Whimsical jetpack-flying game Piloteer selected as Apple’s Free App of the Week

Apple's editors have cherry-picked the Piloteer game as its new Free App of the Week on the App Store, meaning you can now download this $1.99 title at no charge until next Thursday. Created by Fixpoint Productions and released on the App Store in June of 2015, Piloteer has an average rating of four stars based on more than 155 reviews.

In this physics-based game, a renowned inventor is determined to overcome the stigma associated with flying a jetpack and convince the world that jetpacks should be revered by all. It sounds easier said than done, however.

Apple issues a recall of AC wall plug adapters in some countries, announces exchange program

Apple on Thursday announced a voluntary recall of AC wall plug adapters designed for use in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Continental Europe, New Zealand and South Korea that shipped with Mac and certain iOS devices between 2003 and 2015 and were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit.

“In very rare cases, affected Apple two-prong wall plug adapters may break and create a risk of electrical shock if touched,” notes the company.

New in iOS 9.3 beta 2: accessory firmware updates via iPad Pro’s Smart Connector

Aside from headline features such as Night Shift mode, new 3D Touch shortcuts, Notes improvements and more, the most recent beta of iOS 9.3 has been found to allow the iPad Pro to update accessories' firmware through its Smart Connector.

As noted by German developer Stefan Wolfrum and relayed by Oliver Haslam over at Cult of Mac, Wolfrum was greeted with an “Accessory Update Available” prompt after plugging a Logitech Connect keyboard case into his iPad Pro.

iPad Air 3 rumored to have 4K screen, 4GB of RAM and improved battery

Apple is widely expected to announce a third-generation iPad Air at a March event in a few weeks time and the latest supply chain chatter has it that the device will come outfitted with an ultra sharp display boasting a 4K resolution, or nearly four times the pixels of Apple's current-generation 9.7-inch 2,048-by-1,536 pixel Retina display.

According to Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, it'll also have an improved battery life and feature four gigabytes of RAM versus the iPad Air 2's two gigs of RAM.

Veexillum: a theme of simple uniformity

For quite a while, I didn't have much of an interest in iOS themes. Many of the icon packs available in Cydia seemed rather mediocre and did little to improve on iOS's stock design – at least, that's how it appeared to me. Those that did look nice often don't have a very large number of themed apps, while others had designs so different from the average iOS icon that unthemed apps stood out as ghastly reminders of a lack of design uniformity.

My ideal theme wouldn't stray too far from the current state of iOS, would have several hundred themed icons, and would be simple and uniform enough to compliment my Home screen without making every app look the same and particularly without removing easily discernible colors and glyphs that make an app easy to spot from the rest so I can remain efficient when using my device. Because of these requirements, my ideal theme is undoubtedly Veexillum.

Siri making random outbursts? Here’s the fix

It's happened many times to me before, and I can relate to those that it happens to – you're trying to be quiet in the middle of class or in the middle of a meeting for work, and all of a sudden you hear a random noise and then Siri starts blabbering.

Siri says "I didn't quite get that," or "Sorry, I missed that."

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to solve this problem once and for all.

Apple planning to unveil iPad Air 3 at March event, report says

Apple is planning to unveil a third generation model of its 9.7-inch iPad Air in March, reports 9to5Mac. The site's well-sourced Mark Gurman says that the tablet will likely make its debut at an event during the week of March 14, alongside the rumored 4-inch iPhone and new Apple Watch bands.

Gurman doesn't offer much in terms of what the new tablet will look like, though the consensus is the design will resemble the previous Air, or what kind of internals it will have. He does however say that Apple has been testing 9.7-inch panels that support the Pencil, which for now is iPad Pro-only.

Deliveries gets massive update with 3D Touch, multitasking & new features

Delivery trackers are invaluable tools you can use on your iPhone or iPad to keep track of your inbound and outbound package deliveries from services like USPS, UPS, FedEx, and others to make sure they get to the places they need to go.

As we shared just a couple days ago, Deliveries by Junecloud is by far one of our favorite apps to do this with, and on Wednesday, Deliveries has received a massive update to version 7.0 with a change log so big we couldn't even fit it on our Mac's screen.

76 percent of devices are now using iOS 9

As measured by the App Store on January 25, 2016, and published on Apple's App Store dashboard for developers, iOS 9 is now powering 76 percent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, a one-percentage point gain versus the 75 percent mark that was recorded two weeks ago.

At the same time, the adoption rate for iOS 8 has dropped from nineteen percent as of January 13, 2016, to seventeen percent, a two-point loss.

Public beta testers: iOS 9.3 beta 2 and OS X 10.11.4 now available

Two days after seeding OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan beta 2 and iOS 9.3 beta 2 to members of the Apple Developer Program, public beta testers who are signed on the Apple Beta Software Program can now freely deploy these new beta builds on their Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.

iOS 9.3 beta 2 is available as an over-the-air update in Settings → General → Software Update on enrolled devices. OS X 10.11.4 beta 2 can be downloaded through the Mac App Store's Purchased tab for those who are enrolled in Apple's beta testing program.

Turn off HDR photo duplicates to save storage space

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is great for making the most from your iPhone's camera, especially in high-contrast situations.

With this feature, your iPhone takes multiple photos in rapid succession, each at a different exposure, and automatically blends them together. You get an image that has optimized highlights and really brings the shadows out of the noise, with way better detail in the bright and midtown areas.

When you enable HDR photography by tapping the HDR icon in the Camera app, your iPhone will save two copies of the image in your photo library: the “normal” image (without HDR) along with its HDR counterpart.

This can put a strain on your iPhone's storage, especially when taking a lot of HDR photos. If your iPhone's storage is low, or you're the type of person who likes to plan ahead, read this tutorial to learn how to turn off HDR photo duplicates and save significant amounts of storage space on your device.

Google updates Chrome for iOS with 70% fewer crashes, Spotlight integration and more

Google's mobile Chrome browser was updated this morning in the App Store and the new release promises a whopping 70 percent fewer crashes along with a few other goodies, such as Spotlight Search integration.

Google said that the dramatically reduced crash rate is due to Chrome's adoption of WKWebView, a rendering engine from Apple which was first introduced with the release of iOS 8 back in 2014.

In addition, this release of Chrome for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad should be faster overall, with JavaScript execution now “dramatically faster.”