Apps

Easily manage all your YouTube notifications via all-new Activity tab

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 31, 2017

Google is rolling out a small update to its mobile YouTube app for iPhone and iPad, bringing out an all-new Activity tab where you can easily find and control all of your notifications.

Now you can see your notifications, opt-out of receiving alerts from specific accounts and more—all in one central place just a tap away no matter where you happen to be in the app.

The new tab joins the app's existing tabs: Home, Trending, Subscriptions and Library.

Before today, accessing notifications was a multi-tap affair: you were required to tap your profile picture in the app's top-right corner, then hit Notifications (see the screenshot below).

Functionally, nothing has changed drastically—the new Activity section still shows notifications from your favorite accounts in the order they were received.

The old way of managing your YouTube notifications was a multi-tap affair.

Tapping the three dots next to a notification allows you to hide that particular notification, just like before, as well as elect to turn off all future notifications for that account and more.

Tapping the option See All Settings takes you to settings where you can turn notifications on or off for any recommended videos, choose whether you'd like to be notified about activity on your comments or others' videos, select how you'd like to be notified and more.

The new Activity tab requires YouTube for iOS version 12.20 or later.

Grab YouTube for iOS for free form App Store.

Twitter’s inbox now separates out messages from people you don’t follow

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 31, 2017

Twitter is rolling out a new inbox section which it says is designed to separate direct messages from people you do and don’t follow, making it easier to accept or delete unsolicited chats.

“If you’ve opted-in to get Direct Messages from anyone, messages from people you don’t follow will go into Requests in the Messages tab,” wrote the company in a tweet yesterday.

New group chats you’re added to by people you don’t follow will also appear in Requests.

Upon entering the chat, you'll be asked to either Delete or Accept the message. Accepting the chat moves it to your inbox, allowing you to continue the conversation with that person.

“Please note that they will not know you have seen the message until you have accepted their request,” said Twitter. All media will be hidden prior to accepting the message.

If you wish to view any hidden media, tap the View Media option.

https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/869608493548011520

Conversely, deleting the message removes it from the inbox although that account is still able to message you in the future unless you block or report it. These new features are available on the mobile Twitter app for iOS and Android and on twitter.com.

TUTORIAL: How to find Messenger chats you didn't know existed

Facebook-owned Messenger introduced a similar feature back in October 2015, replacing the “Other” inbox with a Message Requests section that brought all the messages from people you’re not friends with on Facebook in one central place, separate from your regular chats.

Grab Twitter for iOS for free from App Store.

How to generate app-specific passwords

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 6, 2018

Apps designed to use iCloud Drive for syncing data between devices “just work”. On the other hand, those that don’t natively support Apple's secure Two-Factor Authentication system may ask for your Apple ID password to access data stored in your iCloud account.

For instance, Fantastical for Mac may require your Apple ID user name and password to import your iCloud calendars. And what if you'd like to use your iCloud email account in apps like Spark or Airmail, but don't want to expose your Apple ID credentials to the app?

Given that asking for the user's iCloud password poses a dangerous attack vector, Apple now mandates that all native apps use app-specific passwords to access user data stored in iCloud.

The change goes into effect on June 15, 2017.

To ensure worry-free experience, you can use an app-specific password to sign in to an app or service not provided by Apple, without ever typing your Apple ID password.

In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to create an app-specific password for any native app that wants to access your personal data stored in iCloud, revoke all of your generated passwords one by one or all at once, and more.

About app-specific passwords

Security is paramount.

Protecting your Apple ID account against hackers and nefarious users by turning on Apple's older Two-Step Verification system or the modern, more secure Two-Step Verification also entails using app-specific passwords for any web apps, online services and apps that don’t natively support entering verification codes.

TUTORIAL: How to protect your Apple ID with Two-Factor Authentication

App-specific passwords maintain “a high level of security and ensure that your primary Apple ID password won’t be collected or stored by any third-party apps you might use,” notes Apple.

