The 5 best iPhone apps and games of the week (#27 – 2021)

Stream music via your Apple Watch, animal faces during video calls and drive Teslas. All that and more in this weekly roundup of the best iPhone apps, games, and updates.

1. Spotify

We had to wait a long time for it, but Spotify has finally responded to our wishes. Apple Watch wearers can now listen to Spotify offline by downloading albums, songs and podcasts directly to their wrist. Here you can read how to listen to music offline via your Apple Watch.

For example, the new function is ideal for sports. Now you no longer need to carry your iPhone to listen to music. The audio is on your Apple watch and you can omit the phone.

Good to know: you can only listen to Spotify offline if you are a Premium member. Do you listen to the music service for free and hear advertisements in between? Then the function will pass you by.

2. PUBG Mobile

Attention all PUBG Mobile fans: a major update appeared last week. In addition to a host of other new features, PUBG Corporation introduced the Tesla Model Y as a steerable and self-driving vehicle in PUBG Mobile last week. Players must first activate the new Tesla Gigafactory for this.

As part of the Ignition event, the Erangel map has been updated, among other things. From now on you will find the Tesla Gigafactory here. Players can buy and pimp Model Y cars in this factory, after which they can drive them themselves. Just like the real Tesla Model Y, the in-game version also simply drives on the highways by itself, without you having to do anything.

3. TikTok

It’s time! TikTok finally supports longer videos. Every avid TiktTokker probably knows the ‘hurry up, the time is almost up!’ struggle. Creators can now post videos of up to 3 minutes; previously the maximum length was only 60 seconds.

TikTok will also take stricter action against images in which violence, nudity, sex and illegal activities occur. In Canada and the United States, the social media platform is currently rolling out a new system that automatically recognizes and removes inappropriate images.

4. Bomb Club

You know the saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’? French indie developer Antoine Latour’s new game Bomb Club is a perfect example of this. The game has an adorable look to it – and based on the game’s icon alone, we can easily see people dismissing the game as ‘yet another in a long line of lifeless mobile games’. But nothing is less true.

Bomb Club turns out to be one of the more interesting and challenging puzzle games we’ve played in recent times. The game works as follows. Your job is to detonate all the bombs in each level. You can only detonate one of the bombs, so you have to strategically place other bombs on the playing field to start a chain reaction. If the other bombs don’t explode then you’ve lost.

5. Google Meet

The competition among video conferencing services is fierce. Google has rolled out an update for the Meet app to make video calling a bit more fun. Tap the sparkle button in the lower-right corner of your video call to reveal a variety of new effects options. You will find the well-known blur effects and backgrounds there, but Google has now also added different styles and filters.

Under the heading ‘styles’ you will find, among other things, lens flare effects and color overlays, which you can apply to your video. If you are looking for the really nice options, take a look under the heading ‘filters’. Here you will find cute animal masks and virtual accessories, which are placed on your head in real time. The filters are similar to filters we saw earlier on Snapchat.