Apps

Google Drive update adds passcode protection

Google's frontend iPhone and iPad app for its Drive cloud-storage service has received a much-needed passcode lock feature in an update this morning.

If your productivity depends on the Google cloud and you store your documents, presentations and spreadsheets in Google Drive, a thief was able to access all your files simply by launching the Drive app on a stolen device.

Fortunately enough, this won't be possible going forward as Google Drive 3.0 is now live in the App Store with a handy new passcode feature...

Microsoft updates OneNote for iPhone/Mac with new look, Office Lens and more

After updating Office for iPad apps with a new printing capability and a few other useful features that boost your mobile productivity, software maker Microsoft today issued a refresh for its note-taking app, OneNote, that contains some much appreciated enhancements on both the iPhone and Mac systems.

The new versions of OneNote, available free in the App Store and Mac App Store, have gained a dozen new features.

Most notably, OneNote for the iPhone now lets you create new notebooks and sections, includes a new design and comes with an optical character recognition feature called Office Lens. The Mac edition has received even more goodies...

Snapchat picks up live video chatting and text messaging

The controversial ephemeral photo sharing service Snapchat has received a major update today bringing out a text messaging feature conveniently named Chat, plus another one called Here which allows you to engage in live video chats with other users.

To start chatting, just swipe right on a friend’s name in your Snapchat inbox. Yes, the service will immediately clear all message exchange upon leaving the chat screen, leaving no traces of your communication session.

How to get snapchat update? Well, the update should land on the App Store later today so keep your eyes peeled..

1Password for iOS updated with background Dropbox syncing and more

1Password users will be happy to hear that AgileBits posted a new version of the iOS app this week, bringing the popular password manager to version 4.5.1. The update includes several enhancements, including background Dropbox syncing and more.

In fact, much of the update revolves around data syncing. In addition to the Dropbox fix, the app now uses the network activity indicator to show when sync is occurring, and conflict resolution during syncing has been improved. Full change log below...

Beats Music is coming to iPad soon

Beats Music, a new streaming music service from music mogul Jimmy Lovine, musician and producer Dr. Dre and other industry figures, is about to extend to the iPad soon.

According to the startup's teaser image shared on Twitter - captioned with the 'Something Big is Coming' tagline - the iPhone-only app should soon be available on Apple's tablet, too.

The $9.99 per month service launched on January 20 and is still struggling to hit the ground running despite an impressive set of features and a library of over 20 million songs that can be streamed on-demand to the iPhone, Windows Phone and Android devices and to your web browser...

Facebook unveils: Anonymous Login, ad network, mobile Like and much more

Facebook is holding its f8 developer conference in San Francisco today, with the CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg having taken the stage to share a whole bunch of interesting feature and platform announcements meant to empower programmers to build more engaging apps and help take the platform to the next level.

The social networking behemoth has recently entered fitness-tracking space by acquiring the popular Moves app and now claims 1.3 billion monthly active users.

Although the figure eclipses Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter monthly actives combined - Instagram crossed 200 million monthly users and WhatsApp has half a billion monthly actives - Facebook remains laser-focused on reducing friction when it comes to sharing data between apps, liking stuff on mobile, jumping between mobile apps and the web, serving more relevant advertising in way more places than before and more...

Google launches new Docs and Sheets apps for iOS

Google has launched a pair of new productivity apps for iOS this morning: Google Docs and Google Sheets. For those unfamiliar with the two apps, they're front-end clients for the company's web-based word processor and spreadsheet editor.

The move follows the release of Microsoft Office for iPad last month, and Apple's move to make its iWork apps free late last year. Can Google's business software suite compete in this space? Keep reading for an overview and more screenshots...

Adobe updates Photoshop Express with new design, Instagram sharing and more

Adobe updated their popular Photoshop Express app last night, bringing the iOS photo editor to version 3.3. The update features a number of improvements, including an all-new design for iOS 7, pet-eye (also known as green-eye) correction, and more.

The new release also brings about new sharing options—users can now show off their retouched photos to friends via either SMS or Instagram—as well as auto-save. Forget to save a photo before exiting the app? Don't worry, it'll be there when you return...

Chrome for iOS updated with new feature tour, omnibox improvements

Google rolled out an update for its mobile Chrome browser today, bringing the app to version 34.0.1847.18 (c'mon Google). The update includes a new 'feature tour,' which offers new users an overview of the browser, and other minor enhancements.

Among those enhancements is a tweak to Chrome's omnibox. Autocomplete in the omnibox now supports right-to-left languages, which should appease some international users. There's also the standard cluster of security, stability, and bug fixes...

Gameloft offers new details on ‘Modern Combat 5: Blackout’

It's been nearly a year since we first saw a preview of Gameloft's Modern Combat 5, and the game has yet to see a release date. In fact, we've heard almost nothing about the title in the past 11 months, leading some folks to believe that the project had either been shelved or canceled.

But today, Gameloft reassured MC fans that the game is still very much alive and coming along nicely. The studio confirmed that the title will be 'Modern Combat 5: Blackout,' and offered up some new details regarding the title including some info about the storyline and gameplay...

Suited Up review: target your jump to hit your mark

One of the most popular types of games in the App Store is the physics-based aim-to-shoot kind. We can attribute the success of the genre to Angry Birds. It may not have been the first, but it was certainly the most popular. If you are a fan of physics-based games, but are getting tired of the same old slingshot style mechanics, there is a new bird in town.

Suited Up uses the idea of aiming to shoot, but players must select the point at which the jumper will arc. Instead of dragging to aim, just tap the screen to mark your target and see where you land…

Office for iPad updated: AirPrint, SmartGuides in PowerPoint, AutoFit in Excel

A glaring omission from the initial release of the free Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Apple's iPad, printing has now been added to these apps via Microsoft’s first major update to the Office for iPad suite. The software update has arrived on Tuesday, a little more than a month into the suite's iPad launch last month.

Besides printing support across all Office for iPad apps, SmartGuides are now available in PowerPoint making it easy to align the elements of your presentation.

Moreover, Excel users will be happy to learn that a new AutoFit feature has been added to both Excel for iPad and its desktop counterpart. This feature allows you to adjust the width and height of multiple rows and columns at once...