In March Apple decided to add “offers in-app purchases” warnings in iTunes and on the App Store following a class action lawsuit brought on by parents arguing the iOS freemium model, i.e. in-app purchases, allowed children to easily rack up thousands of dollars. Today, as noted by AppAdvice, Apple has now added a new “Learn More About In-App Purchases” section on the App Store detailing how in-app purchases work and how parents can manage they preferences through Parental Controls (pictured below). On a related note, in the video above IGN shows off how kids could easily spend thousands of dollars in apps that aggressively push ridiculously expensive in-app purchases to games clearly aimed at children.
Red Sweater Software’s Daniel Jalkut speculates that tickets are being offered to those who had the item in their cart, but were unable to purchase due to the record 180 second sellout.
Apple is now calling some folks who didn’t get a WWDC ticket earlier. Not sure how many, but stay by your phone if you had tried and failed.
6 Wunderkinder, the developers behind the ‘Wunderlist’ to-do app that’s currently home to over 4 million users, today announced a new “Pro” version of the cross platform productivity app. Launching today on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and on the web, the new pro version comes with the introduction of the developer’s first premium model that will see users pay $4.99 a month (or $49.99 a year) to get access to new team oriented collaboration features:
• Assigning – now you can add an extra level of accountability and assign tasks to your colleagues
and friends.
• Unlimited subtasks – sometimes the task on hand is so big that you need to break it down into
small manageable subtasks. Now you can add as little or as many needed to get the job done.
• Backgrounds – Wunderlist Pro subscribers will have access to eight new backgrounds – from a minimal dark wood and soothing sands to vibrant florals and the Paris cityscape, plus a whole lot more!
6 Wunderkinder plans to keep adding additional features for pro users, including the ability to attach and share files through tasks:
Files will be the next feature to be added to Wunderlist Pro. With the support of Files you will be able to attach files to a task and share with your colleagues, for improved collaboration outside of just the to-dos.
Those that plan on sticking with the free version of Wunderlist will also be greeted today with new features in update 2.1.0 of the app. Among them is a new Action Bar and other UI improvements such as the ability to “Get a quick overview as to who created and completed a task with the Detail View.”
Ahead of the official May 3rd launch of the Iron Man 3 feature film, today Gameloft has released the iOS app tie-in taking place after the events of the movie. According to the game’s iTunes page, Iron Man 3 sees the player take up the role of peacekeeper playing as Tony Stark in an “additive, endless 3D runner”.
Fandango, the movie ticket service that is currently integrated into Siri, today announced an update to its iOS app for iPhone and iPad. On top of enhancements that lets iPad users scroll through photos & videos and view in full screen mode, the app also now features the ability for Visa Signature account holders to purchase tickets faster and receive special offers by saving their card. The feature is only available on the iPhone initially and comes alongside better Facebook sharing options by creating and signing into a Fandango account.
A full list of what’s new below:
What’s New in Version 5.6
• iPad users – now scroll through photos & videos and view in full screen
• Feeling social? Sign into your Fandango account to manage Facebook sharing
• Visa Signature account holders – save your card for faster ticket purchasing & access to special offers with TIXPRESS™! (iPhone only)
• General bug fixes & usability enhancements
Conversion apps feel like a design playground, with so much potential for uniqueness and variety in their interfaces. The trend has been towards multifunction, multi-purpose Swiss-army knife apps that attempt to cover a whole range of disparate measurements. In my experience, as a result of racing to add one more ratio to their feature list, the simplicity of these apps suffer.
Currency sidesteps this battleground entirely and, as the name implies, focuses solely on converting amounts of money. The app touts support for over 160 currencies from around the world, which was more than enough to satisfy my needs. The app surfaces a handful of common currencies at first launch, each accompanied with a beautiful representation of its respective country’s flag.
Drafts is by far the fastest way to input text on iOS. A blank text field and keyboard greets you as soon as you launch Drafts. No need to fiddle with menus and buttons to reach your intended destination. Write first and decide later.
On top of the recent announcement that it will be bringing sponsored posts, aka advertisements, to its mobile apps, Tumblr today released an updated iOS app that includes new sharing features, the ability to save content for later reading, new templates for sharing posts through email, and much more.
Other enhancements include animated GIFs while scrolling, an alphabetized and searchable Following list, and support for sharing directly to Twitter and Facebook. A full list of what’s new in version 3.3.1 of the universal iOS app is below:
What’s New in Version 3.3.1
Now you can do more than just reblog when you find something you love.
