It’s not exactly hard to make a website these days, but Webr makes it just about as easy as could be. It’s a free iPhone app which lets you create and publish a website in just a couple of minutes, and it’s pretty impressive.
Before you go ahead and upgrade to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, spare a second to check whether or not your favorite and most essential apps actually work with it. Sure, it might be nice to have notifications, a VIP inbox and direct Twitter integration, but it won’t do you much good if your text editor or to-do list app won’t even launch.
Luckily, there’s something you can do about that.
Do you have a favorite third-party Twitter app that you use everyday? I use Tweetbot on my iPhone, iPad and Mac. I’ve been using third-party Twitter clients since I joined the social network in 2008. It’s fun to switch apps and try new clients as they are released for different devices. Many would say that Twitter has succeeded because of the developer community that made (and continues to make) such great apps. Heck, Twitter wouldn’t even have its own mobile or desktop app if it hadn’t bought Tweetie years ago.
Like any growing business, Twitter’s mission as a platform is changing. In a recent interview, the CEO of Twitter explained what kind of apps and services the company wants to have tie into its platform, and there isn’t much room left for the third-party apps we all know and love.
“Welcome to the ultimate virtual cadaver dissection experience!” So begins the pitch on McGraw-Hill’s Anatomy & Physiology REVEALED app for the iPad, a teaching app which overlays photos of real dead people onto rendered models of the underlying gristle.
Okay, so I was being sarcastic about the clever name. Nevertheless, the joint venture announced by Redbox and Verizon back in February has finally given birth to an official name, and that name is Redbox Instant by Verizon. Together, Verizon and Redbox plan on bringing yet another video on-demand streaming and download service to the market. As long as Verizon doesn’t screw it up with pricing, the Redbox kiosk/streaming combo could be a real winner.
The App Store has had its fair share of apps and games that attempt to replicate a hit title that isn’t available on iOS — like the numerous Super Mario clones we’ve seen over the years. But MineKart 64 is a little different. It takes not just one, but two hit titles — Minecraft and Mario Kart — and fuses them together.
It’s literally Minecraft kart racing — what could be more enjoyable than that?
Only it’s not that at all. It’s actually a complete scam that you should avoid at all costs.
IFit may be a familiar name to those who weigh less than 200 pounds. Found in many fitness machines, the iFit service lets you plan a training regime via the web, and then carry it out down at the gym.
Now, iFit has released an iPhone app so you can continue training outdoors instead of holed up in that sweathole you pay $100 per month to use.
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps list is a new to-do app called Checkmark, which is being labeled the reminders app Apple should have made. There’s also a great new video sharing service called Vyclone, a unique clock app, and more.
Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is Dark Knight Rises, the official game of this year’s biggest blockbuster. You’ll also find the sequal to Fieldrunners, arguably the best tower defense game on iOS; a great cycling simulator; and a humorous title featuring Usian Bolt, the world’s fastest man.
If you were (or still are) the proud owner of a Sega Dreamcast, then you may remember the classic title Jet Set Radio (Jet Grind Radio in North America). Jet Set Radio was hailed as a revolutionary game due to it being one of the first to make prolific use of a rendering technique called cel-shading (allowing for a “cartoon-like” appearance of 3D rendered objects). While these rendering techniques aren’t so revolutionizing today, Jet Set Radio remains a rollerblading, music loving classic, featuring wholesale amounts of spray paint.
Early last year, Apple applied for a patent which described how they could add a “wild new dynamic screen saver system that could sense the environment it is in and in a chameleon-like fashion automatically change the screen saver.”
Clumsy wording aside, I loved the idea from the get go. Imagine, docking your iPhone at night, only for the screen to perfectly match the decor of your bedroom. Unfortunately, like most of Apple’s patents, there’s no telling when or even if Apple will ever actually roll out such functionality.
Luckily, we don’t need to wait for Cupertino to get off their duffs, because Chameleon Clock is here to turn our iPhones and iPads into chameleons for us.
If you’re itching for some more Batman action after the credits have rolled in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, then why not continue protecting Gotham City in Gameloft’s latest release for Android and iOS? As promised, Gameloft has released it’s newest game, The Dark Knight Rises, in conjunction with the blockbuster movie in theaters today.
A consulting firm has discovered that Apple’s existing iOS 6 betas will only support up to 500 installed apps at any one time, and that with any more than that, devices suffer from slow boot times, random reboots, and “other issues.” The firm has had to convince Apple that users need support for more than 500 apps to have the limit lifted.
