Best Apps Of 2011: Vote For Your Favorite + A Huge Giveaway

iOS and Mac apps are the cornerstone of what we cover on MacStories, we love trying new apps, sharing news about them and then reviewing them for you all. The past 12 months have been a spectacular year for new apps and big app updates that have seen both the diversity and calibre of iOS and Mac apps increase significantly. It is with this in mind that we want to recognise the very best apps that were released or received major updates in 2011.

The whole team at MacStories has worked together to come up with a short list of iPhone, iPad and Mac apps as well as a short list of games that we believe were the best to come out in 2011. Now we need your help to decide which of these apps are the best from each category. To do so, we are running a poll that we want you to take, and we want you to cast your vote for what you think was the best app of 2011.

The Biggest MacStories Giveaway Ever!

However, this event isn’t just about rewarding the very best iOS and Mac developers, we want to reward you for being readers of MacStories this year and for taking the time to help us choose the best apps of 2011. This giveaway, as the header states, is the biggest we have ever run - and by quite a stretch. We’re going to be giving away over two-hundred license codes for apps that have made it into our short lists - and there may still be more to come! Some of the apps we will be giving away include:

Alfred

Fantastical

iA Writer

Instacast

Mr. Reader

Tweetbot

and many, many more…

How To Enter The Giveaway

There are three ways to be in the running for some of these licenses:

Vote (when you vote we first ask for your email address, just enter a valid email address and you go into the running to win some free apps).

Tweet about this contest (just make sure you have this article’s URL in the tweet, or just use the example tweet below).

Let your friends or family know about the poll and have them enter your email or Twitter handle in the referral box that is on the voting page.

MacStories Best Apps of 2011: vote now and enter our huge iOS & Mac app giveaway! http://mcstr.net/rVDwy8

Rules & More Information

You can only vote once, this is why we require an email address when you vote. If you enter an invalid email address or vote multiple times your vote(s) will not count.

Please don’t spam your Twitter followers, friends or family, asking them to vote and add you to the referral box. It’s not nice and we don’t want to come across as being the source of this spam - if we see such spam we will ensure you don’t receive any licenses.

Some licences will be given out during the voting process, whilst the rest will be given after voting closes.

Once voting closes, no more entries for the giveaway will be accepted.

Because of the limited number of licences we have per app, you might not get the app you really wanted if you are a winner - but we will try to be as flexible as possible!

Sorry, voting is now closed. Winners will be announced Saturday, 24th.

The winning apps will be announced on Saturday, December 24th (Christmas Eve).

Price: $2.99
Category: Productivity

Cloud2go lets you access and manage your CloudApp account with your iPhone or iPod touch. Upload new files or add bookmarks. View existing files within the app, share and manage them.

Read MacStories review of Cloud2go.

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Dropkick is a simple, elegant to do list for your iPhone. And it wirelessly syncs to your Mac and iPad with its companion apps, Dropkick for Mac and Dropkick for iPad (sold separately). You don’t even need to be on the same network. Syncing happens securely over the internet so you can easily add tasks at your desk and pick up where you left off on-the-go.

Read MacStories coverage of DropKick for iPhone.

Price: $4.99
Category: Productivity

Due lets you enter quick reminders for stuff you don’t want to forget about. Walk the dog in 30 minutes. Call your boss after lunch. Check on MacStories giveaway announcement in 5 hours. That kind of stuff. The app is really simple: once you enter a new item you can choose a due date & time, but there are some handy shortcuts in the same screen. If you find yourself constantly using some reminders as countdowns, you can create a timer. It also works with Agenda, a great calendar replacement app for iOS.

Read MacStories coverage of Due.

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Evernote turns the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.

Read MacStories coverage of Evernote.

Price: Free
Category: News

Flipboard is a must-have pocket-sized) social magazine that lets you organize the info you want to look at and then flip through it like a magazine. Get started by creating an account with Flipboard, then sign in to your Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Instagram, Flickr, tumblr, and 500px accounts.

Read MacStories coverage of Flipboard.

