Apps

Our usual list of apps and updates is below kicking off with a couple notable updates from over the weekend to the Instapaper and vjay apps:

vjay version 1.0.1: One of the biggest updates today goes to algoriddim’s video-mixing vjay app that we introduced you to a couple of months ago. Included in version 1.0.1 is support for 1080p videos up to 30 FPS, new settings like Auto Repeat and Play Automatically, and improved MIDI support for both the ION iDJ 2 Go MIDI controller and Numark Mixdeck Quad.

Instapaper version 4.2.4: The iPhone and iPad Instapaper app received an update that includes improvements to dark-mode and link colors, pagination performance, and support for Chrome, Buffer, and iCab Reading List in the Share panel. A full list of what’s new is below:

– Improved pagination performance.
– Improved dark-mode colors and link colors. (More on that front soon.)
– Removed instapaper.com/z short URLs from all remaining Twitter sharing methods. Now that t.co URLs are supported by nearly all apps, custom short URLs are unnecessary and they only inconvenience Twitter readers, so they’re gone. Your links are yours and should have as few intermediaries as possible.
– Removed rarely-used “Print” feature.
– Added Buffer, Chrome, and the upcoming iCab Reading List to the Share panel.
– Added “Report a text problem” to article footers so customers can help improve Instapaper’s parsing of certain pages.
– Improved Pinboard login security to use their new token system instead of storing passwords.
– Made syncing even faster.
– Fixed bugs from the future.

Discovery Channel HD version 1.9: In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of Shark Week, the Discovery Channel app was just updated with an “interactive second screen experience, synchronized to select shows from Shark Week.”

Using ACR (automatic content recognition) technology, this deeper dive into Shark Week features exclusive photos, behind-the-scenes information, revealing production shots, interactive infographics, shark trivia and much more! 

Discovery Channel is offering Shark Week Plus exclusivity to iPad users each night of Shark Week from 9 to 10PM e/p, and Shark Week Bingo from 10-11PM e/p. Shark Week’s 25th anniversary begins Sunday, August 12.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmkYHZpel3Y&f]

Real Racing 3: EA officially announced the next title in its Real Racing series, which is now being handled by developer Firemonkeys (recent merger of Firemint and and IronMonkey), and also released the rather impressive announcement trailer above featuring pre-alpha footage. More info is coming later this year but there is additional Porsche footage on the game’s Facebook page if you can’t wait. A little bit of what to expect from Real Racing 3 below:

REAL CARS

Gamers will enjoy graphics that have been meticulously hand crafted to produce photorealistic visuals as they zoom around in cars from manufacturers like Porsche, Dodge and Audi.

REAL TRACKS

For the first time in the series, Real Racing 3 will also include a full lineup of real world tracks from the top names around the world including Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Silverstone. With a 22 car grid, gamers will be able to pit themselves against 21 other drivers in one race.

REAL RACING EXPERIENCE

Fans can experience the glory of championship racing on real tracks recreating the full race-day pressure and environment in a game that harnesses the full power of mobile hardware to produce a beautiful racing environment.

Twitter version 4.3.2: The Twitter iOS app was updated today with improved pull to refresh and infinite scroll “in enhanced events experience,” unfortunately we still await an update to the official Mac client while the Tweetbot for Mac alpha received a ton of new features in its latest update last night.

Wash Post version 2.0.0:The Washington Post’s official iPhone app received a big update today with a brand new design and tons of new features including live weather conditions, 7 day forecasts, weather alerts, real-time traffic updates, metro arrival times and schedules for the DC Metro area, and more. Also included is Retina display enhancements for all full links within articles, graphics, and galleries.

HopStop Transit Directions version 1.2.1: We told you about an update to the HopStop iPhone app for transit directions in NYC, Boston, Chicago, and San Fran, and today its app with support for 100’s of cities throughout the US, Canada, and Europe was updated with the London Underground map and support for the following new markets:

– Arrive by Directions and Schedules Search!

