iOS - page 6

Great new iOS puzzle game is steampunk Flappy Bird with a twist

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This year's most enjoyable iOS puzzler?
Photo: iFun4all

Anyone who enjoyed last year’s smash hit Flappy Bird should take a minute to check out the excellently (if ironically) titled new iOS puzzler, Red Game Without a Great Name.

Putting you in control of a mechanical bird maneuvering its way through 60 levels of steampunk-inspired obstacles, the game takes a page from the Flappy Bird playbook, but tacks on the challenging addition of swipe-based teleportation for a genuinely original proposition.

Trust me, it’s a lot of fun!

Siri vs. Google Now: Who wins the AI cat fight?

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Fight!
Fight!

Friday-Night-Fights-bug-2Every mobile platform now ships with its very own virtual assistant, and while they all offer a similar set of basic features, Google Now and Siri are way ahead of their rivals. Google Now knows what you want and when you want it, but Siri has sass and personality, and is about to get a whole lot better with the help of Proactive.

If you were to pit the two against each other in a virtual ring, which one would come out wearing the belt? Join us as we find out in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac!

Google brings 360-degree storytelling to iOS

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A new way to tell stories on mobile.
Photo: TechCrunch

Looking for an innovative, immersive app experience to entertain your buddies with this weekend? Then you may be interested in 360-degree animated film app Spotlight Stories, which just landed on iOS after a couple of years as an Android exclusive.

Using a combination of 2D and 3D animations, the app lets you move your body and mobile device to check out what’s happening in different parts of the video — essentially letting a story unfold around you. If you’re remotely interested in seeing the potential of the iPhone and iPad as a way of telling stories in a totally new way, you won’t regret it.

How Apple treats Mac App Store developers like second-class citizens

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MacBook Air
The world wide web would like you to pay attention.
Photo: Apple

When it comes to the App Store and the Mac App Store, the two software dispensing platforms are not treated equally.

Not only do top 10 Mac App Store apps make a whole lot less than the chart toppers on iOS, but developers are noticing that Apple’s not even giving Mac app developers some of the same critical tools their counterparts enjoy on the App Store.

Invisible ads could be crippling your smartphone

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Some of the apps available on Apple Watch.
Thousands of apps on iOS and Android run invisible ads you didn't know about.
Photo: Apple

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is a common phrase that unfortunately does not apply to the apps on your phone. It turns out that thousands of apps on Android and iOS secretly have ads in them that you can’t see, and they very well might be what’s causing a number of problems that plague smartphones today.

iOS beta users can no longer write App Store reviews

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Sorry, beta users!
Photo: Ryan Orbuch

In what will surely be met with a sigh of relief from developers, Apple has stopped people running beta versions of iOS from writing reviews of apps in the App Store.

Many of these reviews tend to be negative because developers have yet to optimize their apps to run the latest prerelease software version. As a result, apps run on a beta version of iOS are far more likely to crash, or feature bugs.

Square’s new app gives retailers real-time sales data

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Square's new Dashboard app lets business owners track and compare real-time sales.
Photo: Square

Square continues to add to its lineup of small business tools, especially for owners and managers who want an overall better grip on their businesses. It’s introducing a new Dashboard app that does just that: it lets owners track sales in real-time right from an iPhone. Still, the only requirement is a free Square account.

Apple and IBM reveal 10 new enterprise apps for iOS and Apple Watch

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IBM
IBM has 10 new enterprise apps for iOS users.
Photo: Apple

Apple and IBM have been collaborating on creating an excellent suite of apps for the iPhone and iPad over the past year, but starting today, IBM’s MobileFirst apps are adding support for Apple Watch.

The Apple and IBM partnership revealed today that it’s created 10 more apps that cover everything from managing employee shifts to helping government inspectors get all the data necessary while out in the field.

Take a tour of the new apps below:

Panic button app could save your life — or go terribly wrong

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WItness gets you help from your own emergency contacts when you need it most.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

If you’re afraid of ever being in a dangerous situation without any witnesses or good samaritans nearby, you might want to consider downloading this new app appropriately named Witness. Calling itself the ‘panic button for the smartphone age,’ one tap broadcasts live video and your current location to a list of preset emergency contacts, who can then decide if it’s appropriate to take action.

Of course, if they do nothing, they could potentially have front-row seats to a very morbid and disturbing show.

Pixelmator update brings desktop-class photo repair to iOS

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Paint away the stuff you don't want in your photos with ease.
Paint away the stuff you don't want in your photos with ease.
Photo: Pixelmator

If you’re looking for a best-in-class photo retouching and editing app, you can’t go wrong with Pixelmator, available both for Mac and iOS.

The mobile version is utterly fantastic, letting you engage in the same sort of high-end photo editing, painting, and graphic design that you find in the desktop version for a fraction of the price.

