Following yesterday's overhaul of Google+ Communities and Collections on the web, today Google+ for iOS gets bumped to version 5.0 and thoroughly redesigned.
The new-look Communities and Collections are now accessible through the new Google+ 5.0 for iOS app. This edition of the software includes other improvements, too, including switching between multiple accounts and expanded options for sharing with folks outside Google+.
Vine on Wednesday announced a new update for its popular mobile video-sharing app. It appears that this is a backend update, as I didn't have to download anything to see the changes (although I did restart the app), but there are a few new features worth noting.
The first is a new audio remix option. With Remix, users can make their own creations with sound from any Vine with the touch of a finger. Just tap the [...] button beneath a Vine clip within the mobile app, and select "Make an audio remix" from the popup menu.
Microsoft continues releasing mobile apps for the iPhone first before they eventually trickle down to the “other” operating systems. The latest example: Forum, a new iPhone application born out of Microsoft's Garage division responsible for skunkworks projects.
It was conceived to help employees within an organization speak their mind and state their opinion on any topic.
Fellow workers can then vote on your favorite posts (and optionally flag them) and find out what everyone else is really thinking about any given topic. Forum is a free download and available primarily to businesses.
In addition to refreshing the layout for Communities and Collections on Google+, the search monster today also rolled out an update to its iOS search app.
Available at no charge in the App Store, the native Google search experience on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad now includes an overhauled voice search interface with a nicely animated logo.
More important than that, the layout of your Google Now cards has been reworked and updated to better organize and surface content for you.
Google on Wednesday announced that its search engine has now begun to surface app content and said that it's started experimenting with a cool new app-streaming technology to let mobile users accomplish tasks as if they were in the app itself.
“This uses a new cloud-based technology that we’re currently experimenting with,” wrote the Internet giant. App streaming will kick in when a user taps on app content in search results but doesn't have the app installed on their device.
As part of Instagram's most recent platform update, third-party applications will be no longer allowed to present a user's Instagram feed, a significant change in policy that'll affect numerous mobile applications which pull Instagram feeds.
Going forward, they'll be shutting down services and apps that offer auto-following, liking or commenting.
Photo-editing apps that show only individual Instagram photos won't be affected by this change. All apps must comply by June 1, 2016. The new policies and reviews will go into effect for new apps starting December 3, 2015.
In an effort to increase pressure on Google, Windows giant Microsoft today pushed a completely overhauled Bing for iPhone into the App Store. The software features a new branding identity reflected on the app's Home screen icon and a matching new-look interface with tight iOS integration via deep linking.
In addition, the app now works offline so you can go back to your bookmarks and search history even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
“We designed the app to bring together the information you need, connected to the apps you trust, to help you 'find' and 'do' faster and easier than ever before,” wrote the team.
The Mac edition of Tweetbot, Tapbots' popular Twitter client, has received an update this morning in the Mac App Store. The refreshed app now supports El Capitan's Split View multitasking mode and can be taken to OS X's native full screen mode as well.
With design refinements made to match Tweetbot 4 for iOS, this edition of Tweetbot for Mac also brings out muting changes and introduces an overahuled tweet details view that now shows conversation and replies in the same order as its iOS counterpart.
The latest developer success story comes from Tapity, an Apple Design Award winner and the brains behind education app Grades and Languages, its popular offline translation app.
They've now put both Grades and Languages for sale in order to focus exclusively on Hours, a gorgeous time-tracking software that I reviewed in the summer of 2014. What's really interesting about this is how forthcoming Tapity's been about stats for these apps.
You might find it interesting to learn what kind of revenue Grades and Languages have been pulling thus far and what potential bidders can look forward to after buying Grades and Langauges.
As if we didn't already have enough ways to check in on Twitter, now we have TV to help us satiate our narcissistic tendencies. A new third-party Twitter client has popped up exclusively on the fourth-generation Apple TV so you can see what your friends are talking about.
Airfeed for Twitter sends the most recent tweets in your feed directly to your TV screen so you don't have to, you know, get out your iPhone. We've got a hands-on review of Airfeed for Twitter for you today.
If your iPhone is constantly running out of free storage space—and your Camera roll is packed to the gills—you'll be delighted to know that Google is rolling out new space-saving features to the Google Photos app.
Google Photos for iOS will soon bring out a brand new “Free up space” option in settings and will keep track of your phone’s storage space for you and tell you when backed up photos should be removed from your device.
Yahoo-owned blogging service Tumblr is pushing an update to its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad application in the App Store today, and it brings with it a headline new feature: a tool which helps turn your photo bursts and videos into animated GIFs that can be easily shared on the service, as first reported by The Verge.
This removes much of the friction that comes with having to do the conversion yourself. The update is being rolled out as we speak so you might not see it just yet.