Apps

Twitter rolls out a new timeline feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 18, 2016

The pressure mounts on Twitter to re-ignite growth, which has virtually come to a halt as average users increasingly find the service too confusing and difficult to use. Today, the micro-blogging service unveiled yet another refinement designed to adjust how the timeline surfaces interesting content.

Similar to the “While you were away” timeline feature which released a year ago, Twitter will now put recommended, not the newest, tweets at the top of your timeline so that you never miss important updates from people you follow.

Some of the Mac apps known to be affected by the Sparkle vulnerability

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 10, 2016

A vulnerability discovered in an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework that many third-party OS X apps depend on for serving the user with regular updates has been getting a lot of attention recently.

As we reported on Tuesday, the security problem affects a number of third-party Mac apps downloaded from the internet, and not apps downloaded from the Mac App Store. The vulnerability roots from the lack of an encrypted connection and gives a malicious hacker the ability to perform a man-in-the-middle attack.

But what OS X apps are affected? This is the information you need to know as soon as possible to keep your Mac safe from potential malware threats.

What you need to know about the Sparkle vulnerability affecting some OS X apps

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 9, 2016

A new vulnerability has been discovered to affect a wide variety of third-party apps for OS X that have been downloaded from the internet and use an outdated version of the Sparkle updater framework.

The new vulnerability puts a number of users of affected third-party apps at risk of being hijacked when those apps attempt to use the outdated framework to alert users of new app updates.

How to delete your old iPhoto library

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 23, 2018

After upgrading your Mac to OS X Yosemite or later, the new Photos app gets installed automatically.

On first launch, Photos will auto-upgrade your default iPhoto library to its new library format. People with multiple iPhoto libraries must manually convert them to the new format by holding the Option (⌥) key when clicking the Photos icon in the Dock.

Upon completing migration, you'll have two sets of photo libraries on your machine: the original iPhoto libraries and their Photos counterpart.

In order to free up a significant amount of storage space on your Mac, you can safely delete any iPhoto library that has been migrated to the new Photos app.

New Apple TV app TechTube helps you discover great tech videos

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

Folks in the market for a new Apple TV app that helps surface great content may want to check out TechTube TV. The app, which was released late last week, was designed to highlight videos that it believes folks will find interesting.

The video selections are geared towards techies, and feature everything from TED talks to device reviews. There is also a mix of science and 'how things work' videos—"the goal is entertaining, informative or intellectually stimulating."

Final Fantasy IX hits iOS with 20% launch sale

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 9, 2016

In a surprise launch this morning, publisher Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy IX upon the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This classic role-playing game, which originally released for Sony's PlayStation console back in 2000, is now available in the App Store with a special 20 percent launch sale for $16.99.

Designed to let players relive the adventures of Zidane and his crew in the palm of their hands, Final Fantasy IX brings Game Center achievements, autosave, crisp graphics with high-def movies and character models, seven game boosters like high-speed and no-encounter modes and other perks.

Vine app gains 3D Touch, caption editing and post ordering features

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Vine, a Twitter owned mobile application for short-form video sharing, has been updated in the App Store this morning with three new features. For starters, owners of the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s plus can press Vine's icon on the Home screen to access a shortcut menu with a pair of options to make a Vine or jump into the Explore feed.

In addition, you can now edit your Vine’s caption for a brief period after you post and watch an account’s Vines in any order you want.

IGN names Heroes Reborn: Enigma for iOS its Free Game of the Month

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 9, 2016

IGN has named Phosphor Games Studio's first person action-puzzle game Heroes Reborn: Enigma its free title for the month of February 2016, marking the first time the $4.99 game has gone free since its October 2015 debut.

The game has you playing as Dahlia, an evolved human with incredible powers. You must solve various puzzles and survive tests in order to escape captivity at The Quarry, a secret government facility.

How to move Photos library to an external drive

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 1, 2018

In addition to moving your multi-gigabyte iTunes library to an external drive, a significant amount of Mac storage space can be freed up by moving your photo libraries onto a separate drive.

If you take a lot of pictures with a DSLR camera or your iOS devices and import them in Photos, you'll fairly quickly run out of free space on most Macs.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of moving an entire library of photos to an external drive, preferably to a much larger external hard drive, in a way that won't disrupt your photography workflow.

How to make the most of 3D Touch in Phone app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 9, 2019

Our 3D Touch tutorial series has so far covered various user interface shortcuts and 3D Touch Peek and Pop gestures in several Apple stock apps like Messages, Safari, Mail, iBooks and Apple Maps.

Today, we're going to discuss how pressure-sensing screens enhance the Phone app, one of the most frequently used stock apps on iPhones. Here's how to make the most of 3D touch and the Phone app.

Accessing Facebook in Safari can increase iPhone 6s Plus battery life by 15 percent

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 8, 2016

According to The Guardian's technology reporter Samuel Gibbs, uninstalling Facebook's battery draining iOS app and accessing the mobile Facebook interface through the Safari browser can boost an iPhone 6s Plus's battery life by as much as fifteen percent.

Gibbs cited his own testing, which has revealed that Facebook's mobile application continues to drain the life out of an iPhone's battery even when it isn’t being actively used.

Link your Spotify account with Shazam to enable full song previews & more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 29, 2019

The Shazam app for iOS comes with the ability to link your Spotify account so you can stream the music you tag via Spotify directly from the Shazam app itself. A recent update to the app included a complete rewrite for this feature, so it's now more stable than ever before.

All you have to do is connect your Spotify account to the Shazam app, and the app will take care of the rest for you, allowing you to listen to full tracks in Shazam instead of just 30-second song previews.

In this tutorial, we'll be showing you how to link your Spotify account to the Shazam app in iOS.