App Store

The popular iPad drawing and sketching app Paper by FiftyThree has been updated with Adobe Creative Cloud integration, push notifications and sharing directly from Mix, a camera view during account creation, smoother shadows and general improvements for iOS 8. The updated version of Paper by FiftyThree is available now on the App Store.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Update: Looks resolved…

The official Nest Mobile app for iPhone and iPad appears to have been removed from the App Store for the time being following complaints from users that the latest version of the app crashes at launch. The Nest Mobile app is used to remotely interface with the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector from the iPhone and iPad.

Nest has acknowledged the issue via Twitter with a message regarding the software bug: “We’re currently investigating an issue causing the Nest iOS app version 4.4.0 to quit unexpectedly. We’ll provide a status update shortly.” Nest founder and CEO (and former Apple exec) Tony Fadell also acknowledged the issue on Twitter offering an apology to a user.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple wants the third-party app marketplace for the upcoming Apple Watch to be a hit just like on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple has begun seeking an “Apple Watch Evangelist,” according to a posting on its official jobs website. This evangelist position is specifically designed to work with third-party application developers and promote development for the upcoming Apple Watch platform:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Developer James Thomson of popular calculator app PCalc announced today via his Twitter account that Apple is forcing him to remove the app’s Today Widget due to a restriction that iOS widgets “cannot perform any calculations.”

Apple’s new Today Widgets feature in iOS 8, which allows developers to build functions into the system-wide Notification Center, does have some limitations that Apple outlines in developer documentation. For example, Apple encourages developers not to use Today Widgets for multistep tasks: “If you want to create an app extension that enables a multistep task or helps users perform a lengthy task, such as uploading or downloading content, the Today extension point is not the right choice.” There doesn’t, however, appear to be specific references to apps that perform calculations in Apple’s developer guidelines.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Time Warner Cable today announced a new smartphone app that will let its customers use their home phone service on mobile devices for no additional fees. That means that users with a Time Warner Cable home phone service, which starts at $10/month, can now text and call through the new Phone 2 Go app on smartphones and tablets. The service requires a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection and will also work for international calling and texting:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple today emailed out registered authors for iBooks to announce some interesting changes and enhancements to the program. Some notable enhancements, via Apple’s email:

• To help you get your book to readers quickly, we review 95 percent of all book submissions within one business day. Note that you do not need an ISBN to deliver a book to iBooks.
• You can now request up to 250 promo codes per book. Promo codes allow you to provide free copies of your book to reviewers, bloggers, or others to build momentum for your book.
• Screenshots can now be delivered or updated after a book is available for sale on iBooks.

The email to authors also tells developers about recent updates to both the iTunes Connect app on iOS and the iBooks Author application on the Mac. Like it usually does for App Store app developers, Apple tells authors how to prepare for the upcoming break for book reviewers. “To account for an anticipated increase in book deliveries during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday week, books scheduled to go live between November 24, 2014 and December 1, 2014, should be delivered by Friday, November 14, 2014,” the notice reads.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s developer guidelines on explicit content

An iOS developer said Apple demonstrated that their app could be used to surf for porn by sending them a screenshot containing a pornographic image. Carl Smith shared the story of the rejection of Wave, an app for browsing Instagram and public images, in a blog post.

It turns out Apple thought the best way to tell us our app could be used to surf porn was to surf for porn using our app. Then send us some pictures and say take a look at these! Except they said, “Please see the attached screenshot for more information.” So with no warning […]

They sent us a picture of a guy masturbating.

The explicit image was attached to an email rejecting the app on the basis that the process for flagging inappropriate content was inadequate … 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has today notified developers about some upcoming rules regarding App Store submission, via its developer news portal. From 1st February 2015, newly-submitted apps and updates must be built against Apple’s iOS 8 SDK. This is not particularly surprising: Apple required similar adoption of the iOS 7 SDK last year.

In addition however, Apple will also require that all apps and updates include 64-bit support from that date too. Currently, developers can choose whether to submit only 32-bit apps or universal binaries. This will no longer be an option from February. Moving all apps to 64-bit will bring big performance and memory gains for newer devices (which include A7 or A8 SoC’s) as running the 32-bit apps necessitates loading a lot of additional resources into system memory.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Rovio’s latest game in the Angry Birds series, Angry Birds Transformers, has rolled out worldwide today after its earlier soft-launch last month in New Zealand, Finland, Canada and Australia.

Angry Birds and Transformers collide in this action-packed, 3D shoot ’em up adventure! The EggSpark has transformed the eggs into crazed robots who are destroying Piggy Island, but who can stop them?! Autobirds, roll out! 

Gamers have been waiting for quite some time as the Transformers mash-up game was first announced back in June …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple has started rolling out a redesigned version of the iTunes Store for users running iTunes 12 less than a week ahead of what’s expected to be the launch of OS X Yosemite. The new storefront takes design cues from the iTunes and App Store home pages on iOS devices, featuring a flattened, side-scrolling carousel at the top of the page in place of the old “card”-style header. This new header can be scrolled horizontally using two fingers or even dragged around with a mouse.

Individual pages for albums, TV shows, and iOS apps have also been redesigned and now feature more iOS-like controls throughout. Download buttons have been reduced to simple outlines. Shadows and textures have been removed throughout the store, putting the content directly on a stark white or dark gray background.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple’s iOS share numbers as tabulated by App Store visits are out for the first week of October and they are a “head scratcher”. iOS 8 gained only 1 point from 46% to 47%  since September 21st which should have well exceeded 1% gain by the millions of new iPhone 6/Plus shipments alone – even if not one person had updated their iPhone 5/s/c. Even more confusing is that the “Earlier” category of iOS 6 and before devices actually grew in percentage from 5% to 6% over the previous two week period.

It is possible some people downgraded to iOS 7 (which was an option until just after 8.0.2 was released) while others have stayed put on their current iOS version because of a succession of errors in rolling out iOS 8. Combined with the large amount of space required to do an over the air update, it appears that iOS users have all but stopped upgrading iOS –a marked departure from years past.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Starting about half an hour ago, the App Store is currently experiencing errors where apps do not finish downloading (or updating). Some users are reporting obtuse error messages, like the one above, whereas others are simply left with paused downloads on their iOS and Mac devices.

Availability likely varies by App Store region, but Twitter reports of App Store issues started around 6.30 Pacific Time. The problems are sporadic and do not necessarily arise on every device, but have been seen to occur across operating system versions: it is not limited to iOS 8 and Yosemite (which is still in beta).

Apple is yet to update its system service status page to acknowledge any issues.

Expand
Expanding
Close

As part of an extensive hands-on by Ariel Adams, the piece shines some light on how the Apple Watch is controlled and managed. At the media event, Apple showed a wide variety of watch apps … but did not mention how they get onto the watch itself.

Adams’ post says that users download Apple Watch apps through a central hub app on the iPhone. Rather than having an App Store UI on a tiny watch screen, users install content on the device from their phone. This is similar to how iPods are managed via the iTunes app on a Mac or PC.

Apple Watch users will install an Apple Watch app on their iPhone, which will be used to download apps onto the watch as well as likely manage Apple Watch settings. A user’s iPhone is also used to help with computational demands. Apple cleverly pushes a lot of processor needs to the phone in order to preserve Apple Watch battery life.

Apparently, the phone will also dedicate some of its processing power to handle complicated or computationally-intensive tasks. This means that the Apple Watch battery can be drained as little as possible. For instance, the iPhone may do the deep analysis of incoming health data sending only the results to the Watch, for display. Apple has vaguely suggested that the Apple Watch will have about one day of battery life.

Expand
Expanding
Close