You can have up to 25 active app-specific passwords at any given time. If you need to, you can revoke passwords individually or all at once.

How to generate app-specific passwords

1) Sign in to your Apple ID account page at appleid.apple.com/account/home.

2) In the Security section, click Generate Password below App-Specific Passwords.

3) Type a password label into the text field, then click Create to generate a random password. The password label helps distinguish one app-specific password from another.

I'll create an app-specific password for Fantastical and name it “Fantastical for Mac”.

4) Click Done to finish creating the password.

5) Now paste the password into the password field of the app as you would normally.

Again, I'm a Fantastical believer so I'm going to type the generated password into Fantastical.

Using an app-specific password ensures that Fantastical is able to access my iCloud calendar and gives me a piece of mind knowing I don't have to worry about the security of my Apple ID.

As a reminder, you can have up to 25 active app-specific passwords at any given time. Keep in mind that each app-specific password is case-sensitive and only works in one app.

How to revoke app-specific passwords

You can revoke app-specific passwords individually or all at once. Revoking an app-specific password stops the app from accessing data in your iCloud account.

1) Sign in to your Apple ID account page at appleid.apple.com/account/home.

2) In the Security section, click Edit.

3) In the App Specific Passwords section, click View History.

4) You can now revoke an individual password or all passwords at once:

Revoke individual passwords—To revoke an individual password, click the “x” next to a password you'd like to delete, then click Revoke. Revoke all passwords at once—To revoke all the app-specific passwords you've generated thus far, click Revoke All.

“After you revoke a password, the app using that password will be signed out of your account until you generate a new password and sign in again,” notes Apple.

Be sure to generate new app-specific passwords for any apps that don't support entering verification codes because, for the sake of your own security, all of your app-specific passwords are auto-revoked any time you update or reset your primary Apple ID password.

Need help? Ask iDB!

If you like this how-to, pass it along to your support folks and leave a comment below.

Got stuck? Not sure how to do certain things on your Apple device? Let us know at help@iDownloadBlog.com and a future tutorial might provide a solution.

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WWDC app updated with curated video playlists, interactive venue and street maps & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 30, 2017

Apple today updated its WWDC app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with curated video playlist, interactive venue and street maps and other content ahead of the June 5 keynote.

“We’ve made several app updates to improve your experience in 2017, whether you’re attending or following along remotely,” reads the changelog accompanying the download.

Bumped to version 6.0, the app lets you watch curated video playlists focused on featured themes, as well as view interactive venue and street maps of San Jose McEnery Convention Center and access other important venue information through the new Venue tab.

Unlike before, you can now use all app features without signing in.

Lastly, Apple has given the app an Apple Music-like facelift with bold headings, larger images and simplified navigation, as evidenced by the screenshots.

The WWDC app supports all form-factor iOS devices natively and includes a sticker pack for iMessage and an Apple Watch component.

You can download it free on App Store.

The keynote will be live-streamed through the Apple Developer website and on the WWDC app.

The Cupertino giant could unveil its own Siri speaker at WWDC and potentially unveil hardware updates to the iPad Pro lineup and a next-generation Apple TV with 4K video support.

Check out our WWDC 2017-themed wallpapers for your Apple hardware.

Even if you plan on watching the keynote, be sure to join us here at iDownloadBlog that Monday as we’ll be covering all things WWDC throughout the entire week.

Apple could open app development facility in Indonesia

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 29, 2017

Apple could open an app development center in Jakarta, the capital and the most populous city of Indonesia and home to an upcoming Apple research and development center.

According to a source who spoke with Japanese outlet Nikkei, Apple's app development center will open in suburban Jakarta as early as October, allowing the company to start selling its newest phones in Indonesia.

The Cupertino technology giant currently relies on a network of resellers to push iPhones in the country as the devices are unavailable through its online store in Indonesia.

But what do apps have to do with hardware sales?

