App Store’s failed download bug traced to expired security certificate
Numerous Apple customers found themselves unable to download and run Mac apps from the App Store on Wednesday night. It appears the service outage culprit is Apple itself. More specifically, the culprit was an anti-piracy security certificate that Apple issued back in 2010 but which expired last night just before 10 PM GMT. Once developer Paul Haddad spotted the error, however, Apple quickly issued a new certificate to get the store back up and running.
Source: The Register
YouTube Music is here everybody! [+Download]
If you’ve previously used YouTube as a music streaming app on your phone, you would’ve probably recognized that it was not really suitable to do so. Namely, due to blocked content and the inability to close the app and use your phone for other things.
Google has likely noticed that mobile streaming is becoming ever more popular in the competitive market. With this, they credited the music industry and community for the massive support and growth on YouTube, and announced a YouTube app that creates a specialized music environment engineered specifically for non-stop listening.
“ But we want to do even more to support artists and all the fans who turn to YouTube to discover music, so we’re making the experience even better with a brand new YouTube Music app. With YouTube Music, you’ll get a completely new type of experience, designed to make discovering music on YouTube easier than ever.“
Teasing the user interface, they mentioned how it will function like a normal music player. You’ll have the standard tabs with different playlists and titles, while incorporating the online streaming into it.
“The app also gives you complete access to one of the richest music catalogs on earth. You’ll be able to quickly find music videos, tracks, artists and albums, but you’ll also see all the remixes, covers, lyric videos and concert footage that YouTube has to offer“
And finally, after announcing YouTube Red, they’ll also be incorporating this premium membership into the new Music App. No adverts, offline listening and the ability to switch between audio only or video and audio are just some of the perks available.
Starting today, it is available in the US Android Play Store and Apple App Store. You get the full version for free as a 14-day bonus.
What are your thoughts on Google’s recent activities?
Source: Official YouTube Blog
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Google Play Books is more comic friendly thanks to vertical scrolling
Is Google Play Books your go-to app for reading comic books? If so, your digital page turning is about to get a whole lot better. While the app is getting a number of updates, the most notable is the introduction of vertical scrolling. Rather than having to flip to the next page, which can be a bit awkward when it comes to comics on a phone or tablet, simply turn your device to landscape mode and scroll vertically with a swipe. There’s a curated series section too, organizing volumes, issues and editions of some of the most popular titles. To help you find new reading material, the app will also offer personalized recommendations based on what you’re reading. Just as a reminder, Google Play Books houses comics from major publishers like DC Comics, Marvel, Image, IDW and Dark Horse. The update is rolling out to Android users “over the next few days” and iOS is said to follow soon after for users in the US, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, India, Singapore, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Spotify recommends concerts based on your listening habits
Spotify’s Discover Weekly feature curates a new playlist based on your listening habits every seven days. Now, the streaming service is using those tracks you play to serve up nearby concert recommendations, too. Spotify says the concert picks are based on the artists it knows you’ll want to see live with some other acts it thinks you’ll enjoy thrown in for good measure. Just like Discover Weekly, the recommendations will change with your musical tastes. What’s more, when you’re heading out of town, you can change your location to see which concerts are happening at your destination. The whole thing is powered by Songkick, and the Concerts feature hits Spotify’s Android and iOS apps today.
Source: Spotify
Hyundai makes owner’s manuals more interesting with augmented reality
Augmented reality showrooms are one thing, but Hyundai using that tech to make learning about your new car more interesting. This week, the automaker announced its an augmented reality owner’s manual app for Android and iOS. The Hyundai Virtual Guide plays nice with both smartphones and tablets, offering details on repairs, maintenance and vehicle features. Hyundai says the app will only provide reference materials for the 2015 Sonata at first, but other models will be added soon after. There’s 82 how-to videos, six 3D overlay images for areas like the engine bay and over 50 guides to serve up all the details in a format that’s should be engaging that flipping pages. This isn’t the first time owner’s manuals have gone digital, but Hyundai says this is the first to include augmented reality. The apps are available now, free of charge, via either iTunes or Google Play. Slideshow-341185
Via: The Verge
Source: Hyundai
LinkedIn Android app finally fills position for ‘Material Design’
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The LinkedIn Android app is pretty much a must for anyone who is serious about professional social networking, but the ageing interface hasn’t always made that easy. Thankfully, LinkedIn has updated their app according to the Material Design guidelines which should make plenty of people happy and generally make for a better user experience.
