Apps

A first look at Fleksy for iOS 8

Lory Gil ∙ September 18, 2014

One of the cool new features available in iOS 8 is the ability to set third-party keyboard apps as the default on your iPhone and iPad. I was quick to jump on that bandwagon. Fleksy Keyboard – Happy Typing was my first third-party default because, frankly, I wanted my keyboard to look like a candy store. It is a gesture-based, colorful, super fast keyboard for iOS 8 with autocorrect and word suggestions. I’ve been playing with it for about a day now and I’ve got some hands-on experience to pass along to you.

Twitter’s iPhone app gains interactive notifications on iOS 8, revamps profile pages

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 18, 2014

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, is rolling out a brand new profile experience on Twitter for iPhone, in addition to another cool new feature — support for interactive notifications for incoming tweets on iOS 8 devices — the startup announced in a blog post Thursday.

While the new profiles will be available for everyone using iOS 7 or above, the ability to interact with alerts on the Lock and Home screen is not because this capability is part of the great new features available only in iOS 8.

SwiftKey’s new iOS 8 keyboard surpasses 1 million downloads in first day

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

SwiftKey has announced today that its new iOS 8 keyboard has already surpassed the 1 million downloads mark. The news comes just 24 hours after Apple released the software update, which activated support for third party iOS keyboards.

At the time of this writing, SwiftKey is the #1 app in the Top Free chart of the US App Store. Other third-party keyboard apps like Swype and Fleksy are also sitting at the top of their respective charts, as users rush to try out the new feature.

Flipboard receives iOS 8 Share menu extension, support for iPhone 6 screens

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 18, 2014

Like many other popular apps, Flipboard, the beloved social news magazine for the iPhone and iPad, has received a nice update today bringing out support for iOS 8's Share sheet extension which allows you to more conveniently collect what you love into Flipboard magazines across Apple's ecosystem.

Now available free of charge in the App Store, the new Flipboard 2.3.8 also includes support for the bigger screens on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Kindle update brings iOS 8 Today widget, translation cards, copy & paste and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Thursday morning, the online retail giant Amazon has released the new Kindle 4.5 for the iPhone and iPad in the App Store, bringing out a Today widget and compatibility fixes for Apple's latest iOS 8 software update, in addition to the ability to copy passages of text from e-books, look up translations and more.

The 40.4-megabyte download is universal so any iPhone, iPod touch or iPad is supported natively as long as it's compatible with iOS 7.0 or later.

Gameloft updates Modern Combat and Asphalt with iOS 8 Metal-powered graphics

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Following up on yesterday's public release of the free iOS 8 software update for Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch mobile devices, French games maker Gameloft on Thursday unleashed a pair of updates for its two highly-successful titles: Modern Combat 5: Blackout, a first-person shooter, and Asphalt 8: Airborne, a crazy racing game driven by a powerful physics engine which has you performing dynamic, high-speed aerial stunts.

Both games are now powered by iOS 8's new Metal framework which provides low-level access to the GPU inside the Apple-designed A7 chip (the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display) and its A8 counterpart (the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus). When played on these devices, both of these games benefit from close-to-the-metal access to graphics cores, without the overhead of the OpenGL graphics run-time.

Epic releases Metal-powered ‘Zen Garden’ demo free on App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Demoed at WWDC back in June to show off the power of Apple's new low-level graphics framework, Metal, Epic Games' Zen Garden is now available to download on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 8 and powered by the Apple-deigned A7 or A8 processor.

Built on the recently-unveiled Unreal Engine 4, the first game engine with built-in support for the Metal API, Zen Garden classes as a technological showcase.

The latest iPhone 6, for example, renders the demo in a whopping 1,440-by-1,080 resolution at a smooth thirty frames per second.

CNN app updated with support for iPhone 6 and improved landscape mode

Cody Lee ∙ September 18, 2014

CNN updated its iPhone app this morning, bringing it to version 2.4. You may recall Apple SVP Phil Schiller showing off this app on stage at last week's iPhone event, highlighting the way that it takes advantage of the larger displays of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

It looks like today's update brings that support for the two new smartphones, as well as a handful of other enhancements. CNN says that the app has a much improved landscape mode—which looks great on my iPhone 5s—prettier photo galleries and more.

Apple updates Pages and iMovie for iOS 8 [updated]

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Following its release of iOS 8 this morning, Apple has begun updating its mobile apps to support the firmware. It looks like Numbers and iMovie were first on the list, with both apps showing up in the App Store's Updates tab today touting iOS 8 compatibility.

The change log for Numbers is fairly brief, mentioning only support for iOS 8, iCloud Drive compatibility, and stability improvements and bug fixes. iMovie's update, however, is a bit more extensive, bringing about new features like slow motion and video filters.

Update: it looks like Apple has also pushed out iOS 8 updates for Pages and Keynote as well.

Update 2: iMovie was experiencing issue so Apple apparently pulled it from the App Store. It should be fixed and come back quickly.

Update 3: as expected, Apple resolved the issue quickly and iMovie is once again available in the App Store.

iOS 8 apps with Notification Center widgets

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Now that iOS 8 is here, developers are releasing updates to their apps and launching new apps altogether that take advantage of iOS 8's many new functionalities. Many popular apps are being updated to support Notification Center widgets in the Today view for displaying information and performing actions without having to open the app. We've compiled an extensive list of apps that support iOS 8's new Notification Center APIs and are available to download and install on iOS 8. We're working to populate the index continuously as more updates are released, so check back frequently. If you know of an app that currently has iOS 8 Notification Center widget support but isn't listed below, send us an email at tips@idownloadblog.com or comment below with a link to the app!

iOS 8 apps with Touch ID support

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Users around the world have downloaded iOS 8 today, and developers around the world are releasing quality updates to their apps, enabling support for one or more the many APIs introduced in iOS 8. Many well-loved, seasoned apps now allow you to use Touch ID to easily and conveniently sign in with your password or account.

We've been busy gathering a collection of apps that have introduced support for the new Touch ID API alongside the launch of iOS 8. The list will be updating as we're aware of new release, so if you run across an app that supports Touch ID logins that isn't documented below, let us know via email at tips@idownloadblog.com or by leaving a comment below with a link to the app!