Apple picker Round 10 of App Week brings you another weekly overview of news from the world of developers, new apps and games, important updates, and last but not least, discounts in the App Store and elsewhere.
News from the world of applications
The sequel to the popular Fieldrunners will be released in the summer (May 22)
Fans of the popular tower defense game Fieldrunners can look forward to the second version. Fieldrunners 2 comes almost four years after the original version of the game appeared on the App Store, but it has maintained its fans and popularity over the years. It is still one of the best titles in the field of tower defense games. Fieldrunners 2 is scheduled to appear on iPhone during June and soon after on iPad. The first part is currently standing 1,59 EUR, respectively 4,99 EUR.
Source: TouchArcade.com
Microsoft Office for iOS to arrive in November (23/5)
We've been hearing about Microsoft's alleged plans to release the Office suite for the iPad from various media outlets for quite some time now. Additionally, a few months ago, The Daily printed a photo of this software running on the display of an Apple tablet. Although Microsoft denied the authenticity of this image, it did not deny its plans to create an Office alternative for the iPad.
These days, the rumors are alive again, and Jonathan Geller, citing a reliable source, published information that the Office suite for iOS will be released in November in a universal version for both iPhone and iPad. The user interface should look similar to the existing One Note iOS version, but the influence of the Metro style will be clearly visible. Both local editing and online work should be possible.
Source: 9to5Mac.com
Kaspersky doesn't like that it can't develop Antivirus for iOS (23/5)
Eugene Kaspersky sees the future of iOS security as bleak. And that's mainly because the available SDKs and APIs don't allow his company to develop antivirus software for this platform. He went so far as to state that a potential infection would be a catastrophic scenario since there is no defense. He acknowledges that iOS is currently the most secure operating system, but there can always be a weak spot that a potential attacker can exploit.
At the same time, he points to the advantage of Android, which is more benevolent towards developers and there are several antiviruses for it, including Kaspersky Mobile Security. Thanks to this, it is said that by 2015, Apple will lose a lot, and Android will have 80% of the mobile market at that time. However, from the side of an impartial observer, it seems that Eugene Kaspersky is rather annoyed that he cannot profit from one of the most popular mobile platforms. It should be noted that no virus has attacked the iOS platform to date.
Source: TUAW.com
Developers cheapened Dropzone by 12 dollars, earned 8 thousand in a day (23.)
The hussar piece was successful for the developers behind the application Drop zone. Normally, Dropzone is sold in the Mac App Store for $14, but on Tuesday it was sold for just $2 due to a promotion called Two Dollar Tuesday, which meant that sales skyrocketed. This risk paid off for the developers, because the application earned 8 thousand dollars in a single day, which is roughly 162 thousand crowns. Aptonic Limited's development team admitted that such a number exceeds even their wildest dreams, as they never expected such record sales. Dropzone currently costs $10 in the Mac App Store, respectively 8 EUR.
Source: CultOfMac.com
Apple has started offering the App of the Week for free in the App Store (May 24)
The App Store stands out from competing smartphone software stores, among other things, in the number of applications offered. However, searching through 500 pieces can be quite daunting and finding the right one among them is a real pain. The search option in the App Store is not exactly perfect, and to separate the grain from the chaff, Apple provides, for example, Top Ten rankings.
Other helpers when choosing and finding apps are sections like "New and Noteworthy", which provides an overview of the latest additions, or the "What's Hot" section. However, now Apple has added a very pleasant novelty, which is the item "Free App of the Week". This week's column features an excellent, normally paid game, Cut the Rope: Experiments HD.
In addition to this news, the App Store has also undergone other changes. The former "iPad and iPhone App of the Week" section has disappeared, and on the contrary, the "Editor's Choice" section has been added, which this week offers the game Air Mail and a tool for iPad called SketchBook Ink.
Source: CultOfMac.com
Apple is removing applications from the App Store that use AirPlay for reception (May 24)
Recently, there was information in the media about the unfair behavior of Apple, which removed the application out of nowhere AirFoil Speakers Touch, which allowed audio to be sent from a computer to an iOS device. It was updated a month ago and then Apple removed it from their store, not during the approval process, but four weeks after the update was released. At the same time, Apple did not warn the developers or say why airfoil Speaker Touch removed from the App Store. According to bloggers, the most likely reason was a conflict of interest, and rumors began that iOS would offer a similar function in its sixth version. However, another app was shut down not long after AirFloat, whose purpose was very similar – to stream audio from a computer (iTunes) to an iOS device.
As it turns out, the problem isn't a competing feature, but a violation of iOS app guidelines. Both applications use the AirPlay protocol to transfer music (in the case of airfoil Speaker Touch is this option available through an in-app purchase). There would be nothing special about that, Apple allows you to use this technology for output. However, the incriminated applications used the opposite direction and created AirPlay receivers from iOS devices, for which no public APIs are available. Apple clearly states in its guidelines: "Applications that use untrusted APIs will be rejected" a "Applications may only use documented APIs in a manner prescribed by Apple and may not use or call any private APIs". This will also be the reason why Apple removed both applications from the App Store, albeit after the fact.
