iPod Touch

Rumor: Photos app in iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 should be on par in terms of features with iPhoto

A report yesterday by the fairly accurate Japanese blog Mac Otakara claims insider knowledge of an improved Photos app in Apple's upcoming iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 operating system refreshes that, as per sources, should gain new features putting it on par with the discontinued iPhoto app.

Apple was somewhat criticized for its decision to discontinue Aperture and iPhoto in favor of the new Photos app, which took almost a year to gain support for third-party image editing filter and effects on the Mac.

Kommute for iPhone downloads websites for offline use and is better than Safari’s Reading List

Today’s websites are big, even more so taking into account that scripts from ad networks continue to gobble up data long after actual website content has been retrieved.

One valid approach to reading news involves adding articles you want to read later to Safari’s Reading List, but that will download each saved webpage to every device that has Safari enabled in Settings → iCloud.

A nicely done iPhone app called Kommute from developer Red Brick Labs might be a far better solution for those people who are eager to download their favorite websites in order to read them on the go, or when they’re not on Wi-Fi.

With Kommute, you just add any URL and the app intelligently fetches home page content along with deep links, for you to browse later. From my brief hands-on time with Kommute, I liked the app and the fact that it works as advertised.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne hits the App Store

Telltale Games, a maker of episodic games, today launched The Walking Dead: Michonne on the App Store, Android, Mac and Windows PCs and the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 consoles. A new mini-series, The Walking Dead: Michonne is aimed at both fans who are already familiar with the iconic character Michonne and those who have no prior knowledge of Robert Kirkman's comics, the TV show or Telltale's titles for that matter.

“This story is a separate, standalone experience, which makes it a great place to jump into the franchise with an awesome character,” notes Telltale.

Assassin’s Creed — Identity makes its worldwide debut on App Store

After spending nearly a year and a half in soft-launch state, Ubisoft today made good on its promise to make its first action role-playing mobile game set in the Assassin’s Creed universe available to everyone.

Assassin’s Creed — Identity, a premium $4.99 download from the App Store, is an RPG game featuring open sandbox levels in which you can create, evolve and customize your own assassins and play them in the iconic Renaissance Italy setting.

“Embody an Assassin and experience the freedom of movement that made the franchise unique while unraveling the mystery of The Crows and solving dozens of quests,” teases Ubisoft.

Popular Spark email client is now available on iPad

Spark, a powerful email client from Ukrainian developer Readdle, has received a much-needed refresh in the App Store today, finally bringing out a native user interface on the iPad, so now you can experience Spark's email magic on all your devices, including the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Spark 1.6 also includes other refinements and improvements, such as an even better wrist app with fully native watchOS 2 support, landscape mode across all iOS devices, nine new languages, the ability to keep your email accounts and settings synced across all devices via iCloud and more.

The update is being rolled this morning so don't panic if you don't see it yet in your local App Store as these things take time to propagate.

This app lets you crop, zoom and trim Live Photos without destroying the live part

The Photos app on your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac lets you use the Auto Enhance and Remove Red-Eye tools with Live Photos in a non-destructive manner, which is nice.

But use filters, or perform a crop or trim on your Live Photo and it'll get turned into a still image because Apple's Photos solution isn't advanced enough (yet) to support these editing operations in conjunction with Live Photos.

This can be quite cumbersome for two reasons. A) You must manually restore your Live Photo by tapping Edit → Revert; and B) these stills only include the motionless part of your Live Photos.

With Live Crop, a nifty little app by developer MobiLab, not only can you trim and crop out parts of your Live Photo without destroying its live component, but also crop, zoom, trim and resize Live Photos, your videos as well as animated GIFs.

iOS 9 adoption slowing, stays at 77% of devices

The adoption rate of iOS 9 appears to be stalling at 77 percent of devices, according to the most recent stats published on Apple's dashboard for developers. The figure was derived from device logs capturing iOS hardware that has accessed the App Store on February 22, and is literally unchanged from the same 77 percent mark recorded two weeks ago.

iOS 8 continues to comprise seventeen percent of devices while older editions of iOS accounted for six percent of devices—again, same as two weeks ago.

Instead of a much-wanted Dislike button, Facebook adds six reactions to its Like button

Facebook on Wednesday announced a move that has been long in the making: the company is extending the functionality of its ubiquitous Like button with six different reactions that help describe users' mood and express how something they see in the News Feed makes them feel.

Available to all users globally across all mobile and desktop platforms, the six new reactions—Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry—can be applied by holding down the Like button on mobile or hovering over the Like button on desktop.

Viber gains more 3D Touch goodies, Split View and Slide Over multitasking on iPad Pro and other perks

Viber, the popular instant messaging application, has received an update in the App Store. Bumped to version 5.8, the app now works side-by-side with other apps in iOS 9's new Split View and Slide Over multitasking on the iPad Pro.

On the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, your most recent chats are now available right from the app's 3D Touch shortcut menu on the Home screen.

This edition of Viber also packs in some other improvements related to 'read' and 'liked' icons in group chats and an all-new media browser for chats.

YouTube picks up native resolution support on iPad Pro

Google on Tuesday issued a small update to its YouTube client in the App Store, adding support for the iPad Pro's 12.9-inch 2,732-by-2,048 pixel resolution screen, bringing the app's version number to 11.0.6.

Unfortunately, advanced iPad-only features provided by iOS 9 are not yet supported in YouTube for iOS, namely the new Slide Over and Split View multitasking modes.

This edition of YouTube also fixed a bug that caused the keyboard to freeze while commenting and another one which caused the app to crash after adding a Google or YouTube account on iOS 7.

Elgato Eve Energy review: a HomeKit-enabled wireless sensor & switch

Apple’s HomeKit has had a bit of a rocky start. The home automation platform that was meant to tie all of your smart home devices together was plagued by delays from Apple, as well as manufacturers. Devices started to hit the market in the middle of last year, and this year at CES, we saw many new options that are slowly starting to trickle out. Today, we are going to take a look at one of those devices, Eve Energy from Elgato. It is a simple solutions for those who want to start or grow their smart home, without breaking the bank.