Tag: Ios 6 »

It's here! The Evernote team just confirmed on their blog that Evernote 5 for iOS is ready, available, and willing to be your go-to app for all your note taking and media saving needs. There are tons of new features, layouts, views, and other tweaks that make this a fantastic update - it's still free, and still universal, so be sure to grab it.

Our apps never stop evolving. Every few weeks, we release an update that adds something new or improves an existing feature. It’s not often that we launch a complete redesign. In fact, it happens only once every few years. That’s what we’re doing today with our huge, new Evernote 5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

This week at 148Apps.com, Eli Cymet plumbed the depths of difficulty with his interview of Super Hexagon creator Terry Cavanagh: "Talking to Terry Cavanagh (pictured, left), the first thing that jumps out at me is how pleasant he is. How soft-spoken and thoughtful he comes across as. Particularly for somebody who tortures people.

An award-winning independent developer from Ireland, Cavanagh has become known for wonderful, mercilessly difficult games like VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. The latter is Cavanagh’s first iOS game; a low-fi arcade gauntlet that challenges players to move left and right to survive an incoming barrage of lines and shapes for as long as possible. It bent our brains in circles and became a surprise cult-hit on the App Store, moving about 72,000 copies since release, according to Cavanagh’s last look.

Wonderful. Mercilessly difficult. The two don’t quite go together, do they? Against all odds, however, it seems that driving people mad is what’s driven sales for Super Hexagon. It’s a phenomenon that beckons the question: why is a game that’s so hard so very easy to love? What makes difficulty so satisfying?

Read the full conversation at 148Apps.com.

Meanwhile, over at GiggleApps.com, reviewer Amy Solomon explored Magic Forest HD Pro, a physics-based game for kids: "There are many variations of this style of game in the iTunes store such Cut the Rope, but I enjoy the look of this app, with backgrounds reminiscent of water color or batik artwork and include forest motifs that I find appealing and a little different from what is commonly found in a game such as this. Here, one is looking to help these pets into their basket, breaking glass bricks or other obstacles that prevent these animals from typically falling into where they belong."

Read Amy's full review at GiggleApps.

And at 148Apps.biz, Carter Dotson reported on the growing need for native language support in apps geared for eastern audiences. He writes, "It’s easy to think about the App Store as largely a western, and largely American phenomenon: it’s one of the largest revenue drivers, and success or failure there often means international failure. English is thus the most supported language in apps, particularly as it is such an international language as well now. But Distimo has put out information in their latest report that suggests while English may be the dominant language in the western world, success in the east requires apps to speak the native tongue."

Want to know more? Read the complete story at 148Apps.biz.

Originally out on Mac and PC, Rockmelt is now available for iPad, requiring iOS 6 or later. The orignal browser was focused on connecting your social network to your browsing habits, and did quite well. Let us know what you think of the iOS version in the comments!

★ More Beautiful: Open up to an infinite, image-rich stream of great content
★ Faster: Minimal load times, speedy rendering
★ Ad free: Content from many of your favorite sites in clean, ad-free reader view (e.g. The Atlantic, Us Weekly, Forbes, SB Nation, Rolling Stone Magazine, and more than a thousand others)
★ Available offline: Syncs so you can enjoy content offline
★ Searchable: Web search plus search across all your content
★ Social: Discover great content through friends and share with them easily

One of iOS 6’s big new features is Passbook: a one-stop shop for accessing cards and tickets that is not only available from a single app, but is also location and time-aware to make coupons and loyalty cards appear near certain locations and tickets at the time of the event. Now, it doesn’t work with just anything, unfortunately. There’s a limited selection of apps that are available at the moment with support for Passbook. There’s been some confusion on how to activate it with apps, and this guide is here to help.

First, find an app that is compatible with Passbook. Launching Passbook for the first time will come up with a short description of what Passbook can do and launches an App Store section with apps to check out. Tap that, and a variety of Apple-curated apps with Passbook support are listed. Even for apps like the Starbucks app that have a card functionality already, the card needs to be added to Passbook through the app. To show how this Passbook functionality works, let’s download the Walgreens app and add the Balance Rewards card to Passbook.

