App Updates

Google updates Currents with new features ahead of Reader shutdown

Google's Flipboard-like Currents app thus far has failed to catch on with the general public, despite bringing magazine-like reading experience to mobile devices.

The problem is, Google's been updating Currents at a snail's pace. So, in an effort to pick up some of the lost steam, the Internet giant today pushed an update to the Currents iOS app which brings it on par with the recently-updated Android counterpart.

In addition to the same audio experience from the Android build that makes listening to audio clips more convenient, the iOS app is now a little bit prettier and comes with a few handy tweaks, like the way overdue pinch-to-zoom for photos and the useful vertical pagination reading mode...

iTunes U finally adopts pull-to-refresh thing

Although optimized for the iPhone 5, iTunes U - Apple's free download from the App Store - is still skeuomorphic, just like Find My iPhone, AirPort Utility and other Apple downloads not included as part of the stock iOS 7 experience. Though today's iTunes U 1.3.1 update doesn't get rid of the wooden bookshelf, the new versions does add several noteworthy features. Among them: the popular pull-to-refresh gesture to checks for course updates in the notepad...

Amazon Instant Video iOS app gets personalized recommendations

Good news for those how prefer to get their entertainment from Amazon instead iTunes. In a newest update to its Instant Video streaming iOS app, the online retail giant has enabled personalized recommendations for movies and television shows based on your past viewing habits, while enhancing the experience with a handy new navigation bar.

Of course, in order to take advantage of the app you'll need to be subscribed to Amazon's Prime, a $79 a year membership which gives you unlimited access to thousands of titles and over 140,000 videos available from the Amazon Instant Video store, with support for Watchlists, offline viewing and more...

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos now supports background uploading

Amazon's Cloud Drive Photos app debuted in May, giving iDevice owners an easy way to browse image files stored in their Amazon cloud storage.

Among other features, the iPhone/iPad application allows for downloading of individual images straight to your iDevice. You can also batch-upload your on-device snaps up to the cloud, useful if you want to keep your photos securely backed up in the cloud (and trust Amazon with your data - okay, that was a joke).

Unfortunately, the app doesn't support background network activity, and that's a shame as quiting it or even receiving a phone call stops any upload in progress. Amazon finally saw to that, having updated Cloud Drive Photos with support for Background Save feature, along with other improvements...

Air France rolls out Passbook boarding passes

From the onset, the world's airlines were sold on Apple's Passbook, an iOS feature that debuted as part of iOS 6 launch last Fall. And it's easy to see why. The application keeps your digital boarding passes handy and simplifies checkins with barcodes and other goodies.

Flight and gate changes can be delivered to users' Lock screen in real-time. Additional handy alerts pop up when you're near the gate or when your flight is about to departure.

With the likes of American Airlines, British Airways, Alaska Airlines, Qantas, EasyJet, Delta and many others having deployed Passbook support, small wonder that Air France has now jumped on the bandwagon.

On Tuesday, the French airline has updated its iOS app with support for boarding passes via the Passbook system...

Skype rolls out Video Messaging

Microsoft-owned Skype started testing out Video Messages in mid-February. The new feature is meant to let Skype users send short video snippets to each other up to three minutes long, even when offline. Now out of beta, Skype Video Messaging is available to everyone via a free update to Skype mobile and desktop apps across Windows, Mac, iOS, BlackBerry and Android platforms. Here's a closer look at Skype Video Messaging and how to use this new capability on your devices...

MTV iOS app gains second-screen features, on-demand streaming

MTV's beleaguered iOS app has received a massive update which brings it on par with entertainment apps by other major networks. The software has been rebuilt from the ground up "to bring the ultimate MTV video experience to your iPhone and iPad".

Indeed, among the new features are long overdue second-screen capabilities, free clips and on-demand streams of select MTV shows. Second-screen experience entails interactive features like Facebook chat and relevant Twiter feeds, image galleries, polls and quizzes, various backgrounders, behind-the-scenes facts, MTV charts and so forth...

Apple updates AirPort Utility with 802.11ac support

As you know, Apple alongside a host of software-focused announcements today also refreshed its AirPort wireless appliances with compatibility for the latest 802.11ac standard, also known as Gigabit Ethernet. As a result, the updated AirPort Express and Time Capsule base stations can now transfer data up to three times faster, and more reliably too. And to go along with the hardware refresh, the company has pushed new versions of AirPort Utility for iOS and Mac...

Apple’s iTunes Festival app gains Passbook tickets

As we count the remaining days until Apple's summer developers conference, British Airways has eventually seen fit to add Passbook support to its iOS client. And now Apple is following suit.

Nearly a year following the introduction of the Passbook app that was unveiled alongside iOS 6 at WWDC 2012, the company has finally update its iTunes Festival London 2013 iPhone app with Passbook integration.

The updated software arrives as Apple last week confirmed its September music festival in London will be headlined by such acts as Jack Johnson, Justin Timberlake and Thirty Seconds to Mars...

New-look inbox arrives to Gmail iOS app

A week ago, the Internet giant Google started rolling out a new-look inbox with categories and tabbed interface to help users better organize their messages. In order to take advantage of these features on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, you'll need Google's freshly updated Gmail iOS app. Gmail version 2.3.14159 includes richer and selective notification options along with the new sortable inbox. More details right after the break...

Google Drive iOS app gains commenting and swipeable galleries

If you use Google Drive to keep your files safely backed up in the Google cloud, pay attention as the Internet giant has just pushed an interesting little update making its iOS client a whole lot more useful for collaborative work than before.

Google Drive for the iPhone and iPad has been bumped up to version 1.4, adding swipeable images while viewing them in full screen, in addition to comments for your Google Docs files.

The first feature lets you swipe through the images stored in your Drive as you would in Apple's stock iOS Photos app. The latter capability supports viewing, creating, replying to and resolving comments in Google Docs files.

Commenting was previously available via the web interface, but not on mobile devices. The free application is now live on the App Store so go ahead and update it if you haven't already...

Google updates iOS Search app, rolls out nutritional information in search results

I really, really wish Apple doubled down on Siri. When the intelligent personal assistant debuted as an iPhone 4S-exclusive back in October 2011, Siri was likened to a seismic shift that would vastly improve our interactions with the devices in our lives. And it did.

But merely nineteen months later, Google has leapfrogged Siri with Google Now, which combines the power of Google search with the company's Knowledge Graph and top-notch voice recognition to deliver relevant info before you even asked for it.

But Google isn't standing still. Today the firm has updated its native iOS Search app with "location improvements and bug fixes." And just yesterday, it announced that nutritional information will start cropping up in search results across platforms, including iOS and Android applications that incorporate Google Now...