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iOS 10.3: Stop Making Accidental Phone Calls

iOS
News

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April 2, 2017

iOS 10.3: Stop Making Accidental Phone Calls

While it’s a given that Apple rolls out updates for its platforms regularly, and in turn, its users avoiding such updates profusely — the company’s latest update, which is the iOS 10.3, is something that many may want to download and install immediately.

The iOS 10.3 contains several feature updates and bug fixes, most of them useful — but one particularly significant.

Among the features of iOS’s latest update include a Find My Airpods app, a revised Setting menu which now includes an Apple ID Settings and a new iCloud storage section, an advanced WiFi calling feature for iCloud devices on Verizon, and the integration of the Apple File System or APFS.

The most significant change included in this update, however, is one that’s intended as a major bug fix.

Late last year, an 18-year-old iPhone app developer exposed a security vulnerability in the iPhone that affected thousands of its users, where possibly hundreds of unintended 911 calls were placed.

Meetkumar Desai was said to have been arrested on charges of felony computer tampering after he allegedly designed and created the code that caused the commotion, and shared in on a Twitter account with over 12,000 followers.

Desai’s Twitter post has reportedly been clicked around 117,502 times.

According to Desai, he originally meant to report the iPhone security vulnerability he discovered to Apple through the latter’s bug bounty program — but was purportedly told he was not part of the program.

Desai also claimed that he replaced 911 in the code to a dead number, but accidentally published the one that incessantly calls 911 instead.

The bug exposed by Dessai caused users’ iPhones to incessantly dial 911 even when the users attempt to press the hang up button. The only way to stop the phone from continuously calling 911, it it appears, was to power the phone off completely.

Apple’s iOS 10.3 update was designed to fix this issue.

With the said update, iPhone users are now required to press a confirmation before a call is even placed.

This feature not only addresses the issue raised by Desai’s bug discovery, but a common issue that iPhone users are all too familiar with — making phone calls accidentally.

Apple clearly does not intend to stop right there, however.

Reports say the company has already started running a beta test for its iOS 10.3.2 earlier this week.

Facebook Personal Fundraisers: Donating Made Easy

Althea Estrella

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April 1, 2017

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Facebook Personal Fundraisers: Donating Made Easy

Facebook has just recently announced the latest innovation to its ever-growing and ever-changing social media platform: Facebook Personal Fundraisers.

In huge and many ways, Facebook has become a great means for people all over the world to connect in times of emergencies, crises, and disasters — and over the years, it has also gradually become a tool for people who are in need to be able to reach out to others.

With the Facebook Personal Fundraisers, reaching out to others in times of need has become even easier — by effectively creating a way for those keen on helping to be able to extend their help straight away.

Facebook Personal Fundraisers are aimed at making the arduous tasks of both asking and giving a whole lot easier for its app’s users.

In the past, users had to resort to third-party applications or services in order to start a fundraiser.

The fundraisers they create would, in turn, have to be shared in multiple social media platforms in order to gain attention.

While many fundraisers have, in the past, found success on such third-party applications and services, many others were just simply put to waste.

Sharing fundraisers created on third-party applications and services on social media platforms were simply ineffective.

Posts regarding pledge campaigns were normally treated by the social media platforms as regular ‘statuses’ , and the number of audience needed to get the campaigns going were often left unreached, thereby limiting the potential success of the fundraisers.

Facebook Personal Fundraisers, on the other hand, is expected to eliminate this problem completely.

While fundraising isn’t exactly a new thing on Facebook, it was only previously available on the ‘Pages’ accounts on the platform.

The company’s decision to allow personal accounts to start their own fundraisers should make funding campaigns a whole lot easier, and the fees that come with it — supposedly a whole lot cheaper.

Users will not be charged for creating Facebook Personal Fundraisers, but a fee is needed to cover the costs of processing the donations made through platform.

Facebook Personal Fundraisers will be launched in the U.S. in the next few weeks, and will initially cover the following criteria only:

”Education: such as tuition, books or classroom supplies
Medical: such as medical procedures, treatments or injuries
Pet Medical: such as veterinary procedures, treatments or injuries
Crisis Relief: such as public crises or natural disasters
Personal Emergency: such as a house fire, theft or car accident
Funeral and Loss: such as burial expenses or living costs after losing a loved one”

Voice Calls Made Easy, Secure And AI Powered By Telegram Messenger

Luke Joye

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March 30, 2017

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Telegram Messenger has its origin in Russia and Vkontakte, the equivalent of Facebook in Russia. Pavel Durov was the CEO of Vkontakte till 2014 when he was given the pink slip. Pavel is the man who developed Telegram which is now regarded as an alternative for WhatsApp. WhatsApp claims a user base of 1 billion and is the most popular among all chat apps available today. But, Telegram has an impressive 100 million and continues to add 350,000 new users every day.

