This year’s Worldwide Developers Conference will kick off June 8 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Apple said today. The five-day event will provide an early glimpse at the future of iOS and OS X, plus more developer sessions than ever before.
This week: get’em while they’re hot! The Apple Watch is ready for pre-order, but the reviews are in, and they’re a mixed bag. Plus: what’s good in iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3; Robert Baratheon makes HBO NOW a no-brainer; Samsung is up to their old tricks; the new Macbook didn’t benchmark well, but it might not matter; and things get weird in an all-new Get to Know Your Cultist!
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Full show notes ahead!
On the Mac, it’s super-easy to search for a word or phrase within the currently loaded page. You simply hit Command-F on your keyboard and Safari, Chrome or any other web browser will open up a little field to type your search terms into.
But what about when you’re using mobile Safari on your iPhone or iPad? How do you find a specific word or phrase there?
It’s pretty simple, but not super-intuitive. Here’s our recipe for finding search terms on your iPhone’s version of Safari.
Crowd-sourced navigation app Waze has got a neat little idea for this coming Easter: little eggs you can drive over while using the app for points (three per egg!) and bragging rights.
So, as you drive down the street, headed to the grocery or picking up the kids, you can maximize your route to get as many egg points as possible.
This fun little promotion is happening now (it started last week) and will last through April 5.
Transferring your WhatsApp data to a new device can be a pain — particularly if you’re switching from Android to another platform, or vice-versa. But WhatsApp looks set to make it a whole lot easier by giving users the ability to backup their messages to Google Drive.
If you’re like me, you’ve got a ton of unread iMessages on your iPhone and tapping through them all just to get rid of your app badge anxiety seems like a bit too much effort.
Apple has your back, though, with a nicely designed way to mark all your iMessages as read. It might not be apparent at first glance where to find this magic trick. Here’s how.
Although the App Store is still full of freemium games like Angry Birds, Apple is pretty great when it comes to highlighting some of the more unusual titles that pop up on iOS — from the M.C. Escher gorgeousness of Monument Valley to the nihilistic weirdness of Sometimes You Die.
The company continues that trend with its latest pick for App of the Week, which would normally set you back a couple of bucks, but can be downloaded completely free of charge for the next seven days. It’s Dark Echo, a uniquely twisted puzzle game by RAC7 Games — and I’m here to tell you it’s excellent.
Check out the trailer and a description below. Trust me, if you like unusually minimalist puzzlers, you won’t be disappointed.
The video game world rejoiced yesterday at the news that Nintendo is finally backing down on its anti-smartphone and tablet stance, and is working to bring its most beloved franchises to Android and iOS.
But gamers aren’t the only ones celebrating!
Nintendo shares shot up 21 percent in the 24 hours after the company said it was teaming with Tokyo-based mobile company DeNA to develop smartphone games. The result was Nintendo’s value on the Tokyo Stock Exchange rising to its best closing price since June 2011.
These days, Apple has one of the better cloud infrastructures in the world. Even so, the sheer demand for a new version of iOS or OS X on release day can bring Apple’s network to its knees. Apple’s servers simply can’t keep up with the demand.
But Microsoft might have found a better way. In the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system beta, there’s an option to download app and OS updates from multiple sources: not just Microsoft’s cloud servers, but all local network or PCs on the internet.
In other words? The future of updating operating systems might be a lot like updating World of Warcraft.
Nintendo has always been adamant it wouldn’t develop games for smartphones and tablets, but it has finally given in.
Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and other popular franchises could soon be coming to Android and iOS after the Japanese company confirmed it will be developing new titles for smart devices with the help of game developer DeNA.
Designer, artist and feminist Molly McLeod has an iPhone problem. It’s one we probably all share: We spend too much time staring at it. Imagine how much worse it’s going to get when we replace our neurotic iPhone obsession with an Apple Watch.
McLeod created four delightfully playful designs that we could use to remind us (with a healthy dose of irony) to stop staring at our tiny screens for a moment.
“I find myself habitually looking at my phone when I’m commuting or idly waiting for something,” she writes on her website, “so I thought I would make my phone give me this gentle reminder. There are always other interesting things to look at if you look up!”
Got an iPhone 6 or smaller? You might be feeling a little cramped for space on your screen due to iOS 8’s new word-prediction system.
That little gray bar that sits just above your iOS keyboard is called the QuickType bar, and it’s where all the auto-correct and typing suggestions appear when you’re sending an email, typing a note or iMessaging with someone. The suggestions are based on your past conversations, which lets QuickType take your writing style into account. It even keeps track of who you’re writing to, since your word choice is typically tied to your conversation partner.
If you want to hide it because you need more space on your screen, you can do so in any of three ways. You can also bring it back if you’ve inadvertently hidden it and don’t know where it went.
Apple placed another app that can’t be deleted on everyone’s iPhones with the release of iOS 8.2. For now, the Apple Watch companion app is just a useless tease if you don’t have an Apple Watch yet, but iOS developer Hamza Sood has cracked it open and given us a preview of what the app will look like once you get your watch.
Sood tweeted some interesting tidbits about the app, revealing its beautiful dark theme along with details about the settings, how to add friends, mute notifications, and other interesting features.
Take a peek inside the app below:
For the first time, Apple has made it possible for those without an App Store developer membership to use iOS betas. Anyone can legitimately download and install today’s iOS 8.3 beta by joining Apple’s official Beta Testing Program.
