Apps

Weather Live review: get beautiful weather forecasts on iOS and Apple TV

Lory Gil ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Weather apps are a personal thing. Some people want epic details of radar, Doppler, and real-time satellite views of the clouds rolling in. Others want a minimalist design with nothing but the current temperature.

For those that want something in-between, something that looks good and provides a lot of information, but doesn't crowd the screen, Weather Live will make you happy. The app was recently updated with support for Apple TV and it looks gorgeous on the big screen. We've got a hands-on app review of Weather Live for you today.

Quadro puts shortcut actions for your computer on your iPhone

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Sometimes, when you are working on a half dozen projects on your computer, the last thing you want to do perform a bunch of actions that take up precious minutes. Maybe you've forgotten what shortcut key works with which application, or can't recall where certain controls are in a program. All this eats up time.

Quadro is a workflow app that automates actions on your Mac or PC computer from your iPhone or iPad. All you have to do is tap on a button on your mobile device to trigger the action on your computer.

Text-based adventure Lifeline is Apple’s new Free App of the Week

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 14, 2016

Lifeline, the first in a series of groundbreaking text adventures from developer 3 Minute Games, is as of today listed as Apple's new free app of the week in the App Store. The 99-cent game is available at no charge to everyone until next Thursday.

Lifeline, which made its App Store debut in April of 2015, is completely text-based but don't let that put you off, the game is actually fun and addictive—especially if you own an Apple Watch.

Agenda Widget+ is a highly customizable calendar widget for Notification Center

Sébastien Page ∙ January 14, 2016

Agenda: Widget+ is an application whose sole purpose is to display a list of your future calendar events in Notification Center. The app itself, which actually acts as the preferences panel for the widget, offers multiple options to fine-tune the data displayed in Notification Center.

Outlook for iOS gains Skype integration, Mac app updated with Split View and full-screen support

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 13, 2016

Microsoft Outlook is an excellent email client, not just for mobile devices but on desktop platforms, too. And now, it's about to get a lot better. According to Microsoft, Outlook for Mac now now officially supports Full Screen view for OS X Yosemite and up and OS X's native full-screen view.

On the mobile front, Outlook for iOS has received a nice little update which brings Skype integration for calendar events so users can now make any meeting a Skype call that can be launched from the calendar event in Outlook.

Free group video calling is coming to Skype’s iPhone and iPad application

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 6, 2017

Skype is celebrating its tenth anniversary so the Microsoft-owned company yesterday announced that users of its mobile application will soon be able to take advantage of a free group video calling feature.

According to Gurdeep Pall, Skype CVP, group video calling on mobile devices will be coming to Skype's iPhone and iPad app “soon,” and to Windows 10 and Android devices.

Everlist review: as close as you can get to making a list with pen and paper

Lory Gil ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

List, lists, lists. I've got lists coming out of my ears, at least metaphorically, since my lists are all on digital formats. My point is that I make a lot of lists. I don't think I could get anything done if I didn't have them. I'm always looking for ways to make my lists easier to understand and faster to access.

Everlist is about as close as you can get to making a list with pen and paper. However, it looks much better than a crumpled old note pad and does things that paper just can't do. We've got an app review of Everlist for your reading pleasure right now.

Feeday offers a quick peek at Instagram from Notification Center

Lory Gil ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

One of my favorite social networking sites right now is Instagram. I love looking at pictures more than reading about how someone feels about the weather today. Pictures really can be worth a thousand words and can make you feel more connected to friends than a sentence.

Feeday is a third-party widget that puts the last couple of posts from your Instagram feed right in Notification Center so you can get a quick view of your feed without having to open the app. Check out our app review of Feeday below.

VLC media player lands on Apple TV

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 12, 2016

VLC for Apple TV was supposed to be released back in December, but it took longer than anticipated. As of Tuesday, the application is now available free in the App Store on the fourth-generation Apple TV.

According to Felix Kühne, lead iOS developer for VLC, the app is “a full port of VLC media player combined with platform-specific features” and it supports virtually all formats under the sun, just like its iOS counterpart.

Like Infuse and Plex, VLC permits you to stream audio and video item stored on network-attached drives to your Apple TV, without having to manually convert DIVX, AVI and other “foreign” files into iOS-friendly formats.

Spotify links up with Genius to annotate your music

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Spotify today announced it is partnering with Genius (not to be confused with iTunes Genius), to annotate your music. Genius is the crowdsourced musical knowledge startup that annotates music lyrics and other online content and Spotify is betting that this new feature will help retain its competitive edge over other music-streaming services.

Available at launch via a limited number of tracks through special playlists—called Behind the Lyrics and curated by Spotify and Genius—this feature adds backstory and commentary which pops up as you play tracks on Spotify.

Infuse for Apple TV gains custom Favorites graphics, new zooming/sorting options and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Infuse for Apple TV, a versatile media center app by aTV Flash Black developer FireCore, has received an update in the App Store today, bringing a bunch of welcome additions to the experience. No longer are those media folders you add to Infuse represented by generic icons: you can now add custom artwork to them, letting you pretty up Infuse's menu.

New zoom options have been added for removing encoded black bars, you can now sort your media by filename and rename or remove a Favorite by long-pressing its icon. Read on for the full list of changes in this edition of Infuse.

Live Periscope broadcasts are being integrated into Twitter’s mobile app

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 12, 2016

In a major move, micro-blogging startup Twitter today announced that live Periscope broadcasts are coming to Twitter for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, making it possible to watch broadcasts without leaving Twitter's mobile app.

Now when you tap a Periscope link in your timeline, no longer does it take you to the Periscope app. Instead, those links are getting replaced with the broadcast itself that automatically plays right within your tweet.