Apple stopped signing iOS 9.2 firmware for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches on Thursday, a move that prevents users from performing downgrades from iOS 9.2.1 to iOS 9.2 via iTunes.
Apple stops signing iOS 9.2, downgrades no longer possible
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Apple Music for Android now supports saving songs to SD cards
Apple released an update for the Apple Music app on the Android platform via the Google Play Store on Wednesday with a much-needed new feature: the ability to save songs from the app to your Android device's removable SD card storage.
Preregistration for Nintendo’s Miitomo smartphone app begins Feb 17
Nintendo's first official smartphone-only title will launch in March for both the iOS and Android platforms, but the Japanese gaming company announced on Wednesday it will let users preregister for the app starting February 17th so they're ready to go when the app officially launches.
Nintendo: company’s second mobile game will focus on a “familiar” character
Following the continued decline in popularity of Nintendo's game consoles and portable gaming systems, the Japan-based game maker has been forced to make the tough financial decision of developing for smartphones and tablets despite never wanting to in the first place.
Nintendo plans to have at least five mobile games available for such devices by March of 2017 as a part of its collaboration with DeNA, and now details regarding Nintendo's intentions for a second mobile game have surfaced.
Microsoft launches ‘News Pro’ app for iOS
Microsoft on Tuesday released a new app for iOS called News Pro. The company describes the app as "your work news brief," and says it will help you search for news around your work every day, and fuel your unique interests with over a million topics.
The app comes from Microsoft's experimental project group Microsoft Garage, and it looks pretty much like Flipboard and the slew of other news aggregating apps out there. You login using Facebook or LinkedIn, and pick which topics you want to follow.
Shazam updates iOS apps with rewritten Spotify integration & watchOS 2 support
Shazam has released an update on Tuesday for its iOS apps in the App Store with some notable improvements to the way the apps integrate with Spotify, one of the more popular third-party music-streaming services that can be had on the iOS platform, as well as support for watchOS 2 on the Apple Watch.
iOS 9.3 Night Shift mode to have a Control Center toggle?
Apple's iOS 9.3 beta was seeded to developers and Public Beta program participants last week with some pretty big changes to the mobile operating system. One of the flagship features of the release is the f.lux-like Night Shift mode that will change the display's color temperature depending on the time of day to make using the device easier on the eyes at late evening and night hours.
Apple seeds OS X 10.11.4 to developers
Apple has seeded its first OS X 10.11.4 beta to developers on Monday alongside iOS 9.3 beta 1, tvOS 9.2 beta 1, and watchOS 2.2 beta 1. OS X 10.11.4 beta 1 comes with the build number 15E27e.
Opera Coast gains Snapchat-like news feed, Opera Mini picks up 3D Touch support
Opera Coast, a third-party web browser for iOS, has been updated in the App Store today with real-time news and notifications while Opera Mini now supports 3D Touch shortcuts for accessing your favorite sites by lightly pressing the app's icon on the Home screen of the iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus.
Opera Mini also integrates with iOS 9's Spotlight Search and has a few other refinements mentioned further below.
In Opera Coast, you can now preview headlines from sites you follow with a new feature, called For You. This basically aggregates online articles into a single tile, giving you an at-a-glance overview of your news right inside the browser.
Rivet Radio review: listen to news stories curated just for you
You've probably got a couple of apps in your stash that provides curated stories for you to read. But, what about an app that reports stories to you?
Rivet Radio is like listening to a version of NPR that only reports the stuff you are interested in. We've got a full app review of Rivet Radio for you right now.
How to enable iOS 9 News app if you’re outside US
Among other things, iOS 9 adds four new non-removable apps to your Home screen, one of them called News and the other three being iCloud Drive, Find My iPhone and Find My Friends.
Unfortunately, folks living outside the United States are out of luck as News is US-only at launch.
Now, the forthcoming iOS 9.1 software update will officially bring News to the United Kingdom and perhaps some other markets. That being said, you can actually enable News regardless of where you live, and here's how.
Google and Twitter target Facebook’s Instant Articles with ‘accelerated mobile pages’
Internet giant Google and the micro-blogging platform Twitter have joined forces as they gear up to launch their own take on Facebook's quick-loading Instant Articles for mobile users, according to Peter Kafka and Mark Bergen of Re/code.
Launching this fall with a small group of publishers, these articles should appear on mobile phones almost instantaneously without the annoyingly long loading times.