It was a big week for apps last week as big tech companies and developers released new ones. Here are the top 7 picked by Web site Mashable, which called these as not-to-be missed apps.

1. Yahoo Weather - The company announced on Thursday the release of the new standalone Yahoo! Weather for iPhone, using location-specific images from Flicker. The images show almost real-time weather conditions in different parts of the world. Besides the display of beautiful images on smartphones, the app provides weather information when in portrait mode, but when in landscape mode shows no other information except the name of the photographer to encourage the phone owner to flip through the images like postcards.

2. Twitter Music - This is also a standalone music service from the company that introduced microblogging. The free apps shows what tunes are trending on Twitter and allows users to follow musicians and listen to songs using Rdio and Spotify integration.

3. Pocket - Pocket added a new Send to Friend feature on Wednesday to celebrate its first year. The updated was launched on iPhone, iPad, Android and Mac OS X and brought a completely redesigned Share Menu which highlighted most recently used services such as Twitter, Facebook, Buffer or Evernote.

4. Rand McNally 2014 Road Atlas - The release of an ebook version of Rand McNally's 2014 Road Atlas marks the company's 9 decades this week. Besides the ebook version, the road atlas is also available as an interactive iPad app, featuring updated maps of all U.S. states, Canadian provinces, Mexico and Puerto Rico and detailed inset maps of big cities and national parks.

5. Yahoo Mail for Tablets - This app was also released on Thursday, featuring a full-screen mode for flipping through email like a book. It also offers new organisation features so users could achieve zero unread emails on their inboxes.

6. Facebook Home - With the updated apps, iPhone users could chat with friends using the new Chat Heads features while Android users could make free VoIP calls.

7. Knotch - Allows users to express their opinions via colours by labeling things - whether it is the latest gadgets or a new television show - in different hues that would best express their feelings about certain products of services. The app update to version 1.2, launched in late 2012, was released on Thursday.

Besides the seven releases, one more weather-related app worth mentioning is the free Tornado app developed by the American Red Cross. The app issues audio alerts such as a high-pitched siren and the spoken words "Tornado warning!" at the approach of bad weather.

The new app was released in time for National Severe Weather Preparedness Week. It includes location-based alerts for severe thunderstorms and floods.

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