In an era where Snapchat and Instagram reign supreme with quick messaging and bite-size snapshots of stories, iPhone users looking for a free platform to share long stories have had to make do with ugly workarounds – like stuffing seven pictures into one tiny Instagram square.

No one has built a really great free iPhone app that allows users to effortlessly create and share long interactive stories. Explory is aiming to break into the category by helping users combine photos, video, text, music and narration to create more meaningful stories to share. But can a free app with limited editing features convince users to ditch their 10-second disappearing messages in favor of longer storytelling? We went hands on with Explory to see. Here’s what we found:

Big Questions? Short Answers! — Entertainment — Free ($2.99 for full unlock)

This strange little app contains 400 questions of varying philosophical value and only gives you 140 characters with which to answer them. The idea is to let you browse through other people’s responses in order to discover varying viewpoints and share your own. It remains to be seen whether this project will live up to its potential or if “lots n lots of candy” is the norm, but you throw caution and cogency to the wind when you ask anonymous people on the Internet to think seriously.

Big Questions? Short Answers!

The Colossatron is a mysterious, robotic dragon-thing that drops out of space specifically to destroy cities. Nobody knows what it is or where it came from; all we know is that it must be destroyed before it destroys us.

Nobody even knows how to control it, and that includes anyone playing the game.

Colossatron: Massive World Threat is the latest from Jetpack Joyride developer Halfbrick, and it’s the studio’s most esoteric title yet. And this is the team that also made a game about chopping fruit while avoiding bombs that, while possessing fuses, apparently only explode if they get cut.

So, yeah. It’s even weirder than that.

Google has re-released its MyGlass companion app for Google Glass in the iOS App Store. The app was briefly available a couple days ago, but Google pulled it and issued a statement saying that it was actually meant to release alongside the XE12 firmware update for Glass. Now that it is out, looks like MyGlass for iPhone has the green light.

Here’s what the app looks like:

No matter how you feel about Apple and the iPhone, it’s impossible to deny that the device completely revolutionized the mobile industry when it was launched in 2007. Without it, the smartphones of today may have been completely different.

Take Android, for example. It’s the biggest competitor to the iOS operating system that powers the iPhone, and it’s now the world’s largest mobile platform — but the iPhone is the reason Android is what it is today. Google started work on the software way back in 2005, but it scrapped everything and started again the day after iPhone was revealed to the world.

I’ve let friends borrow my Macbook when they come over to my place from time to time, and I’m still surprised by the way they don’t “get” the trackpad. Some of them look for the button to click, some want to know how to right click, and still others move the mouse cursor way over to the scroll bar area on the web browser, looking to move the page up or down.

So, I figured it might be time for a quick tip with some easy yet non-obvious Trackpad gestures that you can use if you’re new to the Macbook trackpad system, or if you just want to send to friends that continue to be baffled by the trackpad when they borrow your laptop.

Coinciding with the launch of its new Mac Pro, Apple has released an update to Final Cut Pro X — adding new Mac Pro-optimized features to the video editing suite.

The update comes as no surprise, since Apple let us know it would be happening during the WWDC back in June. What wasn’t revealed at that stage, however, was the list of new features carried by the software.

Cut the Rope is one of the most popular App Store games of all time, and rightly so. When it launched way back in 2010, it was an original concept. Physics-based puzzlers are all the rage now, but Cut the Rope was one of the first good ones. Since then, ZeptoLab has continually updated the game with new features and levels, including spinoff releases like Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift, Cut the Rope: Experiments, and Cut the Rope: Time Travel.

The original Cut the Rope has been downloaded over 100 million times, which is insane. That’s why the full-blown sequel has been highly anticipated. And after months of teasing, it’s finally here.

Filed under “S” for “Stalling” and “Still waiting” is the Apple-China Mobile deal, which remains yet to materialize.

In place of the expected announcement, China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua said on Wednesday morning that his company currently has no announcement to make on a deal to carry the iPhone — although he hoped to reveal one soon.

