Apps

9to5Mac has once again scoured the App Store for all the latest app launches, price drops, noteworthy news, and updates, and we have compiled everything in a roundup below. Check it out, but keep coming back as we continually refresh the list throughout the day.

New

1. Wahwah | Free
Wahwah is a personalized radio service that just landed in the App Store, and it offers a catalogue of more than 15 million songs and allows users to discover the perfect song for working, running, cycling, driving, etc. Users can notably check-in to their location, type in the name of an artist, browse custom stations, or select recommended music, while Wahwah sees who is around, taps into their music, and then offers users the ability to simultaneously listen together and interact via chat.

Updated

1. Viddy | Free
Version 2.1.1 of this Instagram-like app for videos went live today with the ability to handle 30-second clips, pause recordings for multiple-segment filming, toggle brightness, contrast and volume, and simulate stop-motion capture.  The  updated app also features 15 new filters, all new music tracks, simplified video descriptions, swipe-based navigation, new Explore section, geo-feeds with video discovery, Home feed with user preferences, YouTube annotations, and support for 16 new languages.

More apps and updates below.

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Today, Facebook announced a revamped News Feed for the web and mobile, offering a consistent Facebook experience across all devices. The fresh new look offers an even greater emphasis on photos, videos, events, and articles. The new News Feed also includes improved exploration options:

– All Friends – a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
– Photos – a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like
– Music – a feed with posts about the music you listen to
– Following – a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow.

Facebook says that the updates for the iOS applications will roll out “in the coming weeks.” Android updates will follow. The rollout for the web version on computers will begin today. After the break are videos about the new News Feed

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News:

The Croods: Previously announced, Rovio has today released the first official gameplay video for its upcoming iOS movie tie-in for DreamWorks’ upcoming ‘The Croods’ animated feature film hitting theatres March 22. Check out the full gameplay video above.

Updates:

Path version 3.0.1: Path is introducing some new features with an update to its iOS app today that brings a new Messaging features, handcrafted stickers, and a marketplace called “The Shop” where users can purchase “premium photo filters and handcrafted stickers.”

★ Messaging – The fast, fun, and private way to message your family and friends one-to-one or in small groups. Use your words, your voice, your location, media, stickers, and more!
★ Stickers – Say more in a single tap with handcrafted stickers from some of our favorite artists.
★ The Shop – The hand curated place to find premium photo filters and handcrafted stickers to make your Path experience more you.
✓ Performance improvements.
☂ Bug fixes.

Fantastical version 1.1: Fantastical, the calendar app we recently reviewed and loved, is updated today with a number of new features including multiple alerts, time zone support, and much, much more. The app is also on sale for a limited time for $3.99 USD.

– Multiple alerts when creating events
– Time zone support
– Duplicate or move events (tap and hold an event in the event list)
– Go to a specific date (tap and hold the red title bar)
– Event list is now scrollable when using the calendar
– Today’s timed events dim after the event has ended
– Copied text containing event info can automatically be made into an event
– Added setting to highlight weekends
– Added setting to show empty days on the DayTicker
– Added setting to display the number of today’s remaining events or date on the app icon badge
– State restoration (iOS 6 only)
– A staggering number of other improvements, parser enhancements, and bug fixes

Conan O’Brien Presents: Team Coco version 3.1: Conan’s iPhone app bringing content from his Team Coco site has been completely redesigned and now includes full episodes of Conan on demand as well as the two-screen syncing experience previously only available to iPad users.

Angry Birds version 3.1.0: On top of making the previously 99 cent original Angry Birds title Free today, the app (both iPad and iPhone versions) have been updated with brand new content. The updated app includes “15 fantastic new levels for the Bad Piggies episode!”

Asphalt 7: Heat version 1.0.8: New super cars and events get added to Gameloft’s popular Asphalt 7: Heat title:
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Temple Run: Oz: Developers of the Temple Run franchise have once again teamed up with Disney to release a game built on the Temple Run 2 engine but set in the world of an upcoming Disney film. This time Imangi Studios brings the Temple Run gameplay experience to the world of Oz in support of the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful film. The game is available for 99 cents now and features new gameplay elements you haven’t seen in past Temple Run titles.

