Apps

The Weather Channel has had a cool iPhone app since apps first came out, and now the media company has evolved the app to “be more local, social and relevant than ever.”

The upgraded app includes a new home screen, the ability to save your favorite locations, and the ability to add and share photos directly from the iPhone. Want to share photos of a storm? You can post them on TWC’s social network iWitness or directly to Facebook and Twitter. Here is more from TWC’s app page: “iPhone address book integration lets you share weather information via email with anyone. Stay in touch with worldwide video forecasts from The Weather Channel meteorologists.” We’ve embedded a demo video of the new features above.

According to AppData, the app has been the No. 1 app in the free weather apps genre for the past year.

With Instagram you can share photos. With SoundCloud, you can share audio recordings. With StoryMark, you can share both. StoryMark is a new iPhone app that lets users record audio tracks to go with photos and then share them with their friends.

“People take photos to document a place and time but the story that goes along with the photo is usually only kept in the mind of the photo taker and those involved,” Dale McIntyre, president and co-founder of StoryMark told AppNewser. “Letting people share a story with audio not only truly adds the story to the photo but it also lends emotion with the sound of a voice that can be enjoyed for generations to come.” Read more

Odyl, a New York-based company that works with publishers to create marketing content on Facebook, has a new tool available to help readers discover books.

Riffle, which is currently in beta, is designed to let consumers share books they are reading with their friends and discover new books by checking out what their friends are reading. Though details about the tool are limited, the website has more: “Riffle is about books. Get inspired and read more.” To get an invite, follow this link.

Odyl has created a number of Facebook campaigns for books including Confessions of a Guidette photo contest which Simon & Schuster used to promote Snooki’s book, as well as a Facebook page for HarperCollins’ Vampire Diaries books.

Italian designer Antonio De Rosa of ADR Studio Design has imagined what the Instagram app would look like turned into an actual camera. He made the above YouTube video with the schematics demonstrating the digital camera that is shaped like and has the features of the app, but works almost like a polaroid because it has a printer built in.

De Rosa is trying to raise $50,000 to get the camera built through an Indiegogo pledge page. Here is more about the Instagram Socialmatic project: “Take your shoot with Instagram Socialmatic, make your photo cool as you want and share it directly on Facebook trough the powerful InstaOs. If you want, you can print it directly on Instagram Paper Sheets, thanks to the internal printer. Every Instagram printed photo reports on front side your Instagram nickname and a QR code, to be followed by another Instagrammer, simply pointing his/her Socialmatic on your printed QR Code.”

What apps would you turn into a real life object?

When the DIY furniture giant unveiled their first TV last month, some bloggers rolled their eyes, cracked jokes, and didn’t take it seriously. But it looks like Ikea has put more work into this TV than it first appeared.

Ikea is including the base and an integrated Blu-ray player so you can watch or listen to whatever content you have on hand. But the Uppleva is also Wifi capable, and earlier this week Ikea confirmed that this TV would ship with apps.  They haven’t released all the details yet, but you should be able to stream content from Vimeo, Dailymotion, Youtube, and other popular video sites. It’s also reportedly going to come with a web browser, though that app hasn’t been named.

Ikea plans to launch the Uppleva in Italy, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden next month, with expansion to additional stores and territories in Europe in the fall, and bring Uppleva to the U.S. in 2013. It’s expected to sell for $960 and up and come in a number of screen sizes (from 24″ to 48″).

Instead of releasing the fully adapted version of her new novel Coming Up For Air, author Patti Callahan Henry took her favorite detail from the book and turned it into an app.

In the story, the main character Ellie is dealing with her mother’s death and recalls her childhood nickname “wildflower,” so the Wildflower Wishes app lets users send virtual flowers with custom messages to their friends.

Here is more about the story from iTunes: “In a memory from her childhood, Ellie overhears her mother call her a ‘wildflower’, so she scatters wildflower seeds throughout her mother’s cultured garden, believing her mother must love the beauty and wild nature of these flowers. But when the wildflowers finally bloom, Ellie’s mother pulls them from the earth, telling her that they don’t belong. This destroys Ellie’s childlike heart. But as the adult Ellie discovers secrets from her mother’s own wild past and as love grows between Ellie and a man who cherishes her wild nature, we watch Ellie reclaim the spirit of a ‘wildflower’.” Read more

Dictionary.com’s resource app has been downloaded 50 million times since it launched in 2009. In addition, Dictionary.com’s  mobile page views grew by 65.6% and mobile visits grew by 56% in the past year. The app, which is often in the top 10 on our top free apps lists, includes more than 2,000,000 definitions, synonyms and antonyms.

To build on the momentum, the company is now launching a new game app called Word Dynamo for the iPad. Word Dynamo is a personalized language learning app with more than 20 word games. Designed for anyone from elementary school through post graduate, the tool helps users learn new words and prepare for academic testing. Read more

The creators of The Elements app have teamed up with the Royal Collection to produce a lavish iPad edition of Leonardo da Vinci‘s anatomy notebooks.

Here are a few of the features: “All 268 of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings pinch-zoomable at high resolution … A magic spyglass to decode Leonardo’s mirror writing. Touch any of Leonardo’s extensive notes to read in situ a typeset English translation. Integrated 3D anatomical models from world-leading medical animators Primal Pictures, carefully matched to Leonardo’s illustrations and made interactive using Touch Press rotational technology.”

Touch Press is selling its digital edition of these historic notebooks for $13.99.

Face.com has launched a new facial recognition app for the iPhone that lets users identify their friends in photos and tag them on Facebook.

The app, called Kilk, identifies friends from their existing Facebook photos. If a new friend pops up, the user can manually enter their details. Here is more about the free app from iTunes: “Fire up KLIK and watch as your friends’ names instantly appear next to their faces before or after you snap a photo. If KLIK doesn’t recognize a face use the new ‘Learn’ mode to train and improve recognition. Enhance your photos with our Face Filters, specifically focused on making faces appear better in photos.”

Face.com makes a similar app for Facebook called PhotoTagger. The social app lets users identify and tag friends based on photos they have uploaded onto Facebook. (Via PCMag.com).

As if driving a Cadillac weren’t enough of a luxury, now driving the new XTS will come with an iPad. Taking a cue from Apple’s Genius Bar, GM is hoping to build service relationships with Cadillac dealers and customers by giving out iPads loaded with instructions for how to use the car’s new driving tool called CUE aka the Cadillac User Experience.

According to the Cadillac website, CUE  brings “the intuitive control of smart phones and tablets safely to the road.” It is tool that lets users control the car and the entertainment system through a digital interface to experience what Cadillac calls ”connected driving.” To help promote this service, and keep customers connected, GM is giving customers the iPads. Read more