International reverse phone lookup

Apple gave the new iPad Air 2 a heap of time on stage because of its new 8MP iSight camera, its over the top 6.1mm frame, its new A8X chipset, its TouchID home button and its gold option. And the iPad mini 3 got a couple of quick slides – as if the company didn’t want to talk about it. And after digging a bit deeper into its specs sheet we think we know why – that’s by far the smallest step forward a device has needed a year to take. No A8X chipset, no new display or camera, no new thinner body but hey, you get TouchID (which is yet to prove it’s worth anything on a tablet) and cool golden version now.

The Apple iPad mini 2 made a lot of sense when it first came out. It replaced an iPad mini that was nothing more than a rushed, old iPad 2 fit into a smaller body. The mini 2 ushered-in the Retina display and shared the all-important 64-bit A7 chipset with the iPad Air. The same chipset it now shares with the iPad mini 3, its successor, only it doesn’t look nearly as impressive in 2014. It begs the question, what has the iPad mini team been doing this past year?

The news isn’t all bad – if you want a very good iPad mini with Retina display and decent chipset the iPad mini 2 has gotten $100 cheaper.

What Apple is doing is taking away the option to have a great compact iPad tablet with properly powerful internals and top-notch screen. If you want the spanking new iSight camera or latest mobile chipset by Apple in your hands you have the single option of iPad Air 2.

Last year’s iPad lineup was a happy dynamic duo that shared all its key selling points. This year saw Apple enabling the iPad Air 2 to bully the iPad mini 3 and keep the goods for itself. Even the iPhone 6 Plus will rightfully look down on its larger but obviously less gifted stablemate.

The latest iPad mini saw the company voluntarily give up on the compact tablet battle, by serving us a half-baked excuse of an upgrade. In a market which evolves every day and week, serving a quickly repainted last-year’s device is no way to maintain your lead.

In our new weekly series we handpick the best deals going around on apps and games on various platforms. This week, weve got some great deals on PC games, and the apps include a business card scanner and a productivity powerhouse. Heres the list:

1. Assassins Creed: Pirates

Ubisofts Assassins Creed series needs no introduction. You play as a member of a guild of assassins in each of the games in the series, with the setting in important eras of the past. In this game, you play as Alonzo Batilla, a young and ambitious pirate who operates in the Caribbean waters. You get good gameplay coupled with nice graphics on your phone or tablet. This game usually costs Rs. 300, but is now free on Android and iOS.

Download: iOS, Android (usually Rs. 300, now free)

2. Humble Indie Bundle 12

As we mentioned in the first paragraph, we have lots of great PC game deals this week. Humble Indie Bundle 12 just went live last night. For those who dont know, Humble Bundle is an excellent store for discounts on PC games. They regularly run bundles that let you set the price for a bunch of games. In this bundle, you get three games for any price you want to pay. These are Steamworld: Dig, a platform mining adventure; Hammerwatch, a hack-and-slash game; and Gunpoint, a stealth puzzle game. If you pay more than the average price, which is hovering around the $8 (Rs. 480) mark, you get three more games. The critically acclaimed game Papers, Please is one of these. You play an immigration inspector, whose job is to inspect peoples documents and keep the terrorists and smugglers out of the country. The other two games, arcade shooter Luftrausers and interactive exploration simulator Gone Home are quite good too, which makes it worth paying the average price. If you pay $10 (Rs. 500), you can play a beta version of jail management simulator Prison Architect. Had you purchased these games separately, youd have had to shell out $127 (Rs. 7,750).

Download: PC, Steam keys available

3. F.E.A.R. bundle

Bundle deals are all around us this week. If you like of first-person shooter games, you probably have heard of the F.E.A.R. series. Widely acclaimed as one of the best FPS horror games, three games in the series (F.E.A.R., F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and F.E.A.R. 3) are available for $7.99 (Rs. 480) via Bundle Stars. You also get downloadable content (DLC) in this bundle. These include F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point, F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate and F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn. You get Steam keys for Windows in this bundle, which you can redeem on Steam to get your games. If you buy all of these games from Steam, you would have to pay $55 (Rs. 3,350).

Download: PC, Steam keys for Windows

4. ScanBizCards Premium

If you have a stack of business cards that never make it to your phone contact list for want of time, you might want to use ScanBizCards Premium. There are quite a few of these apps in the market, but ScanBizCardss defining feature is that you can take a picture of the business card and submit it for manual transcription. Of course, you can also use the automatic scanning feature (just take a picture). In case that doesnt work, you can submit it for manual transcription and the developers will do it for you.

Download: Android (usually Rs. 120, now Rs. 59.75)

5. Full

Full is a productivity app that lets you set various goals and track your progress. Whether youd like to read 10 books this month or if you want to practice yoga thrice a week, this app can help you track, measure and visualise all your goals. The app has a simple interface and can be useful if all you need is a little bit of motivation to get going.

Download: iOS (usually Rs. 60, now free)

Bonus: Some more great deals

The Rhythm of Fighters: iOS (usually Rs. 60, now free)

Red Crow: Legion: Mac (usually Rs. 420, now free)

Disk Space Tab: Mac (usually Rs. 60, now free)

Archos Video Player: Android (usually Rs. 300, now Rs. 59)

ProCapture Camera: Android (usually Rs. 250, now Rs. 59.79)