Nikkei explains that Indonesia in 2015 imposed regulatory rules requiring phones sold in the country to use at least 30 percent locally procured components by 2017. Apple did not set up local production in the country, but last year the government had a change of heart and now counts locally developed mobile apps as “locally produced” content for smartphones.

Sensing an opportunity, Apple is now set to open an app development facility in Jakarta.

However, the policy change has drawn the ire of Samsung, which in 2015 established a smartphone production line inside its existing manufacturing plant in suburban Jakarta.

“Had the rule on app development come earlier, the South Korean company could have saved a lot of money by using Apple's approach,” added Nikkei. “Policy shift means Apple can meet the quota with a smaller investment,” reads the article.

Similar sourcing requirements for foreign goods have prevented Apple from selling iPhones directly to customers in India. Recently, however, Apple and the Indian government have come to terms of doing business locally, paving the way for iPhone SE production in the country.

SpotAngels, Ditty, Gaia GPS, and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

This week's edition of our Apps of the Week roundup includes an app for preventing parking tickets, a musical meme-maker, and an off-road GPS app. And as usual, we have two great new games for you to check out this weekend.

SpotAngels

This isn't a new app, but it's worth checking out for those who aren't familiar with it. SpotAngels detects when you park and sends you alerts if and when you have to move your car. It does this by using your phone's motion sensors and Bluetooth (as it disconnects from your car) to know that you've parked, and then it checks your location against its data base of trouble spots. These include meters, to away zones, street cleaning, permit parking and other rules in dozens of major cities like New York, Dallas and Portland. The app also helps you find free parking around you, and since it's crowd-sourced, anyone can submit an update. SpotAngels is available for free.

Ditty

Here's another not-so-new app that you might find fun to play with this weekend. It's called Ditty, and it allows you to make goofy songs and music videos using a mix of GIFs, photos, videos and more. The app will actually sing anything you type, and there are tons of famous songs to choose from, with new content added weekly. Add your friends to follow their feeds, or post a Ditty yourself for a chance to be featured in the app. Ditty is available for free (with some IAPs).

Gaia GPS

Established GPS apps like Apple Maps and Waze do a nice job of getting you around the streets. But what about getting you around off road? That's where Gaia GPS comes in. This app features a beautiful and well-thought out interface that makes navigating the backcountry simple. Features include worldwide topo, road and satellite maps, syncing of photos, tracks and waypoints, a database with hiking trails, parks and other natural sights, and several customization options. This is a freemium app, and unfortunately most of the features are tucked behind an in-app purchase. But, Gaia has a great track record in this space and the app is getting rave reviews. If you need something like this, check it out. Gaia is available for free (with some IAPs).

Zombie Gunship Survival

The long-awaited sequel to Zombie Gunship is here! Zombie Gunship Survival has you as one of the few survivors in a devastating zombie apocalypse. To stay alive, you must take the gunner seat aboard a heavily-armed AC-130 ground attack aircraft and blow up the undead in this intense, high-definition shooter experience. You'll build up your remote airfield as a base for operations, defend that base, deploy your troops to annihilate the undead, and try to survive one of the most hostile environments ever. This is another freemium title, so there are a lot of in-app purchases, but the game itself has nearly a 5-star App Store rating on 1,200 reviews. Zombie Gunship Survival is available for free.

Goat Simulator PAYDAY

The goat is back! Goat Simulator: Payday is the most criminally realistic goat simulation ever! There are 3 new thugs, including a flying flamingo that can control people's brains, a wheelchairing dolphin that can climb almost any surface, a spitting camel, and of course the goat. You can meet up with your Pranknet crew, buy masks to disguise your identity, carry out "jobs" to collect cash to buy things, and you can even steal and drive cars. There's no real elaborate story line here, just a GTA-style open world adventure game that encourages you to inflict the maximum amount of destruction. Goat Simulator PAYDAY is available for $4.99.

