Google this evening rolled out an update to the Google Voice app on iOS, adding several new features and much-needed visual enhancements. Bumping the app to version 1.6, this evening’s update is the first the app has seen since September 2013, and the first major update since 2012.
The latest update to the popular, Facebook-owned WhatsApp Messenger app for iPhone hit the App Store with a long list of new features for users including the ability to share slow-mo videos from the iPhone 5s and trim clips down right in the app without having to edit the video in the Photos app.
Chatting with photos also received improvements with the ability to add captions and snap and share photos even faster added. Improvements and changes to location sharing, app wallpapers, and new notification tones are included. The latest version also allows users to move chat logs and contact groups away to an archive. Complete list of changes below…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple’s upcoming wearable device, based on iOS, will run third-party applications and, furthermore, may come equipped with an App Store, according to two sources with knowledge of the new device. It is currently unclear if the App Store will be full-fledged, like on the iPhone and iPad, or if it will be a special section with in the iPhone App Store for apps that play nicely with the new wearable device.
A small handful of high-profile social network and services companies with apps on the iPhone and iPad App Store have already been seeded with a pre-release version of the Apple SDK (Software Development Kit) for wearables under strict non-disclosure agreements. One of the developers with access to the pre-release SDK is Facebook, according to a source. Facebook is also said to be finishing up work on an iOS 8-optimized version of its iPhone app with improved notifications. The social network is also experimenting with ways it can leverage the new Notification Center widget APIs.
The SDK was seeded “very recently” to these developers, and Apple likely wants to demonstrate some third-party wearable apps at Tuesday’s event, according to one source. Apple, in the past, has provided select developers with early versions of SDKs in order to boast new apps on the keynote stage. For example, several apps from companies like AOL were shown off with the first public demonstration of the iPhone SDK, fancy gaming and drawing apps were demonstrated alongside the first iPad in 2010, and the iPhone 4S’s dual-core A5 chip was launched alongside a graphics-intense video game…
Earlier this week, iOS users discovered that the App Store was experiencing some technical issues that caused every item for sale to become unavailable. Now, only two days later, the company’s status page indicates that the App Store on Mac and iOS, iBooks Store, and various iTunes services such as the music store and Radio, are all suffering from even more downtime.
According to the status page, the issues first cropped up around 4:30 PM and have persisted for about three hours so far. A notice on the page states that only “some users” are having difficulty accessing the store, but there’s no mention of exactly how many users could be impacted.
Ahead of its major media event next week, Apple has issued a significant update to its Apple Store shopping iOS app. The first addition is a complete redesign for the iPhone and iPod touch application’s interface. The new design is more in-line with the recently released iPad variant. Speaking of the iPad version, the tablet-optimized layout is now a universal bundle (single download) with the iPhone/iPod touch version, and it has also gained support for making Apple Store One to One reservations. The app also has a new Stores section to search for upcoming events at local Apple Stores. There is also a new icon. Perhaps the most significant new feature is support for synchronizing shopping between iOS devices and desktop computers. For example, you can start shopping on your Mac and continue via the app on your iPhone. Apple (rightfully so) doesn’t want to a miss a single iPhone 6 or iWatch/iBand sale.
More developers are stepping forward with early looks at upcoming third-party keyboards for iOS 8. Today, Ginger Keyboard is going public with a keyboard that focuses on customization. The actual keyboard itself while used across iOS 8 does not add much new functionality, but many users will likely enjoy being able to completely customize the design of their keyboard.
A couple of years ago, Australia-based former Apple Retail Store employee Josh Hunt realized that he (and his colleagues) had a major problem: even with Apple’s cloud technologies, viewing his Apple Store work schedule was a pain. Apple’s internal network allows Apple Store employees to view their hours each day, but this information is not easily accessible from the Calendar application on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Hunt created a tool called Roster Genius that is a web extension to convert Apple’s internal calendaring system into a file that is compatible with the iOS and Mac calendar applications.
Roster Genius was a hit inside the Apple Retail world, and Hunt tells us that the service amassed 8,000 users in 14 countries. But Hunt shut down Roster Genius in favor of building something, alongside co-founder Sam Elliott, with larger implications: an App Store app with similar shift management functionality that could be used by all sorts of users, not just Apple Retail Store employees. The new app, launching in the coming months, is called Shifts, and as the developers tell us, “it is a calendar app, but made specifically for casual/part-time employees – that is, people who work different shifts every day.”
The application can connect to the schedules of others so that “you’ll be able to see when your days off align with your friends, and share your roster with a group of friends and coordinate for things to do on days off, organize the carpool or plan after-work drinks,” according to the developers. The interface for the app is very slick, and it boldly does not use the date picker as it instead relies on the numbered keypad for quickly entering in work times. As for the Apple Retail Store-optimized version, that’s coming back too.
