This week’s edition of our Apps of the Week roundup includes an app for capturing printed text, a simple image editor, and a budget manager for couples. And as always, we have two new games for you to check out this weekend.
Oil giant ExxonMobil introduced basic Apple Pay support within its mobile Speedpass+ app in March 2016, allowing customers to pay for fuel at approximately 6,000 gas stations nationwide. Yesterday, the company announced that customers can now pay for fuel and car washes using their Apple Watch and Apple Pay at over 10,000 Exxon and Mobil refueling stations across the United States.
Users must launch the Speedpass+ app on their watch and select the pump they're at to authorize it for payment. Next, press the Side button twice to invoke Apple Pay and approve the payment. You can start fueling up your vehicle.
Other new features available within the app include support for Touch ID app protection and Ford vehicles equipped with SYNC 3 technology to easily authorize payments, making it the first fuel payment connected car app in the United States.
Ford owners can additionally use the Speedpass+ app to check how much fuel is left in the tank when they are away from their car. Customers even have the option to apply for an ExxonMobil-branded credit card issued by Citibank from inside the app.
Once your application has been approved, the card will be automatically added as a payment option within the app, and you can start using it right away. For a limited time, new accounts shall receive a savings of 20 cents per gallon for the first two months, then six cents on every gallon after that, the company said.
ExxonMobil's app now supports several payment methods, including major credit cards, debit cards, ExxonMobil Smart Cards, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.
ExxonMobile Speedpass+ for iOS is available for free on App Store.
Apple has clarified in an email communique by its iTunes Affiliate Support team that the recently reduced affiliate rates which went into effect May 1 only apply to in-app content, not to apps linked on websites and other outlets.
The company announced a policy change last month, saying commission rates for apps and in-app content would drop from seven to just 2.5 percent. The firm now clarifies that the change applies only to affiliate links used inside apps, not the ones on websites like iDB.
“Please note that only in-app commissions have changed,” reads the message from iTunes Affiliate Support. Here are the correct new app commission levels, according to Apple itself:
iOS apps commissions: 7 percent In-app iOS commissions: 2.5 percent Mac apps commissions: 7 percent In-app macOS commissions: 2.5 percentSeveral website owners and bloggers linking to App Store and Mac App Store apps have reported that the seven percent commission for apps has in fact remained unchanged.
MacGamerHQ provides the following screenshots of Apple's email to iTunes Affiliate members.
Apple originally said about two weeks ago that beginning May 1, 2017 commissions for all apps and in-app content would get slashed from seven percent to just 2.5 percent globally. The poor wording of the message has been blamed for the misunderstanding.
“We will also continue to pay affiliate commissions on Apple Music memberships so there are many ways to earn commissions with the program,” Apple said two weeks ago.
Aside from slashing commissions for in-app content, items like music, movies, books and TV subscriptions remain subjected to the seven percent commission rate across all markets.
iTunes Affiliate Program lets website owners and developers claim a small percentage of the proceeds from linked apps and content.
The company's Affiliate Resources webpage offers a Getting Started guide on becoming an affiliate partner, an updated Program Overview section providing information on the commission raters, reporting, creating links and other useful resources.
Apple yesterday pushed the first update to Clips for iPhone and iPad following the software's debut on App Store nearly a month ago. Bumped to version 1.0.1, Clips packs in improvements to the Live Title feature that lets you create animated captions and titles in 36 different languages using your voice.
Apple says you can now tap on Live Title text while playing or paused to edit it manually in case Siri misheard you. Additionally, when you share your edited video to a contact who has multiple messaging addresses in your address book, the app will now suggest the most frequently used address.
Lastly, the stability and reliability when capturing and sharing videos that contain certain posters have been improved in this edition of the app.
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Clips is compatible with iPhone 5s and later, 9.7-inch iPad (2017), all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad mini 2 and later and sixth-generation iPod touch.
The app requires iOS 10.3 or later and does not work on 32-bit devices.
For more on Clips, check out our walkthrough video included above. Clips was introduced as part of a flurry of Apple's Spring product refreshes in March.
Download Clips for iOS for free via App Store.
