Apps

Readdle updates PDF Expert with Handoff support and other enhancements

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 10, 2016

Readdle, the Ukrainian developer of fine productivity software, has refreshed its PDF management and annotation app, PDF Expert for OS X and PDF Expert for iOS, with support for Apple's Handoff technology.

With Handoff, PDF Expert users can start editing a PDF document on their iPhone or iPad and then continue right where they left off on their Mac, and vice versa.

In addition, today's update includes half a dozen enhancements like the ability to select part of a document and crop or copy it.

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Apple semi-officially confirms that force-quitting apps won’t extend iPhone battery life

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 10, 2016

As our own Sebatien recently explained, force-quitting multitasking apps to save your iPhone's battery life is a terrible idea because A) Apple is giving developers proper tools to have their apps work efficiently in the background; and B) users should trust the operating system is effectively managing apps that aren’t active.

Today, Apple has confirmed that users should not force-quit apps frequently and has said that doing so won't help extend the iPhone's battery life at all.

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‘Ask to Buy’ lets you control what your kids buy in iTunes, iBooks, or App Store

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 31, 2018

After a period of Apple being under fire because kids were running up their parents' credit card bills with App Store and in-app purchases, Apple decided to do something about it. Apple's answer was to create a parental control system for the App Store so parents could approve or deny purchases that would otherwise have an impact on their credit card.

This parental control system is known as 'Ask to Buy' and it's available on both iOS and OS X in the latest releases of the operating systems, and in this tutorial, we'll tell you a little bit about how to configure and use Ask to Buy.

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Google Docs, Slides and Sheets gain native support for iPad Pro’s 12.9-inch screen

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 8, 2016

The Internet giant Google today refreshed its mobile productivity apps in the App Store—Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides—adding support for the iPad Pro's 12.9-inch screen along with other minor improvements.

Although Google's word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps now take full advantage of the iPad Pro's increased screen size and resolution, these apps are yet to support iOS 9's new iPad multitasking modes, like Split View and Slide Over.

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Google’s Photos app gains support for Live Photos and other new features in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 8, 2016

Following its announcement that it will be shutting down the Picasa desktop app and the Picasa Web Albums online photo-sharing service, Google is doubling down on its mobile Photos app for iOS and Android.

Last night, the Google Photos app was updated in the App Store to support Apple's Live Photos format. In Google Photos 1.8 for iOS, you can now back up your Live Photos to the Google cloud, as well as view them within the app.

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Apple Maps adds 23 new Flyover locations

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 8, 2016

Apple continues to expand availability of the Flyover feature in its mapping service with today's backend update having enabled a total of 23 new landmark locations all over the world where three-dimensional Flyover view is available.

Select new cities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Taiwan have gained support for Flyover, such as Spain's A Coruña, Australia's Newcastle, England's Nottingham and more.

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Apple approves f.lux-like app ‘FlexBright’ [u]

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 10, 2023

Apple has approved a new app called FlexBright, which allows you to manually adjust the display temperature of your iPhone or iPad. That makes this one of the first third-party apps to make it into the App Store that provides a feature similar to iOS 9.3's Night Shift mode.

It's interesting that Apple would green-light a title like FlexBright, given its history. For those who aren't familiar with the story, last fall the iPhone-maker asked the developers of f.lux—a long-running app with similar functionality to FlexBright—to shutdown their iOS work.

Update: the app has been pulled from the App Store. The developer mentioned on Twitter that Apple hasn't provided any reason for removing the app. 

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Viki, Nickel and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

This was a pretty interesting week for iOS releases. We have a Siri-like voice assistant, a well-designed Wikipedia client, an app for sending out random messages, and a new money management app that helps teach kids the value of saving. Check out all of these, and a fun new twitch game in this week's entry of Apps of the Week.

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How to disable notifications for some Facebook apps and games

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

Tired of being pinged about invites and activity notifications generated by apps and games you've added to your Facebook account? Want to mute those app alerts, but keep the notifications from Facebook games you actually care about flowing?

You've come to the right place.

iDownloadBlog recently told you about a master switch that instantly stops all game invites.

Additionally, we taught you how to stop apps from spamming your Facebook Timeline and shared how to stop receiving game invites from specific Facebook friends.

In this tutorial, we'll discuss disabling activity notifications for specific apps and games sans those that you do care about.

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Toca Kitchen 2 is Apple’s new Free App of the Week

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 3, 2016

Apple's in-house editors have selected Toca Boca's Toca Kitchen 2, the official sequel to the wildly popular Toca Kitchen, as a new Free App of the Week on the App Store. Retailing for $2.99, this universal app is now available at no charge for a week, until next Thursday, March 10, 2016.

Released in December 2014, the game has a rating of four and a half starts based on nearly 700 App Store reviews.

In Toca Kitchen 2, you will cook foods for new types of guests, with more tools to play with and new food combinations to test out.

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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.

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