As part of the streaming video on demand service’s push towards consolidating its user interface across all tablets, Netflix just unveiled the new GUI to their official iPad app. Sayonara, whitespace!
The man behind the popular iA Writer app, Oliver Reichenstein, has posted some interesting observations on the App Store ecosystem. In a Google+ post titled “Revenue = X,” the founder of Information Architects explains how his decision to drop the price of iA Writer on the Mac and iPad has resulted in a way to “increase exposure without affecting profit.”
Dropping iA Writer’s price has resulted in more purchases than expected, and Oliver’s profits have largely stayed the same since he made his app cheaper.
Deals.CultofMac.com is currently offering two great app bundles this week but both are ending soon. The Mac Productivity Mini-Bundle carries three great apps that will make life in OS X insanely easier and more simple. MenuEverywhere, Trembo, and Cinch will boost your productivity so you can spend less time fussing with the mundane tasks on your Mac and get to the fun stuff. This deal will be available for the next 10 days, saving readers $21 off the retail price. This deal is set to expire in 3 days, so get it now before it’s gone.
Here’s what these apps can do for you:
One of the biggest missing features from Apple’s Siri technology is integration with third-party apps. Apple launched Siri on the iPhone 4S with Wolfram Alpha and Yelp integration, but other developers have been unable to fully integrate their apps with Siri to create a compelling, voice-controlled experience.
Apple hasn’t given a confirmation that it will eventually open up Siri to third-party apps, but that hasn’t kept several apps from offering workarounds for Siri integration. What about the apps that were meant for Siri? We’ve collected 10 apps that we want to see integrated with Siri in the near future.
You know about Activity Monitor for your Mac, right? How would you like to have an Activity Monitor for your iPhone too? Something like Activity Monitor Touch might do the trick.
Oooh, this is pretty. MacThemes forum user SkyJohn has created a theme for Growl that emulates iOS 5 style notifications. It’s not a perfect fit, but it does exhibit the same cube animation you see when you get a notification under iOS 5 on your iPhone or iPad.
Not many opera companies have ventured on to the App Store, but London’s Royal Opera House has and the result is something unexpected: not a listings app, not a tickets app, not anything you’d normally associate with opera. It’s a game. And it’s great.
Want Siri-like abilities on your Mac? Nuance has just launched their latest Dragon product onto the Mac App Store. Called Dragon Express, the $49 app brings Nuance speech recognition to your menu bar… the same powerful engine Siri uses to crunch your voice!
Ever faced with one of those situations where you need to give out your phone number, but you feel a bit iffy about doing it? RingShuffle is a free app that’s ideal to have on your iPhone for exactly those occasions.
The new Doctor Who Encyclopedia for iOS claims to offer everything a Who fan might need to know about the three most recent incarnations of TV’s best-known time traveller. But this is one app that could do with a zap from a sonic screwdriver: although it’s stuffed full of facts, the presentation could be improved.
Remember that new cheekily-christened “EasyTheft” system Apple was planning on rolling out to its official Apple Store app? The official update is here, and anyone can now try it out!
We told you a couple of hours ago about security guru Charlie Miller’s new iOS vulnerability that allows an approved App Store app to run unsigned code remotely. Miller has been hacking Apple’s products for years, and this most recent bug is a particularly nefarious exploit that could be used for all kinds of evil purposes.
Charlie Miller is one of the good guys, however, and he is planning to show his cards at the SysCan conference in Taiwan next week. The ends don’t always justify the means in this case, as Apple has now kicked Miller out of the App Store and iOS Developer Program.
Apple has added a feature to iOS 5 that will allow you to check the storage apps use on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It’s an important feature to know if you are using any of these devices without a computer and syncing straight to iCloud.
WIRED magazine has collaborated with Gizmodo to release the “Wired App Guide” iPad application in the App Store. The app provides 400 detailed reviews of “essential tools for every type of smartphone user.”
