Every week a few of us from team iMore will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they're iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they're fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

WeatherMotion HD – @Alli_Flowers

Sometimes you just want to know what the temperature is. Sometimes you want a little more, but you don’t really want to wait around for your local meteorologist at 5 p.m. You might even want to know what it will be like over the next 2-3 days.

If you have an iPad and an active data connection, a great solution is WeatherMotion HD. WeatherMotion HD gives you today’s weather and forecast along with the forecast for the next three days – all in stunning HD. The hook with this app is the video wallpaper behind each forecast. The attached screenshot just cannot do it justice. You see simply a daisy behind today’s weather information. I see a daisy blowing gently in the wind, it’s petals moving from side to side on the breeze. Depending on the weather and corresponding image, you might see clouds drifting by, casting lazy shadows on the fields below, or thunderstorms unleashing the fury of Mother Nature.

WeatherMotion HD even has a sound track, if you are so inclined. The sound is always soothing, and good enough to nap to! And if the soundtrack causes you to nod off, you also get an alarm option so that WeatherMotion HD will wake you up, as well as lull you to sleep.

Set your location manually (great if you’re trying to keep up with friends and relatives in different climes) or allow location services to use your current location. In a word, this app is just beautiful.

$0.99 – Download Now

Reminders – @sethclifford

I’ve been making a concerted effort to streamline my productivity goals in the past few weeks, because I go through periods in which I try everything under the sun, and then dial it back to almost zero to reset my brain. Part of this process relies heavily on utilizing my email inbox since I live in it all day (see my former Pick of the Week Captio for a great way to do this). Another part that I’m in the process of rediscovering is using the built-in Reminders app new to iOS 5.

When iOS 5 beta was released, I played with Reminders for exactly five minutes before I deemed it nearly useless to me, as it fell in the shadow of several more robust task apps I was using at the time. Since then, iOS 5 has been released officially, iCloud support has become reliable (I didn’t risk playing with it in beta) and Siri has added an input mechanism that proves indispensable for quick addition of items. Only this week did I discover that I could set recurring reminders (I know, I don’t know how I missed it) to fire every week, month, or at an interval of my choosing. So I’ve decided to use Reminders as an ancillary support to my inbox, and I put all my personal tasks into Reminders now.

I used to use calendar alerts to remind me of recurring items, but sometimes I’d miss the notification on the desktop, and for the longest time I had everyone’s calendar in the office syncing on my iPhone, so I started dismissing and ignoring alerts since they popped up all the time. I’ve stopped using those types of alerts for certain things and moved them into Reminders instead. I like the way that the Reminders notifications stack up in Notification Center, and I keep them at the top so that every time I pull that shade, I’m reminded of what’s coming up or what needs to be done in the next short span of time. I still use other standard calendar alerts for business meetings and such, but having iCloud sync Reminders from the Mac to the iPhone and back again has become my new favorite thing. Until my next favorite thing.

HQ: To Do – @iMuggle

After reading Leanna’s review of HQ: To Do, I had to try it out. I already use the default built-in Reminders app but there was something that made me want to try HQ: To Do. Maybe it was the design or the overall feel of the app but I’m glad I did. I’ve found it to be an excellent way to track projects and add tasks to them on the go. Reminders will let me sort through my tasks my list but not add things to a project.

I’ve tried several project management apps and while I find some to be incredibly good, they aren’t always easy to use. HQ: To Do solves this problem by creating a clean and appealing interface to dead easy to use controls. Not only is it easy to create projects and add tasks, the app is just beautifully designed. I’ve also found myself using it for grocery lists.

Now I just use my reminders apps to remind me of broad tasks and deadlines. I have started using HQ: To Do to manage individual tasks that are part of a bigger project. If you need a good project app, HQ: To Do is definitely worth checking out!

$1.99 – Download Now

Skala Preview and Skala View

Skala Preview and Skala View are a brilliant piece of kit from the brilliant piece of kit makers at Bjango. It’s not an app combo for everyone, but for iOS app designers who have long been seeking a way to preview pixel- and color-perfect versions of their app designs on iOS, it’s a godsend. Now I’ll caveat this up-frontish: Marc Edwards, who runs Bjango, is also my co-host on the Iterate podcast so some may think I’m predisposed to give his stuff a defacto recommendation. Far from it. It just means I was fortunate to have heard about it a little early, and had a chance to try it for a couple of days before release.

