The social network Facebook has become such a behemoth in that space that it's now sending an astounding 180 million clicks to Apple's App Store marketplace and Google's Play Store for Android software. That's one of the nuggets from a speech Dan Rose, Facebook VP of partnerships gave at The Wall Street Journal-sponsored D: Dive Into Media.
He also touched on Facebook's mobile strategy and the social network's future prospects as it competes for our time with other popular mobile services...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPH2PK5WZys
I know your news reader choices on iOS are rich. There's Flipboard, Instapaper, Readability, News360, News.me and a whole lot of other lesser known apps. Winston, a new software by a Colorado-based startup, is unlike your regular news client. Instead of overwhelming you with an endless stream of updates, Winston presents you with a personable British butler which compiles a daily brief from your selected news sources and social network feeds.
It detects what's important and then reads the summaries out aloud, so you can catch up on the latest while doing something else. It's a novel approach that saves time and as such is likely to strike a chord with busy mobile users. I'm already liking Winston a lot. More tidbits right past the fold...
Orchestra's anticipated email client aptly named Mailbox has finally hit the App Store, following months of private beta testing. In between Google's slow pace of adding necessary new features to its Gmail iOS client and Sparrow lingering with maintenance updates but no new stuff, Mailbox is Godsent. Not only is it arguably the best-looking iOS email client, Mailbox outsmarts Apple's stock Mail, Gmail and Sparrow with its chat-like approach to email, crisp UI and the cool 'snooze' function...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwziSZJ7gpk
Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year, is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. Ahead of the upcoming festivities which come with a seemingly endless stream of colorful lanterns being released in the sky, Cut the Rope maker Zeptolab and UK publisher Chillingo have issued a content update which brings a brand new Lantern box full of - you guessed right - floating paper lanterns. With the 25 new levels, Cut the Rope now has a total of 350 levels spread across fourteen different boxes. Not bad for a 99-cent game...
Following a Skype for iPad update earlier this week that has enabled automatic dropped call recovery, in-app purchase of Skype credits and a minor UI tweak, the Microsoft-owned VoIP provider has pushed out an update to its iPhone and iPod touch client this morning. Borrowing from the latest iPad build, the iPhone version will now automatically reconnect any dropped call.
More importantly emergency calls now get routed through the native dialer, which is interesting knowing most other VoIP apps don't support this feature. A few more tidbits and the full changelog follow after the jump...
Vine, Twitter's new app for sharing short 6-second clips, has had somewhat of a rocky start. Immediately following its launch two weeks ago, Twitter got inundated with complaints that the Editor’s Pick section was populating users' video feed with adult content. Twitter blamed the problem on "a human error" and promised to fix it in the next update. And just like clockwork, Vine version 1.0.5 landed today on the App Store, bringing with better sharing and the 17+ age rating (was 12+)...
Here's something that I think our own Jeff Benjamin might love a lot. Pixel Film Studios has launched its first iOS app, ProCutX (developed by Lightwork Solutions), which allows video editors to control Final Cut Pro X on their Mac through an iPad. As you can see for yourself, the user interface replicates pro video editing consoles that people who are serious about film making use in conjunction with the Final Cut Pro X software...
Microsoft-owned Skype has some nice mobile clients on the iPhone and iPad (unlike its fugly Mac app). Though it's a tad heavy on CPU and battery, Skype on iOS offers excellent voice quality and image clarity in video chats. At least that's what my experience's been, your mileage may vary. Today, a new iPad build has surfaced on the App Store with some new nice capabilities worth a mention.
If you use Skype credits to text people and make inexpensive calls, no longer do you need to buy these on the Skype web site as the iPad build now supports adding money in-app, but only if you live in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Sweden or Estonia (more countries to follow soon).
Experiencing poor reception (it's Skype's way of letting us know we should buy some credits)? No problem, the new version now automatically reconnects a dropped call. More tidbits right after the break...
Here's another nice Tweetbot update for your iPhone or iPad. A new version, Tweetbot 2.7, is now live on the App Store with some interesting new features. For starters, Tweetbot can now open links from tweets in Google's Chrome browser, provided it's installed on your iDevice. The app will also render Flickr images in-line, as well as 6-second clips tweeted out using Twitter's new Vine app. Lastly, links from tweets can also be sent to the 1Password app's built-in browser in order to access password-protected web sites without having to remember your credentials...
Apple is looking for some fresh blood to join its iLife and iWork development teams and "re-imagine how user interfaces should be built and work", a series of job ads posted on its web site indicates. In addition to engineers in the iLife Frameworks QA department, Apple is also seeking a QA engineer to help test new features in iPhoto, a Senior User Interface Designer for iWork and two Senior Software Engineer positions which explicitly mention improving the user interface of iLife apps...
Apple last week posted an announcement to its developer portal, informing app-makers that they can now use short (or 'vanity') URLs to send out links to their App Store apps. For instance, a link to the iWork app would be appstore.com/iwork.
Typically, links to Apple-hosted software are comprised of lengthy URLs with ID numbers—nearly impossible for anyone to remember. But Apple is hoping that these new short URLs will make it easier for developers to market their apps...
A patchwork of online privacy measures should be standardized to form a 'Do Not Track' list for mobile app users. In guidelines issued Friday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission says mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone "facilitate unprecedented amounts of data collection."
Both devices and app developers should obtain users' consent before obtaining personal information such as location, photos or contacts. The set of guidelines accompanied Path's $800,000 settlement with the FTC over grabbing iOS users' personal address books without their consent...