iOS - page 98

What do you do if you’re a medical technology startup while waiting for the FDA to approve your flagship iPhone-based product?

If you’re AliveCor, you launch a veterinary version of it.

The product in question is AliveCor’s iPhone ECG heart monitor, which the company showed off nearly two years ago, at the CES in 2011. The device allows a medical professional to assess a patient’s heart rhythm, providing more data than a stethoscope or manual check of their pulse. Although the device has broad potential, it has yet to be approved by the FDA.

Almost all of your friends probably own smartphones by now. If they don’t own an iPhone they probably have an Android phone, which is fine because it seems like everyone nowdays could use a personal computer in their pocket.

Smartphone adaption rates have been ridiculously high in the US and other companies over the past five-years. Flurry, a mobile application analytics company, decided they wanted to know just how fast iOS and Android devices are growing, so they compiled some data and found that the smartphone revolution is bigger than any other digital revolution in history.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup is a fantastic text editor called Drafts, which has quickly become my favorite on iOS. We’ve also included a great alternative music app called Ecoute; the latest Facebook app, which has been rewritten from the ground up; and a third-party web browser that prides itself on being super speedy.

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Headlining this week’s must-have iOS games roundup is an awesome new platformer called Mikey Shorts, which offers its own unique style of play focused on speed. We also have The Simpsons: Tapped Out, which makes its App Store debut for the second time; VOTE!!!, the latest title from Infinity Blade creators Chair Entertainment; and a great space-age building game from Gameloft.

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It appears Apple’s arrogance is getting in the way of protecting its users from a long standing SMS exploit that could allow potential hackers to spoof a reply-to number, causing the recipient to think he/she is replying to a legitimate contact, when in reality, their information is being sent to the hackers designated address. As you can imagine, this is quite troublesome, yet Apple has brushed it away despite numerous pleas made by a well known iOS hacker (pod2g):

We love Readdle’s productivity apps here at Cult of Mac, especially when they’re going cheap. The company is currently holding a Back to School campaign that sees a number of iOS apps that “are indispensable for studying” reduced. Those included are ReaddleDocs for iPhone, ReaddleDocs for iPad, and Remarks.

Adobe updated their cloud-based photo management app, Revel, to version 1.5 across both Mac and iOS apps. The new version includes the ability to sort photos into albums, share private web albums on the Adobe Revel website, and add captions to photos. Along with an updated user interface and new photo themes, you can use your Facebook ID to sign up for a Revel account.

Real-time strategy never looked this good.

Today, Eufloria was released in an iPhone-only version for three dollars, while the five dollar universal version has been updated to include support for the iPhone 4S, Retina graphics for the new iPad, iCloud saves, and game session saving (for when you hit the Home button by accident).

Many fast food and restaurant chains now offer iPhone apps that facilitate ordering for delivery or pick up. A number of services, like Splick-it and Grubhub, also help facilitate such orders through an iOS app, offering independent restaurants to compete with the chains. Beyond apps, there are web-based services like Mealeo that offer the same functionality. Despite being a relatively new phenomenon, online and mobile ordering has become a serious business – over two-thirds of Americans use such services on a regular basis.

In fact, of those two-thirds of Americans, most say they tend to order more from a mobile or web service than they would over the phone or in person.

Apple retail stores are now installing special dock connectors to prevent iOS devices from being stolen. They look just like the regular USB cable that ships with every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but they feature a nifty anti-left lock that prevents them from being removed from the device — essentially tethering the unit to the table.

Gameloft’s Order & Chaos Online is widely believed to be the closest alternative to Warcraft on iOS. It’s a popular game, and there’s no doubt it would be even more popular if it weren’t for the monthly fee Gameloft charged to pay it. Thankfully, in the game’s latest update, Gameloft has finally scrapped the subscription fee and made the role-playing game free to play online after purchasing.

Wait, what? You haven’t played Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP? What’s wrong with you? It’s only one of the best games out there on the iPhone and iPad, garnering several awards from around the web.

The hit universal iOS game is now available for the Mac, and the latest update is Retina Enabled, for all you Macbook Pro owners. I can think of worse ways to spend eight bucks, as Sword and Sworcery is truly a masterpiece of indie design, complete with a brilliant soundtrack by Jim Guthrie, who seems to be involved in the new PSN game, Soundscapes, as well as the soundtrack for Indie Game: The Movie.

