Following yesterday's overhaul of Google+ Communities and Collections on the web, today Google+ for iOS gets bumped to version 5.0 and thoroughly redesigned.
The new-look Communities and Collections are now accessible through the new Google+ 5.0 for iOS app. This edition of the software includes other improvements, too, including switching between multiple accounts and expanded options for sharing with folks outside Google+.
Vine on Wednesday announced a new update for its popular mobile video-sharing app. It appears that this is a backend update, as I didn't have to download anything to see the changes (although I did restart the app), but there are a few new features worth noting.
The first is a new audio remix option. With Remix, users can make their own creations with sound from any Vine with the touch of a finger. Just tap the [...] button beneath a Vine clip within the mobile app, and select "Make an audio remix" from the popup menu.
Microsoft continues releasing mobile apps for the iPhone first before they eventually trickle down to the “other” operating systems. The latest example: Forum, a new iPhone application born out of Microsoft's Garage division responsible for skunkworks projects.
It was conceived to help employees within an organization speak their mind and state their opinion on any topic.
Fellow workers can then vote on your favorite posts (and optionally flag them) and find out what everyone else is really thinking about any given topic. Forum is a free download and available primarily to businesses.
In addition to refreshing the layout for Communities and Collections on Google+, the search monster today also rolled out an update to its iOS search app.
Available at no charge in the App Store, the native Google search experience on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad now includes an overhauled voice search interface with a nicely animated logo.
More important than that, the layout of your Google Now cards has been reworked and updated to better organize and surface content for you.
As part of Instagram's most recent platform update, third-party applications will be no longer allowed to present a user's Instagram feed, a significant change in policy that'll affect numerous mobile applications which pull Instagram feeds.
Going forward, they'll be shutting down services and apps that offer auto-following, liking or commenting.
Photo-editing apps that show only individual Instagram photos won't be affected by this change. All apps must comply by June 1, 2016. The new policies and reviews will go into effect for new apps starting December 3, 2015.
In an effort to increase pressure on Google, Windows giant Microsoft today pushed a completely overhauled Bing for iPhone into the App Store. The software features a new branding identity reflected on the app's Home screen icon and a matching new-look interface with tight iOS integration via deep linking.
In addition, the app now works offline so you can go back to your bookmarks and search history even when you don’t have an Internet connection.
“We designed the app to bring together the information you need, connected to the apps you trust, to help you 'find' and 'do' faster and easier than ever before,” wrote the team.
The latest developer success story comes from Tapity, an Apple Design Award winner and the brains behind education app Grades and Languages, its popular offline translation app.
They've now put both Grades and Languages for sale in order to focus exclusively on Hours, a gorgeous time-tracking software that I reviewed in the summer of 2014. What's really interesting about this is how forthcoming Tapity's been about stats for these apps.
You might find it interesting to learn what kind of revenue Grades and Languages have been pulling thus far and what potential bidders can look forward to after buying Grades and Langauges.
Yahoo-owned blogging service Tumblr is pushing an update to its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad application in the App Store today, and it brings with it a headline new feature: a tool which helps turn your photo bursts and videos into animated GIFs that can be easily shared on the service, as first reported by The Verge.
This removes much of the friction that comes with having to do the conversion yourself. The update is being rolled out as we speak so you might not see it just yet.
A sneaking suspicion that Apple could be taking advantage of the App Store's charts to promote its own apps at the expense of others has received a prominent, though inconclusive, confirmation in today's TechCrunch report.
The publication noticed that multiple Apple apps such as Pages, Keynote and Numbers are being listed on the App Store's Top Free charts on some iOS 9.1 devices in higher positions than they would normally rank.
These same apps are ranked differently in the App Store within desktop iTunes and on other iOS devices. So, what's going on here?
Google-owned social-mapping and traffic service Waze today pushed an update to its iPhone application in the App Store, adding handy shortcuts available upon pressing its Home screen icon on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Waze's 3D Touch shortcuts provide access to popular features like address search, location sharing and turn-by-turn navigation based on your work and home address on file.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp today issued a new update to its iPhone application in the App Store which brings extended support for 3D Touch on the iPhone6s and iPhone 6s Plus with Peek and Pop gestures for previewing chats without actually opening them.
The app's also gained a redesigned settings interface, the ability to browse your starred messages in one place and optionally include rich previews when sharing links.
In case you missed it, Vevo has completely redesigned its lagging iPhone and iPad application in the App Store. I watch music videos from Vevo artists on YouTube on my desktop. On mobile, not so much and I blame Vevo's hopelessly outdated design, inconsistencies and complicated features for that.
Bumped to version 5.0, the new Vevo experience starts with a black-and-white logo and a matching app icon.
The headline change here is an all-new interface—it gets out of your way, unlike Apple's own Music app, and sports a tremendously useful mini-player. It's almost too weird to say that Vevo's new iOS app is a lot easier and way more fun to use than Apple's stock Music app has ever been, but it's true.