Mel Martin
Articles by Mel Martin
Some final thoughts...
It's been quite a ride for more than 6 years starting when Lead Editor Mike Rose invited me to come aboard after reading some things I had written. The iPhone had been out for less than a year... the Mac was selling but seemed destined to lose the desktop wars. Now Apple is the darling of Wall Street, and has revolutionized mobile communications as surely as it revolutionized home computing with the Apple II in 1977. After almost 700,000 words in almost 2,000 posts, it's been fun and inspiring to watch Apple grow. To have in the palm of your hand a device that can wake you in the morning, bring you the news about anything you are interested in, steer a telescope, take your pulse, introduce you to new people, guide your travels, then put you to bed at night with your favorite music or the sound of the sea is a pretty amazing device, one we take for granted today. My Mac helps me create memorable photos, lets me view the universe from my desktop, and keeps me up to date with family and friends. While not perfect, it is light years beyond my small collection of Windows PC's that never delighted in the way my MacBook Air and MacPro do. TUAW, for lots of reasons beyond our control, has no future, but Apple's burns brightly. It's been great writing about these growing technologies, and seeing and testing apps -- some that were great and some that fell short. All of us here tried to tell the story of Apple and its offspring of hardware and software companies and tell it straight; the good along with the sometimes ugly. It's been a privilege to share my thoughts, whether they reached you at your desktop, on your lap, or in your hand. I loved it when readers would appreciate a tip on a great app, and I loved to hear from developers who got a bad review, took it to heart and made some changes in the inevitable next version. Thanks to all our readers, and thanks to my many colleagues here at TUAW who always went the extra mile to make our little corner of the Apple universe a place worth stopping by.
Yahoo updates its news and lifestyle app with more interactive features
Yahoo has a bunch of apps for iOS, including Yahoo Mail, Weather, Finance and others. The primary Yahoo app (free) is what has just received an update. This app features a blend of news with Yahoo's interactive lifestyle magazines. The Yahoo app has been slightly retooled visually, and there are some nice features that let you swipe across the screen looking at before and after photos, mainly in the lifestyle sections. The new app has more visuals than before. You can turn off any sections you don't want to see. I find the Yahoo News Digest app more useful. The newly designed Yahoo app does a pretty inferior job of mixing ads with content, and the format is just the same. At first glance, ads look like news, making the app more difficult to use than it needs to be. Yes, it says "sponsored" on each ad, but the format is identical to a news story. There are also some just plain awful bugs. The edit page where you decide which content you want displayed is all white, with white on white text. Needless to say, it is very difficult to navigate (see screen shot) or to exit. Someone wasn't paying attention when this update was being tested. Still, Yahoo has a wide range of content and it's all attractively displayed. I think the Yahoo Weather and News Digest apps are better, but if you want a wider barrel of content, this app will be adequate. Lose the deceptively formatted ads and fix the bugs, and this app will be even more useful. The Yahoo app is universal and requires iOS 7 or later. It is optimized for the latest iPhone hardware.
