Apps

Apple’s free app of the week: Mimpi Dreams

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Mimpi Dreams. This means that for the next 7 days, you’ll be able to download the critically-acclaimed puzzle-platformer for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $2.

Mimpi is a lazy dog who likes to take naps and dream about being a super hero. Players are tasked with helping him save his friends by solving puzzles and manipulating environmental objects as they work their way through originally-illustrated levels.

Facebook tweaks News Feed to prioritize friends over news sites

Adam Mosseri, Facebook's Vice President of Product Management, announced yesterday an upcoming change to the News Feed ranking algorithm on the service.

Soon, your News Feed will prioritize content from friends over news stories from publishers to address missing important updates from friends because content from professional publishers would get preferential treatment.

Drawing app Procreate is free right now within the Apple Store app

Heads up folks, Apple is giving away free copies of the popular Procreate Pocket app. You can find promo codes for the app, which normally retails for $2.99, within the ‘Stores’ section of the Apple Store app on iOS.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Procreate Pocket is the iPhone version of the award-winning painting app. It uses the same 64-bit Silica engine as its bigger brother, and it includes the same great set of features.

watchOS 3 preview: new watch faces on your wrist & Face Gallery on iPhone

After telling you about the improved performance and more intuitive navigation in the Apple Watch software, our watchOS 3 Preview series continues with an overview of three new watch faces that have been added to watchOS 3 and a brand new Face Gallery feature found in the companion Watch app on iOS 10.

watchOS 3 also lets you launch more apps from faces like Workout, Music and Messages.

And as a cherry on top, you can now use complications on faces that previously didn't support them, like Photo, Motion and Timelapse.

Evernote just raised its prices

I stopped using Evernote more than a year ago because Apple's much-improved Notes fulfills all of my note-taking needs. That said, I understand that some folks still prefer Evernote because it's cross-platform and has advanced features like geotagging and uploading lots of data.

In announcing the price hike on its paid subscription plans, Evernote said the move would permit its developers to add even more features for power users.

Furthermore, customers who are on Evernote's Basic plan will no longer be permitted to use the service on more than two devices at the same time.

New Chinese regulations would have Apple track App Store users and developers

After ordering an iPhone 6 sales ban over alleged copyright infringement and shuttering the iBooks Store and iTunes Movies, Chinese regulators are now applying increased pressure on foreign technology companies doing business in the world's most populous market of 1.35 billion people.

According to Bloomberg, firms like Apple that operate app stores in the country will be forced to track the identities of users and developers with real-name registration in case they violate the country's stringent censorship laws.

Amazon debuts new Page Flip feature for Kindle apps and devices

Online retail giant Amazon on Tuesday announced a new Page Flip feature for its Kindle lineup of e-readers and mobile apps. Page Flip lets you flip back and forth between pages to reference different parts of the book while you read, without losing track of your current reading position. With Page Flip, you can turn one page at a time or zoom out to a bird’s eye view of your book to quickly choose the page you want.

iOS 10 preview: keep yourself well-rested with Bedtime and Wake alarm

In addition to a gorgeous new dark interface, the Clock app on iOS 10 packs i a little-known but useful new feature— Bedtime and Wake alarm. With it, you can set up a regular sleep schedule to receive reminders when it's time to hit the bed and wake up.

By making it easier than ever to create a regular sleep schedule and receive timely bedtime alerts, this feature could help the insomniac types get a good night's sleep. With that in mind, watch our video hands-on and read a detailed preview of the new Bedtime and Wake alarm feature in iOS 10's Clock app.

Twitter introduces searchable #Stickers for your tweet images

Twitter on Monday announced a new feature that will start rolling out soon, searchable #Stickers to adorn your tweet images with. With this feature, users can put multiple stickers on a photo, resize and rotate them and place them anywhere on the image before it's tweeted out.

These rotating sticker sets are categorized and include hundreds of accessories, emoji and props to make your photos more interesting and fun.

“Use them to share what you’re doing or how you’re feeling, to show support for a cause, or to just add some flair,” said Twitter.

Pro tip: make an applet that quits all opened Mac apps instantly

Those of you with Macs know that you can't just click on the Close button to exit out of most apps. Instead, you have to physically quit those apps after you're done using them.

On the other hand, if you just can't be asked to take the time to do that, we're going to show you a really easy way to make an applet that can be used to quit all of your Mac's running apps at once.