update

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Pocket, the popular app that allows users to save articles and read them later, has received an update that adds another way to consume saved articles. Announced in a blog post, Pocket for iOS now supports Listen, the company’s popular text-to-speech feature that was previously available only on Android.

Listen is a way for users to consume their news hands-free. The feature offers the ability to start listening from anywhere in the article, skip portions you aren’t interested in, and adjust the reading speed to be either faster or slower. Perhaps most notably, Listen is available in all languages.

Today, we’re excited to bring Listen, our Text-to-Speech feature, to iOS. It’s the hands-free way of returning to everything you’ve saved in Pocket. You can start listening from anywhere in the article, skip paragraphs with ease, and adjust the reading speed for when you want to fly through an article or let it slowly soak in. Plus, it has automatic language detection, making Listen available in all languages.

To access Listen, simply open up an article, tap the three dots in the lower right corner, and choose the Listen option. Download the latest version of Pocket for iOS from the App Store now.

Apple releases new, faster, iPod touch with 8MP camera and 128 GB option, new Nano/Shuffle colors

Benjamin Mayo Jul 15 2015 - 7:59 am PT

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As we reported this morning, Apple has today launched a new version of the iPod touch, featuring a 64-bit A8 CPU. This breaks a long run of neglect for Apple’s cheapest iOS device, which last received an update way back in 2012. It will be a huge leap in performance over the previous iPod touch which featured an A5 SoC. Both the front and back cameras have been improved, with the back shooter now featuring 8 megapixels of resolution.

The new iPod touch is also available for the first time in gold matching the iPhone and iPad in addition to new dark blue and pink case options. The iPod touch is also getting a storage bump at least at the higher end — there is now a $399 128 GB model. The base $199 iPod touch remains the same with 16 GB of onboard storage, the 32 GB model is $249 and the 64 GB version is $299.

There are also updates to the iPod shuffle and iPod nano, although these are merely cosmetic changes to fascia of the products. The shuffle and nano now come in dark blue, pink and gold variants.

Here’s everything new in the latest iOS 9, El Capitan, and watchOS betas

Chance Miller Jul 8 2015 - 1:34 pm PT

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Apple earlier today began rolling out the third betas of iOS 9, watchOS 2, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan and we’ve been digging into each of them, trying to figure out what is new, changed, and improved. Most of the changes come on the iOS 9 and watchOS 2 side of things, with the new OS X 10.11 beta focusing mainly on under-the-hood changes. Read on for all of the changes…

Apple releases watchOS 2 beta 3 to developers

Chance Miller Jul 8 2015 - 10:04 am PT

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Apple today has released the third beta of watchOS 2 to developers. The company released the second beta of the operating system two weeks ago after officially unveiling it at WWDC at the beginning of last month. Today’s new beta carries the build number 13S5293f. watchOS 2 includes support for native applications and beta 3 of the software will allow developers to continue testing their applications with direct access to local sensors, the Digital Crown, and the device’s processor.

Fleksy keyboard gets new features & themes as app goes free indefinitely

Jordan Kahn Jul 8 2015 - 7:28 am PT

After around seven million downloads of its popular third-party keyboard app, Fleksy is today announcing that its mobile apps will be completely free for all going forward.

The company was originally charging $4 for the app but had dropped the price to $1 and even made the app free temporarily a couple times in the past. Starting today, however, Fleksy says its apps for both iOS and Android will be free forever.

For everyone that has paid for the app and feels left out, Fleksy is offering a free gift that it says is worth $8 to make up for it. The in-app download includes a selection of new themes and extensions, which also arrive with today’s update. While the app is going free for all to download and use, the company will continue offering premium themes and extensions as paid in-app purchases.

In addition to going free, the company highlighted some other new features and improvements arriving today:

Going free is not the only big update today. We also launched an improved rich content view called Highlights. Meaning, Fleksy will better assist with GIF, sticker and other content discovery based on what you type. Instead of manually searching for stickers and GIFs on separate pages, now you’ll only need to tap on the auto-recommended hashtag (Highlight) and Fleksy will take you to an integrated page of relevant content all in one convenient place.

The Fleksy Keyboard app for iPhone and iPad is available on the App Store now. A full list of what’s included in the update below:

What’s New in Version 6.0

*Note: Please update to the latest version of iOS 8 to fix key known issues with custom keyboards and improve your Fleksy experience.