Hydra: A powerful and innovative iOS app for High Dynamic Range photography
I've seen so many High Dynamic Range (HDR) apps, some of which have been good, some not so good. Hydra (US$2.99 on sale) from Creaceed is a well thought out and terrific performing photo app with solid features that will improve your images in challenging lighting conditions. It's just been released to the App Store today. Unlike most HDR apps, Hydra can capture video as well as stills. It also has a low light mode that takes up to 40 images and stacks them to reduce noise. A hi-resolution mode claims to give you a 32 MP image from the iPhone's 8 MP camera, and a zoom mode does some fancy pixel manipulation to give you a 2x and 4x zoom that looks quite presentable. Let's start with the HDR mode. HDR is designed for taking pictures with bright highlights and deep shadows. Apple offers an HDR feature built into the Camera app, but it is not as dramatic as what third-party apps can produce. Hydra is automatic. I pointed it to a bright window surrounded by a darkened room and the app quickly decided on 12 exposures. They were quickly assembled and I had a great picture that captured the bright outside details while rendering the shadows inside. One the image is assembled, you have a choice of how far to push the exposure, so I used the medium preset. The video mode also worked well, giving me better exposures than I got using the video mode in the Apple Camera app. The low light mode was really astounding. The app took 20 pictures and stacked them, and the sensor noise was almost completely gone. The original photo without the stacking looked like a blizzard of grain and noise. The zoom mode was also impressive. The app can't break the laws of physics, but every digitally zoomed image I did looked good, and far better than with any other digital zoom I've used. Upscaling images using the 16 MP and 32 MP option also gave finer details than I was seeing in the 8 MP photo. The app lets you save both versions for comparisons. A couple of things to note. You want to hold your camera really steady to avoid the possibility of blur. The Hydra software will try and do the best with what you give it, but a mini tripod or bracing the camera will give you better results. Shooting handheld still produced excellent images, however. I have a few photos attached so you can see how the camera did. Didn't have much sun today, but you can see the improvements in dynamic range and noise. Hydra is a breakthrough HDR app, that adds extra features like HDR video, a decent digital zoom, and amazing noise free low light photos. It's an excellent deal while it is on sale at 40% off, and iOS photo buffs will want this app. You can get some technical details on the app and see some sample images on the Hydra website. Hydra requires iOS 8.1 or later, and it supports the screen resolution of the latest iPhones. Hydra is a universal app and it worked fine on my iPad Air 2, but the best images were with my iPhone 6. Recommended.
Wrise is a new and specialized word processor for Mac
There just aren't too many new OS X word processing applications appearing these days, with Microsoft Word and Apple's Pages ruling the roost. So it was with some interest that I took a look at Wrise (US$29.99 introductory pricing at the Mac app store), which certainly provides a fresh take on word processing. Like most word processors, Wrise gives you editing, font choices and background colors, as well as spelling and grammar correction. But it also has some very unique features: Pre-sets for fonts and page colors to quickly select or change for easy reading The app can read aloud what is on screen, and you can adjust the reading speed and the voice Text can be saved as an audio file and exported to iTunes or an mp4 format Wrise can read multilingual texts with automatic language detection The app contains 15 predictive dictionaries for English and use with other languages I gave Wrise a try, and found it easy to use. I liked the ability to have it read aloud any text I've written or imported. While Apple provides a similar feature as part of OS X (usually under Edit > Speech in many apps), there is more control over this function in Wrise. The app can open PDF files, plain text and Word documents, but it could not open Pages files, which would have to be converted to Word format before importing. The "speak as you type" function was very useful as a proofreader. The layout of the pages and text makes for really easy reading, more than with other word processors. If you change the font and page colors, it doesn't change the actual document, it just changes the display for easier reading, which is a nice feature. Another unique feature is support of tags. You can add tags inside a document to control reading speed, voice, language and even the volume. Documents can be password protected, and sent for comments in a read-only mode. Wrise supports Apple's dictation feature, so you can turn speech into text, then have the app read it back to you. Wrise allows export in RTF or TXT formats. I'd like to see the app export PDF, Word and Pages. The app is designed to make reading and writing easier, and I think it succeeds there. The developers also think it helps comprehension and composition, and it can be extremely useful for people with dyslexia. Wrise is an interesting and unique product that is going to be of interest to people looking for a different approach to writing and reading. It's not a page layout app like Word or Pages. It's designed for text, and it accomplishes its mission. The $29.99 half-price offer is good until February 15. Wrise requires OS X 10.9 or later and a 64-bit processor.
The Lowdown meetings app for iOS is now free and improved
Lowdown (free) is an intriguing business app that provides briefings on participants and companies you are meeting with, helps you get to the meeting with location information, and tells you when others arrive. When you start you can integrate the app to other services like Linkedin (it's required to use the app), and Twitter. The app connects to your calendar, and lets you create invitations that include maps to the location of the meeting, profiles of the people attending and company info, both of which it draws from Linkedin. It then sends the invites out, using info from your address book When people arrive at the meeting they can tap a button to let others know they have arrived. If you use Google for email, Lowdown also searches relevant emails relating to the meeting. This is a clever idea that consolidates several functions all in one place. Lowdown used to charge a monthly subscription, but now it is free. The company says it will offer special enhanced pay services in the future. The app was easy to set up, and I did set up a couple of dummy meetings as I had nothing really scheduled over the next week. Everything worked as expected, and I thought the design of the screens was very attractive. I was easily moved from function to function. The only thing I didn't like was the absolute dependence on Linkedin. I understand the decision, but not everybody is on it, and some people detest it for all the junk mail and irrelevant material it bombards you with. It would be nice if the app could do some smart searches on Google to add to the information provided. Update: Although my tests didn't show any searches with Google, David Senior, CEO of Lowdown says the app does search Google, Crunchbase, Wikipedia, Facebook and other sources. More sources are coming in February, plus a meeting conformation system. Still, Lowdown is going to be a very useful app for anyone who spends time setting up and attending meetings. At a price of free, it's certainly worth a look, and I recommend it for people in its target audience. Lowdown requires iOS 7.1 or later. The app is not universal, but works fine on iPads. The app is optimized for the iPhone 5.