NEW FEATURES
• Stunning environments inspired by the film – explore them all.
• Fly in a hot air balloon – earn even more coins.
• Explore different locations in Oz – follow sign posts!
• The environment changes as you run – test your reflexes.
• Compete in weekly challenges – beat your friends!

Google Maps version 1.1: Google Maps for iOS gets the ability to search Google Contacts, quickly access search for local places, and select between Kilometers or Miles. Google announced the new features in a blog post and also noted that it is rolling out the English version of the app to seven new countries including: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.

Your Google Contacts are now integrated into Google Maps for iPhone – meaning that when you’re signed-in and search for a friend’s name, their address will appear as a suggestion (if you have their address saved). Simply tap their name to see the address, which will visible only to you, on the map. To learn an easy way to keep your Google Contacts synced with your iPhone, click here.

* Search your Google Contacts; sign in to have your saved addresses show up when you search for friends and family by name.
* Quickly search for local places by selecting popular categories such as restaurants, bars, cafes, gas stations, etc.
* Choose between Kilometers or Miles for your preferred distance units.
* Note that some features may not be available in all countries.

RunKeeper version 3.1: Many new features for the popular RunKeeper iOS app today including a Night Mode, In-Activity Settings, and weight logging and visualization tools:
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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.

ActiveDock – $1.99
ActiveDock (screenshot above) brings most of the features of the OS X dock to iOS: the Mountain Lion design, the “running” indicators on apps currently open in the background, and even bouncing animations for alerts and while apps are opening. The tweak allows you to customize the frequency of the notification alert bounces, so instead of the icon constantly bouncing, you can set it to only jump up and down every few seconds. Each feature of the tweak has its own toggle so you can choose which parts you do and don’t want to keep enabled all the time. The effects only apply to the dock, so you won’t have apps jumping up and down all over your homescreens. You can find ActiveDock on the BigBoss repo.

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Earlier today, Evernote, a popular note taking application that works across multiple devices, reported that customer data such as usernames, passwords, and email addresses had been breached and accessed by a third party. However, user content stored within Evernote was reportedly not accessed. Evernote also notes that all user passwords are encrypted (hashed and salted), but, in an “abundance of caution,” all Evernote user passwords have been reset.

While our password encryption measures are robust, we are taking additional steps to ensure that your personal data remains secure. This means that, in an abundance of caution, we are requiring all users to reset their Evernote account passwords. Please create a new password by signing into your account on evernote.com. After signing in, you will be prompted to enter your new password. Once you have reset your password on evernote.com, you will need to enter this new password in other Evernote apps that you use. We are also releasing updates to several of our apps to make the password change process easier, so please check for updates over the next several hours.

In addition to announcing the breach, the company says that it will release updates to its software to make the password change process simpler.

The Mac app update has already been released (not on the Mac App Store), as noted by MacStories. In addition to the password enhancement, the new Mac app update adds a new “QuickNote” popover (pictured below) for quick inputting of notes into Evernote:

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Real Racing 3: The highly anticipated third installment in EA’s Real Racing iOS series has officially arrived in the US App Store today (via 9to5Toys). Available now for free, the game’s new in-app purchase model is getting a little bit of negative attention, but otherwise reviews of the game have been quite positive.

Trailblazing new features include officially licensed tracks, an expanded 22-car grid, and over 45 meticulously detailed cars from makers like Porsche, Lamborghini, Dodge, Bugatti, and Audi. Plus, racing with friends gets kicked into another dimension with the reality-bending Time Shifted Multiplayer™ (TSM) technology.

AVP: Evolution: Fox has released another app in the Alien vs Predators series with the release of AVP: Evolution. The game was developed by Angry Mob Games, makers of PREDATORS and Guerrilla Bob iOS titles, and takes cues from multiplayer modes in recent AVP console releases.

