Apps

Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

ThumbsUp – Free

ThumbsUp adds a few new ways to interact with your Pandora music. The primary method is a set of Activator actions that let you use gestures to thumb-up or thumb-down the current song. Another useful method (which is actually disabled by default) is a pair of buttons on the lock screen music controls that let you give feedback on the currently-playing song. You can turn the lockscreen buttons on in the tweak’s preferences inside the Settings app.

Thumbs Up is available for free on BigBoss.

Keep reading for more tweaks

Asymco’s Horace Dediu has estimated that Apple’s iTunes business, initially intended only to cover its costs as a way of driving hardware sales, now earns the company annual profits of a cool $2 billion.

What started as just a music store now sells music, video, books, iOS software, and Mac software. Revenues have grown five-fold in 7 years, with total sales approaching $5 billion a quarter and notching up an estimated 23 billion transactions a year.

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Mailbox: After a bit of a controversy with its reservation system, followed by getting acquired by Dropbox for a reported $50 – $100 million, developers of the highly successful Mailbox app announced it has filled its 1 millionth reservation just 6 weeks after launching. The free Mailbox app also gets an update to version 1.1.0 with UI enhancements, performance optimizations, and a new “Shake to undo” feature.

Plex version 3.1: The iOS app for the popular Plex media server was updated today with a ton of new features and fixes. Some of the big new features include a Mobile Media Server mode to play synced content and view photo albums from any other Plex client, push notifications for recommendations, a new experimental universal transcoder. Also included is a new dark theme, redesigned photo viewer, and much, much more.

Pinterest version 2.3: Pinterest announced that it is adding some new features to its mobile apps today that include some of the recent updates to its web version. You’ll now be able to view a “people who pinned this also pinned” feature, edit your profile from the app, and get a close-up view of pins on the iPad.

Speedtest.net 3.0: Mobile speedtest.net app from developers Ookla gets an update today with a new UI and full iPhone 5 support, the ability to permanently remove ads, easier sharing, and more.

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Apple has updated its Podcasts app today with a number of new features. Among the most notable is the ability to create custom stations that update automatically as new episodes of podcasts are available. There are also a number of new enhancements for stations and playlists, including iCloud support to keep stations up to date on all your iOS devices.

The app also now includes a redesigned “Now Playing” view that shows playback controls, as pictured in the screenshots above.

Other improvements include On-The-Go playlists and support for syncing playlists from iTunes, an option to have stations begin playing with the latest or oldest episode, and other fixes and performance enhancements:
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SoundCloud version 2.5: SoundCloud iPhone and iPad app gets an update today that brings a “cleaner, sharper, simpler’ design, a new icon, as well as support for Sets on iPhone. iPhone users can now view sets posted by others, create and add tracks to new sets, and search for sets with a  new filter in the search tab.

TempleRun 2 version 1.1: The popular second installment in the Temple Run series was updated today with new features including daily and weekend challenges with in-game coins and gems as rewards, the ability challenge friends through Game Center, and other new enhancements:

★ Daily and weekly challenges to win free coins and gems!
★ Challenge your Game Center friends to beat your score!
★ Check out more offers for free coins
★ Powerups collected now extend the time of already active powers
★ Stuck objectives should be fixed
★ More bug fixes

Spotify version 0.6.1: Spotify for iOS gets updated today with new images and artist biographies when in the artist view and a fix for crashes when you skip in radio.

• New: Look, there are images and artist biographies in the artist view.
• Fixed: No more pesky crashes when you skip in radio.
• Fictitious: This app is reverse-engineered using alien technology.

Mailbox 1.1.0: The popular Gmail Mailbox app for iPhone and iPod touch has been updated with a Shake to Undo feature, bug fixes, and various UI enhancements and performance optimizations. 

Parcel version 3.0: Delivery tracking app Parcel gets rewritten to bring a new UI and a revamped experience on the iPhone and iPad:
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Update: Apple responds.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt spoke at the company’s Big Tent Summit in India this morning, and, on top of claiming there are no immediate plans to merge Chrome and Android, the executive discussed the possibility of Google Now coming to iOS devices. It appears Google is in a similar situation to when it launched a standalone Google Maps app, as Schmidt claimed it’s up to Apple to approve or reject Google Now for the App Store. TechCrunch pointed us to the comment from the Google executive at around 17 minutes into the interview:

You’ll need to discuss that with Apple” (at around 17:50). “Apple has a policy of approving or disapproving apps that are submitted into its store, and some of them they approve and some of them they don’t,” he went on to say.

