February 10 is the deadline to update to the new Apple Home architecture -- or face possible consequences. Photo: Apple
Update: Today, February 10, is the deadline to update the Apple Home app to avoid hassles. Read on for more information about what to do and why.
After previous warnings, Apple issued a final email this week to customers using its Home app: Upgrade to the latest architecture by February 10 or risk losing control of your smart home devices. Well, that doesn’t sound good.
Download the Apple Sports app from the App Store to follow all your favorite teams. Photo: Apple
The new Apple Sports app version 3.0 dropped Wednesday, packing significant improvements that should make following your favorite teams and matches easier than ever on iPhone. The update brings a redesigned home screen with more personalization, some new baseball features and, more importantly for certain sports fans, new coverage of professional tennis — just in time for Wimbledon!
New beat-making and production updates enhance Apple's Logic Pro software. Photo: Apple
Powerful new Logic Pro updates for Mac and iPad will transform how musicians create beats and produce electronic music, Apple said Wednesday. The updates bring enhanced audio processing capabilities, innovative recording recovery features and fresh sound libraries.
Loud and proud in the update mix are the improved AI-driven Stem Splitter, which can make multiple audio tracks from one recording, and the new Flashback Capture, for those times you make great sounds but forget to hit “record.”
New features includes swiping left or right through your favorite for even faster navigation. Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Newly added soccer tournaments, smoother navigation among favorites and game-broadcast information come to the Apple Sports app in update 2.4, the iPhone giant said Monday. Each of the updates should help sports fans follow their favorite teams and leagues a little more easily.
Now you can strike up Apple Music Classical on your CarPlay screen and tell maestro Siri what to play. Photo: ChatGPT
You can now enjoy Apple Music Classical on the road per new updates Apple made Tuesday in version 2.1 of the app. It added CarPlay and Siri support to the service, in addition to other minor improvements to raise the quality level.
“Hey, Siri, crank up Brahms’ Sonata for Piano and Violin in G Major, and rip the knob off,” is something you could try saying as you drive around. But will the silence remain?
Storyboards provide a shot-by-shot guide to the most common social videos. Photo: Apple
iMovie has long been Apple’s default tool for creating quick, gorgeous videos on your iPhone or iPad. With Tuesday’s update to iMovie 3.0, Apple added a pair of new creative tools designed to help “aspiring content creators and moviemakers learn to edit and improve their video storytelling skills.”
The ultimate goal? To make creating compelling videos easier than ever.
App Store updates are still open for business. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
In all versions of the App Store up until iOS 13, there has been an Update tab — a whole page of the store dedicated to showing you the latest updates to your installed apps. In iOS 13, that’s gone, replaced by Apple Arcade, whether you subscribe to the new gaming service or not.
So, how do you update your apps in iOS 13? And if you have auto-update switched on, then how do you even see which apps have been updated, and read their release notes? Fear not. Manual update is still there. It’s just hidden.
Podcast app Castro addresses several missing features with version 3 Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
With podcasts increasing in popularity, Castro has been one of the top third-party podcast players on the market. In version 2, Castro changed the way users manage their unplayed episodes with their podcast triage system. While it was a great update, and included some gorgeous design touches, it was missing some key listening features. With version 3, Castro adds in users most requested features to make it a truly great podcast player.
The latest release also includes Chromecast support. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Apple Music subscribers on Android got some much-needed love from Apple today in the form of an update that brings a fresh UI to the streaming app.
It’s been nearly a year since Apple unveiled its Apple Music redesign as part of iOS 10 at WWDC 2016, but Android users are just now getting a taste of the interface’s bold, streamlined look.
Good news for iOS users who prefer Chrome: Google’s browser is now as fast as mobile Safari.
Chrome has switched to the WKWebView engine, which first became a feature in 2014 with iOS 8, allowing third-party browsers access to the same rendering engine as Safari.
Reading articles in Instapaper just got faster than ever. Photo: Instapaper
If you haven’t used Instapaper for awhile, it might be time to dig the app out again. It’s just received a great new update to version 6.2, adding some slick features like speed reading, the ability to tweet screenshots of text, and more.
Calling itself a social networking app for just two people, Avocado has long been one of the favorite apps of me and my wife. For everything from sending little reminders of affection in the form of digital hugs, to letting you know when your partner’s phone is about to die, it’s a fantastic Swiss Army knife of tools for people in a relationship.
