iOS - page 34

Most of us are aware that the iPhone can be an effective security tool; there are countless clips on YouTube proving its worth as a recording device, and FaceTime, Skype and the like allow someone on the other end to watch, and if needed send help, when things get sketchy.

A recording of a mugging, however, is no use if the muggers steal the phone; and initiating a FaceTime call under extreme stress is probably more difficult than it might seem.

Enter Eye Got You Covered, a $4 app that fixes both those problems and adds other thoughtful features.

Since there are relatively few good alternatives to the iPhone’s stock Mail app, a newcomer to the group usually sparks our curiosity and interest; what’s the cool new spin? Will we actually use it? Will we use it enough that it eventually replaces the Mail app on our home screen?

In the case of attachment-obsessed newcomer Inbox Cube, the answers are fun, yes and possibly.

Brazenly calling itself the “ultimate defense” for protecting passwords, documents, credit cards and all your other private stuff, FaceCrypt is being advertised as one of the most secure ways of controlling access to your iOS device.

Instead of asking for an alphanumeric password — or even Touch ID — FaceCrypt requests that users take a “selfie” to prove they are really the person they say they are.

Created by London-based university students Carrie Bale, Doug Hindson and Jooyoung Ryo, “Skew” is a charmingly low-fi animation which gently lampoons the monotonous cycle of our day-to-day lives in the digital world.

It’s become horribly obvious that the more a driver fiddles with their phone, the better chance they have of becoming involved in a car accident. But even taking one’s eyes off the road can be problematic — so Slovakian-based Sygic has added a head-up display mode to their iOS turn-by-turn navigation apps that tries to alleviate the problem by keeping the driver’s eyes focused on the road.

Australian publisher Halfbrick (Jetpack Joyride, Fruit Ninja, Age of Zombies) announced Tuesday that its new free-to-play band simulator game Band Stars will release to the App Store on Thursday, December 5.

The game, developed in collaboration with Australia-based Six Foot Kid, has been in development for a while, with an early build available last March at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. Come this Thursday, you’ll be able to download the game for free onto your iOS device and start a band.

Readdle has today rolled out a major new version of PDF Expert, on of its most popular productivity apps for iOS. The new release introduces an all-new design for iOS 7, as well as a much-improved file manager and PDF viewer, support for AirDrop and background downloads, and lots more.

According to a new report from IBM, the greed consumer-driven shop-fest known as Black Friday.

The report shows a new high for online sales for this 2013 reporting period, as well as a soaring rate of mobile shopping, in which folks used smartphones to browse for deals while people were more likely to complete purchases with tablets.

The most interesting finding, however, was how much more iOS users spent than those on Android. Take that, Google!

We’re big fans of Apple’s Pages app on iOS here, as it allows us to create and edit good-looking documents easily and on the go. Pages’ stunning array of templates, combined with the ease of use associated with an app built by Apple itself for its flagship touchscreen device, make it a must-have app on anyone’s iPad.

Color us excited, then, when we heard about a hidden feature in Pages that lets us delete backgrounds from photos right from within the app itself. Instant Alpha is a super helpful feature when we need to get rid of a large solid color background without dropping the image into an editing program first.

If you’ve been meaning to treat yourself to a Pebble smartwatch and you haven’t already blown all of your savings on other Black Friday deals, then you might be interested to know that you can now get $20 off the device for one day only.

Readdle, the team behind some of the best productivity apps and utilities for iOS, has slashed 50% off five of its top offerings for Black Friday. The sale includes titles like PDF Expert for iPhone and iPad, Calendars 5, and Printer Pro — all of which are now half price for a limited time.

FIFA has launched its new app as part of the countdown to 6 December’s 2014 football World Cup draw.

The free app is available for both iOS and Android devices, and offers not just the live draw in streaming video, but also match schedules, destination guides and team profiles for the tournament — set to take place in Brazil in summer 2014.

