iOS - page 56

This week on The CultCast: Google Maps gets prettier, smarter, and faster; Hangouts is a new chat app with some innovative features; Google Music is too late to party; Erfon eats H’orderves on a space jet with Tim Cook and Richard Branson; and Leander dons his powdered wig to judge an all new Faves ‘N Raves.

All that and more on this week’s CultCast! Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Show notes up next.

Filippo Bigarella is best known for being the developer of some of the most popular jailbreak tweaks for iOS, including Springtomize, LivelyIcons, and PasswordPilot Pro. But he’s just launched his first official iPhone app through the App Store.

It’s called Balances, and it’s a wonderfully simply finance app with a gorgeous interface that’ll help you keep track of the money you owe and the money owed to you.

Apple’s iOS devices have today been cleared for use on United States military networks by the Defense Department, Bloomberg reports. The move comes after Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 and the latest devices from BlackBerry gained government clearance earlier this month.

Gameloft has made Gangstar Rio: City of Saints and N.O.V.A. 3, two of its high-end mobile games, free for a limited time on iOS. Both titles are universal releases that can be played on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, and they’re usually priced at $4.99 and $6.99 respectively — saving you $11.98.

https://youtu.be/Vi0HhR-PmQE

Polish-based Infinite Dreams has seen pretty sizable success with their iOS games. Can Knockdown, a physics game that gives the player a row of balls with which to virtually smash stacks of cans, is so popular that the second game in the series (Can Knockdown 2) was even super-sized into a coin-op arcade game.

Now the third game in the series has arrived for iPad and iPhone, Can Knockdown 3. And just like its predecessors, it’s beautifully engineered, gobs of fun and horribly, horribly addictive.

The new Google Hangouts app for Android and iOS is the best messaging service Google’s produced yet, but one thing that will probably prevent it from taking off is its lack of SMS support.

If you tried the Hangouts yesterday you probably noticed the amount of people you can talk to is sparse. That’s because Hangouts only uses Google+ to connect to other humans so all of your friends would have to sign up for Google+ before you can use Hangouts to send them a message.

The dearth of people on Google+ probably means that Hangouts isn’t quite ready to be your go-to messaging app quite yet, however, Google’s Community Manager says SMS integration is coming to Hangouts soon.

Handheld games consoles like the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita have long been suffering at the hands of smartphones and tablets. But the latest data from IDC and App Annie should give handheld game developers — including Nintendo — something to really think about.

While consumer spending on Android and iOS continued to rise during the first quarter of 2013, it fell considerably on handhelds.

Rovio really does make its games a worthwhile investment. Angry Birds Seasons is almost two and a half years old now, and it has just received yet another 36 new levels — plus a new power-up — on Android and iOS. That’s not bad for a 99¢ game now, is it.

Android and iOS managed to grab a whopping 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013, with a total of 199.5 million units sold worldwide. There are no prizes for guessing which of the two platforms grabbed the most market share.

iOS is a fantastic platform, but as it approaches its sixth birthday, it’s in desperate need of a lick of paint. If you jailbreak your devices, then you don’t need to sit and wait for Apple to administer that, because you can take the design refresh into your own hands by theming.

The only issue with that is finding a theme that’s as beautiful as the hardware it’s running on. There aren’t many out there that fit this description, but iMIUI from Xiaomi is one of them.

Apple has today announced the winner of its $10,000 App Store gift card after the App Store surpassed 50 billion downloads on Wednesday. The lucky customer is Brandon Ashmore of Mentor, Ohio, who downloaded Say the Same Thing, a word game from Space Inch.

Snapshots is a fantastic idea, and one I can see being used pretty heavily at weddings — or by, say, a gaggle of journalists who shoot an event and might need to pool their images.

The band, OK Go, known as much for its fabulously nerdy and complex videos as for its quirky and upbeat pop music, have made an app. Before you go, “meh,” and move on, thinking that this is another one of those record publishing tie-in apps that, really, no one loves but the publicist trying to push it, take a look at the video here.

