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  • Supercharge Your iPhone 12 With These 7 Apps

    Supercharge Your iPhone 12 With These 7 Apps
    TheiPhoneAppReview.com

    Whether you actually have an iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max or are using iOS 14 on an older iDevice you’re sure to be thrilled with the advances in both hardware and, often more importantly, software that Apple releases from time to time.

    Of course software needs hardware and the iPhone 12 breaks ground with its ever more amazing neural engine via the A14 Bionic CPU chip and camera capabilities it aids in facilitating. All of the improved aspect of the new handheld wonder make us drool for it. But what about “the rest of us”, as Steve Jobs loved to say.

    That’s where the recent releases of iOS come in. If you haven’t downloaded it already, well, what are you waiting for? Get on board  with the latest release and see below for 7 great apps that will make you glad you did.

    Later versions of iOS 13 and, especially, iOS 14 offer a wide array of improvements for iPhones 6 thru 12 that range from security features to improved accessibility features (did you know you could ‘back tap’ to open apps or take a photo?) to widgets, to name a few. Keep reading for our take of some of the best ways devs are taking advantage of what’s new.

    LumaFusion – Luma Touch, LLC – $29.99

    App Store Rating: 4.8 / 14.1K ratings

    Compatibility: iPhone, iPad

    Overview from the app store: The most popular mobile video editing app for iOS is now better than ever!

    LumaFusion offers powerful features and an elegant UI. The simple-start timeline gives new users an intuitive head start, and professionals will find all the powerful features they need.

    Tutorials, overlay help in the app, and a detailed user guide will get you started and keep you going. Our friendly support gives you direct access to our editing experts.

    DoubleTake – FiLMiC by Pro – FiLMiC Inc. – Free

    App Store Rating: 4.1 / 317 ratings

    Compatibility: iPhone, iPad

    Overview from the app store: DoubleTake by FiLMiC transforms your iPhone into a multi-cam studio allowing you to capture video from two cameras at the same time on recent devices*

    *NOTE: Per iOS 13 capabilities, multi-cam video is restricted to the following devices only: iPhone 11 Pro Max, 11 Pro, 11, Xs Max, Xs, Xr, SE 2. iPad Pro 2018 and 2020. While this app will install and function on all devices supported by iOS 13, all devices outside of this list will be restricted to recording video from on a single camera.

    DoubleTake gives you an early look at the multi-cam capability that will be coming to our award-winning cinema camera app FiLMiC Pro.

    Halide Mark II – Pro Camera – Lux Optics Inc. – Free

    App Store Rating: 4.8 / 6.2K ratings

    Compatibility: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch

    Overview from the app store: Halide is an App Store Editor’s Choice, award-winning camera from the team behind Spectre, Apple’s App of the Year of 2019.

    Halide was listed in Macworld’s “Must Have Apps,” The Verge’s “Apps We Love,” and picked by The Sweet Setup as “Best Third-Party Camera App for iPhone.” Daring Fireball says, “This sort of maniacal attention to the smallest of details deserves to be celebrated.”

    Halide is the most powerful camera for iPhone with the most elegant, simple design — A pro camera for everyone.

    This is a groundbreaking app for deliberate and thoughtful photography. With high-end tools, and a beautiful interface designed from scratch for the latest iPhones and inspired by the controls of professional cameras, Halide is your go-to camera when you want to really take a photo rather than a quick snapshot.

    Ulysses – Ulysses GmbH & Co. KG – Free

    App Store Rating: 4.4 / 1.5K ratings

    Compatibility: hardware: iPhone, iPad

    Overview from the app store: Ulysses is your one-stop writing environment for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Its pleasant, focused writing experience, combined with effective document management, seamless sync, and flexible export, make Ulysses the first choice for writers of all kinds.

    ++ Apple Design Award Winner 2016 ++

    “The app is amazing. An absolute delight to use. Well done.” – David Hewson, Bestselling Author (The Killing)

    Ulysses’ markup-based, distraction-free editor lets you focus on your most important task: Write, edit, and write some more. Formatting is kept for later, so you can completely immerse yourself in the text. Ulysses’ uniquely streamlined toolset covers the entire writing process, and its clean and simple interface will boost your productivity. From first to final draft, from prologue to closing chapter – Ulysses keeps you in the flow, so you can get stuff done.

    CARROT Weather – Grailr LLC – Free

    App Store Rating: 4.7 / 25.3K ratings

    Compatibility: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iMessage

    Overview from the app store:

    ** Winner of Apple’s Editor’s Choice award on the Mac and featured by The New York Times, Good Morning America, CNN, Wired, & more! **

    Accurate and Detailed

    Dark Sky’s super accurate weather data gives you quick access to your current, hourly, and daily forecasts. Plus, you can upgrade to use other providers like AccuWeather, ClimaCell, and MeteoGroup as your data source!

