The developer of iCab Mobile, a feature-rich alternative to the Safari Web browser on iPad and iPhone, has been ordered by Apple to remove its ability to download and install JavaScript modules. Presumably it's not the fact that iCab can execute JavaScript that's causing Apple to apoplectically puff and splutter, but rather its ability to download modules. Both Apple and Google frown upon apps that contain market-like functionality, and someone at Apple probably thought that iCab's JavaScript modules looked like a bit too much like discrete apps. Alexander Clauss, iCab's developer, has rather a lot to say on the matter. "Maybe if I would have called the modules 'smart bookmarks' and would have made installing them much more complicated, Apple would have never asked to remove the ability to download them from the internet. The great user experience of installing modules has probably created a suspicion that these modules are more than just a piece of JavaScript code. From a pure technical point of view, if Apple does not allow to download modules (JavaScript code), Apple would also have to disallow to load web pages in general, because these do also contain JavaScript code." In conclusion, to circumvent Apple's draconian decree, iCab Mobile now simply comes bundled with some 20 JavaScript modules. The ability to download modules made by third-party developers has been disabled, however -- but even then, Clauss says that you can simply contact him and ask for your module to be bundled with the next version of iCab. Download iCab Mobile for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch ($1.99) Read More
Zoho has offered an iOS app for a while now -- at least for the iPhone and iPod touch. Those of you who have been wanting to use the Zoho app on your iPad were out of luck, but that's no longer the case. Zoho Docs 2.0 has landed in the App Store, and the most notable change is that it's now a universal app. Now you're able to take advantage of the app's mobile productivity powers on your larger iOS device. Retina display support has also been added, as have document sharing options -- which you can utilize in both the viewer and collaboration modes. Just like the basic Zoho service, the app is available totally free of charge. Paid subscriptions get you additional storage space and start at $3 per month for professional use. Read More
Google has updated its Books app for iOS today, and the new version brings a handful of bug fixes, performance improvements, and a couple of new features. One of these is iPad-specific: reading books in the landscape orientation on Apple tablets is now possible. The second is the addition of a Find feature which shows you all the matches for a particular query as you scroll. Tapping Get Books now logs you into the Google eBookstore with the same username you used to log into the app itself. The magnifier has been removed, the book downloading experience and the overall speed of the app have been improved, and 3D page turning now works on iPads running iOS 4.3. All of these represent small steps toward making Google Books a solid and compelling e-book reader for iOS. What remains to be seen is whether it will ever manage to attract a significant number of users from the likes of iBooks, Kindle, or Kobo. Read More
If you have an artistic temperament, but you weren't blessed with steady hands or an eye for color, Konstruct might be the app for you. Not only does the iPhone app let you produce generative art using words, warbles and whistles, but it also uses augmented reality to bring your artistic creation to life. To get started, you first need to print out the Konstruct marker and place it wherever you'd like to create your AR sculpture -- it could be on your living room wall, or on the floor of your bathroom, it doesn't matter. Open the app, point your iPhone at the marker, and start making some noises! Once you're done, you can save your creation, or simply wipe the slate clean and start again. The volume of your voice affects the size of the shapes that are drawn on the screen, and you can move your head around to alter the path of your 'brush' -- but to change the shape of your brush or modify the color palette you have to use a menu. Without knowledge of the app's internal workings, it's hard to say what the actual difference between whistling, talking and singing is -- and judging by the developer's affinity for whistling in the demo video (after the break), the app probably doesn't perform that much analysis on your input. Still, Konstruct is just a prototype! A later version could do away with menus and rely entirely on the location, tonality, quality and amplitude of your voice -- and judging by the the words of the developer, James Alliban, there is definitely more in store for Konstruct: "The idea of transforming entire cities into user generated virtual art galleries really appeals to me. I see Konstruct as an early prototype that will hopefully be realised Read More
If you're a baseball fanatic, the MLB At Bat app is a must-have. It's packed with live updates, scores, stats, news, and videos -- and right now there's another great reason to pick up At Bat. Pony up for At Bat and you'll get to enjoy MLB.tv free for the entire month of April. The service streams games in HD to just about any connected device you can imagine, from iPhone to PS3, and even Roku boxes and LG Internet-ready televisions. The basic subscription will set you back $99 for the season, and a Premium sub is an extra $20 (and adds DVR functionality, multi-game PIP, and more). MLB At Bat is available for Android and iOS and both apps run to $14.99 US. Read More