Today, Apple has updated its official App Store developers Review Guidelines to outline the requirements for iOS 8 applications that will make use of the new HealthKit, HomeKit, TestFlight, and Extensions services. Today’s update indicates that Apple is nearing the release of iOS 8, the next-generation mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch ahead of the September 9th Apple media event. Apple will provide developers with a golden master seed of iOS 8 on the day of the event, according to sources with knowledge of the plans. The review guidelines are a “living document” that list reasons that App Store apps could be rejected. Below are the full lists for HealthKit, HomeKit, TestFlight, and Extensions, but here are some of the more significant points:
In addition to those four new sections, Apple has also updated the guidelines to say that “if your app is plain creepy, it may not be accepted.” You can read all of the new bullet points below:
The iOS App Store seems to be suffering a major outage, though Apple’s system status page doesn’t yet say that there are any issues (update: now it does). Users took to Twitter to point out that every single application listed on the store is now returning an error stating that it is “no longer available.” Typically this error is reserved for applications that have been pulled from sale.
The Mac App Store seems to be fine and still allows downloading applications. However, both the desktop and mobile versions of the iOS store are experiencing the issue.
Update: Apple has acknowledged that “[some] users may be unable to access multiple stores or make purchases.” The page lists issues for the App Store, the iBooks Store, and the iTunes music store. It also indicates that the issue is ongoing, though a few people have noted that they can now download apps.
Update 2: Apple System Status now says systems are functioning normally, 7 hours after we initially reported the outage.
As you can see above, Instagram’s new Hyperlapse app that debuted yesterday is one of the most simple apps on the surface. It does two things: shoots video in either portrait or landscape and changes speed from 1x to 12x for a time-lapse effect. There’s not very much other user interface aside from the record button and speed slider (and the share screen after you save a video), but under the hood there’s a lot of really smart stuff going on with Hyperlapse.
For those interested in all the under-the-hood work that went in to Hyperlapse’s video stabilization and time-lapse features, Instagram’s engineers behind the app have published a blog post detailing the technology that makes it all work.
The blog post goes into Hyperlapse’s approach to video stabilization, time-lapse stabilization, and adaptive zoom to detail how it all works under the surface. Below is a snippet including a chart describing one of the algorithms used by the app.
Video stabilization is instrumental in capturing beautiful fluid videos. In the movie industry, this is achieved by having the camera operator wear a harness that separates the motion of the camera from the motion of the operator’s body. Since we can’t expect Instagrammers to wear a body harness to capture the world’s moments, we instead developed Cinema, which uses the phone’s built-in gyroscope to measure and remove unwanted hand shake.
The diagram below shows the pipeline of the Cinema stabilization algorithm. We feed gyroscope samples and frames into the stabilizer and obtain a new set of camera orientations as output. These camera orientations correspond to a smooth “synthetic” camera motion with all the unwanted kinks and bumps removed.
If you’re interested in the wonkier side of capturing video and software, give Instagram’s post a read and check out Hyperlapse for iPhone and iPad on the App Store.
Starbucks has been continuously updating how its customers can redeem its iconic Pick of the Week promotion. Last year, the chain started offering digital Pick of the Week through the Starbucks app. Starbucks then updated its app to support redeeming Pick of the Week cards with the device’s camera. Now for the first time, the Starbucks App is offering an in-app purchase as its Pick of the Week: a month of Lumosity‘s service.
The Lumosity app contains several different brain teasers that are based on neuropsychological and cognitive tasks designed to challenge users. The premium subscription is worth $15 and includes more than 40 games online, performance tracking, a personalized brain training experience with daily exercises, and comparison to others in the same age group.
This promotion will expire on November 18th and has to be activated on an iPhone or an iPod Touch via the Starbucks app. Once it is activated, the premium features will be available on all platforms.
Facebook-owned Instagram is introducing a new video capturing app for iPhone and iPad (and Android soon) called Hyperlapse. The photo (and video) sharing social network recently soft launched a new app called Bolt in Singapore, South Africa, and New Zealand that focused on quickly photo messaging friends, but Hyperlapse is more like an advanced feature that could have been found within Instagram. Hyperlapse offers up a unique way to capture and edit video using processor smarts to make panning shots smoother and add a time-lapse effect similar to the iOS 8 camera app.
A minor update to Dropbox for iPhone and iPad is out today bringing a few new features and enhancements.
With Dropbox version 3.3, the app now supports search within Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint documents. Dropbox says this improvement is due to “new, higher fidelity previews” available in this version. The latest update also adds larger animated GIF support and “smarter caching” which users with low storage availability will appreciate.
The latest version of Dropbox is rolling out now on the App Store.
If you’ve tried and thrown in the towel on Swing Copters, the follow up game from Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen, you may want to give besting your high score another try this morning.
An updated version of the game was released today, tweaking the gameplay and bringing it closer to the difficult-but-not-quite-as-impossible levels of its popular predecessor Flappy Bird.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Spotify updated its iOS app today for iPhone and iPad and with it brings a couple of handy enhancements for managing albums.
The updated app now includes the ability to “save whole albums to Your Music directly from the album page.” Users will also now be able to get quick access to an album’s release year or total play time by swiping any given album’s header.
In addition, version 1.6.0 of the app brings Finnish language support, a feature recently rolled out to the Spotify app on other platforms.
The updated Spotify app for iPhone and iPad is available on the App Store now.