Create an account with Walgreens and sign up for their rewards card, or log in to the account if you have one already. If you signed up in-store, you can add it to a new account. Now, go to the Rewards section of the app, and the card will appear. Below, there is an Add to Passbook button. Tap this, and it will prompt to tie it to a specific store location, which will make an alert pop up when near that location. Then, a final prompt to add it to Passbook with the location information attached will pop up. Tap Add, and boom, the card is now in Passbook.

Launch the Passbook app, and all added cards and tickets will appear, including the one we just added. Tap the (i) icon to modify the individual card’s settings. This automatic card recall works on the iPod touch as well, though location detection may be spottier due to only being able to detect location by nearby wifi hotspots. Once added, cards in Passbook are accessible offline.

While Passbook is still somewhat limited as developers continue to integrate into their apps, and apps that already had user cards need to be updated to support Passbook, this is still handy, especially with its handy awareness features. Know of any useful apps using Passbook that Apple didn’t feature? Let us know in the comments.

The fantastic mutli-service IM client, IM+, was updated today, with some welcome fixes.

What's New in Version 7.3
- Support for iOS 6 and iPhone 5
- Message queue: outgoing messages are queued if network is not available and will be automatically sent when network connection is restored
- UI improvements
- Bug fixes

So, there’s a bit of a brouhaha over iOS 6 switching its maps provider from Google Maps to TomTom and other Apple sources. Yes, the 3D flybys in the maps are pretty, but the lack of details once had in Google Maps and loss of transit directions is a backbreaker for some. Sure, Google Maps has a mobile website that can be added as a web app, but maybe it’s time for something all new. Unless or until a separate Google Maps application is released, here’s four fine alternatives for mapping and directions.

HopStop

Transit directions are notably missing from iOS 6 maps. However, for those needing to get around, HopStop provides valuable directions. Supporting many major North American cities, just choose the starting address, destination, departure/arrival time, and preferred method of transit, and the app provides helpful directions, including alternate arrival/departure times for buses and trains. It even includes some transit options that Google Maps doesn’t, such as suburban Pace buses in the Chicago area.

Waze

This app uses OpenStreetMap data to power its maps, relying on the free user-supported data supplied to provide reliable up-to-date information, similar to Wikipedia. It uses this data to provide a free turn-by-turn navigation solution. The hook is that data on traffic, accidents, speed traps, and more, is all provided by people also using the app. Simply driving around with the app open can help intelligently detect where rough traffic is based on slower speeds. Waze can even find cheap gas along routes based on user-submitted reports.

MapsWithMe

This app offers over 7800 maps of cities and places all over the world, which are all downloaded direct to one’s device. So, where data service is spotty or nonexistent, this app still provides valuable street data along with various locations and landmarks available offline. It’s perfect for the iPod touch and wifi-only iPad. The maps are curated by the development team, including their CEO who wears a sweet hat.

MapQuest

Long before there were Google Maps, there was MapQuest. While The Lonely Island declared Google Maps “The best”, who’s got an app on the App Store now? MapQuest does! Find important places and get turn-by-turn directions using their main app, or use their “Local” app to find the best restaurants and bars based on crowdsourced information. MapQuest is a survivor, and will be around to give us directions when all that's left is Twinkies and cockroaches!

Ah yes, iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 just came out. As with every major iOS release, complaints of battery life being worse than before are in tow. There are ways to preserve battery life on iOS, thankfully.

Now, the thing with saving battery life is that there’s a trade-off between being able to leave some feature on, and having to jump in and out of settings to re-enable features we need. If you’re so fed up with battery life that you really need to start disabling features, here's a rundown of what may help.

Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when not using it.

While it can be convenient to leave these on, and Wi-Fi assists in location detection, they're also both massive idle battery drains because they're constantly scanning in the background. Disable both of these features in Settings when not using them. Bluetooth settings are no longer hidden under submenus iOS 6, making it easier to manage.

Disable or Reduce Cellular Data When Necessary

If you don’t need or don’t have data service available, then disabling Cellular Data can save on battery life while leaving you available to the world. What if you have wifi access and are not expecting – or not wanting – any calls, and anyone who needs to reach you has iMessage? Well, Airplane Mode serves as a handy way to make sure that there’s no usage of cellular access at all. It should dramatically improve battery life.

