App Store Apps

Apple TV gets its first ticketing app: StubHub

StubHub, the world's largest ticket marketplace, is launching today on the fourth-generation Apple TV as a free download in the tvOS App Store, according to an announcement this morning. With StubHub, you can browse, search and purchase tickets for various events from the comfort of your sofa. Owned by eBay, StubHub is an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events.

Apple threatens pulling an app for pranking friends with stickers that mimic iMessage bubbles

Apple on Friday threatened to pull Phoneys, a 99-cent sticker pack which lets you prank friends by putting words in their mouth. The #1 Top Paid item in the Messages App Store, Phoneys employs a simple trick to make the illusion work: it provides stickers that look exactly like the blue iMessage bubbles. Phoneys developer Adam Howell says Apple told him it would be pulling the app next Thursday unless it's fundamentally changed so that the stickers looked nothing like iMessage bubbles.

Apple’s free app of the week: Flowing

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the app Flowing. This means that for the next 7 days, you can get the popular meditation and mindfulness app for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $3.

For those who aren't familiar with Flowing, it's a health and fitness app that promises to help you upgrade your sleep, focus, and productivity. Its features include guided meditation, 3D parallax scenes, and customizable white noise.

Skype for iOS updated with Siri, Phone, Contacts and Lock screen integrations

Microsoft today announced availability of freshly updated Skype for iOS apps. Bumped to version 6.25, both Skype for iPhone and Skype for iPad now include SiriKit support that lets them integrate with Siri so you can call people and send messages using just your voice. The apps also take advantage of CallKit, which allows VoIP Skype calls to behave like normal cellular calls with fullscreen contact images on the Lock screen and integration with Phone's Recents and Favorites on iSO 10 devices.

Infinite Tanks, a military sim by Sky Gamblers creators, hits iOS, Mac & Apple TV

Atypical Games, the brains behind popular mobile titles like the Sky Gamblers series and Radiation Island, are back at it with a brand new release in the App Store and Mac App Store—a limitless military simulation for the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV and Mac, titled Infinite Tanks.

The $4.99 universal iOS/tvOS download, along with its $4.99 Mac counterpart, combines strategic play with limitless customization and flashy graphics for both team play and solo missions.

Adobe updates Lightroom for iOS with support for iPhone 7 Plus dual-lens camera & more

iOS 10 provides new APIs allowing third-party photography apps to capture and edit raw image data in the DNG format, and Lightroom for iPhone and Lightroom for iPad are among first apps to implement photo capture in the highest possible RAW quality. Earlier this week, Adobe released updates to Lightroom for iOS to help users take advantage of the new iPhone 7 camera’s raw shooting capabilities, including support for the iPhone 7 Plus's dual-lens camera.

Alto’s Adventure now supports haptic feedback via iPhone 7’s new Taptic Engine

Developer Snowman pushed a nice little update to Alto's Adventure, its award winning endless snowboard odyssey for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, which implements rich haptic feedback for users with iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus devices. Apple allows developers to create custom vibrations on the iPhone 7's improved Taptic Engine via a Taptic API.

Snowman is among the first developers to have implemented Taptic feedback.

App Store Search Ads go live October 5, Apple offering developers $100 credit

Apple on Wednesday began emailing developers regarding the launch of App Store Search Ads. The ads will go live in the App Store on October 5, and for a limited time qualified developers can get a $100 credit toward their first campaign.

The Search Ads have been in beta testing since the feature was announced in June. Apple describes it as an "efficient and easy way to promote apps at the top of relevant search results," and promises this won't negatively affect app searches.

Leaf for iPhone review: a new, design-focused way to browse Twitter

Ever since Apple integrated support for Twitter sharing into iOS, I've been an avid Twitter user. It's where I get the majority of my tech headlines, an occasional dose of national or world news that makes it past my Tweetbot mute filters, and how I discover most of my new apps and friends, even. It also happens to be where my app discoveries, tech opinions, and bad jokes get posted. If you're not following me on Twitter, you're probably better off for it, but I'd appreciate you giving it some consideration regardless.

All this results in me becoming keenly interested when a new Twitter app is released, and the latest addition to the many clients I've tried is Leaf, a brand new app designed by Surenix and developed by iPlop, both prominent members of the jailbreak scene. Based on my experiences thus far, Leaf is best described as an alternative to Twitter's official client rather than an opponent of Tweetbot, the Twitter power user's app of choice. If you dislike Tweetbot for whatever reason but aren't entirely satisfied with Twitter's default option, Leaf may be for you.

Spotify’s new continuously updated playlist combines your favorites and new music

Spotify, the #1 music streaming service, today announced a new playlist updated daily with tracks that users mark as favorites as well as new music.

Now available in the updated mobile Spotify app for iOS and Android, Daily Mix differs from Spotify's existing Discover Weekly and Release Radar playlists which get refreshed each Monday and Friday, respectively, in that Daily Mix won't be a complete refresh of songs each time the playlist is updated.