More apps to check out Apple’s free app of the week: klocki You can now drag and drop files on iPad between Readdle’s productivity apps 1Password’s Travel Mode protects your private data from unwarranted searches Not to be outdone by Instagram, Snapchat unveils custom Stories of its own Duet Display brings even more desktop power to your iPad drawing experience YouTube TV app gains AirPlay support New Pokémon game is based on Magikarp, the weakest Pokémon ever At long last, Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 hits App Store

How to post images and videos to Instagram on the web

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 24, 2021

Instagram for iOS is pretty decent, but there are times when you just wanna quickly post an image without having the app unnecessarily eat into that precious cellular data by refreshing feeds and other content. While you can send photos from other iPhone apps via Instagram's Share sheet extension, it's now possible to upload images through Safari as well.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions explaining how to upload your photographs to Instagram using the mobile web interface, no apps needed whatsoever.

Before we get to it, know that you cannot take or upload photos from Instagram's web interface on a desktop computer. Only Instagram's web UI on mobile lets you do that.

You can now order photo books and archive images on Google Photos

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 26, 2017

At its annual developers conference earlier in the month, Google announced three new features for its Photos app: automatically curated albums, photo books and sharing suggestions.

Today, the company pushed an update to its Photos app for iOS, Android and the web, bringing support for ordering printed photo books comprised of your best photographs. You can make a photo book in minutes with automatic photo curation and easy customization.

Photo books

To order a printed photo book, select the images you’d like to fill your album with. Google’s machine learning picks the best shots for your, removing duplicates and poor quality images.

In fact, the app will even offer personalized suggestions for photo books, like your trip to the Grand Canyon, time with family during the holidays, your puppy and so forth.

You can order a seven-inch square softcover book for $10 a piece or its nine-inch hardcover version for twice as much. Each has twenty pages though you can buy additional pages if you'd like:

Softcover—$0.35 per additional page Hardcover—$0.65 per additional page

Photo books are currently available to users in the US only.

However, the search company has made promises to bring them to more countries soon.

Google photo books key highlights:

Quickly find your best shots— Start from an album or search for a person, place or thing. Then, Google Photos can automatically pick out your best photos—helping you save time. Perfect your book in minutes—Easily move around your photos, add a book title and tweak your cover design. Beautifully crafted for you—Just choose a size and get started on your phone or computer. Photo books are made in the USA from premium, responsibly sourced materials.

Apple's Photos app supports photo books, too. As a matter of fact, ordering photo books has been part of the now phased-out iPhoto app for almost a decade.

Archive photos

Aside from photo books, today's update includes the Archive feature.

Chances are your photo library includes not only your selfies, food shots and cherished memories, but the more mundane pictures as well, like recipes, receipts, scanned documents and so forth.

Now you can move images to the app's new Archive section to tidy up your photo grid.

To get started, simply select a few photos you'd like to archive, tap the Menu icon and choose Archive from the popup menu. This simply moves the selected photos to your archive rather than delete them. Any archived images and videos remain visible in search and albums.

Aside from the image archival feature and photo books, this update includes performance improvements and reduces the amount of on-device storage space used by the app.

Instagram Direct now lets you send links and images in landscape and portrait orientations

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 26, 2017

Instagram yesterday announced a pair of minor updates for Direct, a direct-messaging feature built into its mainland mobile app for iOS and Android. For starters, Instagram Direct now supports sending images and videos in portrait and landscape orientations.

Plus, Instagram is just now offering support for sending links in direct messages.

The ability to send a permanent photo or video in landscape and portrait orientations through Direct means you no longer have to worry about weirdly cropping it as it will now show up properly in its intended orientation.

“We’ve added support for links in Direct,” noted the company. “You can share website links with friends and preview them directly from your thread.” As a bonus, the team also has implemented automatic links to phone numbers and addresses send through Direct.

Landscape and portrait uploads in Direct are available today on iOS, with Android coming soon. Links in Direct messages are available today on both iOS and Android.

