Google has updated its Google+ (free) iOS app to version 4.7.0. The updated app introduces Google+ Stories, which combine photos, videos, and places into trip summaries. A new photo editor featuring filters and other creative tools has also been added. Users can now check out total content views within profiles, and support is now offered for reporting abusive communities.
Instagram (free) has upgraded its app to version 6.0.0. The app now has 10 new photo-editing tools, including tools to enrich colors, adjust lighting, sharpen, and perfect a composition.
It’s also now possible to adjust the filter strength just by double tapping. Uploading and sharing videos has also become an easier process with the update.
Toca Boca is back with another appealing kids app, Toca Town ($3). Toca Town is the most ambitious app yet from the developer — a wide-open exploratory app that lets children go into houses, visit the park, the police stations, and more locations. Kids can select from a lineup of characters at any time to drop them into a setting for play. Jump into an apartment and put a character to bed, where it’ll fall asleep. Or visit the store, where you can check out some groceries and put them in a bag.
Though the town is small, the possibilities are endless for the imaginative. Toddlers to tweens might have some interest in Toca Town — even adults might want to explore a bit in Toca’s impressive interactive world.
From Touch Press, the makers of The Orchestra and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony apps, comes another massive classical music app — Vivaldi’s Four Seasons ($11) for iPad. Antonio Vivaldi first composed The Four Seasons in 1723, and the four violin concertos have been some of the most popular, enduring works in classical music. Users of the new app can listen to all concertos in two separate acclaimed performances. Individual instruments can be isolated, and users can shift to different camera angles during the performance.