Here’s what it does: Skala Preview is a $4.99 Mac App Store app and Skala View is a free iOS app. Get them both. Install them on your Mac and iPhone/iPad. And from then on you can take user interface designs you’re working on in Photoshop (or pixel editing apps) and push them over to your iPhone or iPad, grab your magnifying glass, and see how it holds up. If you’re using Adobe Photoshop CS 5 12.0.4 or up, all this can happen in real time, while you work. Nudge here, it shows up there. If you’re using older versions of Photoshop, or if you’re a Fireworks, Acorn, or Pixelmator guy, Skala will watch your clipboard and any time you copy to it, Skala Preview will grab it and Skala View will show it on your device. You can zoom crisply, you can preview landscape and portrait, you can test different color-blindness options, and you can push to multiple iOS devices at once.

It’s not perfect, mind you. Both Photoshop, which only copies to clipboard when the app loses focus, and Apple, who tightly controls what apps can and can’t do, sometimes force an extra step here or there. But in each case Skala does as much of the heavy lifting as possible, and offers simply the best workflow to date for previewing design work done on a Mac, on actual iPhones and iPads.

Kudos to Marc and Bjango. They found an itch and scratched it to the delight of designers everywhere.

$4.99 – Skala Preview for Mac

Free – Skala View for iOS

Beginner Guitar Songs – @Bla1ze

I’m going a little off the charts this week with my selection. It’s something I know not everyone will be interested in but it’s a good selection for those it’s meant for. Beginner Guitar Lessons is an app from the folks at GuitarJamz.com, a site that is dedicated to helping you learn how to play guitar and has great video lessons for those interested. They have a few apps in the iTunes App Store, but sticking to basics I chose Beginner Guitar Lessons because it comes with a guide to help you learn how to tune your guitar, teaches you basic chords and includes built in function to playback a set of numerous beginner guitar lesson videos. The owner, Marty does a great job of explaining what you need to know and best of all — the app is free to download. It’s basic but the information in the app is great for those wanting to learn how to play guitar.

Free – Download Now

Hundred PushUps – @llofte

We’re into the second week of Mobile Nations fitness month and I have have a confession to make — I’ve been doing a terrible job. One of my assignments for this week was to find a great fitness app to give away to you guys, and I settled on Hundred PushUps, a training program that will have you doing 100 consecutive push ups in 6 weeks. At the same time, I decided that it’s time for me to get serious about fitness month (or fitness life, really) and my husband and I are working through Hundred PushUps together.

Hundred PushUps first instructs you to do as many push ups as you can and record your result. Form there, the app will build your routine and tell you how many push ups to do each day. Today, I had to do two sets of 6 push ups, followed by two sets of 4 pushups, and finish off with one set of 5 push ups — with a 60s timed rest between each set. I was very impressed with out accurately predicted what I would be able to do.

I’m really looking forward to finishing this fitness program and I think you should join me!

$1.99 – Download Now

Tell us your pick

Those were our picks, iMore Nation, so now it’s your turn! Tell us your pick of the week below. Give us the name of your favorite app, site, or accessory, and tell us why it made your life more productive, more informed, more entertaining, or just plain more fun. Jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

Instagram, the wildly popular photo filtering and social sharing app for iPhone, has been updated with a new enhancement feature called Lux. With a tap of a button, Lux will apply an HDR (High Dynamic Range)-like effect to your photo that lightens shadows, darkens highlights and increases contrast. It does a phenomenal job.

Apple included an enhancement feature in the iOS 5 Photos app, but it’s mediocre at best. The problem with Apple’s version is that it’s supposed to fix all types of photos, but Lux focuses specifically on one issue and does it well. Lux is best used on landscapes that have areas that are too dark and too light — photos that you should’ve probably taken with HDR turned on, but didn’t, and now need to fix. Here’s an example of Lux on a photo of train tracks that I took.

In addition to Lux, Instagram has also added a new filter called “Sierra”, which frames and lightens a picture, and they’ve refreshed the look of the app in general, and the icons on the tab bar as well.

If you’ve taken any great shots with the new Lux enhancement or Sierra filter, share them in our Photography Forum — we’d love to see them!

Free – Download Now

Theater Consultants Collaborative or TCC helps its clients establish engineering specifications, plan infrastructure, and arrange interiors to accommodate lighting and sound systems, all in the name of theater. How do they do all of this work? Yes, you guessed it — they use their iPads.

In meetings, TCC consultants can pull up information on iPad — documents, budgets, or architectural drawings — and hand the device around the room. "The physical size of the screen is a sweet spot between being very portable and light and yet big enough to allow you to see what you need," says Kasefang. For example, the group recently worked on a 100-year-old theater restoration. At an early meeting, the client brought out a set of original blueprints that were literally falling apart. "iPad came to the rescue," says Allen. "We were able to stand over the documents, take photos on iPad, pull those into Adobe Ideas, and literally mark up our ideas on top of the photos." Meeting participants each took a turn sketching suggestions, and once everyone had contributed, TCC found the common ground.