Gone is the grey bar at the top of the app – it’s been replaced by a blue bar that gives a bit more consistency to the app. The menus have also been reshuffled quite a lot, making it easier for users to make changes to their profile without needing to dig around in the app. While the update is live for some, it appears that it is rolling out in stages – you’ll need to keep an eye out for the update on the Play Store.
http://playboard.me/widgets/pb-app-box/1/pb_load_app_box.js
What do you think about the updated LinkedIn Android app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Android Police
The post LinkedIn Android app finally fills position for ‘Material Design’ appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Destiny Companion app: The one every Guardian needs [App Review]
Through the use of the Bungie mobile app you’ll be able to utilize the Companion. It’s Bungie’s second-screen experience that will keep you connected to the game, while you’re in the world of Destiny and while you’re away from it. It has a ton of features that are very useful, such as checking your gear, checking on what’s new for the week as far as Daily Heroic Strikes, Nightfall Strike and even the capabilities of transferring items to and from your vault to your character(s). The official app is available for iOS and Android, and there is a third-party app (Destiny Stats) for Windows Phone users.
Visually the Destiny app captures the hard sci-fi feel of the game with its subdued, but not bland color palette, and clean, easy to manage menu system. Within the app players have access to regular news from Bungie, regarding in-game events, updates, patch notes and easy access to the game’s forums. Very useful to check and read every Tuesday morning when reset day comes along and you’re already at work for the day and can’t get to a computer.
There is a fantastic Grimoire section, presented as a collectible card set with great art work on one side, and flipping over to reveal informative blurbs about Destiny’s lore, tips and general knowledge. It’s beautifully presented, providing great incentive to explore and collect. To me personally it’s my favorite part of the app as there is a ton of information to absorb from this section of the app.
Functionally, players have hands-on access to their weapons and equipment, with the ability to change your set-up, which then reflects within the game itself the next time you load it up on your console. Or, if you forgot about something in the vault, and you’re in the middle of a big boss fight and need something like a Heavy Ammo Synthesis, then you can quickly pull up the app and transfer any that you have in the vault to your character and it will transfer immediately and be ready to use in-game.
There is a ton of stats that tell the story of your successes and failures in numbers within the game itself. All your story missions and competitive runs in the Crucible are displayed such as kills, deaths, assists, scores etc. Again all of this is presented in a very easy to read, clean style and accompanied by some great art work depicting where the mission was carried out. It’s a great way to measure up your adventure with friends in the real world.
Then there’s the Vendors section where you can check any vendor within the game to see exactly what they are selling as far as special items, weapons, armor or anything else. One downfall is that you can’t purchase items from these vendors via the app and that’s something that I certainly wish Bungie would add.
You can even go as far as to check on your current bounties that you have and how close you are to completing them. And now with Year 2 here, you can also check in on your progress of any quests that you are currently working on within the game.
Whilst the Destiny Companion doesn’t really add anything essential to the game, nor is it something that you have to have installed for any reason, it is a nice accompaniment, tastefully designed and a joy to navigate. The collectible card system of the Grimoire alone is definitely worth the 27MB download.
