Apps

Microsoft releases a free iOS client for SharePoint enterprise collaboration suite

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 21, 2016

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the official release of a brand new application on the App Store, SharePoint. Available at no charge for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the software is basically Microsoft's long-expected iOS client for its SharePoint enterprise collaboration suite.

Billed as the Intranet in your pocket, the app lets enterprise users stay connected to their company's intranet while on the go, navigate their company's web sites and portals, access important content, information and people and more.

Vine starts an experiment with longer video, too

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Twitter today said its users will soon be able to tweet out 140-second videos, a major increase in video duration compared to the current 30-second limit. The company also announced that its shortform video-sharing app, Vine, will start an experiment with longer video as well.

Twitter now accepts 140-second video uploads, rolls out new full-screen viewing experience

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 6, 2018

Micro-blogging startup Twitter on Tuesday announced a major expansion of native video length, with users able to upload videos to the service which can now be up to 140 seconds long, or two minutes and twenty seconds. Before today, Twitter video uploads were capped at thirty seconds. This change is scheduled to go into effect soon and will require an updated mobile app.

Instagram now has 500 million monthly users

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 21, 2016

Facebook-owned Instagram today announced a major milestone as the service just passed 500 million monthly users, more than 80 percent of whom are living outside of the United States. The announcement came a little more than a month following Instagram's major redesign of its mobile app. The only metric that matters is daily active users and Instagram said that out of the 500+ million monthly users, 300 million use the service every single day.

Adobe CC update with content-aware crop in Photoshop and more now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 21, 2016

Photoshop maker Adobe today announced availability of a major update to its Creative Cloud suite of applications, which brings out the previously previewed content-aware crop in Photoshop, performance enhancements across Creative Cloud, new features in Adobe Stock, and various updates to other apps in the suite.

This tweak keeps Facebook Messenger from bugging you to invite people to use it

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 21, 2016

Facebook has been badgering its users to download the standalone Messenger app for as long as I can remember, and as it stands, even years after the change, users are still reluctant to download a standalone app for something that used to exist in the Facebook app itself.

NoInviteFBMessenger is a new jailbreak tweak that disables the "Invite [name] to Messenger" alerts in the Facebook Messenger app, and we'll talk a little about it in this post.

TextEdit app spotted on iPad’s Home screen in WWDC session video

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 20, 2016

TextEdit, one of the stock applications for the Mac, might be coming to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, suggests an icon spotted on an iPad during one of the WWDC 2016 demos.

As first discovered by MacRumors, the “What's New in Metal, Part 1” WWDC session video shows (mark 17:58) a TextEdit icon on the iPad's multitasking app switcher screen and on the Home screen.

Apple’s updated Photos app recognizes 7 facial expressions, 4,432 objects and scenes

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 20, 2016

During the WWDC keynote a week ago, Apple announced that iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will bring facial recognition features alongside a brand new Memories tab and other improvements in Photos for iOS 10 and macOS Sierra.

According to a Medium post by Redditor “vista980622,” Photos' facial recognition engine is capable of distinguishing between seven distinct facial expressions and detecting up to 4,432 searchable objects and scenes on your photos.

Modern Atlas, Lemon, VUE and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Whew! What a long week. Apple held its annual WWDC keynote on Monday, where it unveiled new versions of iOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS, and we spent the rest of the week following up on those announcements. But now it's time for the weekend, and we plan on kicking back and relaxing with some of our favorite new apps and games, which we've listed for you below.

iOS 10 tidbit: managing app downloads in progress with 3D Touch

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 17, 2016

Pausing an in-progress App Store download has always been a cinch on iOS: you just tap the icon of the app being downloaded on your Home screen in order to pause the download, and then tap it again to resume it.

But cancelling the download is a trickier affair: you must tap the icon's X sign in jiggle mode. The problem is, entering iOS's signature jiggle mode often interferes with 3D Touch.

Thankfully, iOS 10 comes to the rescue with all-new 3D Touch shortcuts for managing downloads in progress.

Apple executive explains why iMessage isn’t on other platforms

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

In a broad reflective piece on Apple's WWDC keynote, noted tech journalist Walt Mossberg made some interesting comments regarding a recent rumor that Apple was considering bringing its iMessage service to Android. Turns out that isn't happening, and won't be in the near future.

Speaking to a "senior Apple executive," Mossberg says Apple is happy with the 1 billion+ active devices it currently caters to, so it doesn't feel an immediate need to grow its user base by expanding to other platforms. It also still considers its iMessage service a major iOS-exclusive feature.

Apple’s free app of the week: TextGrabber

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the productivity app TextGrabber. This means that for the next 7 days, you’ll be able to download the popular OCR translation app for free on both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $5.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with TextGrabber, it easily and quickly scans, translates and saves your chosen text or QR-codes from virtually any printed material. All you have to do is take a picture, and TG handles the rest.