Price: $4.99
Category: Productivity

GoodReader is the super-robust highly-rated PDF reader with advanced reading and annotating capabilities. With GoodReader on your iPhone, you can read virtually anything, anywhere: books, movies, maps, pictures. You can reflow text, manage files, transfer files sync files and folders, zoom and text search.

Read MacStories coverage of GoodReader.

Price: $4.99
Category: Photography

Make beautiful HD movies anywhere with iMovie, the fast and fun moviemaking app for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Designed for the Multi-Touch screen, iMovie puts everything you need to tell your story at your fingertips. Browse and play projects in the Marquee view. Make a movie in minutes by adding video, photos, music and sound effects. Then give it the Hollywood treatment by adding a theme, titles and transitions. And you can share share your movie with the world – right from iMovie.

Price: $1.99
Category: News

Instacast offers instant access to podcast subscriptions, stream or download episodes wirelessly, follow show notes and enjoy audio and video podcasts on-the-go.

Read MacStories coverage of Instacast.

Price: Free
Category: Photography

Instagram is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take photos, apply a filter, and share it on the service or a variety of other social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Flickr, and Posterous.

Read MacStories coverage of Instagram.

Price: $4.99

Category: News

Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don’t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them.

Read MacStories coverage of Instapaper.

Price: Free
Category: News

MacHash is a tech news aggregator that streamlines and delivers the latest Apple news to your iDevice. Stay on top of the latest Mac OS, iPhone and iPad headlines and rumors from all over the web in one place. It combines and streamlines the days top news from 30+ leading sources. Scan through the days headlines at a glance or go in depth and finger swipe your way through the news. Read in place with the integrated web browser that also offers full screen mode and built in sharing services. Share, tweet, and save your favorite stories with the tap of a button with support for Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper, Evernote, Tumblr and more.

Read MacStories coverage of MacHash.

Price: $2.99
Category: Music

My Artists 2.0 takes the whole app concept a step further to become a full-featured music player and discovery system for all kinds of artists, not just the ones you already know and have on iTunes. Thanks to built-in integration with 8tracks, the “handcrafted Internet radio”, users can now listen to a personalized radio station with easy controls to jump through live-streaming songs from the popular online service. My Artists 2.0 brings actual new music to the mix thanks to an 8tracks button that’s always accessible from the main list view, which as usual pulls beautiful and high-res artist pics and album artworks from the web.

Read MacStories coverage of My Artists 2.0.

Price: $1.99
Category: Music

NowPlayer is a gesture based music player that lets you share your favorites via Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Last.fm. It has a very customizeable UI and gesture system that also lets you add links to YouTube, iTunes and Last.fm. There is also a built-in music library.

Read MacStories coverage of NowPlayer.

Price: $19.99
Category: Productivity

The iPhone edition of OmniFocus brings powerful task management functionality to users’ fingertips. With live, automatic syncing, location-aware custom actions lists, and on-the-fly task entry with voice notes and image capture, OmniFocus for iPhone is built to enhance your busy life. Access shopping lists, agenda items for work, tasks for home, or any other lists you need, wherever you are.

Read MacStories coverage of Omnifocus.

Price: $.99
Category: Productivity

Create calendar events using natural language in SECONDS, and seamlessly sync those events to your phone’s calendars. In addition to this, QuickCal supports “Smart Reminders”, which will create alarms at configurable time intervals, specific to how far in the future the event is. A meeting tomorrow? Reminder 15 min in advance. A meeting in 6 months? Remind a few days in advance. Also provides a convenient view of upcoming events; pinch/zoom to provide different levels of detail on your calendar entries.

Read MacStories coverage of QuickCal Mobile.

Price: Free
Category: Social Networking

Path is a smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love. Keep a personal journal, or “Path”, of your life. Keep up with the lives of your loved ones through a single feed. One button to post beautiful photos and videos, who you are with, where you are, what you are listening to, what you are thinking, and when you go to bed and wake up. Path learns about you and automatically posts when you go to a different neighborhood or city. More posts in your Path, without your effort. Designed with the people you love, your close friends and family, in mind. Share in a trusted, intimate, environment like the dinner table at home. Get updates on all of the feedback on your posts and comments in one place.