Today's features are part of Instagram's version 10.22 update.

Grab Instagram for free via App Store.

You can now drag and drop files on iPad between Readdle’s productivity apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 25, 2017

Readdle, Ukrainian makers of fine productivity software for iPhone, iPad and Mac, today announced that, for the first time ever, they're making it possible to drag and drop items in the split screen mode on iPad between its most popular productivity apps: Documents, PDF Expert, Scanner Pro and Spark.

In addition to cross-app drag and drop in Split View multitasking mode, Readdle's excellent Documents app has received a major update that turns it into a Finder on iOS of sorts.

Cross-app drag and drop

Drag and drop between Readdle apps works like a charm, really.

For instance, you can drag a file from Documents and drop it on Spark to instantly create a new email message with an attachment. Or, you can drag and drop scans from Scanner Pro to PDF Expert for further editing.

How about moving that attached contract from Spark to PDF Expert to sign it before sending the signed document back to Spark as a reply? You can do all that—and much, much more—across the aforesaid Readdle apps on your iPad.

The promo video below showcases drag-and-dropping files between Readdle apps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epzh9-rd-AI

True, some third-party iOS apps do support direct manipulation of content within the app.

That being said, however, the ability to drag and drop files and other content between multiple apps has not been utilized on iOS at all. While Apple could enhance iOS's Split View multitasking mode in the future with useful interactions like drag and drop, Readdle has already found a way to make cross-app drag and drop work.

Denys Zhadanov, Readdle's Vice President of Marketing, said via email:

We see it as a major improvement of iOS and this is how all iPad apps should work between each other. It’s so freaking awesome—glues all our apps into a phenomenal productivity ecosystem.

“The Readdle Team hopes that Apple will introduce their own implementation of inter app drag and drop one day,” developers noted. “That will support other apps and make iPad a much better productivity device than it is now.”

New features in Documents 6

As mentioned earlier, Readdle's capable (and free) file manager, called Documents, is getting a major update today turning it into the iOS Finder you’ve always wanted. The update brings out various enhancements, including an overhauled design with Spark-like quick actions, an easier way to import files, improved file management, an all-new media player, on-the-fly editing of cloud files, music and video streaming and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-314ezmBgE

According to Readdle:

iOS has always been a 'no-file-manager' system. Everything is taken care of by the apps. That’s a blessing and a curse at the same time.However, some of us are very comfortable with controlling things on our devices, especially when it comes to getting real work done.

This is why we created Documents, an extremely powerful, versatile hub for all of your files on iPhone or iPad. It’s your Swiss knife that removes iOS file management woes.

Documents has always been a powerful iOS file manager and now it's gotten even better.

The completely rethought user interface is very functional.

As the screenshots attest, you can now easily edit, zip, tag, move or sync your files with fewer taps than before. Bigger file preview thumbnails give you a better idea of the content of that Excel spreadsheet or PPT presentation before you even open it.

A prominently featured “+” button lets you quickly import files, including documents from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, WebDAV or any other cloud-based storage source. Files are now organized into folders exactly the way you are comfortable with.

Just select one or a few of them and easily drag them to the right location. And with cross-app drag and drop support, you can move a single or multiple files between Documents and Spark, Scanner Pro or PDF Expert.

“The best part is that you can access any of the locally stored files in any app with the ‘Open in’ option,” notes Readdle. “This is a unique experience on iOS, and it’s what finally gives you that Finder feel on your iPhone or iPad.” Now you can work directly with your cloud files in Documents and even stream photos, videos and music from any cloud storage without needing to download the files to your device.

The new media player helps you organize your music into playlists, with the ability to shuffle and loop your favorite tracks. And if you have PDF Expert installed on your device, Documents will let you annotate and edit PDFs, fill out forms, sign applications and more.

If you haven't played with Documents before, you should really give it a try.

Acting a central hub for all of your files, it lets you view almost any file format natively, store your files directly on the device or connect to the popular cloud storage service to keep everything together in perfect sync.