Hoping to get a nice discount on your next Mac or iOS device this Black Friday? Then you’d better buy it from a third-party retailer. Apple has taken a new approach to its Black Friday deals this year and decided to give away gift cards rather than discount its goods.

Just when you thought you had heard every wacky app concept going, here’s another you might not have considered: Facebook for dogs.

Okay, it’s not exactly Facebook, but the free Woof iOS app (from developer Woof Labs) is pretty much that — describing itself as “an ecosystem to bring dog lovers closer to their dogs and local dog communities.”

“Great pen, lousy software” was the gist of our review for the Livescribe 3, a.k.a. “The World’s Smartest Pen” when we got the chance to use it recently.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Livescribe 3 is a so-called “smart pen” which takes handwritten notes and transfers them from paper to screen on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. (In other words, it’s something of a next-generation Newton stylus for those old enough to remember Apple’s long-abandoned line of PDAs.)

There are few tech terms more loaded than “user privacy” here in 2013.

Back in January Cult of Mac reported that Apple had lost its spot on a list of the 20 most trusted companies when it comes to user information. That was long before the revelations of Edward Snowden and PRISMgate (the subject of an entire recent issue of our Newsstand magazine), which made everyone super-jumpy about data collection and what it means for personal liberties.

When people talk about Android being bad for developers, this handy chart explains in a nutshell what they’re talking about: across the board, in every metric, Android developers make less money than iOS developers… often by a lot.

Ah, the open road. Nothing like some great tunes, an agreeable companion and endless blacktop to relieve the stress after — or enjoy a little peace before — that remote Thanksgiving gathering (note that I said a companion, as in singular; if you’ve got kids, I’m guessing you’ll probably want to fly).

Before you head out, you might want to do a little planning with something like Roadtrippers, a helpful site and accompanying iOS app that can show you hip, hidden or just plain weird points of interest along your planned route.

BBM Channels, the latest addition to BlackBerry’s popular messaging platform, which made its public debut earlier today after more than six months in beta, is coming to Android and iOS “in the coming months.”

It’s Magic 8-Ball time here, as analysts continue to round-out 2013 by making predictions about what we can expect over the next year.

This time it’s analyst Canalys, which is forecasting that tablets will out-ship almost all other PC form factors combined in 2014 — representing around 50 percent of the total client PC market.

In 1983, Electronic Arts released M.U.L.E., a seminal title in the history of gaming that not only was one of the first real-time strategy titles, but also one of the first multiplayer games. It’s a game that has been widely hailed for decades by gaming enthusiasts, but has never seen an official update… until now, as M.U.L.E. Returns has hit the iOS App Store.

Following up on the successful release of Final Fantasy IV on iOS back in 2012, publisher Square-Enix is following it up with a sequel, which follows up on the characters and events of that game twenty years later. It’s called Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and it’s available now on the App Store.

When you look at iOS, you’re looking at a user interface more than an operating system. Beneath the animations, transparencies and rounded-corner icons is the core of the operating system… basically, a bunch of ASCII text, similar to a Terminal window, that is what iOS looks like before it puts its face on.

In a rather interesting twitch, Winocm — one of the hackers behind the iH8Snow iOS 6.1.3/6.1.4 jailbreak — has managed to get iOS’s core running on a Nokia n900 smartphone.

With this Cult of Mac Deals offer, you can turn your living room into a war-zone with this iPhone-controlled, missile-firing helicopter.

Forget toy remotes – you control this hovering hellion with your iPhone, iPod Touch, or
iPad! Just download the free app, plug the transmitter into your headphone jack, and take flight. Grab one of these for just $49.95 – a savings of 28% – and make it a holiday the tech-lover in your life will never forget.

Apple and a 12.9-inch iPad; the first iOS 7 game controller is long overdue; Retina iPad Minis are almost perfect; strategies to backup all those iPhone photos you take; and Adam Christianson from the Maccast podcast joins us on this time on The CultCast!

Have a few laughs and get caught up on each 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 adventure begin.