Snapchat’s pivot from a sleazy app for naughty pics to an actual messaging platform to rival WhatsApp is happening faster than its scandalous photos can disappear and its newest feature is going to make the party even bigger.
Today Snapchat announced its adding a new “Our Story” feature that will allow users who are at the same location to share snaps with each other, or view an event from afar so you can feel like you were totally there with your friends, 10 seconds at a time.
Along with this morning’s release of iOS 8 beta 2, Apple is throwing some love to Mac users as well by releasing the second preview of the OS X Yosemite beta.
Apple has promised to open the OS X Yosemite beta to the public but it looks like you still need to be a developer to grab Cupertino’s newest update which can be can be downloaded directly from the Mac Dev Center or via a software update in your Apple menu.
Apple also released a new beta for Xcode 6 this morning as well as a new developer preview for OS X Server 4.0.
Yosemite brings a revamped UI to OS X along with a host of new features aimed at making your iPhone and Mac work smarter together. No official word from Apple on what’s inside the new preview but we’ll let you know what we find as soon as its installed.
We’re still crawling through the myriad of new features Apple added to the first beta of iOS 8, but now we’re about to dive back in. Apple just released iOS 8 beta 2 to developers this morning a mere 15 days after dropping the new OS on devs at WWDC.
According to the iOS 8 beta 2 release notes Apple’s mostly filled it with a ton of bug fixes, but we’ll update you on all the new features, big and small, once we’ve got it on our test devices.
Developers can pick up the new beta as an OTA update, from the iOS Dev Center or from the direct download links below:
A simple glance at the stunning games perched atop the App Store game lists reveals we are experiencing a golden age for mobile gaming.
From the surreal, mind-bending Monument Valley to the Pixar movie brought to life that is Leo’s Fortune, 2014 has seen some of the most startlingly original gaming experiences in years arrive on iOS.
“I do feel like we are in a boom period,” says John Comes, design director at Uber Entertainment, the company behind games like the newly released Toy Rush.
Although Apple has been a hub of gaming going back to the glory days of the Apple II, today’s crop of hot titles are reshaping the landscape like never before. The present explosion of innovative iOS games results from several fortuitous factors coming together. Here’s why there’s never been a better time to be a gamer.
Apple is looking to hire a thought leader. While the actual job listing — blah blah blah “execution of critical sale reporting projects” blah blah blah — sounds about as exciting as a new ink cartridge, the idea of a thought leader role at a company like Apple is worth pondering.
Ever since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, there’s been much speculation and hand-wringing over who could assume his role as Apple’s foremost visionary. Although no one can ever fill his New Balances, we’ve rounded up a short list of leaders who might kick the Cupertino company in a new direction.
Who do you think should drive Apple’s big ideas? Check out our picks in the gallery above, then nominate yours in the comments below.
Apple has multiple new stores planned to open over the second half of 2014 and first quarter of 2015. Among these is one planned for Marlborough, Mass, as revealed through job postings listed by Apple over the past 10 days.
Up until now, however, the store’s future location hasn’t been known. Fortunately a tipster has pointed out the exact location where the retail outlet — Apple’s 11th in the state — will be set to open.
If you’re anything like me it can be difficult to stay on top of all of your different social media accounts, which is why Buffer is so useful as a tool — since it allows you to share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and App.net all from inside one place. In addition it lets you control the scheduling of these posts, while getting analytics for each social update you share, whether this means clicks, retweets, likes, shares, mentions, and so on.
Buffer received its last refresh just one month ago — adding support for two-factor authentication and improved accessibility — but its latest update is well worth a look, adding “feeds” and “groups” features, along with improved navigation.
Apple has settled out of court in the latest eBooks price fixing suit brought against the company. It was set to go before a jury next month, with potential damages being as much as $840 million.
The terms of the settlement haven’t yet been revealed, and the opposing side now has one month to request formal acceptable of their agreement by the court.
Emojing has already replaced texting as the go-to zero-effort communication tool of youngsters everywhere, and all those emoji version of popular songs and TV shows are about a lot more elaborate thanks to huge unicode update.
250 new emoji have been added to unicode standard 7.0 that is used to standardize the presentation of text across different platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows, and while it’s still up to software makers to actually implement the new standards, you can expect them to land on iOS pretty soon.
Apple’s approach to design is just as healthy as it was under Steve Jobs, according to Jony Ive. Looking ahead, Apple is building upcoming products with “materials we haven’t worked in before.” Let your imagination run wild.
The New York Times has published a follow-up Q&A with Jony Ive following its big weekend profile of Tim Cook.
Ive was quoted in the Cook story, but in this second installment we get more insight into how he sees the current state of Apple. Points of discussion include how Ive approaches product design, working with Cook, the values Steve Jobs instilled in the company, and how Ive doesn’t think “anything’s changed” since Cook became CEO.
If you haven’t gotten enough of disgruntled avians from Rovio’s hit series Angry Birds, what with last week’s Angry Birds Epic or the well-received Angry Birds Star Wars mobile games, then this news is for you.
Rovio has teamed up with Hasbro to mashup its own quirky mobile gaming franchise with yet another pop-culture phenomenon, the Transformers. And not the Michael Bay hyper-CGI movies, either. This looks to be a full-on 1980s cartoon take on the “robots in disguise” theme, complete with birds disguised as robots that can turn into cars and airplanes.
