Star Wars has been around for such a long time, you'd think that there would have been an official Star Wars app years ago. But that hasn't been the case. Fortunately, an official app has just been released for the Star Wars saga and I don't think that fans of the Star Wars universe will be disappointed at all.

You can choose the path of the Dark Side, the Light Side or simply become a droid in the official Star Wars app.

The home screen in the official Star Wars app shows you the weather, this day in Star Wars history and provides access to all of the app's features.

I downloaded the official Star Wars app this morning to check it out. The app comes with quite a bit of content including an official news feed, videos, GIFs, sound board, a Force Trainer, and you can even take selfies with it. So there's a lot for Star Wars fans to enjoy, and I'll discuss each feature in more detail below.

Choose your theme in the Star Wars iOS app

When you first load the app, you'll need to choose your theme: Droids, the Light Side or the Dark Side. I, of course, went with the Dark Side because evil is always more fun than good. And who really wants to be a droid anyway?

Don't worry though, you can always change the theme later on if you want by accessing your profile icon at the top right on the home screen.

Nothing screams "Star Wars Nerd!" like a Princess Leia selfie. Who wouldn't want to become an evil Sith in a selfie like this?

The Star Wars iOS app home screen

The home screen on the official Star Wars app shows the temperature in your current location, along with a countdown for the next Star Wars movie "The Force Awakens." And it also has a cool "This Day in Star Wars History" section that you can tap on to see what was happening with Star Wars on that particular day.

The home screen is also your gateway to all of the app's features. Just tap on the one you want to access and it will load. You can see animated GIFs, read the Star Wars news feed, take a selfie, listen to Star Wars sounds and even watch official Star Wars video content.

Selfies in the Star Wars iOS app

Yes, you can actually take selfies in the Star Wars app that will place your face on your favorite characters. Just tap on the Selfie square on the main screen. When the Selfie screen loads, be aware that you can swipe left or right to change to a different selfie.

Options for selfies include a Sith, a rebel pilot, Princess Leia, and Han Solo frozen in carbonite. I took a couple of myself and I have to admit that they are very funny. There's nothing goofier than a guy that hasn't shaved in a few days pasting his face onto Princess Leia's body.

You can customize the background in some of the selfie options. For example, if you are doing a selfie as a Sith, you can use the default Yoda in the background or you can tap the second to the last icon on the left to change it to Boba Fett, Darth Vader or a storm trooper.

And you can also change the background entirely by tapping the icon on the far right to choose between interior or exterior locations. You can even change the color of the lightsaber to purple, blue, etc. And you can move your selfie from the right side to the left side in some of the images.

I suggest playing around with the Selfie feature to discover what you can do with each image. It's definitely one of my favorite features in the Star Wars app. I sent some selfies around to some friends and they thought they were hilarious.

The Star Wars iOS app news feed

The news feed in the official Star Wars app contains content from Starwars.com and various social media services.

If you're a fan of Star Wars, you'll definitely want to check out the news feed in the Star Wars app. There are featured stories at the top, along with tons of other tidbits listed below the main stories.

You'll also see lots of social media posts about Star Wars from Twitter, Google+, Instagram and other services. You can easily repost items of interest by tapping on the icon for that social media service.

You can also tap the Feeds link in the upper right corner to customize which social media services appear in your Star Wars news feed. Here's a list of the ones that are available, just check or uncheck the ones you want to see or remove:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Tumblr

Google+

YouTube

Just for the heck of it, I got rid of all of the social media feeds. And I actually liked the news feed a lot more. When you remove all of the social media feeds you just get content from Starwars.com, which is mostly what I'm interested in anyway.

Take my comments with a grain of salt though, I'm not much of a fan of social media these days. Far too much of it is just babble to me, but your mileage may vary. I'm very glad that the developers of the official Star Wars app gave us all the option to turn off all of the social media services.

Social media aside, the news feed looks like it will be very useful for keeping up to date with all things Star Wars.

Animated GIFs in the Star Wars iOS app

The Star Wars app offers a great selection of amusing and fun animated GIF files. They feature many of the most loved Star Wars characters. Once you find a GIF, you just need to tap on it to copy it to your clipboard to paste into any message.

The GIFs are broken down into the following categories:

Anger

Confusion

Frustration

Greetings

Happiness

Laughter

Miscellaneous

Romance

Sadness

SOS and Panic

Thinking

I think the animated GIFs in the Star Wars app are great. There's one for almost any occasion, and you'll find some funny moments in the list of GIFs such as Han Solo's shrug from a scene on Endor in Return of the Jedi.

Some of my favorites include the little laughing pet that sat in front of Jabba in Return of the Jedi, Obi Wan thinking in the first Star Wars movie, and of course Admiral Ackbar's "it's a trap!" from Return of the Jedi.

Hopefully we'll see the developers add many more GIFs in future updates of the Star Wars app. The current selection is a great start, but there are so many more moments that can be added from the Star Wars movies.

Official videos in the Star Wars iOS app

The videos section in the Star Wars app contains game previews and trailers, movie trailers, audiobook previews and much more.

The videos section contains lots of great content that includes samples from audiobooks, game previews and reveals, movie trailers and lots more. You'll even find such amusing videos from Starwars.com as "The Best Yoda Quotes."

If you need to kill a few minutes, definitely check out the videos section. There's a ton of videos that Star Wars fans will really enjoy. On the other hand, if you have other things you have to get done then steer clear of the videos section. You may find yourself sucked into spending too much time watching Star Wars videos.

Force Trainer in the Star Wars iOS app

The Force Trainer lets you use your iPhone as a light saber. You'll have to battle remotes by moving your phone from side to side. Don't worry if haven't done it before, the Force Trainer in the Star Wars app will teach you how to survive.

Force Trainer lets you progress as you play. For example, you start out in the tutorial and then you become a Dark Side Adept (if you've chosen the Dark Side as I did), then a Sith Acolyte, then a Sith Apprentice, and then finally a Sith Master.

Obviously the Force Trainer gets more difficult as you go along, but it's also quite fun to swing your iPhone around as you battle your way through each level. Just make sure that you have a tight grip on your phone! The last thing you want to do is get too carried away battling and then accidentally fling your phone across the room.

The official Star Wars app offers a large selection of animated GIFs you can use in messages.

The Sound Board in the Star Wars iOS app

The Sound Board in the Star Wars app has tons of classic audio quotes from all your favorite characters. Just tap on the one you want to hear it play. You'll find things like "it's a trap!" from Admiral Ackbar, Han Solo's "I got a bad feeling about this..." and even Leia's "I'd just as soon kiss a wookie."

The Sound Board also comes with tons of sound effects such as Jabba's laugh, the awesome Jawa "utini!", lightsaber sounds, R2's chirp, and even Darth Vader breathing. My favorite out of all of them is the "utini!" sound made by the Jawa in the first Star Wars movie from the 70s. It still gives me a chuckle even after all these years.

You can even drag your favorite quotes and sound effects onto a Favorites list to make it easier to access them.

The Star Wars app for iOS is a must-have for fans

All in all, I think the Star Wars app is a must have for fans of the films. It offers tons of Star Wars news, video and audio content, and silly fun all bundled into one app. No, it's not a game in a traditional sense, but it will amuse and inform dedicated Star Wars fans.

And when you're done reading Star Wars news or playing with the other features in the app, you can tap on the More Star Wars square on the home screen to see a long list of actual Star Wars games to play on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Here's the official trailer for the Star Wars app so you can take a peek at it in action:

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