Audio and Video
Make music and tweak recordings with a whole digital studio in your hand
ImgPlay Free Platform iPhone, iPad
Bring life to whatever you capture with your iPhone, or fine-tune the motion in things that already move. This app can work with still photos, videos, Burst mode images, or Live Photos. You can stitch stills together for a low-end stop-motion effect. Things get really interesting with Live Photos and Burst shots: take the video or sequence of images, trim the result (even removing individual frames), add a filter and text, and export a video or an animated GIF. For free, ImgPlay is full-featured. A $1.99 in-app purchase adds more filters, and removes ads and watermarked output.
LumaFX $2.99 Platform iPhone, iPad
We hadn’t counted on an app enabling rapid layering of advanced video effects just by blithely tapping away, but that‘s LumaFX in a nutshell. You can crop and fit videos, change speeds, alter colors, and play with a catalogue of quickly rendered vignettes, blurs, and pixelation effects.
Yousician Free Platform iPhone, iPad
Yousician uses the visual and timing devices found in games like Guitar Hero to teach you guitar, piano, or ukelele, using your device’s mic to track your skills. Remarkably effective, and with a difficulty curve that’s slight. For free, only your daily lesson time is limited.
iStopMotion $11.99 Platform iPad
Unleash your inner Laika to create frame-by-frame stories. The camera overlay makes it easy to compare the current and previous scenes. There’s also timelapse functionality, and your iPad can control an iPhone’s cam if the free iStopMotion Remote Camera app is running on the latter device.
djay Pro $9.99 Platform iPhone
Djay presents you with virtual decks, sliders, and various buttons, yet on an iPhone it looks it’s meant for toddlers. You probably won’t bang out your latest set using it alone, but it can connect to a range of audio hardware to serve as the brains behind a controller. Far from being a novelty, it’s worth a look for mobile experimentation, whether you’re a wannabe or pro DJ, and for features such as a sampler, four decks, and beat-matching.
VideoGrade $5.99 Platform iPhone, iPad
VideoGrade has 13 color-grading and repair tools for changing the look of video. Though powerful, it’s also straightforward: pick a tool (such as Tint, Vibrance, or Brightness), then a setting, and slide a finger to adjust the effect. Move up then left or right for subtler changes. Results are shown on the selected frame, and there are horizontal and vertical before and after split views. Settings can be saved for reuse, and exports queued.
LeechTunes $1.99 Platform iPhone, iPad
LeechTunes uses your device’s entire display for gestural input, enabling you to control your music without looking at your screen, handy when driving, exercising, or somewhere noisy. In all, there are 15 configurable options, and a sleep timer. One niggle is the need to start playback in Music if your tracks are in iCloud, but LeechTunes can then take over control.
Ferrite Recording Studio Free Platform iPhone, iPad
As a free app, this mightily impressive, beefed-up alternative to Voice Memos lets you bookmark bits of recordings to refer to later, and edit and combine recordings in its multitrack editor. A $9.99 in-app purchase turns it into a fully-fledged podcast creation studio, with layered track and project length limits removed. It also adds professional effects, which can help transform your projects by making audio cleaner and more engaging.