Apps

8 great iPhone and iPad games to get you in the Halloween spirit

It’s October, and that means Halloween is just around the corner!

Keeping everyone in the spooky spirit of Halloween, we’ve got a list of fun and thrilling games you can download from the App Store and play on your iPhone or iPad to prepare yourself for the onslaught of zombies and monsters that are sure to be ringing your doorbell this year.

Google Maps gains redesigned iOS 10 widgets for “Nearby Transit” and “Travel Times”

Google yesterday bumped its mapping application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch to version 4.23, adding a few new features including revamped widgets for “Nearby Transit” and “Travel Times” that now adhere to iOS 10's new design style for widgets.

In Google Maps 4.23 for iOS, you can now upload photos along with your reviews of places and see descriptions of places including features, atmosphere and amenities.

Apple’s free app of the week: Impossible Road

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Impossible Road. This means that for the next 7 days, you can pick up the popular arcade racer for both iPhone and iPad for free—a solid savings of $3.

In Impossible Road, you must guide your vessel down the roller coaster-like track at high speeds, scoring through each gate you make it through. Navigate hair-pin turns, jumps and banked curves in a quest for the perfect line.

Search Ads are now live in the App Store

As promised, Apple on Wednesday officially launched Search Ads in the App Store. You'll notice them at the top of select App Store search results, denoted by a light blue background and a clear 'Ad' placed just below the app's name.

In our few quick tests, we saw Search Ads for generic terms like 'email,' 'weather,' and 'calendar,' as well as for specific app names like 'Uber.' Sometimes the ad matched our search term, and sometimes it showed a competing product.

How to enable and use Secret Conversations in Facebook Messenger

iPhone screen showing Facebook Messenger app with an encrypted secret conversation

With secret conversations in Messenger, Facebook offers support for end-to-end encryption, giving you peace of mind knowing that a third party cannot decipher any sensitive messages with friends and family. These encrypted chats rely on a device key that ensures only you and the recipient can see the message.

You can verify the device key to confirm that the messages are end-to-end encrypted, set a timer to have secret messages disappear from the conversation, and so forth.

In this article, we show you how to set up and use end-to-end encrypted secret conversations in Facebook Messenger.

Dropbox Paper app now available in the EU

Paper, a new productivity app from cloud storage experts over at Dropbox, launched in public beta in the United States a month ago. After a slight delay, Paper is now available to customers in the European Union. With the free Paper app (not to be confused with Facebook's experimental Paper app), you can collaborate on projects, get updates, make edits and respond to feedback right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Yahoo releases Newsroom for iOS app with curated stories, personalized feeds & more

It's business as usual for the struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo which today released a brand new free of charge iPhone and iPad application, called Newsroom. The app provides curated stories and news content relevant to you and sports built-in social sharing features, personalized feeds and more. The 96.9-megabyte download requires an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 9 or later and is available at no charge from the App Store.

Adobe releases Photoshop and Premiere Elements 15 with facial feature adjustments & more

Adobe today released new versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements for Mac and Windows with new automated tools, video collages, facial feature adjustments allowing you to change frowned faces into bright smiles with open eyes, a Photomerge Group Shot option that combines faces and bodies from a series of pictures to create a single perfect composite and much more.

Apple threatens pulling an app for pranking friends with stickers that mimic iMessage bubbles

Apple on Friday threatened to pull Phoneys, a 99-cent sticker pack which lets you prank friends by putting words in their mouth. The #1 Top Paid item in the Messages App Store, Phoneys employs a simple trick to make the illusion work: it provides stickers that look exactly like the blue iMessage bubbles. Phoneys developer Adam Howell says Apple told him it would be pulling the app next Thursday unless it's fundamentally changed so that the stickers looked nothing like iMessage bubbles.

Apple’s free app of the week: Flowing

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the app Flowing. This means that for the next 7 days, you can get the popular meditation and mindfulness app for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $3.

For those who aren't familiar with Flowing, it's a health and fitness app that promises to help you upgrade your sleep, focus, and productivity. Its features include guided meditation, 3D parallax scenes, and customizable white noise.