iOS 9

As Apple News Format opens to all publishers, Apple launches ad campaign for News app

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 16, 2016

The native Apple News Format is now open to all independent publishers of all sizes as Apple has kicked off a brand new advertising campaign meant to persuade more people to use iOS 9's News app, Vanity Fair reported yesterday. Currently, the News app, which is basically an aggregator, has about forty million readers.

Last September's iOS 9 release brought out the News app with support from more than a hundred major publishers as launch partners.

Now everyone, bloggers included, can take advantage of the rich-media Apple News Format to deliver their content to iOS users in immersive ways, with interactive graphics, video, auto-resizing layouts, crisp typography and smooth animations.

iOS 9 adoption jumps to 79 percent of devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 4, 2017

After being stuck at the 77 percent mark for a full four weeks, Apple on Monday updated its App Store dashboard for developers with the latest stats on iOS 9 adoption. As per the newest device logs captured on March 7, 2016, iOS 9 is installed on 79 percent of devices that recently accessed the App Store.

The two-point increase versus the 77 percent adoption rate recorded a month ago came at the expense of iOS 8 and earlier versions that have lost ground to iOS 9.

Glimpse what’s coming up next on your schedule with 3D Touch in Calendar

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

In addition to Reminders, Calendar is another stock app on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad designed to help users organize their daily, weekly and yearly schedule and be more productive.

With 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, it's easier to accomplish things with fewer taps.

Though not as developed as in other stock apps, Calendar's 3D Touch implementation permits you to add an event from the Home screen and glimpse what's coming up next on your schedule. In this tutorial, you will learn about 3D Touch shortcuts and Peek and Pop gestures in iOS 9's Calendar app on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

List of jailbreak tweaks compatible with iOS 9.1

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 12, 2016

Pangu released a jailbreak tool for iOS 9.1 yesterday after it was found that the exploit it uses was patched in iOS 9.2 and later.

Although most people are running iOS 9.0-9.0.2 for their jailbreak and can't update to iOS 9.1 because iOS 9.2.1 is the current firmware, the tool still gives those who were holding out on iOS 9.1 for a jailbreak a way to enjoy their favorite jailbreak tweaks again.

If you were one of the few who got to use the tool, then you're probably wondering what jailbreak tweaks actually work on iOS 9.1.

Explore the world of Wikipedia in revamped iOS app with 3D Touch, Explore feed and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 10, 2016

Wikipedia, the world's encyclopedia and knowledge base, has never had an attractive mobile app. That changes today with a major refresh to its app in the App Store permitting users to explore Wikipedia content tailored to their interests via an all-new Explore feed.

Navigations has been greatly simplified with new touch-friendly ways to discover content, 3D Touch support, Spotlight Search integration and more.

The app was obviously designed with the theme of exploration in mind.

“We all know Wikipedia as a quick fact-checking resource, but the new app is designed to make exploring knowledge on Wikipedia a journey,” developers told me via email.

Vimeo now streams 4K video on iPad Pro, gains a bunch of other new features in 6.0 update

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 3, 2016

Thursday, Vimeo pushed a significant update to its free of charge app in the App Store which lets you record, upload and share high-quality, ad-free clips on the service.

The new app packs updated navigation tools, has richer uploading options and sports a brand new player with support for 4K streaming and enhanced Picture-In-Picture viewing on compatible devices such as the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Search is now faster than ever and you can browse new curated categories like Animation, Documentary, Travel and more. Saving videos to watch offline is now easier than before, you can now upload clips from your smartphone and tablets and more.

iOS 9.3 beta 5 disables Night Shift mode when your iPhone is in Low Power Mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 2, 2016

Along with the latest betas of watchOS, tvOS and OS X, Apple yesterday seeded a fifth beta of the upcoming iOS 9.3 software update to its registered developers. The new beta appears to pack in a few interesting changes as Apple continues to refine the experience ahead of the software's public release.

Night Shift mode, one of the headline new features in iOS 9.3, has been tweaked again in the latest beta and now permits users to manually enable the feature until tomorrow within Settings, and the feature is now automatically disabled in Low Power Mode.

Tip: use 3D Touch to export PDFs on your iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 10, 2019

iOS includes a Share sheet action for saving PDFs to iBooks. This is great for, say, turning a webpage or other document into a PDF form with one notable complaint—not everyone wants to read PDFs in the Books app.

As it turns out, you can export a PDF to any app on your device with 3D Touch right from iOS's Print Preview screen. This is an extremely convenient feature, but it's unfortunate that it requires 3D Touch so owners of previous-generation and older iPhones cannot take advantage of it.

iOS 9.3 lets your boss lock apps to the Home screen and impose other restrictions

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 1, 2016

Apple's upcoming iOS 9.3 software update will allow employers to lock apps to the Home screen of company-issued devices, preventing them from being moved around, as first discovered by Irish developer Steven Troughton-Smith.

Buried within Apple's documentation for developers, the Home Screen Layout Payload, which defines a layout of apps, folders and web clips for the Home screen, is supported on iOS 9.3 and later.

iOS 9 adoption slowing, stays at 77% of devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 4, 2017

The adoption rate of iOS 9 appears to be stalling at 77 percent of devices, according to the most recent stats published on Apple's dashboard for developers. The figure was derived from device logs capturing iOS hardware that has accessed the App Store on February 22, and is literally unchanged from the same 77 percent mark recorded two weeks ago.

iOS 8 continues to comprise seventeen percent of devices while older editions of iOS accounted for six percent of devices—again, same as two weeks ago.

Viber gains more 3D Touch goodies, Split View and Slide Over multitasking on iPad Pro and other perks

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 23, 2016

Viber, the popular instant messaging application, has received an update in the App Store. Bumped to version 5.8, the app now works side-by-side with other apps in iOS 9's new Split View and Slide Over multitasking on the iPad Pro.

On the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, your most recent chats are now available right from the app's 3D Touch shortcut menu on the Home screen.

This edition of Viber also packs in some other improvements related to 'read' and 'liked' icons in group chats and an all-new media browser for chats.

Apple releases minor software update to fix devices bricked by Error 53

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 18, 2016

Apple has released a revised version of iOS 9.2.1 on Thursday to fix devices that have been affected by 'Error 53,' an issue that could ‘brick’ a user’s iOS device if it received a third-party Touch ID sensor replacement instead of one of Apple’s own replacements.