Pandora app updated with a load of new features
Pandora has been around since 2008, one of the earliest apps offered for the iPhone. With millions of listeners in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, the streaming music service has always been one the most popular music apps out there. After what seems an eternity, Pandora for iOS now has some significant feature updates. First off, Pandora has a new and more attractive user interface and design. There are animations and gesture-based movements that fit in well with iOS 8. There are new personalization controls, you can view songs you gave a "thumbs-up" rating to, and there's even a way to change your rating to "thumbs-down" if you decide it's not your favorite. Notification features have been enhanced in the new Pandora, telling you when new music has been added to the stations you've created. The app now, for the first time, supports the resolution of the new iPhones, including the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Pandora has a lot of competition from services like Rdio, Spotify and iHeart Radio. Many people use the free Pandora service, and paying subscribers are only about five percent of total users as of last year. Free subscribers get a lot of ads. The new Pandora app is universal, and requires iOS 6 or later.
iFixit gives you thousands of repair manuals in your pocket
The iFixit app (free) is a handy little app that gives your Do-It-Yourself repairs a big boost. This app comes from the teardown experts at iFixit, who delight in exploring the inner secrets of your favorite tech (or not-so-techie) hardware. The iFixit app helps you repair just about anything from toilets to garage door openers, cameras, cars, and of course, PCs and Macs. iFixit is divided by categories, or you can search by type of repair or brand name. When you get to Mac, for example, there's a choice of desktops, laptops, or other Mac hardware. You work your way down the list for a specific model, and then the repair options appear. The app tells you what parts you may need and any tools required. Repair steps are in short sections that you swipe to go to the next step and the instructions are usually accompanied by photos. The app reaches out to the internet for much of the information it needs, otherwise iFixit would be an unwieldy and huge app. If you like to do repairs yourself, saving money and extending the life of what you own, the iFixit app is a must. In addition to repair instructions, you can often download a PDF product manual. Any repair can be marked as a favorite for future reference. If you need to order parts, the app tells you where they can be purchased. You can even order tools from iFixit if you don't have them on hand. iFixit works well, and covers thousands of brands and repairs. The app requires iOS 6.1 or later, and it is optimized for the iPhone 5. The app is universal. Free is always good, and iFixit is a really worthwhile app to have.
iFilebox is a nice improvement on Apple's notes app
iFilebox (US$0.99) is a well thought-out addition to your iOS bag of tricks. It lets you create folders, and write notes so you can get organized, and is a nice alternative to Apple's own Notes app. The app supports passwords on folders, keeping them extra private. Notes can be shared via email and the search function works well. The app does not support Apple's Spotlight search, at least for now, but that would be very valuable to add. This is a nice and powerful app. You get a lot of choices, like font selection, and notes can be entered with the keyboard of by voice. There is a pretty comprehensive help menu, but it didn't cover deleting folders. Actually the app follows Apple conventions, swiping a folder to the left gives you the option to delete it. Folders can be designated as favorites for quick access and any note can be bookmarked. The app is easy to use, and features are generally self-evident. As it is now, the app is not universal, and you need an iPad and an iPhone version, which I don't think presents the best deal for users. The two apps don't sync either, which is the way, I think, people with both devices would want this app to work. Having said that, iFilebox is very handy, and does a lot that Apple Notes doesn't do. I recommend this app for people who need an organized way to keep notes, and will hope that it will support Spotlight and syncing soon. At under a dollar, this app can boost your productivity. The app requires iOS 8.1 or later. It's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Get the weather and a joke thanks to Funny or Die Weather app
And now for something completely different. It's a nicely performing weather app, with weather sourced from Weather Underground, and along with the weather you get a joke or funny anecdote. The app, Funny Or Die Weather (free) has the usual stuff you want from a weather app, like current weather, a 5 day forecast, the UV index, sunset and sunrise times, moon phases and tides, but along with that are some nice animations reflecting the current weather and a joke. Sometimes it's silly, sometime a little profane or sarcastic, and it is sure to at least make you grin. It doesn't matter if the weather is good or horrible, a joke will always be there. If you like the humor, you can share it via text, email or social media. You can add multiple locations to the app by zip code or city name, and each city will have different humor when you access it. Funny or Die Weather is certainly unique, and it's free, with no in-app purchases or ads, neither of which would be truly funny. Funny or Die Weather requires iOS 8, and it is optimized for the new iPhones so you get full screen humor. Recommended.