Twitter has just updated its iOS app, and the biggest change that version 3.3.3 brings is something many users have asked for -- the removal of the (in)famous QuickBar. First introduced in an update at the beginning of this month, this new feature has seen immense backlash from users of the app, who considered it had only one purpose -- to intrusively serve 'promoted trends' and help Twitter make some money. Subsequently, Twitter backpedaled a bit by making the QuickBar no longer cover tweets once you scrolled down. Apparently that hasn't gone down well with users either, since Twitter has now decided to outright remove the QuickBar. In its blog post on the matter, Twitter explains that its goals for the QuickBar were innocent -- it wanted to let users in on what happened in the world beyond the borders of who they follow, and the feature was also supposed to serve as a means of delivering in-app notifications for @ mentions and direct messages. Despite Twitter's sweet talk, one thing is clear: the QuickBar was a mistake. Perhaps not its addition per se, rather the fact that it was forced upon everyone. A setting (defaulted to Off) may have gone a lot better with the vocal lot that Twitter 'influencers' are. Anyway, today's the day Twitter ends another backlash surrounding a choice it has made regarding the way people use its service. Not the first one, by any stretch of the imagination, and it probably won't be the last either. Read More
Skyfire, the popular Flash-video-playing Web browser for iOS and Android, has released a new version for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. The update includes a handful of important changes, including seven new localizations: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. There's also an improved support process for when you need to submit feedback or bug reports to Skyfire's team of developers. User agent switching has been enhanced as well, allowing you to choose among desktop, iPad, and iPhone views of the websites you browse. Skyfire has added a 'related sites' feature, bringing a nice discovery element to the app, too. You can find the new version of Skyfire in the App Store -- existing users can simply check for updates, of course. Read More
IMDb has updated its iOS app to version 2.1. The new release has a few nice features added, along with the usual bug fixes and performance improvements. You can now create and maintain a Watchlist, to which you can add movies and TV shows that interest you. The aptly-named 'magical search' behaves in the way Google Instant does, showing results while you type. There's also added support for viewing trailers via AirPlay, and IMDB is one of the first apps to take advantage of the third-party AirPlay support built into iOS 4.3. It lets you wirelessly send video from your iDevice to your Apple TV or a compatible third-party app like Banana TV. In this case, you can view trailers on your TV with one tap. Showtime listings have been improved, and you can now search for listings based on distance from your current location. IMDb 2.1 for iOS also lets you purchase movie tickets from within the app if you're in the U.S., U.K., Canada or Spain. The app now lets you access your IMDb ratings history, viewing all the movies and TV shows you've ever rated on IMDb. And finally, there's a new Entertainment News module inside the app, which allows you to keep up with celebrities, and delivers information on the newest movies and TV shows. Read More
The Wall Street Journal has started selling single issues via its iPad app today, allowing even those who don't subscribe to the publication to get the full digital edition of each day's newspaper. The WSJ iPad app offers some content for free, but full access to each WSJ issue has so far been restricted to subscribers only. This changes today. For $1.99, you'll get the digital equivalent of one WSJ newspaper. You won't, however, get any updates to the stories throughout the day. It's as if your iPad has become just another medium for delivering the newspaper, without in any way taking advantage of the strengths of Internet connectivity. You're now also able to buy issues from the past seven days, again for $1.99 each. Of course, if you're going to read more than one issue in a week, you might as well go to the Journal's site and get yourself a digital subscription for a week, which costs $3.99 and includes full access to WSJ.com, as well as its iOS, Android, and BlackBerry apps. An interesting fact is that Apple will be taking 30% of the $1.99 you'll be paying for each single issue of the WSJ you purchase, as per its new policy regarding in-app sales. However, if you get a digital subscription, all your money goes towards keeping journalism alive, as Apple doesn't get any cut from such subscriptions since they're not purchased within an iOS app. WSJ officials say that selling single issues will help drive subscriptions up, since people normally like to 'sample' a product before they choose to commit. Whether that's true, or whether people more often equate 'sampling' with 'free,' remains to be seen of course. Read More
Everyday for iOS is a self-portrait app with a unique twist: it will create a timeline of you getting older. It's quite easy to use, too. The basic idea behind the 'timeline' aspect of the app is that you'll snap a self-portrait every single day. All of these photos are saved and available in a neat timeline view inside the app. Once you've taken a reasonable amount of photos, they can be stitched together into a time-lapse movie. And if you somehow manage to keep snapping that photo of yourself each day for a few decades, the result is surely going to be unbelievably cool. Watch the video of a guy who did this for , if you want to see what the end result could look like. Of course, the app may not end up supporting the iPhone 10, so who knows if that scenario is even plausible... Anyway, even with a smaller number of photos, this app can provide some nice memories or at least something to laugh at with your friends. To take a picture, you can either line up your face following on-screen guides, or use an overlay of a past photo to guide you. This ensures that your portraits will look rather professional, and that they can be used in your time-lapse movie. Individual photos can be manually shared to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Tumblr. Everyday can also pop up a nice reminder for you to snap a pic of yourself each day. The app's rather odd promotional video is embedded after the jump. Read More