OS X Yosemite was the first software release that could be beta tested by non-devs, and now that Apple has flung open the gates on iOS, many more people will likely opt-in to be on the cutting edge of where the operating system is headed.
Google’s gorgeous redesign of the Calendar app has finally made its way to iPhone. The Android version of Google Calendar’s redesign was released last fall, but iPhone users can now get their fingers on the official Google Calendar app too.
Like on the new Android version, you get new features like Events from Gmail, to turn emails into events on your calendar. Assists makes adding events quicker by recommending information to insert, and the new Schedule View makes it easier to scan your calendar and see what events you have coming up.
Take a tour of the new app below:
The CIA has been been involved in a multi-year effort to crack iOS security, according to new information provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The attempts have been the focal point of multiple yearly CIA conferences called “The Jamboree.”
Among the possible solutions proposed include a means of “whacking” Xcode, the software used to create apps for iOS and Macs. Researchers claimed they had discovered a means by which Xcode could be manipulated to allow devices to be infected, so as to allow for the extraction of private data — thereby creating a “remote backdoor” that would disable core security features and allow undetected access to Apple devices.
Now that we know more about the long-awaited Apple Watch, it’s time to find out how it stacks up against Google’s Android Wear platform and the growing number of wearables that support it.
There are lots of similarities between the two, but there also some big differences in software, hardware, and price that will likely help you decide which one is right for you.
A newly discovered security bug has secretly left Safari users on both iOS and OS X vulnerable to attacks on hundreds of thousands of websites for years.
The ‘FREAK’ security flaw was exposed today by a group of nine researchers who discovered web browsers could be forced to use an intentionally-weakened form of encryption. FREAK effects iPhones, Macs, and Android browsers, but Apple’s spokesman says the company will release a fix next week.
Google’s efforts to counter the threat of the Apple Watch will begin with bringing Android Wear support to iPhone. Sources claim the search giant is now “preparing” an Android Wear app for iOS, and it could be announced at Google I/O in May.
Apple and IBM’s partnership to bring iOS apps into the workplace produced 10 apps last year. Today at Mobile World Congress, IBM announced that it is launching three more MobileFirst apps aimed at the banking, airline, and retail industries.
The three new iOS apps are available for deployment and customization starting today. The apps are part of Tim Cook’s initiative to change the way people work by giving companies access to high-quality iOS apps. IBM says its clients for the MobileFirst apps include American Eagle Outfitters, Sprint, Air Canada, Banorte, and more than 50 others.
Here’s a quick look at the three new apps:
Last year around 1.4 Million U.S. households reportedly threw in the towel on Pay TV and embraced the cord-cutting revolution. And it seems that the idea of consuming media in non-traditional ways starts young, with Nickelodeon this week announcing its plans to launch a subscription video service aimed at preschoolers.
Called Noggin, the service takes the form of an iOS app set to launch on March 5. Costing just $5.99 per month, it will be advertising-free, and will boast a range of kids’ shows, such as “Blue’s Clues” and “Little Bear” that are not currently part of Nickelodeon’s assorted TV networks.
République Remastered is the gorgeously rebooted Mac and PC version of Seattle-based Camoflaj’s intriguing episodic stealth video game that originally came out for iPad and iPhone in December of 2013.
The development team took the opportunity to completely revamp the game within the updated game engine, Unity, moving the entire project from Unity 4 to Unity 5. By making this the first game release ever with the Unity 5 engine, they got early access to the engine in return for documenting their process.
“When Unity 5 was announced we saw our chance to make good on our two-year old promise to make a PC and Mac version of République,” writes the team on the Unity blog. “In addition to spending months completely reworking the game’s controls and UI, we knew we’d benefit from an increased wow factor on this new platform. From our dumpy office in downtown Bellevue (surrounded by industry titans like Bungie and Valve), we’ve put our heart and soul into this ambitious and at times, difficult, project.”
Check out the official game trailer below to see how they succeeded in making this already stunning game even more gorgeous.
BlackBerry’s smartphone business is imploding in a big way in the U.K., where the company is currently losing around 56,000 users every month to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, new research shows.
Just two years ago, the Canadian company had around 8 million non-business users in the U.K., but that figure is expected to fall below 1 million by the end of this year.
You may have noticed recently that the Facebook app makes sounds. Like a post? Chirp. Refresh the news feed? Swoosh. It’s like your iPhone got suddenly chatty and wants you to know that you’re tapping on the screen with every blip and bloop.
Surely you’d like to turn these things off. You could just mute your whole iPhone with the sound toggle button, but if you want to have other audio come through, like video, music, or (gasp) phone calls, you can dip into your Facebook app settings and soon experience the bliss of a blip-free Facebook browsing experience.
Here’s how.
IFTTT is ready to become more than just a standalone service in 2015. Hoping to transition to a company with multiple products, IFTTT revealed today that it has created three entirely new ‘Do’ apps — Do Button, Do Camera, and Do Note — that let you personalize and execute your favorite IFTTT recipes with one tap.
To go along with the new apps that make it simply to automate your most common Internet tasks, IFTTT has rebranded its original app to just IF. The three new apps are kind of a mixture between Yo and Workflow, giving you a new level of control for favorite services and applications.
Here’s a quick look at each new app.