RiLAXapp let's you relax from the stresses of the day
RiLAXapp is a US$0.99 app with one mission: to provide an audio and visual experience to help you unwind. The app features three different scenes -- one with water, another with a crackling flame, and a third with the aurora borealis over some mountains. There are animated visuals and ambient outdoors sounds, along with some faint music. Unlike many apps with relaxing sounds, this app lets you interact with the scene. Tapping on the screen might give you, for example, a bell sound, and drawing on the screen displays animated effects that follow your finger. I found the audio most effective on headphones, especially headphones that cut you off from outside sounds. The environmental sounds are realistic, and there is just a faint hint of music. On-screen controls let you hear just the music or the ambient sounds without the music. I would like to see sliders in RiLAXapp to let me create my own blend. I'm not sure how relaxing it is to watch the animations and play with the screens. My idea of relaxation is to close my eyes and turn off all visual stimulation, but everybody is different and the interactive images may be great for some users. People who like these kinds of apps should also check out Thunderspace and Naturespace. RiLAXapp requires iOS 6 or later and it is optimized for the latest iPhone models.
iPhone Market share taking off in Japan and Korea
That's the report from Counterpoint Research. According to the Counterpoint Research, global Apple iPhone sales grew 26 percent annually crossing 20 million unit monthly sales mark for the first time ever in November 2014. Apple's iPhone sales volumes grew across key countries with timely global roll out of the flagship iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models and was also helped by the relatively lower-priced iPhone 5s and 5c targeting prepaid users in emerging markets. The report adds: "Apple's iPhone market share soared and reached record levels in Japan and Korea markets. In Japan, one of the most premium smartphone markets in the world, Apple captured more than half of the smartphone sales in October as well as November. Japan has been one of the strongest market for Apple and it is becoming increasingly difficult for competition to challenge Apple's dominance in near- to mid-term. Apple will likely benefit from the upcoming Apple Watch with a growing and premium iPhone user-base in this highly advanced consumer market." There's no good news in Korea for Samsung, where the electronics giant has dominated the mobile phone business in its home country. Apple captured one-third of the total smartphone sales in Korea last November. Previously, no company had ever topped 20 percent on Samsung's home turf. In general, many analysts expect the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to have blow-out numbers for the 4th quarter of 2014 when Apple reports financial results on January 27.
Ava Photo cleans up those iPhone portraits
You have a lot of pictures of friends and families, but you know those pictures don't always capture them at their best. Ava Photo (free until Jan 31) is a sharp little iOS app providing several tools to make those portraits look a lot better and more presentable. There are similar apps that retouch images, but some wind up looking pretty unnatural and obviously "doctored". Some apps let you reshape a face or nose, or change eye color. That's not the purpose of Ava Photo -- it uses a much lighter touch. It cleans up blemishes, smooths skin, removes circles under the eyes, and it has filters designed for portraits to change the color cast. It's easy to undo any changes, and there is a handy button for comparing your changes to the original. Ava Photo also has settings for pictures taken in low light conditions. In my tests, I found I could improve almost any photo of a person, without making it look pasty or phony. Yes, you can push the effects, but nothing forces you to do that. Some photos that could best be described as harsh were softened and looked much more flattering. There are some minor editing tools so you can crop the photos, and you can then save them to your camera roll or share to Instagram. If you don't want to work the various controls yourself, there is an automatic function with several levels of intensity. I preferred to do my own editing. Ava Photo is a nice tool, especially for free during this 100 percent off sale. It's great for selfies or for portraits of any friends or relatives that you'd like to perfect and improve. Ava Photo is not universal, it requires iOS 6 or later, and it is optimized for the latest iPhone sizes.
