iOS 7

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• iCloud
• App Store
• update
• app

Clear iOS apps updated with support for iOS 7’s Background Refresh

The popular Clear productivity apps for iOS have been updated today with support for Apple’s Background Refresh feature new in iOS 7. That means your lists in Clear will now update more often, refreshing from iCloud in the background so they’re always up to date across all of your devices running Clear.

The update is available for the $1.99 Clear app for iPhone and the $4.99 Clear+ for iPhone and iPad now. Developer Realmac Software also teased that it’s working on other big new features for a future update:

We’re hard at work on some great new features for Clear – and today we’re releasing a small update to Clear and Clear+ to take advantage of a great new iOS 7 feature: Background Refresh.

iOS 7 launches your most frequently-used apps in the background throughout the day, allowing them to refresh their data. This means that, with today’s update, Clear will refresh your lists from iCloud to ensure they’re always up to date on all your devices.

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• iPad
• App Store
• update
• app

NBA Game Time apps updated for 2013-14 season w/ iOS 7 redesign, new free content, and much more

The NBA Game Time apps for both iPhone and iPad have been updated today with a redesign for iOS 7 alongside full support for the 2013-2014 regular season and new content for both free and paid subscribers.

On top of the redesign pictured in the screenshots above, the apps add home and away broadcasts for every game and archives for each nationally broadcast game for those that have an NBA League Pass. It also adds new content for free users, however, including the Game Recaps, Team Video, Player Statistics, Team Rosters, and Team Statistics features previously only available to paid users.

Version 5.1 of NBA Game Time also includes alerts for live streaming videos and push notifications for League Pass subscribers.

NBA Game Time is available for free from the App Store now as separate downloads for iPhone and iPad.

What’s New in Version 5.1

Redesigned and Optimized for iOS7

Full support for the 2013-2014 NBA regular season

NBA League Pass subscribers will now be able to enjoy both the home and away TV broadcasts from every game.

NBA League Pass subscribers will now be able to enjoy archives from each nationally broadcast game.

Game Recaps from every game now free.

Team Video from every team now free.

Player Statistics, Team Rosters, and Team Statistics now free.

Live Video alerts let you know when we’re streaming press conferences and events live.

League Pass Push Notifications now let NBA League Pass users know when games they can watch get exciting.

Many performance improvements.

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• iOS 7
• Dropbox
• Boxie

Boxie Dropbox iPhone app gains passcode lock, smart text selection & folder-by-folder sorting

Boxie, a new Dropbox client that was launched last week, is already receiving significant updates to make this an even more powerful alternative to the Dropbox app.

Boxie version 1.1 has a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements and optimizations. The update fixes issues with deleting items and offline access. It also adds support for more language including Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, German, and Portuguese. The new version introduces new error notifications when uploading items into a shared folder fails. It also adds automatic smart selection of text when renaming folders.

New folder-by-folder sorting options let Boxie remember your sorting settings for each folder rather than the app as a whole, allowing you to use customized views in each folder without having to change the view every time you change the folder. Last but not least is an important security setting that allows you to set a passcode to open Boxie, complete with customizable time interval settings and the ability to securely wipe local data.

If you have not tried Boxie yet, check out our in-depth review to learn more about all the features and benefits. Boxie is available in the App Store for $2.99.

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• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• Facebook
• iOS 7
• Skype
• IM + Pro 7

Popular universal IM app IM+ Pro redesigned for iOS 7, adds sync & typing status

IM + Pro 7,a feature-rich messenger app, has been redesigned to reflect iOS 7’s user-interface style. Today’s update also adds several new features and become a universal app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

It allows users free texting, sending photos, videos and voice messages. It supports a dozen IM services including Skype, Facebook, Twitter DM, AIM, iChat, ICQ, MSN, LiveMessenger, Jabber, Yahoo, Google Talk, and MySpace. It supports Group Chats in Skype, AIM, ICQ and Neighbors.

New features include setting up multiple accounts per service, typing notifications, iCloud sync and beep mobile-to-mobile messenger alerts. If you forget your iOS device at home, you are always able to log on from a computer using their website. IM + Pro 7 is available in the App Store for $4.99.

• AAPL Company
• iOS 7
• Adam Young
• Owl City

Owl City’s Adam Young reveals himself as creator of iOS 7’s sounds (Update:removed)

According to his discography page, Owl City founder and singer Adam Young is the creator of iOS 7’s sounds. While the visual design changes are most evident in the new operating system, another noticeable change is how most of the regular sounds are revamped and a slew of new ring and text tones are included. Even before Young was revealed as the creator, many noted how the sounds seemed like Owl City’s style:

It is uncertain if Young created all of the tones and sounds, but his involvement in the development alongside Apple has now been made public.

Thanks Rahul!

[youtube=http://youtu.be/OU-5XZNh38w]

Update: This entry has removed from Young’s list, likely at Apple’s request.

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• Google
• update
• app
• video

YouTube for iOS updated with ability to choose video quality on Wi-Fi, iOS 7 improvements

YouTube has updated its app for iPhone and iPad today to version 2.2.0 and with it comes a few performance enhancements and new features.

