Apps

Cut the Rope: Time Travel goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion in iTunes with Cut the Rope: Time Travel. This means that from now through next Thursday, you'll be able to pickup ZeptoLab's popular puzzler for free for both iPhone and iPad—a solid savings of $2.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Time Travel is one of the many titles in the Cut the Rope physics puzzler franchise. In it, players are against tasked with helping Om Nom collect candy as he journeys back in time to the Middle Ages, Ancient Egypt and more.

Facebook Messenger passes 900 million users, unveils profile codes and other new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

Facebook today announced its Messenger mobile application is now being used by more than 900 million people globally every month, up from 800 million active monthly users announced in January.

Celebrating the milestone, the social network firm unveiled Snapchat-like scannable profile codes.

In addition, it announced some interesting new ways for people to find businesses and friends to start a conversation, including vanity profile URLs on Messenger. More than a billion messages are now being sent every month between people on Messenger and businesses, wrote David Marcus, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging.

Reddit: The Official App hits the App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Nearly a year and a half following its acquisition of Alien Blue, the popular iOS client for Reddit, the popular social news service today released its long-awaited official client for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Reddit: The Official App, as it's called, is available at no charge in the App Store and if you download it during its launch weekend, they'll treat you to three free months of Reddit Gold membership.

Facebook app gaining Live button, video broadcasts now more Periscope-like

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

The Messenger button in the mobile Facebook app for iOS and Android which sent users to the Messenger app has been replaced with a Live button as the popular social network aims to push live and pre-recorded videos in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

Announced in a blog post Wednesday, the company is also rolling out new features for Facebook Live that give users more ways to discover, share and interact with live video.

Starting today, contents of your WhatsApp chats are now protected with full end-to-end encryption

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 5, 2016

WhatsApp today announced it is turning on end-to-end encryption to make it virtually impossible to eavesdrop on your communications.

Starting today, all text messages, photo and video attachments, documents, voice messages and VoIP calls are protected with full end-to-end encryption, developed in collaboration with Open Whisper Systems.

Similar to Apple's iMessage and some other instant messaging platforms such as Telegram, end-to-end encryption makes the contents of WhatsApp chats unreadable to third-parties. And with the encryption keys stored on a user's device, they cannot decrypt chats if served a valid government request.

Cable network Starz launches $9 per month streaming package for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 5, 2016

Starz, a premium cable and satellite television network, today announced a brand new video service which permits owners of the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV to stream shows for a low monthly fee of just $8.99 per month.

A companion iOS app lets subscribers download full episodes to watch offline but does not offer live streaming. On the fourth-generation Apple TV, it supports universal search so you can ask Siri for shows to watch, including original ones like “Outlander”, “Power” and the upcoming “American Gods”.

Real Racing 3 gains three new cars, adds fresh new events and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 5, 2016

Electronics Arts and Firemonkeys today pushed a brand new content update to Real Racing 3, their popular racing game for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV.

Bumped to version 4.2, the game has introduced three new powerful cars: the Hennessey Venom GT—the fastest accelerating production car in the world according to Guinness—along with the 2015 BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage R and 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL.

In addition, players can now take on the all-new Front Runner special event for their chance to win the aforesaid Hennessey Venom GT and participate in other events to bring home that classic 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL or the new 2015 BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage R.

Infuse 4.1 brings dark mode from iOS version to Apple TV, 24-bit HD audio, watched icons & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Infuse, arguably the most versatile media player app for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Apple TV by aTV Flash Black developer FireCore, has just unloaded a ton of goodies in its most recent update on the iOS and tvOS App Stores.

Available now, Infuse 4.1 brings an optional dark mode from the iOS edition of the app to its Apple TV counterpart, and it's a beauty! Next, you can finally delete videos from remote SMB and FTP/SFTP shares.

iOS users, I'm sure, will appreciate Infuse's background metadata fetching for Favorites whenever they open the app. And my favorite: Infuse now finally renders DIVX files without any hiccup.

Top 3D Touch shortcuts in Apple’s Podcasts app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 14, 2019

Podcasts, previously an optional download from the App Store and now a stock application in iOS 9, may not be the most elegant software to enjoy your favorite podcasts, such as iDownloadBlog's Let's Talk iOS series.

That being said, the app is adequate enough for basic use: with it, you can easily browse, subscribe to and play your favorite audio or video shows on your iOS devices.

And if you own an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, you can take advantage of 3D Touch to start listening to the next unplayed episode of your favorite show right from the Home screen, use Peek and Pop gestures in the app to preview shows, see unplayed station episodes and more.

Upshot, Roger, Patternator and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Whether you're looking to load up your new iPhone SE or 9.7-inch iPad Pro with some apps and games, or you're just looking for some new titles to try out this weekend, you're going to want to check out our latest Apps of the Week roundup. The list includes a new way to share photos, a pattern-creator and of course Nintendo's long-awaited mobile release.

How to reorganize the position of your favorite Instagram filters

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 15, 2023

In this brief tutorial, we'll show you how to rearrange photo filters within the Instagram app on your iPhone. This process allows you to place your preferred filters at the beginning, and relegate less frequently used ones to the end of the list.

Creative video app CHOMP goes free as Apple’s App of the Week

Cody Lee ∙ March 31, 2016

Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion with CHOMP, by Christoph Niemann. This means that from now through next Thursday, you can pick up the popular interactive storybook app for free for both iPhone and iPad—a solid $3 savings.

CHOMP combines playful, humorous, hand-drawn animations with live video, enabling children and adults alike to slip into a variety of comical roles. From a virtuous pianist, to a spaghetti-slurping dog, or a living cuckoo-clock, almost anything is possible!