Free iPhone

The popular music streaming service Spotify has updated their app with proper iPad support. Now you can enjoying millions of songs and discover and share music on your iPad’s larger screen. The iPad version isn’t simply a big version it’s iPhone counterpart either — it’s optimized to take advantage of the larger screen and looks amazing.

A Spotify premium subscription is needed to use the service on the iPhone or iPad, but you can try it out for free for 48 hours — and can be extended to 30 days. The free trial didn’t work for me the first time I logged in, but once I logged out and back in, it worked like charm.

On the What’s New tab, you’ll see a bunch of album artwork along the top that can be scrolled though. These are new songs and can be played instantly. As you scroll through the page, you’ll discover trending playlists and top tracks among friends, new releases, and trending playlists and top tracks near you.

Tapping any of the music or playlists will slide out a panel on the right that lets you find out more about it and stream it if you wish.

If you’re listening to music, you’ll see the “now playing” toolbar at the bottom of every screen. You can also blow this up to full screen so that you can view the album artwork nice and big and in all its glory.

From the Playlists tab, you can access playlists that you have set up on iTunes and playlists you’ve created with Spotify. Selecting a playlist will also slide out the window on the right and display a collage of artwork of songs that appear in the playlist as well as a lists of the songs in the playlist.

The People tab is where you go to see what your friends are listening to. If you connect Spotify with Facebook, all your Facebook friends who use Spotify will automatically show up in your list. Tapping on a friend will again slide out the column on the right and display your friend’s top tracks, top artists, and published playlists.

In Settings, you can enable offline mode, switch to a private session (which expires after 6 hours of inactivity), choose whether you want to show what you listen on Facebook, and more.

The Good Clean, pretty, and easy to use UI Multiple panels are very well implemented Lots of album artwork Universal for iPhone and iPad The Bad Must have a premium subscription to use Spotify mobile. No free radio available. The Conclusion

Spotify did a fantastic job with this app. There is a sense of uniformity when using it and the multi-panel design is very implemented. My only issue is that if you don’t have a premium subscription, the app is completely useless. Spotify really should include free radio in their mobile apps.

Free – Download Now

Infinity Blade 2 for iPhone and iPad has been updated with a new content pack called ClashMobs that lets you complete challenges in Infinity Blade 2 with your Facebook friends. Interestingly, even your Facebook friends who don’t play Infinity Blade 2 can help you complete your challenges by “liking” your posts.

After connecting Infinity Blade 2 to your Facebook account, you will have a set of new challenges called ClashMobs to choose from. Each challenge will need help from your friends, but the good news is that even though these challenges are scheduled, you don’t have to play with your friends at the exact same time. For example, a ClashMob may only require 30 seconds from each participant, but each player can contribute during any time between Monday and Wednesday.

To get your friends to contribute to your ClashMobs, you simply post to your Facebook page with Infinity Blade 2. Most challenges only require a few friends or offer better rewards for more participants, but some challenges may need the help of as many as 500,000 players. With some ClashMob’s, your non-Infinity Blade 2 playing friends can also help you out by liking your post. For example, each like received may inflict damage on the boss you’re fighting.

Now, that last part sounds cool and all, but I’m willing to bet that most of these likes will be coming from Infinity Blade 2 players since Facebook users who don’t play Infinity Blade 2 will likely be hiding all posts by Infinity Blade 2 from their Facebook feed (I sure will be).

For Infinity Blade 2 players who don’t use Facebook or are put off by the idea of posting Infinity Blade ClashMobs to their wall, they can simply choose to ignore ClashMobs all together. Or they can participate in ClashMobs posted by their friends without a trace of their activity on Facebook. Infinity Blade 2 will not force players to post to Facebook.

So who’s excited about ClashMobs? I’m sure you’re looking for more Infinity Blade 2 Facebook friends, so head on over to the iMore forums and share your Facebook page with other Infinity Blade 2 players!

$4.99 – Download Now

As if using Facebook wasn’t stalker-ish enough, now you can track your friends’ exact locations with Find my Facebook Friends. This app is very similar to Apple’s Find my Friends app that was released last year alongside iOS 5.

The main difference between Find my Facebook Friends and Apple’s app is that, you guessed it, the people you share your location with are from Facebook. Both you and your friend need to have Find My Facebook Friends installed in order for it to work.

If you’re concerned about privacy, you can rest knowing that Find my Facebook Friends gives you a lot of options when it comes to sharing your location. You can choose to only share with certain groups you have set up on Facebook or with specific friends. You can also take the opposite approach and choose to share with everyone except the groups and people that you specify. You can similarly set up Find My Facebook Friends to notify you when someone is nearby.

