Apps

Rayman Fiesta Run for iPhone and iPad slashed to $0 in Apple’s Free App of the Week promo

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 5, 2015

Since its November 2013 debut, Ubisoft's Rayman Fiesta Run has only gone free briefly through an in-app promotion within the Expedia app.

That's why Apple's editorial team has decided it was high time to permit everyone to download this game to their devices at no charge, so they've made Rayman Fiesta Run free until next Thursday.

This marks the first time the fast-paced platformer has been slashed to zero bucks in the App Store. Taking cues from Rayman Jungle Run, Rayman Fiesta Run has you jumping, flying, punching, running up the walls and more in the wacky new Fiesta world.

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Google Drive gets better with sharing notifications and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 5, 2015

Google has updated its Drive cloud storage client for iOS with mobile notifications when files or folders are shared, or when someone requests access to a file you own.

The change allows for a more consistent sharing experience across platforms and includes enhancements such as jumping directly to a shared file by tapping on the notification banner and providing a custom message when sharing a file or folder with others.

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Facebook reportedly launching standalone news app next week

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

Facebook is preparing to launch a new standalone news app next week, according to The Financial Times. Citing sources familiar with the project, the outlet says that the app is going to be called Notify, and it is going to feature content from dozens of media partners including CBS and Vogue.

As reported by BusinessInsider in August, the app will look similar to Twitter, in that it will allow publications to blast short push notifications to “followers” when they have urgent news to share. If users want to read more about a headline, the can click a link that will take them to the full story.

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The Room Three hits the App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 4, 2015

Following the success developer Fireproof Games has seen with The Room and The Room Two, it's now posted the third installment in the series to the App Store. Following the established naming convention, the game is aptly titled The Room Three and priced at $4.99 a pop.

For those who haven't played Fireproof's BAFTA award winning Room games yet, the physics-based puzzle series challenges you to navigate the trials devices located on a deserted island by rotating, zooming and examining dozens of artifacts in order to discover their hidden secrets.

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Microsoft invites a limited number of iOS users to beta-test Cortana assistant

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Microsoft today announced that a limited number of iPhone owners in the United States and China can now sign up to test-drive the first public beta of its personal digital assistant, called Cortana. “Over the coming months, we’ll continue to deliver frequent updates to the app to expand the features and functionality,” notes the Windows maker.

While Cortana offers the most complete experience on Windows devices due to its tight integration with Microsoft's operating system and Apple-imposed restrictions related to iOS development, Cortana for iOS does take the intelligence of its Windows counterpart and brings that experience to the user's iPhone.

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Review: Emojify turns your photos into emoji artwork, ASCII art and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Have you ever wanted to effortlessly create a collage of emoji emoticons from your own photos? As in, with just a few taps and no prior Photoshop knowledge whatsoever?

I'm a big sucker for ASCII art and there certainly is no shortage of such apps in the App Store, but I wanna move beyond ASCII and have the freedom to create collages based on my iPhone's emoji keyboard.

I'm also interested in experimenting with app icons and other icons sets. If you're anything like me, you'll want to check out Emojify, a cool iPhone app by Singapore-based studio called VoidWorks.

With Emojify, you can quickly turn your pixels into pieces of art comprised of a bunch of tiny icons and emoji characters, and even export them in high-resolution to create stunning 20-by–20 inch prints.

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Tweetbot 4.1 is out with support for Apple Watch

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

The folks at Tapbots on Tuesday issued an update for their popular Twitter client Tweetbot 4, bringing the iOS app to version 4.1. The update brings about a number of fixes for bugs including timeline jumping and in-app browser issues, as well as proper Apple Watch support.

With Tweetbot on Apple Watch, you can view your 'Activity' feed—which shows things like @ Tweets, Favorited (or liked) Tweets and new followers—and reply to those notifications. You can also Favorite Tweets, reply to Direct Messages and compose Tweets using voice dictation.

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For better or worse, Twitter’s Stars and Favorites are now Hearts and Likes

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 3, 2015

So you've been starring and favoriting tweets for later use in your favorite Twitter client, just like many other die-hard Twitter fans do? Well, starting today all those Stars and Favorites shall be presented henceforth as Hearts and Likes, the micro-blogging startup unexpectedly announced today.

The rebranding effort is meant to permit Twitter fans to show how they feel on Twitter “without missing a beat,” but already the change seems to have drawn ire and ridicule from hardcore fans of the service.

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Google rolling out Smart Replies to Gmail’s Inbox app later this week

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 3, 2015

The Gmail team's Inbox mobile email client, which was born out of Google's 2012 acquisition of the popular iPhone email app Sparrow, is about to get a whole lot smarter with a new feature called Smart Reply, the company announced on the Gmail blog Tuesday.

The feature analyzes your emails and uses machine learning to recognize emails that need responses and then generates the natural language responses on the fly.

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Secret Apple app lets you map out building interiors using your iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Apple has a secret app in the App Store which allows some iPhone users to map the interior of a building using their handset. First discovered yesterday by developer Steve Troughton-Smith, an app called Indoor Survey has been available on the App Store since last week.

The software is currently hidden in the App Store and is not operational, suggesting that the official launch is around the corner.

Basically a funnel for Apple's MapsConnect website, the app appears to act as a crowdsourced Ground Truth service aimed at improving the accuracy of Apple Maps data when it comes to indoor maps.

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WhatsApp rolls out responding to messages and calls directly from notifications to everyone

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 2, 2015

After testing out with a subset of its user base a new ability to quickly respond to incoming messages directly from the notification banner, Facebook-owned WhatsApp today began rolling out this feature to its massive 900+ million monthly active users. In addition, this edition of WhatsApp for iPhone also makes it easy to reply to incoming WhatsApp VoIP calls with a message, right from the call notification. Both features require Apple's latest mobile operating system.

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