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Indiegogo has a new iOS app for mobile crowdfunding
Like giving money to ambitious projects but hate using your computer? Well, that's pretty weird. We think that's weird. Thankfully for you, though, the folks at Indiegogo think that's totally awesome, and they wanna cater to your whims with a new iOS app (yes, an Android version is on the way). Guess what it's called! If you guessed "Indiegogo," you're spot on. And frankly, we appreciate your gusto. So, what can you do with said app? Well, back projects for one. There's also discovery, and you can follow campaigns as they work toward funding goals. That said, as always, buyer beware: Indiegogo projects make no guarantee of delivery. And with Indiegogo, even if a project doesn't reach its funding goal, the project owner keeps the money they raised. Wanna know even more about crowdfunding services? We've got you covered right here. And if you wanna snag the new Indiegogo app from the iTunes App Store, it's free and available here.
The original Tomb Raider is now available on iOS for $1
Perhaps you saw the lush TressFX in the latest Tomb Raider game and thought, "Man, I'd sure like to go back to the way things were, back when Lara Croft's hair was little more than a brown object affixed to her polygonal face!" Well you're in luck, as Square Enix today re-released the original 1996 version of Tomb Raider, rough edges and all, on the iOS App Store. Better still? It's just $1 -- about the maximum we could see ourselves paying for a nearly 20-year-old game. As for how easy you'll find guiding Lara through the tombs she's known to raid, that's another question altogether: Screenshots show a mess of contextual on-screen virtual buttons as the means of control (or perhaps as an attempt at control). Even if it's unplayable, the most money you could waste is a single bank note -- not exactly what we'd call a risky proposition.
Some of Apple's online services down this morning
No, it's not your imagination. Some of Apple's online services have been down this morning. A quick look at the Apple System Status page shows that the iTunes Store was down for 16.6 percent of all users between 8:57 and 9:42 AM ET, and that continuing outages affecting less than 1 percent of all users are making life difficult: "Users may be unable to use iCloud Documents, Photo Stream, iPhoto Journals, or Backup & Restore. Users may also be unable to send or download attachments in iMessage." If you're one of the affected users, be sure to keep a close eye on the status page to see when services reappear for you.
Deus Ex's iOS spinoff launches on July 11th
Deus Ex: The Fall is sneaking / punching / stalking its way to iOS on July 11th, Square Enix announced this morning. When it arrives, it'll cost you nearly a sawbuck ($6.99 / £4.99 / 5.99€), and work on a wide variety of iOS devices (iPad 2 and above, iPhone 4S and above, and iPod Touch 5 and above). But which way will you play it? Us, well, we're all about refrigerator stacking.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown invades iOS devices on June 20th
The world is under attack once more, and it's up to your squad of elite, turn-based soldiers to keep humanity safe. We've just gotten word that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is headed to a wide variety of iOS devices come this Thursday, June 20th. Everything from the iPad 2 to the fifth-gen iPod touch is getting a taste of Firaxis' XCOM effort -- should users choose to fork over the $19.99 asking price, that is. Aside from multiplayer (which is coming via free update post-launch), the iOS version is just about the same as its console and PC counterpart -- you build up resources and strike back against the alien menace threatening to tear apart Earth, with the occasional break to torturously study the enemy via "dissection." Whether the enemy is still alive at that point, well, that's a question for your science team. For a full list of supported iOS devices, head below the break. As for Android and Windows Phone 8 support? "We've only announced plans for iOS devices at this time," was all a 2K Games rep would tell us. Not exactly a hard no, but not a confirmation either.
Five-year-old spends $2,500 on in-app purchases
The next time you let your child play with your iPad or iPhone, you might want to pay attention to what he or she is up to. The BBC ran a story today about 5-year-old Danny Kitchen of Bristol, England, who ran up a £1,700 (about US$2,500) bill in iTunes after his dad entered his passcode to allow Danny download a free iPad game from the App Store. While Danny only spent about 15 minutes playing with the game, that was long enough for him to repeatedly tap an in-app purchase button and rack up a string of £69.99 (about $105) charges. Mum and Dad received emails from the iTunes App Store the next day itemizing the purchases, but they figured that the charges were an error and ignored them. Danny's parents found out that the charges were real when they received a call from their credit card company asking about the transactions. Apple was reportedly helpful in providing the Kitchens with a full refund, and Danny has learned "not to do it again." Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng offered a quick solution for parents who don't want their little darlings to spend their college tuition on in-app purchases: turn off in-app purchases in Settings > General > Restrictions before handing over the iOS device.
iTunes among the world's largest media companies
Bloomberg's Edmund Lee took a look at Apple's iTunes in an online post today, and notes that Apple's media business is huge -- in fact, it's bigger than "most major media companies." How big is that? Well, if you take the iTunes Music and App stores together, they make more than the New York Times, publisher Simon & Schuster, Warner Bros. film studios, and Time Inc. combined. In fiscal year 2012, Apple pulled in $8.5 billion in revenue from its media stores, while the combined revenue for all of those "media giants" was only $8.3 billion. While iTunes pales in comparison to the likes of News Corp. ($33.88 billion in sales in Apple's fiscal year) and Disney ($42.28 billion), it is growing faster than the bigger media companies with a growth rate of about 35 percent annually. It's expected that iTunes will eclipse Viacom Inc. by 2014. The largest part of Apple's media influence comes not from the sales of music and apps, but from the 435 million iTunes accounts stored in its databases. According to Talal Khan of Credit Suisse Group AG, "that's what gives Apple the power to come into media companies and ask for terms."
