hierarchy casablanca: Apps of the Week: Sky Gamblers, Ticket to Ride, Tweetbot, and more

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Apps of the Week: Sky Gamblers, Ticket to Ride, Tweetbot, and more

Every week, the editors and writers at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps. This week's selections include a war game, a videography app, a classic board game, and a popular twitter client for Mac.

Sky Gamblers - Storm Raiders - Peter Cohen

World War II air combat on the Mac - dogfighting in the skies above Pearl Harbor, Midway, France and more. Fly historic planes with cross-platform multiplayer, Game Center and iCloud support. If you've played the game on your iOS device, you know what to expect. But Atypical Games has reworked Sky Gamblers - Storm Raiders to work on the Mac, which makes it an even more fun game on a bigger screen.

The game costs a paltry 99 cents to download, but content like new planes and weapons come at a price - in-app purchases for a couple of bucks here and there. Still, lots of fun to play and not a lot of coin to make it happen.

$0.99 - Download now

Luma Camera - Rene Ritchie

While I was at BlackBerry Live -- or was it iMore live? -- one of the developers in attendance came over and showed me Luma Camera for iPhone. It's a video shooting app that offers filters both real-time and for post-processing, as well as optional HD video storage space via their website. The most interesting feature, however, is the image stabilization. Real optical image stabilization requires hardware, but Luma does a respectable job using the iPhones built in sensors and it's powerful graphics processing capabilities.

I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it yet, but it looks like fun. If you try it, let me know what you think!

Free - Download now

Ticket to Ride Online - Richard Devine

I must confess to being an avid fan of the Geek and Sundry YouTube Show, TableTop starring Wil Wheaton. It's via that show I first became aware of the board game Ticket to Ride, and now I've found and begun playing the Mac version -- Ticket to Ride Online

I've never played the board game, but the Mac version is a beautifully colourful recreation of the original, and follows the rules to the letter. You choose a series of routes, and the objective is to lay trains on as many of those routes as possible before the game is up. The longest routes get an extra reward at the end, and incomplete routes loses points. It's really simple to pick up and play, and there's a comprehensive tutorial game to help you get to grips with the gameplay.

In-App purchases are available to extend the game boards, with new ones available for Europe, another USA board and for Switzerland. And, the online play supports competing against other Mac, PC, and iPad players. I've not tried out the iPad version just yet, but you'll find a link for that too below.

$9.99 (Mac Version) - Download Now
$6.99 (iPad Version) - Download Now

Tweetbot for Mac - Ally Kazmucha

There are a wealth of amazing Twitter clients for iOS but when it comes to Mac, there are less to choose from. While I tend to use Twitterrific on my iPhone and iPad, I've never really liked the feel of it on Mac. Tweetbot is my second favorite for iOS and when they released a Mac client a while back, it definitely didn't disappoint.

The price point is quite a bit higher than other Twitter offerings in the Mac App Store but honestly, it's the best available, hands down. If you want the iOS Tweetbot experience on your Mac, there really is no other option.

$19.99 - Download Now

Your choice?

Now that we've chosen our favorites for the week, we want to hear yours! Did you pick up a killer app, accessory, or game this week? Let us know in the comments below!