Price: $2.99
Category: Photography

Scotty transfers photos and videos from your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to your Mac over Wi-Fi. No cables, internet connection, browser or emails with attachments required. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection to the same Wi-Fi network as your Mac. All photos and videos that are available in the standard Photos app can be transferred with Scotty. On your Mac, turn File Sharing on and there you go.

Price: $2.99
Category: Social Networking

Tweetbot is a full-featured iPhone Twitter client with a lot of personality. Whether it’s the meticulously-crafted interface, sounds & animation, or features like multiple timelines & smart gestures, there’s a lot to love about Tweetbot.

Read MacStories coverage of Tweetbot.

Price: $.99
Category: Social Networking

Enjoy Twitter while on a walk, stuck in traffic, in the kitchen, or on the go. Tweet Speaker lets you listen to news, sports, humor, and the musings of interesting people on Twitter – a sort of live podcast of your Tweets. Featuring a beautiful user interface, speech tailored for tweets, Tweet Marker support, adjustable reading speed, and Airplay, Tweet Speaker is a fun new way to experience Twitter.

Read MacStories coverage of Tweet Speaker.

Price: Free
Category: Social Networking

Verbs is a simple instant messaging client with a gorgeous interface. It’s slick, fast and it just works! Users can upgrade to Verbs Pro to stay online for up to 7 days, available through in-app purchase for $4.99. It supports GTalk, Facebook, AIM and iCloud (MobileMe).

Read MacStories coverage of Verbs.

1Password 3 Banner

Price: $14.99
Category: Utilities

1Password Pro keeps all of your random passwords in sync, making portable and accessible the data created from your Mac. 1Password Pro stores website names and passwords so they’re never forgotten, keeps secure notes and credit card information, and is protected with hardware-accelerated AES encryption. Keep your passwords synced with Dropbox and never forget your passwords again.

1Password 3

BBC iPlayer (Global) Banner

Price: Free (available in select regions)
Category: Entertainment

BBC iPlayer streams your favorite programming to your iPad such as Top Gear, Fawlty Towers, Gavin & Stacey, and more over Wi-Fi or 3G. Browse from a variety of programming, watch select free episodes, and stream over AirPlay all from one convenient app.

BBC iPlayer (Global)

BillMinder 3 Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: Finance

BillMinder is a bill management application that provides notifications for upcoming or due bills, offers automatic backup to keep your billing schedule safe, charts your financial data so you can see where your money is going, and syncs between your iOS devices so you’re never working about that next bill. Password protection, multiple calendar views, and support for multiple currencies help you to take charge of your bills and keep from getting behind.

BillMinder 3

Day One Banner

Price: $1.99
Category: Lifestyle

Day One was named one of the Best Lifestyle Apps of 2011 by Apple. Think of Day One as a daily journal or diary that syncs with your Mac and iPhone, making it easy to quickly jot down thoughts and memories while keeping them safety backed up in the cloud. You can mark favorite entries, passcode lock your journal, and use TextExpander to rewrite commonly used snippets of text.

Read our MacStories review of Day One.

Day One

Facebook 4 Banner

Price: Free
Category: Social Networking

Facebook for the iPad “1UPs” the mobile website by offering an intuitive sliding navigation panel, high-res photos, an integrated chat client, and the ability to access your favorite Facebook apps and games on the go. Bookmarks, search, groups, and your friends are only a tap away.

Read the MacStories review of Facebook for the iPad.

Facebook 4

Flipboard Banner

Price: Free
Category: News

Not only has Apple designated Flipboard as 2010’s iPad App of the Year, it’s also been recognized as one of TIME’s Top 50 Innovations. Flipboard creates a personalized magazine from tweets and Instagram photos to Tumblr posts and articles from your favorite websites. Coming soon to Flipboard for the iPad are Cover Stories, selections of interesting articles and photos that are individualized and shared with you every time you open Flipboard.

Read MacStories coverage of Flipboard for the iPad.

Flipboard

GarageBand Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: Music

GarageBand for the iPad turns your iPad into a collection of Touch instruments and a full-featured recording studio. By simply touching the display, you can strum a guitar, strike a chord, play the piano, drum a new beat, and record vocals. When you’re done, you can easily mix up to eight tricks to create a song you can share.

