Beats Music app updated with new Offline mode, in-app subscriptions and more

By Cody Lee on Apr 19, 2014

Beats Music updated its iPhone client late last night, bringing the app to version 1.0.7. The update brings about a number of improvements, including better Facebook and Twitter account management, a new Find Your Friends feature for locating and following your Facebook friends, and more.

Perhaps the biggest change, though, is that the app now supports in-app subscriptions. This means that users now have the ability to bill their monthly subscription fee directly to their iTunes account. There’s also a new Offline listening mode and thousands of new tracks available for The Sentence… Read More

 

Facebook Messenger updated with new Groups and Forwarding features

By Cody Lee on Apr 19, 2014

Following updates to both its main and Paper iOS apps yesterday, Facebook pushed out a new version of Messenger last night. The update, which brings the app to version 4.2, brings about just a few—though fairly significant—changes: Groups and Forwarding.

With the new Groups feature, users can now create groups for the people they message the most. You can name your groups, setup a group image and more. And as for Forwarding, it allows you to quickly send a message or photo to someone not in conversation… Read More

 

Nike gives up on the FuelBand, making more room for the iWatch

By Sébastien Page on Apr 18, 2014

Nick Statt, reporting for CNET:

Nike is gearing up to shutter its wearable-hardware efforts, and the sportswear company this week fired the majority of the team responsible for the development of its FuelBand fitness tracker, a person familiar with the matter told CNET.

As early as this fall, Nike planned on releasing another iteration of the FuelBand — an even slimmer version — but cancelled the project, and it appears to have shelved all future physical product projects under the Digital Sport helm, the person familiar with the matter added.

One might argue it never really made sense for a shoe maker to build hardware. Still, it’s an interesting move, at an interesting time, especially when you know Tim Cook is on Nike’s board.

 

Union lets you stack, blend, and superimpose images together for great effects

By Lory Gil on Apr 18, 2014

Pixite, the creator of Tangent, LoryStripes, and Fragment, two of which made it to our top-ten best photography apps of 2013 list, has been working hard for the past year to bring some pretty interesting photo effects apps to iOS.

Union is the latest release from the app maker. It is an image blending program that lets you mask, edit, and merge multiple images into one. Plus, you can import photos from Tangent and Fragment with the original image and shapes on separate layers to create interesting effects… Read More

 

Watchout for Unflod, a malware targeting jailbroken devices

By Sébastien Page on Apr 18, 2014

We often praise iOS as a very secure platform, and this is mostly true, as many studies have confirmed over the years. But sometimes, it’s not so much the platform that is responsible for the lack of security, it is the user himself.

The perfect illustration of this is when you jailbreak your device. By gaining root access to your iPhone or iPad, you start walking outside of Apple’s walled garden and actually put yourself at risk of having untrusted files installed on your device without your knowledge.

As a jailbreaker myself, I am very well aware of the risks, but I do not mind them because the benefits usually far outweigh the drawbacks, and I assume most jailbreak users feel the same.

This being said, a new malware called Unflod has been targeting jailbroken devices for a few weeks. While there is still a lot we don’t know about Unflod, the little information we have about it is enough to raise concerns… Read More

 

Space Shooting: how long can you survive in this game?

By Lory Gil on Apr 18, 2014

A few months ago, we took a quick look at the adorable arcade shooter game Hopeless: The Dark Cave. The cute glowing Blobs won my heart when they shook with fear as the incoming onslaught of monsters would terrorize the gun-toting puffs.

Hopeless: Space Shooting is the sequel to the first adventure starring the marshmallow-like Blobs. This time, they’ve found themselves fighting aliens in outer space. Don’t worry, though. They are still huddled together in a dark cave, hopeless as ever… Read More

 

Find out what it would be like to clone yourself with Instantion

By Lory Gil on Apr 18, 2014

There is an episode of Futurama in the sixth season called “Benderama” where Bender makes half-sized copies of himself to do his work. While the inevitable world-destruction antics ensue, it does make one wonder what it would be like to have a few clones hanging around to help out with the chores.

Instantion is a platform game that emphasizes puzzle-solving action. Players create clones that stand on buttons, activate bridge functions, and fall to their death so we don’t have to… Read More

 

ShareLock lets you share photos directly from the Lock screen

By Sébastien Page on Apr 18, 2014

There are a few tweaks that are dear to my heart, mainly because I came up with the concept behind them. SkipLock is one of these tweaks, and ShareLock is another one that was just released on Ryan Petrich’s beta repo.

