Apple has refunded Briton Lee Neale £4,000 ($6,131) after his 8-year-old daughter Lily spent the cash on virtual items in her favorite iPad game. Lily knew the password for her father’s iTunes account, but no one expected her to use it to rack up a huge bill on in-app purchases.
UPDATE: Lucky Frame has provided us with some updated stats: Gentlemen! now has over 6,000 players on Android, with just 50 paid downloads.
Gentlemen!, a brand new title from Scottish development studio Lucky Frame, made its debut on Android and iOS last week. It’s been a pretty big success so far, with plenty of acclaim from reviewers, a mention in a British newspaper, and thousands of players worldwide.
But it’s not all good news for Lucky Frame. You see, only 20 of the players on Android actually paid Gentlemen!’s $4.99 price tag, the company revealed to Cult of Android.
The other 3,000 stole it.
Some space geeks are calling today “The Day the Earth Smiled,” because the Cassini probe is set to take a picture of our planet as seen from Saturn later this afternoon. To honor this momentous occasion, the maker of astronomy software SkySafari is giving away basic versions for iOS and OS X (and discounting the Android version) through Sunday.
VLC made a comeback on iOS today, but if you didn’t get it within a few hours after it became available, then you’re out of luck, because it has disappeared again. But don’t worry — it hasn’t been pulled; an App Store issue is preventing it from being found.
We’ve seen lots of demand for BBM on Android and iOS since BlackBerry announced in May that the service would finally go cross-platform. And the Canadian company has promised us that the app will be here by the end of summer. But how long is BlackBerry’s summer?
According to one company executive, we could be waiting up until September.
The official Evernote app for iOS now allows you to mark up images, PDFs, and notes thanks to the Skitch integration added in its latest update today. The release also brings shortcuts, recent notes, the ability to submit support requests, and more.
If you like flight simulators, especially those of the more arcade variety, the Sky Gamblers series is a great place to start.
Originally published by Namco Bandai Games, the last couple of installments have come directly from California-based developer Atypical Games. Sky Gamblers: Cold War is, appropriately enough, set in the 1980s with all the weaponry and aircraft that implies. Your task will be to learn how to fly a Cold War-era fighter plane, head out on covert and not-so-covert ops, and blow stuff up. Sounds fun, right?
VLC for iOS is making a return to the App Store after a licensing dispute got the popular video player pulled from the App Store over two years ago.
The visual appearance of the app has remained fairly consistent to the old version from 2010. The app was completely rewritten and is much faster thanks to modern output modules for audio and video, and offers multi-core decoding and support for any video files available in VLC media player for desktop operating systems.
Not satisfied with the 100 million download whooping it laid down on the App Store and Google Play, Rovio is taking Angry Birds Star Wars to almost every major gaming console for a scheduled launch of October 29th, 2013.
You’ll be able to flick lightsaber-wielding birds across your HDTV’s screen to your heart’s delight on Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii, and the Nintendo 3DS. Rovio is adding 20 exclusive levels to the game, along with some cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes, to make things a little extra special for those wanting to conquer the galaxy again.
Here’s the trailer:
If you asked most people what the average price of an iPhone app is, they’d probably say $0.99. But nope. As of April, the average price of an iPhone app is even lower. Shockingly low, even: a mere $0.19. And iPad’s a little higher, but not by much.
We’ve all heard stories about children who spends hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of dollars in the App Store when their parents have their backs turned. But that’s not the only place they can spend money on your iOS device.
Paul Stoute of Oregon learned that the hard way when his 14-month-old daughter purchased a vintage car on eBay using his iPhone.
When the App Store celebrated its fifth birthday last week, Apple made a number of top iOS apps and games free. One of those was Infinity Blade II, and it was the first time the title had been given away since its release in November 2011.
So it’s hardly surprising it was a massive success. In just seven days, the sword-fighting action game had attracted 5.7 million new players, with 1.7 million of those getting the game on the first day the promotion went live.
This time on The CultCast: great apps go free for Apple’s 5th Appaversary; an updated Retina Macbook Pro is close at hand; iPad Mini COULD go retina; our favorite new iOS 7 beta 3 features; researchers know where you’ll take your iPhone next; Alex E. Heath loves Daughters; mini Kahney gets a birthday surprise; and guests hosts GWAR stop by! That last part’s a lie.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on this week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.