GarageBand

GoodReader Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: Productivity

GoodReader is the swiss army knife of file management on the iPad, support a multitude of document types from MS Office to iWork, audio and video, and HTML webarchives. GoodReader features a robust PDF reader where you can annotate, highlight, and sign documents with your finger. Featuring WiFi sync, iCloud publishing, WebDAV support, Unarchive and Unrar abilities, and even more file management features, GoodReader manages all of the documents on your iPad.

GoodReader

Grazing Web Browser 2 Banner

Price: $1.99
Category: Utilities

Grazing Browser is the power user’s browser for iOS, featuring a fullscreen mode, easy to access thumb controls, a universal address bar like Google Chrome, private browsing, and integration with your favorite services like Instapaper and PinBoard. Grazing Browser also has settings to block ads and search multiple search engines.

Read the MacStories review of Grazing Web Browser 2.0.

Grazing Web Browser 2

iA Writer Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: Productivity

iA Writer focuses on the text and typography, featuring a minimal writing environment with a keyboard extension for easily moving the cursor between words, a word count, and FocusMode™ that let’s you focus only on one sentence at a time.

iA Writer

Instacast HD Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: News

Instacast HD is the high definition version of the hit podcast app for the iPhone, Instacast. instacast HD gets all of the little details right, from an enhanced video player that continues to play audio in the background to beautiful show notes and a fluid in-app browser. With iCloud syncing, Instacast HD syncs your podcast subscription, played statuses, and timeline position with Instacast on the iPhone.

Read the MacStories review of Instacast HD.

Instacast HD

Instapaper 4 Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: News

Instapaper 4 saves the long articles and blog posts you find during the day to your iPad for later reading. Instapaper saves web pages as text-only and formats them for the iPad, leaving a distraction-free reading environment. Instapaper features adjustable fonts, text sizes, line spacing, and margins so you can find your comfort of reading.

Read the MacStories review of Instapaper 4.

Instapaper 4

LogMeIn Ignition 2 Banner

Price: $29.99
Category: Productivity

LogMeIn Ingition gives you unfettered remote access to your Mac or PC over a secure connection to help you transfer and save files or folders between the desktop and your iPad. Control your Mac or PC as if you were sitting right on front of it, use applications on the computer through the intuitive touchscreen interface, and transfer files between multiple computers connected to LogMeIn with ease.

Read our MacStories review of LogMeIn Ignition.

LogMeIn Ignition 2

Mr. Reader Banner

Price: $3.99
Category: News

Mr. Reader is an RSS for your iPad that syncs with your Google Reader account. Mr. Reader is one of the most (if not the most) fully featured RSS app on the iPad, offering folder and feed management, integration with Instapaper and Readability, image caching for offline viewing, advanced mark-as-read functionality, and much more.

Read the MacStories review of Mr. Reader.

Mr. Reader

OmniFocusBanner

Price: $39.99
Category: Productivity

OmniFocus by The Omni Group is the most powerful GTD application for the iPad, providing in-depth task management for organizing and focusing your workflow. Dump ideas into the inbox, sort them into projects and folders, get things done by context, and see what’s coming up next with Forecasts. Thanks to cloud sync, OmniFocus stays in sync with the desktop and iPhone apps, helping you stay productive wherever you might be.

Read the MacStories review of OmniFocus for the iPad.

OmniFocus

OmniOutliner Banner

Price: $19.99
Category: Productivity

OmniOutliner for the iPad is focused on generating clean, simple lists of text and images into organizable and customizable outlines. Using custom styles and the included templates, OmniOutliner can be used to create checklists, ratings guides, shopping lists, a home inventory sheet, basic financial spreadsheets, or outlines for your latest blog posts.

Read the MacStories overview of OmniOutliner for the iPad.

OmniOutliner

PDF Expert 3 Banner

Price: $9.99
Category: Productivity

PDF Expert lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight important passages, makes notes, draw with your finger, and fill out PDF forms with ease. Whether your documents are in Dropbox, GoogleDocs, or other services, PDF Expert lets you markup and fill out PDF documents on the fly.

Read our MacStories review of PDF Expert.

