Apps

Twitter revamped with dynamically updated Reply/Like/Retweet counts, Safari Reader support & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 15, 2017

Twitter today announced a major overhaul, making the app feel lighter, faster and easier to use with faster navigation via a new side menu, bolder headlines, revamped icons and more.

The new side navigation menu lets you quickly access your profile, accounts, settings and privacy. As a bonus, you can now add filters and stickers on your profile image, if you'd like.

Tweets now update dynamically with Reply, Retweet and Like counts so that you can easily see conversations as they’re happening, in real-time. The app now features support for opening links to articles and websites in Safari’s in-app viewer.

This lets you log in to websites using your saved Safari passwords and enjoy articles in the browser's Reader mode, all within the Twitter app.

New switches in Twitter's settings interface let you turn on increased color contrast, decided whether or not you'd like links to open in Safari's Reader View and more.

Accessibility settings are now in a more prominent location.

So fresh. So clean. So live.

Check out our new look.https://t.co/ClWbwi8CEH pic.twitter.com/nR27POQkEi

— Twitter (@Twitter) June 15, 2017

Here's an overview of the new features and design:

Profile, additional accounts, settings and privacy—all in one place. A new side navigation menu and fewer tabs at the bottom of our app=less clutter and easier browsing. You told us you loved this change on Android last year and we’re excited to now bring it to iOS. Links to articles and websites now open in Safari’s viewer in the Twitter app so you can easily access accounts on websites you’re already signed into (iOS only). We’ve refined our typography to make it more consistent and added bolder headlines to make it easier to focus on what’s happening. Also, rounded profile photos make it clearer to see what’s being said and who’s saying it. More intuitive icons make it easier to engage with Tweets—especially if you’re coming to Twitter for the first time. For example, people thought the Reply icon, an arrow, meant delete or go back to a previous page. We switched to a speech bubble, a symbol most know and love. We also made the icons lighter for more seamless interaction Tweets now update instantly with Reply, Retweet and Like counts so you can see conversations as they’re happening, live (not available on twitter.com and Twitter Lite).

The aforementioned changes are rolling out across twitter.com, Twitter for iOS, Twitter for Android, TweetDeck, and Twitter Lite over the coming days and weeks.

Twitter for iOS is a free download from App Store.

Facebook for iOS now lets everyone use animated GIFs in comments

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 2, 2018

Facebook today announced that users of its mainland mobile app can now use animated GIFs in comments. This sought-after feature has been enabled for all people on Facebook globally.

“We know people love communicating with GIFs on Messenger and we’re also making it easier to use GIFs on Facebook,” said the social network. When making a comment in Facebook for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, tap the new GIF button to spice up your message with animations.

Additionally, Facebook rolled out some new and exclusive GIFs they’ve created featuring some of the Internet’s biggest stars, including DNCE, Logan Paul, Amanda Cerny, DREEZY, Patrick Starr, Violet Benson, Wuz Good, Brandi Marie and Landon Moss.

To use them, search #GIFparty when sharing a GIF on Facebook or Messenger or visit GIPHY.com/Facebook.

Since rolling out support for animated GIFs on Messenger back in 2015, users have sent nearly thirteen billion GIFs in the last year alone via the messaging app, or nearly 25,000 GIFs every minute. GIF sends on Messenger have tripled in the past year and New Year’s Day 2017 was the most popular day ever for GIF sends on Messenger, with more than 400 million GIF sends.

Facebook for iOS is available at no charge in App Store.

Box introduces macOS client for its cloud syncing service

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Cloud-storage service Box has (finally?) decided to provide a native macOS client app for its Apple customers. The new app, currently in public beta, is available at no charge at box.com/resources/downloads.

With the Box Drive app, users can access Box files on their Mac, natively integrated into the Finder, as well as easily share and collaborate on documents and more. You can edit like you would any local file and have the app save it automatically to the Box cloud, with the enterprise-grade security protecting everything you do.