The most expensive app I’ve ever purchased is now on sale for half the price. The SlingPlayer app has been discounted by 50% across all mobile platforms and can now be had for $14.99. This deal applies to both the tablet and phone apps and is well worth the price to have your full home cable service in the palm of your hands.
Antivirus software specialist Bitdefender has found that nearly 19% of iOS apps access your address book without your knowledge — or your consent — when you’re using them, and 41% track your location. What’s most concerning is over 40% of them don’t encrypt your data once it has been collected.
That’s all going to change when iOS 6 makes its debut later this year, however.
Have you ever wondered how much time you spend in an app? There are those staple iOS apps most of us use everyday (Phone, Messages, Mail, etc.), and then there are our favorite third-party apps from the App Store. Which apps command the most of your time? Now there’s an easy way to find out.
A new jailbreak app called App Analytics tracks your app usage on the iPhone and iPad. Once installed via the jailbreak App Store known as Cydia, App Analytics stays out of the way. The app is simple, lightweight, and scarily revealing.
If you’ve ever used Steam’s platform for purchasing and downloading games — and you probably have if you’re a Mac or PC gamer — then you’ll already be aware of just how great it is. In fact, if there’s one platform that beats the Mac App Store when it comes to buying games, it’s Steam.
And that rivalry could be about to get a whole lot greater. After a list of productivity software categories briefly appeared within Steam’s mobile app, it looks like the company could be about to take on Apple’s store by selling apps as well as games.
You might want to hold off on the sexting via Skype for a bit, as Skype has acknowledge a “rare” bug, which according to complaints on Skype support, appears to send messages to unintended contacts. The Skype team has already responded and plans on pushing out a fix soon.
“We are aware that in rare circumstances IM’s between two contacts could be sent to an unintended third contact. We are rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype.”
Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is an incredible word processor called UX Write, which makes working with large, complex documents on the go a breeze. You’ll also find Simpsons Comics, the latest app from comiXology that brings Bongo’s Simpsons library to iOS; a wonderful app from NASA that allows you to get up close and personal with the spacecraft used to explore our solar system, and more.
Foursquare, Facebook, even Find My Friends… these are all services that are ostensibly designed to help us to find our real-life buddies when we’re around town. So why are they so bad at it? Why do they all feel so useless?
The reason’s pretty simple when you think about it: most of the time, you don’t really care where your friends are, or how many trophies they’ve earned, but when you do want to know where they are, you want to know exactly where they are at that precise moment, either because they’re running late or you’re hoping to meet up. And the only way to really know that with any certainty is to ask directly.
Tehula is a new iPhone app that makes asking people where they are just deviously simple. And it works even if you don’t have an iPhone or iPad: all you need is a phone with a GPS unit and a web browser.
Not too far back, we brought you the news that Apple would soon be adding a Food and Drink category to the App Store. Today, Apple has pushed the new category live, and you can go check it out for yourself.
Since its debut back in 2009, the iPad has dominated the tablet market. At the time of writing this piece, the device holds around 55% of the market share in the United States. Rival tablets from the likes of Amazon, Samsung, and HTC have tried to do battle with it, but they’ve had very little impact on its success.
But there is one tablet that Apple will need to keep its eye on: Microsoft’s new Surface. It’s already being dubbed an “iPad killer” by some, and although we’re skeptical the Windows-powered slate will “kill” Apple’s device, there are a number of reasons why the “Pro” variant will have more of an impact than you think.
Get in your doomsday bunker because Rovio has released a new game. That’s right, Casey’s Contraptions Amazing Alex is now available on both the Google Play Store and App Store. You’ve seen the trailers and now it’s time to see how much weight Rovio’s name carries.
Anyone taken a look at the price of a professional photo editing software package, lately? Yeah, we dare you.
Redditor jayfehr noticed that Apple design award winner Pixelmator is currently on the Mac App Store for a quarter of it’s regular ($60) price, coming in at a nice $14.99 for this fairly beautiful looking Mac OS X image editing and paint program.
If you want to make photo collages on your iPhone or iPad, you use Diptic. Those are the rules. But a challenger is in town: Fuzel, from the Vietnamese designers at Not A Basement Studio, will launch on July 12th and looks to be a fast and easy way to make great collages.