Microsoft today issued updates to its mobile Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps on the App Store, adding support for drawing with your finger on the iPhone. Back in January 2016, the Windows maker brought its inking tools to the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil support. With the latest update, iPhone owners can take advantage of the Draw tab to draw, highlight and annotate documents with their finger or a stylus.
Netflix yesterday announced a brand new iPhone app on the App Store which it designed to let you quickly measure how fast your broadband downlink is by testing the connection to Netflix’s servers. The goal of the free app, aptly named Fast, is to give Netflix subscribers a better understanding of the streaming quality they can expect from the service on their Internet connection. It's not a replacement for SpeedTest or similar software and does not measure the uplink speed because it has little effect on streaming quality.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Apple this morning issued new developer-only betas of iOS 10, macOS Sierra, tvOS 10 and watchOS 3—a mere week after posting their respective fourth beta. While Apple's release notes for iOS 10 beta 5 (build number “14A5335b”) mention no new features as we inch closer to a Gold Master, there are a few tidbits and tweaks to wet your appetite.
Aside from other changes, for instance, iOS 10 beta packs in a new lock sound and lets you download apps from the App Store after a reboot without needing to re-authorize Touch ID purchase with your Apple ID password.
Night Shift, a feature that was introduced in iOS 9.3, reduces the amount of blue light emitted from the display of your iOS device at night to help avoid disrupting your sleep cycle. In helping you getting a good night’s sleep, the feature looks at your geographical position and the time of the day to shift the colors to the warmer end of the spectrum.
But we all know that. Today, we learn that Apple's engineers also built this feature in a way that avoids ugly artifacts that could appear on LCDs while scrolling and animating.
Fast Company today published a wide ranging interview with Apple's boss Tim Cook, software boss Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue, who is in charge of Internet software and services, that touches upon a number of interesting topics, including competition, iPhone sales slowdown, why public iOS betas exist (the real reason is now what you think) and more.
Cook also comments on the gloom-and-doom sentiment that has always surrounded Apple while admitting that the company does make mistakes along the way, and more.
You cannot find it mentioned in release notes accompanying the most recent Instagram update which brought out a new Snapchat-like Stories feature, but either that or an earlier update has quietly added a much-needed Drafts feature to the popular mobile photography app.
Called by some fans the best feature that has happened to Instagram in quite a while, Drafts lets you save the photo you're currently editing as a draft.
This is quite useful, if not essential, in case you just spent your time making detailed edits to a photo, but ultimately decided not to post it until later.
Brushstroke is one of those image effects app with a unique twist. Not only does it transform your photos into faux paintings, but optionally lets you order mounted canvas prints of your images directly from the app that you can hang on the wall.
Apple named Brushstroke its Free App of the Week in December 2014. If you forgot to grab this nicely done $2.99 iPhone and iPad app for $0 back then, now's your chance.
Google today issued a minor refresh to its native Photos app on the App Store, introducing 3D Touch shortcuts for the Home screen and a much-needed new feature designed to optimize storage space on your device. Bumped to version 1.13, Google Photos for iPhone and iPad produces a 3D Touch menu upon pressing its Home screen icon, giving you access to the following shortcuts: I'm Feeling Lucky, Free Up Space and Make Shared Album.
In addition to these 3D Touch shortcuts and the new storage-optimization feature, this edition of the app packs in unspecified performance improvements.
Apple on Thursday unexpectedly released iOS 9.3.4, a minor update to the mobile operating system powering the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Release notes accompanying the small download mention that iOS 9.3.4 provides “an important security update” and is recommended for all iOS 9 users. The update can be applied over-the-air on iOS 9 devices in Settings → General → Software Update and has been confirmed to patch the Pangu jailbreak.
Developer Square Enix yesterday announced availability of Mobius Final Fantasy, its new free-to-play role-playing game set in the Final Fantasy universe and created by producer Yoshinori Kitase and writer Kazushige Kojima, who are both known for their work on the Final Fantasy VII and the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake.
The iPhone, iPad and iPod touch game is available on a free-to-play basis with optional In-App Purchases and can be played with just one hand as it was “custom-tailored for mobile platforms”.
Following its debut on the App Store nearly three months ago, Google's gesture-driven predictive keyboard for the iPhone and iPad—called Gboard—today received its first feature-focused update. Gboard 1.1 for iOS, a free download, includes a darker keyboard theme, smart GIF suggestions and increased global availability with language support for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) and Spanish (Spain).
Telegram, a secure instant messaging service that supports rich media attachments and optional end-to-end encryption, today refreshed its mobile app on the App Store with a few new features. Telegram for iOS, now bumped to version 3.11, offers some interesting new sticker packs and lets you archive those you no longer use.
You can now preview groups before joining them and store your messages and media in the new storage chat.
Telegram is available free on the App Store and Mac App Store.