Yahoo Mail is getting a notable update today for iOS (and other mobile app users) that allows access to files stored in Google Drive, Dropbox, and GIFs on Tumblr. You can use the new feature to quickly attach a photo or other file from any of the supported services to emails.
Snapchat has been on a roll lately introducing bigger and more creative updates to their social network. From introducing custom geofilters, to a massive overhaul in their chat system, they show no signs of slowing down. Today’s update takes video interactions a step further by allowing you to “pin” stickers and emojis to moving objects in video. The update will be rolling out to Android today and soon to iOS.
Airmail made its way from the Mac to the iPhone a couple of months ago, and today the popular email app is completing the suite and releasing the first version for iPad. Airmail for iPad supports keyboard shortcuts and iOS 9’s multitasking features like Split View and Slide Over, so you can triage email in Airmail and browse Safari or Twitter at the same time. And the free update includes loads of other new features for both the iPad and iPhone versions including Touch ID support, custom shortcuts, a new gesture for moving between messages, and tons of new integrations and improvements.
Microsoft is updating its Translator app today with some notable features, including support for offline translations, that could give it the upper hand on Google and the competition.
Microsoft Garage, Microsoft’s experimental projects team, has finally released their much anticipated Hub Keyboard for iOS today. This specific keyboard lacks the expected special one-handed typing mode, along with the previously reported Swype-like typing functionality. The latter feature may have been related to Microsoft’s recent purchase of SwiftKey, although it appears some of SwiftKey’s features made its way into Hub Keyboard in the form of autocompletion suggestions.
If there is one thing we learned from CEO Satya Nadella’s corporate restructuring of Microsoft over the last couple of years, it’s that he wants its services to be everywhere. And that doesn’t just mean apps like those in Office 365‘s suite keeping your productivity up even on non-Windows systems, but something that aims at a much deeper integration.
With today’s update rolling out for iOS and Android, the Outlook app is adding what the company calls “Calendar Apps”. While you could already see your calendar from within the dedicated tab inside the app, the new addition — which likely comes from the Sunrise acquisition — will allow services like Evernote, Facebook and Wunderlist to integrate as well…
Starting with iOS 9.3, third-party app developers can tap into Apple Watch activity data like move and stand goal progress as well as exercise duration. Developer David Smith has used that new capability to create an alternative dashboard to Apple’s Activity app on iPhone and Apple Watch. The new app is called Activity++ (following Pedometer++ and Sleep++) and it’s out for iPhone and Apple Watch today. Here’s what it offers:
There’s a nice GarageBand for OS X update out now awaiting Mac users. GarageBand 10.1.1 on the Mac gains the ability to work with Apple’s other music-related iPhone and iPad apps, plus the update adds over 2,600 new Apple Loops and sounds to work with, Apple says.
It was perhaps unimaginable just a few years ago, but live streaming has become particularly popular thanks to apps like Meerkat and, most notoriously, Twitter-acquired Periscope. Not to be left out, Facebook joined the race last summer — albeit initially only for public figures via the dedicated Mentions app — and then pushed beyond earlier this year with the open introduction of “Facebook Live” in the US, a feature within the mobile app that allows anyone to live stream to their friends.
The experiment seems to be working well, and with the app update — which begins its rollout today — Facebook is adding a variety of features to enhance the Facebook Live experience; according to the company, adding a dedicated tab for finding live as well as archived video will “give you more ways to discover, share, and interact with live video, and more ways to personalize your live broadcasts”…
Twitter is rolling out a new ‘feature’ to its iOS app today, prioritizing Direct Messages in the timeline by adding a prominent icon inline to tweets in the timeline. Tapping the new Direct Message button opens a new message with one of your Twitter followers, linking the tweet from the timeline as the starting point of the conversation. In the blog post, Twitter says updates for the app are rolling out from today.
Tim Cook’s pitch for the fourth generation Apple TV so far has been largely that “the future of TV is apps”, and this week yet another premium cable and satellite network is launching a standalone version of its network for cord cutters. Starz, which before now has required a traditional cable or satellite package for access, is launching a streaming version of its network for a monthly rate competitive to HBO and Netflix. The new Starz app is available on iPhone, iPad, and the fourth generation Apple TV for $8.99/month if you don’t have the network in your cable package. Also in the streaming space, we learned today that Twitter has emerged victorious is scoring the rights to stream 10 NFL “Thursday Night Football” games in the next season…
T-Mobile is adding more services to its Binge On and Music Freedom features, which allow its customers to stream video and audio content from certain apps without eating into their wireless plan’s data allowance.
“It’s a fact … Un-carrier Data is different than Carrier Data. It’s better! Nobody does data like T-Mobile!” said Legere. “Un-carrier Data is not only faster, it lasts a lot longer than the other guys… As of today, you stream unlimited music and video from over 100 providers – without ever touching your Un-carrier Data or worrying about overages—and you can stash what you don’t use for later. Try that with Carrier Data. It’s gone in a flash, and you’re getting hit with penalties—or they repossess it after a month or two. Ridiculous!”