Telegram Messenger newest to add voice calls feature

In the world of messaging apps, Telegram is the newest to add a significant new feature – the voice calls feature. Telegram is rolling out the feature to users in Europe first before bringing it to other parts of the world. Now, the question uppermost in your mind should be what is new, because most messaging apps today, do offer video and audio calling? According to Telegram, the following features will set it apart from the crowd.

Focus on call quality

Telegram says that by employing artificial intelligence, it is able to enhance call quality on a continuous basis. AI assimilates an array of information like ping times, network speed, the percentage of packet loss and optimizes every call learning associated issues for the next time. Telegram claims that call quality improves because of this since more time would be spent talking with the help of the feature.

Granular controls by Telegram Messenger

Telegram app also brings some useful options in granular control allowing using to pick ‘low data’ calls saving a few cents on data plan and sacrificing call quality to an extent. Users can also limit things in a way that incoming calls from the user’s contact list alone will be allowed. A ‘Secret Chat’ feature is also added as encryption. The mechanism that controls key exchange has also been improved to make the encryption work more efficiently. More details about the security behind this feature can be accessed here

However, the ability to conduct ‘secret chat’ is not something that most secret service agencies around the globe like. A major concern that arises is terror outfits and other anti-social elements using such features that can compromise the safety and security of the rest of the world.

Clash of Clans September Update: Clan Challenge

Games
News

Althea Estrella

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September 16, 2016

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Clash of Clans September Update: Clan Challenge

Years after it was first launched, Clash of Clans still has its game strong with over 100 million active users daily — all of them eagerly awaiting the game’s next big update.

In this case, it’s the Clash of Clans September update which — rumor has it — comes with an exciting new feature called Clan Challenge.

But is Clash of Clans’ Clan Challenge any different from the already widely used Clan Wars?

The new update, it appears, is more like an added option which users can use.

Basically, what makes Clan Challenge entirely different from Clan Wars is a feature that allows users to choose the clan that they’d like to go up against.

It’s a feature that makes the game better than ever before.

While CoC gamers had to put up with automated selections in the past which left players no choice but to battle whoever is pitted against them — even when their stats screamed mismatch — Clan Challenge, on the other hand, plays a big role in the evening of the Clash of Clans playing field.

Based on a video recently released by Supercell, Challenge appear to have three key features that promises CoC gamers that it’s actually worth their while: users now have the ability to choose who they want to challenge; the duration of both the preparation and the war itself is entirely up to the inviting player; and the users’ ability to accept and reject a challenge request.

Once a request is accepted, the time for preparation automatically begins.

Users can set war durations for as long as three days, and with this feature they can also expect better tournaments and events.

Supercell’s official statement on the game’s highly anticipated new feature said:

“With Clan Challenges, Clans will be able issue a friendly War request to any other Clan daring to accept the challenge! Choose war participants, set the duration of preparation/battle days and send your Clan Challenge request! As soon as the opposing Clan accepts the request, preparation day will begin. This feature is not meant to replace Clan Wars (you can’t issue a Clan Challenge while there’s an ongoing Clan War), but it will offer better support for events”.

Aside from this exciting new feature that’s expected to come with Clash of Clans’ September update, users can also expect free gem mining as well as changes in the game’s penalty system.

Clash of Clans’ September update is expected to be released Sept. 18, although it appears that there’s still nothing definitive yet, at least as of writing.

Swift Playgrounds Now Available in App Store

Althea Estrella

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September 15, 2016

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Swift Playgrounds Now Available in App Store

In an effort to help children develop interest and understanding of coding, tech giant Apple came up with a project specifically designed for that purpose.

To entice developers to create applications for its products, Apple came up with an idea that does not only appeal to potential app developers, it also makes things a whole lot easier for them, too.

This idea is called Swift.

Swift is a programming language that Apple created to help ease the burden of developing new apps for the company’s products.

It is currently the standardized programming language that developers use to build applications for all of Apple’s products — including the company’s iOS devices, Apple Watch products, Mac computers, and Apple TVs.

According to the company itself, Swift was created in such a way that anyone with an incredible idea can create applications anytime they want. Swift is an open source, and is absolutely easy to use.

