iOS

Google+ holiday treats: better photo experience, conversation cards, more fluid UI

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 26, 2017

With over a hundred million active users, Google+ is, as Eric Schmidt put it, "a viable competitor to Facebook" and its nearly one billion users. This morning, the search firm is issuing new iOS and Android builds that enable a bunch of holiday treats. On the iOS side, you can now swipe through photo albums inline or tap once to see the photos full screen. New conversation cards are also available for highlighting specific content, from longer snippets to bigger photos to comments that slide in beneath each post...

Apple re-launches app gifting with a new custom delivery option

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

The App Store on iOS 5 and below had an interesting feature I really used to love a lot, the ability to send your friends the gift of apps.

You'd just pick a piece of software in the App Store, hit the Gift This App button and Apple would send a nicely formatted email message to a lucky bastard along with a link to download an app, just like that.

With iOS 6, the feature was removed with seemingly no apparent reason. Now, app gifting has been available on desktop iTunes all this time. Fortunately, the company's quietly updated iTunes backend to re-enable app gifting on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, just in time for the holidays...

Apple launches Best of iTunes 2012 charts

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

Apple today posted a comprehensive list of the top iTunes sellers in 2012, ranging from e-books and podcasts to television shows and movies to apps and songs. The charts representing the best iTunes content in 2012 list the top sellers for every iTunes category. Paid and free apps are listed separately, and then again for the iPhone and iPad. Go past the fold to see if your favorite apps made it on the list...

Samsung dissing Apple’s Maps in Sidney

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

You can't blame Samsung's marketing team for pouncing on Apple's every misstep. Remember the Apple Maps snafu in Australia that led to the police issuing a public warning advising against using the mapping product because it incorrectly placed the town of Mildura in the middle of Australia’s Murray Sunset National Park? Seen at the top is a new display banner found on Sydney’s George Street.

A mud-soaked SUV and a sign that reads “Oops, should have got a Samsung Galaxy S III. Get navigation you can trust” really needs no description. The wrong data Samsung's ad is referring to was supplied by the Australian government, iDB reported yesterday, and was incorrectly rendered in other mapping products...

Google chairman: Android is clearly winning the smartphone war

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Google chairman Eric Schmidt thinks his company is clearly winning the smartphone war with Apple and he goes on the record to say it in no ambiguous terms. The numbers certainly support Android's position as the world's most popular smartphone platform in terms of volume.

According to Gartner, both Samsung and Apple controlled nearly half the world's smartphone market in the third quarter, or 46.5 percent. When it comes to mobile operating system share for smartphones, Android is in the clear lead with nearly three-quarters the market, or 72.4 percent, up from 52 percent in the year-ago quarter. Apple's iOS held 13.9 percent. However, when it comes to the profits, Apple leads smart device profits and by a large margin, too...

How to reply to a selected passage of text in Mail app on iOS

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 16, 2017

The Mail app in iOS isn't going to win any 'best email client' awards, but it's usable for what it is, and Apple continues to make improvements. Most recently, it improved the file attachment process in iOS and also allows to annotate PDF documents.

There's also some non-feature things — shortcuts, if you will — that make the app more useful. We've shared some of these with you before, like how to quickly open your last Draft. And today, we've got another one to show you.

Twitter app update with Instagram-like filters now available for download

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 11, 2012

As I reported yesterday, Twitter has updated its Android app with the promised Instagram-competing photo filters, a first for the micro-blogging service seeking to supplant Instagram as your favorite photo sharing service. That, my friends, is a pretty tall order given Instagram's popularity, the Facebook backing and a growing number of new features Instagram's gaining. Be that as it may, Twitter has waited until this morning to roll out filters to its iOS client.

You're gonna love the ability to snap a scene, edit the photo with the filters supplied by Aviary and tweet out your work without jumping back and forth between Twitter and your go-to iPhoneography app. You can grab the free download right now from the App Store. More on other features right after the break...

Find My iPhone, now with driving directions to lost devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 11, 2012

A small but noteworthy update to Apple's Find My iPhone software has just surfaced on iTunes. The iPhone and iPad app which lets you locate stolen or misplaced devices on a world map has gained ability to provide driving directions to your lost gear. This capability requires the new Find My iPhone app version 2.0.1 or later and iOS 6 or later. Apple has also enabled another tweak where Play Sound, Lost Mode and Erase buttons appear separately from the main map view. Unfortunately, the repugnant stitched leather theme is still all over the app...

Conceivable concept tidies up the Notification Center mess

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 10, 2012

Notification Center, a feature Apple borrowed from the jailbreak community, continues to be artists' favorite playground, if numerous concepts are anything to go by. I'm especially liking a new concept by Alex Saretzky, a designer who is proposing a better use of the screen real estate in Apple's implementation of the Notification Center.

The redesigned feature helps convey more information compared to Apple's version of the Notification Center. Specifically, Alex says Apple should drop the linen background (we're looking at you, Jony Ive) and re-think some of the design decision that clash with its own Human Interface Guidelines...

Apple TV to see Bluetooth support, courtesy of iOS update

Oliver Haslam ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

The Apple TV may just be a hobby (or is it?) but that doesn't mean that it isn't still receiving some new features as new versions of iOS are released. The latest beta release of iOS for the Apple TV is a prime example of Apple's intent to push the device forward, and one particular new feature is one we've been begging for.

If you've ever sat and entered a long iTunes or Wi-FI password using the Apple TV's remote control, then you'll probably have asked why the little black box doesn't support Bluetooth keyboards. Nobody really understood the decision but, thankfully, it appears that it's all about to change.

That's right folks, the current iOS beta endows the Apple TV with support for Bluetooth keyboards! Finally...

Transloader: download files remotely to your Mac via iOS

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated March 14, 2018

Transloader is a new Mac app available on the Mac App Store, which allows you to remotely download files to your Mac via an iOS app. The two apps speak to each other via iCloud, with the iOS app acting as a means to forward a download URL for the listening client running on the Mac.

If you're like me and always on the go, Transloader is a great way to save time by downloading files while away from the home or office. Take a look at our video walkthrough inside for a glance into how it works.

Final Fantasy IV hitting iOS on December 20

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 7, 2012

Square Enix announced it will be bringing Final Fantasy IV to both iOS and Android. Apple's platform will enjoy a preferential treatment with the Final Fantasy IV release on Thursday, December 20, just days before Christmas. As for the Android build, it's gonna arrive some time in 2013. Final Fantasy IV is a remake of the 2008 Nintendo DS game, with visual improvements and a few nice mini-games, among other perks, which should be enough to keep fans of the franchise glued to their devices...