A video that appeared to be an ad for the debut of Google Now on iPhone and iPad landed on YouTube last week before quickly being removed. The video (above) showed that Google could implement Google Now functionality—currently only available as a Siri-like voice and contextual assistant app on Android devices—into the Google Search app.

Google already updated its Google Search app with voice recognition and Google Now-like features last October, and a number of comparison videos have since appeared online and show Siri has some serious competition with even the scaled back voice search features. Bringing the contextual assistant features that Google Now implements on Android to the Google Search app would give iOS users yet another reason to use it rather than Siri for a large number of tasks.
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BioShock Infinite: Mac game developers Aspyr announced today that it will be bringing Bioshcok Infinite to the Mac following its release on PC and consoles next week on March 26. It will take Aspyr until the summer to get the third instalment in the Bioshock series up and running on OS X, but the company promised us more details on pricing, preorders, and release dates in the near future. The game follows lead character Booker DeWitt and takes place in the lost, floating city of Columbia. It’s the first title in the series that doesn’t take place under water and also sees the return of the game’s original developer Ken Levine.

Amazon Send to Kindle: Announced by Amazon today, website owners can now add a “Send to Kindle Button” to allow visitors save content directly to Kindle devices and apps. That means that iPhone and iPad users can now use the function on supported sites to send content to the Kindle iOS apps. Some sites such as The Washington Post, TIME, and Boing Boing have already added the button.

Final Fantasy V: The FF-Reunion website is reporting that Final Fantasy V is making its way to the App Store, at least in Japan, by the end of March. The title is said to get the usual overhaul for iOS, but until then you can always play the Game Boy Advance port through an emulator.

Garmin USA version 2.4: Garmin updated its USA version of its iOS app today alongside many other local versions with the ability to play voice instructions through your car’s speakers over bluetooth, a new Map Manager, points of interest from Wikipedia, and much more:
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Apple today updated its GarageBand for iOS, bringing the app up to version 1.4 and providing support for Audiobus. Originally launched in December 2012, Audiobus is an iOS app available from developer A Tasty Pixel and described as an “inter-app audio routing system.” The app allows users to route audio from a growing list of third-party and Audiobus-compatible synths, drum machines, effects, and audio-editing apps and record them simultaneously in other supported multi-track editing apps. That means GarageBand users will now be able to use Audiobus to route audio instruments and effects from other Audiobus-compatible iOS apps into a GarageBand session.

Audiobus provides an SDK to developers that want to integrate the ability to support the Audiobus app and a long list of popular music creation apps have already taken part, including: Cubasis, Animoog, many of Korg’s apps, JamUp, Loopy, and now GarageBand. You can see a full list of apps that support Audiobus here. The Audiobus app will cost you an extra $9.99 on top of the cost of GarageBand ($4.99).

Other improvements in today’s update include the ability to turn off grid snapping to easier control the placement of regions when editing and a fix for issues with third-party audio accessories:
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Designers typically present and visualize their ideas by photographing and Photoshopping or by printing and constructing mock-ups using paper and glue. Both of these are often time-consuming and take designers away from their main focus—designing. LiveSurface is a unique new image library of more than 350 specially constructed image templates that contain 3D surfaces. The pre-built images dramatically shorten the time it takes to create realistic representations of a design idea.

Design can be a tough sell to clients who often don’t know what they want until they see it, and designers often work in the void of the Illustrator Artboard and wait to test their designs on real-world surfaces and materials until later in the design process.

Joshua Distler, Apple alum and creator of LiveSurface, gave us a demo of Context, LiveSurface’s next-generation design tool. Context, now in beta, is a Mac desktop application that integrates with Adobe Illustrator via a plug-in. The application works with Illustrator to allow designers to visualize and present their ideas with just a few clicks…
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Here’s a look at some of the most fun or useful jailbreak tweaks that came out this week. If you like these tweaks, but don’t have a jailbroken iOS device, you can check out jailbrea.kr to learn more about how to jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Cyueue – $2.49

The “Up Next” feature in iTunes 11 made a lot of people very happy, but the feature was unfortunately never brought to iOS by Apple. To remedy this, the creator of Cydia has published a new tweak that adds this functionality to the built-in Music app. To use it, you just tap a song while another song is playing. You’ll be presented with three options. “Play now” simply stops the current song and starts the new one. “Play next” adds the new song to the beginning of a special playlist and automatically goes to the new song when the previous one has finished playing. The last option, “Play last,” adds the new song to the very end of the playlist and gets to it after playing through the rest of the songs. Cyueue is $2.49 and is available on Saurik’s built-in repository.

