Remember the innocent joy of gaming in the 1990s? You can relive it this weekend, courtesy of two rereleases of forgotten console gems from the decade of Nirvana and dial-up internet.
Those are just two of the picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup. We’ve also got a great update to an iOS email client and a livestreaming app for Mac.
Check out our choices below.
Ulysses, one of the best writing apps on the Mac and iOS, just switched to subscription pricing. It’ll now cost you $5 per month, or $40 per year. This is fantastic news for Ulysses users. It means the app will generate enough income to support itself. And it minimizes the risk of the developers abandoning the app when the flow of new users dries to a trickle.
Yet despite this good news, the internet lost it mind after yesterday’s announcement of the pricing change. Currently the Ulysses blog is only serving a single post, the one detailing the change, because the traffic has been enough to collapse the servers. What happened?
Apple is being sued by 28 developers in China for allegedly breaching antitrust regulations. According to the complaint, Apple charged excessive fees and removed apps from the App Store without a proper explanation.
In the past, Cupertino said its guidelines for allowable apps are consistent across countries. The lawsuit comes as Apple expands its developer relations team in China.
Facebook has shut down Lifestage, a Snapchat clone designed to entice teens into using it for casual photo sharing.
The Lifestage app for iOS disappeared from the App Store earlier this week, less than a year after making its debut, and the social network has confirmed it is no more.
If you’ve ever found yourself enjoying the crashing sections of racing games more than, you know, the racing bits, Carmageddon: Crashers may be for you.
It’s essentially a version of the game chicken, in which two cars drive at one another, with one swerving out of the way at the last minute. Except that in this version, no-one swerves!
An empire-building, resource-trading, planet-colonizing strategy game in which you play a shared universe alongside thousands of other players is just one of the great App Store picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup.
We’ve also selected a nifty update to an augmented reality favorite, a fun crazy golf game, and new functionality for one of the best third-party iOS keyboards going. Check out our choices below.
Services have become such an important revenue stream for Apple in recent years that the company decided to update its official business strategy today reflect its expanding money making machine.
In a filing with the SEC, Apple made a couple of changes to the description of its business. It’s the first time a major change has been made to the strategy since around 2014.
Apple posted its second-highest Q3 earnings ever today, surprising investors with $45.4 billion in revenue powered by strong iPhone, iPad, Mac and services revenues.
CEO Tim Cook sounded pleased during Apple’s earnings call, but he wasn’t just looking back on the past three months. By the end of the call, Cook had analysts hyped for the future and upcoming Apple products.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from the Apple Q3 2017 earnings call.
Apple and Google have removed a total of 330 binary trading apps from their respective app stores, following intervention from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.
Australia’s securities regulator requested the removal of the apps based on fraud investigations, concerning certain apps which allow users to make bets about whether or not shares and currency will rise or fall. While some apps that do this are legitimate, others have been linked to scams.
Spotify has extended its lead on Apple Music when it comes to paid subscribers, according to a new report that claims the streaming music service has broken the 60 million threshold.
Google today rolled out a nice new Gboard update for iPhone, adding the ability to send drawings, Google Maps, and YouTube videos. The additions make the best third-party keyboard on iOS even better.
Apple is set to unveil its latest earnings report on Tuesday, and Wall Street analysts predict it will probably be the most boring earnings call of 2017.
This will likely be Apple’s last public announcement before it unveils the next generation of iPhones. Apple CEO Tim Cook might drop some hints on what to expect, and when, as investors look forward to Apple’s next big blockbuster quarter. As usual, Cult of Mac will be here liveblogging the entire event with all the analysis and wit we can muster.
Watch for these five things during the call:
Microsoft’s Word Flow keyboard for iPhone has been pulled from the App Store now that the company’s “experiment” is over.
The unique keyboard, which made its debut last April, was designed for one-handed typing on larger displays. Now Microsoft is advising fans to switch to SwiftKey instead.
A stunning minimalist iOS puzzle game, in which you must guide a beam of light through a network of pipes, is just one of the great App Store picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup.
We’ve also selected a great music-making app for iPhone and iPad, a smart Bluetooth device finder for tracking down your lost Apple Pencil, and an entertaining parkour endless runner. Check out our choices below.
Artificial intelligence is being used for some incredible things, but it’s not always helpful. A new iPhone app that promises to help you identify mushrooms using AI has been labeled “potentially deadly,” and experts say you should steer well clear of it.
A brilliant, sumptuously animated point-and-click mystery game is just one of the great App Store picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup.
We’ve also selected two major updates to big messaging apps, and a new “must have” app for Nintendo Switch owners. Check out our choices below.
Apple’s free Clips app for iOS just got even more fun!
A new update lets you add Disney and Pixar characters to your videos, and brings dozens of new graphic overlays and posters.
Ahead of launching Splatoon 2 this Friday, Nintendo has published its Nintendo Switch Online app in the iOS App Store.
While the features won’t be available prior to July 21, the app will allow users to carry out voice chat and access the SplatNet 2 portal, where it will be possible to view your game stats, buy extra gear, and invite friends to compete in battles.
Apple is making it easier for developers to interact with their customers by changing the rules concerning responses to App Store reviews.
Instead of being limited only to developers with admin access, Apple has now made it possible for the newly-created Customer Support developer roles to also respond to reviews posted on the Mac and iOS App Stores.
WhatsApp just rolled out a big update on iPhone that makes the world’s most popular messaging service even more useful.
Users can now pin chats to the top of their conversation list to make them easier to find, and share files of any kind with their friends and colleagues.
Apple has begun purging the App Store of third-party utilities that block ads and provide VPN connections. The company says that they do not comply with its Developer Guidelines due to the way in which they interfere with other iOS apps.
If you want to see how far artificial intelligence has advanced in the past few years, this week saw the release of an impressive AI image recognition app that can describe the world around you in natural language.
That’s just one of the picks we’ve highlighted for this week’s “Awesome Apps” roundup. We’ve also got a great new Street Fighter IV port, a brilliant photo-editor gone free, and a tremendous artistic puzzle game.
Check out our choices below.
Apple’s brand new App Accelerator in Bengaluru, India has only been open since March this year — but already it’s paying off.
According to developers who signed up to the Accelerator, they’re finding themselves with a major advantage over other local app-makers in being shown how to incorporate Apple’s latest tech. And it’s working out pretty well for Apple, too!
Apple has worked to make the iPhone a terrific camera, but sometimes you need a decent editing app to turn an average photo into a masterpiece. For a limited time, you can download the awesome Infltr (usually $1.99) for free through the Apple Store app.
Omnigroup launched Omnigraffle 3 for iOS today, and it looks like a fantastic update to the diagramming, chart-making, flow-chart-creating app. But that’s not nearly the most important thing about this release, because Omni may have changed the way paid software works on iOS, and may be making it possible for “expensive” pro-level apps to be viable on the cheap-o app store at last.