A new Apple patent application purchased by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office details a new system that may one day allow you to sell or lend on your “used” digital goods, such as iTunes purchases and software you’ve downloaded from the App Store.
Apple details a system that could see used goods sold through their original marketplaces, like those mentioned above, or directly between users.
Rovio’s original Angry Birds game for iOS has today been updated with 15 new Bad Piggies levels, and is now available for free for the first time ever on both iPhone and iPad. The incredibly popular title was first introduced to the iPhone back in December 2009, and it’s been priced at $0.99 ever since.
But if you’re not one of the many millions who have already downloaded it, now is the perfect time to grab it.
If you’re using Twitter on your iPhone instead of a third-party client like Twitteriffic or Tweetbot, version 5.4 has just rolled off the App Store updates pipeline, bringing better search, better conversation views and more. But it also yanks some features, including the ability to upload from Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous.
Cult of Mac’s vote for the best all-around fitness app for the iPhone is Runkeeper, and it just got a fantastic new update that makes your running preferences more customizable than ever, including a brilliant new ‘night color’ mode which makes the display easier on the eyes, even if you are not a night runner.
Kids love the iPad; download a few children’s games and it’ll keep them entertained for hours. But don’t leave them unsupervised too long, because it could cost you. Sharon and Greg Kitchen from Bristol, England, found that out the hard way when their five-year-old son Danny spent $2,550 on in-app purchases in just 10 minutes.
The latest App Report from research firm Appthority has found that free apps downloaded onto iOS devices are more likely to collect your personal data than free apps downloaded on Android, with 60% of the top ten App Store downloads sharing data with advertising and analytics networks.
The report suggests that due to the volume of titles in the App Store, iOS developers are more likely to collect your data and pass it on as an alternative revenue stream.
British carrier O2 has today launched a new VoIP and messaging service called TU Go, which is available to its pay monthly customers with Android and iOS devices. The service allows users to make calls and send texts over the Internet, so even when they have no cell reception, they can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and get in touch with friends and family.
Heads up! If you use Amazon’s Kindle app for the iPhone or iPad, don’t hit update! The new 3.6.1 update will, if installed, delete your entire book library from your device. Amazon’s working on the problem, and for a problem of this magnitude, expect a quick fix.
Update: And it’s now been fixed!
Apple has finally settled a 2011 lawsuit with parents whose kids spent insane amounts of money on in-app purchases. A group of parents originally sued Apple after their kids raked up enormous iTunes bills on apps that were downloaded for free from the App Store.
Apple has been historically fickle about how it lets marketers and developers track iOS users through apps downloaded from the App Store. After all of the privacy concerns were raised about the UDID device identifier back in 2011, a better solution never presented itself.
Apple eventually introduced its own Advertising Identifier for iOS device tracking purposes, but marketers still favored the unique, permanent nature of the UDID. The UDID worked so well because it was a device-specific identifier that could never be changed. Athough developers were technically banned from using the UDID to track iOS devices more than a year ago, many, many apps still use the deprecated method today.
Apple is reportedly starting to reject apps that use web cookies to track user activity in iOS. Could this mean a reinvigorated push towards the Advertising Identifier again?
Jake Marsh is the designer of the stunning, minimalist iOS weather app, Conditions, which costs just $0.99 on the App Store. But because some people are so lame that they would rather go through the trouble of pirating a good app that they like than give the developer a buck for it, Jake decided to program a special ‘Pirate Mode’ into Conditions, in which users who pirate the app always get a weather report of 666 degrees in which fire and brimstone literally hails down upon them.
The prevailing conditions? “ARRRmageddon.” Absolute genius.
Via: Twitter
Street View is a new $0.99 iOS app from FutureTap that promises to bring Google Street View back to Apple’s Maps app on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Once installed, you’ll be able to access Street View from within Apple Maps with a series of simple taps. It’s not seamless, but it works.
PopCap’s beloved Plants vs. Zombies has today been made available for free in the App Store. The reduction applies to both the iPhone and iPad titles, which were previously priced at $2.99 and $6.99 respectively. If you don’t already have it, it’s well worth adding to your collection.
Twitterrific for iOS has received its first major update since it was overhauled with version 5.0 back in December. In addition to mute filters for users, hashtags, and domains, version 5.1 brings support for new image services, a new font, and a whole stack of improvements. Check out the full list of changes below.
Netflix has today introduced an enhanced player interface for iPad with version 3.0 of its iOS app. The update also brings back the zoom icon so that you can quickly switch between fullscreen and widescreen viewing modes, and better placement of the player controls.
Forget 8-megapixel pictures and HDR — if you want photos that instantly look cool, then it’s time to take a step back… all the way back to the eighties. Camera C64 is a free iPhone app that helps you relive the days when the Commodore C64 was considered cutting-edge technology by delivering authentic 16-color photos that are almost guaranteed to look good.
Dolphin, one of the best and most popular third-party web browsers for iOS, has today been updated with a number of improvements that are sure to quash some of the biggest issues and annoyances users have been experiencing of late. Not only does it fix Evernote text formatting, but it also addresses an issue that caused the save password dialog to appear when it didn’t need to, and more.
EA is today throwing a President’s Day sale that has seen it slashing the prices of its iOS games by up to 90%. Over 55 games are included in the deal — including popular titles like Need for Speed Most Wanted, Mass Effect Infiltrator, and Dead Space 3 — and everything is just $0.99.
We’ve got a complete list of reduced titles below.
Apple has posted two new iPad ads to its official YouTube channel that highlight the device’s expansive app catalog. Called “Alive” and “Together,” the videos use the iPad and the iPad mini to showcase some of the 300,000 apps available through the App Store, including iBooks, GarageBand, iPhoto, FaceTime, TED, and more.
This week’s must-have apps roundup kicks off with Real Racing 3, arguably the most anticipated racing game for iOS to date. Following its announcement last August, it’s finally — slowly but surely — making its way to App Stores worldwide. We also have an awesome new weather app called Haze, the latest game from Chillingo, and more.
The official Dropbox app for iOS has today been updated to add push notifications and an all-new PDF viewer. With version 2.1, users will now receive an alert when a folder has been shared with them. The update is available to download from the App Store now.
Intuit has today released QuickBooks Online for the iPad, a free app that allows QuickBook subscribers to manage their customers, invoices, estimates, and expenses on the go. Intuit’s customers have been increasingly turning to mobile devices to manage their finances, so its new iPad app is sure to be a big hit.
Wunderlist 2 has finally arrived on the iPad today, just under three months after making its debut on the iPhone, Android, Mac, and PC. This update introduces a whole host of new features and functionality, in addition to speed and performance improvements under the hood. And as usual, it’s completely free.
Crowd-funding site Kickstarter can be a fantastic way to make your dream Apple accessory, like the Pebble E-Watch, a reality, and now it’s even easier than ever to help fund and keep track of new projects, thanks to the arrival of the official Kickstarter app for iPhone.
Infinity Blade, the spectacular sword slinger from Epic Games studio ChAIR Entertainment, has gone free for the first time since making its App Store debut back in December 2010. The title, which is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, has been chosen by Apple as its free App of the Week.