Facebook today announced that it has started accepting 360-degree photo uploads. Panoramic photographs taken with your iOS device can now be uploaded to Facebook through the updated mobile app and are viewable in the web interface and on Facebook for iOS and Android.
Panoramic photos in your News Feed are marked with the compass icon. You can move your iOS device to pan around and even experience them in virtual reality with the Samsung Gear VR.
Camera+ by oddly named developer taptaptap, one of the longest-standing camera applications (and one of the best out there, in my personal opinion), has received a major refresh on the App Store.
Camera+ 8.0 packs in a slew of improvements such as an innovative slow shutter feature, an extended range of effective ISO values, a handy extension for easier sending of photos from the share sheet of other apps and more.
Apple has argued that its new App Store rules, which extend subscriptions to literally every app category, would help create a new business model in which people would warm up to the idea of subscribing to apps rather than paying for them upfront.
I'm not so sure that subscriptions are the right answer to what the market is calling “app fatigue”, but I can tell you right now that I'd rather continue paying upfront for fine, quality apps than use them on a subscription basis, here's why.
I'm positive that this stat does not apply to me, but most smartphone users in the United States downloaded zero apps in a typical month, as per comScore's August 2014 mobile app report.
This is something that indie devs have had to live with for more than two years now and it remains to be seen if Apple's new App Store subscription terms will help solve this worrying problem.
Last month's research from Nomura, which relies on data from app tracker SensorTower, painted a gloomy picture for big name developers, too, as the top 15 app publishers saw downloads drop an average of 20 percent in the United States.
So, is the app boom really over or is this just a temporary blip?
Beyond Search Ads and a bunch of new options for In-App Subscriptions, Apple is making a few subtler changes to how the App Store's storefront apps function in the hope of improving app discovery.
As per SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller, who also manages App Stores and Apple's relations with developers, the store's Featured tab will soon filter any apps you already have installed on your device, so that you're only looking at new apps.
As we told you this morning, Apple announced big changes are coming to the App Store this fall in the form of some well thought out improvements to In-App Subscriptions and all-new paid ads for apps in App Store search results.
Yesterday, SVP Phil Schiller sat down for an interview with The Loop's Jim Dalrymple to discuss other changes aimed at making app discovery better. The app review process, however, won't be going away anytime soon.
Apple today announced a pair of major changes that will be coming to the App Store this fall, which it said were designed to help grow developer app’s business and engage with new and existing customers.
Both the rumored search ads and various subscription enhancements will soon be available across any app category, games included.
Slack, a cloud-based, cross-platform team collaboration service, has rolled out support for voice calling, the team announced yesterday. With it, team members can call one another without leaving Slack, and calls even have an emoji response feature.
Calls are currently voice-only, but Slack says that features like video calling and screen sharing will come in the future. Slack is available across iOS, OS X, the web and other platforms.
Apple's iTunes U application has received a refresh in the App Store, bringing out a few new features. For starters, iTunes U 3.3 for iOS now takes advantage of third-party Document Provider extensions.
This enables iPhone, iPod touch and iPad owners to easily add new materials from various cloud services for which they have an app installed on their device, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox and so forth.
Music and media identification service Shazam pushed a new update to its mobile application in the App Store which enables offline mode. The feature used to be present in Shazam from day one before it was temporarily removed in the overhauled app.
With it, you can still Shazam while offline and the app will name any songs you captured in offline mode when you're back online. Shazam is a free app. The paid $6.99 Shazam Encore app is available to those who want to get rid of ads and use advanced features.
MCX (the Merchant Consortium Exchange) has notified testers that it will be ending its CurrentC beta test soon. The Consumerist on Tuesday shared an email sent by the company, telling users that it's going to shut down the mobile payment service on June 28.
On that day, all active accounts will be disabled and beta testers will not be able to access their accounts through the CurrentC app. Worse than that, the email also says that MCX is postponing further releases of CurrentC, and there are no plans for an official launch.
Google today announced it's launching a brand new iPhone application aimed at those who wish to turn their Live Photos into animated GIFs. Aptly named Motion Stills, the app turns Live Photos into Motion Stills with Google’s stabilization technology and cinematic backgrounds.
These Motion Stills can then be shared as looping GIFs on social media. Motion Stills is available free in the App Store.