The idea of ShareLock is pretty simple. It lifts the restriction put in place by Apple that prevents you from sharing photos you have taken using the camera grabber on the Lock screen. With ShareLock, you can simply launch the Camera app from the Lock screen grabber, snap a picture, and share it right away… Read More

 

Disney releases Where’s My Water? Featuring XYY

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

Where’s My Water? by Disney Mobile has proven itself a worthy challenger to Rovio’s Angry Birds, the famous bird-slinging physics-based puzzler some folks feel has long run its course. For those unfamiliar with Disney’s puzzler, it’s available across multiple platforms and requires you to route a supply of water to a fastidious alligator.

Following its September 2011 debut, the franchise saw a sequel, Where’s My Water 2, released in September 2013 and has inspired two spin-offs to date, one named Where’s My Perry? and the other called Where’s My Mickey?.

Disney has now launched another title in the series, Where’s My Water? Featuring XYY, which takes you on an adventure through medieval China along with the brightest Chinese TV cartoon character, called XYY.

Download it in the App Store for 99 cents and jump past the fold to read more about it… Read More

 

Facebook updates Paper with photo comments, birthdays, events, group updates and more

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

Following yesterday’s release of Facebook 9.0 for the iPhone and iPad with direct comment replies and other improvements, the social networking giant today issued the first major update to its Paper for iPhone application, which was released on February 3.

Paper version 1.1, now available free in the App Store, includes a bunch of useful features that were missing in the initial release.

You can now add photos to comments, get notified about upcoming birthdays and events, follow posts from your favorite groups, choose among the nine new article covers from outlets like Fox News, Bloomberg News, Mashable, FT, kottke, Popular Science, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and Hacker News and more… Read More

 

Samsung-GlobalFoundries deal gives Apple’s chip production greater flexibility

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

As Apple continues to move anything it can away from Samsung as a result of heightened competition, fierce rivalry and an ugly patent spat between the two technology giants, Samsung seems to be doing the opposite, hoping to to please Apple’s enormous appetite for mobile processors powering iOS devices.

More than a thousand in-house Apple engineers design chips like the A7 processor and the M7 motion coprocessor. The former, the mobile industry’s first 64-bit processor, serves as the engine that drives the latest crop of iOS devices like the iPad Air, the iPad mini with Retina display and the iPhone 5s.

To manufacture these things in volume according to its blueprints, Apple relies on some of the biggest of the chip-making services known as foundries because it doesn’t have or operate its own semiconductor plant, an investment upward of $10 billion.

Samsung semiconductor arm has thus far churned out all Apple-designed mobile chips. Moreover, the company remains adamant to do so in the future despite its straining relationship with Apple and persistent talk of the iPhone maker throwing itself into the arms of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest independent semiconductor foundry.

Samsung and GlobalFoundries, the Santa Clara, California headquartered chip foundry, yesterday signed a global partnership to standardize mobile chip production around the same 14nm FinFET process technology. The deal gives Apple the flexibility to build its A-series processors at both foundries, which was previously impossible due to the foundries’ incompatible production processes… Read More

 

How to fix choppy video playback in Safari on OS X

By Jeff Benjamin on Apr 18, 2014

Recently I ran into a problem that I found to be quite annoying. Flash video playback in Safari began suffering from major stuttering and choppiness. It was so bad that videos essentially became unwatchable while using Safari.

For someone who’s constantly watching and editing video like me, this proved to be a big problem. I even pondered switching to Chrome for a bit, but quickly dismissed that thought and set out to find a solution to the problem.

Fortunately, the solution to fixing choppy video playback in Safari is an easy one. Have a look inside and we’ll show you how. Read More

 

VLC for iOS introduces folders, new file types, subtitle improvements and more

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

Back in January, VideoLan’s cross-platform media player, VLC, rolled out a major iOS 7-centric redesign of its iPhone and iPad client. It’s also fixed numerous bugs while adding the ability to stream media from Google Drive and Dropbox.

Apps like VLC are needed to enjoy ”foreign” audio and video file types on iOS devices, stuff like mkv, avi, wma, divx and more.

Following a few maintenance releases, the team today released a new version that refines the user interface and extends the app’s functionality.