According to the company, the app includes the following features:

The cloud doesn’t fit on your hard drive. While it's super convenient to sync files to your desktop, the amount of syncing you can actually do is limited by your hard drive space. So while you'd like to access ALL your files (especially your team files), more often than not, you end up syncing only a subset of your files, which limits the amount of work you can actually do straight from your desktop. Storing work on your desktop is risky business. IT teams have been pulling their hair out for years, because they haven’t had proper visibility or control over how files are being accessed, shared, and managed. Plus, if your computer was ever lost or stolen, there wasn’t much you could do about the work files that went along with it. Network files shares were great—20 years ago. Teams are clamoring for greater mobility, easier collaboration, and better compliance–and network shares just can’t keep up. Not to mention the constant maintenance, unpredictable growth, storage sprawl, and never-ending costs that come with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl6eKWkTYVI

Apple's new Files app on iOS 11 features built-in support for a number of cloud-storage service, including Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Adobe Creative Cloud and more.

iWork apps gain editing improvements, 500 shapes & more in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 13, 2017

Apple's iWork productivity suite was updated today on Mac App Store and App Store with several new editing features and other improvements available across iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac devices.

For starters, Pages, Numbers and Keynote for Mac, along with their iOS counterparts, now come with a brand new library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes that you can readily use in your documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Across all the iWork apps, users can now reply to comments and join threaded conversations, making collaborative editing even easier than before, while new auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing.

In Numbers, the new Insert Stock Quote feature and the Stock and Currency functions let you get data from the previous market day’s close. Keynote now lets you scroll like a pro on your Mac's trackpad with new pan and zoom options and your presenter notes can be edited while displaying slides in Light Table view.

Here's the full list of new features, fixes and enhancements in Pages 6.2, Numbers 4.2 and Keynote 7.2 for Mac, iPhone and iPad listed in release notes accompanying these downloads:

What's new in Pages 6.2 for Mac Enhance your documents using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Reply to comments and join threaded conversations Add linked text boxes so text easily flows from one place to another New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing Export documents as fixed layout ePub books Change margins, headers, footers and paper size while collaborating Improved support for Hebrew and Arabic languages

Learn more about the new Pages for Mac features on Apple's website.

What's new in Numbers 4.2 for Mac Enhance your spreadsheets using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Reply to comments and join threaded conversations Support for print preview in collaborative spreadsheets New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing The Insert Stock Quote feature and the Stock and Currency functions now return data from the previous market day’s close

Learn more about the new Numbers for Mac features on Apple's website.

What's new in Keynote 7.2 for Mac Enhance your presentations using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Reply to comments and join threaded conversations New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing Scroll anywhere with new pan and zoom options Edit presenter notes while displaying slides in Light Table view Improved support for Hebrew and Arabic languages The Stock and Currency functions now return data from the previous market day’s close

Learn more about the new Keynote for Mac features on Apple's website.

What's new in Pages 3.2 for iOS Enhance your documents using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Reply to comments and join threaded conversations Add linked text boxes so text easily flows from one place to another New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing New page thumbnail view allows you to easily navigate your document Export documents as fixed layout ePub books Change margins, headers, footers and paper size while collaborating

Learn more about the new Pages for iOS features on Apple's website.

What's new in Numbers 3.2 for iOS Enhance your spreadsheets using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Reply to comments and join threaded conversations Support for print preview in collaborative spreadsheets New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing The Insert Stock Quote feature and the Stock and Currency functions now return data from the previous market day’s close

Learn more about the new Numbers for iOS features on Apple's website.

What's new in Keynote 3.2 for iOS Enhance your presentations using a library of over 500 professionally drawn shapes Easily rearrange your slides with the new Light Table view Edit presenter notes while viewing slides Reply to comments and join threaded conversations New auto-correction and text replacement options save time while typing Improved support for Hebrew and Arabic languages

Learn more about the new Keynote for iOS features on Apple's website.

These apps used to be paid downloads, but Apple recently made them free for all users.

Grab Pages, Numbers and Keynote for free from Mac App Store.

Pages, Numbers and Keynote for iPhone and iPad are available free on App Store.

Facebook could let you subscribe to news publications directly from the app

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 12, 2017

Facebook is working on a new feature to permit users to subscribe to news publications directly from its mainland mobile app. According to a report this morning from The Wall Street Journal, many details remain up in the air as discussions are currently underway.

