App Store - page 79

One of the longest running problems on the iOS App Store has been discovery of apps.

Since its launch in 2008, developers and users alike have been asking Apple for better ways to both promote and discover great new apps. With over 650,000 apps currently on the App Store, the current system of finding new apps is clearly being pushed beyond what it was intended for.

According to Apple’s senior vice president of world-wide product marketing, Phil Schiller, Apple is doing a “tremendous amount” of work to make sure that best applications on the App Store get promoted and receive the attention they deserve.

The official Apple Store app has just gotten an incremental update, which now makes it easier than ever to give Apple your money.

The big new feature is Express Checkout, which like Apple’s official website, lets you buy items with your default billing and shipping information with just a tap.

The other feature — exclusive to the iPhone 4S — is a geolocation feature that alerts local Apple Store employees when you’ve arrived to pick up an order. This should make it a lot quicker to pick up your new MacBook Pro than flagging down a random specialist when you arrive, then waiting for him to go in back and find your item.

You can download the new update through the App Store.

Source: ITunes
Via: Macstories

Imagine for a moment that your three year old daughter has a disability that stops her from using her voice to communicate. Then imagine that a combination of an iPad and a specialized app gave her the ability to talk to you, requesting things, express her needs, and even say, “Daddy, I love you.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d see that iPad and app as some sort of technological miracle.

Now, imagine that the app was pulled from the app store.

I’ve never really like the way in which the App Store handles security. Sure, I like the fact that if my iPhone is stolen, thieves can’t run up a huge iTunes bill. But I don’t understand why I have to enter my password each and every time I need to download updates or previous purchases. These have already been paid for; why is this necessary?

Thankfully, in iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, it isn’t.

We’re still trawling through the new iOS 6 beta releases that Apple pushed out after its WWDC keynote yesterday, and we continue to find nice new features and improvements. If you’re as excited about iOS 6 as we are, you’d probably like to hear about them.

Here’s a few changes Apple has made to emoji, Reminders, and more.

During today’s keynote Apple showed a slide that mentioned iOS 6 would get some “Redesigned Stores” but Scott Forstall never went into detail on what the stores look like. Now that we’ve got iOS 6 loaded up on our iPhones we’re finally able to see what the new stores look like and boy are they a great improvement over the predecessors. Here’s what the new App Store, iTunes, and iBooks look like in iOS 6:

Heading up this week’s must-have apps roundup is Color Splash Studio, a terrific photo manipulation tool originally built for Mac OS X, which has finally made the leap from Mac App Store to iPhone. We also have a great music video mixing tool from Algoriddim, the guys behind Djay; a camera app that’s perfect for your kids, and more.

Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is Uplink, a title you may remember from 2001, when it made its debut on PC. This computer hacking simulator has now been remastered for the iPad’s touchscreen, and despite being 11 years old, it’s still an awesome game.

Accompanying Uplink is a hugely enjoyable platformer, a unique take on golf, a first-person catapulting game, and more.

When Apple pulled Airfoil Speakers Touch from the App Store last week, many believed that the Cupertino company was gearing up to introduce the same functionality to iOS 6 later this year. It seems, however, that this was just wishful thinking. In letter to one customer obtained by Cult of Mac, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, explains the real reason why Airfoil Speakers Touch was pulled.

Color Splash Studio, a terrific photo manipulation tool for Mac OS X, has made the leap from Mac App Store to iPhone today. Priced at just $0.99 — with 60% to celebrate its launch — the app allows you to convert your images to black and white, and then inject color back into specific areas.

“You have tools and powers no similar app offers,” its description promises.

The last two days we’ve given away two MacBook Airs to lucky readers, but if you haven’t been lucky enough to win yet, don’t fret, here’s your last chance.

Even though we have this really cool internet technology thing called the “cloud” that stores all of our pictures, music, documents, videos, and anything else we want to throw at it, searching for stuff inside the cloud still sucks. Most people use Gmail, DropBox, iCloud and Google Drive to store certain things, but the problem is that they’re not connected, so files become fragmented across multiple services. Found is a brand new app that just launched on the Mac App Store, and it’s ready to change the way you search for files by making them easy to find regardless of which cloud service you stored them in.

Not only is Found a deliciously simple app for finding stuff, but it works across multiple services at once and is completely free. Best of all, to celebrate the launch of their app, Found is giving away one last MacBook Air today. So not only are you getting a sweet new app that will make your life easier, but you might win a new MacBook Air to run it on.

Here’s How To Enter:

SoundHound has updated its popular music searching and discovery app for iOS today, introducing a whole host of new features. Version 5.0 makes SoundHound faster than ever before, according to the release notes, and brings high-resolution album art and images, an improved user interface, a new SoundHound Player with LiveLyrics, and lots more.

