Apps

Facebook iOS app gains in-app voice and video recording capabilities

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2013

Facebook's universal iOS client for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini has just been updated with the useful ability to share your favorite places using the improved Nearby tab. More important than that, you can now record a voice or video message right in the app and send it to your friends. The ability to share audio snippets first appeared in an update to Facebook's Messenger app on January 3, 2012 so having it now in-app via the official client is a welcome addition...

Quipio adds artistic quotes to iPhone photos in under 60 seconds

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated February 23, 2018

You've probably seen beautifully captioned photos floating around Facebook and Tumblr, and thought you'd try your hand at making some of your own. The problem with making typography look good over a photo is it takes a bit of effort and design sense, so it's not for everybody. Or so we thought.

Quipio is a recently released app that allows users to make their own captions for their photos. If you just have some idea you'd like to share, Quipio can also take up to 400 characters of text and turn it into a simple piece of word art in less than a minute...

Pin Lock screen reminders to a non-jailbroken iPhone with ‘Task Paper’

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated January 27, 2019

We know that some of our readers who updated to iOS 6, or those of you who upgraded to the iPhone 5, get annoyed when we feature jailbreak tweaks. In for each article about tweaks we get at least one comment along the lines of, "Why are you covering tweaks when there's no jailbreak!?!" It's totally understandable, since you can't take advantage of all the awesome tweaks we've showcased. Lucky for you, the clever developers at Renegade Apps have found a way to add functionality to the Lock screen without relying on MobileSubstrate.

Task Paper (not to be confused with the similarly named TaskPaper) is a to-do list app, available in iTunes, that allows users to create persistent Lock screen reminders through generated wallpapers. These wallpapers provide functionality similar to the Reminders+ tweak, all without a jailbreak...

Google upgrades YouTube Capture with 1080p video uploads

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 13, 2018

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0sOzdXce6o

When Google in December released the YouTube Capture iOS app, the company instantly goy my attention. I love its sleek design, simplified user interface and the effectiveness of having an app dedicated to recording and uploading video clips to YouTube. It would be a must-have if not for the inexplicable lack of support for 1080 uploads - the software would limit any upload to 720p.

Not anymore. Today, a new maintenance released has been pushed which now lets you upload footage in the full HD 1,920-by-1,080 pixel resolution, along with a few other tweaks. More details right after the break...

Joypad Legacy turns your iPhone into a retro game controller for Mac and PC

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated February 23, 2018

Want to play retro-style games on your Mac or PC, but don't have a controller handy? While we wouldn't recommend using touch screen controls for every game, if you're in need of a quick retro fix you can download Joypad Legacy for your iPhone and quickly play retro games with 'classic' controls.

Joypad Legacy comes in two parts: the first part is the controller app for your iPhone that comes with layouts for NES, GBA, SNES, Genesis, and N64. You'll also need a second piece of software called Joypad Connect, running on your Mac or PC. You can use Joypad Connect to build profiles for the games and emulators you want to play with Joypad Legacy...

Twitter launches Vine, a 6-second video sharing iPhone app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

The popular micro-blogging service, Twitter, Thursday launched a brand new iPhone and iPod touch app called Vine. Twitter also officially confirmed it has acquired the startup behind Vine. Little wonder that it's hailing the new software as "the best way to see and share life in motion".

In a nutshell, the app lets you capture and share 6-second looping videos in a simple manner and share them with your friends and family. It supports the iPhone 3GS and higher and iOS 5 or later, is optimized for the iPhone 5 and can be downloaded from the App Store right now, free of charge. Go past the fold for more info...

Temporary messaging apps can’t keep pictures and video secure

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Want to send a picture or message but don't want it shared with friends, leaked all over the internet, and potentially traced back to you? Unless you're 100% certain that you can trust whoever you're sending a message to, then you shouldn't send it. The most popular temporary photo messaging apps can leak your data on devices that aren't even jailbroken, and with a few tweaks you can easily get past one of the most secure messaging apps available.

The current versions of Snapchat and Facebook Poke aren't secure apps. Evan Spiegal, Snapchat's founder, doesn't seem overly concerned about the possibility of users saving and sending their received pictures. In a comment to BuzzFeed Spiegal said: "The people who most enjoy using Snapchat are those who embrace the spirit and intent of the service. There will always be ways to reverse engineer technology products — but that spoils the fun!" That's not exactly what you want to hear if you're using the service to send pictures and video that you don't want publicly shared...

Use iFunBox’s ‘App Inspection’ tool to see which apps can access your data

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

We've seen services like Clueful catalog apps that can access our private information, and many of us are familiar with tweaks like Protect My Privacy and Firewall iP that attempt to keep our data secure. But what are our leaky apps actually doing, and what are the real risks?

Unfortunately we don't have all the answers for you, but you can do some snooping of your own. The most user-friendly tool for inspecting the APIs your actual installed apps can access is built into a popular iOS filebrowser called iFunBox...

Why Apple could buy the upcoming Mailbox app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 24, 2016

Over the past year, Apple has seen some of the most beloved third-party iOS apps swallowed by Google. To name just a few such acquisitions: in June 2012 mobile productivity suite Quickoffice became a Google property, the following month email client Sparrow was acquired by the Internet giant and in September 2012 the search firm snapped up developer Nik Software, the maker of the popular photography app Snapseed.

The Mailbox app was announced in December as a fresh take on iOS email and yesterday the team started accepting reservations ahead of the official launch. Orchestra, the company behind the software shares interesting ties with Apple that could signal a possible acqui-hire down the road...

GrouPlay brings democracy to your iOS party playlist

Mike Schnier ∙ Updated January 22, 2018

Settling on a good party playlist can be difficult. Say you've got friends with different tastes in music, and your music library doesn't have enough danceable tracks on its own that everyone can enjoy. If it's a big party, you don't want just anyone touching your iPod, and you also don't want someone with questionable taste to hijack the music for the party.

With the GrouPlay app, anyone with access to your Wi-Fi network can contribute songs from their own music library to your temporary party playlist, provided they have an iPhone 3GS, 3rd generation iPod touch, iPad, or later. Once the songs are uploaded, the real fun begins...

Twitterrific gains new features, push notifications still being worked on

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 21, 2013

https://vimeo.com/57871805

As you can see in the clip above, Iconofactory today released an update to its Twitter client on the App Store, Twitterrific. The app has some loyal following - in fact, both TweetBot and Twitterrific are my favorite go-to Twitter clients for iDevices. Twitterrific fans should appreciate half a dozen new features and a bunch of improvements in this release.

Most notably, the new Twitterrific version 5.0.2 now has a simplified in-app web browser and reading mode supporting Instapaper or Readability. It also lets you find tweets in all timelines via History, preview images directly in the timeline and so forth. Push notifications, you say? Read on for the full breakdown...