*Two distinct gaming experiences as you engage in the ultimate battle as both the Alien and Predator
*Vicious attacks and brutal finishing moves give players a lethal arsenal to wreak havoc on the enemy

Socialcam version 5.0: Autodesk is making some major improvements to its popular Socialcam app, which has now reached 20 million downloads, with the release of version 5 on the App Store today. The update should be hitting the App Store shortly and with it will come “a complete redesign of visual effects, 720p HD video, video High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a new icon for Socialcam.”

Major new features on the iOS platform include a complete redesign of visual effects, 720p HD video, video High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a new icon for Socialcam… Developed in collaboration with Autodesk’s expert professional video effects teams, the new 720p HD video and video HDR with one click real-time mapping and color correction enables Socialcam—with more than 20 million downloads—to continue to break through barriers to mobile video adoption by making it easy to express creativity and individuality wherever inspiration strikes—anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

Day One version 1.10: The well reviewed journal/diary app known as Day One gets new features today including new options for PDF Export and Printing, historical weather reports for 30 days, a new reminder sound,  Sanchez font option, and improvements to HTML styling. There are also a number of performance enhancements include for startup time, Dropbox syncing, and more. An update for the Mac app is coming soon.

Cycloramic version 2.1: The app that received much attention for its unique use of the iPhone’s vibrating motor to snap hands-free 360 degree video gets new features today. Among them is the ability to “convert panoramic photos to 24 second panoramic HD movies.”

YouTube 1.2.1: Google updated its YouTube app for iOS bringing the Send to TV feature that it originally introduced on Android devices back in November. The app will allow users to send YouTube videos from their iOS devices to a Google TV, PS3, or Xbox and Google confirmed back in January that the feature would be coming to even more smart TVs this year. 
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For years, iOS users have wanted a proper way to save, open, and store files on their devices. While Apple has given us a partial solution with “Open In…” sheets, the folks at SonicoMobile have taken it upon themselves to go a step further. Today, they have launched a new app called Files that aims to be the missing “Finder for iOS.”

Of course, we’ve seen similar apps before. What is it that makes Files different from the rest? Keep reading to find out.

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In addition to a new Cloud Player app for iPad from Amazon and the roll out of iTunes in the Cloud features to new countries, below we have put together our usual list of notable apps and updates hitting the store today:

Spotify version 0.6.0: Perhaps the biggest update today goes to the Spotify iOS app which, on top of receiving a “shiny new interface” equipped with a sidebar, includes a “Now Playing” bar, a new Track menu, and a number of other new features and fixes:

• New: Shiny new interface. You can navigate around the app with a new sidebar. Check it out by swiping left-to-right, or by pressing the ≣ button in the top left of the app.
• New: Now Playing bar. You’ll always see what you’re listening to along the bottom of Spotify. To switch tracks, just swipe along it. Tap or drag to see more information about the current track. Tap the cover art in the extended view to use AirPlay, and disable/enable shuffle and repeat.
• New: Track menu. Tap the … button on any track to see a redesigned context menu.
• Fixed: “Track only available online” issues. This would sometimes appear after start-up, or when you’d been offline for a little while. Not any more.
• Fixed: Lock screen will now always display the correct track.
• Fixed: Shuffle now switches off after you’ve used “Shuffle Play” on an album or playlist.

Waze version 3.6: Waze, one of Apple’s Maps partners and an app CEO Tim Cook recommended as an alternative during the iOS 6 Maps controversy, gets some nice new features today. Among the new features is real-time road closure reporting and routing, a refined map with only relevant road names, and much more:

✓ Report road closures in real time. Waze will close off the road and route others around it
✓ Report pins tilted on map to better indicate direction of event
✓ Reduced map clutter by showing only relevant road names
✓ New moods!
✓ New inbox with multiple message selection
✓ Update gas prices popup: When in gas station users prompted to update price (Europe only)
✓ Optimized performance and multiple bug fixes

PanoPerfect for iPad: We’ve told you about the PanoPerfect app before– an Instagram type experience designed specifically for sharing panorama shots. Today the developers have released its first iPad version of the app and also revamped the iPhone app.

