Apple mysteriously pulled app discovery service AppGratis from the App Store over the weekend. AppGratis is yet to confirm the reason for the decision, but it’s thought the app could have been in violation of a new rule Apple introduced last October banning iOS apps that feature or promote other apps.
Apple lets you control music playback on your iOS devices from the lock screen, but your options are very limited; you can play or pause tracks, and skip back and forth between them. But if you want to listen to another album, you’ll need to unlock your device and open the Music app to find it.
But not if you have Pluck installed. Pluck is a new tweak for jailbroken iOS devices that lets you access your entire music library from the lock screen.
PopAGraph is Yet Another iPhone Photo Editing App (YAIPEA), but it brings a slick interface and a nice new gimmick to the game. The idea is that you create quick masks for your photos, and then apply effects to the masked (and unmasked) sections. Then – and here’s where the name comes from – you can frame the picture so that the subject pops out over the edge.
The example picture of the boats at the top of this post shows exactly how it looks.
Concert Vault is a neat new iPad app which lets you watch and listen to music concerts. The free app has a slick interface which lets you search on your favorite bands and stream their gigs. It’s a deep catalog, too, going way back in time as well as offering newer content.
A few months back, I spent far too many hours trying to find an app which would scan a page of text and turn into actual, editable text. I found none. Or rather, I found nothing good. There are plenty of OCR (optical character recognition) apps in the store, but they were either inaccurate, or ugly, or (most often) both.
And while Evernote is excellent at letting you search on scanned pages and even your handwritten notes, you don’t get to touch the text itself.
I gave up, and now – as usually happens with my “urgent” research projects, I’ve forgotten why I needed it on the first place. Which is a shame, as Pixter Scanner has been launched,and it is quite excellent – with one huge annoyance, for me at least.
I’ve spent some time in Evoland, today, and I have to say I’m impressed. It’s more story than game, though there are all the trappings (pun intended) of the games many of us grew with baked right in. It’s a delight to play through, mostly because many of the older game mechanics, like turn-based fighting and random map encounters, don’t last too long.
It’s like getting to indulge your hankering for retro goodness without having to spend too much time with the lame stuff.
Another World (or, originally, Out of This World) is available on Steam for Mac now for ten bucks. The game has been likened to a proto action/platformer game, having been released in 1991, and then ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), the Sega Genesis, and the Apple IIGS in 1992. It’s a cult classic, exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and you can grab the 20th Anniversary version for Mac now on Steam.
This week on The CultCast: Jony Ive’s huge sweeping iOS 7 changes; Apple Television and the Ring of Power; our favorite April Fools pranks; and careful, your iPad might be giving you Gorilla Arm… all that and the best listener shout out ever on this minty-fresh episode of The CultCast!
Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Show notes after the jump.
Apple’s online store has never really been suited to mobile devices. Sure, there’s the Apple Store app for the iPhone, but navigating to the actual website on iOS isn’t the best experience. On the iPhone, the desktop site is squeezed into a narrow, 4-inch display. You have to zoom in to actually interact with and read any part of the site.
Some recent changes help to improve navigating the Apple online store on touch-based devices. Apple has added a scrollable navigation bar under product categories that lets you quickly jump to different pages. Search results for specific products are now displayed in a cleaner grid layout as well. You can click on an icon to open the product page. These improvements look particularly good on the iPad.
Source: Apple
True to its word, T-Mobile just pushed out an update for all unlocked iPhones on their network that enables LTE, Visual Voicemail, HD Voice and more.
Users can get the update via OTA or manually updating through iTunes. The update doesn’t change the software version on your device, so if you’re worried about losing your jailbreak, this should be safe.
Here are the official notes from T-Mobile:
For the past few decades, Microsoft has absolutely dominated Apple when it comes to the number of Microsoft devices sold versus Apple devices, but 2013 will be the year that everything changes.
A report from Gartner claims that Microsoft’s reign is coming to an end, as 2013 will be the first year that more Apple devices are purchased than Windows devices.
LockLauncher, a handy tweak that allows you to run apps from the lock screen on jailbroken iPhones, has today been updated to add support for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. You can download it now from Cydia’s BigBoss repository.
Sergey Brin is an odd dude. He’s also filthy rich, which allows him to embrace all that oddness by working on crazy projects like Google Glass. Brin also thinks that using a smartphone is weird and totally “emasculating.” But you know what’s not emasculating at all? Driving around in a pink batmobile Telsa with Chrome logos on your chrome hubcaps.