Source: TUAW.com
New applications
Scotland Yard - the famous board game now for iOS
The classic board game Scotland Yard has finally arrived on iOS and is available in a universal version for both iPhone and iPad. The first digital version of this game, whose board version became the "Game of the Year" in 1983, will come to iDevice thanks to the development team Ravensburger. It's a classic cat-and-mouse game where a group of detectives chase Mr. X through the heart of London. At the start, players choose to play as the detectives or Mr. X. For those who have never played Scotland Yard, they are practically necessary to go through the Tutorial, because at first it is quite difficult to understand the purpose of the game.
If you choose Mr. X as your character, your task is not to get caught for the entire twenty-two rounds of the game. You can use a train, bus, taxi or some of the secret paths to move around the game plan. There are a minimum of two and a maximum of five detectives on Mr. X's heels. The more detectives there are in the game, the more difficult Mr. X's task is. If you play as a detective, you have to hunt down Mr. X with the help of your team. You can play the game on your iDevice either locally - against "artificial intelligence", against your friends via WiFi/Bluetooth, or online via Game Center. Players use either voice chat or text messages to communicate.
The game is very tactically demanding and well developed. The graphics are very faithful to the board game, each house has its own label and each street has its own name. Scotland Yard is definitely a must-have for board game lovers and will surely find its supporters even among players who have never heard of it before. The game is available on the App Store for €3,99.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/scotland-yard/id494302506?mt=8 target=”“]Scotland Yard – €3,99[/button]
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Coda 2 and Diet Coda - site development on the iPad as well
Developers from Panic have released a new version of the popular web development tool Coda. In particular, it brings a redesigned user interface, better work when editing text (including hiding parts of code or automatic completion) and also better file management with a completely new file manager. Along with Coda 2, a lightweight version of Diet Coda Pro iPad was also released. Until now, it hasn't really been possible to develop websites from a tablet environment, but Diet Coda should change that.
The iPad application enables remote editing, i.e. editing files directly on the server, more advanced file management via FTP and SFTP, syntax highlighting or simple work with snippets. In addition, it greatly simplifies coding thanks to the contextual row of keys on the keyboard, functions Find and replace or the cursor placement tool, which is otherwise quite a science in iOS. To top it all off, Diet Coda also includes a built-in terminal. The app is currently available for download for €15,99.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/diet-coda/id500906297?mt=8 target=““]Diet Coda – €15,99[/button]
Sketchbook Ink - new drawing from AutoDesk
AutoDesk has finally released the long-awaited app it showed off at the launch of the new iPad. Sktechbook Ink focuses on drawing using different types of lines. It doesn't offer advanced options like its sister app SketchBook Pro, is intended primarily for undemanding drawing and sketching. There are seven different types of lines and two types of rubber. The tool for choosing colors is identical to the aforementioned application from the AutoDesk workshop, and the user interface works similarly. SketchBook Ink can save images up to 12,6 megapixels to your photo library or 101,5 megapixels to iTunes. The application is intended for the second and third generation iPad, and of course it supports the retina display on the third.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/sketchbook-ink/id526422908?mt=8 target=”“]SketchBook Ink – €1,59[/button]
Man in Black 3 - a new game from Gameloft based on the film
As soon as the third installment of the sci-fi series Men in Black hit the theaters, the official game Man in Black 3 has already appeared in the App Store. The story is quite obvious - aliens will start attacking the Earth. However, nothing is lost, you have Agent O, Agent K and Frank commanding the MIB organization. You will find yourself on the streets of New York in the years 1969 and 2012, while you are tasked with training agents, developing new weapons, and providing MIB with new premises. For completed tasks, you get money, energy, experience and other essentials for buying weapons, healing and recruiting new agents...
The principle of the game is based on a turn-based strategy - the agent fires his weapon, then it is the alien's turn. The last one alive wins. An interesting novelty is certainly the invitations of friends from the Gameloft LIVE portal! or Facebook directly into the game and with their help return "emzák" to where they belong.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/men-in-black-3/id504522948?mt=8 target=”“]Man in Black 3 – zdrama[/button]
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Oscar winner
The Oskarek application has appeared in the App Store, which has its origins in ordinary phones with Java and which allows sending SMS to all networks for free. It is not the first of its kind, we could already see two different Czech applications for this purpose, but none of them worked reliably. Perhaps Oskarek will cure this ailment. After the first launch, the app will ask you for your phone number, but you don't have to enter it. The ability to log in under your accounts in Vodafone Park, T-Zones, 1188 (O2), Poslatsms.cz and sms.sluzba.cz is certainly worthy of praise. The writing itself is almost identical to the integrated Messages application - you select the right one from the contacts, write the text and send. All sent messages can be saved in the history.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/sms-oskarek/id527960069?mt=8 target=""]Oskárek - free[/button]
Important update
Google Search iPhone application with a completely new design
Google has sent a completely redesigned Google Search application to the App Store, which offers a new design and speed improvements in version 2.0.
On iPhone, Google Search 2.0 brings:
- complete redesign,
- significant acceleration,
- automatic full-screen mode,
- full-screen image search,
- return from open web pages to search results using a swipe gesture,
- search on websites using the built-in text search engine,
- easily switch between images, places, messages,
- quick access to Google applications such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more.
