Apps

HBO NOW updated with support for Google’s Chromecast

HBO pushed out an update for its NOW mobile app this morning, brining the iOS client to version 1.2. According to the change log, the release includes performance improvements, and support for push notifications and Chromecast devices.

That latter item is by far the most significant, given that HBO's streaming service has been exclusive to Apple TV since it launched in April. Now, those with Google's $30 HDMI dongle can enjoy HBO NOW content on their big screen TVs.

Outlook’s Apple Watch app updated with replying from your wrist, all-new glance and more

Outlook's Apple Watch has been updated Thursday with the ability to reply to emails directly from your wrist using Siri dictation, emoji or canned responses, among other new features and enhancements.

The new features make the wearable app much more functional than before. Before today, Outlook for Apple Watch only allowed you to see your emails but not reply to or interact with them.

Other changes in Outlook 1.3.5 for iOS include a glance with upcoming appointments and incoming emails, rich notifications that can be interacted with and other tidbits.

Adidas buys fitness app maker Runtastic for $239 million

Runtastic has been acquired by sportswear giant Adidas, the company's CEO and co-founder Florian Gschwandtner announced in a blog post on Wednesday. The deal is said to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 million euros (or $239 million).

For those unfamiliar with Runtastic, it develops and maintains a number of fitness apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. It has also dabbled in hardware with a GPS watch, a heart rate monitor, and the recently-released Orbit fitness tracker.

Apple’s TestFlight app receives support for native Watch apps and iOS 9’s App Thinning technologies

TestFlight, an online service for over-the-air installation and testing of mobile applications that was purchased by Apple last year, in its most recent version 1.2 update has introduced support for testing upcoming iOS 9 features, including native Apple Watch applications with watchOS 2.

In addition, the application has been optimized with support for App Thinning, a set of Apple-provided optimization technologies designed to reduce download sizes of iOS 9 and Apple Watch apps by tailoring app delivery to the capabilities of the user’s particular device.

Facebook launches live video streaming for celebrities

Facebook on Wednesday announced a new video streaming feature for its Facebook Mentions app called Live. The feature allows Mentions users, which is currently limited to "verified public figures using Pages," to quickly and easily share live video.

With Live, Facebook's Vadim Lavrusik explains, celebrities can take fans behind the scenes, host Q&As, share announcements and more. And the social network says that The Rock, singer Luke Bryan and many others have already signed on to participate.

WhatsApp for iPhone receives a dozen new features in latest update

Not to be outdone by rival Viber which rolled out animated stickers, location sharing, a brand new keypad and other enhancements in yesterday's refresh, Facebook-owned WhatsApp today pushed a substantial update to its App Store application.

WhatsApp for iPhone now features richer notifications settings with per-chat rules and mute options, a new swipe gesture to mark chats as read or unread, the ability to directly share contacts from the Contacts app and locations from Apple Maps, backups for your videos and much more.

BitTorrent Sync update brings a major productivity element to peer-to-peer file syncing

BitTorrent Sync made its App Store debut back in August 2013, its major appeal being the underlying distributed technology that facilitates secure file syncing between devices but without a roundtrip to the cloud, thus appealing to privacy-minded customers.

The mobile component to BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer file syncing product, BitTorrent Sync for iOS is receiving a major update later today with an important productivity element added to the app: you can now save various types of files created in other apps right into a Sync folder to share with connected devices via a new Share sheet action.

Viber for iOS gains link previews, animated stickers, easier video calling, better compression & more

Viber, the third most popular messaging platform after Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) today delivered a few new features to its iPhone and iPad application in the App Store.

The new Viber 5.5 for iOS now includes rich link previews in the chat window, has the ability to exchange contact information via messages (in addition to QR codes), introduces animated stickers, permits easier video calling directly from a contact's profile or the recent calls list and more.

Google confirms brand new Street View mobile app arriving early next month

Two months ago, Google hinted it was readying a brand new mobile application called Street View. The app was designed to provide easy access to your photo spheres and those from Google and other contributors. Today, the Internet giant sent an email blast confirming that the native Street View for iOS app is coming in early-September.

The search company did not share detailed information about the upcoming software, but we've been able to glean a few tidbits. For starters, the Street View app will replace Google's Photo Sphere Camera mobile app for iOS and Android. More important than that, Street View will be capable of linking to a dedicated spherical camera hardware.

Readdle holds a massive App Store sale in celebration of its 8th birthday

Ukrainian developer Readdle is behind some of the best productivity applications for the iPhone and iPad. It's hard to imagine that eight years have passed since Readdle released its first app in the App Store, but it has. To celebrate its eighth anniversary, the company has launched a massive App Store sale, cutting the price of some of its popular apps in half.

The promotion runs for 48 hours so now is your chance to add your favorite Readdle apps to your collection, if you don't have them already. Here's a quick list of apps that are available half price until Thursday, August 6 at 9am Eastern time.

Twitter testing out dedicated News tab in mobile apps

Twitter is experimenting with a new "Featured News" tab in its mobile apps, reports BuzzFeed. The tab surfaces trending news items, which the social network hopes will keep users engaged.

"We're experimenting with a news experience on iOS and Android," a Twitter spokesperson told the publication. "We are continuing to explore new ways to surface the best content to users."

SwiftKey previews upcoming ‘Your Signature Emoji’ feature in iPhone app

Have you ever wondered which emoji symbols you use the most as your unique writing style? Well, the popular smartphone keyboard, SwiftKey, is previewing a new feature called 'Your Signature Emoji' which was designed to help you find out precisely which emoji characters you use more than other people.

Available as a beta for SwiftKey's iPhone users, and coming soon for everyone, this feature takes advantage of SwiftKey's knowledge base which gets continually updated as you're typing away.