Get it? These guys made the app. Ok, mostly guitarist Andy Ross, but the other guys certainly had a hand in the app. They definitely appear in the video above. Singer and bassist, Tim Nordwind, had this to say when we asked about the app.

Google unleashed an insane amount of news during its marathon keynote at the I/O developer conference today in California. A new music subscription service, Google Maps update, and messaging platform were just a few of the announcements.

Software and services was the name of the game at I/O this year, and here’s a roundup of everything Google unveiled earlier this afternoon:

Google Maps is already one of the best mapping services on the planet, but Google isn’t content to rest on its laurels. At the Google I/O keynote this morning Google announced that it will launch a new version of Google Maps for iOS and Android later this year.

The new Google Maps will come with a simplified UI, as well as new features like real-time traffic, dynamic re-routing, reviews from Zagat and there will even be a dedicated Google Maps app for iPad.

Google Now was already pretty awesome, but now it’s getting even better on both iOS and Android. And it’s coming to the desktop as part of Google’s Knowledge Graph.

Well, we can’t say we’re too surprised with this one following this week’s leak, but it’s great to see Google Play game services has been officially confirmed at Google I/O this morning. The service will rival services like Game Center on iOS, and features will include cloud-based game syncing, online multiplayer, and more.

There are some nifty tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices that allow you to add blank spaces to your home screen and arrange your app icons any way you like. Well now you don’t need to jailbreak to have this option, because a newly-discovered glitch in iOS lets you create blank spaces with a bit of trickery.

I have a handful of docks that I’ve stowed away in a drawer because I no longer own the iOS devices I bought them for; they were all bought for specific iOS devices, and they’re not compatible with my latest ones.

With the iDockAll, that’s not an issue, because it’s designed to fit any iOS device you own — including your iPhone, your iPad, and your iPod touch. It looks darn good, too, and it doesn’t prevent your iOS device from being used while it’s charging.

EA has confirmed that it is developing a mobile version of its Frostbite game engine called Frostbite Go for Android and iOS. The engine will empower “EA game developers with Frostbite’s proven excellent workflows and features to bring true Frostbite experiences to all major mobile platforms,” EA says on its website.

The new Yahoo! Mail app for iOS has received another update just two weeks after its big revamp. This release adds support for Apple’s AirPrint service, allowing you to wirelessly print emails and attachments from your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

On iOS, Cydia is the premier way to load unsigned apps onto your jailbroken iPhone or iPad… but since Android supports side-loading, it has no place on Google’s operating system, right?

Wrong, apparently. Today, the devs behind Cydia and Mobile Substrate have announced that Cydia is coming to Android. But it won’t be quite what you think.

Earlier this week we reported that ABC plans to be the first major network in the U.S. to offer live TV programming on your iPad. Well the rebranded ‘Watch ABC’ app just hit the App Store, which means if you live in certain areas you could get free live TV on your iPad now.

Watch ABC’s live video feature currently only works in Philadelphia and New York City, but more cities should be added throughout the year. To get the live streaming service running after July 1st you’ll have to confirm that you have an active cable subscription with either Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, AT&T U-Verse, Charter and Midcontinent.

Here are the release notes:

Philips Hue lightbulbs have quickly become one of our favorite iPhone accessories for the home. Not only can change your lighting to fit any mood, you can also create light shows with your music, and now Philips is adding some new features to the bulbs to make them even more powerful.

Philips released a new update for its Philips Hue app for iOS today that adds a number of features including geo-fencing, timers, alarms, and IFTTT support.

Here’s a video of some of the new features:

I have a confession to make: I own a BlackBerry Z10, and I love it. I think its BlackBerry 10 operating system is terrific — it’ll be even better when it gets more apps — and I haven’t been this excited about a new platform since I got my first iPhone. Seriously.

I certainly don’t want to see BlackBerry sinking anytime soon, then.

But I can’t help but wonder whether BlackBerry might have just shot itself in the foot by announcing BlackBerry Messenger for Android and iOS.