UNU ships an iPhone 6 case that can double your battery life
Battery cases for the new larger iPhones have been slow in coming, but UNU is now selling a beefy case for the iPhone 6, the DX-6, with great battery life and at a competitive price of US$79.00. The case claims to double your battery life, offering more than 300 hours of standby time, more than 60 hours of music playback, and 18 hours of talk time. Of course those numbers are far greater than an iPhone 6 running on its internal batteries. Mophie has also announced a similar case with a $99.00 price point and a slightly less powerful battery, but it hasn't hit the street quite yet, and UNU hopes to grab a significant share of the market for these battery cases. Specifications Dimensions: 6 x 2.8 x 0.6 inches Weight: 3.36 ounces High grade Li-polymer rechargeable battery Minimum rated talk time: 15 hours Battery: Li-Polymer 3.7V/3000 mAh Design The UNU case is sturdy, with fully covered corners, a raised lip for screen protection, and a solid frame that should protect your iPhone. The phone easily sips in and out of the case. The bottom shell has the Apple Lightning connector, but the case itself charges from an included Micro USB cable. Using the UNU battery case Everything worked as expected. The case was partially charged when unpacked, so an hour or so later I was ready to go. A green LED on the back lets you know the case is fully charged. As your day progresses, you use the iPhone internal battery, and when the battery is nearly depleted you press a button on the back of the DX-6 for 2 seconds. That engages the case battery, and you are all set with the case charging your iPhone 6 quickly back up to 100 percent. It's no different than plugging it into a wall outlet, except you are not tethered. Headphones are often a problem with these cases because the iPhone headphone jack is recessed with the case over the top. UNU provides an extender, but it's something else to carry and hopefully not lose. All other iPhone controls are easily accessible through cut-outs. This is a 4th-generation case for UNU; they've been at it for five years, and they obviously know how to make a good battery case. I do think buying a case like this for an iPhone 6 involves a series of tradeoffs. The iPhone is going to get even bigger (thicker and longer) and it's going get heavier. For use around town where users have plenty of charging opportunities, or in a car with an auto power adapter, the size and weight may outweigh the usefulness. On the other hand, for people who travel and don't have handy sources of AC power this case is a godsend. You can do your regular sync duties with the included cord that also charges the batteries of both your iPhone and the battery case. LED indicators tell you about the status of the battery charge. The case is shipping now in black; white and red are coming very shortly. The UNU DX-6 is available at the usual online outlets like Amazon for a bit less money than the list price. The DX-6 is well built, has a powerful battery, and offers solid protection for your iPhone 6 at a reasonable price.
Here's a new iOS app for sending personalized handwritten cards
There are plenty of greeting card apps for iOS, but this new offering called Lovely Handwritten Cards (free with one in-app option) is tasteful, and lets you truly personalize what you send to others using your own handwriting. You can choose a template from subject areas like Holidays, Birthday, Congratulations, Love, etc. Add any photo from your photo library, which then can be scaled and/or rotated, then use your finger directly on your touchscreen to add your note. There are a variety of ink effects to make your writing look like your own. You also get a choice of different ink colors, as well as line thicknesses. When you are done, your card can be printed, or send it via email or the usual social networks. I think the key word with this little app is tasteful. The templates are nicely done, and you'd have to work to send something that looked bad. For an additional US$0.99 you can get a bunch of extra templates, and that's reasonable enough, but most of the few included templates are just fine. Templates with a lock symbol require the paid set. Lovely Handwritten Cards is a universal app. It requires iOS 7 or later, and at free it is certainly worth a look.
