Apps

Foursquare releases its major iOS 7 overhaul

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Foursquare, the location-based social networking website, has seen the September 18 release of iOS 7 come and go without a matching update to its iOS app on its part.

The company last month issued a fairly significant update that brought out a new recommendations feature which sends you useful location-based information, in real-time, like current specials at a restaurant.

Today's update finally brings Foursquare for iPhone and iPod touch on par with iOS 7 aesthetics. Foursquare is one of those apps that already had light design of sorts, but now it's much prettier and easier on the eyes...

2K Drive gets Mercedes-Benz and other new cars in Euro Car Pack update

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

2K Games in co-operation with Lucid Games released its iOS racing game on the App Store, 2K Drive, back in September. Featuring a number of real world vehicles, more than 25 tracks, over a hundred unique events and impressive graphics and gameplay, 2K Drive arrived as a nice alternative to Electronic Arts' Real Racing 3 and other racing titles available on Apple's platform.

In today's major Euro Car Pack content update, 2K Games has added five new cars to 2K Drive for iPhone and iPad, including the Mercedes-Benz vehicles, as well as new events...

FancyCam review: use real-time filters for great photos

Lory Gil ∙ Updated February 9, 2018

Now that the holiday season is underway, many of us are going to be snapping shots of friends and family in various mistletoe-related poses, package-opening frenzies, and food coma portraits. To add a little extra fun to your picture-taking season, you can take advantage of photography apps with filters.

FancyCam is a real-time filter app that lets you pick the look you want before you take the shot. Plus, you can edit, collage, and doodle your way to the perfect holiday pictures…

ScratchPad HD turns your iPad into a club mixer

Lory Gil ∙ Updated May 16, 2018

The iPad is great for using a mobile version of a digital turntable. If you are a professional deejay, the tablet can house hours of music, literally at your fingertips. Plus, there are dozens of compatible deejay apps that let you pretend you are scratching vinyl while you mix the perfect playlist on the fly.

ScratchPad HD is not a deejay app, but it does create the perfect sound bites for scratching, stuttering, and tweaking loops to add to your house, dub step, or drum and bass music…

Fruit Ninja developer Halfbrick Studios releases new ‘Band Stars’ game

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

Half Brick Studios, the Australia-based developer behind hit titles like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, has released a new game today for iOS. It's called Band Stars, and it's universal, meaning it supports both the iPhone and the iPad.

Band Stars is a simulation game, which tasks you with forming a band and spending time in the studio recording music. The goal of the game is to complete various challenges and reach the top of local, national and global music charts...

Square Enix posts screenshots of upcoming Final Fantasy VI iOS port

Cody Lee ∙ December 5, 2013

Back in October, Square Enix director Takashi Tokita announced that his team was working on a mobile version of its popular Final Fantasy VI title. The game, he said, will be landing on iOS and Android platforms "this winter."

Unfortunately, that's about all we know right now, and the winter timeframe means we may not see anything until mid-March. But luckily, Square Enix decided to throw FF fans a bone this week and has posted some screenshots...

Plex app updated with new look for iOS 7

Sébastien Page ∙ December 4, 2013

Plex for iOS has been updated with an all new design taking cues from iOS 7. As expected, translucency, new buttons and icons are at the heart of this update, which doesn't really bring anything new in terms of features, besides a new player for music and videos and the ability to detect URLs on the clipboard for quick queuing to myPlex.

This update also brings the usual performance and stability improvements that are to be expected.

The app is a free upgrade for existing users. For everybody else, it is available in the App Store for $4.99.

Google Wallet gets single sign-on, lets you add credit card via iDevice camera

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 4, 2013

Following a significant delay, the Internet giant Google finally released its free Wallet for iPhone app back in September 2013. But in bringing its troubled mobile payment service to Apple’s platform, Google left out some of the capabilities found in Wallet's Android counterpart, such as the ability to make in-store payments with the app (not surprising considering iPhones lack NFC). The company added a few new features via two recent updates and today the Wallet app has been refreshed with some new functionality.

For starters, you can now instantly sign on to Wallet if you use other iOS apps from Google. Google previously rolled out this rather useful feature to its popular iOS apps, allowing you to, say, just tap your Google Account already used in Chrome in order to log in to the Gmail iOS app.

Go past the fold for additional details...

Google working on Chrome apps support for Android and iOS

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Google is reportedly preparing a beta release of a toolkit that will help developers create native Chrome apps for iOS and Android. The move is said to be a part of a bigger initiative to bring based Chrome packaged desktop apps to mobile platforms.

The news comes from a recently discovered GitHub repository called Mobile Chrome Apps, which was created by Google software developer Michal Mocny. A search on Google Groups confirms the project, which is slated to enter beta in Jan. 2014...

How to keep your MacBook awake while its lid is closed

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 3, 2013

NoSleep is a handy menu bar utility that I use each and every day to keep my MacBook Air awake. It’s like speed for your Mac. Even with the lid on the MacBook closed, it stays awake.

The best thing about this utility is that it can be easily toggled on or off by means of a single click on its menu bar icon. NoSleep is a simple tool, yet it does feature a few options to customize the way it works. Have a look inside as I showcase NoSleep on video.

The 10 best photography apps of 2013

Lory Gil ∙ Updated March 17, 2019

The year is coming to a close. We’ve spent the past 52 weeks talking about jailbreaks, rumors, new products, gear, Apple news, and apps. Apps are my specialty around here. I find them, test them, and tell you all about them.

That’s why it is my job to tell you about apps and games that the writers of iDownloadBlog think are the cream of the crop for the entire year. For the rest of this year, and probably into 2014, we will have lists of our favorite apps in the most popular categories that released in 2013. This week, the category is photography…

Infuse iOS media player gets thorough iOS 7 makeover, now free

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 13, 2018

I'm a big fan of Infuse, a versatile iOS media player by jailbreak developers FireCore, the same team that brought you aTV Flash Black for the Apple TV. Why? Because consuming video in file formats that are foreign to iOS is high maintenance. I'm just reluctant to waste my precious time figuring it all out. Infuse elegantly takes the pain out of messing with the dull file conversion, syncing and hunting for subtitles and replaces that whole mind job with an enjoyable movie-watching experience.

Infuse supports 14 non-iOS video formats, features high-performance playback for 1080p content and has auto-download of cover art and other metadata from TheMovieDB and TheTVDB, with one-tap subtitle downloads from OpenSubtitles.org. It also implements the best AirPlay subtitle streaming I have ever seen on an iOS device, hands down. That Infuse supports multiple audio tracks/subtitles and integrates with trakt.tv to scrobble plays back to your account, submit ratings and post shouts doesn't hurt either.

As not everyone was down with Infuse costing five bucks, not many people got a chance to enjoy Infuse goodies. Not anymore. Starting today, Infuse 2 for iPhone and iPad is free in the App Store, with advanced features available as an in-app purchase upgrade. Infuse used to rely heavily on skeuomorphism so I was curious to see how developers would transition its graphics-heavy interface to clean iOS 7 aesthetics...