iPod Touch

iOS 9.3 beta 5 disables Night Shift mode when your iPhone is in Low Power Mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 2, 2016

Along with the latest betas of watchOS, tvOS and OS X, Apple yesterday seeded a fifth beta of the upcoming iOS 9.3 software update to its registered developers. The new beta appears to pack in a few interesting changes as Apple continues to refine the experience ahead of the software's public release.

Night Shift mode, one of the headline new features in iOS 9.3, has been tweaked again in the latest beta and now permits users to manually enable the feature until tomorrow within Settings, and the feature is now automatically disabled in Low Power Mode.

iOS 9.3 lets your boss lock apps to the Home screen and impose other restrictions

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 1, 2016

Apple's upcoming iOS 9.3 software update will allow employers to lock apps to the Home screen of company-issued devices, preventing them from being moved around, as first discovered by Irish developer Steven Troughton-Smith.

Buried within Apple's documentation for developers, the Home Screen Layout Payload, which defines a layout of apps, folders and web clips for the Home screen, is supported on iOS 9.3 and later.

Get directions to home and work with 3D Touch and Google Maps

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 1, 2016

As part of yesterday's update to Google's iPhone and iPad mapping application in the App Store which brought pit stops to navigation mode, the refreshed software has replicated one of my favorite 3D Touch features found on Apple Maps: the ability to get directions to home and work right from the Home screen.

In the new Google Maps 4.16 for iOS, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus owners can press the app's Home screen icon to bring up the shortcut menu with two useful Quick Actions: Directions to Work and Directions to Home.

GoPro is buying powerful iPhone video-editing apps Replay and Splice

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 1, 2016

GoPro, an American manufacturer of action cameras that are popular in extreme-action videography, has acquired two mobile video editing apps, Replay and Splice.

In a media release yesterday, GoPro said that merging these apps into its mobile strategy will help them deliver powerful mobile editing solutions to GoPro customers “and billions of smartphone users,” indicating the apps will continue to be available in the App Store.

In fact, both apps will be coming to Android later this year, said GoPro.

Extensify soft launches, lets you install ‘tweaks’ without a jailbreak

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 11, 2016

Last August, we showed you a really cool project known as Extensify, which is a third-party extension store that allows you to install 'tweaks' for App Store apps on your device without a jailbreak.

Created by iOS developers Majd Alfhaily and Kevin Ko, who are both well-known in the jailbreak community, this extension store works on iOS 9 devices and is side-loaded through Safari.

As of Monday, you can now apply to be a part of the app's soft-launch program via the Extensify website.

Google Maps for iOS now lets you add pit stops to your trips without leaving navigation mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 29, 2016

Internet giant Google on Monday announced that an upcoming update to its native, free of charge Maps application in the App Store has a brand new feature that will let you add pit stops onto your trips without leaving navigation mode. The feature was added to Google Maps for Android last October and starting today will begin rolling out on iOS in more than a hundred countries worldwide where Google Maps offer navigation.

WhatsApp now lets you share media from other apps like Dropbox and Google Drive

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 29, 2016

The popular mobile messaging service WhatsApp today received a pretty cool update in the App Store which adds the ability to share photos or videos from other apps installed on your iPhone via a new option exposed after tapping the Photo/Video Library button.

In addition, WhatsApp has gained a pair of new shortcuts in the 3D Touch menu on the Home screen and now supports solid colors as chat backgrounds.

Oh, and you can now zoom in on videos while they're playing.

Facebook Live now available in 30 countries, rolling out to more users in the coming weeks

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 26, 2016

Less than ten days after it began a staggered rollout of live video broadcasting capability, Facebook on Friday said the feature is now available to iOS users in thirty markets total.

“We’ll continue to roll this out to more people as well as Pages in countries around the world in the coming weeks,“ the social networking giant has confirmed.

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2018

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2018

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 25, 2016

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

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 25, 2016

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.