– New markets: Palm Springs, Burlington VT, Fresno, Missoula, Orlando

– London Underground map has been added

– Various bug fixes and improvements

Tweetbot for Mac alpha received a substantial update this evening. It brings new features that will allow users to have a Tweetdeck-like setup if they so choose. First spotted by The Next Web, Tweetbot for Mac now features the ability to pop out separate timeline windows and easily dock them together to create a Tweetdeck-like interface, notification improvements, and a new menu in the menu bar that allows you to manage signed-in accounts more easily and to compose a new tweet. To dock windows together, you first click the gear in the bottom right corner to open the timeline that you are currently viewing in another window. Once you have the windows you would like, you then touch the right edge of the windows together to dock them. As you can see in the screenshot above, I docked my timeline, favorites, and Twitter search into one big, Tweetdeck-like window. To ex-out of the Tweetdeck-like view, you simply grip the bottom of the window to pull and then exit out of the undesired window.

The next feature that has been added in 0.6.3 9 (alpha 4) is a new menu on OS X’s menu bar. The menu allows you to manage all of your Twitter accounts for viewing tweets, mentions, and direct messages. You can also easily compose a new tweet. Lastly, Tweetbot for Mac on OS X Mountain Lion now displays notifications from all of your Twitter accounts, whereas it previously only displayed notifications for the one you were viewing. Also, on Mountain Lion, you can now embed your location in a tweet.

Tweetbot for Mac is currently a free alpha on the Tapbots website. It is set to eventually reach the Mac App Store for a price, which will then include the awesome iCloud integration that Tweetbot for iPhone and iPad offers. With tonight’s update, Tweetbot for Mac is inching closer to being the best Twitter client of them all. You can view the release notes below.

[Tweetbot for Mac 0.6.3 via The Next Web]

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There are more than a few hardware camera kits and peripherals on the market that extend the capabilities of the iPhone’s built-in cam. We recently reviewed the Olloclip camera lens kit that provides three external lenses for iPhone 4S. Today we introduce you to another that has just been announced by Mophie and combos with a dedicated companion app for managing and sharing footage. According to Mophie, the goal of its new action sports “Outride” camera kit, which integrates a wide-angle lens with 170 degrees viewing angles and a waterproof, impact resistant casing, is to eliminate “the need for a dedicated device such as a GoPro or Contour camera.” The kit will also include several custom, quick-release mounts for attaching the device to a variety of sports equipment and capturing footage at various angles.

To go along with the camera kit, Mophie will also launch the Outride iOS app that provides users with a profile and the ability to capture and share footage with other users:

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A few days ago, 9to5Mac reported on Hiss, a system for pushing Growl messages to the Mountain Lion Notification Center. Near the end of that report, we noted Growl was also working on a similar update, and we are happy to bring a first look at that update today.

Read on to see what’s new

Today’s noteworthy apps and updates list kicks off with the recently released iPad version of iTranslate Voice. As always, we will update the list throughout the day as more apps hit the store…

iTranslate Voice HD: iTranslate Voice is a great new iPad app, as it is one of the most unique pieces of word translation software on the market. Instead of typing words into an app, you talk in your language, and then the app will respond in the language of your choice. The entire thing is powered by Nuance—the same company that powers Apple’s Dictation on the iPhone 4S, new iPad, and Mountain Lion computers. So you know it is reliable. We have used the app for a while, and it is super helpful and easy to use. For those who are not a fan of voice, text-based translations are available. Thirty-one languages work in the app in addition to word defining. Sharing is also present. We highly recommend this iPad app. An iPhone version has also been available for some time, and it recently received a big update with new gestures and languages.

Twittelator Neue version 2.1:The popular iPhone twitter client Twittelator Neue and Twittelator Free were both updated today with the following new features and improvements:

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Instagram announced earlier today that the popular Facebook-owned photo sharing service reached a whopping 80 million users who shared more than 4 billion photos total. These are impressive statistics, but it seems those 80 million users will have a more difficult time finding their Twitter friends’ Instagram profiles. Today’s Instagram update removed the option to lookup and follow friends from your Twitter profile. While this may seem like an oversight or bug on Instagram’s part, that is not the case.

