App Store Apps

Shadow Blade review: who knew becoming a ninja would be so hard

Lory Gil ∙ Updated January 27, 2019

Platform gaming is one of my favorite genres. I love the mindless simplicity. When console devices were just starting to make their way into living rooms across America, platform games were the most prevalent style. I guess they remind me of my childhood.

Shadow Blade is a basic platform game, only not. That is to say, it has all of the elements you would want in a platformer, but takes it to the next level by being difficult to beat and even tougher to get all the items. That blue hedgehog doesn’t know what hard is…

Spark Camera is Apple’s Free App Of The Week

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

Today is Friday and you know what that means, no? That's right, every Friday a new app goes free in the App Store in Apple's ongoing Free App of the Week promo.

Hopefully, you haven't forgotten about downloading PAC-MAN, last week's Free App of the Week. Those who missed it needn't despair as Apple's new freebie is definitely worth getting excited about.

Spark Camera, a cool iPhone photography app from Ideo (the design shop that created Apple’s first mouse) arrived last October. The program got Lory and the rest of the iDownloadBlog team drooling over its sharp, easy to use interface and great features aimed at creating gorgeous mini montages by stitching together your snippets of a moment in time.

Spark Camera is normally priced at $1.99, but you can now grab it free of charge until next Thursday, courtesy of Apple's Free App of the Week...

Following backlash, Starbucks beefs up security in iPhone app

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

You have to hand it to the folks of Starbucks. When they want to, they can move rather quickly. Hot on the heels of its blog post earlier today addressing security concerns regarding its iPhone app, the coffee company released an update this evening.

The change log for the update, which is marked as version 2.6.2, notes the new release brings 'additional performance enhancements and safeguards.' And we're hoping this means that the app no longer stores user passwords and data in plain text...

Imgur’s MemeGen app lets you make your own memes

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 23, 2018

Last summer, Imgur released an official client for iOS, essentially putting all of the web's most popular memes in the palm of your hand. Now it's bringing the ability to create your own meme to that same hand, with MemeGen.

It looks like MemeGen has actually been in the App Store since late last year, but like others, we're just finding out about it today. At any rate, the app allows you to tap Imgur's vast photo library to create your own viral web pic...

Starbucks will update its iOS app to address security concerns

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Earlier today we told you about a report that raised security issues concerning the Starbucks iPhone app. A researcher discovered that the most used mobile-payment app in the US stores unencrypted user data like passwords and emails.

The problem with this is that by connecting your iPhone to a computer, someone could easily retrieve this info from a crash log—no jailbreak required. And the only way for Starbucks to fix the vulnerability is through an App Store update...

Gist 2.0: full Pocket integration, new summary view, Dynamic Text support and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

Up until recently, it used to be that news junkies like yours trulls diligently put every conceivable news app on their Home screens in order to make sure they kept tabs on the latest news as it happened. As an unintended consequence (or was it?), this has led to information overload which in turn gave birth to apps like Yahoo's excellent News Digest (free in the App Store) and Gist by Michael Mamiye.

Both of these intelligently summarize news articles so you can consume key takeaways in the shortest amount of time.

Gist for iPhone, $1.99 in the App Store, is especially interesting due to its gorgeous and sharp user interface and a clever algorithm that can summarize most articles into approximately five bullet points - that's why the iDownloadBlog team put it on the list of 10 Best News Apps of 2013.

Following up on its mid-December debut, the developer this morning issued a major 2.0 update bringing out a host of goodies, such as a more robust implementation of the summarization technology, rich Pocket support and lots more...

Baldurs Gate II: Enhanced Edition arrives on iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 16, 2014

The official sequel to BioWare’s classic role-playing game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, Baldur's Gate, has just launched for the iPad and is now available to download from the App Store, priced at $14.99.

Basically a 21st century version of the original 2000 release, Baldurs Gate II: Enhanced Edition includes new party members, a seamless multiplayer mode, a bunch of expansions packs such as the Throne of Bhaal and Shadows of Amn, a new combat mission titled The Black Pits 2: Gladiators of Thay as well as a host of other goodies...

Skype gains push notifications for chats, two-way video calling in HD on A7 devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 27, 2016

Skype for iPhone rolled out the ability to conduct two-way video chatting back in December 2010, but the quality of these video calls left a lot to be desired. Back then, the iPhone 4's back camera could only capture video in 720p and the front-facing camera was good only for VGA-grade video chatting.

Besides, the handset lacked the processing power to make two-way video calling in high-definition a reality.

Today's update to Skype's free iPhone and iPad client brings HD video calling to the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, along with an improved chatting experience and more...

Speed-read your articles with Outread

Lory Gil ∙ Updated February 21, 2018

In an era when people speak in 140 characters or less, make dinner for four in just a few minutes, and don’t waste any time taking breaks, it is hard to see how any of us have time to read through the millions of articles that are posted to the Internet each day. I know I’m always saving stories to read later because I just can’t get through them all during my morning coffee break.

Outread is an app that teaches you how to speed-read by giving you access to articles you already want to read anyway. Instead of seeing one word at a time, get the entire text and follow the highlighted section to train your eyes to follow along at a faster pace…

Pandora adding personalized station recommendations to its mobile apps

Cody Lee ∙ January 16, 2014

With competition from services like Spotify and Apple's iTunes Radio increasing, and the Beats Music launch on the horizon, Pandora announced this week that it's rolling out a new feature to its mobile apps to help you discover music.

That feature is called 'Personalized Station Recommendations,' and it provides listeners with up to 6 suggested artist stations to listen to at a time. These suggestions are based on your listening habits and like/dislike thumb interactions...

Starbucks admits its iPhone app stores unencrypted passwords, location data

Cody Lee ∙ January 16, 2014

Following a report from security researcher Daniel Wood, Starbucks executives admitted this week that the company's mobile app stores user names and passwords in clear text, with no encryption. It also keeps a record of unsecured geolocation data.

The problem with this, Wood says, is that by connecting your iPhone to a computer, someone could easily retrieve this info from a crash log—no jailbreak or special hardware required. And what's worse is Starbucks isn't doing anything to fix the issue...