Apps

DOJ: Apple used in-app purchases as club against Amazon

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

The U.S. Department of Justice Friday tweaked its ebook settlement offer, including emails between Steve Jobs and Apple's marketing head. The revised settlement charges Apple altered its in-app purchasing policy "to retaliate against Amazon for competitive conduct that Apple disproved of."

The email exchange between Jobs and marketing chief Philip Schiller discussed how to counteract an Amazon commercial showing how the internet retailers app allowed ebooks to be read on either the iPad or the Kindle...

Cloud Spin lets you take to the skies in a fantasy adventure

Lory Gil ∙ Updated January 26, 2018

Sometimes, you just want to get away from it all. The idea of soaring above the clouds without a care in the world sounds enticing enough to make anyone wish they were an eagle, or a falcon, or at least a rabbit with a jetpack

Cloud Spin is an arcade flyer game that puts you under the wings of a hot dogging bunny who dips, dives, and dashes his way through the atmosphere. Let the wind carry you across the sky and you may just forget you’re worries after all...

Facebook changes third-party app login rules to stop unwanted posts

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Facebook has rolled out some nice little changes to the way third-party apps request permissions from users when. The move, it says, is part of an effort to get users to post more to its social network from other apps.

The changes will require third-party applications that connect with Facebook to request separate permissions to 'read' information from your FB account, and to write, or publish any app activity on your Timeline...

Apple buys Embark, maker of free transit apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 16, 2016

The former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin has some high-quality sources at Apple and has enjoyed the kind of unprecedented access to company executives that only News Corp. could bring to the table. In between forming a team of star bloggers for her upcoming news venture and tweeting, she finds time to post an exclusive every once in a while. Back in July, for instance, Jessica scooped a story about Apple's rumored ad-skipping feature for an upcoming television service.

And during her WSJ tenure, she revealed that Apple had snapped up indoor GPS company WiFiSLAM for $20 million, confirmed a chip deal with TSMC and scooped many, many other exclusives. Today she broke on her blog that Apple has acquired another transit app startup, a small Silicon Valley upstart called Embark, for un undisclosed sum...

Apple and Google push Nintendo and Sony into No. 3 spot in mobile gaming

Ed Sutherland ∙ August 22, 2013

We've seen how mobile killed traditional music, draining sales from retail CD stores. Console games appear headed for the same fate. Worldwide revenue for handheld console makers fell during the second quarter of this year, pushing companies like Nintendo and Sony into third place behind the first-place Apple App Store and No. 2 Android-based Google Play.

According to a joint report by research firm IDC and app analytics company App Annie, consumers spending on mobile games in the Google Play store rose during the quarter as Android games picked up 1.6 percent of the market between the first and second quarter of 2013. The Google Play store has taken steps to attract more gaming dollars by tailoring its service for developers...

Apple updates Find My Friends and Find My iPhone ahead of iOS 7 release

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 22, 2013

With less than three weeks left until Apple's big Fall reveal, the company has started updating some of its own apps on the App Store to bring them more in line with the all-new iOS 7 look.

Find My iPhone and Find My Friends apps have both been updated with bug fixes and stability improvements, but no new features have been added and the design remained unchanged.

Find My iPhone is particularly interesting. Not only has the update broken the app for non-developers, but the software now comes with a brand new flattened icon which essentially mimics its counterpart on the recently revamped iCloud Beta website. More findings right below...

Documents by Readdle gains drag-and-drop, Starred files and Photo Library integration

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 22, 2013

Documents by Readdle, along with the excellent Files app from German developer Sonico Mobile, are my go-to apps for managing files and documents on iOS devices in one central place. And while the latter has been lacking in terms of frequent updates, Readdle has today issued an update to its Documents software bringing three useful features to the party: drag-and-drop support, the ability to star files and integration with the iOS Photo Library...

First Steve Jobs Schools open in Netherlands with iPad focus

Ed Sutherland ∙ August 22, 2013

A month after the educational concept of schools based on the iPad was first unveiled, the first seven 'Steve JobsSchools' have opened in the Netherlands. The Apple iPad is central to the groundbreaking educational effort, creating a "virtual school" with standard iOS apps tailored to meet the needs of students, parents and teachers.

While two of the schools expect to see the iPad replace text books, school schedules and traditional courses for all grades, the majority will initially start with early learners, according to the foundation promoting the effort...

M.A.C.E. brings a traditional vertical shoot ’em up to an iOS device near you

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

If you are a fan of the classic shoot ‘em up (shmup) arcade games of the mid 1980s, you’ll be happy to know that Entwickler-X has recently launced a game that looks a lot like Raiden, but takes place in outer space instead of earth.

M.A.C.E. is a classic vertical shooter game that is actually played in landscape mode. Its design was fashioned after Amiga games with 2D hand drawn graphics and rapid fire shooting, you’ll be blowing away bad guys by the truckload…

Studio Design: a design app for everyone, with a social twist

Lory Gil ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

Design is an important part of our lives. There are people out there who have spent their whole life learning about the importance of lines, fonts, and placement of objects in images. These people have put all of their knowledge into designing practically everything we look at.

Studio Design is an app that lets you play at designing and also lets you share your ideas with others and get feedback from the community…

CARROT Alarm review: waking up just got a bit creepy

Lory Gil ∙ Updated December 4, 2013

It is hard to think of a time, other than the morning of a Disneyland trip, that I’ve ever been excited to wake up to my alarm. No matter how pleasant, the morning alarm is little more than a reminder that sleep is over.

CARROT Alarm is the first alarm clock I’ve ever wanted to hear. I was so excited to find out what CARROT had for me each morning that I even woke up before my scheduled time just to hear her voice…