LTE on the iPhone 5 is fast, and will also drain your battery fast. Your Twitter notifications will come in just fine on 3G networks alone, so disable LTE when not needing it, or not in an LTE service area, to save some battery life. Disable this in Settings -> General -> Cellular. Older phone models may have the option to disable 3G networks.

Turn Off Notifications, and Reduce Background Data Usage

Getting lots of notifications can be a real drain on battery life as the screen constantly turns on, and the device constantly polls the Apple servers for notifications. While there’s no easy way in iOS 6 to turn off all notification, at least turning off certain applications’ notifications can help.

As well, if you have push email and don’t really need it, set it to Fetch every so often, or just check it manually. This can be done from Settings -> Mail, Contacts, and Calendars -> Fetch New Data and diabling Push, and setting Fetch to manual.

Just Buy an External Battery Already

Look, the reason we leave all this stuff on is because we want the convenience of being able to jump from mobile data to Wi-Fi, to be notified of every little thing, and to have a screen so bright it could be seen from space. So why trade off? There are plenty of external batteries out there, including separate ones, and ones built in to cases. Yes, it’s something else to carry around, and will leave less pocket room, but for the ability to never have to turn off Bluetooth ever again when you want to pull out that keyboard? Priceless. Mophie makes battery-enabled cases with wide availability. NewTrent makes external battery packs that are beefy enough to charge an iPhone several times over. DealExtreme is a great source for cheap external chargers.

Have other ways to save some battery life? Let us know in the comments below!

Many of the changes to the App Store on iOS devices has updated the visual look of the apps, better exposing a wider variety of apps to the user. While the changes taken individually seem small, taken together they represent a possible big change in how we will find apps in the App Store.

Take exposing the top paid, free, and grossing apps at the same time on the landing page of the Top Apps list, for instance. It seems like a small change, but it promotes free apps to the front of the page and lowers the exposure of the top paid apps past the first three. Michael Zaletel of i4software notes, "This gives MUCH MORE prominence to the Top Free Apps and so I predict Free apps and Freemium apps will see a big boost after today."

Top 25 - iOS 5 (left) vs. iOS 6 (right)

Another big change has been the app detail page. That page places much greater emphasis on the first screenshot and reduces the importance of the description. When landing on an app, the user will see a larger icon than before, the rating, and the first screen shot. Scrolling down they will see the truncated description and a few more details. Previously they user would see a small icon, the rating, and the top section of the description.

These changes on the whole place much greater emphasis on the icon and the name of the app. These must be compelling as they are--in most areas of the App Store--the only thing the user will see. Ratings, developer name, and description have all been hidden from initial view in multiple places in the store.

What this will mean to app sales, we'll have to wait to see. While it seems as though the changes are all for the better for the user, developers may need to prioritize their icon, name, and first screenshot much more than in the past.

iOS 6 Roundup

Last week, Apple announced the iPhone 5, much to the surprise of everyone I’m sure (that's sarcasm). The new phone has some pretty nifty features, but not everyone will be waiting in line for days in order to get their hands on one. Those of us who don’t want to trade-up just yet still have a way to scratch that “new Apple gadget” itch, however: iOS 6. This new iOS will be compatible with most older devices, including the iPhone 3GS (Yay!) and above, the fourth generation iPod Touch and up, and the iPad 2 and later. So while I might not be able to get my hands on a 5 just yet, I can still feel special when my phone starts to do new and exciting things!

iOS 6 - Plenty of changes to some old favorites

Before we get in to all the major changes and new features I want to take a moment to go over some of the smaller tweaks to the apps many iOS users can’t live without. The camera has gotten a bit more attention this time around. Users can take panoramic photos now with their iPhone 4S/5 and iPod Touch 4th/5th generation, up to 240 degrees both horizontally and vertically. They have simply to sweep the camera along using a predefined motion and the device and software takes care of the rest. Then, said photos and everything else on the camera roll can be shown off to friends quickly and easily with the Photo app. Video chatting with friends and family via FaceTime has also gotten much simpler now that the app can work over a cellular network and Wi-Fi is no longer required--provided the carrier allows for that sort of thing, naturally.

