Apps

Apps of the Week: Broken Age, These Lumps, Unread for iPad, and more

This has been a great week for new and updated apps and games. We’ve seen major changes to Skype, the Amazon Prime Music streaming service, and new titles from some popular game developers. You’re going to be busy this weekend. Looks like that HoneyDo list is going back on the fridge.

This week’s list of apps and games are sure to occupy your brain and your fingertips. Call in sick to the visit with the in-laws because after you read our list, you won’t want to leave the house…

Apple partner OpenTable to be acquired by Priceline for $2.6 billion

Priceline has announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire online restaurant reservation service and Apple content partner OpenTable. The travel site will be doling out $103 per share in the all cash transaction, which is said to be worth $2.6 billion.

For those unfamiliar with it, OpenTable facilitates restaurant reservations through its website and mobile apps. Apple has long been a proponent of the service, which it reaffirmed in 2012 by integrating it into its digital assistant Siri, as part of the year's iOS 6 update...

Salt & Pepper review: fill the bowls to win

Most people mix salt and pepper on their food. In fact, someone should invent a container that holds both seasonings together so you don’t have to go through all those extra steps. It is very rare that you’d meet a person that keeps salt and pepper separate on their plate. However, this game requires that you separate your seasonings by filling them into bowls.

Salt & Pepper: A Physics Game is what it says, a physics-based puzzle game. Players must fill the black bowl with pepper and the white bowl with salt. However, when walls, blocks, and moving platforms block the pathway, getting the seasonings into their respective bowls is much harder than you’d think…

Despite Apple deal, Beats updates Android app, plans on using Samsung shill LeBron James in ads

Looks like Tim Cook wasn't joking when he told The Financial Times Apple would keep alive Beats Music apps for Android and Windows Phone platforms. Keep in mind that Cook made that promise after Apple snapped up Beats' streaming-music service, headphones, brand and talent in a $3 billion transaction.

Indeed, Beats has now issued an update to its Android client, the first refresh post-acquisition. But that's not all: it seems Beats will continue to feature Samsung endorser and Miami Heat cager LeBron James in future advertising...

Apple cracking down on fake App Store ratings

The latest statistics reveal that there are over 1.1 million apps and counting on the App Store, making app discovery for small and large developers alike increasingly challenging. On top of that, Apple is known to have an algorithm that makes only apps with higher ratings more easily discoverable.

As a result, a significant number of developers manipulate the position of their app in the App Store charts by posting fake reviews with high ratings, often times five stars. But according to TechCrunch, Apple is aware of the rank manipulation and is now taking action against these fake ratings…

iOS 8 lets native apps tap into Safari’s AutoFill & Passwords for frictionless login experience

In addition to using your device’s iSight camera to scan in credit card information, Safari in iOS 8 makes it easy for third-party apps to tap into the browser's AutoFill & Passwords feature for hassle-free logins.

Provided a user has previously saved their username and password for a specific website using Safari's AutoFill & Passwords feature, a native iOS app is now permitted to retrieve this information and re-use it to authorize a user quickly and securely, bypassing the login screen altogether...

Tweetbot 3 for iPhone updated with support for viewing/posting multiple images

The Tapbots have updated their popular Tweetbot 3 app for iPhone this morning. The update brings the Twitter client to version 3.4, and brings about a handful of new features, including support for multiple image viewing/posting, and more.

Users can now view and post multiple images from within Tweetbot 3, although Tapbots cautions that multiple images won't show up in search or streaming timelines until Twitter enables support. We have the full change log after the break...

Apple launches new ‘Browse by Category’ section in App Store

Apple has introduced a new section in the App Store entitled 'Browse by Category.' Available in the Featured section of both the iOS and desktop versions of the App Store, the new area makes it easier for users to discover and browse app categories.

While users have long been able to browse apps by category, the past experience was fairly truncated: users had to click on the Categories label in the upper left hand corner and scroll through a drop-down menu. This way is far more visually appealing...

Facebook Messenger updated with Instant Video Sending and Big Likes

Facebook has posted an update for its iOS Messenger client this morning, bringing the app to version 6.0. The release includes the usual bug fixes and improvements, as well as two new features in 'Instant Video Sending' and 'Big Likes.'

Both new features are exactly what they sound like. Instant Video Sending allows users to shoot and play 15-second video messages from the camera, right in the app, and a Big Like is essentially a larger thumbs up for things you really like...

‘ReadQuick’ goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but what an eventful Thursday it has been on the App Store. Lory shared her thoughts on WordWildWest, Cody told us about Angry Birds Epic and Amazon's new Prime Music service, Christian covered updates for Skitch, Flickr and Scanbot, and we've still got the App Recap coming later this evening… 

WordWildWest turns speed typing into a shooting game

I know it sounds like a learning game, but we are not talking about Westward Ho, here. This game isn’t what you would call “educational.” We are talking about an arcade shooter game that just happens to involve typing.

WWWest! Head Quiz Word & Challenge Flap (I know, odd name) is a speed typing game where players must tap out words as fast as possible in order to shoot down the signs. You’ll be spelling out 10-letter words before you can say lightsaber…

Skitch gains swipable design, better sharing, deeper Evernote integration and more

Evernote-owned Skitch is my favorite OS X/iOS annotation tool. It's even impressed Apple enough to borrow some of its trademark features for Yosemite's fancy new in-line attachment annotation tool.

If you use Skitch, there's a new update in town packing in several improvements, alongside a refreshed design which lets you swipe between Skitch's various tools easily.

You can download the new Skitch 3.2 for the iPhone and iPad free in the App Store..