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App Store bargains: the 10 best Black Friday discounts

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Six amazing apps and games gone cheap

Black Friday is upon us, and the savings aren’t restricted to physical goods. Each year you can secure some major savings on top-notch apps and games. Of course, it can be difficult to sift the genuine bargains from the digital time wasters on Apple’s overstuffed storefront.

That’s where we come in. We’re here to bring you a curated selection of some of the best App Store deals of the Black Friday period.

This year’s selection features some fantastic premium apps with a combined cost that normally adds up to $55 – but this weekend you could snag the lot for under $35. All five of these choices are apps we’ve written about before in various best app roundups, so you know we hold them in high regard.

Jump on them quickly, before those prices shoot back up. Or scroll right to the bottom for a list of five games with big discounts.

Note that these deals are all correct at the time of writing and will likely stick around until Cyber Monday – but always double-check the prices when making a purchase as they can change at any time!

Dark Noise

Was $9.99/£8.99, now $6.99/£5.99

Dark Noise is one of the best apps out there for playing ambient background sounds to help you focus, relax or sleep. Its range of white noise sounds is known the world over by overtired parents willing their babies to sleep. Want to get creative? Make custom mixes, triggered with a tap. This is a genre overpopulated by low-quality freebies, but if you want the best in the biz, now’s your chance.

As featured in our roundup of the best Home Screen widgets

Dark Noise

Filmic Pro

Was $14.99/£13.99, now $7.99/£6.99

Filmic Pro’s creators aren’t kidding when claiming it is the “most advanced cinema video camera for mobile.” It’s loaded with features, which is immediately apparent on tapping the settings icon. From there, you can dig into options for resolution, frame rates, audio, stabilization and more – and create presets to later access custom set-ups with a tap. There’s a reason it’s been used in projects by Steven Soderbergh, Zack Snyder, and Michel Gondry – it’s a full-fat pro camera for iPhone. You won’t find better and it’s a bargain at roughly half price.

As featured in our roundup of the best video camera apps

Filmic Pro

Just Press Record

Was $4.99/£4.49, now $2.99/£2.49

A mobile dictaphone of sorts, Just Press Record has some additional smarts over merely recording: your memos are synced across iCloud, and their contents can be quickly transcribed. The app has a lot in common with Voice Memos, in that you can quickly record audio and have it sync between devices. But Just Press Record is superior for management, and allows you to transcribe a recording with a single tap.

As featured in our roundup of the best Apple Watch apps (that are also great on iOS)

Just Press Record

Things 3

Was $9.99/£8.99, now $6.99/£5.99

Things manages to simultaneously be about small details and the bigger picture. You start by stashing ideas in an inbox, and each can optionally have a hard deadline or a more abstract ‘intention’ regarding completion – be that today, tomorrow, or ‘someday’. Further organization comes from tags that link arbitrary tasks, projects that collate and structure larger goals, and ‘areas’ to separate different elements of your life.

Note that Things 3 for iPad is a separate purchase, at twice the price – but if you need that too, rest assured it’s also discounted by 30% right now.

As featured in our roundup of the best task manager apps for getting things done

Things 3

Fugue Machine

Was $14.99/£13.99, now $9.99/£8.99

With this unique music app, you aim to have one set of notes being played at different speeds, and in different directions – a compositional technique favored by the likes of Bach and Schoenberg. We’re not suggesting you’ll become such a famous name with this app; but you can create something achingly beautiful in very little time – all from a handful of notes, four playheads, and a little experimentation.

As featured in our roundup of amazing music apps that let anyone make music

Fugue Machine

Looking for games?

You’ve seen our pick of the best apps on sale right now, but there are even more great games available right now for a bargain rate. We won’t go into as much detail on these, but if you’re looking for something new to play on your iPhone or iPad, here’s a handful of our favorites with Black Friday sales.

Ordia: One finger flinger

Was $3.99/£3.49, now $1.99/£1.79

Causality: Time-bending challenges

Was $1.99/£1.79, now $0.99/£0.89

Golf Peaks: golf + cards + puzzle

Was $2.99/£2.49, now $0.99/£0.89

Donut County: be a hole

Was $4.99/£4.49, now $2.99/£2.49

Florence: a story about love and life

Was $2.99/£2.49, now $1.99/£1.79