Apple

Duet Display, Things and other great productivity apps are 50% off right now

Folks in the market for a good productivity app will want to head over to the App Store as soon as possible. Apple kicked off a new "Get Productive" promotion on Thursday that takes 50% off some of the most popular titles in the category.

Among the apps included in the sale are Duet Display, which allows you to use an iPhone or iPad as an extra display, the highly respected PCalc calculator, Readdle's PDF Expert 5, and the celebrated task, reminder and to-do list app Clear.

MarcoPolo Ocean goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion in iTunes, and this week's selection is MarcoPolo Ocean. This means that the game, which is highly rated in the kids-education-puzzler category, is going to be free from now through next Thursday—a handsome savings of $3.

The concept of MarcoPolo Ocean is pretty simple. It's a digital sandbox of sorts, where kids are encouraged to do things like explore the deep sea, build a coral reef, and much more. Plus, its animations and playful narration help reinforce vocabulary, ocean concepts and other attributes.

Microsoft updates Office for iOS with 3D Touch features, Apple Pencil support and more

Microsoft today rolled out updates to its mobile Office suite in the App Store: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. Across the board these apps have gained support for 3D Touch shortcuts on the iPhone 6s/Plus.

In addition, the new 'Annotate with Ink' feature puts a set of cool tools on the new Draw tab for drawing, writing and highlighting things using touch, pen or Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro.

Facebook launches sports section

Yesterday, Facebook announced a brand new section on the service dedicated to sports fans and it gets its first big test during this weekend’s NFL playoffs.

The Facebook Sports Stadium, as they're calling it because Facebook is “the world’s largest stadium,” is basically a dedicated place to experience sports in real-time with your friends and the world.

It brings all your game-related content on Facebook in one place, sorted chronologically and updated in real-time, including posts from your friends and their comments on plays, play-by-play information like where to find the game on TV, curated posts and commentary from experts, such as teams, leagues and journalists, and much more.

Apple fine tunes patent that outlines a possible future iPhone with a wraparound display

Samsung has popularized and mainstreamed so-called phablets, then Apple followed suit by making its iPhones bigger. And with last year's release of the Galaxy S6 with a curved screen, legitimate questions arose as to whether Apple should engineer an iPhone with a wraparound display.

Before you jump straight to the comments, consider Apple's patent applications for an “Electronic device with wrapped display,” which surfaced Thursday in the United States Patent and Trademark Office's database.

Bring iOS 9.3’s new Night Shift mode to your computer with f.lux for Mac

Yesterday, Anthony blogged about a cool app that lets you dim your Mac's display brightness even further and beyond the minimum allowed by OS X.

Today, we discuss an app for adjusting the brightness and colors of your Mac's display, called f.lux, which essentially replicates functionality provided by Apple's new Night Shift mode on iOS 9.3.

Like Night Shift mode, f.lux helps prevent eyestrain when using your Mac at night (it's also available on jailbroken and non-jailbroken iOS devices)

Did this video just show us Apple’s upcoming four-inch iPhone refresh?

M.I.C. Gadget, which in the past supplied genuine pictures and clips of unreleased Apple devices, today published a video which they claim shows off Apple's forthcoming four-inch iPhone obtained from a source at Foxconn.

The clip could be an elaborate hoax, of course, but it looks genuine if you consider that the device appears to resemble a four-inch iPhone with an iPhone 6s-style design, as the rumor-mill's predicted.

Apple Pay’s China launch could be imminent

In December 2015, Apple officially confirmed plans to roll out its mobile payment service in China in co-operation with UnionPay, as soon as early-2016. Well, here we are in 2016 and a pair of videos discovered by MacRumors gives us a good indication that Apple Pay might be on the verge of launching in the 1.33 billion people market.

The videos show a customer choosing a UnionPay card in Apple Pay and completing a purchase at McDonald's by holding their iPhone near a QuickPass-enabled Verifone payment terminal.

Apple rumored to open R&D facility in Canada

Citing several sources, Ottawa Business Journal reported yesterday that Apple has leased office space in the G. Best Building located at a business complex in Kanata, Ontario, which is a suburb of the Canadian capital Ottawa and also home to BlackBerry’s automotive division, QNX Software Systems.

The 22,100-square-foot suite at 411 Legget Dr. in the Kanata Research Park will be reportedly devoted to research and development, marking Apple's first such facility in Canada.

Apple opening iOS App Development Center in Italy

Apple on Thursday announced it is opening Europe's first iOS App Development Center in Italy. Located at a partner institution in Naples, it will support teachers and provide a specialized curriculum to give students practical skills and training on developing iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps. This new program should expand to other countries around the world.

Across Europe, iOS developers have earned over €10.2 billion thus far, or about $11.11 billion, with the App Store having helped create more than 75,000 new jobs in Italy alone.

How to download Facebook photos and videos

If you've been on Facebook for a few years now, chances are you've shared a bunch of photos and videos with your friends and family thus far, many of which might no longer be stored on your iOS device or Mac.

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't make things any easier by not providing a straightforward way to download the photos and videos users have uploaded to the service.

But worry not, our loyal fans, the iDownloadBlog tutorial series comes to the rescue. In this detailed tutorial, you will learn about five different techniques that will help you download Facebook photos and videos onto your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Mac without too much hassle.

Tip: send app crash reports to your Mac’s Notification Center

I don't know about you, but I'm annoyed every time an app crashes on my Mac and the macOS Crash Reporter interrupts my work with a pop up warning in the middle of the screen. Wouldn't it be great if those crash reports were displayed as banner notifications?

As explained by LifeHacker, a simple Terminal command will override the default system behavior and send those app crash reports straight to the macOS Notification Center, so they don't interrupt your workflow.

In this tutorial you will learn about a Terminal command which will route crash reports through your Mac's Notification Center rather than display them windowed in the middle of your screen.