iOS - page 9

Saturday Night Live turns forty this year, and what better way to celebrate than by making a sizeable portion of the show’s most classic sketches available to enjoy whenever you want? With that in mind, a newly-launched iOS app boats more than 5,500 freely-available sketches, spanning the show’s entire four-decade (and counting) run.

Although SNL is already available on Netflix, the free app not only allows you to easily enjoy classic sketches on your subway ride to work, but also lets you search for appearances by individual cast members or characters — as opposed to having to trawl through entire episodes to get there.

Anyone who enjoys old-school games will most likely have experienced the crushing disappointment of finding a favorite title in the App Store — only to discover that whichever company ported the game to iOS took no care whatsoever in doing so.

Fortunately, one game series you could absolutely never throw that accusation at is the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, thanks to the remastering efforts of fans Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley. For anyone interested in game restoration and porting, their story is kind of inspirational.

As many of us use Google calendar to manage our daily lives, it’s an important thing to get this wondrous scheduling solution on our iPhones and iPads to better able to access it on the go.

Several third-party calendars, like the ever-useful and visually stunning Fantastical 2, use the iOS system for connecting to and synchronizing your calendars from Google to your mobile device.

Usually this works without a hitch, especially with newer iOS versions; you simply add an account and the calendar events you input on the web will show up on your iPhone, and vice versa.

When that doesn’t work, however, the settings you need to tweak can be a bit unintuitive. Here’s what they should look like for the best two-way Google to iOS sync.

Update: This story has been modified to more accurately describe the sync capabilities of Fantastical 2, and we’ll have a how-to up on getting Google and iOS to play nice soon.

Readdle’s calendar app, Calendars 5, brings all the natural-language and sync goodness of other high-end calendar apps, along with support for your Google or iOS calendar, to your iPhone and iPad at the same time in one $3 app. Plus? When you add an event to Calendars 5, it shows up on your Google Calendar (or iOS Calendar if you roll that way).

Two-way sync? Natural-language event creation? iOS Reminders support? Recurring events? Invitations? Apple or Google Maps integration? Works offline or online?

This is gonna be your new favorite calendar app, if it isn’t already.

Apple may eventually merge OS X and iOS, but I can’t see it happening any time soon. In an interview last year, Phil Schiller dismissed the idea of combining both (exactly what Microsoft recently announced plans to do with Windows 10) as an enormous “waste of energy.”

If you’d like to see what an iOS/OS X mashup could look like, however — and you have a jailbroken iOS device, to boot — you can check out the latest tweak from jailbreak developer Evan Swick.

Called Harbor, the tweak is described by Swick as “the ultimate dock tweak” and brings the OS X Yosemite dock to any device running iOS 8 — offering you a whole new way of launching apps on your iPhone or iPad.

And you know what? It’s actually pretty great.

How would you like an app that transforms your regular 8-megapixel iPhone 6 camera into a 32-megapixel one?

Okay, so it’s not exactly as miraculous as it sounds, but photography app Hydra is a worthy tool to add to your virtual camera bag. It works by taking a series of up to 60 small images and then stitching them together to form one super high-resolution picture.

While it isn’t true 32-megapixel photography, it’s still an altogether impressive app that only serves to underline just why the iPhone camera has been so embraced by users.

I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you don’t even like Batman. This beautiful, remote-controlled, iPhone-compatible Batmobile? It’s the toy that Gotham — hell, everybody! — deserves.

Every gamer over a certain age has a fondness for the 8- and 16-bit titles they grew up with, so it’s no surprise developers born in the 1980s are now creating nostalgia-infused iOS games harking back to the glory days of the Genesis and S.N.E.S. But which of these should you be playing? Fortunately, Cult of Mac can be your guide.

Pop in another quarter, click the button below, and find out what you need to download to truly be down with the kids thirty-somethings.

What is it with Apple and the gaming-related patents as of late?

Just weeks after the publishing of an Apple patent showing a concealed gaming joystick capable of being hidden in future iPhones, today the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office has revealed another Apple invention related to a snap-on gaming controller for iOS devices.

As with the joystick patent, the idea here is to allow gamers to fully capitalize on the present golden age of iOS gaming, without having to block parts of the screen using their fingers for multitouch controls.

With their rise, fall and ascent to global cultural dominance, Apple and LEGO are not entirely dissimilar as brands. I’m not sure whether their similar philosophies toward business have any bearing on my appreciation for both companies, but I do know that I absolutely loved last year’s LEGO Movie.

Having recently been robbed of an Oscar nom, fellow LEGO Movie fans can at least get some of their brick-fix today thanks to the news that The LEGO Movie Video Game has arrived on iOS — giving you a chance to play what is a very fun game on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple has agreed to accept the Chinese government’s demands to run network safety evaluations on all Apple products before they can be imported into the country.

Tim Cook met with the country’s Internet and Information office last December to discuss Apple’s plans in China, and has since consented to the government’s demands that they be allowed screen products for the fabled NSA backdoor. According to a spokesperson who was also present at the meeting, Cook has assured Chinese officials that Apple will fully cooperate with the governments wishes to have products inspected for security concerns.

Rdio may be the underdog in the streaming media wars when compared to Spotify, but for my money, they still have the best software around. And it’s just gotten even better.

Today, Rdio for iOS was updated to version 3.1, bringing a new station for just-released music, enhanced sharing abilities and a load of other features and bug fixes.