“China Mobile has yet to reach an agreement with Apple, but good news deserves to be waited for, and we expect to release cooperation information soon,” he said.

Yesterday, reacting to the news that Spotify was getting a darker look on the Mac, we despaired that it would ever catch up to the aesthetic appeal of Rdio.

As if they heard our words, Rdio widened the gap a little more today, releasing a new update that contains not only iOS 7-oriented UI improvements, but a notable new feature as well.

First announced last week, Chair Entertainment’s incredible hack-and-slash game Infinity Blade III has received a massive update today, adding 3 new quests, 9 new enemies, new modes, skills, goals, potions, gems, and more to an already feature-packed game.

A video has surfaced showing Bill Clinton speaking to Time magazine about Steve Jobs shortly after Jobs’ death.

The interview sees Clinton touch on various topics: his own interaction with Jobs over the years, the launch of the original iPhone, and Jobs’ fight against cancer.

The new Mac Pro is finally here, and considering the fact that it looks exactly like a trash can, what better way to celebrate its release than to replace your Mac’s current trash icon with Apple’s stealthy, space-age new super computer?

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Apple’s personal virtual assistant Siri is a smart cookie, but she’s veered towards the apocalyptic and apocryphal this morning, predicting the opening of the gates of hell on July 27th.

For nerds of a certain age (my age), the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was our first home computer/games console/escape from the nightmare world of normal humans. And now this iconic machine is set to be reborn in its home country of Great Britain, only now it’ll be a Bluetooth accessory for your iPad.

Real Racing 3 for iOS has received a stocking-filler of a Christmas update in the form of a handful of new features and tweaks — the major one being the addition of a multiplayer mode allowing users to race against multiple friends in realtime via Game Center.

Jolicloud, the Norwegian Dropbox alternative that doesn’t have to secretly give your data to the U.S. police state whenever it’s asked, has made available a beta version of its v2.0 web app. And it’s pretty amazing. Up until now, Jolicloud was very similar in intent and execution to Dropbox: a folder that’s everywhere.

Now, though, you not only get online access to your Jolicloud folder, but to all your other internet accounts. Including Dropbox.

Apple stock took a bit of a hammering this morning, as it fell by more than $16 a share before rebounding.

UPDATE: Sadly, as pointed out by one of our readers and then corroborated, it seems that Bill Gates didn’t after all buy an iPad — although the rest of the story stands. The confusion came from the apology on behalf of user NY1227 for including an iPad on her wishlist.

You may remember Unclutter, the app which “sweeps away desktop detritus.” Well, now it’s back, and it’s tidier than ever.

Question: When is an iPhone not an iPhone?

Answer: When it’s an ioPhone. And when it runs Android.

Seizing on the massive following the iPhone enjoys in Japan, Japanese manufacturer Iosys will reportedly start marketing its cheap knockoff iPhone 5c-inspired ioPhone5 this Friday.

Among a long list of cool new features added to Boinx’s iStopMotion for Mac, two stand out. The first is that you can hook up a Canon DSLR and see it’s live-view output right in the app. But the second is the one you’ll really be interested in: iStopMotion now outputs animated GIFs.

Apple’s “fastest Mac ever” is now available to order from the Apple online store, with prices starting at $2,999. The high-end desktop, which is assembled in the United States in Austin, Texas, is currently shipping before the end of the year.

You can also pick one up today from your local Apple retail store, or from an Apple authorized reseller.

If you’re buying a Mac Pro today, you might also be looking around for a 4K monitor or two to hook up to it. Well, LG has you more than covered, with its crazy wide new 19:10 ratio 4K screen, catchily dubbed the 31MU95. The 31-inch screen has a resolution of 4,096 x 2,160, and is so wide you might only need one of them.

You know how Apple keeps last year’s iPhone around, maybe adds a color, and sells it for less than the current model? That’s what Olloclip is doing with the 3-IN–1 lens. Kinda. The lens now fits the iPhone 5C, comes in a rainbow of matching colors, and costs just $60.