The company is allegedly leaning toward a model that would let you read certain articles for free every month, before being prompted to pay. There's a catch: Facebook is said to limit this to the stories published natively through its Instant Articles service.

With that in mind, it may be no coincidence at all that Facebook recently launched new tools to help publishers make their Instant Articles compatible with the Apple News format as well as with Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages system.

This new functionality could roll out by the end of 2017, sources said. People familiar with the matter pointed out that the upcoming feature has long been requested by publishers.

While users currently can follow different news organizations, the rumored feature would permit them to use their credit card information on file with Facebook to directly subscribe to a news publication and have any subscriber-only content delivered to them through the app.

The development, if true, should pose some additional challenges to Google News platform as more and more people turn to Facebook for their daily news.

Image: Facebook's recent redesign of Trending pages.

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Basic analytics coming to iOS 11’s Podcasts app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Like many stock apps in iOS 11, Apple's Podcasts app has been redesigned around an Apple Music-style appearance with consolidated tabs, bigger thumbnails and more.

As reported by Recode's Peter Kafka and Six Colors' Jason Snell, Apple is also making some notable changes to the way podcast feed works so that both podcast creators and advertisers can see what listeners actually like.

As for users, they'll be able to download full seasons of their favorite podcast shows and the Podcasts app will determine if a podcast should be played in chronological order.

There are other updates focused on making podcast creators' lives easier as well. According to Apple's own spec sheet regarding the Podcasts app updates in iOS 11, the updated Apple Podcasts specification now provides the following features:

Podcast creators can now provide clear, concise titles. Improvements to how episodes are ordered and recommended within a season. The ability for new subscribers to receive the full current season in their Library. Quick play lets users pick up listening where they left off.

Podcasts will be able to define individual seasons and explain whether an episode is a teaser, a full episode or bonus content. Snell explains that these extensions will be read by the Podcasts app and used to present a podcast in a richer way than the current linear approach in iOS 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFsAlcnlmSo

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As explained, Apple is going to share more data with podcast creators and advertisers.

With basic analytics, podcast creators will have the ability to see when listeners play individual episodes, what part of individual episodes they listen to, which parts they skip over and when they stop listening. To protect your privacy and prevent targeted advertising, Apple will provide aggregated, anonymized performance data that cannot be tracked to individual users.

Currently, podcast creators can see when someone has downloaded an individual episode, but that's about it when it comes to analytics.

How do you like these changes coming to the Podcasts app?

Share your opinion in the comments section below.

Sherpa, Trybeo, Beacon, and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 19, 2018

This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup features a new Instagram-based travel guide, an app for posting and accepting wild challenges, and a new social network for linking up with friends. And as usual, we've selected two great new games for you to check out.

Sherpa

Sherpa is a community-generated travel guide powered by photos shared on Instagram. It's actually a very clever idea: an app that scrapes Instagram for photos tagged in specific locations, organized into a travel guide. Sherpa allows you to discover over 15,000 cities, regions and countries through the authentic lens of world travelers, adventurers and locals. Save the places you want to visit, and put together the ultimate itinerary. There is one small caveat here: at the time of writing, the app requires an invite code. But it's pretty simple to download the app and request an invite, so this shouldn't be much of a problem. Sherpa is available for free.

Trybeo

Do you find your life bored or lacking direction? Would you like to step outside your comfort zone and discover exciting new people and adventures? Check out Trybeo. It's a social network based around challenges—you can either accept posted challenges or propose your own. These consist of anything from flipping water bottles to doing cartwheels down an isle at the grocery store, or trying to knock a cone off your friend's head with a football. Take on challenges to become the best player, or up-vote worthy opponents. Trybeo is available for free.

Beacon

Use Beacon to signal your availability to your friends and family. Going to be in town for work or just general visiting? Send out a Beacon. Have an extra ticket to an upcoming Concert or want to go see a movie Thursday? Beacon. Post your impromptu event in Beacon and your friends will be notified immediately. When your friends join the event, you're notified immediately. Everyone can comment in the thread, and you can tell people where to go and what to expect. Bored? You're only two taps away from hanging out with a friend. Beacon is available for free.