From today, Time Inc. is allowing Newsstand users to try its digital magazines before they buy them. You’ll be able to read a handful of articles from its latest magazines in full — as well as teasers for others — before you hand over any cash.
Chair Entertainment has confirmed that Infinity Blade: Dungeons, the third installment in the Infinity Blade franchise for iOS, has officially been canned.
Fans have been looking forward to the title since it was announced last March during an Apple iPad event, but its future has looked uncertain since the studio that was developing the game, Impossible Games, was closed back in February.
Deus Ex: The Fall came out yesterday, and the much-anticipated cyberpunk game was immediately met with lukewarm to mostly negative reviews for being a very bland game indeed. But that’s not the least of Deus Ex: The Fall’s problems. If you have a jailbroken device, the developers won’t let you play it at all… even if you’ve purchased it legally!
I’ll admit it. I really like buying things. I don’t like searching for them, or shopping per se, but I dig the heck out of wanting something, and then buying it. Go figure I end up a tech writer.
One of the ways I keep myself from overspending is to take pictures of items and store them on my iPhone. I do this a lot in book stores, where the number of new science fiction books I want far outstrips my ability to pay for them.
I use a Wishlist on Amazon, too, to track the stuff I want, perhaps later to actually purchase. Who knows?
In iOS 7 beta, you can add any apps you want to a new Wishlist feature, keeping the spending to a minimum, too. Here’s how.
Yahoo! has rolled out a new update to the Yahoo! Mail app for iOS that introduces support for multiple accounts and Yahoo! Small Business email.
Well, that’s exciting! Apple and Amazon have apparently settled their differences over who can use the “App Store” name, making it possible for one or both companies to use it in their business.
US District Judge, Phyllis Hamilton, ordered today that the case be dismissed, as requested by both Cupertino-based Apple and Seattle-based Amazon. The trial, originally scheduled for August 19, will no longer occur.
PopCap’s highly anticipated sequel to mega-hit Plants vs Zombies has hit some rough patches lately as the launch date has been pushed back to later this summer. But if you can’t wait a second longer we have good news – you can download the new game right now.
Rather than unleashing Plants vs Zombies 2 on the world all at once, PopCap has decided to do a soft-launch in Australia and New Zealand today to test things out. Which is a bummer for iOS users in the U.S. except it’s really easy to get the new game anyway.
To download the app you’ll have to create an Apple ID for the New Zealand or Australian App Store. Normally, iTunes requires new users to provide a credit card from that country to verify you actually live there, but there’s a workaround.
Apple and Amazon have agreed to end their lawsuit regarding the rights to use the “app store” name, leaving room for both companies to use the phrase.
The case was dismissed on Tuesday afternoon by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California. The dismal comes after Apple promised Amazon it won’t sue, thus eliminating the need for a counterclaim from Amazon.
The Pandora app for iOS has today been updated with a number of new features that promise to make your listening experience all the more pleasurable. In addition to improved playback buffering, there’s a new automatic pause feature, Pandora URL support, and more.
As the App Store’s 5th birthday approaches this Wednesday Apple has decided to run a special promotion to celebrate all the incredible apps that have made the iPhone and iPad so successful.
“From the 500 apps available at launch in 2008 to more than 900,000 at your fingertips today, it’s been a remarkably prolific five years for the App Store. To celebrate, we’re giving everyone five landmark games and five groundbreaking apps for a limited time. Plus, look back at the key moments that have made the App Store the world’s most innovative destination for apps.”
iOS users looking for the freebies can go to the App Store to find the promotional page that offers the five landmark games and five groundbreaking apps that we mentioned earlier this morning. Apple also published a timeline on the page to commemerate the milestones the App Store has enjoyed over the past five years.
As the App Store’s fifth anniversary approaches, a whole host of developers have begun makes some of their most popular apps and games for iOS completely free. Some of the titles included in the sale are Infinity Blade II, Disney’s Where’s My Water?, and Traktor DJ, which is usually priced at $20.
Apple likes to celebrate product anniversaries and other big milestones. The upcoming 5th anniversary of the App Store’s existence is no exception, and the company has sent out celebratory posters for the occasion to publications.
Tim Bradshaw of the Financial Times tweeted the above picture earlier today. The App Store doesn’t actually turn five years old until July 10th, so Apple must be trying to raise awareness beforehand.