Even the Notification Center has been revamped with Twitter or Facebook posting allowed directly from the notifications window and the option to quiet those irritating 3am notices, thanks to the new Do Not Disturb feature (more on that later). Last, but certainly not least to the accident prone, Find My Phone has been updated to include a Lost Mode which allows users to remotely lock their misplaced phone with a 4-digit code and display contact information for honest folks to use in order to return the lost device. This goes hand-in-hand with Find My Friends, an app that uses GPS to keep track of friends and family, even going so far as to issue alerts when certain individuals have left or reached specific destinations. It sounds weird, but think of it in terms of the kids leaving school and getting home. Pretty nifty, I know, but this is just the beginning.

iTunes, App Store, iBookstore - Refurbishing the storefronts

iTunes, the App Store, and the iBookstore are also getting adjustments by way of some slightly revamped storefronts, Facebook integration (“like” items in the store or view items that friends like), and a new preview feature that automatically keeps track of any apps/music/books that you browse through. You can view this list from within any of the three stores--and across any of their iOS devices thanks to iCloud--and make purchases from it directly.

Apple held a special event in San Francisco today to announce the iPhone 5 and a few other things. While just about everything about the new device had already been leaked, in typical Apple style, the event still held a few surprises.

Here's a quick rundown of what you need to know about the event today.

It's in the numbers...

As Apple does at just about every event they started out with a recap of some recent numbers showing how well they have done recently. And this time around it was no less impressive. Here's a quick rundown of the amazing numbers all in one place for quick reference:

iPads
The iPad continues to impress and dominate the tablet market. In the words of Tim Cook, Apple CEO: "The iPad has 91% of the tablet web traffic. I don't know what these other tablets are doing? Perhaps they are sitting in a drawer."

17 million iPads sold last quarter (April-June 2012), that's more iPads than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire PC line
84 million total iPads sold through June 2012
iPad Market Share, June 2011 - 62% market share
iPad Market Share, June 2012 - 68% market share
iPads represent 91% of web traffic from tablet devices
94% of the Fortune 500 companies are testing / deploying iPads

App Store
700,000 iOS Apps in the App Store
250,000 iPad Apps in the App Store (iPad and Universal)
90% of apps in the App Store are downloaded each month
The average iOS customer uses over 100 apps

Devices
400 million iOS devices sold through June 2012
150 million Game Center users
600 million sets of those standard iPod headphones produced

iTunes
26 million songs
20 billion total downloads
iTunes store available in 63 countries
435 million iTunes accounts with 1-click purchase
66% of downloads come from iOS devices

That's a lot of really impressive stats.

iPhone 5

The iPhone 5 takes the iPhone 4S and makes just about everything better. When it took center stage we finally got to see the new specs of this oh so lust-worthy new iPhone.

The iPhone 5 will be available for pre-order this Friday, the 14th. With delivery and store availability a week later on the 21st. The prices end up being the same as the 4S, $199/299/399 for 16GB/32GB/64GB with two year contract.

In the US it will be available on the carriers that currently offer the 4S, AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

The major new features include a larger screen, about 15% taller than the current iPhone screen. That doesn't seem like much, but it lets you get an extra row in just about every list app. And it will give you that much more screen in games -- or that much more screen that your thumbs won't cover.

For apps that are not yet optimized for the iPhone 5, you will see those apps just as you do now. No stretching, you'll just have small black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.

The other big change in the phone is a new dock connector, called Lightning. This is an all digital connector that adapts the pins to what your connected device needs to do -- audio, video, charging, etc. It's build much more robust than the current dock connector and can be inserted either way.

The downside to the new connector is that you are going to need to buy $30 Lightning converters for all of the devices that you need to use that have the old style dock connector. This could get expensive. Not to mention the 20+ dock connector cables I have in a drawer.

A much faster processor, a better camera (though still 8MP), a much better screen that supports a larger color gamut, a FaceTime HD (720p) front camera, all in a a thinner and lighter phone.

Oh yeah, and it has LTE as well. Major speed bump there.

