Swarm, a dedicated check-in app by Foursquare, has received a tremendously useful update Friday which makes it dead simple to check in to your favorite locations right from your Lock screen without even opening the app, thanks to a brand new Notification Center widget available on iOS 8 devices.
The Swarm widget in the 1.3 update also gives you an at-a-glance view of a few of your friends who are especially close, helping you get a sense of who’s around.
Cinamatic, a nicely done and versatile video capture and editing app that Apple named its Free App of the Week back in July, on Friday received an update bringing the full range of manual camera controls available to third-party iPhone photography apps in iOS 8.
In addition to native support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus display sizes, the new version soups up your device by enabling manual adjustment of the focus, exposure, white balance, shutter speed and ISO, while you're shooting video.
And if you own an iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus, you'll enjoy Time-lapse capture at three, six and nine frames per second speeds and silky smooth slow-motion video at 120 and 240 frames per second. Jump past the break for additional enhancements.
Good news, Readability fans! Your favorite read-later service on Thursday received a refresh enabling native display support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus so you can see more article contents with less scrolling.
This is a big deal for mobile apps that focus on content consumption: as you know, iOS 8 blows up non-optimized apps to fill the new screen sizes, resulting in fuzzy appearance and enlarged content as opposed to seeing more of it.
The app, available free of charge, has also been optimized for iOS 8 with the Share sheet extension and other features outlined below.
"Hey Siri" is a new feature in iOS 8 that makes it possible to invoke Siri using only your voice. It's nice for those moments when your hands are full or when your iPhone is across the room.
The only downside to "Hey Siri" is that your iPhone must be connected to a power source in order to use it. This restriction was placed there to save your iPhone's battery life.
But, there is a way to use Hey Siri without being connected to a power source. It's not as handy as using it while connected to power, but it's a nice workaround for those situations where you need hands-free control.
Windows and Office maker Microsoft on Wednesday pushed a small but important update to OneDrive, its cloud storage client for the iPhone and iPad. The refreshed application enables users to lock content in the app using Touch ID-based fingerprint verification on the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
The new OneDrive 4.5.1, a free 12.7-megabyte download from the App Store, also takes full advantage of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, lets you sort files and folders and includes bug fixes and stability improvements.
The latest Apple TV Software Beta 2 which was seeded to developers yesterday alongside new iOS 8.1, Xcode and Yosemite betas enables support for HomeKit on the $99 media-streaming box, as first reported by AppleInsider.
In addition to HomeKit, the software includes support for Family Sharing and contains functions allowing developers to test AirPlay functionality with their iOS apps. Although HomeKit functionality was spotted in earlier Apple TV betas, Apple has removed the feature last month without an explanation.
100 Fonts Keyboard for iOS 8 is not a new app but I just came across it earlier today while browsing the App Store. While it certainly isn't groundbreaking, I found it to be different from the other keyboards we had seen so far so I thought I'd share it with you. Before we even get started, let's clear things up. Unlike the name suggests, this app doesn't offer 100 different fonts as I counted only about 30 of them. Still, that is quite the selection.
Merely a week following the first beta of what would become the major iOS 8.1 bug-fix update, the iPhone maker on Tuesday seeded iOS 8.1 Beta 2 to its registered iOS developers, in addition to new Apple TV and Xcode software betas.
According to the Cupertino firm, iOS 8.1 Beta 2 with build number 12B407 (up from the previous iOS 8.1 Beta 1 with build number 12B401) contains bug fixes and stability improvements throughout the system.
It's available as an over-the-air update if you have the first beta installed or standalone through Apple's Dev Center portal for developers.
As you've probably heard, I've been less than impressed with the initial round of third-party keyboards to hit iOS 8. I understand a lot of the problem has to do with Apple, and iOS 8's overall bugginess, but not all of the blame is squarely on its shoulders.
Many of the third-party keyboards have an average implementation, and some of them are just plain bad. With that said, there are a few keyboards that have stood above the rest, as we outlined in our best iOS 8 keyboards post a couple of days ago.
But today, I encountered a familiar name when looking for new third-party keyboards to try. iKeywi, a name that will no doubt ring a bell if you've ever been into jailbreaking, is now available as an iOS 8 keyboard.
Needless to say, I immediately paid $0.99 for the privilege to download iKeywi, and I was mighty impressed by what I found. Folks, if you're at all familiar with some of the more popular jailbreak tweaks, then iKeywi should immediately jump to the top of your must-buy list.
Don't believe me? Think a tempered version of SwipeSelection (you can't select text, but you can move the cursor using swipes). And that's not where it stops. iKeywi adds a fifth row of keys to the keyboard interface, customized key text, customized output, the ability to show letter case, and more. Watch the video inside to see what I mean.
iOS 8 is now installed on 47% of all compatible devices, according to Apple. The company updated its App Store support page for developers tonight, showing that adoption for the latest major version of iOS is now tied with iOS 7, leaving just 6% of devices on older firmware.
This means that iOS 8 adoption has gone up just a single percentage point in the past two weeks, as Apple reported it installed on 46% of devices on September 21. It's believed that the still-sluggish iOS 8 adoption rate may be due to the number of bugs that have plagued the software.
Although there is no iOS 8 jailbreak, there is still a way to add a Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) emulator. Because Nintendo is missing the opportunity to make millions of dollars by releasing their games to the Apple App Store, people have turned to emulators for years. Since the iPhone was jailbreakable, it seems there was some way to play the old classics.
Thanks to a tip from @flawlessfox, whom you may recognize as one of the JailbreakCon organizers, we tested the SNES emulator "SiOS" and can confirm it works quite well, especially on the iPhone 6 Plus. Step inside for quick step-by-step instructions and you will be enjoying your favorite SNES games in about 5 minutes time. Yes, you read it correctly, there is no jailbreak required.
Now that iOS has finally adopted third-party widgets, many developers have been scrambling to update their apps to include them. While I think that widgets can be useful, I find that a lot of the widgets released so far have been somewhat unnecessary, or at best, poorly implemented.
But that’s not to say that the idea or concept of a widget is necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, widgets can be a very good thing if implemented properly.
That just happens to be the case with the following five widgets that I discuss in this post. Check inside for a video overview of five of my favorite iOS 8 Notification Center widgets.