Among the 16 total new services being added today, users can now stream audio data-free from Amazon Music, Chilltrax, ESPN Radio, OHIO.FM, PreDanz and Uforia.
And for video, services officially added to the list today include Dailymotion, EPIX, OVGuide, OWNZONES, Viki, YipTV, 120 Sports, Nickelodeon, Spike, and TV Land.
T-Mobile shared some stats about the Binge On and Music Freedom initiatives noting that users have streamed approximately 90 billion songs without using data since launch (around 210 million songs a day). It also pointed out that its users “are watching 2x more from free streaming sites on plans with limited data and have streamed over 190 million hours of video for free.”
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The addition of the new services today brings up the number of audio and video services supported by Binge On and Music Freedom to 100 total. You can view a full list of supported services on T-Mobile’s website.
Popular commenting service Disqus today has announced its first ever iOS app. The app is available now in the App Store for free and allows users to track notifications relating to their comments as well as discussions from channels and websites they follow. The app’s interface is pretty standard, with home, channel, notification, and profile tabs along the bottom.
Juggling passwords for all the digital services we manage these days is no easy task with varying rules and expiring credentials all the time, but 1Password makes the process both more secure and way more convenient. Rather than using a version of a few passwords that you can actually remember, 1Password easily lets you generate strong, randomized passwords for each service that you protect behind a single secure password, then browser extensions and action extensions on OS X and iOS make password entry super simple.
The latest update to 1Password for Mac, version 6.2, adds a couple of minor but useful enhancements to the desktop experience. First, intelligence behind the automatic login and password filler is smarter in the new version, which means using the keyboard shortcut or browser extension to fill in your info will fail fewer times. The database upgrade also means that naming new logins will be easier as 1Password will be smarter about guessing what website you’re new login is for.
If you’re new to 1Password or setting up friends or family, 1Password 6.2 for Mac also includes a more intelligent data importer for users moving from other password management apps. This follows the introduction of new features like 1Password for Families and Teams, which are also improved in this version, as well as 1Password mini for the Menu Bar on OS X.
Check out the full release notes below:
Apple has started collecting some of the research data that users submit through apps using the company’s ResearchKit platform for the first time.
As part of announcements at Microsoft’s Build 2016 conference today, Skype announced a new ‘Bots’ platform that it’s launching today in preview mode for developers and users in the iPhone and iPad apps (as well as Android and Windows, but not on Mac).
Square is today launching a new set of APIs under the “Build with Square” banner that will allow sellers to use Square payment services and hardware (including Apple Pay), while maintaining a customized point of sale experience that might be crucial to their business.
Fantastical has long been my go-to calendar on Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and today the Fantastical 2.2 update is hitting the Mac App Store. The intelligent calendar and reminders app started out as a menu bar utility with really, really good natural language detection for creating appointments and entries, plus a streamlined list view of upcoming items. Then a year ago Fantastical 2 debuted on the Mac, which graduated the menu bar app to a full-fledged calendar that easily competes with the built-in calendar app. The latest 2.2 update builds on that release by adding a handful of useful features including native Exchange support.
Apple today updated its iTunes Connect iOS app, the dashboard developers use to manage their content submitted to iTunes and the App Store, providing users with the ability to access the service’s Resolution Center feature.
The Waze maps app— the one Google acquired a few years back to improve its own mapping services—today announced a new features that will warn drivers when they are driving over the speed limit.
Now when you’re using the Waze app to navigate, you’ll automatically see a visual warning (pictured above) if you go over the speed limit, and you can also manually set audio warnings for reaching the limit or hitting 5, 10 or 15% over.
Apple has today updated its list of iOS 9 feature availability to note the addition of its Maps ‘Nearby’ feature for more countries.
According to a report out of The Information today, Facebook has begun preparing several new features for Facebook Messenger, including a new service that allows users to pay for items to be picked up in person, a new “secret” chat feature, and more. If nothing else, these features could be insight into how the company plans to monetize its messaging platform…
Hot on the heels of Snapchat’s Chat 2.0 announcement, Instagram has officially announced support for sharing longer user created videos. Noting that viewership on Instagram videos has increased by more than 40 percent in the last six months, Instagram today will begin rolling out 60-second length videos to all.
Snapchat is changing how you communicate with friends in a major way through what it’s calling Chat 2.0. The social network says it focused two years ago on making chatting more like face-to-face conversation with features like letting you know when your friends were present and “listening” to what you were typing, and the latest Snapchat update refocuses on the 1-to-1 chat aspect of the app with new features around voice and video calling plus stickers and more. How you watch Stories is also getting a change in the new update.