Apps

Apple’s free app of the week: AG Drive

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game AG Drive. This means from now through next Thursday, you can pick up the popular futuristic racing title for free—a solid savings of $4.

AG Drive puts you behind the wheel of a blazing fast anti-gravity craft and up against opponents on gorgeous tracks. It features amazing graphics, easy-to-learn controls, and it works on both iOS and Apple TV.

Facebook Messenger gains iOS 10 integration on the Lock screen and in Phone app

Facebook just pushed a major update to its Messenger software in the App Store. On iPhones with iOS 10, the app now takes advantage of Apple's new CallKit framework to make audio (VoIP) calls from Messenger look and behave like normal cellular calls with full support for Lock screen and Phone integration.

Bumped to version 89.0, the app now shows incoming VoIP calls from Messenger contacts right on your Lock screen complete with fullscreen contact images, standard controls like the Mute, Keypad, Speaker, Add Call and Video buttons and more.

Snapchat rolls out Sticker Search

Snapchat recently rolled out a minor refresh to its iPhone application in the App Store, bumping version number to 9.39.3.0 and bringing out a new Sticker Search feature. As the feature's name suggests, this lets you find precisely the sticker you want simply by typing its description. A previous Snapchat update introduced a few tweaks, including support for caption styling with the new bold, underline and italic options.

Google’s Allo messaging app hits the App Store and it logs all your chats

At the annual I/O developer conference in April 2016, Google previewed two new mobile apps: a one-to-one video calling app called Duo, which released in mid-August, and a messaging software called Allo, which surfaced on the App Store this morning as a free download.

It sports features commonly found in messaging apps and includes a built-in Assistant, Google's conversational artificial intelligence helper, an Incognito mode and more.

While Google originally promised Allo would only store messages transiently and in non-identifiable form, the firm's had a change of heart as Allo logs all chats by default.

How to save drafts of Instagram posts to work on later

With Instagram drafts, you can save any half-finished photo edits and work on them later, which is handy for those times you get too busy to post right away. And if you run an Instagram account for your business, letting your social media manager save a post as a draft makes it easy for you to review it in advance of publishing.

Media, polls and quoted tweets no longer count against Twitter’s 140-character limit

In May of this year, Twitter promised it would be stopping counting media and other non-text content against its 140-character limit. Today, the company announced that embedded photos, videos, GIFs, polls and quoted tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters.

Twitter originally promised to also stop counting user mentions like @iDownloadBlog, but didn't specify today when it'll drop @usernames from the character count.

Video: iPhone 7 running circles around Note 7 in terms of switching apps

Apple makes the fastest smartphone chips on the planet and the iPhone 7's in-house designed A10 Fusion chip has given top Android handset makers who buy off-the-shelf processors plenty to worry about. Tight interplay between Apple-designed silicon, operating system, apps and services gives the iPhone a distinct advantage over competitors when it comes to smooth app switching and multitasking.

A non-scientific video put together by YouTuber PhoneBuff, which compares app loading and switching times on the iPhone 7 and Samsung's latest Note 7, highlights the benefits of designing the hardware and software under one roof as Apple's new phone with half the Note 7's RAM runs circles around Samsung's exploding flagship in terms of loading and switching apps.

Hardbound, Couchy, RAW and other apps to check out this weekend

It's been a crazy week, what with the iPhone 7 launch and all. So we know everyone is ready to kick back and relax this weekend with some fun new apps and games. The latest edition of our Apps of the Week roundup includes a unique reading app, a TV series manager, and a new raw camera app. Plus we have a couple of new games for you to check out.

Apple’s free app of the week: Super Phantom Cat

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with the game Super Phantom Cat. This means that for the next 7 days, you can download this popular retro platformer for both iPhone and iPad for free—a solid savings of $2.

This charming side scroller is beloved for its beautiful retro graphics and whimsical character design, retro styling, and easy Mario-esque controls. It also features an awesome chip tune soundtrack, unlockable characters, and bonus levels.

YouTube for iPhone picks up 3D Touch shortcuts

To say that YouTube, one of my favorite mobile apps from Google, has poor 3D touch support would be an understatement: it's been now a full year since the iPhone 6s introduced the world to 3D Touch and yet support for the technology is literally non-existent in YouTube for iOS.

Conveniently ahead of the iPhone 7's arrival, Google yesterday moved to assuage some of the concerns of users who have been craving for 3D Touch in the app, releasing a small update which enables some interesting shortcuts on the Home screen.

WhatsApp rolls out its iOS 10 update with Phone/Siri support & more

WhatsApp is one of the showcase apps for CallKit, Apple's new framework allowing VoIP calls to integrate with iOS 10's Phone app and behave like cellular calls. Today, WhatsApp has rolled out its anticipated update which enables integration with Phone and Siri on iOS 10 while bringing out half a dozen other features and improvements like forwarding multiple chats at once, a new iOS 10 widget that lets you go to a recent WhatsApp chat or see which chats have unread messages, and more.

15 iMessage apps and sticker packs to download on iOS 10

One of the headlining features in the just-released iOS 10 update is the new Messages app. It now includes support for iMessage animations, sketches, enhanced emoji, and third-party apps and sticker packs.

As such, there has been a number of app updates and new releases today with a focus on the new iMessage platform. And we thought it'd be handy for our readers if we rounded up 15 of our favorite downloads.