You have to hand it to the folks of Starbucks. When they want to, they can move rather quickly. Hot on the heels of its blog post earlier today addressing security concerns regarding its iPhone app, the coffee company released an update this evening.
The change log for the update, which is marked as version 2.6.2, notes the new release brings 'additional performance enhancements and safeguards.' And we're hoping this means that the app no longer stores user passwords and data in plain text...
Excluding Instagram, the social networking giant Facebook currently counts five iPhone and iPad apps in the App Store: in addition to the main Facebook client and the recently revamped Messenger, there's also Pages Manager, Camera and Poke, the latter an ill-fated attempt to counter the rising popularity of "disappear" apps like Snapchat.
They're all available free of charge but only the main Facebook app and the new Messenger have managed to pick up steam.
Pages Manager is somewhat useful for those who manage Pages on Facebook, Camera was quickly forgotten and Poke was a joke to begin with. Not content with standing still, Facebook is seemingly reading a host of standalone native apps on mobile this year.
These apparently include a Flipboard-killer said to use summarization technologies to deliver a sharply focused news-reading experience, among a few others...
Last summer, Imgur released an official client for iOS, essentially putting all of the web's most popular memes in the palm of your hand. Now it's bringing the ability to create your own meme to that same hand, with MemeGen.
It looks like MemeGen has actually been in the App Store since late last year, but like others, we're just finding out about it today. At any rate, the app allows you to tap Imgur's vast photo library to create your own viral web pic...
Earlier today we told you about a report that raised security issues concerning the Starbucks iPhone app. A researcher discovered that the most used mobile-payment app in the US stores unencrypted user data like passwords and emails.
The problem with this is that by connecting your iPhone to a computer, someone could easily retrieve this info from a crash log—no jailbreak required. And the only way for Starbucks to fix the vulnerability is through an App Store update...
Up until recently, it used to be that news junkies like yours trulls diligently put every conceivable news app on their Home screens in order to make sure they kept tabs on the latest news as it happened. As an unintended consequence (or was it?), this has led to information overload which in turn gave birth to apps like Yahoo's excellent News Digest (free in the App Store) and Gist by Michael Mamiye.
Both of these intelligently summarize news articles so you can consume key takeaways in the shortest amount of time.
Gist for iPhone, $1.99 in the App Store, is especially interesting due to its gorgeous and sharp user interface and a clever algorithm that can summarize most articles into approximately five bullet points - that's why the iDownloadBlog team put it on the list of 10 Best News Apps of 2013.
Following up on its mid-December debut, the developer this morning issued a major 2.0 update bringing out a host of goodies, such as a more robust implementation of the summarization technology, rich Pocket support and lots more...
Available as a free public preview since December 3, 2013, Mindsense on Thursday released its Mail Pilot for public consumption in the Mac App Store, priced at $9.99 a pop. Originally a 2012 Kickstarter project, this email application for the Mac promises to change the game by being task instead of email-oriented. What does that mean?
Well, all your messages in Mail Pilot are action-based. For example, Mark as Unread becomes Complete/Incomplete, a message can have a reminder attached to it so you can get notified when it’s time to deal with it, you can Set Aside messages that you want to come back to later (great for Inbox Zero fanatics) and lots more.
This task-oriented approach allows for a more intuitive email that lets you get stuff done faster and get on with your life...
CNET reported last summer that Google Now cards were heading to Google’s Chrome browser for the Mac. Six months later, Google releases a brand new Google Canary build with Google Now cards functionality nested right inside the browser's notification center which sits in your Mac's status bar.
Although not all Google Now cards are available in this alpha release of Chrome, the search company has integrated a few of the most popular ones like sports scores, real-time weather updates, and travel information...
Skype for iPhone rolled out the ability to conduct two-way video chatting back in December 2010, but the quality of these video calls left a lot to be desired. Back then, the iPhone 4's back camera could only capture video in 720p and the front-facing camera was good only for VGA-grade video chatting.
Besides, the handset lacked the processing power to make two-way video calling in high-definition a reality.
Today's update to Skype's free iPhone and iPad client brings HD video calling to the iPhone 5s, iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, along with an improved chatting experience and more...
In an era when people speak in 140 characters or less, make dinner for four in just a few minutes, and don’t waste any time taking breaks, it is hard to see how any of us have time to read through the millions of articles that are posted to the Internet each day. I know I’m always saving stories to read later because I just can’t get through them all during my morning coffee break.
Outread is an app that teaches you how to speed-read by giving you access to articles you already want to read anyway. Instead of seeing one word at a time, get the entire text and follow the highlighted section to train your eyes to follow along at a faster pace…
With competition from services like Spotify and Apple's iTunes Radio increasing, and the Beats Music launch on the horizon, Pandora announced this week that it's rolling out a new feature to its mobile apps to help you discover music.
That feature is called 'Personalized Station Recommendations,' and it provides listeners with up to 6 suggested artist stations to listen to at a time. These suggestions are based on your listening habits and like/dislike thumb interactions...
Following a report from security researcher Daniel Wood, Starbucks executives admitted this week that the company's mobile app stores user names and passwords in clear text, with no encryption. It also keeps a record of unsecured geolocation data.
The problem with this, Wood says, is that by connecting your iPhone to a computer, someone could easily retrieve this info from a crash log—no jailbreak or special hardware required. And what's worse is Starbucks isn't doing anything to fix the issue...
Good news for Simpsons fans this morning. FX Networks CEO John Landgraf announced this week that the group is creating a standalone app for the popular Springfield family, which will allow users to stream all 24 seasons of the TV show to their devices.
Speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour yesterday, Landgraf offered up some details about the app. He says it'll feature tons of content including all 500+ episodes of The Simpsons, which will be available for online streaming at all times...