Nook app packs new features on iOS and Android, makes UK debut
Barnes & Noble's Nook app has reached version 3.3 on iOS and Android, bringing a handful of new features in tow. Headlining the iOS update are screen magnification and support for Apple's VoiceOver feature, which can assist the blind and visually impaired by reading content aloud. The app has also been gussied up for the iPhone 5's additional screen real estate. Both Android and iOS flavors of the application pack language support for French, Italian, German, Spanish and British English -- and indeed they've now cozied up to the Nook's UK storefront following the arrival of the latest hardware in that land a few days back. If you're fixing to download the spruced up app, Barnes & Noble recommends syncing your library before making the leap.
Square competitor Groupon Payments launches today, promises lowest cost for retailers
Popular deal website Groupon is venturing into the world of smart phone-based credit card payments today, launching the Groupon Payments initiative nationwide after a successful pilot program is the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year. Groupon's boasting a guaranteed lowest cost pricing to merchants using Groupon Payments for credit card transactions -- MasterCard, Visa, and Discover will cost retailers 1.8 percent of credit card sales, plus a $0.15 per transaction fee, while American Express will cost three percent of credit card sales, plus a $0.15 per transaction fee. The biggest competition in the space comes from Square, headed by former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which charges a flat 2.75 percent rate on all transactions against all cards, though PayPal, Intuit, and Verifone all offer similar services. Today's news matches up directly with leaks we saw back in May, adding on that merchants will see the day's credit card purchases credited to their bank accounts overnight, rather than waiting two to three business days (per standard practice). Beyond credit card services, Groupon's Merchants app also accepts Groupon daily deals, which helps elucidate why Groupon would be interested in entering the mobile credit card payments market in the first place (beyond it being a lucrative market unto itself, of course). Interested parties can sign up over on Groupon's website, and snag the free payments app right here. Finally -- finally -- you'll be able to sell all those $10 gift certificates to Chili's you've been hoarding. Perhaps charge $5 a pop for their $10 value and ... is this a paradox? This might be a paradox.
Adobe Revel 1.5 released with new UI, text captions and auto-syncing albums
Adobe's cloud-based photo storage and editing app has been enjoying its new name since it hopped off the Carousel, and now it's appreciating a feature bump too. Version 1.5 has just hit the virtual shelves of the Mac and iTunes stores, complete with a new UI and the option to log in using Facebook or Google accounts. Functionality wise, the update adds text captioning for your snaps and the ability to create albums which auto-sync across your devices and can be shared with others via the web. Alright, so the update isn't revolutionizing the service, but we're sure those that currently subscribe are reveling in it.
Verizon's Viewdini appears on iOS: works on any network, hunts video from 11 sources
The Viewdini streaming metasearch service launched a few months ago for Verizon's 4G LTE-laden Android hardware, and now it's finally available on iDevices. While the droid app is exclusive to those with a 4G plan on Big Red's network, anything running iOS 4.3 and up can now make use of Viewdini, independently of carrier ties. As the screenshots above show, you're also good to go on 3G, although you better watch that data allowance to avoid any nasty surprises. Interestingly, the iOS version currently only digs through the catalogues of 11 content providers compared with 18 on the Android version, but you're still getting access to various big names like ABC, Crackle, Hulu Plus, Netflix and Verizon's own video service. More providers should be added to the list soon, and if you'd like to give Viewdini a try, it's available at the App Store now.
Apple aware of corrupt apps issue, working on a fix (Update: Fixed!)
Earlier this morning, reports started circulating that the App Store was pushing corrupt binaries to iOS and Mac users, resulting in constant crashes of the affected apps. Marco Arment, of Instapaper fame, was one of the first to notice and very vocal -- bringing the issue to the attention of many in the media and at Apple. The list of affected apps is pretty staggering, including such high profile titles as Angry Birds Space, Yahoo! Search, Google Reader and, of course, Instapaper. The number of developers affected now tops 115, so we'd hold off on those updates. For the first several hours Apple was mum on the issue, but it has finally acknowledged the problem in the support forums and even reached out to developers via email. Suspicions seem to be that the FairPlay DRM is at the root, but until we have official word from Apple we'll refrain from laying the blame at its feet. Cupertino is working (we assume tirelessly) on a fix, which will hopefully be delivered sooner, rather than later. Update: Apple has confirmed to AllThingsD that the problem was due to a "server that generated DRM code" and has been fixed. Affected end users are advised to delete the corrupted apps and redownload them.
