Apps

IGN names minimalist text-based title A Dark Room its new Free Game of the Month

IGN has named independent developer Amirali Rajan's chart-topping atmospheric adventure title A Dark Room its new Game of the Month, meaning you can download it at no charge for a limited time. The game currently retails in the App Store for 99 cents.

A minimalist text-based game, A Dark Room has some role-playing game elements and invites players to “come light the fire and escape into a world you'll never forget”.

9 ways 3D Touch can make you more productive in Safari

Safari, one of the most popular stock applications on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, has gotten some sweet 3D Touch love in iOS.

If you own an iPhone 7 or later, you can Peek and Pop web links, bookmarks, Shared Links and Reading List items, enter Safari's private-browsing mode or open new tabs right from the Home screen, and then some more.

In this post, we'll take you through the nine ways you can use 3D Touch in Safari to browse the web faster and access popular features with fewer taps than without it.

Controller review: a mini player for Mac that doesn’t get in the way

When you are blasting beats on your Mac, sometimes it is helpful to have easy access to playback features right on your desktop without having to open the root music player. It is also nice to be able to see the name of the song and artist that is currently playing at a glance.

Controller is a mini player for Mac that works with iTunes and Spotify to display the current track and provide playback controls. We've got a hands-on app review of Controller for you below.

Facebook Messenger reaches the milestone of 800 million monthly users

Facebook Messenger has reached a new milestone as the service now claims 800 million monthly users, according to an announcement from Facebook itself on Thursday. “I’m happy to report that we’ve made a good step in that direction, and toward the end of 2015, we crossed the milestone of 800 million people using Messenger each month,” according to David Marcus, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging Products.

The new milestone, according to latest Nielsen data, makes Messenger the fastest growing app of 2015.

How to delete comments on Vine

I don't know about you, but I've adopted a habit of diligently going through the comments other people publish on my social media posts. I do it on a regular basis because there's nothing I hate more than seeing NSFW language or insults by other people on my posts.

Vine, a short-form video sharing service owned by Twitter, is especially notorious for attracting all sorts of commenters, many of whom just spew hate.

But worry not, ladies and gents, this quick tutorial will show you how easy it actually is to remove any offending comments from your post.

CloudMagic email client comes to the Mac

On Wednesday, CloudMagic released an OS X version of their minimal email client, which is also available on iOS, Android, watchOS, and Android Wear. Like its mobile counterparts, CloudMagic for Mac supports email accounts from Google, Exchange, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud, and any IMAP-hosted account, making it a well-rounded client for managing several accounts in one place.

Apple announces ‘biggest ever’ holiday for App Store with $1.1 billion sales in two weeks

Apple on Wednesday announced that its App Store has had the biggest holiday ever with a record-breaking $1.1 billion revenue in the two weeks ending January 3, as customers increased their spending on apps and In-App Purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases.

“January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million,” said Apple. “It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.”

Flewn review: a whale of a story told with style

In a decade of immediate gratification, where conversations take place 140 characters at a time and games are scored by how fast you complete them, it's nice to come across an app that does nothing but tell a story so you can slow things down, even if it is just for a moment.

Flewn is a highly stylized book with dozens of illustrations that you access with very little effort, but still feels significantly interactive just the same. We've got a full app review of Flewn for you right now.

All-new iHeartRadio app coming to Apple TV soon with live stations and podcasts

iHeartRadio Media announced today at CES 2016 in Las Vegas that a whole new radio-streaming app will be coming to the fourth-generation Apple TV. In addition to a redesigned interface, it will allow users to experience all of the core elements of the service and let them access thousands of live and custom stations, including podcasts.

Both registered and unregistered users will be able to play live and custom radio stations, view For You recommendations, save favorite stations to a brand new My Favorites Radio feature and more, all from the comfort of their couch.

Pigment review: the first coloring book app to get it right

I am a coloring book enthusiast. I have dozens of them, ranging in skill level from kid's books with wide lines to coloring books for adults, which are intricate and complex. I have a wide variety of tools from Prismacolor pencils to brush tip markers. I've been coloring since I was a toddler and I've never stopped. Ever.

So, when Pixite told me about its new coloring book app, Pigment, I immediately scoffed at the idea. Coloring book apps are a joke. They don't get it. They don't provide the stress-relieving comfort that actual coloring does. However, after testing the app for about two weeks now, I'm singing a different tune. Check out my full app review of Pigment below to find out what changed my mind.

How to temporarily hide iOS 9’s stock app icons, no jailbreak required

Aside from disabling the iTunes Store, iBooks Store and Podcasts apps on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad using iOS's Restrictions feature, Apple doesn't yet provide an officially sanctioned way of removing stock apps from your Home screen.

This can be particularly annoying for people who rely on third-party alternatives to Apple's default apps like Reminders, Maps or Calendar.

My preferred way of working around this limitation involves tucking away any unwanted stock app inside a “Junk” folder. Thankfully, YouTubber Jose Rodriguez has found a better way to temporarily hide icons of Apple's stock apps on iOS versions from iOS 9 onward using a simple trick that doesn't require a jailbreak.