iPod Touch

New Microsoft app, Forum for iPhone, lets employees speak their mind freely

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.

Official Google app revamps voice search interface and Google Now cards

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.

Tapity puts Grades and Languages apps for sale, shares revenue stats

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.

7 tips to get rid of junk files and recover storage space on iPhone

There's nothing worse than pulling an iPhone out of your pocket to capture that brief moment in life that will never repeat itself only to be met with a “storage almost full” message.

It's a sinking feeling so no wonder that most folks tend to immediately remove older photos.

But there are better ways to free up storage space on your device that don't necessarily involve deleting your precious memories. Faced with a low-storage prompt, your first order of business should be checking if apps you frequently use are gobbling up your storage by caching large amounts of data.

That's just the starters, as there're plenty of other space-saving techniques you should be employing on a regular basis. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to manually flush app caches, disable certain iOS features and flip the switches you never knew existed in order to remove as much of the cruft clogging up your iOS device as possible.

iOS 9 adoption rate hits 67 percent mark

Two weeks after hitting precisely two-thirds of active iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild, Apple's latest iOS 9 mobile operating system is now powering 67 percent of iOS hardware.

The data comes via Apple's dashboard for developers and is derived from App Store access logs on Tuesday, November 16, 2015. iOS 8 continues to comprise just shy of one-quarter of active iOS devices in use, while earlier iOS editions collectively account for nine percent of iOS devices being actively used.

Tumblr for iOS update turns your photo bursts and videos into animated GIFs

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.

Is Apple boosting rankings of its own apps on App Store’s Top Free charts?

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?

Waze gains 3D Touch shortcuts on iPhone 6s

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.

Foursquare revamps iPad interface, adds Peek and Pop gestures on iPhone 6s

Foursquare's main iOS app was refreshed earlier today with some new 3D Touch goodies and a redesigned interface on the iPad. Foursquare for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad was part of the initial wave of third-party applications that enabled support for handy Home screen shortcuts via 3D Touch on the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Today's update added 3D Touch-based Peek and Pop gestures, meaning you can now preview content within the app and pop right into it, without lifting a finger off the screen.

Mophie’s new battery packs are its thinnest and lightest yet

Accessory maker Mophie today announced a refreshed edition of its Powerstation external battery packs for charging mobile devices.

The 3rd generation, aluminum-clad Powerstation is Mophie's thinnest and lightest yet.

The smallest measures just 6.9mm thick and the largest is only 12.1mm deep. Prices range from $39.95 for the baseline model and go all the way up to $149.95 for the flagship Powerstation 8X that packs in a 15,000 mAh battery.

Facebook releases Notify for iPhone for news, sports, weather and other alerts

Facebook on Wednesday announced it's releasing a brand new mobile application, Notify for iPhone. Conceived as a mobile notifications app for news, sports, weather and more, Notify was designed to deliver push notifications “that matter from sources you love, right on your lock screen, all in one place.”

Notifications are grouped into “stations” which cover varied categories, from sports and celebrities to news, movies, music, shopping and more. Notify is an English-only iPhone app available for free in the App Store.

Periscope gains skipping ahead in replays, Trending section, 3D Touch shortcuts and more

Twitter-owned live-broadcasting app, Periscope, was updated in the App Store last evening with half a dozen new features and refinements aimed at improving the usefulness of video replays whilst improving content discovery with new tools such as an-all new Trending section to help you find content from popular broadcasters.

Pericope also has a tvOS app for the new Apple TV and recently refreshed the iPhone version with muting, Handoff support, instant replays, finding location-enabled broadcasts, verified badges, Follower Only mode, Global section and more.