iPhone

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Philips expands iPhone-connected line with hue lux, tap and luminaires

Philips' iPhone-connected Hue lighting system has come a long way since we first reviewed it in 2012. The company has added a number of products to the lineup over the years, including LightStrips, Bloom bulbs, and bulbs for recessed lighting installs. And today, it's expanding the line even more.

This morning, Philips announced three new upcoming Hue products. The first is known as the 'hue lux,' a bulb that can only emit white light, the second is the 'hue tap,' which allows you to control the Hue system without the iPhone app, and the third is luminaires, a set of high-end 3D light fixtures...

Shazam revamps content pages, introduces scrollable lyrics, enhanced Rdio support and more

Friday, music discovery engine Shazam has refreshed its iOS apps with some fine new features, starting with a brand new track page design and a new look and feel for video, album, track reviews, artist bios and other pages.

"Many" (but not all) song lyrics will now scroll in time with the music, a handy feature if you're singing along a song trying to remember the lyrics.

Shazam last December added the ability to listen for songs and television shows in the background, tagging them automatically.

Background listening can negatively impact your battery so you'll be delighted to learn that the new Shazam 7.5 apps are more power friendly "so you don’t need to worry about your battery life while it’s running."

Both the free, ad-supported Shazam and the paid Shazam Encore have been updated with these changes...

Rovio Stars releases cute wordsearch game in the App Store, Word Monsters

Rovio Stars, the Angry Birds maker's third-party publishing arm, has released a new iOS game in the App Store. Word Monsters for the iPhone and iPad, available now on a free-to-play basis, tests your language skills by pitting you against players from all around the world for the title of the ultimate Word Monster.

Developed by Raketspel, it's a fun take on wordsearch, with a twist: players get to choose their preferred theme of words they want to compete in, ranging from fruits names to  food to 80's pop songs and more. Then, it's race against the clock to find all the words in the right order to complete the level...

iCab Mobile 8.0: rewritten for iOS 7, QR codes, multi-user support and more

Remember iCab Mobile, an excellent browser by German developer Alexander Clauss? It was one of the first third-party web browsers to grace the App Store back in 2010 and continues to be packed with advanced features you won't find in other iPhone browsers.

I'm talking about stuff like Dropbox integration, the ability to upload and download files, sync settings via iCloud, great implementation of tabbed browsing, full screen mode and configurable multi-touch gestures, to name a few.

Alexander has just announced eighth major iteration of iCab Mobile, now available for $1.99 in the App Store for the iPhone and iPad. Here's what's new and why you should care...

Yahoo News Digest gains background downloads, improved notifications and more

Yahoo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the web this week and it's been marking the occasion by refreshing its key products. Yesterday, the company pushed a new version of the Weather iOS app with new animations, pull-to-refresh for cover images and more.

Today, Yahoo's news-reading product with summarization technology got refreshed, too. News Digest version 1.1.1 is now available in the App Store, bringing with it background downloads of new content, new notification messages and more...

Sketchy schematic drawing of next-gen iPhones surfaces

A fairly sketchy, schematic-like drawing has surfaced on the web this morning depicting what could be two next-gen iPhones. The image, which is of terrible quality, was first published by popular Japanese magazine MacFan and then passed on by Macotakara.

As you can see, the drawing shows two separate handsets: one with a 4.7-inch display and one with a 5.7-inch display. This lines up with several previous reports, as do many of the design elements of the devices such as their bezel-free screens and slim profile...

‘Threes’ developers publish gigantic work log in response to clones

Clones of popular games are a common sight in the App Store. They're a way for not-so-creative developers to make a quick buck by riding the coattails of hit titles and trends—the recent flurry of Flappy Bird copycats is a great example of this phenomenon.

But while we had a good laugh at some of the ridiculous FB clones, like 'Flappy Beard Hipster Quest,' it's not so funny for developers. In fact, the creators of the hit game 'Threes' recently took to their blog to vent their frustration with the growing list of ripoffs...

Gameloft’s ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ now available in the App Store

As promised last month, Gameloft has released its highly anticipated title 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' for iOS. The game is a tie-in to the upcoming Marvel movie of the same name, and is now available for download on your iPhone or iPad.

The good news is this doesn't look like your typical tie-in. The graphics sort of resemble those found in Borderlands and other comic book-style games, and we're hearing that Marvel actually co-wrote the story. Keep reading for a complete overview...

‘At the Ballpark’ app updated with new iOS 7 design and iBeacon support

Baseball fans will be happy to hear that MLB.com has updated its At the Ballpark iOS app this morning. The update brings the client to version 3.o, and features an all-new design for iOS 7 and support for Apple's new 'iBeacon' tech that will be available in select ballparks this year.

We've known for a while now that Major League Baseball was working with Apple on its geolocation technology, which its Advanced Media group demonstrated last fall. And the organization has said it hopes to roll out the feature to at least 20 parks ahead of 2014's Opening Day...

Facebook Messenger picks up contact groups, message forwarding and more

The social networking giant, Facebook, has just updated its slick Messenger client for the iPhone and iPod touch with a pair of long overdue feature additions.

The first lets you forward a message to another person (even Apple's own Messages app supports this) and the other finally makes it possible to create groups for the people you message most, with custom group photo and name.

The new Facebook Messenger 4.0 is now live in the App Store so update your copy to check out contact groups and message forwarding for yourself...

Drawnimal goes free as Apple’s latest Free App of the Week

It's Thursday, and this can only mean one thing: the awesome Darklings game goes back up to its regular price as Apple gets to bring another iOS application down to $0, as part of the App Store's ongoing Free App of the Week promotion.

Today's free app: Lucas Zanotto's Drawnimal. If you have children or a very young brother/sister, Drawnimal is the perfect way to teach them the alphabet and at the same time get them excited about art.

Designed to help kids learn to think out of the box, the app ingeniously puts up a fun image of an animal on the screen, requiring your kid to follow the prompts and actually draw around the device that's sitting on a piece of paper.

Drawnimal will be free until next Thursday so grab it now in the App Store before it slips your mind...

Yahoo updates Weather app with new animations, pull-to-refresh for photos and more

The reinvigorated Yahoo has updated its gorgeous Weather application for the iPhone and iPad, available free of charge in the App Store, with some noteworthy visual enhancements and feature improvements.

I've always absolutely loved how the app presents full-bleed photographs of chosen location(s), sourced from the Flickr community.

But, there was no way to browse through different photos of the same location. Starting today, you can now simply pull down on the image to load a new one, when possible. Another enhancements, straight from the design department: new animations for moon phases available as you scroll through details...