5 Awesome Temporarily Free iOS Apps You Should Download While You Can

Christmas has come early for iPad and iPhone users as the iOS App Store is getting bombarded with free and reduced price apps in anticipation for the holiday rush. Here’s a quick roundup of five temporarily free iOS apps that are all amazingly high quality, and well worth their full prices, making their temporary free tag an absolute steal.

It’s not entirely clear how long these apps will be free for, but many will probably only last about 12 hours, so act quick. Remember, even if you don’t want the apps right now, you can always start the download and stop it immediately to save it to your iTunes Account, thereby allowing future free downloads of that app again in the future. This is a great trick to build a huge library of apps that may be fun or useful sometime in the future.

1: Angry Birds Star Wars II (free, usually $0.99)

It’s got all the addictive properties of Angry Birds, with a unique blend of Star Wars elements and characters. Basically, it’s really fun and a great time waster, whether it’s on your iPhone or iPad.

2: Vjay (free, usually $9.99 – iPad only)

Vjay is a music and video mixing app that is easy to use and lets you get pretty creative, making music videos and remixes with relative ease. It’s one of those apps that you have to try out to really get, and there’s no better time to try it now that it’s temporarily free.

3: Inspire Pro (free, usually $4.99)

Inspire Pro is a gem of a drawing, painting, and sketching app for the iPad. Complete with a gazillion tools, realistic blending effects, color mixing, and so much more, this app is a must-have for creatives, artists, or even those just wanting to try there hand at digital art. Whether you’re artistically inclined or not at all like me, you should have fun playing around with this one. It’s one of my personal favorites (alongside Paper and Procreate), and well worth a spot on every iPad.

4: LostWinds (free, usually $3.99)

LostWinds is a fun platformer for iOS that combines exploration, puzzles, and sidescroller combat. If you’re a gamer it’s definitely worth checking out, and works great on either iPad or iPhone / iPod touch.

5: The Elements: A Visual Exploration (free, usually $13.99)

Update: The Elements is no longer available for free and is back at full price, still a great app though!

Science! This is an outrageously beautiful in-depth exploration of the periodic table of elements, packed with facts, photos, details, and so much more. Whether you are a student or educator actively studying the periodic table of elements or just someone with the vaguest of curiosities about the elements that make up our universe, this app is just plain fascinating, and an absolute steal for being free. It works for iPhone and iPad, though it really shines on the iPad.

Not free… but Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is $5

OK I said 5 but this is 6, and it’s not free, but if you like excellent gaming with a great story line, RPG’s, and the Star Wars universe, it’s hard to beat the epic bioware classic “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”, it’s on sale for half off ($5 rather than $10) for either iOS or OS X – these aren’t even affiliate links, it’s just a fun game that Star Wars & RPG lovers should get the chance to play. If you’re debating between getting KOTOR for a Mac or iOS device, the Mac version generally looks better on new hardware and, perhaps more importantly, the desktop version supports gamepads, which to some may be preferential to using the touchscreen controls in iOS.

As mentioned earlier, there are tons of other great app discounts and freebies out there for a limited time, browse around the App Stores for iOS and OS X, or check out a site like AppShopper to track them down all in one place. Heads up to MacRumors for listing a few of these.