As we reported would happen earlier this week, Apple this evening has updated its Apple Store app with support for Watch. From the app, users can get real-time order status updates, initiate the process of picking up an order, make and search for Genius Bar appointments, and discover events and workshops taking place in nearby Apple Stores.
Apple has started offering registered developers the chance to sign-up and test its upcoming App Analytics feature first announced last year at WWDC. Developers have been awaiting the service since it was announced following Apple’s acquisition of TestFlight (and FlightPath), a service which offered its own analytics features.
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The Apple Watch App Store dedicated to iPhone apps that include WatchKit apps is going live ahead of the new device’s launch tomorrow, BuzzFeed says. Apple first added the Apple Watch App Store in iOS 8.2 as part of the Apple Watch companion app, but until now the section has displayed a coming soon page. The Watch’s App Store is available now.
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The buggy code highlighted by arsTechnica
A bug in the way that 1,500 iOS apps establish secure connections to servers leaves them vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, according to analytics company SourceDNA (via arsTechnica). The bug means anyone intercepting data from an iPhone or iPad could access logins and other sensitive information sent using the HTTPS protocol.
A man-in-the-middle attack allows a fake WiFi hotspot to intercept data from devices connecting to it. Usually, this wouldn’t work with secure connections, as the fake hotspot wouldn’t have the correct security certificate. However, the bug discovered by SourceDNA means that the vulnerable apps fail to check the certificate …
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After sharing its latest Environmental Responsibility report this morning, Apple this evening has added a new Earth Day 2015 section to the App Store. The section highlights content that contribute to environmental awareness, as well as apps that promote green living and going paperless.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eyazVwm0oY]
Microsoft Studios is today releasing a new top-down shooter set in the Halo universe for iPhones and iPads (in addition to Windows mobile devices and Steam for PC).
The game, developed by Microsoft Studios, 343 Industries, and Vanguard Games, is set during the timeline of Halo 2 and follows a Spartan supersolider on “30 challenging missions while leading UNSC troops through cities and jungles with an all new arsenal of weapons, abilities and vehicles.”
The company is also making Halo; Spartan Assault, the first top-down Halo shooter it developed, available on both iPad and iPhone today. It’s available in a $9.99 bundle with the new Halo: Spartan Strike title:
Also available on iPad, iPhone, and Steam is the Halo: Spartan Bundle. The bundle includes both Halo: Spartan Assault – the original Halo top-down shooter that plays through the historic first missions of the Spartan Ops program as Commander Palmer – and Halo: Spartan Strike for $9.99 ERP.
The iPhone and iPad version of the game is available for $5.99 on the App Store.
Snapseed, the excellent free photo editing application, today received its first major update since Google purchased developer Nik Software back in 2012. Version 2.0 arrived in the App Store with a brand new user interface and a huge collection of new features, most notably including spot healing, lens blur effects, perspective transformation, and a non-destructive editing system that can copy edits from one image to another. The app remains universal across iOS devices, and now has a minimalist UI with Material Design influence.
While Apple’s Photos application improved considerably with the release of iOS 8, Snapseed’s unique ability to selectively fix small parts of photos — such as improving the brightness level of one dark face in an otherwise bright image — has kept it relevant as a key iOS photo editing tool for years. Snapseed 2.0 expands upon that feature, letting you apply filters and brushes selectively with a brush tool. You can also go into individual layers and make adjustments to changes that were previously applied during the editing process.
Snapseed 2.0 is available for free from the App Store now. Additional details are after the break…
Instagram is adding a few new features to its iOS app this week including two new creative tools for editing photos and a new post notifications feature.
For the two new creative tools, the Fade feature offers “a quiet tone to your photos by softening colors,” while the Color tool allows you to apply a yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, cyan or green tint to the shadows and highlights in your photos.
Also new in the updated Instagram app is a Post Notifications feature that allows you to receive notifications when people you follow post once enabled: You will see an option to “Turn on Post Notifications.
The updated Instagram app, version 6.10.0, will hit the App Store this week.
Apple often acquires small startup companies very quietly and without any formal announcement to bolster its own services, and a new report from TechCrunch claims that the company acquired Ottocat in late-2013. Ottocat was a startup that focused on developing a system to organize and discover apps based on increasingly specific subcategories. Apple currently uses this technology to power the “Explore” tab in the App Store, as seen above.