Sigh.
Apple’s Siri feature has been a crown jewel of iOS ever since it launched in 2011, but the company and the tech behind it might fall into the hands of Apple’s number one enemy – Samsung.
Nuance Communications is in discussions with a number of potential suitors looking to buy the company, and Samsung Electronics is at the top of the list, according to Wall Street Journal report that also names a few private-equity firms among the list of possible buyers, but Apple is nowhere to be found.
Most people use Facebook’s official iOS app to obsessively check their news feeds. But there’s another option that has a much better design and no ads. It’s called Paper, and it has been available for the iPhone since January.
Made by a special group within Facebook called Creative Labs, Paper is an experiment in how to use Facebook within a more media-rich, gesture-driven, elegant interface. If you haven’t heard of it yet, then you definitely need to check it out after the huge update it received today in the App Store.
Facebook is trying to transform its News Feed into more than just a hotbed of baby pictures and Buzzfeed quizes and its first move is a new side panel to help users discover more timely content.
To make the app more relevant for the way people use tablets, Facebook for iPad is adding a new channel on the right-hand side of your news feed featuring trending topics, videos and tons of game suggestions to try to get users to read more news, watch more videos and play games in the app. And you can bet there will be plenty of ads to compensate.
Cult of Mac Magazine June 16 Edition, Free on iTunes
All Cult of Mac’s news to peruse on your iPad or iPhone. This week we’ve got a tune up to keep your Mac running in top shape, plus news of the Macs that will be in stores soon and a love letter to Apple’s first commercial hit, the Apple II.
Beats already released one epic World Cup commercial this month, but last night Dre’s music behemoth tossed out another fantastic ad wrapped in an exclusive Jay Z track you’ll only find on Beats Music.
For the next week a new remix of “Jungle” featuring Jay Z alongside fellow Brooklyn-based friends, X Ambassadors & Jamie N Commons will be exclusively available on Beats Music streaming service.
Checkout the full Beats ad with J Hova’s ungodly soccer fueled verse:
Handoff was one of the most exciting iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite features announced at WWDC, giving you the ability to begin a task (say, an email) on one platform and seamlessly transfer it to another.
It’s a great illustration of Apple’s ecosystem at work — but will it work on your Mac?
Could the iPhone 6 boast a Quad HD display, packing a 2560 x 1440 resolution in line with the 5.5-inch LG G3?
That’s the word on the street according to a source citing “Apple employees” from Hong Kong, although it is not clear which iPhone 6 model is being referred to. If this is the case, it would give the give the iPhone 6 by far the most stunningly beautiful screen of any Apple smartphone ever.
With the announcement of its Health app (and associated API) for iOS 8, Apple is making no secret of its plans to enter the health and fitness-tracking market. Capitalizing on this hype, WebMD has just updated its flagship iOS app to target health and fitness enthusiasts in a new program called Healthy Target.
A brand new section of the popular healthcare app, Healthy Target helps you to keep in top form, and on top of your various health-related goals, by setting specific targets and then tracking your progress as you work toward them. To do this, the app lets users connect their favorite activity tracker, wireless scale, or glucometer to automatically track sleep, weight, and blood sugar levels.
Having recently clarified its position on virtual currencies in the App Store (hint: Apple doesn’t hate them as much as you thought it did!), we’re starting to see certain iOS apps which deal in Bitcoin being approved for availability in the App Store again.
One of the first is CoinPocket, an app which allows users to send and receive Bitcoin, as well as collect private keys into a single spot and encrypt them. It’s very similar to Blockchain and Coinbase: two Bitcoin wallet apps which were previously given the boot by Apple.
The New York Times featured a fascinating profile of Tim Cook on Sunday, describing his leadership style at Apple — including his role in product development, his efforts to grow the Apple brand, and his “quiet” approach to design. The profile also features a couple of neat insights that may have bearing on Apple’s eagerly-awaited iWatch development.
With so many emails to send in a day, having an application that meets all your requirements is critical. Though Apple’s native email client might not always have been the fastest means of delivering messages, iOS 8 aims to fix that. In today’s hands-on video, we’ll give you a look at the new and improved Mail application, which comes equipped with quick tricks to speed up common activities.
For instance, you can swipe across emails in the enhanced Mail app to quickly access functions or go back and forth between your inbox and drafts. See how it all works in the video above.
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Stare into our ball to see past the rumors and into the future...
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
After WWDC ground the rumor mill to a near halt last week, the Apple gossip machine is back to full force spitting out whispers of new iMacs, crazy tales of futuristic Smart Covers and of course, tons of new iPhone 6 rumors.
Once again we're taking the black cloth off our crystal ball and shining it up to see if we can spot what Tim Cook has in store for the future of Apple. Come see which rumors are guaranteed to materialize and which are about to disappear like a ghost.
From waterproof e-readers and old-school (sort of) newspapers to stylish Mac stands and remarkably big buttons, here's what's new on the gadget front this week.
We’ve heard plenty of reports about Apple’s 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone 6, but most of the leaked pictures so far have claimed to depict its smaller sibling, the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, instead.
That’s changed with some new model photos showing mockups of both sizes of the forthcoming iPhone 6, including both the back and front of the two next generation iPhone models, sitting side by side.