Google has confirmed that it will be bringing back support for Apple Watch to the Maps app for iPhone and iPad at some point in the future. In a statement issued Tuesday to AppleInsider, a spokesperson for the search giant said: “We removed Apple Watch support from our latest iOS release, but expect to support it again in the future”.
The company provided no explanation for the removal of Apple Watch functionality from Maps for iOS, which went largely unnoticed because it wasn't mentioned in App Store release notes.
As we reported yesterday, recent updates to major iPhone apps like Google Maps, eBay, Amazon and Target came stripped of all Apple Watch support, perhaps indicating that watchOS features in them were not widely used.
Google brought its Maps app to Apple Watch in September 2015, with features like turn-by-turn driving, walking and transit directions for recently visited points of interest. The app lacked other features found in Apple's Maps for Apple Watch, such as no conventional map view and the inability to conduct searches without a tethered iPhone.
The popular messaging app WhatsApp is experimenting with a new pinning feature in the chat list that, when released for everyone, will permit you to stick up to three contacts to the top of the conversation list, regardless of when they last messaged you.
As first noted by AndroidPolice, it was spotted in the latest beta builds of WhatsApp for Android. Other features in an iOS beta of the app include albums, the ability to revoke a message after it's been sent, sending your real-time location to friends and family and more.
WhatsApp Albums, another upcoming feature, is in its early stages of development. Eventually, it will let you create custom albums of photos for sharing with individuals and groups.
Like other WhatsApp features, albums use end-to-end encryption.
According to WABetaInfo on Twitter, the unsend feature may be remotely enabled in the latest stable version of WhatsApp. Full support for rich notifications is being worked on, too.
Recent WhatsApp updates brought us improvements like the ability for Siri to read aloud newly received messages, text-only statuses, two-step verification for your account, sending messages offline, searching for animated GIFs from Gify and more.
You can join the WhatsApp for Android beta channel on Google's Play Store, by tapping Join Beta at the bottom of the listing. WhatsApp for iPhone betas require a jailbroken device.
Every so often as an iPhone user, we get a little bored with the optics of our device and feel the need to give it a fresh coat of paint. Cases and skins aside, the fastest and most immersive option to shake things up visually is to go down the wallpaper path, which we very much love assisting you with here at iDB.
Granted there is no shortage of wallpapers anywhere on the internet, at the same time the ever-growing demand for more has also given rise to a bevy of unusable, flat-out lousy offers. So where to turn to for quality material you ask? We’ve got your back on that, as we have compiled a list of the best wallpaper apps available on the App Store today.
Time to dust off your iPhone’s home screen and live it up in your pocket!
This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup includes a coloring book featuring your favorite Marvel characters, a photo editor that can draw you, an app that can help you achieve your goals, and two new games for you to check out.
Photo-sharing service Instagram announced Wednesday that its mobile app for iOS and Android has passed 700 million users. Instagram hit the 600 million users milestone in December 2016, meaning the Facebook-owned company has managed to attract a hundred million new users to its platform in less than five months.
Nintendo just issued a second major update to Super Mario Run for iPhone following the game's App Store inception in December 2016. Version 2.1 includes several enhancements and perks, such as official support for Game Center achievements (finally!), the ability to use your bespoke Miitomo character as your in-game player icon, new buildings including the 8-bit Bowser Statue, Bullet Bill Statue and Bob-omb Statue, plus additional changes and improvements.
Google's dedicated Photos app for iPhone and iPad was updated on App Store today with the ability to enjoy your photos and videos through the Apple TV media streamer with AirPlay. Aside from the ability to beam photos and videos wirelessly to your telly, Google Photos for iOS 2.14.0, a free download from App Store, also includes unspecified performance improvements.
More often than not, the term Augmented Reality still has that elusive, techy ring to it, particularly when brought up in conjunction with Apple’s purported eyewear project. Curiously, many of us have it down as tomorrow’s technology rather than today’s, when the truth is that AR apps have populated the App Store for years.
While some of these apps are admittedly not much more than shoddy tech demos, separating the wheat from the chaff actually produces some really cool apps conceived to boost your business, creativity or simply keep you entertained in novel ways. With the preamble out of the way, here are the best Augmented Reality apps for iPhone available today.