Featuring:
• 5 new themes for summertime!
• Consolidated GIF and Imoji extensions to a single bar. Smarter search, more results, all in one view. And just pull down to bring back the keypad!
• Fleksy will now highlight 3 keywords at a time. Easier to get to that perfect GIF or sticker.
• Ever want more Hotkeys? You can now add multiple Hotkey extensions!
• Major language improvements
• Updated Extension tab UI in the container app for easier browsing
• Optimizations for GIF and Imoji Sticker quality

Fixed:
• Fixes for autocorrect capitalizing letters incorrectly for some languages
• Autocorrect on/off Button not showing on spacebar sometimes
• Various other bug fixes and performance improvements

VoiceOver Updates:
• Gesture: swipe down with two fingers to Return (while in Minimal mode)
• “New Line” announced on Return
• Feedback on Shift and Delete buttons
• “No more text to delete” announced when there’s nothing left to delete
• Improved accuracy

Instagram rolling out support for high-res images on iOS and Android

Stephen Hall Jul 6 2015 - 12:28 pm PT

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Instagram has announced today that it is rolling out support for higher resolution 1080 x 1080 pixel images. This doubles the previous upload resolution of 640 x 640 pixels, and you’ll probably notice very soon that the photos in your stream are looking a bit crisper.
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The Logic Pros: How to create Retro Synth patches with custom wavetables and multi-voice stacking

Justin Kahn Jul 5 2015 - 2:18 pm PT

The Logic Pros-Retro Synth-01 In this week’s episode of The Logic Pros, we will take one final look at some of the new additions to Logic Pro X 10.1. We have already gotten a taste of a number of very helpful new features including custom plug-in menus, Track Stacks, the Brush Tool and the powerful new Drummer features, but today Retro Synth is on tap.

While Logic already had a number of classic synth-inspired virtual instruments like ES1, 2 and more, we are talking about instruments that have been around for 10 years+. A serious breath of fresh air for Logic users, Retro Synth (RS) wraps all the major synthesis disciplines of yesteryear – classic subtractive, hard sync, FM and more – into one, neatly packaged virtual instrument. Not only does RS standup to many of the basic analog synth emulations out there, but the LPX 10.1 wavetable updates just put it toe-to-toe with many of the $200+, third-party flagships:
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Apple Pay expected to go live in the U.K. on July 14th, £20+ transactions starting this fall

Mark Gurman Jul 4 2015 - 10:30 am PT

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Apple appears to be planning to enable its Apple Pay iPhone mobile payments service in the United Kingdom on July 14th, according to sources at multiple retailers. Apple has informed some Apple Retail employees in the U.K. that Apple Pay support will go live on that Tuesday, while an internal memos for supermarket Waitrose plus an additional retail partner indicate the same date…

SoundCloud iOS app adds ‘play related tracks’, shuffle for likes & playlists, more

Jordan Kahn Jul 2 2015 - 7:07 am PT

Popular music sharing app SoundCloud is getting an update on iOS that brings a number of new features to make for a better overall listening experience.

Among the new features, users can now select to ‘play related tracks’ from anywhere in the app: “let our improved algorithm create an endless stream of similar content from the 100 million tracks on SoundCloud. As easy as tapping Play Related Tracks.”

Another new feature that offers an improved listening experience is a Shuffle button for both your created playlists and songs you’ve liked. Here’s how you can shuffle tracks from within a playlist:

The updated app also gets a few other welcomed tweaks including the ability to add or remove tracks from playlists from within the app, and a new option to repost and share tracks from your liked tracks or from within search.

The updated app, version 3.1.0.0, is available on the App Store now.

Hands-on with Apple Music (Video)

Dom Esposito Jun 30 2015 - 2:58 pm PT

39 Comments

Today we’re taking a quick look at Apple Music. This new service came along with the iOS 8.4 update and effectively merges Beats Music with a new streaming service from Apple. The good news is, Apple Music will also be available for Android and Apple TV as well later this fall. Everyone also gets a 3 month free trial in case you’re on the fence about subscribing to the service right away…

SoundHound iOS app adds Apple Music integration for listening, Beats 1 promotion

Jordan Kahn Jun 30 2015 - 11:57 am PT

6 Comments

SoundHound, a popular sound recognition app for detecting and searching for songs and other audio clips, today gets an update that brings integration with the just launched Apple Music streaming service.

With the updated SoundHound app landing today, users will now get an “Apple Music Listen Now” link to listen to a song on the streaming service (when available) through the home screen, song pages, and throughout the app.

Other competitive apps, such as Shazam, have already updated with similar functionality. The apps previously only linked users to purchase songs through iTunes and other services, but also promote competitive streaming services for listening such as Spotify and Rdio. For SoundHound, users will find an Apple Music streaming link next to songs through various features, including: music identification, personalized History, Top Charts, or Music Maps.

Interestingly, SoundHound will also be promoting Apple Music’s Beats 1 live radio station:

SoundHound is also showcasing Apple Music’s new global radio streaming station Beats 1. Users will see a “Beats 1 Radio” row within song pages, enabling easy, one-tap access to listen to the streaming radio broadcast, which features various artists hosting programs and full-time DJs, led by ex-BBC host Zane Lowe.

You can grab SoundHound on the App Store now.