Availability

Spark and Documents are available at no charge from App Store.

PDF Expert is $9.99 on App Store.

Scanner Pro is $3.99 on App Store.

You should really download the latest version of Spark, Documents, Scanner Pro and PDF Expert and see for yourself what kind of a productivity device your iPad can be with proper drag and drop support.

1Password’s Travel Mode protects your private data from unwarranted searches

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Developer AgileBits announced yesterday a new Travel Mode feature in 1Password, its password manager for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows and the web. Designed to protect your sensitive data from unwarranted searches when crossing borders, Travel Mode removes all vaults from your devices except for the ones marked “safe for travel.”

Even if a security agent at the US border asks you to launch and unlock 1Password, they'll be unable to disable Travel Mode from within the app or even realize that the app is currently in Travel Mode, for that matter.

To mark the vaults as safe for travel, sign in to your account on 1Password.com.

Click the pencil icon on the vault you wanna mark as safe for travel, choose Safe for Travel and click Confirm. Right before you travel, turn on Travel Mode by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the interface, choose My Profile and click Enable Travel Mode.

On the devices you’re traveling with, open and unlock the 1Password app.

Any vaults that haven’t been marked as safe for travel will be instantly removed from the app. Rather than simply hide the vaults, the app completely removes them from your devices, including all items and your encryption keys so there are no traces left for anyone to find.

When you’re done traveling, return to My Profile on 1Password.com and click Disable Travel Mode. Just like that, your temporarily removed vaults re-appear on your devices.

“Whenever you turn Travel Mode on or off, you’ll need to open 1Password on your devices while connected to the Internet for the change to take effect,” reads the FAQ on the official website.

AgileBits notes that Travel Mode is included with every 1Password subscription. If you’re a team administrator, you can turn Travel Mode on and off for team members and manage which vaults are safe for travel.

A single-user 1Password subscription cost $2.99 per month, or $4.99 per month for a multi-user family account. Separate subscription options for teams are available as well.

1Password for Mac is a freemium download from Mac App Store.

1Password for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch is available free on App Store.

Download Apple’s new Swift app development curriculum from iBooks Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 24, 2017

Apple on Wednesday announced a new app development curriculum targeting U.S. high school and college students who are eager to learn the secrets of mobile app development with the Swift programming language.

Titled “App Development with Swift”, the new curriculum is now available as a free download from iBooks Store. It's an extension of Apple’s existing K-12 Everyone Can Code curricula, which has been downloaded 430,000 times.

Noting that the app economy and software development are among the fastest-growing job sectors in America, Apple CEO Tim Cook says his company is thrilled to be providing educators and students with the tools to learn coding.

“Community colleges play a critical role in helping students achieve their dreams, and we hope these courses will open doors for people of all ages and backgrounds to pursue what they love,” said Cook.

The full-year course focuses on app design and development with Swift, the company's modern programming language. It includes various Swift Playgrounds exercises and Xcode tutorials, as well as homework projects, a teacher guide with solutions, grading advice and more.

Starting this fall, the following community college systems serving nearly 500,000 students nationwide will teach the new curriculum, among others:

Alabama Community College System Columbus State Community College Harrisburg Area Community College Houston Community College Mesa Community College San Mateo Community College District

Houston Community College will be opening an iOS Coding and Design School to teach the new curriculum.

“We are thrilled Apple is offering this incredible opportunity to advance student learning, which will especially help us bridge the gap in computer science training for minorities and women,” said Houston Community College Chancellor Cesar Maldonado.

“We can’t wait to see what these students will do and already have local businesses offering mentoring and internship opportunities.”

Apple says that select high schools will teach the curriculum as well. At many campuses, local businesses will also offer students mentoring and internships, added the firm.

More than a thousand schools across the US plan to teach with Everyone Can Code materials in the fall. Feel free to check out Apple’s existing free coding materials on iBooks Store.