Apple

Living Earth gains universe simulator, adds weather essentials to iOS 8’s Notification Center

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 11, 2014

Living Earth by Radiantlabs marries world clock functionality to a gorgeous weather app where you spin a virtual globe (similar to Google Earth) to get a visual overview of the current weather conditions for any part of our planet.

Bumped to version 3.5 on Tuesday, the app now features support for the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus screens and includes a Today widget giving you a quick overview of your current weather along with sunrise and sunset times, your world clock and more, right within the Notification Center in iOS 8.

In the app itself, the virtual globe now acts as a universe simulator of sorts, with the stars, constellations and the Milky Way backdrop created from a database of thousands of stars and celestial object and placed exactly “as if you were floating in space orbiting our planet.”

Living Earth sells for $1.99 for the iPhone and iPad.

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.

WSJ: Apple and Alibaba ironing out specifics of Apple Pay partnership

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 11, 2014

Following reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook during last month's visit to China discussed a rumored mobile payments partnership with UnionPay, The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday that the Cupertino firm met with Alibaba's Jack Ma to reportedly iron out an Apple Pay alliance with the popular Chinese e-commerce company.

This could give Apple Pay a major boost in the 1.4 billion people country. Alibaba, founded in 1999, is the world’s largest online marketplace and has a commanding 80 percent market share in the country.

The company raised a whopping $231 billion during its initial public offering. Cook at the WSJ Digital conference last month hinted (the full uncut interview now available) that his company was in talks with Alibaba regarding partnering on Apple Pay.

Target, Best Buy Black Friday deals on Apple products revealed

Cody Lee ∙ November 11, 2014

Best Buy and Target have posted their annual Black Friday sales previews. The two retailers have published a number of deals they will be offering up to hordes of holiday shoppers on the popular after-Thanksgiving-day shopping weekend.

Target will be hosting quite a few deals on Apple products, providing gift cards of up to $100 for iPad purchases. Best Buy also plans to offer $100 discounts on select iPad models, and has a slew of other Apple product promos planned as well.

Apple planning aggressive enterprise push, hiring dedicated sales force

Cody Lee ∙ November 10, 2014

Apple is planning its "most aggressive expansion yet" in the enterprise sector, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing sources familiar with the plans, the outlet says Apple is hiring a dedicated sales force, and working with developers who make industry-specific apps.

Apple is hoping to leverage its IBM and new developer partnerships into challenging market leaders like Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Oracle, and SAP. And its sales team is being tasked with pitching this new enterprise strategy to decision-makers at high profile firms, like Citigroup.

The Wall Street Journal posts full video of Tim Cook interview

Cody Lee ∙ November 10, 2014

In October, Apple CEO Tim Cook participated in an interesting on-stage interview at The Wall Street Journal’s inaugural WSJ.D Live conference. During the 30-minute discussion, Cook talked about several topics including Apple Pay, Apple Watch and more.

Of course, Cook has done a handful of high profile interviews in recent months, but he does divulge some new details regarding Apple and its products during this talk. We covered some of the highlights here, but now you can watch the whole thing on video.

Apple seeds second OS X 10.10.1 beta to developers

Cody Lee ∙ November 10, 2014

Apple has seeded the second beta of OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite this evening. The update, labeled build 14B23, is available through the Update tab in the Mac App Store and the Mac Dev Center for all registered developers.

Today’s release comes just one week after the first beta, and nearly a month after 10.10 went public. It's not clear what changes it includes yet, but Apple has asked devs to focus on Wi-Fi, Mail and Notification center.

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.

iOS security flaw could lure unsuspecting users into installing dangerous malware

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 11, 2016

A new security exploit discovered in Apple's mobile operating system allows attackers to fool unsuspecting users into installing malicious iPhone and iPad apps disguised as new versions of popular apps and games such as Gmail, Angry Birds and more.

Instances of malicious apps with such deceiving names as “New Angry Bird”, “New Flappy Bird” and others were mentioned Monday in a report by mobile security research firm FireEye.

Barclaycard Apple Rewards Visa delivers new financing options, better security and 3X points

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 10, 2014

Born out of the Apple-Barclaycard partnership, the new Barclaycard Apple Rewards Visa card is now available with EMV Chip and PIN security, revised financing options, updated rewards with three times points on Apple Store purchase and more.

As first discovered by AppleInsider on Monday, the card earns you three reward points for every dollar spent at the Apple Store (iTunes purchases don't qualify).

Once you earn 2,500 points, Apple will give you a $25 Apple Store Gift Card (previously, you'd get a $25 iTunes Gift Card with the Barclaycard iTunes Rewards Visa Card).

Moreover, there's no interest on purchases made at Apple within the first 30 days of account opening, plus some other perks as well.