Apps

China app store features pirated iOS apps

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 11, 2018

It wasn't long ago that Apple was being labeled a pirate in China. Now comes word of a pirate version of Apple's App Store, selling iOS apps that let iPhone or iPad owners skirt iTunes and install apps, no jailbreak required. However, there's one major catch: the website is available only within China, likely to dissuade Apple lawyers coming down like a ton of bricks.

Ironically, the service is called KuaiYong, which means "use quickly" in Chinese. We're unsure whether this refers to ease of use or "hurry before we are shut down." ...

Yahoo! Mail launches on iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 18, 2013

With Google continuing to allocate significant resources towards improving its Gmail service and the excellent iOS client, you'd be forgiven for disregarding Yahoo! Mail. I mean, who in their right mind uses Yahoo! Mail, right? Turns out more than 281 million people do, making it the third-largest web-based email service as of December 2012, according to comScore. And the iPhone from the onset supported Yahoo! Mail.

As promised, hot on the heels of releasing a gorgeous new Weather application for the iPhone, Yahoo this morning also refreshed its existing iOS email client with native support for the iPad's bigger canvas. Go past the fold for more tidbits and a nice promo clip...

Apple disables Push Notifications for AppGratis

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 18, 2013

The app recommendation engine AppGratis's woes with Apple continue with word that the iPhone maker has now disabled push alerts for the existing users of the software. AppGratis, which employs a staff of 40 at its Paris, France headquarters, saw its iOS app booted eleven days ago from the App Store for violating two clauses of Apple's iOS agreement with third-party developers. This being a major blow to the app curation engine, which claims some twelve million users, the company has emailed its user base to inform them of Apple's move...

Yahoo’s new Weather iOS app looks terrific

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 18, 2013

I'm a huge sucker for awesome weather apps, so much that I'm afraid to even think about how much money I've put into these kinds of apps for my iThings.

Yahoo, as you know, supplies Apple with weather data for its stock iOS Weather app (in addition to Stocks and Siri data as well) and it was reported earlier this morning that the company will be launching a dedicated weather forecast software on the App Store.

You could imagine a weather buff like myself would be hanging on the edge of my seat in anticipation of Yahoo! Weather. Now that it's just hit the App Store, I can honestly say that this is the best-designed iOS app from Yahoo yet.

The elegant typography combined with the big, beautiful full-screen images (crowd-sourced via Flickr), the crisp weather pictograms and just the right amount of information make this my new favorite weather forecast app. Jump past the fold for a bunch of screenshots, you know you want to..

Twitter #music app launches on iPhone, get downloading

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

The popular micro-blogging turned media platform, Twitter, announced Wednesday that its new Music app is now available for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch, free of charge. Twitter's music service on the web, which has been available in limited beta to a few celebrities, will open for everyone later today. Billed as "a new way to discover music and emerging artists", the native iOS app, which is conveniently named Twitter #music, basically wants to become your default social music discovery tool.

Currently, the software pulls songs from iTunes, Spotify and Rdio, but more sources are likely to be added in the future. Anyone can listen to iTunes previews in the app, but Rdio and Spotify subscribers can log in using their credentials to enjoy full tracks that are available in those respective catalogs...

Apple vs Android: debate continues as iOS proves more lucrative

Ed Sutherland ∙ April 17, 2013

The shift to mobility has certainly hurt the ability to pick clear winners and losers. In the era of beige-box PCs, bean-counters could glance at market share data. But growth of smartphones and apps shattered such easy measurements The battle between Apple's iOS and Google's Android is more of an optical illusion where the "winner" can triumph in terms of market share, but lose when it comes to revenue.

Still, people want clear winners and losers and Time magazine is just the latest to answer the call. According to the magazine's website, the winner is - well, that really depends...

Celebrating first anniversary, Pocket adds Send to Friend social feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Pocket, a read-later service, in celebration of its first anniversary today pushed a new build of its iOS and Android containing a new social feature aptly named Send to Friend, in addition to push notifications and other nice-to-haves.

Formerly know as Read It Later, Pocket was App Store’s Best of 2012 app and iPad App of the Week. Send to Friend is interesting as it saves content other people share with you right in your inbox.

You can then re-visit those articles later, but also read comments along with any highlighted quotes they chose to share with you...

Apple granted patent for iOS app folders, ‘jiggle’ interface

Ed Sutherland ∙ April 17, 2013

Apple Tuesday was granted a patent for how it manages folders on the company's iOS devices, including the familiar "jiggle" user interface. The patent, awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes a "device, method, and graphical user interface for managing folders." In the 2010 application, Apple said the interface relieves the "significant cognitive burden" and wasted energy traditionally required for moving files and icons on a computer desktop...

Great new iOS email client Triage arrives

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

The market for iOS email clients has exploded in recent months, with new arrivals like Dropbox-owned Mailbox, collaboration software Sendgine and of course Google-owned Sparrow all striving to rethink, with more or less success, what email should be about.

Needless to say, I was immediately hooked up on Triage, a new kind of iOS email client software from Southgate Labs Limited, billed as "first aid for your inbox."

To be clear, this app is meant to complement rather than replace your primary email client by helping you "use your downtime to quickly remove the noise and stress" in order to reach Inbox Zero nirvana. And boy does it succeed in achieving that objective...

Time Warner to enable live TV streaming in its iOS app tomorrow

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 16, 2013

Time Warner Cable, a major U.S. cable telecommunications company, confirmed to Bloomberg that it will be adding out-of-home live television streaming to the iPhone, iPad and iPod devices via its free TWC TV software, which will gain new features via an update tomorrow. In addition to on-demand television shows and movies available from 26 networks, the refreshed TWC TV app will also make ten live television networks available for out-of-home viewing on iOS devices. Go past the fold for the full breakdown...

Chat Heads coming to iOS later today via Facebook 6.0 app update

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 16, 2013

Chat Heads, the core feature of the new Facebook Home for Android, is coming to iPhone and iPad via an update to Facebook's iOS client, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer and mobile head Cory Ondrejka announced at AllThingsD's D: Dive into Mobile conference today.

Other new features have also been mentioned, including a new layout on iPad which takes into account March changes to Facebook's News Feed.

As for Facebook Home, that application will see its first update on select Android smartphones from HTC and Samsung in "the second week of May". Go past the fold for a nice Facebook 6.0 for iOS hands-on video...