Apps

[slideshow]

On top of a few great game deals, including savings on Shift 2 Unleashed for iPad and the Mass Effect Infiltrator iOS app, there are  a number of noteworthy apps and updates hitting the App Store today. We will update the list, as always, throughout the day.

Things 2.0: One of the leading iOS and Mac productivity apps was updated today to version 2.0 with a ton of new features. Included in the update is “Things Cloud”. It is a cloud service that syncs your to-dos across Macs and the iOS client. A new Daily Review feature makes important to-dos appear when you need them, and a “revolutionary scrolling Date Picker makes selecting dates more natural than ever.” The UI has also been updated along with a new engine that provides “blazingly fast Things Cloud performance.” These and other new features and improvements are included in the Things for iPad app.

Things 2.0 (Mac App Store): In addition to free updates to the iOS versions of Things, the Mac App Store client was updated today to version 2.0. The update includes the “Things Cloud” service mentioned above, allowing you to sync across platforms, while other new features include a “Daily Review” that presents important to-dos for the day, full Mountain Lion support, Retina graphics, full-screen mode, a number of other enhancements.

Pixelmator version 2.1: Popular image editor Pixelmator was updated on the Mac App Store today with a much needed Retina-ready UI and image-editing engine, iCloud support to keep projects up to date on multiple machines, as well as a new effects browser containing “new Vintage, Miniaturize, Black and White, Rain, and Snow effects.” Also included in the update is full OS X Mountain Lion support and alignment guides to “quickly position, align, and evenly distribute objects in your Pixelmator compositions with pinpoint accuracy.”

Tweetdeck version 1.5.3: Today’s massive update to the popular Mac Twitter client brings a slew of user-interface enhancements such as the ability to use the Columns button to quickly jump to any position. Users can also navigate the arrow buttons to scroll left and right several columns at a time, use swipe gestures on the trackpad to scroll, access key user and Tweet actions from the new actions menu, and fit more columns on screen by enabling Narrow Columns in Settings. The update also boasts improved animations for tweets and column management, performance improvements, and many bug fixes.

Pomodorable version 1.0: Released on the Mac App Store today, Pomodorable is a task management app that its developers said takes a “fresh approach to managing to do lists” by taking full advantage of Notification Center, Notes, Reminders, and other Mountain Lion features. While at first glance it might appear to compete with Things, the app actually includes support for Things and OmniFocus. It allows you to view tasks from those apps within the Pomodorable, and the app is 50 percent off for a limited time following today’s launch.

PDF Expert version 4.2: Readdle’s PDF Expert app was updated recently with a new “Presentation Mode” that allows you to connect an iPad to a projector ” and make interactive non-linear presentations” with content from PDFs, videos, and images. The update also includes live annotation tools, new annotation colours, and a number of other improvements.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Pulse has been one of the iTunes App Store premier news readers for the past couple of years. The mobile application started its life on the iPad, a device that is reinventing mobile news consumption, and then it was soon re-built for the iPhone, iPod touch, and Android devices.

While iOS device hardware is optimized for convenient news reading, the hardware requires great software to truly create a great news reading experience. Pulse has always fulfilled that with its wonderful and graphical tile-based interface. Users are able to slide their news stories and organize news sources conveniently.

The experience on iOS and Android touchscreen devices has been well-received but Pulse users have been asking for a version of Pulse for computers.

Pulse has come up with a great solution that is not exclusive like a downloadable app. Instead, it is a fully featured web application. Read on for all of the details:

Expand
Expanding
Close

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ax1gMhKvMo]

Sing! version 1.0.1: The developers of popular iOS music apps “AutoRap”,”Ocarina”, and “I Am T-Pain have just released its latest social sing-along experience with the new Sing! app. Smule described the app as a “global karaoke party.” The app allows you to select from a large collection of songs, record your karaoke version, and share the results with friends and other users in a format similar to Ocarina and the developer’s other apps.

Features:
-Connect with your friends by giving & receiving comments and likes.
-Share your performances with the community through the globe.
-Join other songs for free and make it a duet or group song!
-Enhance your voice with special voice effects: Pop, Vintage, or SupaTune.
-Easy sharing to the outside community via Facebook.
-And much more!

FlightTrack Free: The developers of FlighTrack, the top-grossing travel app for the last four years, announced today that it would make a free version available to all users starting tomorrow. The free version will also be accompanied by a huge update that includes a redesigned UI with integrated flight maps and details, zoomable maps, and full international coverage for over 1400 airlines. In terms of what is different in the free version, you will not be able to sync with TripIt. However, a full comparison of FlightTrack features is below. The new app will be available for free starting tomorrow in the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Popular gaming marketplace Steam is ready to be the third major desktop application store, next to Apple’s App Store and Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 store. Valve, the parent company of Steam, announced in a press release this afternoon the arrival of new non-gaming software on its store that will launch Sept. 5. It is a certain step away from its years of focusing on just gaming. Steam will offer apps ranging from “creativity to productivity,” and they will be organized into categories, as shown off in a leaked screenshot above of Steam’s iOS app from June. Steam will also include its Steamworks feature in the store. It allows for automatic updating of apps and the ability to save data to the Steam Cloud. [Joystiq]

