Coinciding with today’s update to Keynote for Mac and iOS, Apple has silently removed the old Keynote Remote application from the App Store. Although a direct link to the application still works, some readers are reporting that they are no longer able to download the app, and it no longer appears in search results.
We’ve learned that Apple is making progress on its development of a successor to the current Apple TV and that the device is well into testing. We are led to believe that the new device, which is said to be a set-top box rather than a full-fledged TV set, will likely be introduced in the first half of 2014. We understand that the product will include a revamped operating system that will be based on iOS. Of course, release timeframes with these type of products can quickly change due to the content partners that are involved in such products…
Beats Music is now available for iPhone on the App Store, after being originally announced back in October. The app is a very stylised adaption of a typical music streaming service app, with Beats heavily pushing the idea of customisation and curation to distance it from its many competitors.
Feedly has just updated its iOS app to version 18.0.5 with a handful of new features. For those unfamiliar, Feedly is a service that aggregates conent from a variety of sources, including news sites, YouTube, RSS feeds, and more. The biggest feature in this update according to the developers is a new speed reading functionality. The feature allows users to quickly move from one inlined article to the next by simply tapping on the edge of the interface.
Also new in this update is a redesigned iPad interface, focused on speed and stability, as well as a new night theme that essentially changes all the white interfaces to a darker color. The full change log is below:
Spotlight feature:
- Speed reading
Other new features:
- New iPad design
- New night theme
- Faster image processing
- New mark all as read card with reading stats.
- Crash fixes
The Feedly update is available now on the App Store.
Starbucks has quickly pushed a bug fix update for its app to the store to help address the security flaws found in its iPhone application earlier this week. Researchers originally found that the app stored passwords in plain text. Earlier, Starbucks’ CIO promised in an open letter that an update would follow in response to these findings.
Photo sharing site Imgur has added its popular MemeGen tool to iOS via a new app on the App Store. The app actually launched late last year, but Imgur has only begun promoting it today. The application has three main tabs across the bottom: Browse, Create, and Recents. Browse allows fans of meme photos to browse new or popular images. Create allows you to harness the power of your iOS Device’s camera and photo library to create your own memes. The interface for doing so is simple. Recents allows you to keep all of your created memes at your fingertips. The app is free on the App Store.
The latest version of Skype for iPhone adds support for two-way HD video calls (for iPhone 5 and later), and receipt of chat messages on the lockscreen even when the app is closed.
Microsoft also says that chat messages will sync more rapidly across devices.
The app was last updated with a flatter, cleaner look for iOS 7 in October last year, and is a free download from iTunes.
Horizon is a new app for the iPhone (currently on sale for just $1) making the rounds today that attempts to eliminate a major annoyance of modern society — portrait videos.
Horizon uses the iPhone’s motion sensors (the accelerometer and gyroscope) to automatically scale and rotate input from the camera to generate videos that are always in landscape, no matter how the phone is actually being held.
If developers are finding it difficult to make money from apps today, things are only going to get tougher, according to a forecast by Gartner (via TechCrunch). Looking at the period through to 2018, Gartner predicts that fewer than one in 10,000 apps will be considered financially successful by their developers.
“The vast number of mobile apps may imply that mobile is a new revenue stream that will bring riches to many,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “However, our analysis shows that most mobile applications are not generating profits.”
While this may not necessarily be a bad thing for major brands, who Gartner note may use apps to build brand recognition and product awareness, small developers have a much harder time getting their apps noticed, as consumers increasingly turn to recommendations and advertising to make their selections.
Gartner predicts that by 2017, 94.5 percent of apps will be free or freemium, suggesting that advertising and in-app purchases will become an increasingly important source of income. The company also expects browser-based apps to grow in popularity as the HTML5 standard matures.
As we have previously noted, Apple began giving away selected paid apps, music and books in the Apple Store app as an incentive for users to download and check out the app. For the new year, Apple’s first free app through the Apple Store App is the 7 Minute Workout Challenge.