Keep reading for more tweaks

Kickoff- Chat and Tasks for Teams: Just launched on the App Store and Mac App Store, Kickoff is a new app from developer Michael Villar that aims to provide the ultimate solution for group chat on the Mac and iOS. Anyone that has attempted to use the group chat apps currently on the market know most come with a flawed experience at best. Most similar services also charge a monthly fee and often fees associated with the number of team members. With the limited time we’ve had with the app, Kickoff appears to be solving many of these problems with no reoccurring payments as well as no limits for file storage or team/user cap.

Other notable features include: A built-in group task manager, drag and drop uploading, Retina support, native keyboard gestures, and integration with quick look, Notification Center, Full-screen view, and dictation. The app is available for the one time cost of $27.99 on the Mac App Store and $6.99 for the iPhone.

CBS: Released on the App Store today, the official app from CBS offers full HD episodes of some of the network’s most popular shows including Catch NCIS, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, How I Met Your Mother, Survivor, Elementary, The Young and the Restless, and The Late Show with David Letterman. CBS said some shows will be available through the app 24 hours after they air while others will be “available 8 days after initial broadcast.” The app is available now for free on iPhone and iPad.

The Croods: Today Angry Birds developer Rovio has released the much teased “The Croods” iOS title that acts as an official tie-in for the upcoming animated Dreamworks film of the same name. The free game is available to download on the App Store now for iPhone and iPad.

Alfred 2.0: Available today in version 2.0, the latest update to this extremely popular productivity app brings a completely re-written experience that uses less than 15% of the previous version’s code. The result, according to the developers, is a much faster and easier to use experience that includes a new Workflows framework, new enhanced theme support, improvements to Contacts in search results, and much, much more. 

PayPal Here for iPad: Businesses taking advantage of PayPal’s recently launched ‘PayPal Here’ POS app and card reader will appreciate that the company has today decided to release an official iPad app for the service. The company made the official announcement on its blog noting that the app is initially available only in the US.

• App designed specifically for the iPad
• Ability to scan an item’s barcode for faster checkout
• Wirelessly connect to a cash drawer and printer
• Track sales activity in “Daily Summary” reporting

Deals:

iPad app, djay, temporarily $4.99 (Reg. $19.99)

iPhone & iPad game, Infinity Blade II, temporarily $2.99 (Reg. $6.99)

iPhone & iPad game, Grand Theft Auto 3, temporarily $1.99 (Reg. $4.99)

According to a report from CNET, Twitter might be preparing to launch a new standalone iOS music app as early as the end of this month. The report cites “a person familiar with the matter” and claimed Twitter would use technology it acquired through its purchase of music discovery service We Are Hunted to provide a music service dubbed “Twitter Music.” CNET says the service will provide customized content suggestions based on who users follow on Twitter. It would also apparently integrate with SoundCloud and carry Twitter branding unlike the company’s recently launched video sharing app Vine:

Twitter Music suggests artists and songs to listen to based on a variety of signals, and is personalized based on which accounts a user follows on Twitter. Songs are streamed to the app via SoundCloud.

The report provided a breakdown of how the app works, explaining that it will offer suggested songs and artists based on Twitter followers, links to songs people are listening to through the hashtag #NowPlaying, and popular and emerging tracks for trending and newly popular artists:
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News: With a heavy focus on its new Creative Cloud subscriptions lately (currently 60% off), TechHive confirmed with Adobe yesterday that it is cutting off physical, boxed sales of its Creative Suite apps.

As Adobe continues to focus on delivering world-class innovation through Creative Cloud and digital fulfillment, we will be phasing out shrink-wrapped, boxed versions of Creative Suite and Acrobat products.”

Google Shopper version 3.2: Google has updated its Google Shopper app for iOS today with new features including a new category result page, larger product images in a new slideshow mode, as well as “improvements to search locale detection, stability, and performance.”

Calendars by Readdle: Readdle has rebranded its paid Calendars app to “Calendars+” today in order to make room for a brand new free app that takes over the “Calendars by Readdle” name. The new free app features a UI and features similar to Readdle’s previous Calendars app, which the company tells us now has over 500,000 users.

