Apps

OneNote for iPad gains handwriting, stylus support with palm rejection and OCR for images

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

After updating the Mac edition of OneNote with enhanced optical character recognition (OCR) features and other goodies yesterday, Microsoft on Thursday announced that users of OneNote for iPad can now extract text within all images that are added to notebooks saved on OneDrive.

In addition, the iPad application now has handwriting support, a top requested feature which permits users to highlight documents, scribble notes or just draw sketches with their finger. With this update, handwriting is now available in OneNote across all platforms.

Weather Underground launches a new storm tracker app

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Weather Underground is at it again. The company that provides some of the most comprehensive data from more than 100,000 personal weather stations around the U.S. has just launched a new app to help you keep track of storms.

Aptly named Storm by Weather Underground, it includes a laundry list of features including weather layers, overlays and warnings. Plus, you can see alerts for severe weather warnings, lightning, and rainfall right on your Lock screen using the Notification Center widget.

Google releases Inbox app for iPad

Jake Smith ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Google has released an iPad version of its Inbox app, its new service that allows “a completely different type of inbox”. The app strives to surface the most relevant stuff that often gets buried and forgotten due to an avalanche of unwanted emails we get bombarded with.

You can now open shared links in Dropbox for iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 18, 2015

Popular cloud-storage service Dropbox today announced it's refreshed its mobile app for iOS and Android with the much-appreciated ability to open shared links on the iPhone, iPad or Android tablets and smartphones.

In the past, sending someone a link to a shared Dropbox document meant firing up the web interface, but not anymore. Starting today, tapping on a shared link from your iOS device opens the file in the Dropbox app.

Not only does this give you rich previews for shared documents and photos, but also the ability to instantly save shared content to your Dropbox account.

This widget adds a phone dialer to Notification Center

Lory Gil ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

There are dozens of apps out there that offer a streamlined interface so you can find contacts and make phone calls quickly and easily, but how many can you count will put a widget on your Lock screen so you can make phone calls in Notification Center?

YoBu is a Notification Center extension that allows you to search for contacts by name or number, and then call them right from the Today view on your Lock screen.

Apple rejects GIF Finder over Disney characters

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 1, 2017

Following its 2012 debut and 90,000 downloads later, GIF Finder for iOS is no more. As of now, the free app is no longer available in the App Store.

According to its UK-based developer Matt Cheetham, Apple took issue with the software, which takes the pain out of finding GIFs to reply with quickly on iOS, because it included “content or features that resemble various well-known, third-party marks, including Disney characters.”

OneNote for Mac gains enhanced OCR features and other goodies

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

After adding the ability search for words in images to OneNote for the iPhone, iPad and Mac last summer, Microsoft today refreshed the Mac client by enhancing the somewhat limited functionality of the optical character recognition (OCR) feature.

In addition, the software contains other perks such as the ability to hide author initials in shared notebooks from the View tab and close the OneNote window without quitting the app.

OneNote for the Mac, iPhone and iPad is available at no cost through the Mac App Store and App Store.

UK banks RBS and NatWest now allow account access via Touch ID fingerprint identification

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 18, 2015

As reported Wednesday by BBC News, two banks in the United Kingdom will soon allow their customers access their bank accounts using Touch ID-based fingerprint identification technology, a UK first.

“RBS and NatWest customers must activate the feature with their security information, but would only need to use Apple's Touch ID thereafter,” reports the BBC.

To protect their customers' sensitive financial information and mitigate risk, the banks have put a number of restrictions in place to augment Apple's existing Touch ID safeguards.

NBC now streams content live to iOS thanks to app update

Jake Smith ∙ February 17, 2015

NBC has updated its iPhone and iPad apps on Wednesday to include live streaming television, following in the paths of ABC and CBS. NBC had originally rolled out its "TV Everywhere" product on the web, but now it's available on iOS, bringing the content to your iPhone and iPad.

Google Play Music updated with Material Design, iPad support and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

Google today pushed out an update for its Play Music iOS client, bringing the app to the odd version number of 2.0.3828. The update is rather significant in that it brings about proper support for the iPad, as well as new Material Design UI for the iPhone.

In the changelog Google says that it has heard users "loud and clear, and now Google Play Music has an official iPad app." It looks very similar to the redesigned iPhone app, sporting Google's new Material Design aesthetic, but with larger UI elements.

EA releases ‘The Sims 4’ for Mac after missing 2014 launch

Jake Smith ∙ February 17, 2015

Electronic Arts has finally released the anticipated "The Sims 4" for Mac, as previously announced in January. The Sims 4 was initially available for Windows in September, but it's taken several months for the company to launch a Mac version of the game, and lead to the company missing its original 2014 deadline.

Southwest Airlines app updated with Passbook support

Sébastien Page ∙ February 17, 2015

The official Southwest Airlines app was updated today with Passbook support, allowing passenger to store their mobile boarding passes for quick and easy access when needed during security screening and boarding at the gate.

Those mobile boarding passes can be downloaded directly from the Southwest Airlines app, or any official email or text message containing boarding information sent by the airline.