Following recent API abuse that lead to phone numbers and usernames being exposed, Snapchat, the social photo sharing app, has updated its iPhone app with the option to opt out of linking your phone number with your username. The feature was intended to increase social discoverability among mutual contacts, but was recently abused leading to the following update and apology:
Find Friends Improvements
This morning we released a Snapchat update for Android and iOS that improves Find Friends functionality and allows Snapchatters to opt-out of linking their phone number with their username. This option is available in Settings > Mobile #.
This update also requires new Snapchatters to verify their phone number before using the Find Friends service.
Our team continues to make improvements to the Snapchat service to prevent future attempts to abuse our API. We are sorry for any problems this issue may have caused you and we really appreciate your patience and support.
Love,
Team Snapchat
The update is available now on for iPhone and iPod touch on the App Store.
Last month Spotify announced new ad-supported streaming options for mobile and tablet users without paid subscriptions, and today that update has rolled out for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users.
To recap, iPhone users can now play a particular playlist they create or their friends share, but the tracks will be shuffled. iPad users have an experience like desktop users where you can build specific playlists and list to music on demand.
The update is available now for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in the App Store.
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We noted at the end of last year that iTunes music downloads appeared to be on the decline for the first time, a shift that was confirmed this month. The operating assumption has so far been that music streaming services are taking over, and that a growing number of consumers are now content to simply have on-demand access to music, rather than to own it.
Asymco’s Horace Dediu, an analyst who often has interesting things to say, has suggested an alternative explanation: that we’re actually listening to less music …
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During its CES keynote, Yahoo announced a new iOS app that it hopes will help people stay informed on the big news of the day. Dubbed News Digest, the app will send out updates twice a day with the big news. The information comes from several different sources and Yahoo calls each individual story an “atom.” The app focuses on all news categories, not just technology.
Each story is created from multiple sources to present the essential bits and pieces of information, known as “Atoms”. Atoms are key quotes, images, videos, stock tickers, maps, infographs, and Wikipedia excerpts among others. These atomic units provide a unique context to the news. Our stories are both algorithmically and hand curated to ensure high quality, and come with a textual summary.
Today, Apple has announced that App Store sales topped $10 billion in 2013. In December alone, customers spent over $1 billion in the store, a record-breaking figure — the most successful month in App Store history. In total, developers for iOS and OS X have now earned $15 billion on the App Store.
Anki Drive got the ultimate endorsement last summer when Apple allowed the company to demonstrate its product on stage at its WWDC conference. For those unfamiliar, Anki Drive is a platform that allows hardware cars to be raced around a track and controlled wirelessly with an iOS device. Today, the company updated its iOS app with a host of new features, upgrades, and customization options. With today’s update, players can now take advantage of 20 new upgrade options, in addition to be able to further customize their car.
Starbucks, this week, updated their iconic Pick of the Week promotion to take advantage of iOS 7’s ability to use the device’s camera to redeem iTunes gift cards. Before that, customers had to pick up a physical card featuring a promo code to redeem the Pick of the Week app and manually type the code into the iTunes Store. Earlier this year, Starbucks began offering the promotion via an App Store app. The pick of the week promotion allows customers pickup cards from participating Starbucks locations and download an app or other piece of iTunes media for free:
With the acquisition of the company in September, Bump and Flock CEO and co-founder David Lieb quietly announced last night that both apps were shutting down effective January 31st. According to a brief blog post on the Bump site, Lieb says his team is “deeply focused on our new projects within Google” and given that the acquisition appears to be talent-driven, the shutdown comes as little surprise.
The Fitbit iPhone app received a notable update today that brings basic tracking features directly to the iPhone 5s without the need of one of FitBit’s tracking watches. The new “MobileTracker” feature, which takes advantage of Apple’s new M7 motion co-processor, provides some of FitBit’s basic activity tracking features right on the device. The new feature, due to the new M7 motion co-processor, is currently only available on the iPhone 5s. The company is yet to make an official announcement, but with CES right around the corner we’d expect to hear more about the update soon.
