Mailbox: Back in the Saddle: Week 1 in Review
Finally, this week has been mind-bending in terms of numbers, so we thought we’d share some of those too. While we’ve been fixing bugs, optimizing our back-end to handle massive amounts of data, and sharing high-fiving kittens on Twitter, you all have been swiping and emailing at an eye-popping pace.
I’m really impressed with Mailbox. We’ll be talking a lot about email when the podcast returns.
Netbot Is Free For Now
Netbot is an App.net client by Tapbots (one of my favorite developers) and they have just made it free for an “unspecified” amount of time.
Even if you don’t currently use App.net, it’s probably a good idea to download the app. There are some big things happening and I suspect there will be free accounts in the near future.
We’ve been working on hard on some new updates for you, and are thrilled to pull the curtain off of a big one — our iPhone app is now completely native! We think you’ll love the faster, smoother, and more responsive Tumblr Dashboard.
- Redesigned dashboard — enjoy bigger photos and faster post loading.
- Spiffy new notification previews so you can see exactly which posts were liked, reblogged, or replied to!
- GIFs now play automatically on your Dashboard! Slide your finger across a GIF to view frame by frame.
- New gestures — swipe right on any screen to go back to the previous view; long tap photos, links, tags, and post headers for more options.
- Brand new blog screens with blog portraits and descriptions.
We’re really excited about this release and we can’t wait to see what you do with it. Try it out.
The Tumblr app has always looked good, and the UI is decent, but it has been painfully slow.
This update finally changes that. Posts load quickly and animated GIFs actually work inline.
The app still needs audio posting with URLs and SoundCloud, better video sharing, and Markdown support (they actually removed it for some reason).
Try it.iOS 6 App Store tweaked to promote a one-tap installation of free Apple apps
The promoted apps include only Apple’s free offerings, with no sign of paid apps such as the iLife or iWork suites. A “Download Free” button provides a one-tap installation of iBooks, iTunes U, Podcasts, Find My Friends, and Find My iPhone.
This is an improvement, but I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t just pre-install these.
pxldot (Apple's Icon Ecosystem or: Carrying the Quality All The Way Through)
The icons I looked at (over 100!) seemed to fall into four categories, and I have opinions about each as a whole. I will reserve judgement on the aesthetic qualities of individual icons insofar as I can contain myself, and will instead try to focus on the methods with which they brought their Mac icons to iOS.
An incredibly detailed look at app icon design and trends.
The 20 Best iOS And Android Apps Of 2012 (So Far)
All apps picked were either released or significantly updated between January 1 and June 30 of this year. Titles that debuted on iOS or Android in 2012 that were previously available on another platform are eligible for inclusion. All of our selections were sourced, ranked and finalized by Appolicious Advisors and members of our community.
Lists are almost always useless, but this is a good one.
Sparrow for iPhone is Here
Everyone loves the Mac version of Sparrow and now it’s available for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). It’s the first worthy competitor to Apple’s Mail app (Google may pull their Gmail app out of embarrassment).
I’ll be doing a full review on the podcast, but I can tell you now, it’s a must-download.
First visit Sparrow’s awesome new web site to read about all the features and use their clever interactive demo. Then go download Sparrow from the App Store.
Draw Something hits 20 million downloads in just five weeks
Draw Something ($0.99), a social game that has not only jumped to the top of the paid apps chart in 79 countries, but has also been downloaded a whopping 20 million times in the five weeks that it has been available.
CEO of developer OMGPOP, Dan Porter, says that the app is generating six figures a day. The company has also made more money in the five weeks that Draw Something has been in the App Store than they made all of last year. Over one billion pictures have been drawn using the app, which is similar to the classic Pictionary game. The superlatives keep on coming — on March 11, 2012, over 3,000 drawings a second were being generated by users.
App Tally - Clear Is Now Available
Realmac Software has released their innovative list app ‘Clear’ for iPhone. The app has been creating a lot of buzz since its introduction at Macworld.
The app is all about using gestures (there are no buttons) to quickly create to-do lists. The UI is completely original and makes adding and checking off items easy and fun. This app is going to influence how we interact with mobile apps in the future.
Clear is a fast and beautiful checklist app ” it’s not a full featured productivity app. It doesn’t support notes, due dates, or notifications. It also doesn’t sync with other iOS or Mac devices.
I love this app for making quick lists. I’ll keep using OmniFocus for iPhone for most of my task management stuff, but Clear is perfect for simple lists and to-dos.
I can’t explain how fun this app is to use: the gestures and sounds are incredibly endearing.
Snapseed Is Free Today
Snapseed is the best photo editing app for iOS. It’s fast, beautiful, and powerful. The app has lots of great filters that can be adjusted and combined, and it also lets you do everything manually. The app includes editing tools like cropping, resizing, and rotation.
There are many great photo apps for IOS, but this is the most complete. It’s a bargain at $4.99, but today you can download it for free.
