App Store Apps

Google Maps gaining a cool new feature to revisit all the places you’ve explored

Google yesterday announced a new feature for users of its mapping service which makes it easy and fun to reminisce about the places you've explored with Google Maps.

Currently available on desktop and Android, the “Your Timeline” feature lets you revisit any place you’ve been on a given day, month or year.

Your Timeline is private and visible only to you.

As a bonus, if you use Google's new Photos mobile app, available free of charge in the App Store, it'll show you the photos you took when viewing a specific day.

Google finally updates Chrome for iOS with swipe to navigate

File this one under the “better late than never” drawer. It only took like nearly two years since iOS 7's debut but Google has at long last given users of its Chrome for iOS browser the ability to swipe right or left to navigate backward or forward.

The iPhone and iPad browser, now bumped to version 44.0.2403.65, also brings stability improvements and bug fixes while laying the groundwork for another major feature addition: Physical Web integration in the Notification Center's Today view.

Physical what?

Apple stops users from leaving app reviews from iOS betas

I think this can definitely warrant a finally. Apple has disabled the ability for users to leave app reviews in the App Store while running iOS betas.

The change seems to be retroactive, as I tested it from both the just-released iOS 9 beta 4 and the previous beta 3, and both throw up errors that the review feature isn't available while running a prerelease version of iOS.

Spotify delivers ‘Discover Weekly’ personalized playlists and deep Nike+ Running integration

Following Apple Music introduction, Spotify has doubled down on music discovery and third-party integration, the two areas where it hopes to outsmart competition, with Monday's announcement of a Discover Weekly feature and deep integration with the Nike+ Running mobile app.

Unlike Apple's human-curated playlists for various activity types, Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists are entirely driven by algorithms and personalized to each user's listening habits, as per Re/code on Monday.

This app injects your Instagram feed inside Notification Center’s Today view

There's no shortage of apps on the App Store for browsing Instagram using your iPhone and iPad, and most let you enjoy snaps from people you follow far more elegantly that on Instagram's official iPhone app. But wouldn't it be great if you could check out the latest Instagram photos anywhere in iOS, with a simple pull-down gesture?

That's what Feeday, a new Today Widget for the iPhone and iPad by developer Arcangelo Fiore, does.

With this app you can easily keep track of your latest Instagram feed right within the Today view of iOS's Notification Center, and it's free!

Apple posts a new ‘Amazing Apps’ iPhone ad

Apple is continuing its "If it's not an iPhone" advertising campaign with a new follow up commercial solely focused on apps. The commercial touts the App Store's more than 1.5 million apps.

This is the third entry into Apple's "If it's not an iPhone" campaign. The two previous commercials were posted ten days ago, each focusing more on the hardware and customer satisfaction side of things.

How to enable quick copy and paste in the Alien Blue Reddit client

Alien Blue is the official and most popular Reddit client on iOS, but it lacks one feature that I've always found annoying—the ability to easily copy and paste the text of posts.

A new jailbreak tweak called ABCopyTXT just recently appeared on Cydia, and it allows you to easily copy text in Alien Blue using the stock iOS share sheet. Have a look at our walkthrough to see how it works.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation now available for download in the App Store

The officially licensed game of the Mission Impossible film series has arrived in the App Store ahead of the movie's worldwide release by Paramount Pictures.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation for iPhone and iPad, available now in the App Store at no charge, offers a combination of first and third-person action.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate secure locations and eliminate high-profile targets, perform lethal strikes and confront the Syndicate across the globe.

Google’s Inbox app gains enhanced snoozing features for certain types of emails

Inbox, a gesture-driven email app for the iPhone and iPad by the Gmail team which was born out of Google's acquisition of Sparrow, was updated on the App Store today with enhanced snooze options for package tracking updates, restaurant and event reservations, calendar invites and a couple other types of emails.

The feature makes it easy to snooze an email message to the day before the event, knowing your email will come back at just the right time. These enhanced snoozing capability is in addition to custom snooze times which were introduced back in March.

The Mesh makes you think about math in a whole new way

When it comes to mixing math and puzzle games, there are a few out there that have really made the grade. Threes! is a perfect example of a game that mixes mathematical mechanics with puzzle solving, and it's fun.

The Mesh is another numbers-based puzzle game that takes the concept of solving a basic equation and turns it upside down. To solve puzzles, you'll need to combine and clear numbers.