iPod Touch

Starbucks app gets 3D Touch quick actions

Several major apps have added 3D Touch support earlier today. Wunderlist and LinkedIn, for example, have brought out support for Home screen shortcuts and Peek and Pop gestures within the app with 3D Touch. And now, Starbucks has issued a similarly-themed update to its iPhone application in the App Store.

With Starbucks 3.3.4 for iOS, you can press the app's Home screen icon lightly on your iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus to bring up a 3D Touch menu with several quick actions: Nearby Stores, Order, Reload Card and Pay.

A brand new Wunderlist for iPhone and iPad is here

Just in time for the holidays, Wunderlist, a to-do, lists and tasks application that was acquired by Microsoft this summer, released a brand new experience for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad today.

The new Wunderlist 3.4 for iOS packs in full support for 3D Touch Home screen shortcuts and Peek and Pop gestures within the app. In addition, the app is simpler, more lightweight and intuitive than before and comes with iOS 9 productivity-boosting features.

LinkedIn overhauls iOS app, adds 3D Touch, Spotlight Search support and more

LinkedIn, the leading business-oriented social networking service, today released a major update to its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad application in the App Store. Featuring a brand new interface redesigned from the ground up, the app is now streamlined into five core areas: Your Feed, Me, My Network, Messaging and Search.

In addition, owners of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus can press firmly LinkedIn's Home screen icon for Search, New Message, View Activity and Share features.

iOS 9 adoption accelerates, hits 70% of devices

Apple's dashboard for app developers was updated today with fresh new statistics pertaining to the rate of iOS 9 adoption. As derived from logs of iOS devices that have accessed the App Store on November 30, 2015, the various iOS 9 versions are now found on seven out of each ten devices in the wild. By comparison, just two weeks ago iOS 9 adoption stood at the 67 percent mark.

Chrome for iOS gains 3D Touch shortcuts and support for more Bluetooth keyboard shortcuts

Google today updated its Chrome browser for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad in the App Store with two new feature additions: 3D Touch shortcuts on the Home screen via the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and expanded support for shortcuts when the app is used with a Bluetooth keyboard.

Pressing firmly on Chrome's Home screen icon on your iPhone 6s will now bring up a 3D Touch menu with Voice Search, New Incognito Tab and New Tab options.

Hangouts for iOS now supports Apple Watch, gains quick-replying from notifications and more

Google Hangouts, the search giant's instant messaging and VoIP mobile client, was updated in the App Store last evening with several new features and refinements.

For starters, Apple Watch owners can now respond to instant messages received from other Hangout users directly on their wrist and also from the notification banner on their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad (provided they use iOS 9.1).

Review: SteelSeries Nimbus Wireless Controller

If you want to do serious gaming on the Apple TV, then using a wireless Bluetooth controller isn’t an option, it’s a necessity. Yes, Apple controversially made it a requirement for all games on its platform to support the Siri Remote, but that’s not going to cut it for any game with an even mildly complex control scheme.

Games like Alto’s Adventure and Mr. Jump play perfectly fine, and are even suited for the Siri Remote, but in most cases, you’re definitely going to want a controller as an option.

Unfortunately, there is no Apple-branded controller to speak of, but Apple did co-design a controller with the help of SteelSeries. The result of that partnership is the SteelSeries Nimbus, and Apple is promoting this controller as the de facto standard alternative input device for the Apple TV.

All of that considered, while there are other 3rd-party Bluetooth controllers that work with the Apple TV, the most obvious choice is the SteelSeries Nimbus.

I purchased a Nimbus on day one, and have been playing with it for weeks. Is the $49.99 controller worth your time and hard-earned money? Is it really the best way to control games on the Apple TV?

Google Docs and Play Books gain new features

Several of Google's applications in the App Store—including Docs, Slides, Sheets, Play Books and YouTube—have gained new features or bug fixes in a barrage of updates this morning. The company's productivity and Office replacement app, Docs, will now render your comments and suggestions in Print layout, show line spacing and strikethrough in Office's Compatibility mode and let you control paragraph directionality for right-to-left languages.

Puzzle platformer To-Fu Fury is Apple’s new Free App of the Week

To-Fu Fury from Amazon Game Studios, regularly $1.99, is available at no charge until next Thursday as Apple's new Free App of the Week via the App Store's weekly promotion.

Released in July 2015, this puzzle platformer challenges you to save the Fortune Kitty playing as To-Fu, a stretchy, sticky, flingy and combative cube of bean-curd. Expect a lot of puzzle solving and physics-based action in this game.

Lara Croft GO gets its first expansion

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Square Enix's Lara Croft GO for iOS has received its first expansion pack following the game's August 2015 debut in the App Store. Titled “The Shard of Life” and available at no charge to those who have purchased the game, the update packs in more than two-dozen additional levels and a bunch of new monsters to defeat, costumes to unlock and gemstones and artifacts to discover.

How to save Vine videos

Who knew 6-second-long looping video clips would turn out to be so much fun? If you're into short-form entertainment, there's probably no better place to get your daily fix of user-posted clips, some of which are quite interesting—I've seen whole how-tos compressed into six seconds—than Vine.

The problem is, both Vine the website and mobile app prohibit you from saving your favorite clips to your computer or mobile device. Thankfully, there are apps for that, too.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to save Vine videos to your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Mac using a nifty little utility and a free of charge web app.