One highly requested feature that YouTube is making available in the latest version of the iOS app is the ability to select video quality, much like you can on the full desktop website, while over WiFi.

The updated app also includes improvements for iOS 7 compatibility and Accessibility.

What’s New in Version 2.2.0

* Choose your video quality while on Wi-Fi
* Accessibility improvements
* iOS 7 compatibility improvements

• iOS Devices
• iPhone
• Apple News
• iPhone 5s
• iPhone 5c

Apps crashing twice as often on iPhone 5s as on other models

Apps running on the iPhone 5s crash twice as often as the same apps on other models, according to data released by app performance monitoring company Crittercism (via AtD).

The usual rate for app crashes on iPhones is a little under 1 percent, while the rate on the iPhone 5s is closer to 2 percent.

Levy said that perhaps the reason that the iPhone 5s is seeing more crashes than the equally new iPhone 5c is that, while developers were able to check their apps for compatibility with iOS 7 during several months of beta testing, the new hardware wasn’t available ahead of time. The iPhone 5s packs a new 64-bit A7 chip and an M7 coprocessor, while the 5c is nearly identical internally to the iPhone 5 […]

“The good news is that Apple is certainly aware of issues. they’ve pushed out two iOS updates for iOS 7… Apple is doing a really old job of addressing these issues as they come up.”

Reports of bluescreen issues are still making the news (video below), despite the iWork bug having been fixed in 7.0.1. The current version is 7.0.2, and 7.0.3 is expected soon.
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• How-to
• iPod touch
• iOS 7
• Notification Center
• notifications

How-to: Customize and use Notification Center in iOS 7

Notification Center in iOS is a panel that keeps track of all of your incoming notifications so you can easily access them. It has been around since iOS 5, but it has been completely redesigned in iOS 7. In this article, you’ll discover how to increase enjoyment of your iOS device by customizing Notification Center. First, you’ll learn how to change the way certain apps show notifications. Then you will learn how to set Notification Center to show only the notifications you want in a customized view.

First, there are a few important settings you’ll want to pay attention to. On your iOS device go to Settings, Notification Center and scroll down to the bottom. Confirm that under Government Alerts, both AMBER and Emergency Alerts are ON. Both of these settings are optional, but they are potentially life saving…

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• Apps
• iOS 7
• Nuance
• voice recognition
• text-to-speech

Review: Popular translator app iTranslate gets reimagined for iOS 7

The popular language translation app iTranslate has been completely reimagined for iOS 7. Just like iOS 7, the app is heavily gesture-based. Because the new version features so many new gestures, a tutorial has been added that walks users through all of the new ways to interact with their translations.

At first glance, iTranslate does not feel as intuitive or as easy to use as the previous version. It takes a while to get acclimated to the changes, and to understand how to properly trigger the gestures, which can be a bit difficult at first. For example, when swiping, you have to swipe to the point where you will see the grey color transition to blue (for a shorter swipe), or purple (for a longer swipe) before the appropriate action will be triggered.

After going through the tutorial, the default languages are set to American English, and Spanish. Tapping on either English or Spanish pulls up the keyboard and you can type the text you want translated.

iTranslate supports text-to-speech, so that you can hear how the translation sounds. You can activate this feature using a swipe gesture. The user can choose from male and female versions of several dialects and adjust the speaking rate. Just tap on the countries’ flag to access the voice options and switch between languages.

iTranslate is available for free in the App Store for new and existing users. There is an in-app purchase for $4.99 that unlocks several premium features, which include removal of the ads at the bottom of the screen, voice recognition, and romanization (the option to convert other writing systems into Roman characters;  an example of this would be converting 你好 into Nǐ hǎo). Voice recognition is powered by Nuance and automatically recognizes forty different languages and dialects regardless of which languages the text input is set to.

iTranslate is a very powerful tool, and I would recommend it for those who are traveling overseas or simply as a supplemental tool for learning a new language.

• iOS Devices
• iPhone
• Apple News
• Smartphone
• iOS 7

The perfect gift for British gadgeteers: the iKettle

We Brits are famous for the copious amounts of tea we drink (as well as for the fact that we drink it with milk, a habit which puzzles us as much as it does the rest of the world). But who has time to stand around your kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil? A problem neatly solved by the iKettle.

Simply use your iPhone to switch the kettle on from wherever you are in the house, and it will alert you when it’s boiling. Wander through to the kitchen, and you can be drinking tea within seconds. Loose-leaf Earl Grey, naturally.

The app also offers to put the kettle on as soon as your iPhone comes within wifi range when you’re arriving home. All terribly civilised.

Ok, it’s $160/£99, and only available on pre-order for delivery in 1-2 months, but if I didn’t already use a Wemo plug to switch on my kettle from my home-office, I’d be seriously tempted …

• Apps & Updates
• Apps
• update
• iOS 7
• UI
• infuse

FireCore announces Infuse 2 with new design coming this fall, 1.5 update available today

FireCore, the makers of the popular aTV Flash Apple TV software announced today that their media player application Infuse will be receiving a substantial update this fall as it hits version 2.0, with a completely new UI to match iOS 7’s design aesthetic, many new Pro features, and more.

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