The new VLC 2.3 for iOS is now available free in the App Store, bringing support for folders for your media files. In addition, there are two new options in settings dealing with subtitles and gestures, the app can now play password protected HTTP streams, it’s got new translations, supports additional audio and video file formats and more… Read More

 

Apple’s former UI wizard applies his magic touch to a deck of cards

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

Australia-born user interface designer Robert Padbury was employed by Apple for nearly three years. In his Senior UI Designer role with the company, Padbury was helping create the visuals for a range of consumer and pro applications for the Mac and iOS.

Prior to joining Apple, he worked with numerous startups including Stipple, Cooliris, Gaia Interactive, Tapulous, DoubleTwist and more.

Now self-employed, Padbury is providing creative services like software design, identity design and design strategy for clients such as Uber, Forage and Stipple. His latest project involves applying Apple’s principles of clean and striking design to such ordinary objects as a deck of cards… Read More

 

Assumed iPad Air 2 front panel leaks

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

Like everyone and their brother, KGI Securities analysts Ming-Chi Kuo is counting on the release of a second-generation iPad Air by October. The device should be refreshed with Apple’s upcoming in-house designed A8 processor, the Touch ID sensor, an improved back-facing iSight camera with a new eight-megapixel sensor, the analyst reckoned in a recent note to clients.

That said, we haven’t seen much in the way of leaks concerning the iPad Air 2 - that is, until today. An image posted this morning by Dutch blog One More Thing claims to represent a front panel said to belong to the forthcoming device, revealing what appears to be an integrated display technology that should results in a thinner and lighter display assembly… Read More

 

Gameloft’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits iOS

By Christian Zibreg on Apr 18, 2014

As promised, the official game of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie is now available in the App Store for iOS devices.

A $4.99 universal download for the iPhone and iPad, this open-world action-adventure wall-crawler has you saving New York City from the formidable villain Electro in the midst of a massive villainous gang war.

You will love lush environments and eye-candy graphics that make the most of your device’s hardware. Fans of action games won’t be disappointed as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 offers plenty of combo-based fighting, web-slinging, wall-crawling and fluid aerobic combat.

Hit the jump for your launch trailer and additional tidbits… Read More

 

New iPhone 6 mockups based on leaked case dimensions and other intel

By Cody Lee on Apr 18, 2014

Well-known designer and concept artist Martin Hajek has teamed up with the folks over at Nowhereelse.fr to create what could be the most accurate iPhone 6 renderings to date. The mockups show a device that was created based on recent information, including MacFan’s schematic drawing from last month, and this week’s case leak.

For the most part, the renderings match up with everything we’ve seen thus far regarding Apple’s next smartphone. Hajek depicts the iPhone 6 as extremely thin, with rounded corners, and a display that’s noticeably larger than current models. It also features a new Sleep/Wake button, which has been moved to the right side of the handset… Read More

 

Facebook app updated with direct comment replies and more

By Cody Lee on Apr 17, 2014

Facebook rolled out an update for its iOS client this evening, bringing the app to version 9.0. The update brings about a handful of new features, including the ability to reply directly to comments.

The ability to reply directly to comments has been a wish list item for users for quite some time. Don’t get too excited though, it’ll only be available on select Pages that have enabled the feature… Read More

 

TSMC exec says Apple leading move to 64-bit smartphone chips, hints A8 chip production

By Jake Smith on Apr 17, 2014

Apple is responsible for the mobile industry’s move to 64-bit processors within smartphones after it announced the iPhone 5s in September, according to Mark Liu, co-CEO of major chip company TSMC.

This is something many industry pundits have been whispering for sometime, so it’s interesting to hear from such a higher-up in the chip business. Liu, speaking at a TSMC quarterly results meeting, said it pretty bluntly… Read More

 

Giveaway: Fantastical 2 for iPad

By Sébastien Page on Apr 17, 2014

When someone asks me what the best calendar app is, I usually don’t think twice about recommending Fantastical 2. It’s simple, elegant, and very easy to use, making it the de facto choice for me.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, Fantastical 2 was only available on iPhone, but after several years, the fine folks at Flexibits have finally graced us with Fantastical 2 for iPad, which we reviewed and loved when it first came out.

If you haven’t already pulled the trigger on this app, then you’re in luck, because we’ve joined forces with Flexibits to offer you a chance to win one of ten promo codes for Fantastical 2 for iPad… Read More

 
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