PDF Expert 3

Rdio Banner

Price: Free
Category: Music

Rdio is a social music service for the iPad, providing unlimited, on-demand music streaming with no ads. Rdio lets you follow friends to share tastes in music, play any of more than 10 million songs in Rdio’s music library online, and sync songs for latter offline listening.

Rdio

Price: $4.99
Category: Photo & Video

Nominated by Apple as the 2011 iPad App of the Year, Snapseed delivers a photo editing experience like no other thanks to intuitive gestures, Auto Correct, Tune Image, and fun filters and borders. If you shoot pictures with your DSLR, Snapseed supports RAW photo processing right on your iPad or iPad2.

Snapseed

Verbs IM 2 Banner

Price: $4.99
Category: Social Network

Verbs is a beautiful IM client support GTalk, Facebook, AIM, and MobileMe. Verbs can send push notifications for up to 10 minutes when running in the background, use CloudApp and Droplr to send photos, and view office documents without leaving the app. Verbs will help connect you to IM buddies already in your address book, and will keep your accounts logged in for up to 7 days.

Read the MacStories overview of Verbs 2.0.

Verbs IM 2

Price: $49.99
Category: Productivity

1Password is your password and identity companion. It leaps past simple password storage because 1Password works directly with your browser, saves your user names and passwords, and effortlessly creates strong, unique passwords for each site. 1Password can then automatically and securely log you in, enter credit card information, and fill registration forms, all while encrypting your information with the one password you need to remember.

Read the MacStories review of 1Password

Price:

Free (PowerPack Add-On - $23.17)

Category: Productivity

Alfred is a productivity application for Mac OS X, which aims to save you time in searching your local computer and the web. Whether it’s maps, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, you can feed your web addiction quicker than ever before.

Read the MacStories review of Alfred 1.0

Price: $7.99

Category: Utilities

AirServer is the most advanced AirPlay/AirTunes receiver app on the market. No other app will let you seamlessly stream audio, videos, photos, and photo slideshows to your Mac or iOS device. AirServer gives you more features for less money, and it keeps getting better!

Read the MacStories review of AirServer

Price:

$49.99

Category: Developer Tools

BBEdit has an intelligent interface that provides easy access to best-of-class features, including: grep pattern matching; search and replace across multiple files; project definition tools; function navigation and syntax coloring for numerous source code languages; code folding; FTP and SFTP open and save; AppleScript and Automator support; Unix scripting support; text and code completion; a complete set of robust HTML tools; and more.

Price: $9.99
Category: Productivity

Byword is the easiest way to write Markdown and rich text on your Mac. It is fast, well designed and has a comprehensive list of Markdown and MultiMarkdown features. Byword has full-screen support, autosave, and soothing light and dark themes.

Read the MacStories review of Byword

Price: $9.99
Category: Utilities

DaisyDisk scans your hard disk and presents it as an interactive visual map where you can easily spot unusually large files and remove them to get more free space. Using the map, you can browse your disk, view file descriptions and content, and remove unneeded files with drag and drop.

Price: $79

Category: Developer Tools

Espresso turbo-charges your workflow with the perfect blend of features. Speed through day-to-day edits with extensive language support, contextual completions, powerful smart snippets, and Zen actions. Use the Navigator and code folding to prevail over the most complicated documents. Watch your web pages update in real time with live styling, visualize and inspect your layouts with X-ray, then push the changes to your server with Sync or Quick Publish.

Price: $8.99

Category: Music

Ecoute is a lightweight player which allows you to browse and play your iTunes Library. Play your music, videos, tv shows, and podcasts in a simple way.You can also share what you are listening to on Facebook and Twitter, and also on Last.fm.

Read the MacStories review of Ecoute 2

Price:

Free

Category: Productivity

Evernote helps millions worldwide remember anything and everything that happens in their lives. Use Evernote to take notes, save interesting web pages, create to-dos and shopping lists, attach images and PDFs, and so much more. Then, watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your Mac to your smartphone, tablet and the Web, allowing you to find your memories at any time from anywhere.