Apple’s<a href="http://9to5mac.com/2015/03/29/apple-store-revamp-for-apple-watch-revealed-magical-tables-demo-loops-sales-process/" target="_blank"> upcoming retail overhaul</a> for displaying the Watch
A lot of my techie friends are saying that the entry priced-Apple Watch Sport will be their pick next month, and not because of the exterior look. The theory is that Sport is the cheapest way to experience Apple’s new product category in 2015, and since the second-gen Apple Watch will inevitably be upgraded, why pay a premium this year for nicer materials such as stainless steel and sapphire glass?
Despite the Apple Watch’s desire to marry jewelry with technology, it hasn’t lost the baggage gadgets carry, namely the reality that they’ll be outdated and replaced in a relatively short period of time. If the Apple Watch evolves anything like the original iPad did when it became the iPad 2, the differences could be dramatic.
Personally, when I think about getting more perceived value out of a higher-priced stainless steel Apple Watch rather than testing the waters with the cheaper aluminum model, I’m more concerned with how soon the Apple Watch 2 will be announced rather than how much more functional the newer device could be. No matter what happens with the first-generation model, an Apple Watch 2 will come to market. How will Apple balance keeping the Apple Watch evolutionary momentum going with keeping the first-generation model “modern” for enough time to satisfy early adopters?
Skype is about to add support for 12 new languages to its iOS app in an update arriving over the next week.
The new languages include Croatian, Slovak, Catalan, Vietnamese, Thai, Hindi, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Turkish, and Estonian.
The update follows version 5.11 released last month with language support for Czech, Romanian and Ukrainian.
The new Skype app, version 5.12, will be available on the App Store sometime in the coming week.
Skype’s Qik iPhone app is also receiving an update today:
We created 8 new effects you can use while recording your videos to make them more fun and playful. Once you open the viewfinder, you can select an effect to apply to your video. You can even switch from one to another while you’re recording to include multiple effects in one video message. Choose from favorites like mirror, x-ray and Minecraft (a staff favorite that makes you look 8-bit) or go crazy with hearts or snow.
Update: The maintenance lasted about half an hour and is now complete with all services restored according to the system status dashboard.
Apple’s system status dashboard is reporting an ongoing service disruption for multiple store services “due to scheduled maintenance.” Apple’s message says service unavailability may affect all users. Specifically, the maintenance is impacting the App Store, Apple TV, iBooks Store, iTunes in the Cloud, iTunes Store, and Mac App Store services.
Unlike recent Apple service outages, the service disruption is intentional as part of scheduled maintenance, although some users are reporting iCloud syncing issues and iCloud Mail delays not acknowledged by the system status dashboard. A widespread outage last month prompted Apple to publicly apologize to customers for the service interruption.
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Apple has only sanctioned a small set of App Store apps to support its CarPlay feature with Audio Books for iPhone today joining that limited list. The latest version of Audio Books adds integration with CarPlay head units for easily finding audiobooks to play through your car stereo on your drive.
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Data from IDC and App Annie suggested that both Apple and Google are likely to see their app store revenues doubling within the next four years, reports Re/code. Based on Apple’s 2014 total revenue of $10B, this would suggest that Apple is likely to hit total revenue of $20B in 2018, with developers seeing $14B of it.
“I would consider this projection conservative,” App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt said in an interview, noting that the company has consistently been revising its forecasts up over the past two years as revenue has exceeded expectations.
The study also suggested that the trend toward freemium apps, which derive their income from in-app purchases, will continue–though this model is more common on Android than iOS …
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Sometimes searching the App Store can be an overwhelming task. You might already know what you want to download, or other times you might get distracted when you open the store and forget why you were there, and typing in what you want to download is old fashioned now. With iOS 8, you can use Siri to search the App Store, iTunes Store, iBooks Store, and more for you. It’s all a matter of asking Siri with the right commands.
Press down and hold on the home button for two seconds for Siri to appear.
For example you can say something like, “Search the App Store for sports apps,” and Siri will open up the App Store and bring you to the search results of sports.
The Apple Watch is still almost a month away from shipping and 15 days away from being available to preview in Apple Stores, but a select few apps selected by Apple to be available for the Apple Watch have started hitting the App Store today. These app updates that add Apple Watch support include Twitter, Things, Target, Dark Sky, and Sky Guide, and many more apps are continuing to roll out with support.