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It looks like the biggest app update might go to the Google Earth iOS app due to reports that claim the new 3D maps feature Google demoed last month will roll out sometime today. Until then, below is our list of other apps and updates hitting the App Store:

Walking Dead: The Game: While Telltale has been teasing the iOS game for the hit TV series The Walking Dead, today we finally get our hands on the first “A New Day” episode available in the App Store for $4.99. The game requires iPad 2/iPhone 4 or later, and it will release episodes No. 2 through No. 5 via in-app purchases in the near future.

Angry Birds Space version 1.2.2: Both the iPhone and HD iPad versions of Rovio’s Angry Birds Space title were updated today with “the second half of Utopia.” It includes two new characters, 20 new levels, a “never-before-seen space egg,” and a “GIGANTIC” new boss fight.

SafePay version 1.2: Recently released on the App Store, SafePay is getting a lot of attention for its app designed to protect “cardholders and retailers against online payment fraud.” SafePay’s technology allows users to monitor transactions in real-time and verify purchases to protect against fraud—right from their iPhone. The company explained how the technology works:

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Growl is a notification app for OS X that predates the idea of Notification Center on OS X or iOS. I have used it for years, and it is supported by a vast majority of Mac apps, including high-profile ones like the official Twitter client. When OS X 10.8 was announced, many people assumed Growl was dead. Growl uses its own banners and a “Rollup” window (a place to collect missed notifications), so it seemed the overlap was too large and there would only be room for one notification system on OS X.

However, a new app called Hiss seeks to unify the two systems by putting your Growl notifications right into your Mountain Lion Notification Center. I played around with it today, and it seems to work pretty well. It grabs any incoming Growl messages and stops them, and then it replaces them with native OS X notification banners that stack up in Notification Center just as you would expect.

Hit the break for my full review

In late June, the New York Times reported that Facebook is working on re-writing the fundamental architecture of its iOS application in order to provide users with a faster, more reliable experience. The current Facebook app is often slow because it is built with an Objective-C shell with content being fed in through an embedded web browser known as a “web-view.” This faster app was described as being completely built from Objective-C. The NYT report claimed that the app would show up in July, though the month is nearing its end and the app is yet to be released.

Today, Bloomberg reports that Facebook’s faster application is indeed coming, but it will only show up in a “couple of months.” The report says that a complete overhaul – this faster app was previously said to retain the current app’s user-facing interface – of the Facebook iOS application is in the works for 2013. Perhaps most interestingly, the report says that former Apple engineers are spearheading the development of this app. In May, The NYT reported that Facebook is hiring multiple Apple employees to work on its products:

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We already had a number of updates to Apple’s own apps today, including iWork for iOS, Apple Remote Desktop, iTunes U, Xcode 4.4, Safari 6, and OS X Server, but below is our usual list of popular apps and updates hitting the store today:

Update: Apple has now updated its Podcasts app with the expected bug fixes. Release notes below:

What’s New in Version 1.0.1

Podcasts 1.0.1 provides a number of improvements, including:

• Significant improvements to performance and stability
• Podcasts in your library now show the number of unplayed episodes
• Top Stations now show the podcast title if artwork is missing
• Playback speed is now remembered when playing the next episode
• Fix for a problem where the Subscribe button is inactive
• Resolution of an issue where Top Stations artwork may not appear

Podcasts: If you have experienced issues with Apple’s Podcasts iOS app that released last month, as many have, you will be happy to know Apple plans to release an update today that brings a number of fixes to common bugs. According to a report from AllThingsD, “Apple has been hard at work tweaking the app to fix the problems that currently plague it” and the update expected today should “vastly improve it.” 

AutoCAD WS version 1.5: Autodesk’s app for viewing, editing, and sharing AutoCAD drawings on iOS devices was updated today with two new “powerful collaboration tools that transform design creation, review, and approval into a social experience.” The two features include:

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One of the big new features in OS X Mountain Lion is the Game Center. This Game Center is cross platform between OS X and iOS. Unfortunately, only a few compatible titles have made their way into Mac App Store for today’s launch. However, some of them are very notable. Some of our favorites include Real Racing 2, Sky Gamblers, and Cut the Rope.

Oh, and don’t forget about… Chess!

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