Calendars lets you manage events both online and offline. Thanks to the unique interface you can move events simply with Drag & Drop, navigate quickly between dates, change event time and reminders rapidly with custom keyboards. Calendars supports everything you can find in Google Calendar: appointments, SMS reminders and more. Sync is really fast and your information is always up to date.

Roku version 2.1.2: The app that allows you to control your Roku from your iPhone gets official support for the Roku 3 player today:

• Support for Roku 3 player
• Minor fixes

Snapguide version 1.1.3: New photo editing features, search filters, and more:

– Introducing photo editing features! When creating a guide, you can now rotate and enhance images.
– Easily find guides you have liked. You can now filter liked guides by topics such as Food, Arts and Crafts and more!
– Bug Fixes.

Cubasis version 1.2: A massive update today for Steinberg’s iPad version of Cubase brings a ton of new features and fixes:
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Google Now, the prediction software that debuted on Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich last year, may be crossing over to iOS in the very near future. A promotional video posted on YouTube today—but was pulled minutes later—showed Google Now on the iPhone and iPad.

A tipster for Engadget recorded the video and re-uploaded it online, which is now available above. The speaker in the video seems to be the same female voice found in the original Google Now promotional video from last year (below). Unless this is a very elaborate hoax, it would seem that a Google Now update is in store for Google Search app.

Perhaps the delay in going live is due to App Store approval.

We’ll update when/if the app update to the Google Search app goes live.

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Vimeo On Demand: After launching a brand new iPhone app in November and rolling out its Tip Jar feature in September, Vimeo is today officially launching its new Vimeo On Demand ‘self-distribution service’ that allows Vimeo PRO creators to sell content directly to their audience. Vimeo said content creators will keep a 90 percent share after transactions fees and will also be able to “choose their price; select country-by-country availability; customize their page design; and offer content on Vimeo, their own website, or both.” Purchased videos will be available to users across all devices that support Vimeo. Previously, Vimeo had a preview of the service available on its website that offered a selection of movies for $5.00.

“What used to be a confusing and labor-intensive process is now open and simple with Vimeo On Demand,” said Blake Whitman, Vice President of Creative Development. “We always strive to provide our community and visitors with the best experience possible, and this opens up a new world of viewable content and support for creators. We are proud of this first phase of Vimeo On Demand, and we’re already working on another suite of creator-focused features to release in the near future.”

Rdio version 2.1.3: Internet radio streaming service Rdio has been updated with a refreshed UI that brings brand new album/playlist views on the iPhone, as well as larger album art, the ability to see friends who have listened recently, and much more.

– New album/playlist views on iPhone.  Shows large album art, friends who have listened recently, and more.
– Various bug fixes and UI improvements.

Tumblr version 3.3: A nice update to the Tumblr iOS app today brings a bunch of new features including a brand new camera, the ability to create photo sets right from within the app, and a few other UI enhancements and usability features:

– Brand new camera!
– Create photosets straight from the app
– Double-tap posts to like!
– Tap the avatar in your profile to change it
– Link posts: Copy or enter a URL and we’ll fetch the title!

Apple Store version 2.5: Apple’s Apple Store app for browsing the Apple online store, scheduling appointments and much more was updated today with new delivery options and an easier experience for checking if products are available for local pickup:

 – New delivery options make it even more convenient to get your Apple products.  Choose different shipping options for different items in an order.
– An even easier way to see if the product you want is available for pickup at your favorite Apple Retail Store (U.S. only).

Plague Inc. version 1.5.2:
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Update: the app has been pulled from the App Store…but venture this way for the same non-jailbroken functionality.

Update 2: We’re shocked, shocked!:

https://twitter.com/idoodler/status/311848346287497216

A new free app discovered in the App Store over the weekend can be used to manipulate some of the built-in features of iOS without the need to jailbreak your device. Don’t be fooled by the App Store screenshot. The aptly-named HiddenApps allows you to hide any of the built-in iOS apps that you may not have any desire to keep around, such as Stocks, Weather, Passbook and Newsstand.

The app also allows you to do a few other things, such as access the hidden Field Test app, which can be used in conjunction with a force-quit bug to display your cellular strength numerically, rather than as a set of bars. A button to disable iAds entirely can also be found on the app’s main menu. This button does exactly what it says: all iAds in every app will be removed completely.

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