Apple is featuring the TCC on their iPad in Business pages, and has produced a video which takes you through the day to day business of the TCC. It shows how each area of its business have been improved and made more efficient with the use of an iPad. Even down to the reduced amount of equipment a travelling consultant needs to carry around with them now.

"We find ourselves using iPad anywhere and everywhere in the theater," says Allen. "From the control booth talking with a technician, to up on the catwalk testing a circuit, to climbing in tight spaces and on ladders, there are just so many things that iPad allows us to do in the theater and on a construction site."

The iPad has really streamlined this particular business model especially with the plethora of top quality applications available to business. Apps like AutoCad WS for viewing and annotating drawings down to specific company apps for controlling lighting and sound systems. The iPad in business goes from strength to strength!

Source: Apple iPad in business

The Apple TV remote that comes with the latest Apple TV 2 is very small and can be very easily misplaced or lost completely. Luckily, Apple has included a very easy way for you to use a third-party remote control as an alternative. Sure you could use your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad and the Apple Remote app but if you don't want your kids, friends, or spouses, bugging you every time they need to change something on the Apple TV, you’ll want something dedicated.

Here’s how to set it up, and you should do it now before you lose your current remote.

• Power on your Apple TV
• Go to Settings in the main menu
• Click on General and then Remote
• Choose Learn Remote

• Select Start
• Apple TV will display icons that represent the six buttons on the Apple Remote with the “Up” or “+” button highlighted first.
• Using your third-party remote, press and hold the button you would like to use to control the “up” function until the blue progress bar is full as shown below.
• Apple TV will then select the next button function. Repeat the above step using a different button
• After you have programmed all six button functions, you can now use your third-party remote to control Apple TV. You can optionally setup specific playback buttons for Fast-forward, Rewind, Next chapter, and more.

If you see the “Button Already Learned” error message, this means one of the following:

• A different, previously learned remote, has a learned button with the same IR code as the current button that you are trying to program.
• A previously learned button of the current remote has the same IR code as the current button that you are trying to program.

Either use a different button or delete the previously learned remote if it is not being used.

That is all  there is to it, a very easy way to use a third-party remote as a backup for your Apple TV remote!

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@imore.com.

Source: Apple Support Article

 

Get custom signatures, notifications, and highlights for iPhone Mail with Mail Enhancer for jailbreak

Mail Enhancer adds a great deal of extra functionality to your jailbroken iPhone, including the ability to set custom signatures for different accounts, tailored notifications, advanced mail sorting options, and account highlighting. If the stock version of iOS simply doesn’t meet your needs, and you’re looking for more and better functionality, give Mail Enhancer a try.

iOS lacks the ability to have more than one e-mail signature. (That’s why we all see “Sent from my iPhone” so often.) If you have a different account for home and office, for example, you’re forced to include the contact information for both and delete the inappropriate one each time, or neither, and enter it in manually on a case by case basis. If you remember. Mail Enhancer allows you to add as many mail signatures as you’d like. Not only can you set them per account, but you can take it one step further and also have separate signatures for composing, replying, and forwarding.

Mail Enhancer also has advanced notification controls built-in. You can set mail accounts as high priority and low priority and adjust notifications accordingly. For example, you can set up high priority email to use popup notifications but have them turned off for low priority email.

If you’re the type of person that likes to view all of your e-mails in one thread, Mail Enhancer makes it easy to set highlight colors for each account. That way, even when you’re viewing the unified inbox, you can still easily identify which account each email was sent to, without having to tap into each one individually. You can also add a bar to the top of your Mail app that allows you to easily toggle between all your messages and just unread messages.

Mail Enhancer is already available in Cydia, the jailbreak app store.

$4.99 – Cydia Search Link

Additional jailbreak resources:

• Jailbreak news, guides, and how to’s
• Jailbreak apps, hacks, and tweaks forum
• General jailbreak discussion forums

“All the thrill of running with scissors without any of the danger or mess, Cut the Buttons for iPhone and iPad is unique, challenging, and most importantly, fun.”

Now here’s a game that takes advantage of the iPhone and iPad’s multitouch screens to create something truly unique. In Cut the Buttons, your goal is to control a pair of scissors with two fingers, like you would in real life, and cut the buttons off pieces of fabric that come flying by. I swear it’s not as easy as it sounds!

Removing the buttons is not your only goal in Cut the Buttons for iPhone or Cut the Buttons HD for iPad; you must also collect them in the the cup at the bottom of the screen by controlling it with your other hand while simultaneously cutting as many buttons as you can. Once you miss 3 buttons, the game is over.