And to make sure that Swift lives up to all the expectations that its creator has set before it, Apple came up with Swift Playgrounds — an app dedicated to helping users learn the language of Swift in a fun and interactive way.

Recently released alongside Apple’s highly anticipated iOS 10, Swift Playgrounds is an app for the iPad that is both a practice field for coding and a medium for developing apps.

It is aimed at helping those who are just starting to familiarize themselves with coding.

With Playgrounds, both the youngsters and the not so young can acquire knowledge about developing apps and get a grasp of what coding is really all about, but without the unwanted feeling of trying to understand something in a completely unfamiliar language.

The best part is about the app is that it requires no previous knowledge of coding.

Apple hopes Playgrounds will entice users interested in coding to give Swift a try by making the platform simple enough for students to understand.

But Playgrounds isn’t just a practice field for the newbies. It’s also a platform that seasoned developers will want to try.

Aside from being a tool for students to learn coding, Playgrounds is also in itself a platform that veteran developers can use to turn their brilliant ideas into reality.

Stretch Dungeon Game Review: Fall In, Cop Out

Games
iOS

Althea Estrella

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September 14, 2016

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Stretch Dungeon Game Review: Fall In, Cop Out

Like many other games before it, Nitrome’s Stretch Dungeon is a unique yet uncannily familiar endless faller game.

What makes this game so different from all the other endless faller game is the fact that the very thing that makes it utterly unique is also the same thing that makes the game feel so strangely familiar.

It’s complicated like that.

In this game, the protagonist is a pixel character, who also happens to be a prisoner.

At the start of the game, the prodigy pixelated character is seen being squeezed out of a prison cage that seems to stand right on top of an endless, pointless, randomly generated pit.

While most games of the endless faller kind are usually played by controlling the protagonist, Stretch Dungeon is peculiarly distinct in such a way that in this game, things actually work the opposite way.

Instead of players having to control their characters, this game is all about having the players control the surroundings of their prodigy pixelated character.

In Stretch Dungeon, players will have to control the walls of the dungeon in order to keep the protagonist safe.

Tapping the screen will actually cause parts of the level to bulge out — consequently knocking the pixelated protagonist either towards gems or away from danger, depending on where the player intends the bearded runaway prisoner to end up in.

Things will not be as easy as they might first seem in this game, however.

The place is filled with mashing barriers, spikes and other dangerous things.

Users will often find bounce pads that could either hurl them into the place where they intend to go, or push them onto a wall of spikes — and it will be the last thing that they’ll know.

Another interesting thing about this game is that stretching walls doesn’t always make things end up the way players would want them to. Sometimes, some obstacles move around as the players stretch the walls, and this could sometimes be either a problem or an advantage.

Overall, Stretch Dungeon is interesting enough to keep gamers playing for a long time to come.

How long that time will be exactly — depends entirely on how the developers intend to keep the game’s flames fuming.

Twitter Bids Goodbye to Its 140-Character Limit on Sept. 19

Althea Estrella

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September 14, 2016

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Twitter Bids Goodbye to Its 140-Character Limit on Sept. 19

While it must be hard to imagine Twitter without its 140-character limit, users of the platform will have to do exactly just that in the next few days.

The company will soon bid goodbye to the limiting rule that the platform has always lived by ever since it came into existence — although not to the extent that everyone initially imagined.

The first time news broke that Twitter has plans to remove the character limit on its platform, it was initially thought the company was bent on ridding the platform of its character limit altogether.

That thought was first considered wrong when the company laid out some of its planned changes to the social media platform several months ago.

It was, however, only just recently that those speculations were finally put to rest, after the company confirmed planned changes on the platform that’s scheduled to roll out next week.

According to The Verge, starting Sept. 19, Twitter will no longer count media attachments and quoted tweets towards the platform’s 140-character limit — a move that the company first announced it had intentions of doing way back in May.

The platform will also no longer count @ mentions towards the character limit on its users’ posts.

Challenges

With the platform’s rising number of competitors, the company is consistently faced with seemingly overwhelming challenges that pose grave threat to its survival in general.

Today’s increasingly growing number of popular social media tools has left Twitter constantly fighting for a spot on the top social media platforms’ list.

While the platform dominated as a social media tool for many years, the rapidly changing wants and needs of users has left this once dominating social media tool in the dust.

In light of this, the company was forced to accept the fact that changes on its platform need to happen, and that these changes need to happen in the soonest possible time.