Expand
Expanding
Close

The word “torrent” always received a bit of a negative connotation, especially thanks to illegal file-sharing services that make copyrighted material, such as movies, music and software, available for free. The act of torrenting is legal, however, as long as you are downloading content that is not copyrighted. Internet Archive, which tries to bring “universal access to all knowledge,” made available over 1 million torrents. It includes a large collection of films, live music concerts, books, and old time radio that are all legal to download. The organization explained why it chose BitTorrent as a means of delivery:

Expand
Expanding
Close

[tweet https://twitter.com/jack/status/233212527398490113]

In an announcement on Square’s website today, CEO Jack Dorsey announced Starbucks signed up to accept payments from customers through the Pay with Square iOS app via Square’s iPhone credit card readers and merchant app. Dorsey also confirmed functionality would roll out to nearly 7,000 Starbucks locations soon, while Starbucks locations will be added to the Square Directory. The Square Directory will also soon be accessible from a number of Starbucks platforms including the Starbucks Digital Network and mobile payment app. Starbucks announced in its own press release that it would invest $25 million in Square, while Starbucks’ chairman, president, and CEO, Howard Schultz, will join Square’s board of directors. On top of credit cards, Starbucks will use Square to handle debit payments, which the company said would reduce overall payment processing costs.

Beginning this fall, in addition to the existing iPhone® and Android™ Starbucks mobile payment applications, Starbucks customers will be able to use Pay with Square to pay for their purchases at participating company operated Starbucks locations in the U.S. Customers simply need to download the Pay with Square application and set up an account on their iPhone® or Android™ device.

More than two-thirds of the 27 million small businesses in the U.S. currently do not accept credit or debit cards, in large part because of the expensive interchange fees associated with payment processing, cumbersome application process and required credit checks. Square enables merchants of any size – from sole proprietors to national retailers – to accept credit and debit cards.

Other than the notable apps and updates below, developers of Shazam, the “9th most downloaded app of all time,” announced today its song recognition service has been used to identify over 5 billion songs. The five billionth tagged song on Shazam was “Blow Me One Last Kiss” by Pink. Head below for our full list of new apps and updates hitting the App Store today:

Sparrow for Mac version 1.6.3: Sparrow’s Mac App Store app was updated today with a number of performance enhancements and fixes. A full list of what’s new in version 1.6.3 is below:

– improved performance when loading huge conversations
– URL in subject can be clicked
– date and subject in headers can be selected
– improved avatar in message cells
– improved IMAP compatibility
– brazilian localization
– fixed progress indicator in message view
– fixed crash when loading some HTML messages
– fixed crash with POP accounts fixed

Spotify version 0.5.4: Spotify received a decent update today that brings the ability to show more stations for iPad users, fixes login issues for Facebook users, and adds stability improvements.

The New Yorker Magazine: Previously only available as an iPad app, The New Yorker is now bringing all of its magazine content to the iPhone with a new universal app available on the App Store now. To celebrate the release of the iPhone version, you will be able to get the Aug. 13 and Aug. 20 issues completely free (old issues are not accessible on the iPhone app).
Expand
Expanding
Close

Earlier today, Apple released iOS 6 beta 4 that notably drops the Google-backed YouTube application and adds some tweaks. The iOS 6 3D Maps application is one of the highlight features of the upcoming iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch operating system, so we’ve been combing the app for newly supported 3D regions. We’ve found that Apple has added some new incredible 3D views for new major cities both in the U.S. and abroad. Here are the major new 3D cities we’ve found:

United States: Boston, Atlanta, Portland, Phoenix, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas.

Canada: Toronto.

Europe: Lyon, France; Birmingham, UK; Manchester, UK.

Previous iOS 6 releases, beginning with the beta 1 release in mid-June, include several other cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, Memphis, Denver, Copenhagen, Montreal, San Francisco and the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, and Sacramento. Apple’s iOS 6 3D mapping technology was inherited with the company’s 2011 acqusition of a company called C3 Technologies. C3 also produced 3D data for London, Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Toronto, Venice, Oslo, and Vienna so perhaps we will see those cities added soon.

See our full gallery of the new 3D cities after the break: 

Expand
Expanding
Close

iOS 6 beta 4 has removed the YouTube application that existed on iOS since the first version in 2007. We’re not entirely sure what to make of this, but this could have to do with Apple trying to break away from dependence on Google services. iOS 6 drops Google Maps in favor of Apple’s own 3D Maps program. We’re looking into this. Of course, this just could be a bug or an error for this beta. YouTube is gone from the iPhone and iPad, but it is still present on the Apple TV (below).

After we broke this major news, Apple confirmed to The Verge that YouTube is gone from iOS 6. Google is apparently building its own app.

Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.

A YouTube rep told us:

We are working with Apple to ensure we have the best possible YouTube experience for iOS users.

Also, the ability to upload video to YouTube from iOS 6 beta 4 is still present.

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.

Expand
Expanding
Close

[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]

Expand
Expanding
Close

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:

Expand
Expanding
Close

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