Tweetbot for Mac 2.0.1 brings Twitter’s new ‘quote tweet’ feature, bug fixes

Mike Beasley Jun 22 2015 - 11:37 am PT

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The first update for Tweetbot 2 on OS X has been released, bringing promised support for Twitter’s new “quote tweet” feature along with a bevy of bug fixes, including one for a particularly nasty bug that could crash the app while creating a new mention, and another related to uploading a profile photo.

The app also speeds up the process of changing accounts and introduces support for longer direct messages, which will be available as soon as Twitter flips the switch on that feature in the near future.

You can grab Tweetbot 2.0.1 from the Mac App Store for free if you bought an previous version of the app. For new users it’s available at the reduced price of $12.99.

Apple releases OS X 10.10.4 build 14E36b to public beta testers and developers

Chance Miller Jun 15 2015 - 3:09 pm PT

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yosemite

Apple today has released a new beta of OS X 10.10.4 to both developers and public beta users. Last week, Apple released the fifth OS X 10.10.4 beta, as well as the first beta of OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Today’s new OS X 10.10.4 beta carries the build number 14E36b and is available through the Mac App Store and Mac Developer Center.

Google Docs ‘Slides’ app updated with AirPlay and Chromecast support

Stephen Hall Jun 11 2015 - 10:51 am PT

Show up, don't set up: Google Slides supports Chromecast and AirPlay - YouTube 2015-06-11 12-28-44

Google announced today that it updated its Slides app, available for Android and iOS, to both support Google Cast and AirPlay. The update comes following the announcement of the Remote Display API that Google showed off at its I/O developers conference at the end of June, which allows developers to present more intricate applications and games on a remote screen.
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This song is actually a pretty good roundup of the WWDC keynote (Video)

Stephen Hall Jun 9 2015 - 1:14 pm PT

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♫ WWDC Keynote 2015: Went On Too Long - YouTube 2015-06-09 14-55-24

Jonathan Mann has been running his “Song a Day” YouTube channel for quite some time now, and without fail, you can navigate to his channel on the day of an Apple event and find yet another song-ified version of Apple’s announcements. He’s a self-proclaimed Apple fanboy, and he was the guy that wrote the song played during the opening to the Antennagate press conference.
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Imgur for iOS updated w/ ability to upload images on the go

Chance Miller Jun 2 2015 - 6:00 am PT

In addition to launching an all-new Android app this morning, Imgur has also updated its iOS app with a notable and highly requested new feature. With today’s update to Imgur for iOS, users can now upload their own images to the service with the app directly on their iPhone. Users have the ability to upload from their Camera Roll or take an image with their camera from within the app and share it to the service.

Chromecast iOS app updated w/ interface tweaks, backdrop enhancements, more

Chance Miller May 22 2015 - 6:17 pm PT

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The companion app to Google’s $35 Chromecast dongle received an update today with a handful of improvements and changes. Bumping the app to version 1.11.4116, the update brings several interface tweaks. First off, the devices view of the app has been redesigned with a card-like interface. The devices screen also now lists what backdrop is currently being displayed along with casting status.

Apple Store app on iOS updated w/ support for Touch ID & two-step verification

Chance Miller May 21 2015 - 3:39 pm PT

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After being updated with support for Apple Watch last month, the Apple Store app on iOS has been updated today with a pair of highly requested features. With today’s update, which bumps the app to version 3.3, users can now use Touch ID to view orders, access EasyPay receipts, and make reservations at retail locations.

Apple begins adding Apple Watch support to its IBM enterprise apps

Jordan Kahn May 21 2015 - 7:25 am PT

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Apple today updated its webpage for its enterprise app solutions to show that a few of the apps have been updated with Apple Watch support. Apple first launched the MobileFirst for iOS solutions last year through a partnership with IBM and most recently added 9 new apps in March bringing the total up to 22 across several industries.

The first three of Apple’s enterprise apps to receive Apple Watch support include: Hospital RN, Field Connect and Incident Aware.
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Video On Demand content comes to mobile Twitch app in latest update

Stephen Hall May 20 2015 - 1:14 pm PT

EmailVODS

Twitch announced today that its mobile application now supports video on demand content, a feature that has been requested by fans of the service for quite some time. While the app was previously limited to live streaming, users can now access “highlights and past broadcasts” from all Twitch partners and what Twitch says is a growing list of broadcasters whose videos are HTTP live streaming (HLS)-enabled.
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Feedly updated with Apple Watch support

Chance Miller May 14 2015 - 4:57 pm PT

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Joining the growing list of apps that support Apple Watch, Feedly this evening has rolled out an update to its iOS client that adds support for the device. The update, which bumps the app to version 27.0.2, allows users to read their feed of stories, save stories for later reading, and mark articles as read.

Sunrise Calendar on iOS adds new “Meet” keyboard to quickly schedule meetings

Chance Miller May 14 2015 - 4:15 pm PT

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Sunrise, the company behind the popular Mac and iOS calendar apps, today launched a new feature called Meet. Meet is not integrated how might expect, though. It’s actually a keyboard designed by Sunrise for quickly scheduling one-to-one meetings.