New: Save whole albums to Your Music directly from the album page. Check out release year and total play time by swiping the album header.
New: Spotify now speaks Finnish.
Fictitious: This app was designed by David Hasselhoff.
Following a recent ruling that Apple would have ten days to remove the anonymous social app Secret from its Brazilian App Store, Apple has complied with the order. The justification for the removal, according to a source close to the situation, can be found in section 22.1 of the App Store Guidelines:
Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users. It is the developer’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws
As noted by the judge, the Brazilian constitution prohibits anonymous freedom of expression, which essentially makes Secret and other apps like it illegal with that country.
Per Article 5, Section IV of the Constitution of Brazil:
It’s been just over a month since the last big update to Google Play Music for iPhone, and today the Google Play Music team is rolling out another update with new features and improvements. The latest release brings the version number to 1.3.2.2559 for those keeping track at home, and adds a handful of new functionality like the ability to remove music from your library via the iPhone app. The update also boasts additional accessibility features which will surely be appreciated as well as fixes for issues with skipping during track playback and eliminating duplicate listings in the music library. You can see the full change log below.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Update: At the moment, this ruling is still unofficial. A Brazilian prosecutor is pushing for the removal of these apps, but the judge has not officially ordered any action just yet. A source tells us that Secret has sent counsel to Brazil to investigate the situation, though we’ve been told this ruling would really be against Apple, Google, and Microsoft rather than the Secret app itself. Original story below:
A judge in Brazil has had it with the anonymous bullying carried out on social networking apps like Secret and has stepped in to put a stop to it, according to a report from Estadao [translation]. Judge Paulo Cesar de Carvalho has ruled that Apple and Google must delete the application from their respective app stores, but the ruling doesn’t stop there.
According to the report, the judge has demanded that both companies remotely delete the application from every device that has installed it in the country. While that might sound like a hilarious case of a judge not understanding how technology works, you may be surprised to learn that it’s actually a capability that both companies possess.
Apple’s iTunes Affiliate program has notified users of the program that developers can now earn affiliate commission via the Store Kit feature in iOS 8. StoreKit Product Sheet, which has existed since 2012’s iOS 6, allows developers to put a page inside of their apps to download other items from the iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore. However, the feature was not compatible with affiliates until iOS 8. Here’s Apple’s email to affiliate users:
We are excited to announce that Store Kit Product Sheet is now affiliate commissionable on iOS 8.
Store Kit Product Sheet allows app developers to promote the purchase of music, apps, books and more directly from a sheet within your app and earn the standard affiliate commission on all sales within 24 hours.
We encourage you to use Store Kit Product Sheet to provide a superior user experience and keep users in your app longer. Learn how to integrate your affiliate token into the Store Kit Product Sheet in the Developer Documentation.
Apple briefly discussed this iOS 8 enhancement for developers during a WWDC 2014 session, but this email indicates Apple is pushing developers to utilize all of the resources available to increase their monthly revenues.
Earlier this week we reported that Apple had added Beats Music to its Apple Apps prompt for customers opening the App Store for the first time following its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics and Beats Music.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Uber announced today that it’s added new features that will make the experience even more seamless for both users and its drivers.
We envision a day when there is no coordination necessary to take an Uber ride. Simply push the button, and the rest is essentially on cruise control: the car quickly shows up at exactly the right place and whisks you away to your destination via the best possible route. The latest rider and driver app releases take us one step closer to that world with two new features:
A new destination entry feature lets users quickly enter destination details into the Uber app that are then automatically available to the driver when they arrive. “You can literally skip the step where you tell the driver where you’re going.”
Uber has also added turn-by-turn navigation to its driver app: With one tap, the driver can enable turn-by-turn navigation to the destination you’ve provided. There’s no need to juggle multiple apps or waste time typing in an address.
Uber says the features are live now, although doesn’t list the features in the latest update that hit the app yesterday.
Apple has prominently featured its own suite of free apps when iOS users first open the App Store, such as its iLife and iWork apps, for a while. Now that Beats Music and Beats Electronics are officially part of the family, the Beats Music app is now appearing on this ‘Apple Apps’ list as well. Beats Music is currently the last entry in the list, described as a way to ‘listen to music that’s always right for you’.
Tapping ‘Download All’ will install Beats Music alongside Apple’s other apps. Naturally, one way for Apple to significantly increase adoption of the service is to advertise it to every new iOS user.
The view will show up for new iOS devices or by performing a clean restore to a version of iOS 7, on both iPhone and iPad.
From 9to5Toys.com:
A lot of our favorite apps are on sale in this special promotion. Scanner Pro, Fantastical, Launch Center Pro, Clear, Notability, PDF Expert and many more are at or near all time low prices. Too early for back to school?
Full list of Apps and markdowns follows:
Expand
Expanding
Close
Earlier this year Foursquare announced its plans to split check-ins and social features from location discovery and reviewing features from its mobile apps. Swarm, the new app focused on check-ins, launched earlier this year in May while Foursquare gave its users some time to become familiar with having two apps for two different purposes.
Expand
Expanding
Close