PanoPerfect is a free, fun, and simple way to share beautiful panoramic photos on your iPhone. Find, follow, and share gorgeous panoramic photos with friends. Panorama’s go into a stream where you can comment and like your favorite ones.

Bad Piggies version 1.2.0:  Rovio’s popular Bad Piggies franchise gets updated today with 30 new “Flight in the Night levels,” 6 Road Hogs levels, new achievements and much more. The free apps and HD iPad versions receive the same update today.

Tweetbot version 2.7.3:  The iOS versions of the Tweetbot apps get a few tweaks. The iPad version gets the same update:
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On top of just recently updating its At Bat 13 iOS app for Spring Training with a ton of new features, MLB announced at an event last night in New York that it will increase the number of stadiums accepting Passbook this season. According to a report from GigaOm, the number of stadiums accepting tickets through Apple’s wallet app will increase from just four to 13:

The teams that will start accepting Passbook tickets for the first time are the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs. The New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals, which began accepting Passbook last September, will again offer the service this season. MLB says there are three more teams that will enable iOS tickets this season, but that are not yet ready to make an official announcement.

CEO of MLB’s Advanced Media Office Bob Bowman told GigaOm that iOS users currently make up approximately 70 percent of all At Bat users and around 85 percent of paid subscribers. The updated iOS At Bat app includes a classic games video library archive, re-architected app navigation, and searchable video highlight library expansion to include access to complete video archives.

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http://vimeo.com/60564626

News:

Clear for Mac + Leap Motion: We’ve brought you a couple hands-on demos of the Leap Motion controller before, and today popular productivity app Clear for Mac announced it is working on bringing support for Leap Motion to Clear. There’s no timeframe yet, but Realmac Software provided the short preview above.

Updates:

Runtastic version 2.10.1: Personal fitness tracking app Runtastic gets a nice update today that brings more Sport types, improved Facebook integration, and number of other bug fixes and performance enhancements.

DataMan Pro version 6.3: After some trouble getting by Apple review guidelines with its last update, DataMan Pro is back on the App Store today and is 50% off for a limited time to celebrate. The app has also been completely redesigned:

The resurrected DataMan Pro has been completely reinvented to feature a stunning new interface, an intelligent real-time data usage forecast, and most advanced app tracking… The powerful App Watch technology that users love is also back. You can see the usage statistics for all apps. This amazing capability empowers you to root out data-hungry apps… The new DataMan Pro includes Smart Forecast and the beautiful interface that were recently introduced in DataMan Next. Combined with precise real-time tracking, you can say goodbye to overage.

Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars 3.0: Yesterday Orbitz launched its first “fully native, in-app search and book experience” for the iPad with an update to its Orbitz Flights, Hotels, Cars app that brings support for the larger screen and new iPad-specific features:

Our award-winning app (App Store Editors’ Choice & Hall of Fame inductee) is now also optimized for iPad and iPad mini! iPad users enjoy *all* the same app features as iPhone users, plus iPad-exclusives like a dual list/map view of hotels and the ability to compare details of multiple flights, rental cars, or hotels from a single screen.

Adobe Muse: Adobe announced today that it is updating Adobe Muse with some highly requested new features:
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Last time we checked in on the in-app purchase class-action lawsuit against Apple, courts refused Apple’s request to throw out the case brought on by parents arguing the iOS freemium model, i.e. in-app purchases, allowed children to easily rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars. Today, Law360 (via GigaOM) reported Apple has agreed to pay a settlement and will be contacting 23 million iTunes users that “made a Game Currency purchase in one or more Qualified Apps.”

According to the report, Apple will pay $5 in iTunes credit to those who claim in-app content was purchased by a minor without their permission. For purchases above $30, users will be able to request a full refund. However, credits will likely not get to users until early 2014 when the settlement meets regulatory approval:
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