Read the MacStories review of Evernote 3.0

Price: $19.99
Category: Productivity

Fantastical’s natural language event creation, beautiful calendar, and gorgeous event list make it the best calendar you’ll ever use. Stay on top of your schedule with features like native CalDAV support, automatic alarms for new events, and instant search.

Read the MacStories review of Fantastical

Price:

$9.99
Category: Photography

Flare can effortlessly add effects and textures to your photos. Choose from a variety of Flare’s built-in Presets or create your own using dozens of individual photographic effects. Easy to learn for casual hobbyists, Flare also has the flexibility professional photographers need.

Read the MacStories review of Flare

Price: $4.99
Category: Utilities

Moom allows you to easily move and zoom windows to predefined areas of the screen, or to make them full-screen, using either the mouse or the keyboard. When used via the mouse, all you need to do is hover over the green resize button in any Mac OS X window. Moom’s panel appears, and you then click the desired action. When used via the keyboard, a hot key displays the Moom bezel, and you can then use the arrow and modifier keys to move and resize the windows.

Price:

$79.99
Category: Productivity

OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. Perfect for the Getting Things Done® system, but flexible enough for any task management style, OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on top of all the things you need to do.

Read the MacStories review of OmniFocus

Price: $29.99
Category: Graphics & Design

Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. It has an interface designed for working with images and layer-based image editing. It supports over 40 professional quality tools and over 150 built-in image filters.

Price:

$19.95

Category: Design

Printopia: Printing from your iPhone or iPad is easier than you’ve ever imagined. Run Printopia on your Mac to share its printers to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Add unlimited virtual printers to save print-outs to your Mac as PDF files.

Read the MacStories review of Printopia 2.0

Price: $9.99
Category: News

Reeder is a one of a kind Google Reader client. It has a customizable interface, gesture controls, and full Readability integration. It has many social sharing options including Pinboard, Delicious, Instapaper and Evernote.

Read the MacStories review of Reeder

Price: $9.99
Category: Productivity

Sparrow is a minimal e-mail application designed to keep things simple and efficient. It supports many IMAP email services including Gmail, MobileMe, Yahoo!, and AOL. Sparrow has a unified inbox, Dropbox & CloudApp sharing, and even Facebook Integration.

Read the MacStories review of Sparrow

Price: $3.99
Category: Music

Take Five supports music pausing and auto-resume in the most popular Mac audio applications such as iTunes, Ecoute, Pulsar, Radium, Rdio & Spotify. Never again let a call from your Mom, lolcat videos or visits from your boss put your music on permanent pause. When it comes to your music, silence is not golden.

Price:

Free

Category: Social Networking

Twitter: Follow your interests: instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world. Get short bursts of timely information on the official Twitter for Mac app. Real-time search reveals breaking news, while trending topics show what’s happening around the world.

Read the MacStories review of Twitter for Mac

Price:

$4.99
Category: Social Networking

Twitterrific is the friendly Twitter client that’s beautiful to look at and incredibly intuitive for new users, yet peppered with deep features for advanced tweeters. Effortlessly read and compose tweets, view multiple accounts, search Twitter.com, filter message types and much more. If you’re already familiar with the award-winning Twitterrific for iPhone or iPad, then you’ll be right at home on the Mac.

Read the MacStories review of Twitterrific 4

Price: $4.99

Platform: iPhone, iPad & Mac

Rovio is celebrating the release of Angry Birds 2.0 with cake! Blow out the candles (and more importantly those darned pigs) in 15 brand new birthday cake levels. Use the new expandable orange bird to blow apart enemy fortresses, and earn special birthday achievements in this latest celebratory installment!

Price: $4.99

Platform: iPad & Mac

Aquaria is a stunningly beautiful iPad game where you explore a massive underwater world by controlling Naija, a “lonely and mysterious aquatic girl”. You’ll explore the depths of Aquaria as you experience her story, travelling from “hidden caves shrouded in darkness to beautiful sunlit oases”.

Read the MacStories review of Aquaria.

Price: $9.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Galaxy on Fire 2 HD is an excellent sci-fi game with an extensive storyline, massive amounts of side missions, and graphics that will render you speechless. The original version of this game has been around for almost a year but the developers have released this HD version which is optimized for devices packing Apple’s A5 processor, which include the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

Read the MacStories review of Galaxy on Fire 2 HD.

