It may be the middle of the school year, but this week’s top iPhone apps will get you back in the learning spirit thanks to some apps that are offering online courses and inexpensive digital textbooks. For those who checked out of school long ago, there are some good apps to help you relax and keep yourself entertained, too.
iBooks 2 (Free) (iPad)
Students with heavy backpacks everywhere take note, iBooks 2 might just change your life. Apple’s updated iBooks app now features multi-touch textbooks for as low as $14.99 a book. The app will remain free, of course. As good as those prices are, I’m sure some relief from the considerable strain of heavy textbooks will be even better news for iPad owners still attending classes regularly.
card.io payments (Free)
Accepting credit card payments just got a little easier with card.io payments. You can accept payments from people simply by using your iPhone camera to take a picture of their credit card. The app then takes the information on the card and securely accepts the payment designated. There are no setup or monthly fees to use the card.io payments service but the app does take a 3.5% cut on all purchases plus an additional 30 cents per sale.
iTunes U (Free)
Working nicely in concert with iBook 2, iTunes U presents users with the opportunity to take free courses from numerous universities like Stanford, Yale, MIT and more. The app offers over 500,000 lectures and texts on all sorts of subjects. Now you can take a course on iTunes U and maybe grab a companion textbook from iBooks 2 if you feel like reading on!
TouchTV (Free) (iPad)
If you’ve ever been to a gas station where short TV show clips played as you pumped your gas, you have a pretty good idea of how TouchTV works. The app offers up short news clips and bits of TV shows on your iPad. If you don’t have the time to watch a whole news broadcast but want to get a quick story in, now you can do so quickly, skipping right to the story you’re most interested in. Channels like E!, ESPN, OWN, National Geographic, ABC, and NBC are among those currently supporting TouchTV, with more sure to follow.
All Yoga ($0.99)
If you’re looking for a robust yoga app that you can use even where your iPhone doesn’t get much of a signal, All Yoga is up to the task. It features hundreds of poses with step-by-step images and instructions breaking down each pose. All of the poses are loaded right in the app so you don’t need a 3G or Wi-Fi signal to check them out, either. All Yoga also comes with a calendar feature so you can chart and track your progress as you attempt to attain some spiritual balance in your daily routine.