On iPad, Google Search 2 brings:
- save images to Photos.
Google Search 2.0 is free download in the App Store.
More new features for Tweetbot
Tapbots continues to add new features to their popular Twitter client, Tweetbot, which has now hit the App Store in version 2.4. Among other things, it brings the possibility of ignoring selected keywords, searching for keywords based on location or support for offline reading and tagging of tweets. The smart characters function is also handy, when after writing two hyphens, a dash appears and the three dots turn into a dash, which counts as one character.
Tweetbot 2.4 can be downloaded for 2,39 euros in the App Store for iPhone i iPad.
Infinity Blade II: Vault of Tears
In addition to the current discount of €2,39, the developers from Chair Entertainment have updated their Unreal Engine, which powers the popular game Infinity Blade II. The new update pack is called "Vault of Tears" and includes new locations, enemies, weapons, helmets, shields, rings, armor; Treasure Map feature; more achievements and other improvements. Infinity Blade II is temporarily on sale for 2,39 €.
Cut the Rope: Experiments with 25 new levels and support for the new iPad
ZeptoLab has released an update for their game Cut the Rope: Experiments, which brings 25 new levels including a new element – mechanical arms. The update also brings new achievements and score tables. The same news can be found in the version for iPad, where we also get support for the Retina display of the new iPad.
Cut the Rope: Experiments is now available for download in the App Store as part of an event for iPhone i for iPad free.
Fruit Ninja and the two year anniversary update
The game Fruit Ninja celebrates two years, and on that occasion the developers from Halfbrick released a big update. The main new feature is Gatsu's Cart, a shop where you can buy various bonuses to get even higher scores. These include deflecting bombs or more points for a particular cut fruit. In the store, you pay with a special currency that you get for playing rounds or you can buy them with real money. In addition, some new fruits have also been added. You can buy Fruit Ninja in the App Store for 0,79 € for iPhone and 2,39 € for iPad.
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Pulp with an improved homepage
The interesting RSS reader Pulp received an evolutionary update. It resembles the layout of graphic elements Flipboard, but its primary focus is on RSS subscriptions. This can be done by browsing the site's RSS feed, OPML or Google Reader. Version 1.5 brings:
- a "smart home page" for aggregating and displaying relevant information from your feeds
- sync between Mac and iPad using iCloud
- support for the retina display of the new iPad
- new elements of the graphical interface and its improvements
Keyboard Maestro can now work with images
The excellent application for creating global macros in OS X has received another update with the designation 5.4, which mainly brings functions for manipulating images. Now you can use the action to create new images, rotate, resize and crop them, join multiple images together, add text and other elements automatically. Thanks to the new functions, it should be easy to take a screenshot, reduce it and add a watermark to it. Version 5.3 is a free update for anyone who owns a Keyboard Maestro 5.x license. You can buy the application at developer sites for 36 dollars.
Tip of the Week
Battery Health – keep an eye on your MacBook battery
Battery Health is a handy utility in the Mac App Store that monitors the state and health of your battery. Among the indicators you will find mainly the current capacity of the battery, which decreases with increasing cycles, the current charge, the age of the battery, the temperature or even the number of cycles. Also useful is the calculation of the remaining time for various activities if the laptop is not powered from the mains or the battery usage graph. Finally, the application will also offer some useful tips on how to extend the life of your MacBook on a single charge.
[button color=red link=http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/battery-health/id490192174?mt=12 target=”“]Battery Health – Free[/button]
Current discounts
- SketchBook Pro for iPad (App Store) – 1,59 €
- escapology (App Store) - Free
- starwalk (App Store) - 1,59 €
- Starwalk for iPad (App Store) - 2,39 €
- Zuma's Revenge HD (App Store) - 1,59 €
- The Tiny Bang Story HD (App Store) - 0,79 €
- The tinny bang story (Mac App Store) - 2,39 €
- World of Goo (Steam) - 2,70 €
- Civilization v (Steam) - 7,49 €
- Braid (Steam) – 2,25 €
- fieldrunners (Steam) - 2,99 €
You can find many more discounts at separate article, most of them still apply.
You can always find current discounts in the right panel on the main page.
Does that oscar send free sms to all networks, or only to the one with which I have a contract? according to the reactions on itunes, it's not completely free..
Kaspersky made me laugh. If Apple allowed the barrier that would allow Kašperský to function, it would also break the barrier to potential pests. And that's fair: YES, his praise for Android, which has a similar security situation to Windows and therefore needs an antivirus, here someone is quite blatantly heating up their saliva. :)
Let Kaspersky and similar burners go wherever it's easier SBSkari disgusting!
The developers made Dropzone 12 dollars cheaper, they made 8 thousand in a day
Could someone forward this to Kalousko et al? Perhaps economic growth could be started in the opposite way, than by raising taxes and raising prices... :-)))
Very good point :-)
Well, the Sketchbook is worth a fart... it cuts, renders poorly, etc. I have to say that as much as I was looking forward to the application, it's so good in the final... Dear Paper...