But that’s not all! Some buttons are bolted down and must be avoided. You wouldn’t want to dull your scissors, would you? Accidentally attempting to cut the bolts results in loss of points.

I was instantly drawn to Cut the Buttons because of it’s beautiful graphics and bright, vivid colors. But the creators at Open Name put more than just looks into the design of this game. For example, I quickly discovered that the best approach wasn’t to cut each button individually by fully closing the scissors. Just as with real scissors, if you have motion behind your scissors, you only need to slightly close them to make a successful cut. This is a great technique for cutting many buttons at once.

Cut the Buttons also has a multiplayer mode where you pair up with a friend to grab a second pair of scissors and hopefully double your button-cutting experience. It’s all the thrill of running with scissors without any of the danger or the mess, Cut the Buttons for iPhone and iPad is unique, challenging, and most importantly, fun.

Cut the Buttons HD is well worth the $1.99 sticker price. I have not played the iPhone version, yet, and can’t imagine it being as fun with the smaller screen, but it’s currently on sale for the price of free, so it’s definitely worth trying it out as well!

Free for iPhone – Download Now

$1.99 for iPad – Download Now

Rene recently wrote an editorial about the current controversy surrounding Apple and the working conditions in the Chinese factories where Apple — and almost every other consumer electronics company — has their products made. It was a nice editorial, but I disagree with it completely. Well, almost completely. I do agree that it’s an important issue and that the discussion is good. He took a position and argued it well, that China was the story, and Apple merely link-bait. And it’s that position I disagree with.

First of all, just because almost every other consumer electronics company uses the same factories in no way lets Apple off the hook. If anything, it just means those hooks are awfully crowded.

Each and every one of those companies, including Apple, are accountable for their own actions, or lack of action, concerning the working conditions in the factories where their products are made.

If Apple were to pull out of these factories, it’s true that a lot of other companies would remain, but so what? Apple will have done something, and even more pressure could be exerted on the ones that remained, and they’d look even worse because they remained.

Change often comes from a single, courageous act that disrupts the status quo and sets into motion a new course of action that others simply must follow.

If staying engaged proves to be a better strategy, however, Apple could still be a greater agent for change. They could see to it workers were paid more, for example, or insist upon more reasonable working schedules.

Of course, Apple can’t just give the factories more money. It would likely disappear long before it reached the workers, as money often seems to. But Apple could make worker wages a condition of their contracts. It would take time, and require enormous oversight to make sure the factories followed through, but it would be worth it.

Apple makes incredible profits. That’s their job as a company. Using those profits to elevate the wages of Chinese workers isn’t a net loss, however. It’s an investment. Just like Henry Ford insisted on paying his workers enough so that, one day, they could become his customers, Apple would one day benefit from the more rapid establishment of greater customer base in China.

Yes, we in the Western world went through our own industrial revolution, and the working conditions were deplorable, but now we have labor laws and minimum wage, access to health insurance or health care. Unemployment and homelessness remain a huge problem, of course, and there’s suffering and abuse of the system to be sure. But in general we as a society face a far, far higher standard of living than that facing Chinese factory workers.

And it’s not okay to exploit that difference.

When the media reports on Apple’s role in the Chinese factory system, when organizations plan protests, rather than say it’s link-bait or opportunism, I see it as a call to action.

Apple is one of the wealthiest and most influential companies in the world. With that money and power comes responsibility. While having razor-thin profit margins certainly doesn’t excuse the Dells or HPs, having hefty profit margins absolutely puts the burden on Apple to lead the way. They can afford to pay more. Customers like me might even be proud to know that Apple is paying more.

I buy fair trade coffee. I’d certainly buy an iPad proudly produced by fair labor.

Things won’t change over night. They never do. The people who run the factories in China won’t wake up tomorrow and suddenly start paying their workers better, or start making their working conditions more palatable.

But demanding change will make it come faster.

The more the media reports on working conditions in China, the more people are informed about it, the more the outcry that follows, the more companies like Apple fear the bad press and public perception, the more their brand or reputation suffers, the more they’re motivated to take action, to speed up the change.

Apple gets the spotlight because of their size and their impact. They dent the universe. Instead of just denting it with better phones or newer tablets, why don’t they really wind up and dent it by making lives better?

Tim Cook purportedly said, in response to these stories, that Apple “cares about about every worker in their worldwide supply chain.”

Great. It’s time for them to prove it.

“Whether you’re a student or teacher, an intern or executive, if you have an iPad and you take notes, get Noteshelf.”

