In July, App Store hit highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to developers

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook himself, the App Store has set a new record in July with highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to developers. Developers have now earned over $50 billion from sales of their apps since the App Store's debut in the summer of 2008—and that's after the company's standard thirty percent cut on all App Store proceeds.

The CEO took to Twitter to congratulate developers on their “success and such inspired creativity”.

Apple Music for Android exits beta, gains equalizer settings and performance improvements

Apple Music for Android has dropped the beta flag, reveals the app's official description on Google's Play store. Today, Apple Music for Android was updated to version 1.0 as the app is no longer in beta, signaling Apple's confidence that it enables experiences its iOS counterpart has provided since launch. The app made its surprising debut in November of 2015 as Apple's first-ever Android software because the company wanted to make it easy for music lovers to allow people to enjoy music “no matter where you were and what products you were using”.

Snapseed update adds Text filter, image resizing when exporting and sharing & more

Since buying Snapseed from Nik Software in September 2012, Google has been somewhat neglecting this once popular mobile image editor, issuing maintenance updates that were light on new features. Today, the search firm announced that Snapseed, at long last, is getting some interesting new capabilities via an update on iOS and Android. The Text filter is now available and you can configure the app to resize photos when sharing/exporting.

UI adjustments and bug fixes are included in Snapseed 2.8 as well.

Apple issues new diversity report: 54% of its US new hires are now minorities

Apple on Wednesday issued an updated diversity report, showing progress in its efforts to beef up the hiring of women and minorities. The iPhone-maker is one of many Silicon Valley firms that has been criticized for having a mostly white, male workforce—particularly at the executive level.

According to the latest numbers, 56% of its US employees are white and 69% of its global staffers are male, but there has been a boost in new-hires. Apple says 54% of the US new hires added within the last year are minorities, meaning their new hires are more diverse than current workers.

Snapchat rolls out city-specific stickers that mock local trends and highlight landmarks

Snapchat for iPhone, an ephemeral image messaging app, yesterday announced a new feature called Geostickers. Basically special stickers available in some of the biggest cities around the world, they can be applied to images and moved around before sending them. You can also stick these city-specific stickers on your Snaps.

Geostickers are available now in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Honolulu, London, Sydney, São Paulo, Paris and Riyadh.

Astropad graphics tablet app for iPhone and iPad is now a lot faster and uses less battery

Astropad is a very cool app from former Apple engineers designed to let you draw into Mac apps by connecting your iPad or iPhone to the computer via USB or Wi-Fi. You can then draw into most Mac apps directly on your iOS device's screen, using your finger as a replacement for a professional graphics tablet. In fact, it's too good that people are replacing their Wacom tablets with Astropad and an iPad.

I've been using Astropad quite extensively and it works like magic, really.

There's very little discernible lag, courtesy of the proprietary Liquid engine providing nearly three times more fluid responsiveness than Apple’s AirPlay. That's why I'm happy to report that in its most recent version 2.0 update, Astropad is now even faster and more fluid than before and a lot less taxing on the battery.

New iPhone 7 mockup shows blue finish, Smart Connector and other features

An earlier report from Japanese blog Macotakara alleged that the next iPhone might bring out a new deep blue color option, later described as being closer to a “dark Space Black,” similar to that used for the Space Black stainless stell Apple Watch.

Be that as it may, a new video from Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy shows off an iPhone 7 mockup with kind of blue-ish, purple-ish tone to it. It’s “a very unusual color for Apple and it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the product line,” says Hilsenteger.

New rumor reaffirms iPhone 7 Plus will have 3GB of RAM

An Apple-designed A10 chip that will power the next iPhone should be outfitted with 3GB of RAM on the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus model, according to previous analyst reports from TrendForce, Deutsche Bank and KGI Securities. DigiTimes has now corroborated these rumors, noting that the mobile DRAM capacity of the next-generation iPhone is “expected to increase to 3GB from 2GB previously”.

Apple TV gains French Molotov.tv video streaming service

Molotov.tv, France's premium video streaming service that offers access to nearly all of French television networks in one place, has launched exclusively on the Apple TV, as first reported by local blog iPhone Addict. The service was previously available via the desktop, through the web and on mobile devices.

Molotov.tv provides 37 premium channels, including those from Canal+ like D8, D17 and Cine+, plus 100 hours of on-demand streaming in exchange for a flat monthly fee of €9.99, or about $11.16. The free service includes 35 free channels and ten hours of on-demand content.

Time Warner buys 10% stake in Hulu, new live-streaming service due in 2017

Time Warner is taking a ten percent stake in Hulu, joining existing owners Disney, 21st Century Fox and Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Variety reported today. The move should help bolster Hulu's programming by adding content from Time Warner’s channels, like Turner networks and CNN, which will be part of a new pay TV service that Hulu wants to launch next year. Terms of the investment were not disclosed, but sources claim that Time Warner paid around $583 million for its stake in Hulu, boosting its valuation to a cool $6 billion.