    Overflowing with Personality

    From spooky fog to torrential downpours, CARROT’s dialogue, characters, and scenery change in… “unexpected” ways. You’ll actually be looking forward to a blizzard just to see what CARROT has in store for you!

    Aviary – Shihab Mehboo – $4.99

    App Store Rating: #99 in Social Networking

    Compatibility: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, iMessage

    Overview from the app store: Aviary is a beautiful Twitter client built with macOS design guidelines in mind. It’s simple enough to pick up and use immediately, and powerful enough to tweak it just the way you want. The delightful interface is coupled with extensive features that feel the part on your device, whilst elevating your Twitter experience.

    WHY YOU’LL LOVE AVIARY:

    Browse Twitter without the distractions of promoted tweets or ads. Use filters to hide tweets containing keywords, users, media, quotes, retweets, tweets above or below certain thresholds, regular expressions, and more. Tweak app icons, tints, gestures, tweet appearances, and much more with the extensive list of settings options.

    Lookup: English Dictionary – Squircle Apps LLP – $3.99

    App Store Rating: #11 in Reference, 4.8 / 1.2K ratings

    Compatibility: iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch

    Overview from the app store: LookUp is an easy to use english dictionary app, with beautiful Word of the Day illustrations, and an award winning design to lookup all you want to know about about a word in a single search. It’s a great reading companion for avid readers, and a visual learning tool for kids, new English speakers, or just about anyone looking to proactively build their vocabulary.

    What can you do with LookUp?

    Remember new words: Everyday, we carefully curate and design beautiful illustrations for the Word of the Day, making it easier and fun to learn new words!

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    Source link:https://www.theiphoneappreview.com/supercharge-your-iphone-12-with-these-7-apps/

  • Sdorica – Sunset is an Excellent RPG From Rayark

    Sdorica -sunset- (Free) by Rayark is a role-playing game with dashes of strategy and matching-puzzles. If you enjoyed other games like Terra Battle 2or Fire Emblem Heroes, then you'll get a kick out of Sdorica.

    When I was in high school, I was introduced to JRPGs by my group of friends and I fell in love. Everything from the anime art styles to the dark and intricate, though usually cliché, stories, to the combat system — I loved it all. I'd end up spending hours playing these games because I had all the time in the world back then, and not many worries. But now I'm an adult with responsibilities, so time is short. While I still love JRPGs, I just don't have as much time for them like I used to. So when there are mobile JRPGs that provide a bite-size experience, I'm down.

    Rayark is a fairly popular developer, and they've made some other great games like Cytus (I reviewed the sequel), Implosion – Never Lose Hope, and VOEZ. I've played most of their iOS releases so far, and have thoroughly enjoyed them. They pump out quality games, so when I saw that Sdorica was a role-playing game, I knew I had to check it out. Even though it's a free-to-play title, it does things incredibly well, and the usual annoyances with F2P games is not found here, surprisingly.

    Free

    Terra Battle 2

    MISTWALKER CORPORATION

    Free

    Fire Emblem Heroes

    Nintendo Co., Ltd.

    $1.99

    Cytus II

    Rayark International Limited

    $1.99

    Cytus

    Rayark International Limited

    $9.99

    Implosion – Never Lose Hope

    Rayark International Limited

    Visually, Sdorica is one of the most beautiful F2P games I've seen, but I'm not surprised since this is Rayark, after all. Sdorica has a heavily anime-inspired art style that JRPG fans will appreciate. The game is packed with anime cutscenes that reveal the story in each chapter, and the character sprites during gameplay are rather cute and "kawaii," as they say. The character renderings for gacha pulls and portraits are incredibly stylized and detailed, and the game world is stunning, no matter what quest you're doing. Animations are smooth and fluid during scenes and gameplay, and I didn't have many issues with choppy frame rates on my iPhone 8 Plus. However, I did notice that there's a bit of a lag when going through the menus, and there's more loading screens than I'd like.

    Aside from art and gameplay, one of the other reasons I enjoyed playing JRPGs back in the day was for the soundtracks. Sdorica has a whimsical and atmospheric soundtrack that fits in with the entire fantasy theme, and helps set up the mood and tone of each story chapter. It's a delightful soundtrack to listen to, so I recommend using earbuds to be fully immersed. Sdorica also features Japanese voice acting for the spoken dialogue, which I enjoyed. All of this put together makes Sdorica feel like a triple-A title, which is surprising since it's free and quite frankly, packed with content.