Another difference between Find My Facebook Friends and Apple’s Find My Friends is that in this new Facebook version, you can actually watch your friend travel on the map – you have to refresh Apple’s app to see an updated location. While stalking checking Rene’s location, I was able to see that he was driving down a road and the dot for his location was moving along the road quickly and smoothly. My biggest complaint was that if I wanted Rene’s name to pop up over his bubble, the app would force me to zoom in really close to his location. I could zoom out afterwards, but then it would automatically zoom back in. This was rather annoying.

There seems to be a few complaints of the app crashing or freezing, but that has not been my experience on my iPhone 4S and new iPad. It’s actually running pretty good on both devices for me.

$0.99 – Download Now

The new iPad is simply one of the most enjoyable ways to keep up with your Facebook friends, share your status and location, post pictures and videos, and more. It’s instant-on, it has a big, beautiful screen, and the multitouch interface makes it a lot of fun for social networks where ever you are, whenever you’re in the mood.

If you don’t already have a Facebook account but want to join up and see what all the “friending” and “liking” fuss is about, sign up here:

Facebook.com

To get all the latest news, reviews, and help from iMore right on Facebook, make sure to like us as well!

iMore on Facebook

To find more iMore Facebook friends, check out our Facebook name thread:

iMore Facebook names Facebook for iPad

While you can always access Facebook.com directly through your iPad’s Safari browser (see below), due to the way iOS works, there are certain things you just can’t do over the web — like upload pictures and video. In order to do those things, and to get a more native, iPad-like experience, there’s the official Facebook for iPad app.

Download Facebook for iPad from the App Store (link below), sign in with your Facebook username and password, and you’re all set. You’ll receive push notifications and be able to update your status, add photos and videos (here’s how, check-in to places, and view all your friend’s profiles and activities as well.

While the Facebook for iPad app is extremely convenient, Facebook has an unfortunate reputation for buggy apps on iOS and all sorts of annoying issues remain unfixed. (Most recently, tagging photos or statuses). If you run into issue with the official Facebook for iPad app, you can check out some alternative suggestions below.

Free – Download Now Alternative Facebook apps for iPad

While the Facebook app is free and is a decent solution, the interface may simply not be to your taste or you may be running into one or more of their infamous bugs. If that’s the case, you can always try some of the alternative Facebook apps available in the App Store.

MyPad for iPad

MyPad has been around for quite a while and, before Facebook released their official iPad app, filled the gap quite nicely. It’s also got Twitter integration and some other features that may make it more convenient for you than the official app.

Personally, I prefer the overall layout of the official Facebook for iPad app, but MyPad has been more stable and less buggy for me. They’ve got a free version available as well as a premium version with no ads.

Free – Download Now $0.99 – Download Now Friendly for iPad

Friendly for iPad is similar in terms of Facebook functionality to MyPad but the layouts are quite different. Friendly doesn’t feature the same integration that MyPad does to other social networks such as Twitter, however, so if that’s important to you, MyPad is probably the better choice. If it’s not, choose whichever one looks more visually appealing to you.

Just like MyPad – Friendly has a free version as well as a paid version with no ads.

Free – Download Now $0.99 – Download Now How to access Facebook from Safari

While the Facebook for iPad app has more functionality than the mobile web version, your iPad can actually load the full blown Facebook.com website. I’ve actually relied on it several times when the actual application wasn’t working well or kept timing out.

To access Facebook on the web from your iPad, just do the following –

Open Safari on your iPad Go to facebook.com Sign in to your account.

That’s it. You’ll be able to browse Facebook, comment on statuses, pictures, and more. The catch with using the web version of Facebook from your iPad is that you won’t be able to play games, upload photo, video, and other content like you can from the actual application.

How to play Facebook games on the iPad

Neither the Facebook.com website nor any of the Facebook apps will let you play your favorite Facebook games on the iPad. Fortunately, a lot of Facebook games can be found right on the App Store and downloaded and enjoyed right on your iPad. In many cases, you can even log into them and keep them in sync with your Facebook account so you don’t miss a friend or a turn.

Just head on over to the App Store and search for the name of your favorite Facebook game.

iSwifter

If you can’t find your favorite Facebook game in the iPad App Store, you can try the iSwifter app. It lets you access a lot of popular social games that don’t have App Store alternatives.