Price: $4.99

Platform: iPhone, iPad & Mac

Grand Theft Auto III on iOS is the re-release of the incredibly popular, and in many ways groundbreaking, game that was originally released in 2001. With upgraded graphics and models, this 10 Year Annviersary edition of iOS is a must-have game for the iPhone or iPad.

Price: $6.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Infinity Blade II is the game you want to play if you want to get a feel of how powerful the A5 chip is in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 is and want to see where gaming on iOS is headed. Few apps can boast to being a taste of what the future of apps will hold, but Infinity Blade II certainly is - we look forward to more games utilising the Unreal Engine 3 in the New Year.

Read the MacStories review of Infinity Blade II.

Price: $0.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Jetpack Joyride is the new game from Halfbrick (notably known for Fruit Ninja) and it is terribly fun and addictive. Playing as Barry, who breaks into a secret laboratory with an experimental jetpack strapped to his back, you’ll have to dodge rockets, electric ‘fences’ - all whilst trying to complete tasks and get as far into the laboratory as possible.

Price: $2.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Mage Gauntlet is a classic action RPG that was designed with iOS specifically in mind. Inspired by many classic RPGs such as Legend of Zelda and Secret of Mana, you’ll fight and explore the Mage Gauntlet world which is filled with eccentric wizards, powerful artefacts and dangerous monsters.

Price: $29.99

Platform: Mac

Portal 2 is the sequel to the much-raved Portal which featured innovative gameplay and a fun story. The sequel expands upon the innovative gameplay, witty story and is longer, with more puzzles and an extremely fun co-op mode. In short, it’s a must have game.

Price: $6.99 (for HD version), $4.99 (iPhone version)

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Real Racing 2 is the definitive racing game for the iPhone and iPad. With stunning graphics, a lengthy and enjoyable career mode, large selection of cars, great multiplayer and support for AirPlay, this game is up to par with some similar console titles.

Price: $0.99 (limited time offer)

In Reckless Getaway you’ll have to evade the police and avoid the impending cut to the chase! Weave in and out of oncoming traffic: dodge, outrun or ram pursuing police cars and smash through debris that gets in your way. Keep from spinning out of control on 16 eye-popping tracks, unlocking achievements and new game modes along the way.

Price: $0.99 (limited-time offer)

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Scribblenauts Remix is a port of the popular console puzzle game that requires you to create objects in order to solve a problem. “Let your imagination run wild in this groundbreaking puzzle game. Summon to life a ‘colossal, winged car’ or a ‘shy, frost-breathing, robotic hippopotamus’!”

Price: $4.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

ShadowGun is a futuristic third person shooter where you have to hunt down the maniacal genius, Dr. Edgar Simon. You’ll have to infiltrate Dr. Simon’s mountain fortress and fight an army of cyborgs, battle droids and genetically-enhanced humanoids.

Price: $2.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Help Agent Squeak in Spy Mouse to find the cheese as he outsmarts 72 puzzling stages spanning 6 different worlds. Discover secret levels and hidden areas, foil traps, and use a variety of gizmos and power-ups to avoid detection and survive 6 epic boss battles!

Price: $4.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is a stunning iOS game that launched with rave reviews, and for good reason. With a stunning visual style and great soundtrack, this game is a work of art - but it’s also terrific adventure game that is well worth your time and money.

Price: Free

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Temple Run is a ‘running game’ where you have to “race down ancient temple walls and along sheer cliffs”. Fun and thrilling, you control your character with simple and intuitive swipe and tilt controls - the game adds depth with power-ups, level-ups and multiple characters to choose from.

Price: $0.99

Platform: iPhone & iPad

Previously an iTunes Game of the Week, follow Willow the Whale as he dips and dives through the magical world of Rainbow Land! Collect Bubbles, loop the loop, smash the Thunder Bros and test yourself in Classic and Challenge game modes. With up to 52 fun achievements to unlock and a joyful soundtrack by Gruff Rhys of ‘The Super Furry Animals’, Whale Trail is an iOS hit!