Another day, another new weather app. Dark Sky was already a big favorite, thanks to its hyper-local forecasts that tell you when it will rain outside your door, down to the minute.
Well, the app just got updated to version 6.0. According to the Dark Sky developers, it’s a completely new app — an update in name only. Let’s take a look.
There are roughly a billion weather apps on the App Store, and several them are very good indeed. But my current favorite is Hello Weather, which was just updated to get some great international features, as well as some awesome radar maps. It’s so great-looking, and so easy to use, that it’s been my go-to weather app since I discovered it.
Cycle is both a musical instrument and a meditation device. The app, for iPhone and iPad, is something called a “time lag accumulator.” You play notes on its simple keyboard, and these notes are repeated over and over, slowly fading after time. The result is hypnotic, relaxing and creative, all at the same time.
Hookpad is a web app for music composition, and it’s also a killer way to learn about music theory. Hookpad and its companion theory app/book have been around for a while. The problem was, it only worked on the desktop. Hookpad 2 is a complete rewrite, and it works just great in mobile Safari. You can even save it to your home screen.
Castro, one of our favorite podcast apps, just added two really great new features that aren’t yet available elsewhere. The first is the ability to load any audio file into the app, just by dropping it into a folder in your iCloud Drive. The second lets you preselect the podcast chapters you want to listen to.
Whether it’s our phones, our fitness trackers, or even something as innocuous as a dating app, much of the technology we use on a regular basis tracks our physical location.
Knowing the potential security risk this poses, the Pentagon banned deployed military personnel from using tech with active location-tracking features.
This week we go hitchhiking with Supertrampr, lay down some beats with Patterning 2, and, uh, create some invoices from our iPhones. Check it out.
Obscura 2 is one of the best camera apps and a bargain at $4.99 if the iPhone is your primary camera.
Today, Apple and the developer of Obscura announced it is available to download at no charge through Sept. 25 via the Apple Store app.
Since its introduction, the iPad has slowly won over new markets of people. Over the past couple years, photo and image editing apps have found a home on Apple’s tablet. Pixelmator for iOS takes photo editing and graphic design on iOS to a new level, bringing a photoshop-like experience to your fingertips.
George Takei is best known for his iconic role on Star Trek, but he’s also an activist. And a very anti-Trump one. His new app combines two things the internet loves: cats and politics.
House of Cats stars Trumpy Cat, a distinctly non-cute version of the President in feline form.
It used to be that the first-party iOS apps were only used by people who didn’t care enough to download something better. Mail, Notes, Contacts, the Calendar — all of these were immediately dumped into a junk folder by experienced users, to be replaced with a proper app. But something happened along the way to 2018. Now, Apple’s apps are every bit as good as third-party apps. (Well, mostly. The Contacts app is still awful.)
Today we’ll take a look at a few of Apple’s surprise hits.
Paper’s great for some things, but when it comes to reading and taking notes, the traditional medium is mediocre at best. And when iPad apps try to replicate paper, things get even worse.
“It doesn’t work,” said Craig Tashman, developer of the LiquidText PDF Reader app, which Apple showcased in an iPad ad this week. “They end up inheriting the deficiencies of paper without really inheriting the things that make it work.”
Tashman talked with Cult of Mac about his quest to reinvent paper, and the massive benefit of having a $945 billion tech giant giving an indie developer some props.
A new feature in the Netflix app will automatically download episodes of your favorite shows. This means they’re waiting on your phone or tablet when you’re ready.
Netflix already allows users to download episodes to watch later. The improvement announced today just makes it easier.
We’re all accustomed to paying a simple, one-time fee for our iOS apps. But developers are increasingly turning to subscriptions. In fact, there were billions paid in app subscription fees in the past year.
Apple reported today that revenue from subscriptions is up 95 percent over last year.
Weather can be exciting, but checking the weather rarely is. Regardless of what’s going on outside, Carrot Weather makes checking the forecast hilarious and fun. Better than that, Carrot Weather offers an Apple Watch app that is best in class for the platform.
Something is going to happen in the Fortnite game tomorrow. What that will be is a bit of a mystery, but it’s causing a lot of buzz.
Whatever the deal is, it’s happening at 1:30 pm Eastern Time on Saturday. In-game TV screens are showing a countdown clock, and that’s when it hits the zero hour.
Apple has begun gathering its own data about the U.S. road network, rather than buying this information from other companies. The goal is to significantly improve Apple Maps.
This app was a disaster when it launched 6 years ago, and although there have been significant improvements, it has been the butt of jokes ever since. Apple wants to change that.
Living in America, it’s sometimes easy to forget the FIFA World Cup is going on now in Russia. Soccer isn’t one of the Big Four U.S. sports. Heck, most Americans don’t even call it by the right name.
But the fact that new downloads of the Fox Sports Go app grew 950 percent during the first week of the World Cup shows there are vast numbers of people living in this country watching the matches on their phones or tablets.
Parental controls are a hot item. Apple is building them into iOS 12, kid-friendly apps have them, and T-Mobile just unveiled its solution: Family Mode.
This includes iOS and Android apps than can limit what children do online. And the Family Mode Home Base connects to the home Wi-Fi router and lets parents put restrictions on every device in the house.
Managing a busy schedule is something we all deal with from time to time. Relying on a calendar app makes it easier, but entering every meeting, project, or appointment can be a hassle. Fantastical is the best calendar app for adding events to your calendar and managing your schedule.
Tinder Picks is a feature this dating app is testing that might make it a better way to find people you’re compatible with emotionally, not just sexually.
Picks takes the user’s profile and shows them pictures of people who have similar jobs, educations, and interests.
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited just made the jump to to the Apple App Store. This service for children ages three to twelve offers thousands of books, movies, and games for a flat monthly fee.
The service launched years ago on Amazon’s own tablets, but only became available for iPad and iPhone today.
A Twitter redesign will put breaking news and sports events at the top of your timeline. Expect updated iOS and Android apps to emphasize current happenings over casual chat.
Apparently being brushed under the rug are pictures of your cat. Twitter seems to want people to be consumers of Tweets, not creators.
To-do lists can be incredibly useful for getting tasks done on time and staying on top of ongoing projects. Unfortunately for some, it’s a source of procrastination, with no reward for keeping up with your daily (or weekly tasks). The Streaks app gamifies your recurring tasks and helps create good habits (or break bad habits) quickly and easily.
Neural machine translation (NMT) has made the online version of Google Translate more accurate for years. Today, this AI feature was added to the iOS and Android apps so it can be used offline.
NTM allows the software to learn over time to create better, more natural translations. And this function is available while traveling without a local data plan.
