Apps

A good launcher app can vastly speed up many of the everyday tasks you do on your iPhone or iPad. But which ones are the best? (Hint: We love Launch Center Pro.)

Japanese mobile messaging app Line has turned to keyboard apps as it looks to grow its service in the U.S. and other parts of the world outside of Asia.

Line released a new keyboard app Wednesday called Emoji Line that makes thousands of its emoji and animated stickers available directly in the iOS keyboard.

If you’re a nerdy sort of iPhone user, then you know the frustration that comes from tapping a link on the web and then being directed to some crappy mobile website for the app instead of the lovely, native version you already have installed on your phone. For example, a link in a news article referencing a tweet might take you to Twitter’s mobile site instead of the Twitter app.

Apple fans can control Insteon's entire product line right alongside any other HomeKit certified device, thanks to Insteon's $150 HomeKit hub.

This week's list includes QuizUp's redesign, an app that leverages public libraries to let you borrow music and ebooks, and new features in StubHub's app.

Plenty of people have compared the Apple Watch to the classic Casio calculator watch; these guys went ahead and made the inevitable app. Meet GeekWatch — the app that turns your Apple Watch into an old-school calculator watch.

Authy, the two-factor authentication startup recently acquired by Twilio, announced its newest product at its parent company’s Signal developer conference today.Authy’s new OneTouch authentication service makes two-factor authentication about as painless as possible. Instead of having to type in a code that’s generated on your phone into a web form, OneTouch simply sends a…

Do you pine for a simpler time, when your phone was for phone calls, your iPod was for music, and watches were... well, watches? If so, have I got the app for you. Just in time for your weekly dose of nostalgia, developer Adam Bell has released his groundbreaking (and free) Click Wheel keyboard on the App Store. The third-party iOS keyboard brings the past to life, and is complete with authentic iPod scrolling sounds. Fancy. Now you, too, can scroll through one letter at a time as you compose your next...

This week's list includes a zombie-themed puzzle game, an app to help you find free Wi-Fi hotspots and a new encrypted messaging app from BitTorrent.

A new mobile app called Shuffle has launched a simple utility that lets you create additional, disposable phone numbers you can use to call or text as well as receive voicemail through, right from your iPhone. The app is a competitor to longtime favorite Burner, which has, for some time, offered similar functionality. But Shuffle takes things a step further, by also allowing you to create…

As mobile developers rush to release applications compatible with Apple’s new wearable device, the Apple Watch, many are still wondering what sorts of app experiences make sense for the wrist’s small screen versus that of the smartphone. To some extent, where the Apple Watch really shines is with “invisible” apps – paying for items with Apple Pay, or using the…

Opera Mini, the little brother to Opera’s regular mobile browser, is getting a major makeover on Android today. The company says the new design, which is pretty much in line with the regular Opera mobile browser, is meant to give the browser a more native look and feel.If you’re confused about why Opera offers both its regular mobile browser and Opera Mini on Android…

Apple on Wednesday updated its "Where to use Apple Pay" webpage, adding a total of ten new merchants to an ongoing list of retailers that accept the company's branded NFC-based mobile payments system.

The App Store is broken. Even though the number of apps and developers and downloads goes up each year, the browsing experience for the consumer has remained largely the same, meaning that the vast majority of apps go entirely undiscovered. This could explain why Facebook’s ad revenue from mobile apps is up more than 50 percent as of last year. Betaworks’ Homescreen app (and…

Flyp is a new iOS/Android app that lets you have up to six different phone numbers simultaneously active on your smartphone. The first number is free and each additional “premium” phone number (a maximum of five) costs $2.99 per month (or $29.99 per year) to maintain. The Flyp app manages all the numbers, voicemail, text messages, and notifications. The app is live in the iOS store…

We get by with a little help from our apps.

The Philips Hue connected lighting system offers a lot of useful features out of the box, using the stock Philips Hue app for mobile devices, but they also offer an API that lets developers take things even further. The new Hue Camera app from developer Erwin Zwart is a great example, as it brings live atmospheric lighting to your home theater setup using just your iOS device’s…

The Touch ID-based cross-platform Mac unlocking tool MacID has been updated to version 1.1, temporarily going free for a limited window, while Airbnb has added new conditional rules to its iPhone app, and Target has updated its iPhone shopping with new Store Search and customization options.

In preparation for Apple’s first wearable device, mobile developers have been busy creating all kinds of applications designed especially for the Apple Watch’s small screen. The watch, which is said by early testers to be so usable that they found they were no longer pulling out their iPhone as often, allows you to interact with a variety of apps and notifications, ranging…

Put your John Hancock on that PDF.

Tapbots is probably best known these days for Tweetbot, the Twitter client for Mac, iPhone and iPad that remains a favorite among apple device users despite Twitter’s clear disdain for third-party clients. But before Tweetbot, they had a number of other ‘bots,’ or smart mobile apps with a vaguely robotic aesthetic. Calcbot was originally created by Tapbots in tandem with…

If your Camera Roll is a hot mess, try using a photo organizing app (or two... or three) to help you weed out the bad seeds.

As Google sharpens the focus on its new Inbox email app, the company has quietly made another move on the email front: it appears to have pulled the Sparrow iOS and Mac apps from their respective Apple App Stores. Google, as you may remember, acquired the French startup Sparrow, including its staff, its email management apps and its technology, back in 2012.Google’s last cache of…