There was a time before iPhones, when BlackBerry was the go-to name when it came to high quality smartphones. Those days are now well and truly over, although BlackBerry is still on the lookout for ways to even the playing field.

In a new blogpost over on the official BlackBerry website, CEO John Chen argues for a net neutrality-style “app neutrality,” which would see Apple legally compelled to make its popular iMessage service for BB10 handsets.

“Unfortunately, not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality,” Chen writes. “Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging service.”

Apple’s refusal to upgrade the cheapest iPhone to 16GB could be leading to a crisis, and these stats just might prove it.

When the iPhone 6 came out, Apple (un)pleasantly surprised everyone by only upgrading two of the three storage options: While the baseline iPhone 6 stayed at a meager 16GB of storage, the middle and high-end storage options were upgraded to 64GB and 128GB respectively.

Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time isn’t just a popular kids’ show, it presents one of the richest and most surreal animated landscapes I can remember seeing on a TV show.

In other words, it’s perfect for sparking and unlocking young people’s imagination and creativity.

That’s the concept behind the newly-launched Adventure Time Game Wizard, which lets you use your iOS device and a few sheets of paper to draw and play your own video game levels. And much like Adventure Time itself, it’s really quite addictive.

To get the fun of virtual bowling without a Wii, look no further than Bowling Central, a magical iOS app that lets you swing your iPhone around to send a virtual bowling ball slamming into all the pins at the end of the lane.

The game is powered by Rolocule Games’ motion-tracking technology, called “rolomotion,” which lets you swing your iPhone like a Wii remote. The gaming company’s two founders wanted to create a Wii Bowl-style experience, only with an Apple TV and an iPhone, and they won a 2014 Edison Award for their solution.

“We worked really hard to get the motion gaming controls right,” Rolocule’s Anuj Tandon told Cult of Mac in an email, “and getting the perfect controls took time. Not only … can you give accurate direction to the ball, but by twisting the wrist, the ball can be given a spin, just like real bowling.”

Whether it’s fuzzy, Polaroid-style filters on Instagram or iPhone speakers disguised to look like cassette players, there’s a fascinating retro streak that runs through high tech — something that should, by rights, be as modern as it gets.

With that in mind, developers Mint Digital have come up with an intriguingly counter-intuitive app concept, which may be either genius or the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. In an age where we can snap and view as many photos as our iPhones will store, Mint Digital’s WhiteAlbum app wants to change that, in effect turning your expensive iPhone into the equivalent of a cheap disposable camera.

You get to take just 24 photos, and you are unable to see these until the first time they arrive at your door, printed on real photo paper, at $20 per album, with free worldwide shipping.

At 9, Mariah Martin already has a handle on future careers. “Veterinarian, professional figure skater, fashion model and teacher – not all at once.”

For now, she must settle for tech entrepreneur.

The Seattle fourth-grader and her father, Scott, understand learning math for many children is no joyride but they have developed an iOS game app they believe will put kids in the driver seat on a road to mastering the basics.

CarQuiz allows drivers to navigate a track with math equations along the way and a choice of three answers a little further down the road. Once the equation appears, the driver must quickly figure out the answer as three choices appear. With a finger swipe, the driver moves into the lane with the correct answer.

The AMBER Alert network in your area is about to get more effective.

Social networking giant Facebook announced today that it would be teaming up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to provide AMBER Alerts through its official iOS app, as well as through its official website.

In their efforts to trigger mass market adoption, most food-tracking apps and tools go out of the way to be nice to you. After all, who wants an app which publicly shames you for gorging on unhealthy food — or choosing a greasy takeout over five sticks of carrot and a crouton?

Try telling that to the creator of CARROT Hunger, an hilarious new smart calorie counter which rewards you for healthy eating — and brutally punishes you for overindulging.

The address book is outdated. On the iPhone, while most of my contacts reside in the Contacts app, I rarely go in there. Instead, I connect with people on Facebook, via SnapChat, WhatsApp and more.

Product designer Frank Costa feels the same way, but he went one step further than simply banishing the Contacts app to an unused folder on his Home screen and designed this address book replacement concept, something he calls an Invisible Address Book.

While having a list of phone numbers might be silly, he says, there is benefit to having information about the people we contact frequently in one place.

“Therefore, as a design exercise,” writes Costa on Medium, “I elaborated on a couple of ideas to turn that seemingly static list of people into a slightly more ambitious project.”

Who says iOS has all the apps? According to new data, Google isn’t just kicking butt when it comes to market share, but also mobile apps as well. The search giant’s Play Store now offers a great selection of titles than the App Store, but Apple fans will argue that quality is more important than quantity.

There are tons of new games out every week, and it’s hard to decide which ones to purchase, let alone which free games to download. We’re here to take some of the guesswork out of your decision, though, as we’ve scoured the best games that have come out so far this year.

From time wasters to deep strategic gems, this list will have you gaming in no time. Grab your copy of these five great –and brand-spankin’ new — gaming experiences today and you can thank us later.

We’re just one week into 2015, and already the App Store is setting new sales records. Apple today announced that during the first week of January alone, customers around the world spent almost half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases, with New Year’s Day 2015 the single biggest day in App Store sales history.

A game which asks you to literally throw your iPhone in the air to make it perform extreme sport-style tricks sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Nonetheless, that’s the concept behind Gyro Skate, a new $1.99 iOS title that aims to replicate the skateboarding experience by asking gamers to perform stunts like the 360 flip by physically rotating your iPhone.