And because imminent changes were expected on Twitter, initial speculations suggested that the company will likely lift its platform’s 140-character limit altogether — mostly due to the fact that this limiting rule has always been seen as an impediment by many.

Twitter, however, made an announcement four months ago which suggested that the company only has intentions to ‘relax’ the platform’s character limit, instead of eradicating the rule entirely as originally believed by many.

Users of Twitter initially had mixed feelings about the looming changes on the platform, but the fact that only minor changes appear to be in Twitter’s plans for now — has gotten many of the platform’s users willing to embrace change, after all.

The biggest question, however, is whether or not a series of minor changes will be enough to salvage whatever is left of Twitter.

Super Mario Run for Android and iOS: What’s There to be Excited About?

Althea Estrella

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September 13, 2016

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Super Mario Run for Android and iOS: What’s There to be Excited About?

With Apple’s much-awaited announcement of the year also came the unexpected, overly pleasant surprise for fans of not just Apple, but also Nintendo — Super Mario Run is finally coming to iOS in December.

During Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone 7 event, celebrated game designer Shigeru Miyamoto briefly took the centerstage to announce Super Mario’s official debut in the mobile gaming scene.

Super Mario Run is expected to take on the likelihood of the classic Super Mario gameplay, where the player’s character — by default — is constantly moving towards the right.

In the game, tapping on the screen will cause the player’s chosen character to jump.

Gamers already familiar with the classic Super Mario games know that jumping is the most basic and most critical of all the moves in the legendary game.

Super Mario Run will not be available for download until December, but Apple’s App Store already has the game on its listing.

According to the said listing, Super Mario Run has three modes. Players can gain coins from playing through the first two modes, which they can later on use to create their very own Mushroom Kingdom as they proceed to the third mode.

In the first mode, players are faced with challenging courses that they will have to complete.

The second mode, on the other hand, poses more challenge as players are given the opportunity to surpass the play data of other players’ completed courses.

In this mode, the player who’s able to finish the courses “in the most style” is the one who wins.

The game’s App Store description says Super Mario Run will also offer in-app purchases, which indicates that the game likely has a few surprises up its sleeve.

It was initially believed that Super Mario Run for iOS will not be free to play, but Nintendo later on clarified during a press release that it intends to make a portion of Super Mario Run downloadable on the App Store for free.

Nintendo says Super Mario Run will initially be released for iOS devices, but it also assured fans that it has all the intention to make the game available for download on Android devices sometime in the near future.

Fake Pokémon Go Apps Hit 10 Million Downloads

Althea Estrella

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September 13, 2016

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Fake Pokémon Go Apps Hit 10 Million Downloads

Fake Pokémon Go apps have reportedly hit an astounding 10 million downloads from unsuspecting users all around the globe.

While devices running on Android were always the ones particularly vulnerable to fake application downloads — this time, it appears — devices running on iOS platforms have fallen prey to counterfeit applications as well.

Most fake apps making their rounds on the internet usually pose as one of the most popular applications for mobile devices today.

Hardly any of them, however, find any success in getting users of iOS devices to download them.

This is mainly due to the fact that users of devices running on iOS mostly download applications directly from the device’s App Store — a security precaution that Apple has somewhat implemented successfully.

But with the rising popularity of blockbuster hit games like Niantic’s Pokémon Go, also comes the rising popularity of fake apps that pose grave danger to both Android and iOS devices.

According to a new research by a security firm called Trend Micro, at least two of the most popular third-party app stores have already found success in getting iOS users to download fake Pokémon Go apps.

These fake apps are reportedly laced with a legion of unwanted adds, as well as other possibly sinister features that many spam applications usually come with.

Trend Micro identified two leading third-party app stores responsible for millions of downloads of the fake Pokémon Go apps — Vietnam-based HiStore and China-based Haima.

The firm estimates fake Pokémon Go downloads on HiStore to be somewhere around 10 million, while downloads of the same fake application on Haima is estimated at millions.

Fake versions of other popular applications are also available for download in both third-party app stores as well as others of similar nature.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are just some of the popular apps whose fake versions are downloadable on third-party app stores for both iOS and Android.

According to Trend Micro, however, the fake app with the most downloads is Minecraft’s counterfeit version — which currently stands at 68 million.

Security firms attribute the increasing popularity of fake applications in iOS platforms to minor loopholes in Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program policies.

While Apple has always been vigilant in keeping its App Store free of suspicious applications, sinister developers seem to find it easy to just simply keep on creating Developer Enterprise accounts whenever their certificates are revoked by Apple.