    When you start up Sdorica, you may have to download some game data before you're able to dive in. This can take a few minutes depending on your connection speed, but it's well worth it. Sdorica features a tutorial in the beginning that walks you through the ropes of how the game works, and new element menus, but once you get started, it's hard to stop. Plus, that game data download is pretty large because there's a ton of content available from the get-go, and the best part is that there is no energy system. Yes, you can play this game as much as you want during each session without having to worry about running out of energy and timers. For a free-to-play game, that's pretty much unheard of.

    Most of your time will probably be spent in Sdorica's story mode, but there are special events, abiiity and training quests, and region exploration missions. However, regardless of which mode you play, the setup is still the same. You pick your team from your available roster (characters can be unlocked through the story or earned from gacha pulls), and then head into battle. Each stage consists of about three waves of enemies that you must defeat before the stage is cleared. While it sounds easy, Sdorica's unique gameplay mechanic breathes some fresh life into the tried-and-true turn-based formula.

    Each character in your roster may only be assigned to one of three positions in battle. When you tap on the spot you want to fill, it shows you which characters can go there. Sometimes though, like in certain story and event missions, certain characters must take part, so that slot becomes locked. But if there's no lock, then you're free to choose who you like.

    Sdorica's roster is a mix of magic users, damage dealers, and tanks. So ideally, the magic users go in the back, the damage dealers in the middle, and the tanks up in the front lines. You can even have up to two advisors, which are extra slots for a character but they just have unique advisor abilities, rather than take part in the battles themselves.

    Battle in Sdorica is an interesting mashup of turn-based RPG combat and match-three puzzle. At the bottom of the screen will be two rows of colored orbs (white, purple, and orange). You can tap on a single orb or gather up two or four (in a square formation) with a swiping gesture to have one of your team members perform an action. The action depends on who you're using, but actions are always a melee or magic attack, support moves, or healing. Before you make a match, the game tells you who will do the action and what they'll be doing.

    Enemies have number counters on them — this is the number of moves you can make before they attack. Sometimes they'll also have unique traits or abilities, and you can view this information by long-pressing on them. If an ally falls in battle, don't worry — you can still resurrect them by getting enough resurrection orbs. But you won't lose them permanently, thankfully, and they still get experience if you win.

    Once you clear out all of the waves, then that quest is cleared and you'll get your loot. Each completed stage nets experience for your team members, as well as your own Watcher level. There may be other rewards, such as character minerals for evolving them, crystals (premium currency), or soul energy.

    The Soul Energy is what you need to "invest" in your roster, raising their level up to become more potent in battle. If you have all of the required materials, you're able to "resonate" them, which means evolving into their next form. The crystals are used for the "infuse" section, where you can take a chance with character pulls or get materials.

    Sdorica -sunset- is an insanely good JRPG that's full of quality.

    The Good

    Sdorica is an excellent mobile JRPG that is rich in story and has unique gameplay. The graphics are also beautiful, insanely detailed, and character designs are amazing to look at. The music is well done, and the voice acting is just icing on the cake. Even though this is a free game, there are no ads, no limitations on how long you can play, and there's ample opportunity to get the premium currency without paying a dime. It's also jam packed with content, so I can safely say that this is one game that I will be playing for some time.

    The Bad

    There's a lot of good stuff to be found in Sdorica, but I found the slight delay between menu selections and loading times to be a tad annoying. Sometimes I think the game froze, but it's just taking it's time with my selection is all. Hopefully this slight delay is fixed in future updates to be more responsive. Still, it's a small nitpick I have with the game, but it's tolerable considering how good it is.

    The verdict

    While I'm not usually a fan of free-to-play RPGs, I think Sdorica is one of the exceptions. Rayark did a fantastic job with this one, from the visual art style and sound to the interesting battle mechanic and tons of content for free, no strings attached. They also give you a ton of goals to complete for free premium currency, so the in-app purchases for more are more like a way to say thanks to the developers for making such a good game. It's completely optional and not necessary to play the game, but I can see myself spending a few bucks in the future to just support Sdorica. I highly recommend giving this game a chance if you're a fan of JRPGs.

    You can find Sdorica -sunset- on the App Store as a universal download for your iPhone and iPad for free. There are in-app purchases.

    9.8

    OVERALL

    Replayability 10

    Graphics 10

    Sound/Music 10

    Game Controls 9.5

    Gameplay 9.5

    FREE

    Sdorica

    Rayark International Limited

    Source link: http://appadvice.com/reviews