AWT News Update: March 17, 2015

By faith and begorrah, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, so grab a green beer and listen in on your friendly leprechaun Steve O’Sande who is bringing you the Apple news o’ the day.

• According to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, it appears that Apple will finally offer a streaming TV service later this year, making it easier and more affordable for people to cut the cable subscriptions.
• The Facebook Messenger app for iOS is rolling out a new feature that lets friends send money to each other.
• TidBITS reports that iCloud is having issues receiving messages from Gmail.
• Apple wins a $100 million patent licensing lawsuit after losing a big one last month.

Here are some of the best free apps, app updates and new apps that have landed in the App Store recently. Today’s notable apps include a discount on ColorStrokes, the new Adventures of Poco Eco – Lost Sounds game, and an update to VSCO Cam. All app prices are USD and subject to change. Some deals may expire quickly, so grab them while you can.

iOS Apps Now Free

ColorStrokes [Now free, down from $1.99] iPhone version of the most popular Color Splash app for Mac.

Boom Boat [Now free, down from $1.99] An unknown menace is lurking at the bottom of the sea.

Quotes Folder [Now free, down from $0.99] Collect and share the quotes and famous phrases you love. Includes quotes in 5 languages, for a total of 100,000 carefully selected quotes.

FrameMagic Premium – All In One [Now free, down from $1.99] FrameMagic is all about how to turn your multiple photos and videos into one single artwork – photo collage, video collage and video slideshow.

iTransfer – WiFi Camera Rol [Now free, down from $0.99] iTransfer is a useful tool to help you synchronize Camera Roll with your computer / iOS device via Wi-Fi.

iOS Apps On Sale

AbbleDabble [On sale for $0.99, down from $3.99] Abble Dabble is the revolution of crossword games with classic word play with a new twist.

Gneo [On sale for $3.99, down from $9.99] True productivity involves doing the right things at the right time. Gneo helps you take action with your to-dos by prioritising all the things you need to get done.

TextExpander 3 + custom keyboard [On sale for $0.99, down from $4.99] Type faster on your iPhone®, iPad®, or iPod touch® in any App using the TextExpander keyboard.

MetalWars3 [On sale for $0.99, down from $1.99] In 2100 A.D, the planet became a unified nation named “Earth Federation.” However, the unification never lasted long.

GuitarToolkit [On sale for $4.99, down from $9.99] The Chord Sheet Store delivers professionally-crafted learning content based on GuitarToolkit’s powerful interactive Chord Sheets.

Discounted Mac Apps

InstaReel for Instagram [Now free, down from $2.99] InstaReel is a beautifully crafted app that makes it easy to browse your Instagram feed, like/comment on images/videos and discover amazing new content through its powerful search.

Newsflow – RSS News Reader with Feedly, Feedbin, Feed Wrangler, NewsBlur syncing [Now free, down from $4.99] Newsflow brings RSS news from all of your favourite websites right to your desktop. Enjoy your RSS articles in a fast, fluent and highly customizable RSS news reader.

CheckBook Pro [On sale for $19.99, down from $24.99] More than a basic check register and reporting tool, CheckBook Pro features everything in CheckBook, our powerfully simple personal finance manager, and then some.

Popup Window [On sale for $2.99, down from $14.99] Popup Window is a folder system designed to keep your files tidy and orderly.

New and Notable Apps

Adventures of Poco Eco – Lost Sounds [$2.99] A relaxing exploratory game in a mind-blowing audio-visual world.

Dice Town Mobile [$3.99] Dice Town Mobile is the poker game of dice and land grabs, where your roll determines your luck, not the other way around.

Command & Conquer™: Generals Deluxe Edition [$19.99] The genre defining Command & Conquer™: Generals Deluxe Edition returns to the Mac, exclusively on the Mac App Store!

Updates you don’t want to miss

VSCO Cam [Free] VSCO Cam is the premier way to shoot, edit, and share your photographs. Version 4.1 brings the following changes:

• Added Copy + Paste Edits feature in Library to apply one set of edits to multiple photos
• Added Undo feature in edit mode
• Restored Rebuild Thumbnails feature in Settings
• Fixed various issues and bugs

Hype 3 [$49.99] Create stunning animated and interactive web content with Hype. Hype’s HTML5 output works on all modern browsers and mobile devices like iPhones and iPads. No coding required. Version 3.0.1 brings the following changes:

• Complete UI refresh
• 24 New timing functions
• Independent scene sizes
• HTML accessibility improvements
• Copy/paste and rearrange timelines
• Bug fixes and performance improvements