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During its F8 Developer Conference today, Facebook announced a new Facebook Messenger Platform that will allow third-party apps to integrate with its popular Messenger app.
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Both the App Store and iTunes is currently experiencing a widespread performance issue resulting in missing content from the categories sections and errors when downloading new content.
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Instagram today released a new app called Layout that lets users easily stitch together multiple photos by automatically generating layouts to make a collage of sorts.
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Google Maps for iPhone and iPad has received an update to version 4.4.0 bringing a new full-screen map view, improved transit directions and voice search, and the ability to filter search results for Zagat-reviewed restaurants.
Google notes that the new full-screen mode can be activated by “tapping an empty spot on the map,” while improved voice search brings the ability to “type, or tap the mic and say, “directions to” a place for faster results.”
The update also includes new transit line colors on maps when viewing transit directions and a Zagat filter for restaurants in search results.
The updated Google Maps app for iOS, version 4.4.0, is available on the App Store now.
• View a full-screen map by tapping an empty spot on the map
• See transit line colors on the map when you get transit directions
• Filter search results for Zagat-rated restaurants (where available)
• Type, or tap the mic and say, “directions to” a place for faster results
• Bug fixes
Searching for ‘antivirus’ now only shows games or Find My iPhone-esque apps.
Apple has seemingly decided to crack down on antivirus and antimalware apps, removing them from the App Store. Although there has been no official statement from Apple on a policy change, Apple’s loose guidelines allow them to pull pretty much anything at any time, particularly something like antivirus which has questionable utility within the sandboxed iOS environment of iPhones and iPads.
One casualty of the removal is Intego’s VirusBarrier, which claims that this takedown was not specific to its product with Apple deciding the entire category of antivirus products is now off-limits.
Atari is releasing a new fitness app today called Atari Fit that lets users unlock classic Atari arcade games by working out.
The app acts as a personal trainer of sorts with over 100 exercises and fitness routines as well as integration with Apple’s Health app and fitness tracking wearables like Fitbit and Jawbone.
It also has a few interesting gaming features including multiplayer, online leaderboards, and the ability unlock classic Atari games like Pong, Super Breakout, and Centipede:
Multiplayer – Play with friends all over the world anytime. Join a team and workout together or race against each other. Track your stats as a group and encourage each other to workout. Compete to become the fittest team of gamers worldwide!
In addition to unlocking games using points earned by working out, Atari is teaming up with Walgreens to offer Walgreens Balance Rewards loyalty program points as in-game rewards.
The Atari Fit iPhone app is available for free on the App Store.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MucM1Cwe3t8]
Update: Some of the websites shown in the video cannot be explained by the hypothesis posted below about adverts redirecting to the App Store. The large amount of corroboration by readers about this happening to them suggests there is a mechanism, somewhere along the line, causing a real problem.
Website advertisement companies have found a way to circumvent the protections introduced in iOS 8 to stop users from being kicked to the App Store because of certain cleverly-coded JavaScript advertisements.
I am now experiencing this myself, and it makes browsing on the iPhone unusable. Browsing to websites such as Reddit and Reuters and others now automatically open the App Store. In many cases, there is no way for me to read the actual content on the pages. You can see this happen in the video above.
This flared up as a serious issue last year, when users found they were being taken to random App Store pages without granting any kind of permission…
In iOS 8 beta 2, Apple supposedly had remedied the issue: “Safari now blocks ads from automatically redirecting to the App Store without user interaction.”. However, it seems that ad companies have now managed to work around these safeguards.
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My feelings for Nintendo are complicated. I’ve loved its games ever since the original Donkey Kong, owned every Nintendo console (including the Virtual Boy), and recommended the Wii U as the best game console for families and kids. But if I was mildly displeased with Nintendo as a company during its haughtiest years — the time when most of its key third-party developers walked away — I’m downright angry with it today. At a press conference in Japan this morning, Nintendo announced its second collaboration with a mobile game publisher in two months, the headline from which was what millions of people have been waiting years to read:
Sure, the official Nintendo press release actually says “smart devices” including phones and tablets, but iPhones and iPads are a safe bet. The press release also says “gaming applications” rather than games, but a press release from Nintendo’s new mobile partner DeNA confirms that the companies will indeed produce mobile games together. Just think about it: Super Mario World on the iPad! Donkey Kong Country on the iPhone! That’s just what everyone has wanted! But there’s a catch…