Following up on June's big update, Instagram today pushed out a major new version to its mobile app for iOS and Android, bringing with it a bunch of changes, visual tweaks and interesting new features. The app's explore tab and the photo upload screen have been re-worked with cleaner layout, the experience feels much snappier and you can now browse geotagged images in an all-new Photo Maps view...
Apps
Apple to take on Photoshop, Illustrator with own iOS, Mac drawing apps, patent hints
Apple could be working on a sophisticated vector drawing app for Macs and iOS devices plus a bitmap image editing app akin to Adobe's Illustrator and Photoshop software, respectively, a new patent filing published by the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) reveals.
The invention calls for extensive use of gestures to interact with the user interface, the tools and on-screen objects, including the ability to change any input tool property in response to any particular input gesture and a new way to handle the layers madness...
Pinterest app finally lands on iPad
You'd have to be living on a deserted island with no connection to the outside world to not have heard of Pinterest by now. The pinboard-style social photo sharing service has taken the web by storm over the past 12 months.
And there's good news this morning for folks who frequent the social network: the Pinterest app has finally landed on the iPad (and Android). This means you can now re-pin all of those silly cat photos from the comfort of your tablet...
Amazon confirms problems with Instant Video app on jailbroken iPads
Online retailer Amazon confirmed that its newly released video streaming client for iPad, the free Instant Video app, doesn't run correctly on jailbroken iPads. Amazon yesterday released the program which enables its $79-a-year Prime subscribers and regular users to easily stream and synch via an iPad their video purchases and thousands of movies and television shows the company has on offer...
Amazon releases video streaming app for iPad
Online retailer Amazon has stepped up its game on the iOS platform. Just as it updated its Cloud Player with a new scan-and-match service akin to iTunes Match and featuring high-quality 256Kbps song downloads for both music purchases and ripped CDs, the company today released a brand new video app which enables streaming of video content available through the company's Prime service and Instant Video store.
It supports offline viewing, automatic syncing of your play state across various devices and platforms and more. More screenies right after the break...
How to catch all of this year’s Olympic action on the go
The 2012 Olympic Games are set to kick off tonight in the newly-built Olympic Stadium in Stratford London. And over the next two weeks, this stadium will play host to the top athletes from around the world.
Whether you're a basketball fan, football fan, or just a fan of sports in general, these next 16 days are going to be packed full of action. And here's how to catch all of that action when you're not near a TV set...
Apple finally fixes buggy Podcasts app
A month ago Apple removed Podcasts section from iOS 6 storefronts and posted a dedicated new app to let folks download, consume and manage audio and video podcasts on the go.
Apart from its skeuomorphic design mimicking a vintage tape recorder, the program was plagued with unreliable performance, unexpected quits and generally a bunch of bugs. These issues are clearly reflected in abysmal iTunes ratings that at the time of this writing barely hovered over two and a half stars out of five.
Our own Jeff Benjamin noticed as much, observing in his video hands-on that the radio-dial interface is interesting at first sight, but not very efficient and syncing often doesn't work as intended. Today, Apple pushed out a minor update that promises to squash these pesky bugs while bringing out a couple of new nice-to-haves...
Viber for iOS updated with refreshed UI, all-new voice engine
Viber, an extremely popular VoIP app released last December by a small Israeli startup, got a huge update today, bringing a re-worked user interface with group messaging, profile photos and more, in addition to an all-new voice engine said to deliver improved voice quality.
Like Vonage and Skype, Viber lets you talk to people using your device's cellular or WiFi data connection, exchange instant messages and images, all the while bypassing the carriers' costly voice minutes and text/MMS messages.Unlike Skype, there’s no need to create an account with Viber...
Doodle puts an end to meeting scheduling nightmares
Among a myriad of things I despise, trying to plan a meeting with several busy people is a nightmare. All of the back-and-forth emails about who is in town, or not, or who can meet after lunch, before lunch, catch me after the staff meeting... Yikes!
Doodle has simplified my meeting life and taken the challenges out of scheduling a friendly gathering. Their web based services saved many headaches in the office and, now, Doodle's updated iOS app moves simplicity to both iPad and iPhone...
The Dark Knight Rises game lands on App Store
The Dark Knight Rises, the third installment in Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to the 2005 Batman Begins and 2008 The Dark Knight, has hit the silver screen with a 87 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, a testament to film director Christopher Nolan's skills. The movie's box office success is bound to help Gameloft's officially licensed title sell well.
If you've been tingling with anticipation, you'll be delighted to know that The Dark Knight Rises the game has just landed on the App Store and can be downloaded now for your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad...
Readability 1.1: way faster, enhancced article discovery, in-line YouTube and Vimeo
Clean reading client for iOS, Readability, hit the iOS platform with a beautiful native app back in March and today has brought us a major update, bringing out new features such as a new pagination method, much improved article discovery via curated Top Reads and Longform Picks, in addition to all-around speedier performance and other subtle tweaks...
Twitter for iOS gets enhanced notifications, interactive tweets, in-line media and more
As leaked yesterday, Twitter has just pushed out a major update to its iOS client with more than a dozen new features, including the biggies like alerts for specific users you follow, enhanced search autocomplete, in-app notifications and additional sources and media types that will show in-line, to name a few. Changelog is right after the break...