With categorized app reviews and an index of the hottest apps in the App Store, WIRED’s new App Guide is a must-download for any Apple enthusiast.
GarageBand is one of the best apps you can show off on your iPad 2 to convince even the most ornery skeptic, and it just got even better: with the 1.1 update, GarageBand is now a $4.99 universal app, and can run on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
When I, through sheer exertion of will, lift this moribund pile of musky flab out of the desk chair to which it transhumanistically is trying to absorb, put on my sweatbands and take myself out for a wheezing, gasping “jog”, RunKeeper is my preferred app for tracking the whole ordeal.
The free app is already pretty great. It uses your iPhone’s GPS sensors to track your running speed, distance and route; additionally, it allows you to program different run templates, calculate calories burned and share your favorite runs with other users.
But today’s update makes RunKeeper even better, with a host of new features that widen the distance between all the other jog-tracking apps out there.
Snap your Halloween party pics right by taking photobooth-style shots from your iPhone with Hipstamatic’s Incredibooth — offered free over the weekend.
Planetary isn’t the most practical iPad app, but it’s absolutely one of the prettiest. The app reads your iTunes collection, then forms a gorgeous miniature galaxy — complete with elegantly animated solar flares — on your iPad, where the suns, orbiting planets and moons all represent artists, albums and songs respectively.
Wizardry has to be one of the longest lived franchises in gaming history — and is especially beloved by us, because the dungeon RPG’s first-ever appearance was on an Apple II. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls will be the newest title in the 30-odd-year lineage when it debuts on November 3 for the iPhone.
We reported yesterday that our favorite Photoshop-on-a-budget app, Pixelmator, was hitting the big two point oh today, and so it has.
It’s available now on the Mac App Store as a free upgrade to previous users, or a $29.99 purchase new.
The biggest additions to Pixelmator 2.0 are content-aware fill, vector drawing and editing tools, wrinkle, blemish and damage repair tools for photos, new retouching tools such as smudge, sponge, burn, and more. In addition, Pixelmator 2.0 gets full OS X Lion support, a new interface and some impressive speed and stability improvements.
For 90% of us, Pixelmator was already a better and cheaper replacement for the industry standard, Adobe PhotoShop. With 2.0, closes the gap another few percent, and becomes even more of a no-brainer to recommend to just about everybody.
Let’s face it: Chess is pretty geeky. Then again, so is the iPad (c’mon, it is). Blend the two though, and you’ve got…well, let’s just say that playing chess on an iPad at your local coffee hangout is a Wookie’s fingernail-width less geeky than insert-hyperbolic-geek-stereotype-here.
Who cares though; with its portability, large screen and potential to reach all 600 million chess players around the world, the iPad is the ultimate gadget for playing electronic chess, and the free Social Chess app is the way to play.
Ever since it first landed in 2010, iPad users have been clamoring for a native port of the great Mint.com app, which allows people who use Intuit’s great personal finance tracking service to watch their spending and savings on the go. Mint.com’s website worked, but just barely: it was really designed with a desktop experience in mind.
Well, the wait’s finally over. Mint.com has just been updated to a universal app, and the iPad version is just a gorgeous piece of work.
My original plan when downloading this app was to use it as the basis for a little light humor.
“Sorry readers, can’t write another word, my phone is telling me to go and kiss someone.” That sort of thing.
But after downloading it, I made a terrible mistake: I actually tried using it. It turns out When Should You Kiss is the worst thing I’ve seen on iOS for a long, long time.
We’re all looking forward to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, which will be released on Monday, October 24. But if you’ve been keeping an eye on the news over the past couple days, you’d have already seen some interesting stories from the book.
One of those details Steve’s initial opinion on third-party apps for the iPhone. In the beginning, Steve was opposed to third-party apps, and wanted developers to create web apps that could be used through the device’s mobile Safari web browser. According to Apple board member, Art Levinson, “Jobs at first quashed the discussion” of allowing apps on the company’s debut smartphone.
