Apps

Facebook launches quick-loading, interactive ‘Instant Articles’ as an iPhone-exclusive feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 13, 2015

Facebook today announced a new ‘Instant Articles’ feature which is rolling out to its iPhone application later today. As the name implies, this iPhone-exclusive capability lets cherry-picked publishers craft versions of news stories for mobile screens that load in a fraction of a second.

The new, mobile-optimized reading experience includes interactive features from Facebook's Paper app, with support for rich media such as photos and video and other embeddable content types like multitouch maps and more.

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BitTorrent launches Bleep, secure peer-to-peer messaging app for iPhone and Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 10, 2018

With ephemeral messaging growing in popularity, and given ongoing fear of government-sponsored snooping, small wonder that BitTorrent has now entered the market for secure chat apps — and in a pretty big way, too.

Bleep, their new Mac and iOS secure messaging and VoIP software, strives to ensure the privacy of your conversations by never saving them on your device or the servers. In a nutshell, Bleep uses encryption and peer-to-peer networking to establish a private, secure connection between devices.

With Bleep, you can whisper with friends on your Mac or iPhone and the messages will disappear after they are read.

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Google arrives on Apple Watch in update for News & Weather app

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Google has updated its News & Weather app today, bringing the software to version 1.7. The update includes various performance and stability improvements, and more significant to us, support for the Apple Watch.

This is essentially the first appearance on Apple's wearable for Google, who runs a competing wearable platform called Android Wear. The move, however, isn't surprising, given the company's sizable presence on iOS.

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Lock or unlock your Mac right from your wrist with MacID for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

MacID, a cool app by developer Kane Cheshire that lets you lock and unlock your Mac using Touch ID on your iPhone, or your passcode, is now available on the Apple Watch.

If you want to unlock your Mac right from your wrist, and own an Apple Watch, you should grab the new MacID 1.2 for iPhone, a $3.99 download from the App Store. You can even use the Apple Watch app to see what's playing on iTunes or Spotify, and start screensavers on your Mac.

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Paper by FiftyThree now lets you create diagrams, charts and wireframes

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

Keeping true to its promise, developer FiftyThree today updated its iPad drawing application Paper with support for a new set of drawing tools collectively dubbed the Think Kit.

With Think Kit, Paper users can take advantage of brand new Diagram, Cut, and Fill tools to create diagrams, charts and wireframes with ease. Think Kit is entirely free and comes as an automatic update for existing users of the Paper app.

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NYT Now for iPhone goes completely free, adds 1Password support and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 31, 2018

The New York Times newspaper this morning issued a sweet update to its dedicated news summarizing application, Now for iPhone. By far the biggest change in this would-be Flipboard killer involves breaking away from a $15+ per month subscription model in favor of making the app along with its content completely free.

Whether or not the move will help attract more readers remains to be seen. NYT arguably leads the charge in terms of quality newspaper content so going free is a much appreciated change in my book.

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Fantastical 2 for Mac picks up loads of new features and refinements in a new update

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 11, 2015

Developer Flexibits has updated its popular calendar, reminders and to-do alternative, Fantastical 2 for Mac, with more than a dozen new features, enhancements and bug fixes. The app now includes a new-look birthday event interface and has added a pending invitations section to view all incoming invitations in one place.

You can now drag text from other apps to quickly create an event and drag items from OmniFocus, which also creates a related event.

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App Watch: food edition

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Eating is perhaps my favorite pastime. While I typically prefer to eat at home where I can prepare higher quality food with enhanced taste and healthier ingredients, there are occasions when I have to pick up something in town. In these instances, I tend to gravitate toward restaurants with a mobile app so I can take my time while deciding on my order, and Chick-fil-A and Taco Bell are a couple restaurants that fulfill this criterion.

Unfortunately, the iPhone apps of these establishments don't yet support Apple Watch. There are, however, some food apps that do, so let's take a look at them.

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Shots, Rival Kingdoms, Twicer, and more apps to check out this weekend

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

There has been so much going on lately that it is difficult to keep track of all of the tech news. Luckily, as the weekend hits, it is time to slow down and relax.

If you are looking for something fun to unwind with over the weekend, we've got a list of apps and games below that we think you'd be interested in checking out.

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Nintendo to release first smartphone game this year, 5 games by 2017

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

After years of waiting, we could see Nintendo's first smartphone game within the next 6 months. The Verge passes along comments made by CEO Satoru Iwata during a shareholders meeting, in which he stated the company is aiming to debut the game before the end of the year.

Additionally, Iwata explained that Nintendo plans to release 5 mobile titles between now and March 2017. "You may think it is a small number," he said. "But when we aim to make each title a hit, this is not a small number and should demonstrate our commitment to smart devices."

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