Apple ups over-the-air download limit to 50MB for iOS
This tid-bit didn't warrant a lot of attention during Apple's presentation today, but it's definitely worth noting: the limit on downloads from the App Store is now 50MB over-the-air, instead of a paltry 20MB. Now, anything larger than that and you'll still need to hop on a WiFi network, but you probably don't want to chew through your data plan that quick any way. So, enjoy downloading Jaws Revenge without the aid of 802.11.
New privacy policy standards agreed to by world's major app store owners
The California Attorney General has struck a deal with the world's major app store operators that will see new privacy policy standards put in place. Apple, Google, Microsoft, HP, RIM and Amazon have all agreed to require any software that uses personal information to provide a privacy policy that can be viewed in the store before an app is downloaded. The agreement will bring the various markets in line with the California Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires developers provide such a policy. In addition to providing links to the relevant documents in an obvious and consistent location, the companies will have to offer a simple way for users to report devs that violate the rules. For more details about the deal check out the PR after the break.
Apple readies $10,000 prize for 25 billionth app milestone
It keeps growing. More downloads, more hard-to-comprehend milestones. This time, Apple's gearing up to hit its 25 billionth app download and it's got another $10,000 prize for the lucky soul that claims that very app. The App Store doubled its download count in the last year -- and then some -- so it's got good reason to be in a celebratory mood. To enter, you can either go grab yourself an app or enter via the prize form below. $10,000 for a random download? Count us in.
App downloads top 1 billion during the holiday week
During the holiday week (by which we mean the seven days between the secularized celebration of a Christian holy day timed to replace a pagan winter festival and the beginning of a new year in the Gregorian calendar) the iTunes App Store and the Android Market combined to reach a record-breaking 1.2 billion downloads according to analytics firm Flurry. The sudden surge in downloads is no shock considering the impressive number of activations on Christmas day, but a 60 percent jump over the week of December 4th through December 17th is still quite a feat. Check out the source for a few more details.
App Store hits 15 billion downloads, $2.5 billion paid by Apple to developers
It's hard to believe that the App Store has only been around for three years, but it's easy to believe that its successes are many. Very, very many. Apple has just announced that it has rolled over the 15 billion mark for downloads, that from a selection of 425,000 apps. Apple's proud of paying $2.5 billion to app developers and we're pretty sure those developers are proud to be a part of that figure -- even if they grumble about the 30 percent they're losing for the privilege.
Yamaha's TNR-i app lights up iOS with its musical stylings, dashing looks
We've seemingly unearthed a whole lot of alternatronica in the past few days (not that it's a bad thing), so you'll understand when we enter yet another combatant into this abstract ring. Looking more like a complex game of Simon and almost playing like it too, Yamaha's TNR-i app apes the functionality of the Tenori-on for your iOS instrument of choice. Ringing in at a hefty £11.99 (that's $19 bills, yo), this 16 x 16 grid of orchestral lights crams six performance modes and online multiplayer functionality that more than justifies the price tag. Considering this is a CliffsNotes version of the real thing, you'll feel right at home in that amateur robot drum circle. Hit the source to get your own melodious light bright on.
HBO Go mobile app hands-on (video)
HBO Go has been live on the iTunes App Store and Android Market for just a few short hours, but we've already put it through the paces, poking and prodding on our iPad and iPhone, to see what all the hubbub's about. We're pleased with the hefty amount of video that HBO's offering up here, and the interface is pretty intuitive as well. Still, browsing through the myriad content on the iPad's larger screen is definitely a bit more leisurely than on the iPhone's 3.5-inch counterpart. Both apps sport the same feature set, so searching for content, saving things to watch later, and blasting updates to Facebook and Twitter will work well on whichever device you choose. To make the deal even sweeter, it's free for current subscribers, so there's really no reason to not check it out for yourself -- unless you don't have HBO, in which case we have a video walkthrough embedded after the break. Update: Sorry Android users, but it looks like the only supported versions for the Android app are 2.1 - 2.3.3. However, we're getting reports that it does function in the browser -- so long as you've got Flash installed, of course. We're also told that the HBO Go site works just fine on the PlayBook as well. %Gallery-122541%
Apple pulls VLC from the iTunes store
Looks like VLC's role as champion of open-source legal rights is no more -- rather than lawyer up, Apple's taken the easy way out, and simply removed the VLC media player from the App Store. Rémi Denis-Courmont -- the VideoLAN developer who originally sued to have it removed -- reports that an Apple attorney informed him that the company had complied with his takedown request, and pulled the app accordingly, which likely puts the kibosh on other potential VLC ports as well. If you think about it, the open-source community may have just planted the first brick in a walled garden of its own.
