iPod Touch

Google Maps for iOS gains food delivery support, plus codes & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 25, 2016

Google Maps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch yesterday received an interesting update in the App Store. The new version brings out a few enhancements such as integration with popular food delivery services, support for plus codes—identifiers for locations that don’t have their own street address—and other perks. These new features require Google Maps 4.24 for iOS or later, which can be downloaded free of charge from the App Store.

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Apple releases iOS 10.1 with Portrait mode and other improvements

Cody Lee ∙ October 24, 2016

Apple on Monday pushed out the iOS 10.1 software update for iPhone and iPad. The release comes after more than a month of beta testing, and it includes various improvements and one major new user-facing feature: Portrait mode, which is exclusive to the dual-camera iPhone 7 Plus.

First introduced at Apple's iPhone event in September, Portrait mode is a new setting in the stock Camera app that uses the 7 Plus' wide angle lens to gather perspective data for a photo. This allows the handset to take photos with a depth-of-field, or 'bokeh,' effect with blurry backgrounds.

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Instagram is testing live video broadcasts in its Stories feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 24, 2016

According to Russian news outlet Tjournal.ru a few days ago, the popular photo-sharing service Instagram is testing live video functionality in its recently-launched Stories feature which permits users to create slideshows from their photos that automatically disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook added live video to its mobile app in August 2015. Facebook Messenger gained the ability to share live video with contacts while chatting in September 2016.

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Pokémon GO celebrates Halloween with first in-game event

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 24, 2016

Halloween is approaching and Pokémon GO has a treat for you in the form of a special Halloween-themed event, the first in-game event since the game's release in July 2016.

Developer Niantic Labs has said that players will have a chance to earn double the amount of Candy every time they catch, hatch and transfer Pokémon from October 26 to November 1. Other perks will be available to trainers as well.

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Qualcomm could buy NXP, which supplies iPhones with NFC and motion-tracking chips

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 5, 2017

Bloomberg's Alex Sherman and Ian King reported yesterday that fabless chip designer and Apple supplier Qualcomm could be buying NXP Semiconductors, a global semiconductor and analog circuitry manufacturer headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

NXP employs approximately 45,000 people in more than 35 countries and provides chips that give Apple devices features like power-efficient motion tracking and NFC for Apple Pay.

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Latest Chrome for iOS update comes with a hidden game

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 21, 2016

Google yesterday pushed a small update to its Chrome browser in the App Store, bumping the app's version number to 54.0.2840.66. In addition to the usual stability improvements and bug fixes, the latest version of Google's mobile browser for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch packs in a charming side-scrolling mini game that you can play when without an Internet connection.

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How to use Conversation View in iOS Mail app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 10, 2023

In iOS 9, you could organize emails in Apple's stock Mail application by thread but that was pretty much it. iOS 10 introduced a pair of new settings for simplifying inbox management.

The first tells Mail to arrange emails in a thread in the order they were received, with the most recent ones at the top. The other prompts the app to unify threads by including relevant emails from other mailboxes.

In this tutorial, we're going to teach you how to enable and use Conversation View in Mail and leverage the aforesaid toggles to bring some order to your inbox.

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Data Saver mode is reportedly coming to Facebook Messenger in a few weeks

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 20, 2016

I use Facebook Messenger literally every single day to message my friends and family and have always hated how the mobile app discriminately downloads media content regardless of whether I open the message or not.

Sometimes my friends would attach really long videos or high-resolution shots to their messages, prompting me to completely disable cellular access for Messenger on my iPhone, but then I don't receive their texts on the go.

Wouldn't it be better if Messenger handled data-hungry attachments more intelligently when the user is connected to a cellular network? As per a report by The Next Web a few days ago, a new data saver option is indeed coming to Messenger in a few weeks.

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WhatsApp update enables drawing on photos and videos, new camera features & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 20, 2016

WhatsApp's latest update, which surfaced this morning on the App Store, brings the ability to draw on photos and videos and adorn your media with text or emoji. You can also express yourself by sticking huge emojis on top of photos and videos. Users automatically see the new editing tools when capturing a new photo or video or sharing one that's already on their phone. Coming soon: support for Retina flash for the selfie camera, zooming during video capture and a shortcut for quickly switching between cameras.

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Will iOS 10.1 release for public consumption next Tuesday, October 25?

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 20, 2016

Apple is holding a media event on October 27 to refresh Macs and we're pretty sure that the upcoming machines will run macOS Sierra 10.12.1 out of the box. Currently being beta-tested, macOS Sierra 10.12.1 includes, among other things, support for Portrait albums in Photos.

Apple is also beta-testing iOS 10.1 which, too, packs in support for a new Portrait mode on dual-camera iPhone 7 Plus models. If the Sierra update drops ahead of new Macs, so should iOS 10.1.

We believe iOS 10.1 will release for public consumption next Tuesday, October 25, two days before the Mac event, and here's why.

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Apple Maps transit directions live for iOS 10.1 beta users in Japan ahead of launch

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 20, 2016

Apple is currently beta-testing the first major update to iOS 10 since its public release last month. Aside from a Portrait shooting mode for iPhone 7 Plus owners and a new toggle in Settings to allow Messages animations when Reduce Motion is enabled, the software update should bring official support for transit directions in Japan within the stock Maps application, Japanese blog Ata Distance said today.

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