The Best iPhone Apps Of The Week, October 9-15, 2011

The AppAdvice App Of The Week: Cards, Free, Released October 9 Apple's Cards App Arrives Apple has just released its new Cards app for the iPhone/iPod touch. First announced at last week’s iPhone event, the free app makes it easy for customers to create and mail personalized cards simply by using their iDevice. New Releases iTunes Movie Trailers, Free & Universal, Released October 9 Apple's New iTunes Movie Trailers App Arrives Apple has just released a new universal app called iTunes Movie Trailers. The app provides new and and exclusive movie previews all in HD. In addition, the app shows what movies are playing – and when – nearest to you. The free app is divided into five main sections. These include Trailers, Calendar, Top 25, In Theaters, and Favorites. Talkapella, Free, Released October 13 Maker Of Songify Launches Talkapella App Khush, the music creation company, has announced its third iPhone app. Talkapella transforms simple speech into four-part harmony. If follows the successful launches of the LaDiDa and Songify apps. Talkapella is based on a sophisticated speech-to-music technology that builds on the concept of AutoTune. A user's speech is intelligently mapped to four voices to create a rich vocal harmony. Just like a real composer, the artificial intelligence maps the speech patterns to the musical patterns, so the words match the phrase of the melody. This is done by intelligently stretching and compressing the speech based on the location of vowels and consonants. The result is a magical transformation of speech into a killer a cappella track. Pocket BMX, $.99, Released October 14 Pocket BMX Hits The App Store Fresh from the developers at Fun Mob Games comes Pocket BMX. Pocket BMX is a simple 2D extreme sports rider that can be quite addictive. The main story mode is based on objectives that the "BMX Ninja" will give you. The objectives can vary and consist of different grinds or aerial tricks, occasionally throwing in spins and combos for increased difficulty. The game controls are intuitive and easy to use. You move forward or backward using a simple slide mechanic, holding left or right arrows for direction and stopping in the middle to slow down. The tricks and grinds are assigned to the A and B buttons that you can slide in different directions to vary the tricks. Updated Foursquare, Free, Updated October 12 Foursquare Updated - Adds "Foursquare Radar" For iOS 5 Users The popular foursquare iPhone app has recently received a great update. Now, Apple fans running iOS 5 on their iPhone handset can take advantage of "foursquare Radar" - a new feature that promises to alert users when anything interesting is happening nearby, even if their iPhone is in their pocket! WeatherPro, $3.99, Updated October 12 WeatherPro Is Updated To Work With iOS 5 And Will Save Your Favorites In iCloud If you are an atmospheric science buff and enjoy playing around with various weather apps on your iPhone or iPad, make sure to check out WeatherPro and WeatherPro HD by MeteoGroup. The newly released update utilizes iCloud, one of the latest features in iOS 5. Now you can synchronize all your saved favorites to iCloud. All the weather reports and radar settings you set up for various cities will be backed up securely to your iCloud account. Facebook, Free & Universal, Updated October 13 Facebook For iPhone Brings A New Look Of Its Own With all the excitement surrounding the release of Facebook for iPad, we haven't had much time to mention another very noteworthy update; the brand new look of Facebook for iPhone. With today's update, Facebook has given the iPhone interface a brand new look, which will please everyone as it hadn't gotten a good refresh in a while. As you'll notice, the new UI looks a bit like Twitter for iPad, with its system of panels that slide horizontally. However, most of the navigation is still done using buttons and unfortunately not gestures. I guess Facebook didn't want to get too fancy with such a large user base. Instacast, $1.99, Updated October 13 Instacast Updated - Podcasts Are Now Synced Between iOS Devices Via iCloud The Instacast iPhone app is arguably the best way to consume podcasts on a mobile device, and now in a recent update, the app has just been massively improved. The updated version of Instacast now synchronizes podcasts between iOS devices via iCloud, which is an incredibly handy feature. Waze GPS & traffic – Social, fun!, Free & Universal, Updated October 13 Waze GPS And Traffic Overhauled To Include A Refined UI, Better Performance, Better Searching, And More Waze GPS and Traffic is a longstanding GPS navigation app unlike most others. Due to that originality and some shortcomings, the app has been given mixed ratings. However, Waze v3.0 hit the App Store yesterday and its major user interface, performance, and search overhauls have already caused current and new users to express great appreciation for the developer's efforts. The UI changes are instantly obvious. What was once a little cluttered with information bars and several buttons has been trimmed down to only relevant navigation details and two simple buttons. In the bottom-right is the condition and hazard report, check-in, chat, and map error access button. In the bottom-left is the main menu, which adds buttons like mute for the text-to-speech feature and route options during a trip. Other Notables TaskRabbit, Free, Updated October 10 Bartleby’s Book of Buttons Vol. 2: The Button at the Bottom of the Seas, $3.99 & Universal, Released October 11 Squids, $.99, Released October 11 IMDb Buzz – Entertainment News, Free, Released October 12 Scribblenauts Remix, $4.99 & Universal, Released October 12 The Best iPhone Apps Of The Week is published each weekend; a companion piece, The Best iPad Apps Of The Week, is published separately. Attention developers: If you would like your app to be considered for one of our “Best Of” lists, please me know by sending me a tweet @bryanmwolfe. Note: Your app must have been new or updated in the last week to make the current list.