Apple’s free app of the week: Super Arc Light

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Super Arc Light.  This means that for the next 7 days you’ll be able to pick up the popular arcade shooter for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $2.

For those who haven't played Super Arc Light, it's a minimalistic radial shooter, in which you must defend your base to the death against waves of challenging enemies. The developer describes it as Super Hexagon meets Geometry Wars.

Periscope introduces Replay Highlights, Live Autoplay and Tweet Embeds

Periscope, Twitter's live-broadcasting app, was updated in the App Store with a few new features, among them Replay Highlights, Live Autoplay and Tweet Embeds. Highlights automatically generates a short trailer for every Periscope broadcast of your home feed, making it easier to catch up on broadcasts you missed from the last day.

Periscope is a free download from the App Store.

BBC’s iPlayer Radio hits US App Store as new BBC+ app goes live in UK

The British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) iPlayer Radio mobile app, which used to be limited to customers in the United Kingdom, has expanded stateside today, TechCrunch just announced. Now customers in the United States can download iPlayer Radio from the US App Store and tune in to BBC's high-quality radio stations and content.

Earlier in the week, BBC announced launch of a brand new personalized content portal with a new BBC+ app on the UK App Store.

T-Mobile treats 2016 Summer Olympics attendees to unlimited 4G LTE data and calling

Deutsche Telekom-owned wireless carrier T-Mobile USA today announced that all Simple Choice postpaid customers traveling to Brazil for 2016 Summer Olympics will be treated to unlimited high-speed 4G LTE data within the country during August.

In unleashing Brazil this summer, T-Mobile's CEO John Legere noted that not only will Rio de Janeiro visitors enjoy the Summer Olympics without worrying about roaming charges, but also free calls within Brazil and to U.S. during the month of August.

Facebook Messenger hits a major milestone—one billion monthly users

Facebook yesterday announced that its Messenger service has hit a major milestone: the software is now being used by more than one billion people every month to message their friends and family. Messenger saw a major surge in popularity after it was decoupled from the main Facebook mobile client, and especially since becoming a software platform in its own right with chat bots, apps, money payments, expanded emojis and other features.

Facebook Messenger is a free download from the App Store.

Video: iPhone 7 mockups in Gold, Rose Gold and rumored Space Black

Many rumors surrounding Apple's upcoming  iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus suggest a refined iPhone 6s industrial design with subdued antennal lines on the backside and the usual Gold, Rose Gold and Silver finishes, with at least one source pointing at a possible Apple Watch-like Space Black variant.

Ran Avni of YouTube channel ConceptsiPhone posted an interesting video yesterday, depicting iPhone 7 mockups in Gold, Rose Gold and Space Black to give us an idea what the handset might look like when it launches this fall.

ThinCharge for iPhone review: an extremely slim battery case with a few big caveats

A lot of manufacturers like to claim they make “thin” iPhone battery cases, but it’s really just a marketing gimmick. I’ve tried dozens of iPhone cases with built-in battery packs over the years, and despite having words like “ultra-slim” and “air” in their branding, most of them were still far too bulky to carry on a daily basis.

Enter the ThinCharge case by ChargeTech. The company sells the case as the “thinnest iPhone 6/6s battery case on the market,” and I have to say they might be right. I’ve been using the case on and off for the past several weeks, and I can confidently say that this is—by far—the thinnest iPhone battery case I’ve ever tried.

How thin are we talking? Well the case itself measures just 11mm thick. So if you consider that the iPhone 6s is 7.1mm thick, then the ThinCharge is only adding around 3.9mm of thickness, which is super impressive. Additionally, there’s no ugly chin to be found down around the Lightning port, like on most other cases.

Having said all of this, the ThinCharge is no where near perfect. I ran into multiple issues during my testing, including slow charging rates for both the case and my iPhone, as well as a finicky cover over the charging port and other annoyances. So is the thinness of the case worth these caveats? Read on for my full review.

How to check your iPhone’s numeric cellular signal strength

When you have an iPhone, your carrier’s signal strength can be one of the most important things that helps you decide which carrier to go with. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to enter Field Test mode on your iPhone and view the dBm (decibels per milliwatt) value rather than just the basic signal bar indicators.

How to split PDF files with the Preview app on Mac

PDF files are among one of the most widely-used forms of sharing documents with others across the internet; especially considering that the idea behind this file type is to have something that is universally readable on any platform.

If you do a lot of PDF handling on your Mac, then it might not be a bad idea to become familiar with how to split a PDF file, so we'll show you how you can do that in this tutorial.