreen readily gives you access to search bar along with the list of recent searches made. You can repeat them anytime by tapping on them or start a fresh search which takes a little bit of time at first but is totally worth being patient.  CloudMagic’s search on the twitter is also worth an applause. The twitter search results were not a mess rather gave importance to the search keyword as well as people i followed for the search term. The Search functionality is  notable the way it smartly aggregates the results from each online service.

CloudMagic has given me more than just a simple search engine for my mobile. And using it over and over every day has saved a lot of my precious time and effort in finding what i am looking for. If you start loving the search functionality of CloudMagic on your iPhone, there are many good reasons to check out the cross platform app on Safari, Mozilla, IE and Crome as an extension/add-on.

After getting used to the powerful universal search functionality, i desperately want it to tie its hands with other services like Facebook, Google +1 and Yahoo making the search really universal. For anyone who would want to keep up with Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Gmail, Gtalk chats, Google Apps, twitter and Microsoft exchange; CloudMagic is the perfect app you should grab today for free on the App Store.

Screenshots from the app :

App Name: CloudMagic – Exchange, Gmail and Twitter Search
App Category: Productivity
Price: Free
Developer: CloudMagic