Snap today announced exclusive shows on its Snapchat app which were created by professional storytellers, with a single short episode released every day.
Snap unveils interactive shows that let you step inside a scene to experience it for yourself
iPhone
Stay up-to-date on the latest iPhone news and learn new tips and tricks with our comprehensive tutorials. From software updates to new features, we’ve got you covered.
The best free cocktail and drink recipe apps for iPhone
If you’re not a bartender by trade, then for your next shindig, be prepared to mix some tasty drinks for your guests. Whether it’s a minty Mojito, delicious Daiquiri, or cool Cosmo, these free cocktail and drink recipe apps for iPhone are just what you need to get the party started.
Waze carpooling goes nationwide
Waze today announced that its dedicated app for carpooling is now available to all riders and drivers in the United States after launching as a test in the Bay Area back in 2016.
Readdle’s email app Spark introduces Siri Shortcuts support
The popular email app Spark by Ukrainian developer Readdle has introduced support for the new Siri Shortcuts automation feature introduces in iOS 12.
Google Photos for iOS picks up iTunes Smart Playlist-like Live Album functionality
Live Albums, available in the just-released version 4.3 update to Google Photos for iPhone and iPad, is a cool new feature that lets you choose the specific people and pets you'd like to see and then have the app automatically add new photos of them as you take them.
Farming RPG Stardew Valley hitting App Store on October 24 as a $7.99 download, no IAPs
Stardew Valley, a popular indie farming simulation role-playing video game developed by Eric Barone and published by Chucklefish, is coming to an iPhone and iPad near you in a fortnight on Wednesday, October 24. According to yesterday's announcement in a blog post, the premium game is priced at $7.99, sports 50+ hours of content and contain no In-App Purchases whatsoever. As the initial purchase price gets you the full game, you won't be forced to spend cash on virtual stupidities like loot boxes, virtual coins and so forth.
Make critical notifications stand out from the rest with Priority
If you’re like me, then you might consider some of your notifications to be more important than others. But because of how iOS handles them, it’s easy for the most important notifications to get buried underneath all the noise from the rest of your apps.
Although Apple’s notification system isn’t perfect, a new jailbreak tweak called Priority by iOS developers Justin Proulx and Ayden Panhuyzen brings it one step closer. It can help you discern critical notifications at a glance without compromising those from other apps.
Gif2Ani V2 lets you set animated GIF images as your respring screen
Anyone with a jailbroken device should know very well what the respring screen looks like. Depending on the version of iOS you’ve pwned, it might display the Apple logo or merely a black background with a white loading circle.
If you’re looking for a way to customize the respring screen, then a free jailbreak tweak called Gif2Ani V2 by iOS developers MightnightChips and Wizages is a great place to start.
ShortLook is an OLED-friendly notification system for iOS
If you’re looking for a new way to receive notifications from your favorite apps, then you might take an interest in a new jailbreak tweak called ShortLook by iOS developers Ayden Panhuyzen, Jamie Bishop, Justin Proulx, and Jose Hernandez.
ShortLook represents your incoming notifications with a fresh coat of paint. While they’d typically appear as banners on your Lock screen, ShortLook depicts them as customizable glyphs that are then centered on a black or transparent background.
DxOMark on iPhone XS camera: “very reliable overall” & “consistently delivering good results”
DxOMark last week published their full-on review of the iPhone XS camera. We originally skipped it because DxOMark scores can be very misleading or just meaningless, but have decided to pull some choice quotes that best describe why, in many areas, Apple's new flagship phone offers noticeable improvements over last year’s iPhone X.
Filmmaker “shocked” at how good iPhone XS video capture is vs. a $10K cinema camera
Having pitted his iPhone XS versus Canon's C200 cinema camera that sells for $10,000, filmmaker Ed Gregory came away impressed by the quality of video capture on Apple's smartphone and was “quite shocked” at how good the new Apple phone is at shooting video.
Can you spot the difference?Writing on his blog yesterday, Ed explained he basically took a bunch of videos with both cameras over the course of a few days. He shot everything in the stock Camera app on the XS.
On the Canon side, he used the Canon RAW lite codec and set a similar focal length to the wide lens on his iPhone XS (f1.8). He then attached the phone to the top of the Canon camera and placed them both on the DJI Ronin-S stabilizer.
You can see the results for yourself on the comparison images and the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2CJoR3F2t0
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Follow along for a few notable observations.
The best smartphone camera there isEd was “actually shocked” at how good the iPhone footage looked on the phone itself—he'd also watch videos shot on his Canon and questioned which one he liked more. No surprises there because any piece of content displayed on that OLED panel with wide color (the P3 cinema profile), one to million contrast ratio and native HDR support looks great.
PRIMER: How Smart HDR takes iPhone photography to the next level
The iPhone footage took almost no work to color-grade in the Color Studios app, but Canon's required a lot of heavy lifting because the C200 camera was shooting in RAW. The iPhone footage “fell apart” when viewed in fullscreen on a 27-inch iMac due to too much sharpening.
“The details just got lost and all the leaves with details just got smushed together,” he observed, while the Canon footage “still looked great.” He could have gotten rid of sharpening by shooting on his iPhone in RAW using a third-party app, like the excellent FiLMiC Pro.
The dynamic range is “super impressive” on the iPhone XS camera.
Smart HDR steps into the limelightThanks to the new A12 Bionic chip powering computational photography advancements such as Smart HDR and real-time processing, Apple's smartphone keeps the highlights on the bright sun while keeping details in the shadows.
TUTORIAL: How to reenable manual HDR on iPhone 8/X/XS/XS Max/XR
“This is some crazy multiple exposure processing thats been done,” he notes. “Considering this is all being done in real time in the palm of your hand. It’s super impressive.”
From the conclusion:
The iPhone camera is a smartphone camera and always will be. It is incredibly small but to be honest give completely mind-blowing results. If you are shooting to video that is intended to be viewed on a smartphone and you don’t want to do any post processing then the files strait from the app are impressive. Apple has done a great job of optimizing the output to make the files look great instantly.
“Is it as good as a cinema camera, not at all,” he summed it up nicely. “Is it the best camera I have ever seen on a smartphone? Hundred percent!”
Thoughts?
How to mark all conversations as read in the Messages app on iPhone and iPad
Learn how to mark all chats as read in the built-in Messages app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac at once, which will remove blue dots in the conversation list.