Apps

Abstract puzzler The Mesh goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Apple on Thursday updated its weekly App of the Week promotion with a game called The Mesh. This means that for the next 7 days, you'll be able to pick up the popular puzzler for free for both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $2.

In The Mesh, players are tasked with combining numbered tiles to match target values and clear the board without running out of space. The game features beautifully-designed graphics and animations, and an incredible soundtrack.

Review: boost your sleep analysis with much improved Sleep++ 2.0

David Smith’s excellent Sleep++ app is my killer app when it comes to sleep analysis, a glaring omission from the Apple Watch. It's become second nature for me to open Sleep++ as I tuck myself in bed for the evening.

This native watchOS 2 app collects data from watch sensors to measure sleep quality and duration, which can then be reviewed in greater detail in a companion iPhone app and synced with your Health database.

The updated Sleep++ 2.0, now available as a free download in the App Store, takes sleep analysis to the next level with major improvements to its sleep analysis engine and new features such as better Health integration, an improved Night Detail view, night trimming and timezone support.

Vevo’s beautiful new Apple TV app brings 150,000 HD music videos

Vevo today began shipping a refreshed Apple TV app. Redesigned from top to bottom, it provides access to more than 150,000 music videos in high-definition and exclusive original programming. The revamped software upgrades the experience for users over the old app in many respects.

According to CEO Erik Huggers, Vevo wants to become the MTV for the digital age. “We continue to invest in what we believe is the premium platform for music videos and related original content,” he said in a media release.

Twitter rolls out a new timeline feature

Twitter's bird logo set against a transparent background

The pressure mounts on Twitter to re-ignite growth, which has virtually come to a halt as average users increasingly find the service too confusing and difficult to use. Today, the micro-blogging service unveiled yet another refinement designed to adjust how the timeline surfaces interesting content.

Similar to the “While you were away” timeline feature which released a year ago, Twitter will now put recommended, not the newest, tweets at the top of your timeline so that you never miss important updates from people you follow.

Some of the Mac apps known to be affected by the Sparkle vulnerability

A vulnerability discovered in an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework that many third-party OS X apps depend on for serving the user with regular updates has been getting a lot of attention recently.

As we reported on Tuesday, the security problem affects a number of third-party Mac apps downloaded from the internet, and not apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. The vulnerability roots from the lack of an encrypted connection and gives a malicious hacker the ability to perform a man-in-the-middle attack.

But what OS X apps are affected? This is the information you need to know as soon as possible to keep your Mac safe from potential malware threats.

What you need to know about the Sparkle vulnerability affecting some OS X apps

A new vulnerability has been discovered to affect a wide variety of third-party apps for OS X that have been downloaded from the internet and use an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework.

The new vulnerability puts a number of users of affected third-party apps at risk of being hijacked when those apps attempt to use the outdated framework to alert users of new app updates.

How to delete your old iPhoto library

After upgrading your Mac to OS X Yosemite or later, the new Photos app gets installed automatically.

On first launch, Photos will auto-upgrade your default iPhoto library to its new library format. People with multiple iPhoto libraries must manually convert them to the new format by holding the Option (⌥) key when clicking the Photos icon in the Dock.

Upon completing migration, you'll have two sets of photo libraries on your machine: the original iPhoto libraries and their Photos counterpart.

In order to free up a significant amount of storage space on your Mac, you can safely delete any iPhoto library that has been migrated to the new Photos app.

New Apple TV app TechTube helps you discover great tech videos

Folks in the market for a new Apple TV app that helps surface great content may want to check out TechTube TV. The app, which was released late last week, was designed to highlight videos that it believes folks will find interesting.

The video selections are geared towards techies, and feature everything from TED talks to device reviews. There is also a mix of science and 'how things work' videos—"the goal is entertaining, informative or intellectually stimulating."

Final Fantasy IX hits iOS with 20% launch sale

In a surprise launch this morning, publisher Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy IX upon the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This classic role-playing game, which originally released for Sony's PlayStation console back in 2000, is now available in the App Store with a special 20 percent launch sale for $16.99.

Designed to let players relive the adventures of Zidane and his crew in the palm of their hands, Final Fantasy IX brings Game Center achievements, autosave, crisp graphics with high-def movies and character models, seven game boosters like high-speed and no-encounter modes and other perks.

Vine app gains 3D Touch, caption editing and post ordering features

Vine, a Twitter owned mobile application for short-form video sharing, has been updated in the App Store this morning with three new features. For starters, owners of the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s plus can press Vine's icon on the Home screen to access a shortcut menu with a pair of options to make a Vine or jump into the Explore feed.

In addition, you can now edit your Vine’s caption for a brief period after you post and watch an account’s Vines in any order you want.

IGN names Heroes Reborn: Enigma for iOS its Free Game of the Month

IGN has named Phosphor Games Studio's first person action-puzzle game Heroes Reborn: Enigma its free title for the month of February 2016, marking the first time the $4.99 game has gone free since its October 2015 debut.

The game has you playing as Dahlia, an evolved human with incredible powers. You must solve various puzzles and survive tests in order to escape captivity at The Quarry, a secret government facility.

How to move Photos library to an external drive

In addition to moving your multi-gigabyte iTunes library to an external drive, a significant amount of Mac storage space can be freed up by moving your photo libraries onto a separate drive.

If you take a lot of pictures with a DSLR camera or your iOS devices and import them in Photos, you'll fairly quickly run out of free space on most Macs.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of moving an entire library of photos to an external drive, preferably to a much larger external hard drive, in a way that won't disrupt your photography workflow.