With Avocado’s 2.1 update, though, that Swiss Army knife has gained one more tool: Google Calendar sync. And it’s about time.
Reeder 2– the best RSS reader on iOS — is getting a beefy new update soon, hopefully in time for holidays. The app’s developer has just submitted an update to Apple for approval that adds some big new features — including themes, Safari Reading List support, and more — as well as tweaked features and a load of bug fixes.
Here’s what you can expect when Reeder 2.1 hits the App Store.
Last month, Facebook released an update that allowed iPhone users to edit posts and comments and even preview all of their changes. It was a small, but welcome update. Unfortunately, it was also exclusive to the iPhone, but now users of Facebook for iPad can avail themselves of the same trick.
Today the GoPro iOS app hit version 2.0, and the update includes several additions that make it easier to interface with the GoPro camera from an iPhone or iPad. The app is way more than a remote control now.
The biggest feature is the ability to wirelessly transfer photo and video from the camera to a dedicated album in an iOS device’s camera roll. Once the you download version 2.0 of the iOS app and the most recent software update for the camera itself, you can browse, view, and delete media right from the camera’s memory card. Photos and videos that have been wirelessly synced over to your iOS device from the camera can be shared through email, text, or other apps like Instagram and Facebook.
GoPro users are going to love today’s update, so grab it now.
If you’re using Twitter on your iPhone instead of a third-party client like Twitteriffic or Tweetbot, version 5.4 has just rolled off the App Store updates pipeline, bringing better search, better conversation views and more. But it also yanks some features, including the ability to upload from Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous.
Facebook Messenger's new read receipts and location info in action
Facebook has updated its Facebook Messenger app in the App Store with several new features. You can now see when someone is replying to a message with a live typing indicator, much like iMessage in iOS. Read receipts will also reveal when a message has been read and by whom in a group message. Location information has also been added for showing where someone was when they sent a message from their Apple or Android smartphone.
All of these apps have been freshly updated for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
Apple released a slew of iOS app updates today in the App Store. iMovie, iPhoto, Garageband, Cards and iTunes U were all updated with various improvements and bug fixes.
All of the updates can be downloaded for free and are available now.
Have you ever wished that Apple would let you see App Store updates in the iOS Notification Center? Instead of having to open the App Store app to check for updates, you would be able to see new updates next to your other iOS notifications as they become available.
Thanks to a new tweak called AppUpdateNotifer, you can see App Store updates in the Notification Center drop down window on a jailbroken iOS device.
Apple has finally updated its iTunes Movie Trailers app for the new iPad’s Retina display. I say ‘finally’ because most of Apple’s own iOS apps were updated with Retina graphics on March 7th, but the Trailers app was left out.
You can download the update for Trailers in the App Store now, and it looks fantastic.
Unlike the Netflix app, Apple’s Trailers will let you stream video in stunning on HD. If you haven’t been using Trailers on your iPad and iPad, download it now and discover what you’ve been missing. Not only can you view trailers for upcoming movies, but there’s a handy calendar view for release dates, charts, favorite starring, and ticket/showing info. A great app just got even better.
Although Apple just announced OS X Mountain Lion last Thursday, Mac apps are already getting updated for compatibility with the next-gen OS. Mountain Lion is only available as a developer preview, but that hasn’t kept Smile from updating its popular PDF editor for the Mac, PDFpen, with Gatekeeper compatibility.
Smile makes great productivity apps for the Mac, like TextExpander. With this latest update to PDFpen, a Gatekeeper-friendly Developer ID has been added to help future Mountain Lion users install the app in a secure environment.
The psychedelic Whale Trail for iOS has been updated with 32 brand new levels and more power-ups. As the lead developer of Whale Trail told us in a recent interview, the popular App Store game now includes a second Challenge Pack called “Baron’s Revenge.” Among other additions, players can now keep progress synced across multiple devices.
The new levels in Whale Trail 1.2 will take you to the dark side. Now that’s what we’re talking about!
Instagram has been updated to version 2.1 in the App Store. The update brings several improvements, including a revamped interface. More photo editing features have been added, like the “Lux” editing tool and the new “Sierra” filter.
If you buy books through Amazon and use their Kindle app, a nice update was just pushed to the App Store bringing the option to subscribe on your iPad to any of the magazines offered on the Kindle Fire
Although its public release isn’t scheduled until this fall, Apple has already begun approving apps for its upcoming iOS 5 software for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — suggesting the firmware could launch as early as next month alongside the iPhone 5.