Rogue Amoeba’s AirFoil Speakers Touch app was recently pulled from the App Store by Apple without any notice. Before getting yanked, the app was updated with an “Enhanced Audio Receiving” feature that essentially turned an iOS device into an AirPlay audio receiver. Apple didn’t like Rogue Amoeba’s use of receiving audio through AirPlay, and the company released a short comment saying “Apps that use non-public APIs will be rejected.” That was it.

The good news is that AirFoil Speakers Touch is back in the App Store after a back and forth with Apple. The bad news is that the newest app version is missing the aforementioned AirPlay audio feature. According to Rogue Amoeba, Apple reps admitted that the whole situation was “poorly handled” on their end.

Have you ever wished that iOS would automatically fill in your Apple ID password when making purchases in the App Store? Apple requires the user to confirm the password associated with an Apple ID before purchasing and downloading new apps and updates. Once you enter your password, iOS keeps your account logged in for a short time, but you’ll have to re-enter your password again after a few minutes.

What if you only had to enter your password once and never worry about it again? A new jailbreak tweak called PasswordPilot Pro automatically inserts your Apple ID password for you, making the process of buying and updating apps faster and more efficient.

There’s an old and very accurate adage that says the second you drive a car, it begins losing value the second you drive it out of the showroom. It also immediately becomes an ongoing expense. The biggest sign of that expense is the number of trips to the gas station. Most of us tend to tend to just pay for the gas, regular maintenance, and monthly payments and not think about whether we’re getting the best gas mileage possible.

Tracking fuel economy and other car expense data can ultimately save you a fair amount of money. Tracking gas mileage and common maintenance tasks can help you optimize when to have your oil changed for maximum oil life and fuel economy, encourage you to check your tire pressure, and even plan more fuel-efficient routes for your daily commute and other regular trips. All of that can add up to real savings over the long-term.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a beautifully simple timer app for the iPhone that could mean you never need to set timers manually again. There’s also a terrific app for beaming your photographs to almost any display — without additional hardware or software. Plus lots more.

Opening this week’s must-have games roundup is a stunning first-person shooter that has you protecting planet Earth from invasion from the “Xenos,” who are on a mission to infect every civilian that gets in their way. We also have a crazy dual-stick shooter that has made the leap from Xbox LIVE to your pocket, an update to Angry Birds Space, and lots more.

Apple recently followed Amazon’s lead in unveiling a “Free App Of The Week” category, and this week’s is a doozy: Nik Software’s practically perfect image editor, Snapseed.

Normally priced at $5, Snapseed is a fantastic photo editing app that allows you some fantastic control over manipulating and editing photos that you’ve taken with your iPhone. It’s simple enough that even the most Photoshop-unfriendly Instragrammer can use it. This isn’t the first time Snapseed has been free, but my guess is a lot more people will download it this time.

In addition to making Snapseed free, Apple has also declare their Editor’s Choice picks for the week: Nick Jr Draw & Play (iPhone), Nick Jr Draw & Play HD (iPad), Rock(s) Rider (Universal) and Heroes Call (iPad.

Dolphin is widely regarding as one of the best third-party web browsers for the iPad, and it’s a particular favorite of mine, firmly stuck to the first page of my home screen on all of my iOS devices. With version 5.0 for the iPad, Dolphin gets even better, with the ability to save passwords; autocomplete browsing history, bookmarks, and searches; share URLs via email, and more.

Angry Birds Space is continuing to make its $0.99 price tag look like an absolute bargain with yet another update that brings a brand new, food-themed planet with ten brand new levels to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Paper, the hugely popular iPad drawing app by FiftyThree, just got a new update that finally allows you to export your sketches as PDF documents, and introduces an increased “Rewind” history.

You one of the lucky ones who managed to buy a ticket to this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference during the approximately two hours while tickets were on sale? Apple’s posted the schedule of events that you can expect, as well as the requisite app making finding and scheduling your itinerary for WWDC 2012 all the easier.

Source: developer.apple.com

Now that you’ve filled your device with bargain iOS games from those Memorial Day App Store sales, maybe it’s time to accessorize it, too. ZAGG, which makes some of the finest accessories for mobile devices, has discounted 20% off keyboards and cases, and 50% off almost everything else.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a new web browser from Yahoo! called Axis, which hopes to redefine web searching on desktops and iOS devices. We’ve also got a terrific app for web editors, one that’ll help you monitor which apps are accessing your personal data, and two new apps from Facebook.

Yesterday, Apple yanked Airfoil Speakers Touch for unspecified reasons. A little birdie told us it was because Airfoil Speakers Touch duplicated inherent functionality in iOS 6. It’s possible that that’s still true, but if it is, it’s not why Airfoil Speakers Touch was pulled, as Apple has now gone on record saying it was actually because Rogue Amoeba violated a developer guideline against non-public APIs.