Free – Download now

Additional resources:

Everything you need to know about your new iPad Even more tips and tricks for new iPad users iMore new iPad discussion forums iMore Facebook and Social Networks forum

What’s your favorite way to use Facebook on your iPad?

Buddy Beers iPhone App

Music by Matthew Bostock soundcloud.com/blankandkytt —— BuddyBeers.com enables you to buy online real drink vouchers for your friends in our affiliated bars or restaurants worldwide. All your friend has to do is take their smartphone into the bar and show the Buddy Beers voucher in the Buddy Beers app. Prove you're a real friend by surprising your friends in other cities with real beers at their local pubs! Download the iPhone app from: buddybeers.com/apps Features: • Buy a real beer for a friend in a real bar • Send beers via e-mail, text message (SMS), your contacts or Facebook • Find the nearest bar to you accepting Buddy Beers • See all your given and received Buddy Beers free beer vouchers • Easily redeem a Buddy Beer with two clicks • Special features for bartenders How does it work? • Login or create an Buddy Beers account (or login with Facebook) • Choose a friend by either typing in their email, phone number, choosing them from your contacts or from your Facebook friends • Choose a bar near them from one of our partnered Buddy Bars • Choose a drink from the list. Some are even discounted! • Add a note for the gift • Pay via Paypal or our Buddy Bucks virtual currency • You friend gets a notice with your personal greeting and a voucher delivered to their Buddy Beers application • This is all your friend needs to redeem their free beer in the bar! The Buddy Beers iPhone app is available on the iTunes Store and soon on Android smartphones!
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FavorIt is the place where favorite friends and favorite apps meet. This new twist to app discovery lets you share your five favorite apps with your Facebook friends and view theirs. You can also see which apps are popular among all your friends.

This is one of those types of apps that needs participation from your friends in order to be useful, but the good news is that it only takes a few moments to login and do your part, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get your friends on board!

We took a closer look while at Macworld 2012.

Free – App Store link

When you know the apps that your friends call their FavorIts, the possibilities are endless!

Rediscover those awesome iPhone classics or join in the latest App Store craze. Find out who’s also addicted to that zombie-words-tower game, or learn about the latest time-saving productivity tool. Has the latest bird-themed release kept you up until 2am? Don’t just love it, FavorIt!

FavorIt – Where Favorite Friends and Favorite Apps Meet is available on the iPhone for free.

App Store link

Have an app you’d love to see featured on iMore? Email us at iosapps@imore.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

If you look at my iPhone and iPad home screens, you see almost nothing in common. You might think they were owned by two different people. I use them very differently, so have different top apps for each. For the purpose of this year’s most-used apps list, I’m limiting myself to the overall top 5 in no particular order. (It’s enough I was able to limit to five!)

• Alli Flowers

Holiday Alarm

Holiday Alarm is dependable enough to wake me every morning for school. It wakes me with the iPod tune of my choice – without my having to remember to make it the active app before going to bed at night. It’s programmable, so you don’t have to worry about being woken up on national holidays, and you can add in (or remove) additional holidays as fits your personal schedule. I love how I can set it once so that it will wake me early the 2nd weekend of every month for drill. Can’t ask for more.

• $1.99 – App Store link

Bejeweled Blitz

Bejewled has been my favorite game since the Palm days. It just gets better, and the latest update is just the Blitz version that pits you against your Facebook friends. A universal app, I play it more now on my iPad than iPhone, but haven’t removed it from my iPhone!

• Free – App Store link

DataVault

Ever get to the bank to deposit a check, only to discover that not only do you not have a savings deposit slip, but don’t remember what your account number is? I hate to admit the number of times this has happened to me. Or the number of times I show up in someone’s classroom to fix their computer, to discover that the latest master password has slipped my remembery. I don’t worry about it with DataVault. It remembers everything for me, and syncs to both my Mac and Windows desktop. Did I mention that the next update will have iCloud support so that my iPad and iPhone will sync to each other automagically?

• $9.99 – App Store link

Flipboard

Flipboard was made for the iPad, and while I’m not crazy about it on the small screen of the iPhone, I now get 90% of my news from my Flipboard sources. It’s beautiful, it’s timely, and it’s always with me.

• Free – iTunes link

PhotoSync

I like having total control over my photos, whether they originated on my iPhone, or I loaded them to a computer from a digital SLR camera. PhotoSync gives me that control, and more. I can transfer photos and video from/to my iPhone, iPad, desktop easily and quickly. So much more than my Photo Stream!

• $1.99 – iTunes link