The new update, which came out on Tuesday, ramps up the photo Repair tool to something that’s five times as fast, and even more precise. There’s also a new Dynamic Touch system, which lets you use the tip of your finger for thin strokes and the pad of your finger for thicker lines.

You won’t see this kind of subtlety and power in any other photo app, especially for $4.99.

Here’s a sneak peek at Apple’s News app in iOS 9

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Apple's News app finally debuted in iOS 9 beta 3.
Photo: Apple

It’s a little late to the party, but three betas in Apple released the News app it announced at WWDC 2015. Soon to be on every iPhone and iPad running iOS 9, News lets users customize the topics that are most important to them, then browse and read distraction-free news articles.

If you’re not running iOS 9 beta 3 or in a supported country like the U.S., fear not, we have the full tour.

Miss Home Sharing on your iPhone? Eddie Cue confirms Apple is on it

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Home Sharing coming back to iOS 9, says Apple's Eddy Cue.
Home Sharing coming back to iOS 9, says Apple's Eddy Cue.
Photo: Apple

According to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, his team is on top of the recent removal of Home Sharing from the iOS 8.4 update.

Cue tweeted that we can expect the feature, which lets you share music across Home Sharing-enabled Apple devices on the same network, will return in iOS 9.

Take a video tour around the iOS 9 beta

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Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac Get to know iOS 9 ahead of it's release.

The iOS 9 beta has been out long enough for me to give it a fair test drive and discover all that it has to offer. So in today’s video, I’m going to give you a rundown of all the new features coming to your iPhone this fall.

A focus on discovery makes Apple Music a serious contender

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Even Taylor Swift loves Apple Music.
Discover stuff large and small with Apple's new Music service.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

I’m a streaming music junky. I gave up collecting, owning, and maintaining music files on my own Mac years ago and I’ve never looked back. It’s the only sensible way to have access to millions of songs without having to worry about storing them.

I’ve used and tested Rdio, Spotify, Beats Music, and other on-demand streaming services over the past few years, so it made sense to check out Apple Music, the new on-demand service to come out of Cupertino.

It’s going to take some time to dig in deep, but so far, Apple Music is proving to be an amazingly comprehensive streaming music product that focuses on discovery, something that the competition struggles with. Within minutes of downloading iOS 8.4, I’m already listening to a playlist of artists I know as well as those I don’t – a perfect blend of old and new.

I’ve found a new streaming service to love in Apple Music, and I think you will, too.

Support iOS gaming by donating to TouchArcade’s Patreon

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Help support iOS gaming.
Help support iOS gaming.
Photo: TouchArcade

If you’re a fan of iOS gaming you’ve probably visited (or should visit) TouchArcade, which just so happens to be the largest and oldest iOS gaming website on the Internet.

Featuring news, reviews, guides, interviews, and one of the best iOS gaming forums you’ll find anywhere, TouchArcade is a great resource for anyone who feels like we’re currently in the middle of something of a golden age for mobile gaming.

But the site needs your help.

Everything that’s new in iOS 9 beta 2

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iOS 9 beta 2 goodies are here

Apple seeded iOS 9 beta 2 to developers today and while there aren’t any groundbreaking new features or drastic improvements, the company did manage to add a bunch of little changes and tweaks across the OS.

Most of the improvements are small design changes, but there are a couple really useful additions too, like adding Handoff to the app switcher, search improvements are more.

Take a look at everything that’s new in iOS 9 beta 2:

Publishers criticize Apple for ‘completely crazy’ News app email

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Publishers are frustrated with Apple's hasty attempt to lock them in to the forthcoming News app's terms and conditions.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s iOS 9 News app hasn’t even seen the light of day yet, but publishers are already heavily discontent with the email Apple sent out to them regarding its terms and conditions. The email essentially tells publishers what they’re agreeing to by opting in to the News app and assumes they agree unless they explicitly state otherwise.

Even if publishers don’t like the terms and conditions Apple lays out, Apple is basically forcing their hands unless they later specify that they don’t agree. In that case, of course, they also don’t get to be a part of the News app. The terms and conditions themselves don’t entirely appear to be causing the uproar, but rather the odd presumption that all the publishers are automatically willing to participate even in total silence.

iOS and OS X bug lets attackers steal passwords from iCloud Keychain

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Researchers cracked iCloud Keychain and bypassed App Store approval processes.
Photo: Faris Algosaibi/Flickr CC

A group of six university researchers claim to have successfully bypassed Apple’s tight App Store approval processes to publish Mac and iOS malware apps. According to the report, the team presented the zero-day vulnerability to Apple back in October 2014 and were told to keep quiet about it for at least six months.

Luyi Xing, a security researcher who helped expose the zero day vulnerability, still has yet to hear back from Apple on a possible fix.