Spyglass: A full featured nav app for outdoor enthusiasts
Spyglass (U.S. $3.99 on sale) is a really complete GPS toolkit for people spending time outdoors or doing off-road navigation. Features are numerous; among them are a heads-up display, a high quality compass with map overlays, a gyrocompass, speedometer, altimeter, astronomical object finder, a sextant, inclinometer, and angular calculator and more. The app makes use of every sensor in your iOS device in a simple to use package. Waypoints can be saved and navigated to by following a simple pointer. Spyglass can track multiple destinations at the same time, and display distances, direction, azimuth, elevation and ETA. A rangefinder measures distances to distant objects. The app can utilize your camera to provide photos with data overlays. Hikers and others going off-road will really be excited about this app. It has a myriad of functions all wrapped up in one place. I tried the app and found it useful, even in urban life. You won't get the most from the app without reading the instructions, and there are some nice videos available as well. This isn't a typical navigation app with streets and hamburger joints; it's a sophisticated tool for finding your way when there are no roads or obvious checkpoints. It's customizable, even to the colors of the displays and the filters over your live picture -- for use at night, for example. I do a lot of landscape photography that involves some hiking and car locating. Spyglass was a trustworthy companion for that endeavor, including estimating my altitude and distance to destinations. Getting back to my car was easy, just a matter of following an on-screen pointer. If Spyglass interests you, there are online videos and a manual you can check before you buy. Spyglass needs iOS 6.1 or later, it's universal and therefore friendly with all iOS hardware, and it's optimized for the iPhone 5. Recommended.
Google Maps for iOS gets a welcome update
Google has issued an update to its popular and free Google Maps app for iOS. The update to version 4.2.0 offers filtered restaurant searches that let you specify cuisine type, price and rating, and it gives you weather information from around the world. Another new feature is the ability to drop a pin at your starting and ending points for directions, and you can now add transit directions to your calendar. There are also unspecified 'bug fixes'. Google Maps is still used by a great many iOS users, especially after the sloppy introduction of Apple Maps back in 2012 that even forced Apple CEO Tim Cook to send a letter of apology to iOS customers. Apple Maps has moved forward over the last few years, but it's not likely to top Google in accuracy or depth of information. Google Maps on Android has still more features, including a newly released direction sharing feature which is hopefully headed to iOS soon. Google Maps is a universal app, and it's been optimized for the newest iPhones. It's not a resource hog, and only requires iOS 6 or later.
PhotoTime: An incredibly powerful iOS photo organizer and tagging tool
It's not often an app really impresses me, but PhotoTime (free) does. While many apps, including Apple's Photos app, will tag photos and read EXIF data from your photos, PhotoTime goes a lot deeper. First, you let PhotoTime see your photos, and they are uploaded to the PhotoTime servers. Some very sophisticated software reads the metadata on your pix, but also does face and shape recognition. The images are sent back to your phone with the tags in place. I have lots and lots of photos on my iPhone, and was pretty stunned at the results. I typed 'desert' and got pictures I'd taken in the desert. When the app sees a face, it will ask you to identify it, and in my testing it recognized that person even if lighting and angles changed. What was really impressive is I looked at a photo of my pet bird, and the app correctly identified it as a bird, but also correctly tagged him as a Cockatoo. A picture of a small telescope in my back yard was identified as a telescope, while it also recognized photos of cactus, although sometimes it added 'spire' or 'tall building' to the tags. Of course, it is easy to edit the tags and remove anything that is wrong. Once everything as been tagged, it's easy to locate photos. You can ask for 4th of July or fireworks, Xmas tree photos, or everything taken in Utah, for example. Apple needs this technology badly. The app supports bookmarks and can organize photos around matching characteristics. It's really impressive to work with PhotoTime, and it finally makes your large collection of photos useable. The app also supports tagging photos from Facebook and Instagram. Flickr and Google+ integration is coming soon. The app's privacy policy is a good one. None of your information is sold or shared with third parties. After your photos are tagged they are deleted from the PhotoTime servers, and things sent to PhotoTime and back are identified with a unique anonymous ID, not your name. PhotoTime is both clever and powerful. It's a universal app and optimized for the iPhone 5 and requires iOS 7 or later. I wish this capability was available for my Mac and my large collection of photos. Try this app and see if you are impressed.
So, how "engaged" are you with your apps?
