Tag Archives: App

A New Twitter #Music Service

Posted on April 18, 2013 by AppleBitch


Twitter Music
Following on from confirmations this week that Twitter had purchased the music discovery service We Are Hunted, a new music discovery service has been launched called Twitter #music. The service comes to iOS devices in the form of an app which is available free from the App Store and allows users to utilize trending topics on Twitter to discover new music.

The service gives four mastheads to facilitate new music discovery and playback. These mastheads are termed Popular, Emerging, Suggested and NowPlaying. Both the Suggested and the NowPlaying mastheads give information about what friends are listening to and new artists based upon musicians that are followed by the user. The app itself takes its music from either iTunes, Rdio or Spotify although only Rdio And Spotify offer full track playback i.e. iTunes will only offer previews until a track is purchased.
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No Firefox For iOS Devices Until Apple Makes A Big Change

Posted on March 10, 2013 by AppleBitch


Firefox Logo

Mozilla, the company behind the highly popular Firefox browser for OS X and Windows devices, will not be bringing the Firefox browser to iOS devices until Apple makes a major change in policy. Speaking at the SXSW conference in Austin, TX, Mozilla Vice President of Products Jay Sullivan, noted that Firefox would not appear on iOS devices until Apple allows third party browsers to use their own JavaScript rendering engine Nitro (via CNET). Currently, any third-party browsers for iOS use the UIWebView component, which is moderately slower than Nitro, thus translating to Safari being faster than any third party browser could ever be.
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Hey Google; Apple Starts Another Big Recruiting Drive For Improving iOS Maps App

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Chris


Apple Maps

Apple has just posted a large number of new job openings looking for iOS Software Engineers to specifically focus upon improving the Maps application for iOS devices. The recruiting drive, coming hot on the heels of Google’s first major update to their Maps application for iOS devices, calls for ten more positions that will specifically focus on improving various aspects of the Maps app. The company is looking for engineers to work not just on improving the user interface or UI of the Maps app, but also to work on the navigation services in Apple Maps, by ‘implementing new and innovative navigation features’.

The company is also looking for several engineers to work on real time rendering of maps, road labeling and points of interest, rendering of 3D flyovers and improving performance. The new recruitment drive follows on from a similar one early last month which saw another ten positions advertised, all dedicated to improving similar aspects of the Apple Maps app.
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Google Maps On iOS Gets A Significant Update

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Mark


Google Maps
Google has today issued the first major update to its new Maps application for iOS devices as Google Maps version 1.1 went live in the iOS App Store today. The update brings a number of new features to the Google Maps app including the ability to search Contacts that you have stored with Google services and display their address on the mapping app. The app now also allows you to search for local businesses by category, including new categories like restaurants, cafes, bars and gas stations. In addition, users can now flip between kilometers or miles for their units of distance.
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FaceSaver For Facebook Offers An ‘Inoffensive’ Timeline

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Lucy


Facesaver
A new app has been launched today which claims to be able to ‘clean’ inappropriate content from the timeline of a Facebook page. The app, called FaceSaver, apparently is able to discover around 2-3 times more inappropriate content than other Facebook cleaning apps because it is able to recognize some common rude and slang terms that others do not.

The app, published by Belfast developer group System Ready, scans a user’s entire timeline for inappropriate text, which includes wall posts, status updates and comments. The database to which it is compared against contains over 1000 ‘inappropriate’ terms and will allow easy deletion of any offending text. The typical scan takes around 30 seconds and allows users to delete comments individually.
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Spotify May Arrive On iOS Devices Free Of Charge

Posted on February 20, 2013 by AppleBitch


Spotify

The online music streaming service Spotify will soon be in negotiations with music labels to bring their service to iOS devices free of charge. According to The Verge, Spotify is due to renew their music licensing contracts with many of the major music labels and, as part of the negotiations, sources are saying that Spotify will be seeking to reduce the licensing fees that it pays to the labels. As part of this, they will also be negotiating to bring streaming to iOS devices, and indeed other mobile devices, free of charge, as opposed to the current situation whereby only premium subscribers can access Spotify on their mobile device.

The report notes that Spotify has a user base of over 20 million worldwide and as such, is looking to use their ad-supported free-of-subscription-charge model on mobile devices as well as on desktop computers. This is similar to Pandora who offer both free, ad-supported versions and premium no-ad versions of its streaming platform on desktop PCs and on iOS devices.
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Rumor: Apple TV To Spearhead A Major Push Into Television Apps And Games

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Lily


Apple TV

A new report is suggesting that Apple is moving forward with a focus on redefining the provision of television content, and that this will be spearheaded by the Apple TV box being opened up to accept third party developer apps. According to TechCrunch, Apple is working on an Apple TV SDK that will allow developers to write their own apps for the device. The report suggests that Apple’s ‘living room plans’ are going to come into focus this fall, and that there could be an announcement for developers about an Apple TV SDK in the coming months.

The report suggests that games are going to play a large role in Apple’s plans, and that downloadable app and game content will significantly impact upon other dedicated games consoles such as the XBox, the Playstation and the Wii. These games will likely be targeted at a wide audience, rather than focused upon high end titles like Call of Duty.
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Review: Mailbox For iOS

Posted on February 8, 2013 by AppleBitch


Mailbox
There is an app that comes along once in a while that, for whatever reason, generates an enormous amount of interest prior to launch, either through clever marketing, or simply because it looks incredible in pre-release screenshots and videos. Mailbox, a brand new app for dealing with e-mail, was launched on the iOS App Store yesterday to just such acclaim, and a significant amount of column inches, and indeed Twitter inches, have already been devoted to the app.

The app, developed by Orchestra, utilizes a queuing system in an effort to avoid problems that can occur with a massively popular roll-out of a new online platform. This system is controlled by advance reservations, which have been available since December, and has proved to be massively popular with hundreds of thousands of potential users registering to use the app. Mailbox is gradually working it’s way through the list, slowly opening up more and more spots to users who pre-registered. The biggest question is surely, does the app live up to the pre-release hype?
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Highly Anticipated Mailbox Email App For iOS Is Released

Posted on February 7, 2013 by AppleBitch


Mailbox
A new e-mail app called Mailbox launched today from developers Orchestra, and has generated substantial interest. The app uses a novel virtual ‘waiting line’ whereby the app itself can be downloaded from the iOS App Store, but users need to enter a reservation number, or place a reservation in order to enable the functionality of the app. Reservations have been open since December and have generated a massive amount of interest as, at time of writing, there are in excess of 300,000 people waiting for an invitation.

The app itself is designed to make e-mail ‘light, fast and mobile friendly’. You can swipe each message to slot it into the trash or an archive, as well as easily viewing conversations in a chat interface. Perhaps the best feature is the ability to ‘snooze’ an e-mail until later, making it a powerful tool for those who deal with many e-mails on a daily basis. The primary aim of the app is, therefore, to attain an inbox of zero messages to deal with.
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iWork Isn’t Dead; Apple Hiring Engineer To Make Numbers App Better

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Lucy


iPad iWork

Apple is apparently working to make the next generation of Numbers for iWork a reality as they looking to hire a Software Engineer to work as part of the Numbers team. The position, posted on Apple’s recruitment site, offers the opportunity ‘to deliver beautiful and engaging applications on the Mac and iPad platforms’ for the future direction of the software.
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