Apple picker Activision bought the studio behind Candy Crush, SoundCloud Pulse for creators arrived on iOS, Spark email client got its biggest update yet, and Netflix, Todoist, Evernote and Quip also got major updates.
News from the world of applications
Activision bought the creator of Candy Crush (23/2)
In November last year, it was announced that Activision was discussing a possible acquisition of King Digital, the company behind one of the most popular mobile games, Candy Crush. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said:
“We now reach over 500 million users in almost every country, making us the largest gaming network in the world. We see great opportunities to create new ways for audiences to experience their favorite franchises, from Candy Crush to World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and more, across mobile, console and PC.”
Despite the acquisition by Activision, King Digital will retain its current director, Riccardo Zacconi, and the company will operate as an independent part of Activision.
Source: iMore
Apple pulls 'Famous' remastered 'Stolen' from App Store (23/2)
In January of this year, developer Siqi Chen introduced the game Stolen. It immediately became controversial because it allowed players to buy people in their world without their permission. In addition, she used unpleasant language, such as when buying someone's profile was described as "stealing" that person, who was then "owned" by the buyer. After a wave of sharp criticism, Chen redesigned it with the help of well-known developer and activist Zoe Quinn, and thus the game Famous was born.
In it, "owning" is replaced by "fandom" and instead of buying and stealing people, the game talks about rooting for them. The players have to compete with each other for who is the biggest fan, or on the contrary, the most popular among the fans. The game was released in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, but Apple pulled it from its store after less than a week.
The rationale was said to be that the game violates developer guidelines that prohibit apps that are defamatory, offensive, or otherwise negative towards people. According to Siqia Chen, the main thing that bothered Apple was the ability to assign points to people. In response to the withdrawal of his game from the App Store, he said that the goals of "Famous" are only positive, and its players are not led to negative speech towards others, on the contrary.
Chen and his team are currently working on a web version of the game and considering its possible future on iOS devices.
Source: The Verge
New applications
SoundCloud Pulse, the SoundCloud account manager for creators, has arrived on iOS
Pulse is SoundCloud's app designed primarily for content creators. It serves to manage recorded and recorded audio files, provides an overview of the number of plays, downloads and additions to favorites and user comments. Creators can also directly respond to and moderate comments in the app.
Unfortunately, SoundCloud Pulse still lacks a crucial feature, the ability to upload files directly from a given iOS device. But SoundCloud promises its soon arrival in the next versions of the application.
[appbox app store 1074278256]
Important update
Spark now works fully on all iOS devices and Apple Watch
A few weeks ago, Jablíčkář published an article about a possible replacement for the popular Mailbox email client, Airmail. While Airmail is, of course, more suitable for those who work with their email inboxes on Mac and mobile devices, Spark is, at least after the latest update, more suitable for those who more often have an iPhone or iPad in their hands.
Spark has now extended its native support to iPad (Air and Pro) and Apple Watch, focusing on mobility. Its main advantages are generally fast and efficient work with the e-mail box, which is automatically clearly divided according to topics. Interaction with individual messages takes place mainly through gestures, which are used to delete, move, mark messages, etc. Reminders can be assigned to them just as easily. You can search using natural language (which, of course, mainly refers to English) and the layout of the entire application can be adapted to your own needs and habits.
This particular update, in addition to the aforementioned native support extension, also brings account and settings synchronization via iCloud and several new languages (the app now supports English, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese).
Netlfix has learned peek & pop and now fully supports iPad Pro
The official application of the well-known Netflix service for streaming video content, which can finally be used by Czech users as of this year, also came with a whole series of novelties. The iOS app in version 8.0 brings autoplay and 3D Touch support to the iPhone. Owners of large iPad Pros will be pleased that the application also brings full optimization for its 12,9-inch display.
The auto-play feature is a useful feature for series fans who won't have to bat an eyelash to continue watching the next episode. However, movie lovers will also find their way, for whom the function will at least suggest what to watch next.
3D Touch in the form of peek & pop, on the other hand, will please all explorers. When flipping through the catalog, cards with useful information about the given program and options for easy work with it can be called up with a strong finger press.
Evernote comes with 1Password integration
Evernote's comprehensive note-taking app for iOS integrates with the popular password manager 1Password, encouraging users to use stronger passwords to secure their notes.
1Password is really good at managing and generating passwords, and thanks to the share button, it can be used pretty much anywhere in the iOS environment where the developer allows it. So now the application is also available in Evernote, which will make it much easier for users to follow the advice of the security director of Evernote, according to which the user should use a unique password for each service he uses. Thanks to the 1Password icon available when logging in to Evernote, logging in will still be just as quick and easy for them, and the notes will be much more secure.
New version of Quip focuses on 'living documents'
Quip strives to provide its users with the most efficient possibilities for independent and collaborative work, especially on office documents. In the latest versions of its applications for the web, iOS and others, it does not expand its offer of tools, but wants to better streamline the work with the existing ones and increase their clarity.
It does so through the concept of so-called "living documents", which are the files with which a given team (or individual) works most often at a given time, and places them at the top of lists for immediate access. The assessment of the "liveness" of a document is not only based on the frequency of its display or modification, but also mentions in comments and notes, sharing, etc. "Live documents" also refers to the renewed "Inbox", which notifies all colleagues of the latest changes made and allows documents mark as favorites and filter them. The "all documents" folder then contains all documents to which the given user has access.
Todoist brings 3D Touch, a native app for Apple Watch, and a Safari plugin on Mac
The popular to-do app Todoist for iOS, which boasts 6 million users, is getting a big update and a whole host of new features. The application was rewritten almost from the ground up for version 11, and the versions for Mac and Apple Watch also received news.
On iOS, 3D Touch support is worth mentioning, both in the form of shortcuts from the main screen and in the form of peek & pop. There was also support for keyboard shortcuts, which the user will appreciate especially on the iPad Pro, the ability to respond to comments on tasks directly from the Notification Center, and last but not least, support for the Spotlight system search engine.
On the Apple Watch, the app is now much more powerful because it's now fully native, and it's also got its own "complication" for the watch's display. On Mac, the application has also received an update and a new plugin for Safari. Thanks to this, new users can create tasks directly from links or texts on websites, through the system menu for sharing.
Further from the world of applications:
- App of the Week - Warhammer 40,000: Deathwatch - Tyranid Invasion
- Pocket wants to be a social network offering quality content
- Spotify is partially moving to Google's cloud, which the entire Swedish company could be interested in
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after updating todoist, unfortunately, I can't set the date of the task via the rollbox - it still says Invalid date - unknown date, even uninstalling doesn't help - the same problem on both iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6