SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD / iWorld 2012 — At the media preview last night at Macworld/iWorld, VIPOrbit Software had a ton of news to offer.
First, they unveiled a new version of VIPOrbit for the iPhone. The latest version has new features requested by its users, an improved user interface and an enhanced Dashboard.
Then they debuted VIPOrbit for iPad, bringing signature features from the initial iPhone app to iPad users.
The App Store is a morass of to-do list managers, but there’s reason to perk up your ears about Clear. It might seem like just another to-do list manager from another new studio, but it’s neither. Clear is something special.
Is it time to retire game consoles? That’s the question buzzing around in the wake of Nintendo announcing its first yearly loss, forcing a downgrade of the 3DS future. The creator of Super Mario said it lost $575 million (45 billion yen), surprising experts forecasting a $52 million (4.2 billion yen) deficit. The unspoken push over the precipice: the iPad and iTunes App Store games.
Last August, Spotify launched a public API for mobile developers to piggy back off of their system and release their own apps. The hope was the abiogenesis of a series of cool new music apps that pushed the boundaries of how we discover music, with Spotify’s library of 15 million tracks as the lifeblood.
The first app to really come from Spotify’s initiative and impress? SpotON Radio, a Pandora-like service built upon Spotify that allows you to create custom tailored music stations, share them with friends and sync them across the iCloud. Plus, it’s got a really swank visual aesthetic that just sings on iOS devices.
We love Jeff Broderick’s work here at Cult of Mac. We’ve told you about some of his web app projects, like QuickWiFi and QuickContact, and his latest creation is called Photogram. As the name implies, you can use Photogram to view Instagram in your web browser. The app is beautiful and optimized for both the desktop and mobile experience.
Zynga Games is a company that has made most of its many millions on games “inspired” by other titles. And by “inspired,” we mean “shamelessly ripped-off.” Mafia Wars was a rip-off of Mob Wars. Words With Friends is a rip-off of Scrabble. Cafe World is a rip-off of Restaurant City. And so on.
So when Zynga came knocking and wanted to buy up NimbleBits, developers of Tiny Tower (which Apple recently named one of their games of the year), it didn’t take a genius to figure out that if the deal didn’t go through, Zynga would rip-off NimbleBit’s games anyway. And — shocker — it turns out that’s just what happened.
The mobile Safari browser that comes baked into Apple’s iOS devices is quite possibly the best mobile browser there is. But what if you want don’t want to load mobile web pages? What if you want to enjoy websites in their entirety?
Unfortunately mobile Safari doesn’t let you do this, but a free third-party browser called Dolphin does. Here’s how to ditch the mobile web and load full, desktop websites on your iPhone.
Xobni has brought its Smartr Contacts service to the iPhone today, which a new app that is likely to change the way in which you handle your contacts list forever. The service takes the pain out of maintaining your contacts list by creating profiles for everyone you’ve ever contacted using your emails, calendars, and social networks. It also puts a face to every name and even keeps track of your recent communication history.
Siri has a new competitor, and her name is Evi. Developed by True Knowledge and powered by the same Nuance-based backend as Apple’s virtual assistant, Evi is available for all iPhones in the App Store. There’s also a beta app available for Android handsets.
While Evi doesn’t have the integrated advantage that Siri wields, she is perhaps the first clone that’s just as smart, if not smarter, than Siri.
Thanks to Apple’s free AirPort Utility app for iOS, it’s easy to make simple changes to your Time Capsule and update its firmware without having to use a computer. Here’s how to update your Time Capsule firmware using only your iOS device and the AirPort Utility app.
Pixelbit’s Reckless Racing quickly became a hit when it first came to iOS back in October 2010, so it’s no wonder the company has been hard at work on a sequel. Fans of the top-down arcade racer will be pleased to know that Reckless Racing 2 is on its way, and it’ll hit the App Store next week.
If you thought there would be little interest in an Apple event that didn’t include new hardware, think again. Following the unveiling of iBooks 2 with support for textbooks last week, Apple saw an incredible 350,000 textbook downloads in just three days of availability.
We told you a few days ago that retro classic SoulCalibur was headed to the iOS App Store. As of today the fan favorite title is available in the App Store for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users.
While the feature is currently still in beta, Apple is yet to extend Siri support to apps that aren’t already baked into the iOS operating system. But did you know that the company’s own Find My Friends app, which debuted alongside iOS 5 last summer, does include Siri support, allowing you to locate your pals using only your voice?
Here’s you to find your friends using Siri.
Have you ever wondered what kind of data speeds you get on your iPhone with a full 3G signal, or how fast your internet is on your home Wi-Fi network? With the free iOS app from Speedtest.net, you can perform a quick and simple test that will tell you your download and your upload speeds on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.
We don’t have to tell you that there are a ton of amazing apps on the App Store, but how much profit do those apps make? We all know Angry Birds is raking in the money, but what about the others guys? Take Camera+ for instance. 18 months ago TapTapTap released Camera+ and have been enjoying consistent success ever since. On average, a copy of Camera+ is sold approximately every 3 seconds. Recent sales numbers released by the company show that the app has earned a grand total of $5,125,844 to date….that’s after Apple got their 30% cut.
Namco’s classic arcade fighter SoulCalibur is finally making its way to the App Store this week. Having been announced way back in October, we’ve been itching to get our hands on it for three months now, and we’ll be one of the first to grab it when it arrives on Thursday, January 19.
Fed up of seeing updates in the App Store for apps that you do not want to update? Unfortunately most of us just have to put up with them, but if you’ve got a jailbroken device, you can use the Update Hider for iOS 5 tweak to hide them away.
Apple has added a handy feature for finding apps and videos in the desktop version of iTunes. When searching for App Store apps, a new info button is available in the bottom right of each app icon.
Clicking this “i” button will open a preview of the desired app. From here you can quickly see the price, average rating, description, and screenshots.
The music streaming service Grooveshark, which was pulled from the App Store a while ago after it upset a number of major record labels, has returned to the iPhone — and other mobile devices — with a new HTML5 web app. The app can’t be pulled by Apple this time, but how long will it last?
If you’re frustrated that your app was rejected from the App Store, you are in good company.
Scott Virkler, senior vice president of eProducts at global science and medical publishing behemoth Elsevier, had a few choice words about Apple’s approval process – and getting rejected by it.
Virkler, speaking in San Francisco at Appnation Enterprise, said his company had three apps rejected by Apple just last week, “because they don’t get our business.”
We’re all fans of Mario Kart and many of Nintendo’s classic titles. But as much as we’d love to see them arrive on iOS, we don’t care much for shameless clones. We’ve seen countless Super Mario clones in the App Store, but Mole Kart is a Mario Kart ripoff that shares more than just a few similarities.
OnLive made headlines earlier this week when the company announced a new iPad app at CES which brings Windows 7 to the iPad, allowing you to run Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Those of you who are interested in the app and you live in the U.S., you can grab it now, for free, from the App Store.
Readdle has issued an update to its popular Calendars app for iOS today, introducing an awesome new interface and a whole host of new features that allow you to add events quicker than ever before, sync even faster with Google Calendars, and use special keyboards for snappier calendar entries.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2012 – For Greg Kostello, an amiable ex-Apple and NeXT software developer with a goofily winning smile, there’s an intimacy and immediacy in a smaller audience. It’s something Greg discovered first as a kid showing his latest home movie neighborhood blockbuster in a small garage crammed with kids. It’s a lesson that deepened giving personal software demos at NeXT in a small office close to Steve Jobs himself. And it’s something that Greg is now trying to impart to the YouTube Generation with his new video sharing site, Givit.