Joining the growing list of apps that support Apple Watch, Feedly this evening has rolled out an update to its iOS client that adds support for the device. The update, which bumps the app to version 27.0.2, allows users to read their feed of stories, save stories for later reading, and mark articles as read.
Sunrise, the company behind the popular Mac and iOS calendar apps, today launched a new feature called Meet. Meet is not integrated how might expect, though. It’s actually a keyboard designed by Sunrise for quickly scheduling one-to-one meetings.
Twitter this evening has updated its popular live streaming app Periscope to version 1.0.4 with a handful of new features and bug fixes. Announced in post on Medium, the update adds the ability to change your profile a picture, a feature that for some reason has not been there since launch. A variety of other new features are also included…
Sega announced in a post on its blog this evening that it is going to remove a number of games from its catalog on the App Store. Sega says that a several of its games on the App Store no longer meet its “high-quality” standards. Sega will also remove the unsupported games from the Google Play Store, the Samsung App Store and the Amazon App Store.
DirecTV has announced an update to its iOS app today that adds support for Apple Watch. With the DirecTV app on Apple Watch, users can play, pause, rewind, and fast forward recorded content on any connected receiver directly from their wrist.
Belkin today updated its WeMo app — the companion software to the company’s platform for controlling connected lighting products, appliances, and more — to offer support for IFTTT and additional light bulbs.
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Google today announced that it’s acquiring Timeful Inc, the company behind the Timeful app that offers a central location for time management, calendar functions, to-do list and scheduling features.
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Ekko Player for iOS is a neat app that will read news headlines and stories to you. In addition to reading the headlines and articles to you, the app also allows you to use you voice to navigate between stories, making it an excellent way to digest news while on-the-go.
The developers behind Pixelmator have just released another free update to the Mac app, available in the Mac App Store ($29.99). Despite the bug-fix identifier, Version 3.3.2 packs some cool enhancements to support Apple’s latest technologies and hardware.
For one, as demoed in the screenshot above, Pixelmator brushes now support Force Touch so you can draw with multiple levels of pressure by pressing harder on the touchpad of your new Retina MacBook (or early 2015 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro). This is useful for quick adjustments although serious painters will still want to use dedicated drawing tablets. The update also adds support for the Photos app and a revamped Repair Tool …
Google Analytics for iOS has received an update this evening that bumps it to version 1.2.0. The update includes a handful of features, such as new comparison capabilities and some small interface tweaks.
As the first Apple Watch units begin to arrive on the doorsteps of customers, Amazon this evening has updated its iPhone app with support for Apple’s latest device. The Apple Watch Amazon app is full of features, including the ability to complete purchases from your wrist and add items to your Wish List. There’s also support for Apple’s Handoff feature.
We’ve known for a while now that the popular Things to-do list management app is coming to the Apple Watch, and we even posted a few screenshots of the application this morning. But now, Cultured Code, the developers behind Things, have provided an in-depth look at how their application sets itself apart from the other task management Apple Watch applications. While the Mac, iPhone, and iPad versions of Things separate tasks into Today, Next, Scheduled, and Someday tasks, the Apple Watch app focuses in on the Today View.
As we near the April 24th launch for the Apple Watch, a pair of notable apps have received support for the device this evening. First off, Microsoft’s OneNote app has been updated to version 2.11.7 with support for the Apple Watch. A variety of features will be available from the Watch, including the ability to dictate new notes.
