Expert Blogs
To complement our current issue on travel, I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on tools and technologies I’m using during an extended stay in the United Kingdom. Starting this Sunday I’ll be in Norwich, UK, and then in London.
This first post will focus on the apps and other tools I used to plan the trip.
This is the season of the Watch, and I've had the opportunity to review at least five SmartWatches lately, from Pebble, Martian, Phosphor, i'mWatch and now Cogito ($129.95). Each brings something different to the table, in terms of apps, screen, battery life, style, and functionality. Cogito's Pop may have just enough "smart" to go with plenty of style and battery life to be your primary watch.
As new iOS apps flood the App Store every day — recently topping 1,000,000 — we know it’s tough to tell which ones are worth their salt. But thanks to our Weekly Scoop, you can have the best for free! Here you’ll find a weekly roundup of the coolest apps free or at a discount for a limited-time only. Each week features the best and brightest from websites like Free App Report, AppsGoneFree, appsfire, and more.
Hurry! Get 'em while they’re hot!
Apple just sent out a quick notice offering a mechanism to get a refund for unauthorized in-app purchases by a minor. It should have been sent to all iTunes users who made an in-app purchase, but it's easy to miss, so I've included the text below. Despite Apple's efforts to limit in-app purchases to a 15 minute window without requiring re-entering a password, a lot of damage can be done in those 15 minutes. I've written about my troubles with IAPs before.
Last fall Apple began making their popular iWork suite available for free on new iOS devices and Macs. Also, it's available for free to anyone in iCloud. If you have an older device, the iWork suite costs $10 per app. It includes Pages for word processing and page layout, Numbers for spreadsheet work, and Keynote for presentations. When I got my new iPad Air, I downloaded pages and was impressed with how intuitive the interface is while having good functionality. Last week Apple released a major update to the suite on all platforms: iOS, iCloud, and Mac. You can find extensive detail on the new features and improvements on Apple's website. One focus of improvement was compatibility with Microsoft Office documents. Pages and Numbers are now more compatible with Office 2013 files. In addition, various facets of importing and exporting Office documents have been improved.
Usually when you win the lottery, you get some money. But with Apple's WWDC ticket lottery, winning entitles you to pay $1,599 plus expenses to attend their Worldwide Developers Conference during the week of June 2. The lottery system for WWDC is new this year, although Apple used a similar system for their regional Tech Talk Tours last year. I have attended a few WWDCs in the past, and was able to see Steve Jobs in person. I just had to be lucky enough to read my email and register within a few minutes, much to the chagrin of potential attendees who were asleep when the emails were sent. The lottery system should make it fairer for those who live in other time zones.
Adobe announced the release of Lightroom for iPad, joining some of Adobe's other mobile products like Photoshop Express and Adobe Air. However, Lightroom for mobile will function as an extension of the desktop version rather than a standalone app.
The perfect app for list makers, Checkmark 2 ($2.99) does exactly what it's supposed to do without the bells and whistles that can distract us from our to-do lists and it's on sale for a limited time. I have downloaded multiple list-making apps with no success, but Checkmark has me hooked! Easy to use and always at your fingertips, Checkmark is the last list making app you'll ever need.
As new iOS apps flood the App Store every day—recently topping 1,000,000—we know it’s tough to tell which ones are worth their salt. But thanks to our Weekly Scoop, you can have the best for free! Here you’ll find a weekly roundup of the coolest apps free or at a discount for a limited-time only. Each week features the best and brightest from websites like Free App Report, AppsGoneFree, appsfire, and more.
Hurry! Get 'em while they’re hot!
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference always sells out, and lately in less than an hour. So today, when Apple announced the even will be held June 2 through June 6, instead of selling tickets immediately, potential attendees have to register for a lottery ticket. A limited number of developers will win the right to pay $1599 to attend the event.
Apple TV has long been a "hobby" for Apple, with perennial rumors of something bigger. However, Google, Roku, and now Amazon have been putting out attractive competitors without waiting for Apple to get serious. The $35 Chromecast from Google brought smart TV features to the masses. Now the $99 Amazon Fire TV offers higher-end features, comparable and even superior to the Apple product.
My oldest daughter grew up on Knowledge Adventure's PC games, so I was excited to see their mobile offerings. The same daughter loved How To Train Your Dragon, so when Knowledge Adventure released an iPad app based on that movie, I was all over it!
Whether you're creating memes, capturing memories, or just in the mood to have a little fun, adding text to pictures isn't just for the pros anymore. Why would you want to add text to your images? Here are some ideas:
Titan: Olympus War lures gamers with the promise of an intriguing mashup: card battling meets strategy. The risk of such genre fusion is that it can be a simple gimmick, but Titan: Olympus War seems to have avoided that. The developers have put the time and effort in to create not just a different take on two genres, but a game that might birth its very own genre.
When I was asked to review Avokiddo's new game ABC Ride ($2.99), I jumped at the chance. I personally own Avokkido’s first two forays into mobile games and I think they are simply fantastic. But I was also a little apprehensive. The parent in me couldn’t wait to see my four year old’s reaction, but the hypercritical writer in me thought there was no way Avokiddo could strike gold three times in a row.
With almost 2.5 Billion Android and iOS devices in use in the world, and Gartner predicting tablet shipments to outstrip PCs next year, it looks like everyone will be running their business from the palm of their hand before Santa Claus next comes down your chimney. Apple is increasingly being accepted by enterprise IT departments alongside Microsoft, and $50 smartphones are getting closer to reality every day, at least in emerging countries.
As new iOS apps flood the App Store every day — recently topping 1,000,000 — we know it’s tough to tell which ones are worth their salt. But thanks to our Weekly Scoop, you can have the best for free! Here you’ll find a weekly roundup of the coolest apps free or at a discount for a limited-time only. Each week features the best and brightest from websites like Free App Report, AppsGoneFree, appsfire, and more.
Hurry! Get 'em while they’re hot!
As expected, new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the release of Microsoft Office for the iPad at a press event Thursday. Available are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps. You can download the apps for FREE, but the free version limits you to viewing documents created in those programs. If you want to create and/or edit documents, you'll need to subscribe to Microsoft's Office 365 service. Office 365 Home Premium is currently the lowest-cost option, at $9.99/month or $99.99 per year. It lets you install Office on up to 5 Macs or PCs and up to 5 mobile devices. In addition, a subscription comes with 20GB of OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) cloud storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month. Microsoft also recently announced Office 365 Personal, which will let you install Office on a PC or Mac and on one tablet. The price will be $69.99 per year, or $6.99 per month when it becomes available.
Marco Antonio/Shutterstock MapMyRun (Free)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Once in a while, I will stumble on an app at what seems like the most inopportune time, but it turns out to be highly beneficial anyway. That's how I found MapMyRun from MapMyFitness. I actually happened upon this app when I saw their ad while playing a game in my doctor's waiting room. The company is certainly no stranger to the App Store; since their inception in 2007, MapMyFitness has released several apps dedicated to fostering connected fitness among the public.
King, the Dublin, Ireland based game developer, has a great symbol, KING, on the New York Stock Exchange, and at least one very popular app, Candy Crush Saga (free), in a portfolio of 180 apps. Candy Crush represents 75 percent to 80 percent of King's revenue, but usage has peaked and is in decline.
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