Noteshelf is currently the best way to take and share handwritten notes on the iPad. Why would you want to do that? Well, we live in a digital world and it’s become much, much easier to carry a single, multifunctional iPad around than a heavy stack of books, grocery lists, calendars, journals, notebooks, scrap papers, sketchbooks, and stickies. Sure, the iPad comes with a keyboard based Notes app built in, but there’s still something to said about writing by hand. Call it therapeutic. Call it efficient. Call it necessary. There are simply more things to take note of than are currently possible with a keyboard alone.

For example, asking a math instructor to quickly type out an equation on her iPad and mail it to a student is absurd. Asking an executive to rapidly brain storm a new workflow and share it with the team is cumbersome. But sketching them out with Noteshelf? Now that’s not only quick and easy, it’s enjoyable.

Noteshelf is a note-taking app for your iPad –- or shall I say: a beautiful note-taking app for your iPad — that’s based on freeform handwriting. You can write with your finger or, better still, a pen-like device called a stylus. It comes with 17 digital inks, 20 note templates, 15 covers, and much, much more.

If you’re new to the idea of a free-form notes app, it’s really simple to get started. Just treat your iPad like a blank piece of paper and start writing, drawing, and charting. Almost anything you can jot down with a piece of note paper, you can jot down with Noteshelf.

Simplicity does not necessarily imply feature-lacking, however; Noteshelf is jam-packed with an assortment of features that makes note taking not only easy, but exciting!

Color addicts rejoice! Noteshelf includes 17 different pen colors with 21 thickness choices, and 8 highlighter colors with 41 different sizes. The combinations are nearly limitless and allow you to really customize your notes to fit your purpose and style.

You can also annotate pictures. Noteshelf lets you import photos from your iPad’s library, or if you have an iPad 2, you can quickly snap a photo with its built-in camera to send directly into your notes.

If you love Emoji — the Japanese pictograms and emoticons — you’ll be happy to hear that Noteshelf is equipped with a button that lets you quickly add Emoji symbols to your notes. Unfortunately, the symbols are not sizable.

One of the big challenges of handwriting apps is proper detection. While the iPad has a lot of multitouch sensors to handle finger input for regular apps, they were never designed for the precision needed for a really fine stylus line. To get around this, Noteshelf implements a zoom feature. This allows you to zoom into a specific area of your page and write on a new magnified section of the app. Since it’s magnified, you can write largely and comfortably, and it translates it to small writing on the on page. Because of the hardware limitations of the iPad, this is the only way to get down those fine details in your notes.

Now, the first time I saw this feature, I though it would be annoying to have to constantly move the rectangle to the area of page I wanted to write, but Noteshelf has implemented some smart, automatic actions into this feature. When you reach the far right side of the magnified area, the rectangle will automatically jump to the right so that you all you need to do is start from the beginning of the rectangle to continue your writing. When you reach the edge of the page, it will automatically skip to the next line for you.

I typically use Noteshelf to write solutions to math problems for my students and thus normally want to head down the page while zoomed in, not across. Instead of relying on Noteshelf to automatically move the rectangle, I just hit the tab/enter button that pushes it down for me. There are also arrow buttons for those who may want to manually move the magnified area, say, after finishing a sentence.

Noteshelf also offeres a “Wrist Protection” feature that allows you to rest your hand on the iPad without your wrist polluting your notes with a bunch of unwanted marks. You can specify which area of the screen needs to remain mark-free and Noteshelf will automatically adjust this location as you move down the screen.

Notes can be exported as images or PDFs directly to email, iTunes, Dropbox, Evernote, ot iPad albums, as well as shared to Facebook or Twitter. You have the option of exporting individual pages or entire notebooks.

Your notes are displayed as notebooks on a wooden shelf and can be arranged to your liking. You can also stack the notebooks on top of each other other to create folders — or more accurately, sub-bookshelves. You can also edit the title, paper type, and book cover for each notebook from this screen.

If you’re not happy with the paper and cover choices included in Noteshelf, more options are available as in-app purchases for $0.99 each. Personally, I have picked up the designer covers and plan to grab the striped ones next.

The good

• Lots of colors and pen sizes
• Zoom feature for smaller, more detailed notes
• Ability to insert photos
• Wrist protection works great

The bad

• Extra paper and covers are in-app purchases and can add up quickly
• Cannot import PDFs for annotation

The conclusion

Noteshelf is a phenomenal app for those looking to take handwritten notes with their iPad. Believe it or not, Noteshelf actually improves the look of your handwriting by smoothly interpretation of your annotations. Whether you’re a student or teacher, intern or executive, if you have an iPad and you take notes, get Noteshelf.

$5.99 – Download Now