– Share posts via Twitter, Facebook, and more
– Save stuff for later using Instapaper and Pocket
– Email an entire post with our beautiful new template
– Fling a photo up or down to close it!
– GIFs animate while you scroll*
– Following list is now alphabetized and searchable
*iPad 2, 3 and 4, iPad Mini, iPod Touch 5th Generation, iPhone 4S and 5 only
Following Apple’s announcement of its Q2 2013 earnings and new cash program, the company is hosting an earnings call to discuss the results. The company’s CEO and CFO, Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer, also typically stick around for a question and answer session. We’ll be live blogging the proceedings after the break (Image via AP):
Just under a week after the last build, Apple has seeded developers with build 12E36 of the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 release. Apple, again, asks developers to focus on WiFi performance, Graphics, and Safari. Thanks, D!
As planned, Apple has announced its Q2 2013 earnings results.
Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2013 second quarter ended March 30, 2013. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $43.6 billion and quarterly net profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $39.2 billion and net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 37.5 percent compared to 47.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
The Company sold 37.4 million iPhones in the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 19.5 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 11.8 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold just under 4 million Macs, compared to 4 million in the year-ago quarter.
Apple reported revenues for Q2 of $43.6 billion, which beats Apple’s estimates for the quarter of between $41 and $43 billion. This revenue compares to a revenue of $39.2 billion in the year-ago Q2. Apple also reported net profit of $9.5 billion, or $10.09 per diluted share
Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads, just under 4 million Macs, and 5.6 million iPods. This compares to 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, and 4 million Macs, sold in the year-ago Q2 2012 quarter.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on the results:
“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”
Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer as well:
“Our cash generation remains very strong, with $12.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter and an ending cash balance of $145 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.
Apple’s guidance for next quarter (Q3 2013) is revenue between $33.5 billion and $35.5 billion
Apple will hold a conference call regarding today’s announcement. We will have live coverage at 5 PM EST/ 2 PM PST.
– Choose to receive notifications that let you know exactly when you’re eligible for upgrade pricing on a new iPhone. And since all you need to complete the order is your Apple ID and password, buying your new iPhone is fast and easy (US only).
– Stay on top of your delivery with notifications. We’ll let you know when your order ships, keep you informed of any updates, and notify you when it’s delivered.
Topping the list is the “media timeline” – find it located next to the search box – which will show you all of the images and video in your timeline. Speaking of images, Tapbots totally redesigned the image viewer in this round. Rounding out this update is “Tweet/status detail view now displays the number of Favs and Retweets” which will be enjoyed by narcissists everywhere. Oh and what update wouldn’t be complete without “Various other bug fixes including Fixed Instagram Previews”?
FedEx has updated its iOS app today providing users with access to sign up and use a new FedEx Delivery Manager feature to customize delivery options and even sign for packages directly from within the app.
Once users have signed up for Delivery Manager, they will be able to schedule deliveries, provide instructions for pending deliveries, and even sign for packages using the universal app for iPhone and iPad. Other delivery options that users can customize include: Deliver to another address, Schedule a vacation hold, and Hold your package at a FedEx location.
Get convenience and flexibility for deliveries to your home. You can view upcoming deliveries to your home address, get status updates, or request to schedule a delivery by choosing your preferred date, time, or date and time combination. Or you can request FedEx to deliver to another address — in your neighborhood or across the U.S. — or select from free options such as Hold at FedEx Location.
The new Delivery Manager feature is initially only available for residential deliveries within the US. Users interested in signing up or learning more about the new feature can do so at fedex.com/delivery.
Twitterrific 5 has recieved another big update today, which introduces several new features, improvements, and fixes. The most prominent new feature is the fact that you can now enable app badges for push notifications, but other new additions include support for Twitter’s trending topics and the Favstar service. There are also a bunch of little improvements and bug fixes throughout the app, further polishing the recently-redesigned app.
The update is available now in the App Store. The change log is below, and you can find our full review of Twitterrific 5 here.
