Apps

Pinterest just bought Instapaper

In a newsworthy move that in all likelihood makes lots of sense, the photo sharing service Pinterest has acquired Pinterest, the popular app and web service for saving webpages to read later.

According to the announcement, Pinterest will continue to develop and maintain the mobile Instapaper app, available at no charge on the App Store.

PDF Expert 2 for Mac is here: new editing features, password protection & more

Ukrainian developer of fine iOS and Mac software, Readdle, today announced it's launching a major update to its PDF Expert for Mac productivity application, bringing out a plethora of improved editing capabilities and new features like password protection for your PDF documents, the ability to link any image or text to a different page or a website, localizations for ten languages and other perks. The update will go live on the Mac App Store today at no charge for those who already own PDF Expert.

Skype for iOS gains connectivity status bar, more informative notifications & other perks

Microsoft today pushed an update to its mobile Skype application for iOS, bumping the app's version number on the App Store to 6.22. The new edition includes several enhancements related to notifications and Skype Credit, which can now be purchased from within the app in more currencies than before. Skype for iPhone and iPad are available free on the App Store.

Facebook launches Lifestage, a teens-only social app built around video profiles

If you're a high-schooler aged under 22 and eager to connect with your classmates within an environment that harkens back to the Facebook from 2004, when it was exclusively a college student network, then today's Facebook where everyone creeps on others may not be the safest place to engage in such interactions.

That's why Michael Sayman, Facebook’s 19-year-old product manager, created Lifestage, a teens-only iPhone app that encourages high-schoolers to create video profiles and share them with their school network.

Canvas, Spark Pro, Mimo and other apps to check out this weekend

It's the weekend again, and you know what that means! It's time for another edition of our Apps of the Week roundup. This week we have some awesome selections for you including a new realtime collaboration app, a minimal video capturing app, a new app that makes learning to code fun and easy, and of course two games that we think are worth checking out.

Twitter gains features to limit notifications and filter out lower-quality content

Twitter continues adding features to let users control and personalize their experience on the service with yesterday's announcement of a new quality filter and notification settings.

Now available in Twitter 6.6 for iOS, the new content quality switch allows you to optionally weed out lower-quality tweets from your feed, notifications and other parts of your Twitter experience.

“It does not filter content from people you follow or accounts you’ve recently interacted with – and depending on your preferences, you can turn it on or off in your notifications settings,” cautioned the service.

NYT is shutting down its Now app on August 29

Released in March of 2014, The New York Times' news curation app, NYT Now, is scheduled to shut down on August 29, the newspaper announced in a blog post.

The app debuted as a more affordable alternative to the paper's digital subscriptions, offering premium content for as low as $8 per month. It was regularly updated and at one point even gained features like 1Password integration.

Apple’s free app of the week: Pixel Cup Soccer 16

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Pixel Cup Soccer 16. This means from now through next Thursday, you’ll be able to pick up the retro-style football title for free on both iPhone and iPad—saving you $3.

As you've probably gathered by now, Pixel Cup Soccer 16 is a retro-style, dynamic arcade game. It features fast-pace gameplay, nostalgic graphics and soundtrack that will take you back to the 90's, and 3 game modes: Friendly, competition and PKs.

With few weeks until iOS 10’s fall release, iOS 9 adoption hits 87 percent of devices

Various editions of iOS 9 are currently installed on 87 percent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, a one-point gain versus a month ago. During the same period, iOS 8 has dropped from eleven to ten percent of devices, suggesting much of iOS 9's growth could be owed to upgrades. Earlier editions of iOS continue to comprise about three percent of devices.

The stats were derived from Apple's logs capturing devices that accessed the App Store on August 15, 2016, and are publicized on the App Store dashboard.

Snapchat optimized for iPhone’s Low Power Mode

Earlier this week, Snapchat issued a small update to its free of charge iPhone application on the App Store. Bumping version number to 9.37, the app is now optimized for iOS's Low Power Mode which debuted in iOS 9 last year.

“When your device is in Low Power Mode, Snapchat will now automatically reduce its battery usage,” according to release notes accompanying a 96.1-megabyte download.

Instagram gains Events channel highlighting media posted during specific events

Instagram yesterday announced a new Events channel in the Explore section of its free of charge iPhone app. Currently limited to users within the United States and resembling Snapchat's Discover channel with Live Stories, it brings in one place all of the photos and videos posted on the service during specific events, such as concerts, sports games and more. Like the rest of Explore, the new Events channel is personalized for you and highlights events you might like.

Instagram update brings camera improvements to Stories feature

Instagram's new Stories feature caused quite a stir as some users took issue with the fact that the Facebook-owned photo sharing service basically ripped off Snapchat Stories. Be that as it may, Instagram's iPhone application, which is available at no charge on the App Store, has just received a nice update which packs in a few useful camera-related improvements to the Stories feature.