What We Liked:
- Easy to use and to navigate
- Very informative
- Well designed
Where It Comes Up Short:
- Can’t purchase gear or armor
- Can’t get any gear from the new kiosks
Google Play Store: Destiny Companion App
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SceneSkim movie app does exactly what it says it would
As much as I love watching movies, I’m not doing it for work and don’t really need to worry about finding a specific scene or line of dialogue as fast as possible. But I’m not a film scholar or student, so those folks have it a little tougher when it comes to such matters. To that end, researchers have at the University of California Berkeley have developed SceneSkim. It’s a bit of tech that leverages captions, scripts and plot summaries to speed up searching for scenes in flicks rather than manually fast forwarding or rewinding. There’s a video of it in action below and it looks pretty slick, actually and should be a boon for the people who need quick access to specific movie scenes.
Fallout C.H.A.T. Comes Just In Time To Hype Fallout 4 [App Review]
In case you weren’t aware, Bethesda is dropping a pretty hefty title this week: Fallout 4. In preparation for the grand reveal, they have been working tirelessly to hype the new game and one of those #hypebeast efforts includes the new app, Fallout C.H.A.T.
Overview
Fallout C.H.A.T. is essentially an image generator that allows users to, well,
(Make & Ship)
Fallout-themed emoji-based images to their friends using basically any app on your phone. The app is fairly straight forward; you open it up and it basically has a built-in keyboard that you can use to make text or insert emoji. Once you have a creation you’re willing to share with the world, you click the “OK” button, pick the app you want to send it with and you’re off to the races. There are also a decent number of GIFs that you can choose from to share with your friends if you so choose.
Summary
Ultimately, there’s not a lot to say about this app. It’s definitely a thing and it’s definitely here to make you excited about Fallout 4, which is available starting tomorrow. My biggest criticism is that it came as a standalone app rather than a keyboard app like its iOS counterpart. There was probably some sort of launch restriction that led to this happening, but it’s disappointing either way. It’s especially disappointing if you’re on Marshmallow and find yourself needing to grant permissions to access your internal storage to every new app that you want to send a Fallout C.H.A.T. image with (I ran into this problem on Facebook Messenger).
That said, there are a lot of fun images and GIFs in Fallout C.H.A.T. and I have no problem sharing them with my Fallout-loving friends!
What we liked:
- Fallout
- Pipboy
- It has cool GIFs
Where it comes up short:
- Not a proper keyboard app
- Doesn’t play well with permissions sometimes
The post Fallout C.H.A.T. Comes Just In Time To Hype Fallout 4 [App Review] appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Three big reasons you’ll want the new Google Play App
Google typically updates their Play Store several times each month, most of them being small and bringing little new features. As it’s turned out, however, Google has been hard at work to bring us a bounty of handy features.
While they’re not yet implemented for public use, snippets of code reveal that several new features are in the works. This hints at a larger, more prominent update in the works. So, here are three features that will have you on your toes:
Families and the Family Library
Similar to Apple’s ‘Family Sharing’, this allows you to buy and share content from the Play Store and then share it with friends and family.
Image courtesy androidpolice.com
Judging from these strings, we could assume for now that a family member who created the group has control of it as well, with the ability to do basic admin actions. There were also layout files that indicate that parents can set purchase restrictions for teens, but very little to hint at kiddies accounts as was previously rumored.
We could debate whether this feature was inspired by Apple’s iOS 8, but we all know that that might get heated really quickly.
NFC Card Support
Just in case it was too much effort to hold you card up to the camera to scan your number in, it appears that you will be able to add it in with NFC. Granted your card supports it, simply holding it against your phone will add the card to your account.
Image courtesy androidpolice.com
Sending Gifts
Something that we’ve also been wanting for a while, gifting, is also on the way. If you want to send a paid item to someone, it is likely you will be able to know. It’s not clear if this applies to just apps or if you’ll be able to gift books, music and movies as well.
Image courtesy androidpolice.com
Entering the recipients email, you can send a short message and your name (if you want). And if they’re rude and hurt your feelings, you can gift it someone else if they reject it.
You can head over here to download this pre-update version. What are your thoughts on this update?
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AIVAnet 