Ryan Mac posted this picture of the Google co-founder rolling around LinkedIn HQ earlier today, and we’re at a complete loss of words. Brin’s either got indomitable swag, or he thinks rainbow colored eyelashes for your headlights are going to become the new vogue car accessory, which kind of makes him crazy, right? It turns out the pink Tesla batmobile was just an April Fools prank, but I’m sure Brin loved it.
Source: Twitter
Apple has been forced to change the way in which its VPN On Demand feature works on iOS devices following a patent lawsuit it lost last November. The Cupertino company has published a new knowledge base article to explain to users how the change will affect their devices.
Apple is reportedly gearing up to make big changes to iOS 7, changes so big that it’s had to pull engineers away from OS X 10.9 development to help get it finished for its release later this year. I’m just hoping that the Cupertino company adds some of the features included in the latest iOS 7 concept video below.
Designed by Federico Bianco, the concept adds almost every feature we’ve ever wanted in iOS, including quick message reply, quick settings, widgets, Mission Control, and lots more. Check it out below.
Evernote Hello, the iPhone app that makes it easy to remember the people you meet, has been updated with a number of new features. The app now has a passcode lock option, making it more secure, and a number of improvements have been made to business card scanning, including the ability to control your camera’s flash.
There seem to be two ways to make a Wi-Fi-enabled camera. The first is to build an actual camera and add a Wi-Fi radio. The second is to make an iPod Touch with a decent 5MP camera module inside. Depending on your requirements, either one can be great.
But there now appears to be a third way. Samsung has taken a camera, added an Android phone, and then taken away the phone part of that phone. Behold! The Wi-Fi Galaxy Camera.
The Keyper isn’t strictly a Mac-related gadget, or even an iOS-related one. But I’m writing it up for a few reasons anyway. One, it’s gorgeous. Two, leather confections are a favorite of our esteemed deputy editor John Brownlee. And three, it actually is pretty iPhone and iPad friendly because it’ll stop your keys from scratching up their screens if you toss the lot n a bag or pocket together.
Apple and T-Mobile have begun pre-orders for the iPhone 5. The launch date for the iPhone 5 is scheduled for April 12th, so if you’re eager to jump the gun on the T-Mobile iPhone 5, here’s your chance.
T-Mobile is the last of the four major carriers in the U.S. to start selling the iPhone. To attract new customers, T-Mobile is selling the iPhone 5 for $99 without a cellular service contract. Although the carrier is still working to expand its LTE network as fast as possible, customer might not mind the service renovations in exchange of a cheaper monthly bill.
Source: T-Mobile
According to “two people familiar with the matter,” Apple is super close to closing a deal with a couple of major music labels for its own streaming music service, one which is reportedly better than the deal that the labels are getting from rival service, Pandora.
While other reports have Apple “lowballing” the record industry on royalty rates of up to half what Pandora pays, CNET is reporting that new revenue options could make the iRadio deal better for labels in the long run.
Remember PostSecret? That was an app based on the PostSecret website, where people were encouraged to share secrets anonymously, with pictures and words. The app got discontinued due to potential abuses; the founder, Frank Warren, pulled it from the App Store when he thought it had gone too far.
Whisper, then, uses the same idea: allow people to post pictures with meme-like text over the top to anonymously share secret things they can’t get out there on regular social networking sites. What Whisper does differently, though, is to put the private messaging behind a paywall. You’ll need to pony up six bucks a month to be able to message users of the service privately.
While tech experts have been eager to announce the demise of Apple and the iPhone, a different story has taken place in the U.S. as Apple has continued to widen its lead against Samsung.
comScore just released its latest report on the state of the U.S. smartphone market, and their findings show that Apple managed to widen increase its marketshare. Samsung saw some growth as well (1.0% ) but Apple grew about four times more (4%).
Whenever third-party retailers start selling an Apple device at a discounted price, it’s usually a good indication that the next product iteration is on the near horizon. While this isn’t always the case, it’s a historic trend that points towards something new from Apple.
Based on recent price cuts from big retailers and the rumor mill, it looks like the iPad will be getting a refresh soon.
Today Facebook unveiled “Home,” its new, immersive Android experience. HTC has partnered with Facebook to launch the HTC First, a smartphone designed from the ground up for Home. Other Android handset makers are in the pipeline to release Home-based devices down the road.
Home is a great idea for Facebook and Facebook lovers, and it will probably be very popular on Android after it becomes available next week. But don’t expect to get Facebook Home on your iPhone. Not in this lifetime.
France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard says that budget smartphone buyers are threatening sales of Apple’s pricey iPhone. Consumers are becoming more frugal due to the state of the economy, particularly in Europe, Richard told Bloomberg Businessweek, and so they’re turning to cheaper options when it’s time to get a new cellphone.