NEW FEATURES
• App badges for push notifications (enable in iOS Settings > Notification Center)
– Notification count for replies, mentions & DM’s
– Using app badges also clears messages from Notification Center
• Favstar support (enable in Settings > Other Services)
– View a user’s Favstar page from their profile or via long tap on their avatar
– View Favstar info on a tweet via more actions menu (…)
• Twitter trends (open Sidebar > Search > Tweets tab to view)
IMPROVEMENTS
• Faster tweet loading time
• Search interface remembers last selected tab
• Support for Twitter stock symbols ($AAPL, etc)
• New tweet count stays on screen until the timeline is scrolled
• Home timeline auto-refreshes when posting a new tweet or DM
• Automatic theme changing now based on dawn/dusk at your location
• Compose gesture: one-finger swipe left/right to adjust cursor
• VoiceOver now speaks hint text at the bottom of settings panel
• VoiceOver now speaks muffled tweet descriptions
• Holding timeline position improved when using VoiceOver
• Photo viewer can be dismissed using VoiceOver’s two-finger Z gesture
BUG FIXES
• Muffled hash tags are now case insensitive
• Buttons in settings are now easier to tap
• Corrected display bugs during pull-to-refresh
• Fixed a bug that prevented Readability from turning off
• Tweets at the top of the timeline are easier to swipe
• User links in emailed tweets now properly point to the user’s profile
• Fixed various bugs that caused the timeline to jump to top unexpectedly
• Compose displays correctly when using foreign language keyboards on iPad
• Additional fixes & improvements
Yahoo continues to rebrand itself under the leadership of former Google executive Marissa Mayer, proving it can be just as innovative as its competitors.
Today, Google has released a new iPhone and iPod touch application for its Places for Business platform. Places for Business is a Google service that allows business owners to manage the presence of their business across Google services such as Search, Maps, and Google+. Now, with the new app, these tasks can be handled on the go.
Business owners can use the app to:
– Verify your business listing directly from your phone
– Update your business information: hours, address, contact information, and description
– Post beautiful pictures of your business on your local Google+ page
– Track web traffic going to your listing
– Manage multiple business locations from one app
Having the ability to manage Places for Business from an iPhone or iPod touch is a compelling experience because information can be updated at a quicker pace. Additionally, the camera inside of iOS devices allows for quick uploading of photos of businesses. The app is free on the App Store.
Back in late 2010, Google brought Google Goggles (not to be confused with Google Glass) to the Google Search app for iPhone. At the time, it seemed like a great feature. You could take a photo of anything with your iPhone, and Google would instantly identify the object in the frame, returning relevant data about the photo.
That was 2010. You’d probably think that in the years following, Google would’ve continually updated Goggles, making the recognition more accurate and expanding its features. Well, you’d be wrong. In fact, Goggles functions entirely the same as it did in 2010, another fine example of Google’s continued dedication to their products.
Image Searcher, the developers behind a new app called CamFind, have seemingly stepped in where Google failed, creating a image-based search service that they claim is “four times more accurate than Google Goggles.” Let’s take a look at how it really performed.
Yahoo plans to release an in-house weather app for iOS and an iPad version of its Yahoo Mail app as soon as tomorrow, according to a person familiar with the apps.
The iPad version of Yahoo Mail is optimized for the iPad’s larger screen, and it is already available for the iPhone and iPod touch. Late last year, Yahoo released a redesigned version of its iPhone application that focused on speed and intuitiveness.
Yahoo’s new weather app is notable as the company already is in a partnership with Apple to provide the data for the Weather app pre-installed on all iPhone and iPod touch models…
Apple’s rather bumpy ride in China continues with the state-run People’s Daily including the company’s App Store in a list of online stores and websites investigated for ‘providing pornographic content’ in China.
It’s an ironic charge for a company with a well-known opposition to pornography. Apple does not allow pornographic content in its App Store, and has a record of removing apps which are found to be in breach of this term …
When Facebook released their brand-new iOS application today, some were disappointed to find that the highlight features of Chat Heads (from Facebook Home) and Stickers were not present. Facebook says that the two features, like many other of Facebook’s recently released products, will be released via a staggered rollout.
For those who truly want to enable Chat Heads and Stickers before Facebook wants it on your iOS device, iMore‘s Nick Arnott has put together a thorough tutorial on how to enable the features. Follow the steps, grab an app called PhoneView (no jailbreak required), and a Plist editor (like the one included in Xcode), and you should be good to go. We’ve tested the Chat Heads trick, and it works well.
Today, Apple has released software updates for the Mac version of iPhoto and for Aperture. The updates both focus on bug fixes and improvements.
Notably, both apps were given improvements and fixes for Photo Stream integration. iPhoto now has easier image deleting and exporting from Photo Stream, while Aperture has a bug fix related to Shared Photo Streams.
Safari and Java were also updated with improved security (release notes below). Notably, the new update introduces controls to specify which websites can use Java – something that should help prevent malicious websites from exploiting the never-ending stream of Java exploits.
