Over half the MacLife staff is out of the office today, no doubt soakin' up the sunshine and having all kinds of fun. And we're here putting the finishing touches on another installment of Price Drop, so your weekend can be as good as theirs -- thanks to some generous iOS app developers who have slashed the prices on these handy helpers and cool games to help you kick back. Most of the apps in this week's roundup are even free! Free, like our lucky, lucky coworkers...
Let's get started with some useful apps, shall we? All play and no work makes... uh... I forget the rest of that. (It's been a long week, I am telling you.)
Mailing Desk is a neat way to use Gmail on your iPad, and it's currently on sale for free, down from 99 cents. The spiffy desk-like interface shows your messages on pieces of virtual paper (remember paper?) and also leaves room for your Google Calendar, Google Docs, Twitter feed, or any other info you may need to reference while you're reading and responding to your emails. Pretty cool, especially for free.
Having your electricity cut off because you forgot to mail the check could really put a crimp in your weekend. Bills for iPhone and Bills for iPad are both on sale for $0.99 (down from $1.99 on iPhone and $3.99 for iPad), and they even stay in sync with each other. AND they even stay in sync with Bills for Mac and for Android, also on sale for a dollar each. It's like they want you to keep more of your money for actually paying the bills, huh? How nice!
I know, it seems like iPhone task managers are a dime a dozen these days, but Taskulous is even cheaper than that. It's free. Down from $1.99. So if you've tried a whole bunch of to-do list apps and you haven't found The One yet, give this a whirl, especially while it's gratis. It's got newly added calendar integration and alarms, and it's easy to use. And remember, chronic procrastinators: Time spent fiddling with a to-do list counts for something! (Right? Right?)
But enough task-mindery. How about some fun?
Secret Mission: The Forgotten Island HD is one of those point-and-click adventure games for iPad, with a wacky story and lots of puzzles. It's casual, no pressure. But it's compelling enough to keep you going for long stretches, and it's on sale for a limited time from $6.99 to just $1.99. In fact, all of Big Fish Games' titles are 80 percent off right now, including a ton of iPhone games that are straight-up free. Man cannot live on FPSes alone, so check out their unique storybook style and have some fun.
If you have a two-camera'd iDevice (that's the iPhone 4, fourth-gen iPod touch, or iPad 2 -- any of the ones that can do FaceTime, basically), congratulations, you can play augmented reality games, and we're all really jealous. We included the charming Duck Hunt AR in our recent gallery of cool augmented-reality apps, and it's currently on sale for free (was $0.99), so there's really no reason you shouldn't try it out. Unless you're still scarred from your days playing it on the NES and having that cartoon dog laugh at you when you missed. Stupid dog.
Coin Drop is a universal game in which you make coins drop on things. Makin' it rain, as they say. It's got crazy rainbow graphics, overly cute characters, and is vaguely reminiscent of Peggle or maybe old-school Nintendo -- worth a shot, huh? Especially since it's not only universal, but free (usually $0.99). Y'know, for a limited time.
And speaking of "for a limited time," please just remember, the developers of these apps can raise the prices on these apps whenever they feel like it. All the prices you see here were accurate as of 4:20pm (wow, is it 4:20 already? I want to go hoooome!!1!) on Friday June 24. If they're different by the time you get to them, I share in your sorrow but duck from all blame. Anyway, happy shopping...