Sssssssssssss Boom!

If hearing that sound makes you break out in a cold sweat and go running for the nearest shelter, you may be a Minecraft addict.

Mojang, creator and continuing developer of Minecraft for Mac and PC, wrote a post today on their blog detailing the upcoming update to Minecraft Pocket Edition, the version of the indie runaway hit building, mining, and crafting game for iOS. Here’s a hint: it’s got creepers.

The U.S. federal government may not be where you’d expect to see mobile innovation or find good app development suggestions. While there’s still a public sector bureaucracy in government, a number of government agencies are beginning to develop new ways to connect with citizens and invest in mobile technologies for internal use.

Granted, most agencies are doing so because of requirements under the Obama administration’s 21st Century Digital Government Strategy. One of which is that every federal agency  must make two high-value, customer-facing services available via mobile devices over the next year.  Still, the innovation is happening and the agencies that have already taken up the challenge are good models for agencies that have yet to do so.

They’re also good sources of advice for any organization that is beginning to develop an iOS or mobile app strategy.

The first gameplay footage of Wild Blood, Gameloft’s first title built off of the Unreal Engine, has slashed its way to YouTube. This third-person hack-and-slash puts you inside the armor of the famed adulterer Sir Lancelot, who has betrayed his King by sleeping with his wife (big no, no).

AT&T upset a lot of customers when it revealed that it would only allow those subscribed to its new Mobile Share data plans to access FaceTime over 3G/4G on their iOS devices. Today it has responded to that upset by explaining that because FaceTime is a feature built into the iPhone — and not one that is downloaded by the user — the company can disable it as it wishes and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Using banners for your notifications — rather than full-blown alerts we had to suffer prior to iOS 5 — is a great way to ensure incoming alerts stay out of your way while you’re busy sending tweets, chopping fruit, or writing emails. However, it would be nice if those banners could be even slimmer — maybe the same size of the status bar.

Thanks to DietBulletin, they can be.

Jawbone’s wireless Jambox speaker has been a fan favorite among mobile users for quite some time, and while everything about it rocks, users have been begging for more color choices. Those prayers haven’t fallen on deaf ears, as Jawbone has teased its next iteration of the Jambox: Jambox the Remix.

DJs have one more tool to add to their set thanks to Pioneer and its Rekordbox app for Android and iOS. Just like the desktop software, Recordbox for mobile allows users to manage music files, which can be played back on a Pioneer DJ Player. Many professional DJs have turned to Rekordbox for their music management needs and the mobile app extends this functionality by allowing users to:

Vectrex, the sent-from-the-future vector-based games console from 1982, is soon to come to iOS. The Vectrex Regeneration emulator, complete with the entire original game catalog, will launch soon as a Universal app, and will use optional expansion packs to enable extra features.

Skype has updated its official iOS app today, finally introducing the ability to send and receive photographs on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The update also brings visual improvements across the app, fixes bugs affecting Bluetooth, and more.

Finnish gaming company Kukouri Mobile Entertainment created and developed Tiny Troopers, which was picked up by Chillingo, one of the larger and more successful iOS publishing company, itself owned now by Electronic Arts (EA). Tiny Troopers was released to iPhone and iPad as a universal app at the beginning of June, updated a month later, and then given a price drop mid-July.

Today, excitingly, it’s available for pre-order on Mac via Iceberg Interactive, an up-and-coming publisher of Mac, Linux, and PC games. Iceberg Interactive may best be known for Oil Rush, a real-time naval strategy game for all three computer platforms.

The lengthy Apple vs. Samsung trial is now reaching a close, and this week the jury will make a verdict on who’s guilty of what. But before that happens, Apple CEO Tim Cook is set to make a last-ditch attempt to reach an agreement with Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun over the telephone.

After three years and having been ported to every platform under the sun (including, of course, the Mac and iOS), the botanical is once again ready to go head-to-head against the zombological: Pop Cap has just announced that Plants vs. Zombies 2 is “germinating” and will hit the App Store in early 2013.

How long would it take you just to read the names of all the apps in the iOS App Store? According to an infographic (what we old timers used to call a “chart” or “poster”) by Tap Mag, this simple task would take you a whole week. And that’s far from all…