It's a great upgrade and worth it if you use your iPhone a lot. It's not a drop everything and upgrade new device as there's no feature that is just going to make you really crave it. If anything, the new dock connector will make this an expensive update for many. But it is a good feature bump and if you are due for an upgrade, it's the one to go for.

iOS 6 Release Next Week

We got a quick recap of iOS 6 and the features we had already seen. They have gone through testing and iOS 6 is ready to release next week on September 19th.

The one new iOS 6 feature discussed was the ability to create Panorama images. It's done quickly and easily by selecting Panorama from the camera options menu and sweeping the camera from left to right. It was shown working on the iPhone 5 and the new iPod touch. It's not know at this point if this will work on other devices.

iPod touch is a first class citizen again

The iPod touch has been a bit ignored in recent years. The upgrade announced today gives it a huge update and brings it in line with the iPhone 4S / 5 hybrid specs. It's a great upgrade to what is, but is not marketed as, the biggest selling portable gaming device.

The 5th generation iPod touch will sport the same screen as the iPhone 5, and will have the same processor as the 4S and a similar camera to the iPhone 4. It's a great update.

The updated iPod touch will be available in five colors in October for $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB versions.

Earpods - 3 years in the making

Apple also introduced new earbud that were three years in the making. The Earpods are really quite good, if a bit badly named. They will also ship with the new iPhone and iPod touch.

Great bass response, amazing for earbuds. They don't seal in your ear, so no outside noise reduction. But the flip side is that they are much more comfortable.

So that's it, the rundown of what you need to know. A great event and some great new products.

We can expect more news from Apple before the end of the year. I wonder what it will be...

At events like the WWDC keynote from earlier this month, Apple is fond of throwing up a slide touting how many new features a product has. At WWDC, we saw that iOS 6 has 200 new features. But the event itself is limited and not all of those features can be listed and even fewer can be talked about in the keynote itself. We took the list presented at the keynote and listed the ones not talked about and present a hefty does of informed speculation about what the new features mean.

Game Center Features

Game Groups - This one is really unknown right now. But I read one thing into it, gaming clans. At least that's what I hope it is. The ability to create Game Center based clans, that can persist between games, would be fantastic.
Game Center Friends from Facebook - You can find Game Center friends from your Facebook friends. When a Game Center user signs up their Facebook account in iOS 6, it links their Game Center account allowing you to find each other.
Game Center Challenges - When you hit a high score, it will now be easier to challenge your friends to beat that score.
Game Center in-app experience - More of Game Center will be exposed directly in the game, no need to go to the Game Center app to perform some functions.

New Maps App

Transit Apps - How this will function is unknown. Apple chose to leave out transit info in their new Maps app and instead look to third party app developers to provide that feature. To what extent that data will be present in the Maps app is a big unknown. At the keynote it was mentioned that Apple would "integrate, promote, and feature" transit apps within the Maps app.
Map Kit - this is the API that developer use to integrate the new Maps into their applications.

Camera Changes

Lots of interesting changes to the Camera APIs should allow for even greater manual control of the camera from third-party apps.

Control Camera Focus and Exposure - The ability to control the focus and exposure without just point to spots on the screen will go a long way to giving developers the ability to provide full manual controls in their camera apps.
Video Stabilization - Video stabilization was only available in the built-in Camera app. It will now be available to third party apps.
Face Detection API - The face detection feature used in the Camera app will now be available in third party apps as well. Might make for some interesting app usage even outside camera apps.
Read and write image metadata - The metadata of an image contain things like when and where the image was taken and loads of info on what settings were used to capture the image. It also contains info on the photographer and copyright. This new API for developers will allow them to read that metadata and write it back out much more quickly.
HDR Improvements - The HDR mode is an interesting and misunderstood mode in the camera. Any improvements are greatly anticipated.

What could be one of the biggest Apple reveals of the year is about to start and we'll be there live tweeting the best of the best. We'll also have a post up with our thoughts on the announcements after the announcement.

What will we see today? The only thing we know for sure is we will see iOS 6. Apple, rather uncharacteristically revealed that with a banner that greets everyone that enters Moscone West today.

If you want to follow along live, we suggest MacRumors and GDGT. They seem to have the most robust live blogs on a regular basis.

Then check back here for our analysis of the announcements later today.

Bring on iOS 6!