Cobi Darts

The Cobi games, for me, are always a good time. The gameplay is accurate, fast-paced and easy to learn. Even if you don't like throwing darts in real life, I imagine you can find some fun in the challenge of Cobi darts. Features include 9 awesome game modes, including classic 501 and 301 games, custom darts and characters and even iMessage support. Cobi Darts is available for free (with some IAPs).

Art of Conquest

Looking for something a little different this weekend? Check out Art of Conquest. This new strategy game gives you full control in a world full of dwarves, magic and monsters in a perfect marriage of MMO and strategy. Besiege enemy strongholds to expand your kingdom, slay nefarious dragons with a band of legendary heroes, and challenge players around the world in epic real-time battles. Command, summon, build and explore. Art of Conquest is available for free (with some IAPs).

More apps to check out Apple’s free app of the week: Framed Monument Valley 2 hits App Store Apple announces completely redesigned App Store

AppLocker lets you secure apps with a password

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 10, 2017

AppLocker by iOS developer Ori Kadosh, is one of the most popular app security jailbreak tweaks in Cydia, and it has been updated this week with full support for iOS 10.

AppLocker lets you create a password that you will use to access your apps; it's requested every time you launch an app, and if you can’t provide it, you can't use the app.

QuickTrust makes it easier to trust sideloaded app certificates

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 10, 2017

Depending on how advanced of an iOS user you are, you may sideload apps from time to time.

In many circumstances, sideloading third-party apps via Impactor or Xcode involves trusting a certificate – a process you should be familiar with if you've jailbroken with Yalu102 or Pangu for iOS 9 – but iOS doesn’t make the trusting process easy or straightforward out of the box.

Here to fix that problem is a new free jailbreak tweak called QuickTrust by iOS developer 1GamerDev, which adds a “Trust” button directly to the certificate pop-up alert, as shown above.

Apple now allowing developers to implement digital tip jars via In-App Purchase mechanism

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 9, 2017

Apple recently asked WeChat and other popular social networking apps in China to disable the popular tipping feature, and now we know why—the Cupertino giant has introduced an officially-sanctioned way for iPhone and iPad users to tip content creators in apps via the standard In-App Purchase mechanism.

Like with other In-App Purchases, tipping content providers is subjected to Apple's 70:30 revenue sharing scheme, meaning the company will keep 30 percent of any proceeds to itself.

According to TechCrunch, the updated App Store Review Guidelines now include a clause that deals with tips, here's a relevant excerpt:

Apps may use in-app purchase currencies to enable customers to “tip” digital content providers in the app. Apps may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than In-App Purchases.

According to the report, developers have the freedom to decide how much of the tips are passed to the content creators themselves (after Apple's 30 percent cut, of course).

At any rate, Apple was smart to implement this cool new feature.

Tipping content creators like musicians, comedians, e-sports athletes and others is tremendously popular in China. The company has lacked a tipping system for iOS apps, meaning it couldn't get in on the action to process such transactions through its own iTunes billing system.

With tips now being officially supported via the familiar In-App Purchase mechanism, many customers who were previously reluctant to use PayPal or their credit card for tipping their favorite content creators will now be able to do so, directly in the app.

And by taking tipping out of the grey area, as TechCrunch observes, more developers might implement digital tip jars— without fearing repercussions from Apple—as an alternative way to get creators paid without having to offer ad revenue sharing.

In turn, the feature may create a whole new revenue stream for Apple at a time when the company is monetizing its huge user base in an attempt to boost its ever-growing Services revenue.

FunAppocalypse simulates the iPhone apocalypse in the skit from Apple’s WWDC keynote

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 8, 2017

When Apple kicked off the WWDC 2017 keynote this year, they presented a hilarious comedy skit that put into perspective just how important mobile apps are in our daily lives. As every iOS device went kaput, the world quickly delved into chaos.

iOS developer CPDigitalDarkroom decided it would be fun to recreate the apocalyptic scenario, and so he created a new free jailbreak tweak he calls FunAppocalypse that simulates the visual effects and sounds that were illustrated in the keynote skit.