Apps

Twitter gains features to limit notifications and filter out lower-quality content

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 19, 2016

Twitter continues adding features to let users control and personalize their experience on the service with yesterday's announcement of a new quality filter and notification settings.

Now available in Twitter 6.6 for iOS, the new content quality switch allows you to optionally weed out lower-quality tweets from your feed, notifications and other parts of your Twitter experience.

“It does not filter content from people you follow or accounts you’ve recently interacted with – and depending on your preferences, you can turn it on or off in your notifications settings,” cautioned the service.

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NYT is shutting down its Now app on August 29

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 14, 2018

Released in March of 2014, The New York Times' news curation app, NYT Now, is scheduled to shut down on August 29, the newspaper announced in a blog post.

The app debuted as a more affordable alternative to the paper's digital subscriptions, offering premium content for as low as $8 per month. It was regularly updated and at one point even gained features like 1Password integration.

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Apple’s free app of the week: Pixel Cup Soccer 16

Cody Lee ∙ August 18, 2016

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Pixel Cup Soccer 16. This means from now through next Thursday, you’ll be able to pick up the retro-style football title for free on both iPhone and iPad—saving you $3.

As you've probably gathered by now, Pixel Cup Soccer 16 is a retro-style, dynamic arcade game. It features fast-pace gameplay, nostalgic graphics and soundtrack that will take you back to the 90's, and 3 game modes: Friendly, competition and PKs.

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With few weeks until iOS 10’s fall release, iOS 9 adoption hits 87 percent of devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 18, 2016

Various editions of iOS 9 are currently installed on 87 percent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, a one-point gain versus a month ago. During the same period, iOS 8 has dropped from eleven to ten percent of devices, suggesting much of iOS 9's growth could be owed to upgrades. Earlier editions of iOS continue to comprise about three percent of devices.

The stats were derived from Apple's logs capturing devices that accessed the App Store on August 15, 2016, and are publicized on the App Store dashboard.

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Snapchat optimized for iPhone’s Low Power Mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 18, 2016

Earlier this week, Snapchat issued a small update to its free of charge iPhone application on the App Store. Bumping version number to 9.37, the app is now optimized for iOS's Low Power Mode which debuted in iOS 9 last year.

“When your device is in Low Power Mode, Snapchat will now automatically reduce its battery usage,” according to release notes accompanying a 96.1-megabyte download.

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Instagram gains Events channel highlighting media posted during specific events

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 18, 2016

Instagram yesterday announced a new Events channel in the Explore section of its free of charge iPhone app. Currently limited to users within the United States and resembling Snapchat's Discover channel with Live Stories, it brings in one place all of the photos and videos posted on the service during specific events, such as concerts, sports games and more. Like the rest of Explore, the new Events channel is personalized for you and highlights events you might like.

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Instagram update brings camera improvements to Stories feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 16, 2016

Instagram's new Stories feature caused quite a stir as some users took issue with the fact that the Facebook-owned photo sharing service basically ripped off Snapchat Stories. Be that as it may, Instagram's iPhone application, which is available at no charge on the App Store, has just received a nice update which packs in a few useful camera-related improvements to the Stories feature.

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Microsoft’s mobile Office apps pick up support for drawing with a finger/stylus on iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

Microsoft today issued updates to its mobile Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps on the App Store, adding support for drawing with your finger on the iPhone. Back in January 2016, the Windows maker brought its inking tools to the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil support. With the latest update, iPhone owners can take advantage of the Draw tab to draw, highlight and annotate documents with their finger or a stylus.

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Laugh.ly, Yearly, Habitify and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

The Apps of the Week post is iDB's weekly roundup of apps and games we feel are worth checking out over the weekend. This week's edition features some great selections such as a new streaming service for stand-up comedy, a beautiful calendar app, a habit-tracking app with an interesting twist, and as usual, we've included two awesome new games for you to try.

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Apple’s free app of the week: Dr. Panda’s Ice Cream Truck

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Dr. Panda's Ice Cream Truck. This means from now through next Thursday, you’ll be able to pick up the hit children's title for free—a solid savings of $2.

Dr. Panda's Ice Cream Truck was developed for ages 6-8, but anyone can have fun making ice cream. Choose from several flavors and toppings, pile your scoops as high as you can, and then serve your creation to hungry customers.

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