App Store Apps

Astropad Mini goes free, now with pressure-sensitive drawing on iPhone 6s via 3D Touch

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 27, 2015

Astropad Mini, a cool application by former Apple engineers which turns your iPhone into a graphics tablet for the Mac, has been refreshed on the App Store today with support for 3D Touch.

The new version lets iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus owners apply varying degrees of pressure when drawing on the handset screen with their finger.

In addition, the app has gone free, lowering barrier to entry to zero bucks. Astropad Mini has been especially popular with artists and photographers.

Since its February 2015 debut, customers have bought more than 200,000 copies of the iPhone app. “We expect this new version with 3D Touch to be even more popular,“ developers told me via email.

Facebook bringing order to notification hell with revamped Notifications tab in mobile app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

After seemingly neglecting its outdated notification system for years, Facebook today announced a revamp and new features for the Notifications tab in its mobile application.

Hopefully, this'll help us cope with a firehouse of alerts from Facebook that we're being inundated with on any given day.

A more useful, Google Now-like Notifications tab now distinguishes clearly between Facebook's most important notification types.

Specifically, you'll see timely alerts for friends’ milestones, birthdays and life events, upcoming events that you’ve joined and sports scores and TV reminders, the latter two based on Pages you’ve liked.

Apps of the week: Lively, Pic Scanner, Chored, and more

Lory Gil ∙ Updated September 10, 2024

This week, Apple rolled out updates across the board for Mac, iOS, Apple Watch and iTunes. Unfortunately for jailbreakers, iOS 9.1 is off limits for now. With the new updates, you'll want to see how well content performs on your various devices. If you are looking for new apps and games to push your device to its limits, check out our weekend app list below.

App Store starts experimenting with landscape screenshots and videos

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 4, 2017

Apple has seemingly begun experimenting with landscape screenshots and video in the App Store. A handful of App Store apps now offer landscape screenshots, video posters in landscape or both.

Twitter users and SplitMetrics have also noticed the change recently, which impacts the iPhone and is also showing on iTunes. Before the change, landscape App Store screenshots would show in portrait mode, requiring users to turn their head.

Did latest Facebook update fix battery drainage?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

After publicly acknowledging that it was aware of reports which slammed its mobile application over excessive battery drain, Facebook yesterday issued an update to its App Store app which has apparently fixed the long-standing issue.

Facebook engineering manager Ari Grant took to Facebook to detail the issue and what they've done to prevent the mobile app from eating up your iPhone's battery.

Rivet Radio review: listen to news stories curated just for you

Lory Gil ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

You've probably got a couple of apps in your stash that provides curated stories for you to read. But, what about an app that reports stories to you?

Rivet Radio is like listening to a version of NPR that only reports the stuff you are interested in. We've got a full app review of Rivet Radio for you right now.

iOS 9.1 enables quick-replying from notifications in WhatsApp for iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 22, 2015

At long last, iOS is allowing app makers to implement text replies in notifications, a feature Apple used to reserve exclusively for its Messages app.

Twitter was the first App Store app to gain this great time-saver of a feature. On iOS 9.1, WhatsApp for iPhone now supports a handy text field for quickly replying to incoming messages without leaving the app you're currently using.

This feature requires an iPhone with iOS 9.1 or later.

How to know what an emoji means

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated August 12, 2026

Learn how to discover the meaning of an emoji on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac instead of guessing what specific emoticons are meant to express.

Runkeeper’s latest update lets you record your runs directly on Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 22, 2015

Runkeeper has refreshed its iPhone application with a fully native watchOS 2 app so you can record your runs and heart rates directly on your Apple Watch, without needing to bring your iPhone with you. If you typically go running with an iPhone strapped to your arm, you'll appreciate phone-free jogging with the new Runkeeper.

In other changes, new post-activity music analytics will create a full rundown of your playlist and your pace for each song after you've finished your run.

Instagram releases Boomerang, a Live Photos-like iPhone app for creating looping clips

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 22, 2015

Facebook-owned Instagram is taking on Live Photos, one of Apple's headline iPhone 6s features, with a brand new 1-second video loop app called Boomerang. Available free of charge in the App Store, Boomerang aims to turn everyday moments into “something fun and unexpected.”

The app couldn't be simpler. You just point your iPhone's front or rear camera and press a button to take a burst of ten photos.

Boomerang then stitches the individual images together into a one-second sped-up video that plays forward and backward in a looping manner, similar in appearance and function to Apple's Live Photos feature.

Brain-racking puzzler ‘Please, Don’t Touch Anything’ makes its App Store debut

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2016

UK-based iPhone developer and publisher BulkyPix today released a perplexing new game in the App Store, created in partnership with Four Quarters. Please, Don't Touch Anything, as it's aptly named, is a cryptic, brain-racking puzzler about bathroom breaks, screwdrivers and nuclear explosions. Yup, you read that right.

Featuring more than two dozen levels, retro pixel art, atmospheric chip tune soundtrack, touch-optimized gameplay with pinch-to-zoom and support for older devices like the iPhone 4, the iOS edition of the game brings nine exclusive new endings that cannot be found in the Steam version, which released earlier this year.

Fleksy keyboard introduces custom theme photo builder in new update

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 22, 2015

Fleksy Keyboard, one of the most popular software keyboards in the App Store, has received a major update this morning. The update to the freemium app strives to solve the problem of users constantly demanding that developers add an ever-growing collection of new UI themes to the app, so they've added a new custom theme photo builder feature to Fleksy Keyboard 7.0.

The ability to personalize the keyboard has been one of the top requests from users, Fleksy says, and has prompted the company to come up with a system for users to build exactly the keyboard that suits their liking, and even share their creations with friends and other Fleksy users.