How to customize or hide contacts shown in the App Switcher

Along with iOS 8, Apple introduced a new feature in the App Switcher that allows you to have quick access to your recently contacted contacts, as well as your favorite contacts. In essence, this is a great feature that can save you time, but it arguably also is a feature that has nothing to do in the App Switcher to begin with. What if you only want to see your favorites in there? Or what if you don't want to see any contact at all in the App Switcher? There is a solution.

In this post, we'll show you how to select what kind of contacts you want to show in the App Switcher (favorites and/or recents) or how to hide these contacts altogether.

MyFitnessPal brings its data to iOS 8’s Health app in latest update

As Apple earlier this morning began approving HealthKit-powered apps following yesterday's release of the iOS 8.0.2 software update, makers of health and fitness software, life-tracking programs and food intake tracking apps are now releasing updates adding HealthKit compatibility.

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker, a free of charge iPhone and iPad app by MyFitnessPal, has been bumped to version 5.6.6, for example.

Taking advantage of Apple’s HealthKit in iOS 8 which makes it easy for supported health and fitness apps to work together and share data through the stock Health app, the refreshed MyFitnessPal app now lets you add your meal summaries and sync your weight with HealthKit, as well as add excercices from other HealthKit-enabled apps to your diary.

Poll: are you having second thoughts about buying iPhone 6 Plus over #Bendgate?

Are you concerned over Bendgate following this YouTube video? Responding to the controversy that blew up on social media before taking the world by storm, Apple said it'd received complaints from nine customers over the supposed iPhone 6 Plus bending.

The company even took select members of the press on a tour of its facility just a a few blocks away from the Cupertino campus, where it torture-tested 15,000 iPhone 6 and 15,000 iPhone 6 Plus handsets.

I think Bendgate is a non-issue, but I could be wrong. One thing is certain: the meme won't go away if I choose to ignore it. That said, it doesn't surprise me at all that some fans are now questioning Apple's “just works” mantra, especially in light of other snafus in the form of the iOS 8.0.1 update gone terrible wrong, Apple's U2 “gift”, Celebgate and iCloud security.

After reading about these PR disasters, some folks may be thinking twice about buying the iPhone 6 Plus. Are you among that group or did you brush off Bendgate as a non-issue?

GoodReader updated for iOS 8 with iCloud Drive and Handoff, native iPhone 6 and 6 Plus support

GoodReader, a robust PDF reader for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, has received an update Friday bringing out support for a pair of distinct new features in iOS 8: Handoff and iCloud Drive.

Handoff lets you continue reading on an iPad right where you left off on an iPhone or iPod touch, and vice versa. Moreover, if you run iOS 8 and have upgraded to iCloud Drive, GoodReader can now import documents stored in it.

And because the app now uses iOS 8’s standard iCloud Drive picker, you can easily access other online storage services that have advertised their Document Provider extension system-wide, such as Dropbox.

Apple readying a fix for Bash vulnerability, ‘vast majority’ of Mac users unaffected

A fix for a new kind of exploit recently discovered in the Bash command shell used in multiple versions of Unix is underway, Apple confirmed Friday, adding that the “vast majority” of Mac users are unaffected because OS X is "safe by default" from the so-called 'Shell Shock' attacks.

"The vast majority of OS X users are not at risk to recently reported Bash vulnerabilities," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement quoted by The Verge.

The vulnerability was documented and publicized Thursday by security researchers at RedHat and gained prominences after security expert Robert Graham called it “as big as the Heartbleed bug,” referring to a nasty vulnerability discovered earlier in the year in the OpenSSL software commonly used by nearly two-thirds of servers powering the Internet.

Following iOS 8.0.2 release, Apple starts approving HealthKit apps

Friday, first HealthKit-enabled applications began appearing on the App Store following the iOS 8.0.2 release which, among other improvements, contains a fix for a bug which has prevented HealthKit apps from being approved in the first place.

As first spotted by 9to5Mac this morning, fitness and health related applications for the iPhone and iPad are now being approved with HealthKit compatibility following yesterday’s iOS 8.0.2 release.

Post-it debuts iPhone app for scanning physical sticky notes

3M Company made a fortune with its popular Post-it series of trademark yellow paper notes that attach to documents and other surfaces. Now, there’s an app for that.

Released Friday, Post-it Plus for the iPhone and iPad makes it easy to convert the physical square notes into their digital representation by scanning them using your iOS device’s camera.

Once in your iPhone, digital notes can be organized, arranged into groups, shared with everyone and accessed in other apps like PowerPoint, Excel, Dropbox and plenty more using the “Open In...” option.

Starbase Annex is a hex-based board game with battle card mechanics

Fans of the Starbase Orion series will probably flip their lid to learn that the game’s creator at Chimera has just launched a similarly stylized sci-fi digital board game. It combines the depth of a 4X strategy game (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) with the simple basics of a land grab board game.

Starbase Annex pits players against increasingly difficult enemies on a mission to win the most victory points by overpowering opponents and capturing cards. Fate will deal you your hand. What you do with it is up to you.

Cou replaces the Slide to Answer slider with ‘Accept’ and ‘Decline’ buttons

When your iPhone is locked and you receive a phone call, you'll see a slide to answer knob that allows you to respond to the call, and declining a phone call will require you to press the Sleep/Wake button twice. Cou is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to customize this interface and replace the slider found on the Lock screen with buttons you normally see when you receive a call while the device is unlocked.

Developed by danteseig, Cou replaces the Slide to Answer slider with two buttons called 'Answer' and 'Decline'. This means that you can easily reject a phone call by pressing the Decline button rather than double pressing the Sleep button.

Apple releases iOS 8.0.2 with fix for cellular and Touch ID issues

Apple released iOS 8.0.2 to the public Thursday night, addressing issues that iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users encountered when updating to iOS 8.0.1, as well as several other improvements and bug fixes. The update is available for iPad 2 and newer models, iPhone 4s and newer models, as well as iPod touch 5th generation via an over-the-air update or directly through iTunes.

iOS 8.0.2 fixes a critical issue where iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users who updated to iOS 8.0.1 on Wednesday lost cellular signal and the ability to use Touch ID. It also addresses a HealthKit bug that prevented apps supporting the new APIs to function properly, as well as several other bugs.

Apple offers peek at iPhone stress testing process

Apple invited a handful of reporters to visit its iPhone testing facility in Cupertino on Thursday, to offer a peek at where and how it puts its handsets through the paces. The move comes in response to growing concerns over "bending issues" with the new iPhone 6 Plus, following this YouTube video.

The facility sits a few blocks away from Apple's Cupertino campus, and contains a lot of equipment for testing the strength and durability of the iPhone. Here, engineers for the company put handsets through a variety of tests including torsion (or twisting) and pressure, to make sure they will hold up.

FBI director says he’s ‘very concerned’ about new privacy features in iOS 8

The FBI is very concerned with the new privacy features Apple is touting in iOS 8, the organization's director James Comey told The Huffington Post on Thursday. In particular, he's concerned the company is marketing something "expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law."

Comey's remarks follow Apple's move last week to be more transparent and informative about its user privacy policies. In a new webpage on the topic, the Cupertino firm said it no longer stores encryption keys for devices running iOS 8, meaning it can't bypass pass codes—even under subpoena.