Best known for its app-controlled robotic toys, iOS developer Sphero was responsible for creating the real version of the ball-shaped droid BB-8 featured in Disney’s upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens, according to Time. Having released the original iOS-controlled Sphero and much-improved Sphero 2.0 balls in 2012 and 2013, the company was accepted into a Disney accelerator program in 2014, receiving personal mentoring from Disney CEO Bob Iger — a close friend of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “When the tech-savvy CEO saw Sphero’s technology in action,” Time reports, “he realized the potential application for BB-8 and connected the startup with the masterminds of the Star Wars characters.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu6x9sJCGfo?rel=0&showinfo=0&w=704&h=396]
Along with the disclosure of Sphero’s involvement in the robot’s creation, Time noted that an BB-8 toy was planned for release. Although Gizmodo suggested that an official BB-8 toy by Sphero had appeared on retailer Fat Brain Toys’ site, the image has since been pulled, and Sphero subsequently said that it is not a “legitimate” image. Separately, designer Christian Poulsen has demonstrated how to make a homemade BB-8 droid by cutting open a Sphero ball, inserting a neodymium magnet inside, and placing another magnet inside a handmade foam head, painting the head and ball to match BB-8. Poulsen described making the toy as a quick one-day project, and has a collection of videos showing the modified Sphero moving around much as BB-8 does in the upcoming movie. Sphero 2.0 currently sells for $130. The official Sphero-designed toy will likely be released closer to the film, which is due out on December 18, 2015.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_K10fX9DSY]
Updated April 22, 2015: In addition to noting that the BB-8 image run by Fat Brain Toys is not its actual product, Sphero has confirmed its involvement in BB-8, providing clarification and an official link to follow progress on the toy.
Twitterrific today has been updated with support for the Apple Watch. The update comes on the heels of Yelp also being updated with support for Apple’s latest product. The Twitterrific update bumps the app to version 5.11 and also includes actionable notifications. You can now reply to, favorite, and retweet tweets directly from the notification.
Jobs and Forstall (Image via Getty)
According to a leaked email from the Sony Pictures hack, Snapchat has given former Apple executive Scott Forstall a 0.11 percent stake of its company for being an advisor. According to the email, Forstall was given his stake in early 2014 with his advisory occurring in January of that year.
Yahoo today announced its plans to bring four of its apps to Apple Watch in time for the device’s April 24th launch date.
Yahoo is planning to update its Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Sports Fantasy, Yahoo News Digest, and Yahoo News Hong Kong apps with support for Apple’s new wearable, today giving a first look at the experience.
The company provided a breakdown of what you can expect to see on your Apple Watch with each of the apps:
Here’s a look at the News Digest and News Hong Kong apps:
You can expect updates to the Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Sports Fantasy, Yahoo News Digest, and Yahoo News Hong Kong apps by April 24th.
Popular graphic design iPad app Astropad has today announced a new partnership with FiftyThree, the company behind the Paper app and accompanying Pencil stylus. Astropad has revealed that version 1.1 of its iPad app adds deep support for the Pencil stylus by FiftyThree. With support for Pencil, users will be able able to draw from their iPad directly into Photoshop and other apps on the Mac.
Skype today released version 7.7 of its Mac app and with it is rolling out a new web link preview feature that will automatically provide snippets of web content in chats when sharing links.
With web link previews, you no longer need to type the: “check out this funny cat video” alongside the actual link to the cat video. When you send the link in chat, a rich visual preview of the web page is automatically displayed, making it much easier to see what’s been shared. Finding a link in your chat history also becomes quicker, saving precious time to let you focus on the conversation.
The previews will only show up if a link is the only thing in the message, so it won’t break up long blocks of text that happen to include a URL (an annoyance with similar web previews in other chat apps). Skype also notes that it puts “extra focus on optimizing for video and image content, so we encourage you to try links to video, image or even gifs first.”
The update also includes a couple bug fixes:
You can access the feature by downloading the latest version of Skype for Mac, version 7.7, here.
Wikipedia today has announced a major update to its app on iOS. The update adds a handful of new features to both the iPhone and iPad Wikipedia apps. First off, the update makes a few design tweaks to the appearance of articles. At the top of every article now is a large header image. Previously in Wikipedia on iOS, header images would appear smaller and below the first paragraph of text.
Workflow for iOS was initially released back in December with a plethora of capabilities thanks to iOS 8. Now, the app has been updated to version 1.2 with support for Apple Watch. Workflow, similar to Automator on OS X, allows users to create more than 200 automated actions with a mix and match interface on the iPad and iPhone. With Apple Watch, users will be able to view and download workflows designed for Apple Watch instantly from their wrist.
Earlier today Facebook unveiled a dedicated website for its Messenger service, accompanying dedicated apps for the iPhone and iPad. Now, however, a third-party developer has taken that newly unveiled web interface and put it into a dedicated OS X desktop app.
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.
Twitter this evening has announced a change to the “quote tweet” functionality of its service. With an update that’s rolling out to iPhone and web users today, using the quote tweet feature will now embed the actual tweet instead of simply quoting it as text.
