Apps

Twitter, Google reportedly ink deal to put tweets in search results

Twitter and Google have struck a deal that will allow the microblogging network's 140-character tweets to appear in search results. The deal is believed to help Twitter reach more non-users, and at the same time, allow searchers to gain more real-time information.

Bloomberg reports that tweets will begin appearing in Google within the first half of this year, and tweets will start to be visible in Google’s search results as soon as they’re posted, thanks to a deal giving the Web company access to Twitter’s firehose.

Subdit: a random reddit browser

There is so much stuff on reddit that it's sometimes hard to find new subreddits worth your interest. This is where Subdit comes in! The app allows you to browse a continuous stream of random subreddits, offering a good way to discover and maybe subscribe to subreddits you might not have found out about otherwise.

Tweetbot 2 for Yosemite coming soon, will be free update

Tapbots, the development firm behind popular Twitter application Tweetbot, announced on Wednesday the app will soon see an update for OS X Yosemite.

Along with a teaser image for the update, which shows a more transparent user interface to better gel with Yosemite, Tapbots said the update would be available to existing customers for free. 

Microsoft snaps up cross-platform calendar app Sunrise

Microsoft has just acquired the popular calendar app Sunrise. TechCrunch, which first learned of the deal, has pegged the value of the transaction at a cool $100 million.

Sunrise has an awesome iPhone and iPad app in the App Store. It's also available for the Mac, across other mobile platforms and in the form of a responsive, lightweight application which runs smoothly in a web browser.

Videos in Instagram for iPhone now play on loop

I rarely, if ever, publish videos on Instagram, but those who do should know that the latest version 6.5 update, which rolled out this morning to Instagram's iPhone app, has quietly enabled looping videos.

Previously, you had to tap on videos to pause and resume playback. And as first spotted by AppAdvice, the option to set sound to play when the device’s ringer is on or to be always off has been removed as well.

Although Instagram videos now automatically replay in your feed, the company insists that this won't affect how much data the app uses.

Potatoman Seeks the Troof: a retro twitch game for the highly skilled player

Games that test your reaction time can be both exciting and aggravating. If you are really good at precision timing and control, you can walk away from these twitch games with your head held high. If not, you might as well give up now.

Potatoman Seeks the Troof is one of those types of games that will either make you beam with pride or collapse on the floor, crying. Can you handle the challenge?

NC brings a Twitter widget to Notification Center

Up until a few months ago, if you wanted to have a Twitter widget in Notification Center, you would have had to go the jailbreak way and find a tweak that would allow you to do just that. But since the release of iOS 8, and Apple opening up its mobile operating software for developers to create extensions, we've seen some really neat apps and widgets taking advantage of the new possibilities. NC is one of those.

NC is a new app that lets you add a Twitter widget to the Today tab of Notification Center, and from our usage of the app for the last few days, we can say it works as advertised.

Shifts is a calendar app for people who work irregular hours

If you know you have to be at work every weekday morning at 8 o’clock and are off at 5 o’clock, it is not difficult to remember your schedule. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a permanent schedule.

Shifts is a calendar app specifically designed for people who work different hours all of the time. Whether you are on-call every other weekend, work the night shift twice per month, or have two jobs to juggle, this app makes keeping track of your schedule a bit easier.

Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect review – a new episodic game for SOA fans

Last week, Orpheus Interactive launched a new game based on the hugely popular FX television show Sons of Anarchy. The series may have ended in December, but that doesn’t mean the story has to end. Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect is an episodic game that is filled to the brim with two-wheeled gang action. It features an all-new cast of characters set in the Lincoln, OR chapter of the violent motorcycle club. We’ve got a full game review of Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect for you today.

How to reclaim ‘Other’ storage on your iOS device

If your iPhone or iPad is running out of space, manually removing unwanted photos, videos, songs, apps and stuff like Safari's Reading List is a good way of freeing up some store space. But more often than not, this isn't enough.

The devil, as they say, is in the detail — in this case, the mysterious ‘Other’ category that iTunes displays after connecting your iOS device to a computer.

‘Other’ storage is a section iOS uses to store temporary data, cache files inside apps and items retrieved through the iOS Background Refresh feature to make apps load faster. ‘Other’ storage balloons over time and can quickly add up to anywhere between a few hundred megabytes to a couple gigabytes of wasted on-device storage.

Aside from performing a clean install of iOS or restoring your device as new, there's no easy way of manually reclaiming your ‘Other’ storage. But thanks to a brilliant new Mac app in town, created by Nice Mohawk, anyone — even novice users — can free up storage space on their iPhone and iPad in minutes. Not only does the app let you reclaim your ‘Other’ storage, but also delete caches, back up your photos and videos, as well as remove large apps and music.