Apps

Mailbox app updated with support for iCloud, Yahoo Mail and more

The Dropbox-owned Mailbox app received a major update today, bringing the email client to version 1.7. The update adds a highly-anticipated feature: support for other email services like Yahoo, iCloud, and others.

Up until now, the popular Mailbox app only supported Gmail accounts. But with today's release, users can now use the app to access and manage their Inboxes from Yahoo Mail, and various Apple email extensions...

Facebook updates Pages Manager app with new iOS 7 design

Facebook has posted an update for its Pages Manager this week, bringing the app to version 2.2. The update includes some new tagging features, some performance improvements and an all new design for iOS 7.

For those unfamiliar with Facebook's Pages Manager, it allows admins to interact with their audiences and keep tabs on activity for their pages by doing things like viewing Insights and replying to private messages...

Yahoo Weather app updated with iPad support and more

Yahoo posted a significant update for its weather app this weekend, bringing the software to version 1.5. The update includes the ability to share the weather via Mail, Messages and social media, as well as iPad support.

That's right. Folks who really like the beautiful design, layout, and interactions of the iPhone Yahoo Weather app—things that made it one of the most popular weather apps of 2013—can now experience it on their tablet...

Yelp updated with local movie listings, in-app ticket purchasing, and more

Yelp has posted a nice little update for its iOS client today. The update, which brings the app to version 7.4, sports a number of new features including movie listings and in-app movie ticket purchasing courtesy of Fandango.

Also new in the app is in-line review business photos. Yelp now shows business photos taken by Yelp users next to their review, so you can get a better idea of how popular a club is, or how delicious a particular entree was...

Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe released for iPad

Ebook and mobile app publisher Random House Digital has released an interesting iPad education app in the App Store. Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe, suitable for children aged 9+, uses the work and writings of Stephen Hawking, the famous English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge, to teach students the basic theories of the movement of the stars and planets.

The astrophysicist apparently had a say in the app's design as he envisioned an app that would help explain the fundamentals of space to both adults and children through fun mini-games. The interactive experience is optimized for iOS 7 with clean and streamlined graphic elements.

Available sections cover the basics of our solar system and let you spin planets in orbit, drop objects with Galileo to learn about gravity, search for black holes in the constellation of Leo, discover Einstein’s warped worldview and G-force in outer space and lots more...

Instapaper goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Apple has named the popular read-it-later app Instapaper its App of the Week for this week. This means that through next Thursday, you'll be able to pick up the application for both your iPhone and iPad, for free—a savings of $4.

For those unfamiliar with the app, Instapaper bills itself as the simplest way to save and store articles for reading. You can save content on virtually any device, like a bookmark, and return to it later for reading at your convenience...

Dropbox app updated with support for viewing PDF annotations

Good news for Dropbox users this afternoon. The cloud storage company has posted an update for its iOS client, bringing the app to version 3.0.2. The update includes a number of bug fixes, as well as the ability to view PDF annotations.

For those unfamiliar with the term, PDF annotations are things like notes, highlights and other edits made to a PDF document. And until now, users were not able to see these edits in Dropbox without using a 3rd party app or workaround...

Sega releases remastered Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for iOS

This has been a big week for iOS games. Following the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Sega's anticipated, remastered Sonic the Hedgehog 2 update has landed in the App Store.

First announced in October, the free update sees the game rebuilt by Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley— the same guys who did the first Sonic the Hedgehog iOS game remaster—with better graphics, FPS and much more...

Facebook app gets auto-play feature for News Feed videos, and there’s not much you can do about it

Facebook updated its iOS client this afternoon, bringing the app to version 6.8. The update is a small one, but it does include one significant—and likely controversial—change: video clips will now play automatically in your News Feed.

Now, Facebook has been testing this feature since September, and I've had it for a while. And although the videos aren't extremely annoying, I was hoping they'd make one change before the public launch: give us a way to turn them off...

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas now available in the App Store

Rockstar's wildly popular Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is now available in the App Store. The game, which first launched on the PlayStation 2 all the way back in 2004, is now available on both the iPhone and iPad.

Rockstar says that this is their biggest mobile port ever. The game features over 70-hours of gameplay, enhanced visuals, and—for the first time ever—support for Apple's new Made-for-iOS controller technology in iOS 7...

Twitter 6.0 is out with new design, DM photo-sharing and more

Twitter has updated its official iOS client today, bringing the app to version 6.0. The update is a fairly significant one, bringing about a new look and feel for the app, as well as photo-sharing for direct messages, improved search and more.

The new look pushes the UI of the Twitter app further into iOS 7 territory. There's more white spacing—the menu bar at the bottom is now all white— and texts and graphics seem flatter. And Twitter has added various other enhancements...

Apple updates ’12 Days of Gifts’ app for 2013 holiday season, opens it to US users

You know it's getting close to Christmas time when outlets start publishing gift guides, and Apple updates its '12 Days of Gifts' application. The 2013 version of Apple's free-download-a-day app went live this evening, ahead of its December 26 kickoff.

Folks in European countries have become accustom to this yearly ritual, but it's never been available to those of us here in the US. I'm happy to announce, though, that this year, Apple has finally opened up the program to iOS users in the United States...