New Apps & Games

‘Ask to Buy’ lets you control what your kids buy in iTunes, iBooks, or App Store

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 31, 2018

After a period of Apple being under fire because kids were running up their parents' credit card bills with App Store and in-app purchases, Apple decided to do something about it. Apple's answer was to create a parental control system for the App Store so parents could approve or deny purchases that would otherwise have an impact on their credit card.

This parental control system is known as 'Ask to Buy' and it's available on both iOS and OS X in the latest releases of the operating systems, and in this tutorial, we'll tell you a little bit about how to configure and use Ask to Buy.

This new service basically offers ‘the command line for the real world’

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 26, 2016

A brand new Y Combinator-backed startup, Prompt, has introduced a really cool service which it likens to “the command line for the real world.” Available via SMS, through Slack's chat bot and on the web, Prompt lets you send simple text commands to access a myriad of online services, make purchases and control Internet of Things devices such as Nest's intelligent thermostats and smoke detectors, WeMo switches, Hue bulbs, Rachio sprinklers and more.

This Apple Watch app buzzes your wrist if you’re about to leave your iPhone behind

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 8, 2016

The Apple Watch has a nifty built-in feature that lets you ping your misplaced iPhone over Bluetooth, but wouldn't it be nice if the watch could automatically notify you when you're about to leave without an iPhone in your pocket?

A new free of charge app, Lookout, solves that problem in one fell swoop. It keeps not only your iPhone, but your iPad, iPod touch and Apple Watch safe and secure and protects your devices from data loss, theft and more.

Apple approves f.lux-like app ‘FlexBright’ [u]

Cody Lee ∙ Updated November 10, 2023

Apple has approved a new app called FlexBright, which allows you to manually adjust the display temperature of your iPhone or iPad. That makes this one of the first third-party apps to make it into the App Store that provides a feature similar to iOS 9.3's Night Shift mode.

It's interesting that Apple would green-light a title like FlexBright, given its history. For those who aren't familiar with the story, last fall the iPhone-maker asked the developers of f.lux—a long-running app with similar functionality to FlexBright—to shutdown their iOS work.

Update: the app has been pulled from the App Store. The developer mentioned on Twitter that Apple hasn't provided any reason for removing the app.

Google launches experimental hands-free payments app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 6, 2018

Hands Free, a new Google app for iOS and Android, allows you to pay for in-store purchases without even pulling a smartphone out of your pocket. The Internet giant said that they're piloting the new app so for the time being it's available to South Bay residents.

Those who would test the app shall be treated to up to $5 off their first Hands Free purchase at participating stores, which include a small number of McDonald’s, Papa John’s and local eateries in the area.

Using your iPhone to diagnose your car’s check engine light

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

All the do-it-yourself mechanics out there love being able to troubleshoot their own check engine light (CEL) to see what's going on under the hood of their own cars. Typically, doing so requires an expensive OBD II scanner tool that plugs into the OBD II port underneath the dash.

But, with an app on your iPhone and a tiny accessory that plugs into the OBD II port, you could save some money and you'll still have access to a lot of the information the scan tool would give you. In fact, because of how advanced your iPhone is, you may even get more information than a lot of the scan tools will offer.

In this review, we'll be taking a look at the LELink Bluetooth Low Energy OBD II car diagnostic tool, which can be had for about $35 on Amazon, as well as the $9.99 OBD Fusion app, which can be had from the iOS App Store.

Hound voice assistant launches in the App Store, but how does it compare to Siri?

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 1, 2016

There are numerous companies competing to be the top dog in voice assistant software, but the makers of sound-tagging service SoundHound have made another alternative called Hound that promises an excellent voice assistant experience. Many initial reports suggest it's even more capable than the voice assistants you're used to using already, such as Siri, Google Now, and Cortana.

So just how capable is Hound? In this piece, we'll walk you through the new free-to-download Hound voice assistant for iOS and find out if it's as good as everyone says.

5 Mac apps I have set to launch at system startup

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated November 13, 2025

In this piece, I will share my top five macOS apps that I have configured to start up automatically when I power on my Mac.

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.

Delayd lets you schedule text messages, social media posts, & more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated February 8, 2018

When you have lots of Birthdays and holidays coming up and you want to wish all your friends and family the best, it can be hard to keep track of these dates on a day-to-day basis.

Fortunately, a useful utility app called Delayd is available for free in the iOS App Store that will allow you to schedule messages to your loved ones so you don't have to remember to send those special messages when the day finally comes.

In this piece, we'll talk about how Delayd works and show you how you can use it to schedule messages to people, but keep in mind the app can also be used for scheduling emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets in addition to SMS messages.

Firefly, Infuse and other apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

It's the weekend! And you know what that means: we've once again put together a list of awesome new apps and games for you to check out. There's a new social networking app, a new video editing app, and even one that lets you play with tornadoes! So enough stalling, let's get to it!

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.