As noted by the Fitbit employee in the tweet below, the update will allow iPhone 5s users to try basic features of the app before investing in the hardware.
The app also receives a number of other new features today including redesigned silent alarms, the ability to a set a custom water goal, and a revamped profile editor, tracker settings, and sign-up screen. A full list of what’s new in version 2.1 of the Fitbit app is below:
The Fitbit app now features MobileTrack which offers basic Fitbit activity tracking directly using your iPhone 5s.
Redesigned Silent Alarms settings. Set, switch, edit, and remove alarms faster than ever.
Set your own custom water goal.
Redesigned profile editor.
Redesigned tracker settings.
Redesigned sign-up and sign-in.
Tap on people in Friend Finder to see their profile.
Swipe on friends on your leaderboard to Cheer, Taunt, or Message.
Tap on tabs to auto-scroll to the top.
[tweet https://twitter.com/barrycburton/status/417710071804489728]
iTunes Connect has gone back online today after a short hiatus due to the holidays. This is not unexpected as Apple told developers the website would be closed between December 21st and December 27th. iTunes Connect is the online portal for developers to manage, upload, and make changes to their applications on the iOS App Store. This means developers can now make price or content changes and means customers will be able to get the latest changes.
On the second day of Apple’s “12 Days of Gifts” promotion, the app is now offering a free download of Rovio’s ‘Tiny Thief’ app. This morning the 12 Days of Gifts app was offering a free pilot episode of TV show Once Upon a Time, but Apple appears to have now switched the gift to the ‘Tiny Thief’ app. It’s unclear if Apple mistakenly offered the TV show download for a short period of time or if it plans to offer various gifts throughout the day as part of the promotion.Yesterday the 12 Days of Gifts app was offering a free download of Justin Timberlake performances from the recent iTunes Music Festival.
Rovio actually dropped the price of Tiny Thief from $2.99 to free a few days back, and the app remains available for free directly through the App Store as well. You can grab Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts app on the App Store in select countries.
If you were wondering why Nokia’s HERE maps app for iOS disappeared from the App Store earlier this month, today the company has issued an official statement on the situation. While citing issues with iOS 7 that “harm the user experience,” Nokia unfortunately does not go into detail about specific problems with the development of the app for Apple’s latest version of iOS. It does, however, point users to the official web app, which is essentially the same experience the company wrapped into the iOS app minus many of the bugs users reported with the release of an iOS 7 update. No word on if Nokia will bring back the native app at any point, but for now we get the following statement issued to the TheIndianExpress (via Engadget):
“We have made the decision to remove our HERE Maps app from the Apple App Store because recent changes to iOS 7 harm the user experience. iPhone users can continue to use the mobile web version of HERE Maps under m.here.com., offering them core location needs, such as search, routing, orientation, transit information and more, all completely free of charge.”
As it has done in recent years, today Apple launched a special Boxing Day sale in at least the Canadian iTunes store offering deals on select albums and songs. The sale is accessible through the iTunes store on both iOS devices and on the desktop. While Boxing Day is recognized as a holiday on Dec. 26 in Canada, retailers usually hold Boxing Week sales that last from Dec. 24 through Jan. 2.
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Apple has officially kicked off its “12 Gifts of Christmas” promotion by offering a free download of four live songs (two of which have videos) from Justin Timberlake’s performance at the iTunes Festival in September.
Previously available as the 12 days of Christmas app in a few countries internationally, this year Apple has released a new “12 Days of Gifts” app that is available in the U.S. for the first time. Starting today through January 6, users will be able to download the app to access one free gift a day. The gifts are usually content from across the iTunes, iBooks, and App Stores, with today’s gift coming as a free download directly on your device through iTunes.
Download the free 12 Days of Gifts app for iPhone or iPad now to access your free gift.
