App Store Apps

SoundHound gets iPhone 6 support and fresh new look for faster music discovery

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 11, 2014

SoundHound's music-tagging iOS app has received a makeover Tuesday morning putting the software in line with the design aesthetic in iOS 7. New features are available for faster music discovery, with native display support for the new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus display sizes and other goodies.

The refreshed interface features swiping based navigation that tucks the Search button and other options under a left-side column revealed by swiping left.

You can also swipe right like you would in other iOS 7 apps to go back to the previous page and you'll notice a new nicely animated listening screen as well.

SoundHound is free in the App Store.

Twitterrific 5 gains large image previews, another new font, Today view improvements and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 29, 2016

Twitterrific by Iconfactory, a great looking Twitter client for the Mac and iOS, got refreshed Tuesday with a plethora of improvements, enhancements and several new features. Bumped to version 5.8.2, the freemium app now lets you enable large image previews in your timeline.

You can adjust your settings between small and large image previews in the Theme panel. Tip: consider turn this option off when on cellular in order to optimize bandwidth use. The team has added another new font, Zosimo, to appease those that didn't like the built-in Helvetica, Avenir, Proxima Nova, Signika, Museo Slab and Calluna fonts.

Twitterrific is free in the App Store, with In-App Purchases for unlocking additional features.

Groupon launches new ‘Getaways’ app for travel deals

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Daily deals site Groupon launched a new app yesterday, called Groupon Getaways, specifically for hotel and travel offers. The company says that travel is its fastest growing business category, and it hopes to capitalize on that popularity by introducing this dedicated standalone app.

Groupon Getaways VP Simon Goodall is quick to say that “travel will still remain an integral part of the main Groupon app,” but the firm is trying to push users to the new Getaway app. Through November 14, users who book a trip through it are eligible for an additional 20% discount.

Mailbox for iOS updated with new interactive notification options

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

The popular email client Mailbox has been updated this morning, bringing the app to version 2.3.3. As the build number suggests, it's a minor release, but it does include a slew of bug fixes and performance improvements and a pair of new interactive notification options.

Among the many new features added in iOS 8 is interactive push notifications. These allow developers to add simple actions to their app's notifications, which is what the Mailbox team has done in 2.3.3. You can now choose to archive or snooze emails with just a single tap.

Airbnb updated with Apple Pay support and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 10, 2017

Airbnb, a popular mobile travel-planning app, issued an update during the weekend which added Apple Pay support to its iOS app. Of course, the ability to book your future trips with Apple Pay requires an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus for the time being.

But with the debut of Apple Watch in early 2015 Apple Pay will be supported on older iPhones that lack NFC, from the iPhone 5 onward.

The sign-up experience is reworked to remove friction, KakaoTalk sharing is new and a simplified Account screen makes managing settings less cumbersome than before.

Airbnb is available free in the App Store.

Instagram updated with caption editing, people finder, faster search and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 10, 2014

Facebook-owned Instagram on Monday received a nice feature upgrade enabling new things and elevating your experience “to help you discover more on Instagram,” as per the team's blog post.

For starters, you can now find other accounts to follow in the People tab on Explore. If you spot a typo in captions of your uploaded snap, Instagram now at last lets you fix typos or even change photo locations after the fact.

You will also notice faster searching, refreshed explore and profile icons, subtle changes to the user interface and more.

Instagram is available free in the App Store.

Facebook Messenger passes half a billion users

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 10, 2014

Facebook's dedicated instant messaging application for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, Facebook Messenger, is now used by more than 500 million people around the world each month, said the social networking giant Monday.

That's a massive number, but still half of what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said constitutes a platform in the truest sense.

By comparison, WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired in February 2014 for $19 billion, currently has more than 600 million active users. Instagram, another Facebook property, counts more than 200 million users.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition finally hits iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 10, 2014

Since announcing an enhanced edition of its classic role-playing game (RPG), Icewind Dale, on mobile and desktop in early September, Canada-based developers Beamdog and Overhaul Games spent much of the past weeks finishing up the game and trying to get it approved by Apple.

It's finally here now. Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for the iPhone and iPad, a Dungeons & Dragons game set in Wizards of The Coast's legendary Forgotten Realms, delivers new magic armor, new weapons, unlock able spells and items, nearly three dozen new kits and character classes “allowing a new generation of players to experience this epic adventure”.

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is $9.99 in the App Store.

Notability updated with iOS 8 compatibility, iPhone 6 support, new light/dark themes and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 10, 2014

Notability by Ginger Labs, Apple's Free App of the Week in May 2014 and one of the most popular note-taking apps in the App Store, on Monday issued its long-expected iOS 8 compatibility release in the App Store.

Version 5.3 offers support for iOS 8 and the new 4.7 and 5.5-inch resolutions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, respectively.

In addition to enhancing compatibility with the current version of Apple’s mobile operating system, this edition of Notability brings out a pair of new themes, revamped icons and menus in line with the overall iOS 8 look and feel and improvements regarding iCloud Drive support.

Notability for the iPhone and iPad is $2.99 in the App Store. The Mac edition will run you ten bucks.

Dracos will pull you back in, again and again

Lory Gil ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Twitch games have definitely made a return to the gaming world. We can attribute much of that to the mobile industry. People don’t always have time to dedicate to long, story-driven games that require a lot of attention. Sometimes you just want to dive into a fast-paced game that will give you an adrenalin rush and be done in a few minutes.

Dracos is a twitch game that requires fast reaction time and at least some level of ambidextrousness. You’ll need to be able to control two different dragons doing two different things at the same time. Can you handle two dragons at once?

Jump your way out of the path of evil in Avoid It

Lory Gil ∙ Updated February 12, 2018

Every once in a while a game comes along that doesn’t seem to fit into any category, but manages to hold its own against the most popular of genres. A game doesn’t have to be familiar to be good.

Avoid it is one of those games that seems to fit into multiple categories, but can’t really be likened to anything I’ve ever played before. It is both familiar, and unique at the same time. Check out my game review of Avoid It below.

Paper by FiftyThree updated with push notifications, Adobe integration and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

FiftyThree has updated its popular Paper app this weekend, bringing it to version 2.1. The update is significant in that it adds a handful of major features such as push notifications for Mix, and the ability to export drawings to Adobe's Creative Cloud.

Pulled out of beta last month, Mix is a collaboration platform that offers templates, outlines, tools and tutorials for users to openly share projects. When launched, the feature would send you alerts you via email, but now it sends them via notifications.