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Official mobile game of the FIA World Rally Championship hits iOS

Fans of racing games, listen up! The official mobile game of the FIA World Rally Championship has been released in the App Store.

Developed by Firebrand Games and published by Bigben Interactive, WRC The Official Game for the iPhone and iPad includes official content of the 2014 FIA World Rally Championship, including eighteen licensed cars, and lets you play as any of the seventeen official drivers to win a total of thirteen official events of the 2014 WRC calendar.

While previous official titles have been something of a disappointment, WRC The Official Game looks promising, at least graphics-wise, so here's hoping it doesn't ruin the fun with inaccurate and unresponsive controls.

Waterlogue color paint app offered at no cost inside Apple Store app

If Apple's latest Free App of the Week, the hilarious platformer Icycle: On Thin Ice, isn't your cup of tea, how about a nicely done water color paint app that was recently featured in Apple’s new “Start Something New” webpage which highlights the iPad as a way of creating art through drawings and photographs?

Waterlogue by Tinrocket normally sells for three bucks a pop in the App Store but is now available at no cost through the official Apple Store application (not to be confused with the App Store).

Here's how you can redeem your free copy of Waterlogue.

VLC media player returning to App Store soon

VLC media player has had something of a rocky history on the iOS platform, getting pulled from Apple's mobile platform several times thus far over various licensing issues.

Having been absent from iOS for nearly four months, the popular cross-platform media player which renders dozens of non-iOS-friendly video formats will be relaunching on the App Store in the coming days.

According to Felix Paul Kuehne, lead developer for VLC for iOS and OS X, the app has already been submitted to Apple for approval and could be heading back to the App Store later this week.

BBM updated with stickers in group chats, iPhone 6 and iOS 8 compatibility improvements and more

Following last month's preview of a major new update to its BBM for iPhone messaging software, BlackBerry today released BBM 2.6.1.31 featuring an improved support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus alongside additional iOS 8 compatibility updates and other enhancements.

There's a new timer option and you'll also notice certain improvements for the message retraction feature and refinements to timed pictures and messages.

Apple dominated Christmas, activating 2.9 devices per one Samsung

Mobile analytics firm Flurry is out with its December Christmas week research, like it does every year, and one thing is extremely evident - Santa loves Apple. The iPhone accounted for 51 percent of new device activations from December 19th to December 25th, putting a pretty good beating on Samsung, who only accounted for 18 percent.

Flurry found that for every one Samsung device that was activated, Apple activated 2.9 devices. For every Microsoft Lumia device activated, Apple activated 8.8 devices. We'll have to wait until Apple's earnings call probably sometime in January for more of a per-device breakdown, but it looks like the iPhone 6 far outweighed any other version of the iPhone.

Apple names hilarious platformer Icycle: On Thin Ice its new Free App of the Week

Apple's promotion that makes hand-picked apps and games available at no cost for a week typically falls on Thursday.

Given the holiday iTunes freeze, which ended on Sunday, Apple's editors couldn't make changes to the App Store so they haven't gotten around cherry-picking another Free App of the Week until yesterday evening.

A cool adventure platformer called Icycle: On Thin Ice by UK-based published Chillingo, now a division of Electronic Arts, is available at no cost until next Thursday, normally a $2.99 value. Regardless of the fact that it includes optional In-App Purchases, Icycle scored some rather favorable reviews and it fits the holiday theme perfectly so you should give it a whirl.

iOS again beats out Android in Christmas Day mobile shopping

Just like last year, Apple's iPhone and iPad again dominated online shopping traffic and online mobile sales during Christmas Day, according to an IBM survey first shared by VentureBeat.

Based on data from IBM's real-time Digital Analytics Benchmark, which tracked approximately 800 retail websites in the United States, iOS devices were responsible for an average of $97.28 per order spent online versus $67.40 for Android users, a difference of 44.3 percent.

In other words, a commanding 57.1 percent of online shopping via mobile during Christmas Day was carried out using an iPhone or iPad, an increase of 8.3 percent versus the previous year.