That's a question app marketing platform Localytics was interested in, and they have provided some enlightening answers in a recent report. The firm defines "engaged" as using the same app 10 or more times per month. The percentage of apps meeting that criteria soared from 25 percent in the third quarter of 2014 to a high of 30 percent in December, 2014. But user retention –- the percentage of users returning to an app within a three-month window –- declined, ending the year at 12 percent as some people abandoned apps when switching over to new devices or upgrading their operating system. According to the research, media and entertainment apps performed the best for overall app stickiness in Q4 2014 peaking at 26 percent, a 4 percent increase over Q3. Localytics defines app "stickiness" as the average of an app's engagement and retention. Business productivity and technology apps experienced the most improvement over the course of 2014, starting at just 15 percent and increasing app stickiness to 23 percent by the end of the year. Travel and leisure apps experienced the biggest increase in the volume of app launches per average user per month growing from 10 in Q3 up to 12 in Q4 –- reflecting the season's Q4 travel trends. Meanwhile, media and entertainment apps remained consistently high with users launching them 12 times per month, on a par with Q3. By contrast, games apps had the lowest number of launches per month, just fewer than eight. The Localytics Indexes provide marketers with a benchmark against which to measure and refine their app engagement strategies. They are compiled through the continuous analysis of 28,000 apps across more than 1.5 billion devices. To see the study in detail, head to this link.
CBS relaunches its news app for iOS
CBS has added features and done some cosmetic cleanup of its free CBS News app. The universal app adds live streaming from CBSN, the network's recently launched 24/7 live streaming feed. Other changes are a completely new design, with more images and full screen galleries.You can select news by type, like tech or sports, and rearrange the menus. You can also find broadcasts from CBS, like the Evening News and 60 Minutes. All in all, this is a nice update, but I think it falls short of what a news junkie would like. Other than menu order, there is really no customization here -- you get what you get. The app has no idea what kind of news mix you want. It's simply not very granular. You can get sports news, but not set the app for "no baseball" for example. News alerts are whatever CBS wants you to see, but you can't customize those either. The design of the app is very readable, and while the fonts are available in three sizes, I think they are all too big and the app shows a lot of white space that is wasted. CBS bills itself as 'always on' with its new streaming feature, but several times all I got was a commercial followed by a screen that said "we'll be right back." That's not always on. I will say that the video streaming, when it is there, is of very high quality, and it is full screen. Perhaps the worst fumble is that there is no local news. Nothing. Zip. CBS has affiliates all over the country. Where is any targeted local news? If Microsoft can figure this out for their news app, so can CBS. I should note that NBC doesn't offer local news it it's app either, and ABC News offers local videos, and asked my location, but couldn't find a thing to show me. Yes, many affiliates have their own local apps, but why can't local news be embedded in the CBS app? The CBS News app is nice looking, but it's lacking in features that serious news consumers will want. The app is universal, and works well on an iPad in landscape mode. It requires iOS 7 or later and has been optimized for all the new iPhones. The app is a great start, but has a way to go.
Watermark Plus adds watermarks to your photos quickly and easily
Watermark Plus ($19.90) is a nifty app that pros and others wanting to protect their digital image creations will appreciate. You can create watermarks on your own, or use any of several templates provided. The app supports JPEG, TIFF, BMP and PNG formats. You have control of position, font, opacity and colors. Even better, you can apply your watermark to hundreds of photos at once by dragging a folder over a target on the app screen. If the photos are of varying sizes, the app places the watermark in the right place -- a lower corner, top centered, whatever you choose. The app also supports inserting EXIF data into your images in any way you specify including -- of course --the date. I tried the app on a large folder of images and it worked as well as I expected. Not everyone will need watermarks, but as we increasingly send our pictures to photo sharing sites and the web in general, watermarking becomes more and more important. Watermark Plus also allows you to batch resize photos by width, height, percentage, or fit to a particular size. The app will also convert your photos from one format, like TIFF for example, to JPEG or any other supported format. All in all, Watermark Plus is a handy application for both professional photographers and people serious about keeping some control of their work. The app is available by download from the developer's website, not the Mac App Store. It's currently $10.00 off the usual list price of $29.90. Help is included in the app, but it's really not that difficult to run.