After all, acquiring a new Developer Enterprise certificate only costs $299.

As the number of users falling prey to harmful counterfeit applications continuously increase, users are advised to be vigilant and to download applications only from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play services.

Apple Design Awards: Apple Recognizes the Most Well-Designed Apps for 2016

Usha Bhavani

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June 27, 2016

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Apple Design Awards: Apple Recognizes the Most Well-Designed Apps for 2016

Apple Design Awards is part of its Worldwide Developer Conference that takes place every year. Apple recognizes 12 independently developed apps that stand out from the rest and raise the bar in design, technology and innovation.

Out of the 12 Apple Design awards Apple gives out each year – 10 are for professionally developed apps and two are for student apps.

As a prize, the developers are rewarded with a beautiful statue and a full suite of Apple hardware, and of course the international recognition that goes with winning this prestigious award from the world’s top tech company.

Rewards of Winning the Apple Design Awards

“Because Apple only gives out 12 or 13 Apple Design Awards each year, these are kind of like Oscars of iOS app development. It’s honestly just a bit fantastical — it just doesn’t seem real,” said Erik Lydick, who was one of the three Rochester Institute of Technology students who won the 2016 Apple Design Awards in the student category, for a game app, called Dividr.

Within a week of being announced as the winner of the Apple Design Awards, downloads of the Dividr app have dramatically increased to nearly 12,000 from about 400 prior to the award.

That’s the kind of trust and respect Apple Design Awards enjoy.

The Winners of Apple Design Awards 2016

Linum and Dividr are the Two Student Winners

Linum

(iPhone – Free)

It is a puzzle game developed by student Joaquin Vila. The goal is to move Lines, place Land Nodes on the Landing Points in the fewest moves possible. Apple praised the app for its simplicity and smart implementation of touch.

Dividr

(iPhone – Free)

Another student created app, Dividr is essentially a 2D arcade game where the goal is to survive as long as possible, while racing through the course avoiding blocks and picking up coins. “Written entirely in Swift, Dividr uses 3D Touch variance pressure to determine how hard a player is pressing,” Apple said about the game.

Here are the Other Winners

Complete Anatomy

(iPad Pro and all iPad versions. Coming soon to the Mac – Free)

The one and only winning medical app at the Apple Design Awards, it offers a 3D anatomical platform showing detailed views of the human body. Whether you’re a medical student, medical professional or just someone fascinated by the human body, Complete Anatomy helps you record audio, create lectures or procedure notes. Using the Apple Pencil on iPad Pro, the ligaments can be peeled back to showcase what’s underneath. A superior education tool that will soon be available on the Mac.

Streaks

(iPhone, Apple Watch – $4)

Streaks is designed to inculcate good habits by tracking how many days in a row you’ve performed the desired tasks. This app has come out a winner at the Apple Design Awards as Apple considers it the best app on Apple Watch today.

Zova

(iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV – Free)

Zova is a fitness training app that offers motivation and HD videos that guide your exercise. Apple says, it looks amazing on Apple TV.

Frame.io

(iPhone – Free)

This is a unique video collaboration app that solves a major problem easily. It allows multiple users, both video teams and clients, to work together on videos – for offering suggestions or editing – in a shared workspace.

Ulysses

(iPhone, iPad, Mac – $25)

This is a writing app specifically designed for students, bloggers and journalists. It comes with a text editor. Writers can switch between devices easily without any interruption to their writing.

Chameleon Run

(iPhone, iPad, Apple TV – $2)

An auto runner game where you have to switch the runner’s color to match the platform it lands on. This can be very challenging because of the super high speed of the game. Apple said it’s good on iPhone and iPad but “fantastic” on Apple TV.

Lara Croft Go

(iPhone, iPad – $5)

This is a very detailed and highly addictive turn-based puzzle game starring the beloved Tomb Raider heroine. It has more than 100 puzzles, divided into six chapters with the goal of uncovering the mystery of the Queen of Venom.

Inks

(iPhone, iPad – $2)

INKS is based on the classic pinball and paintball games. The balls roll through paint, tracking different colors behind it to create beautiful pieces of art. You have more than 100 pinball tables to play on.

Auxy Music Creation

(iPad – Free)

This app is for composing highly danceable music, by creating and mixing loops of beats and instruments. Apple is of the opinion that it’s almost impossible to go wrong when creating music using this app.

djay Pro

(iPad – $20)

After being rewarded as a winner at the Apple Design Awards in 2011, the app has been selected by Apple again, as Apple is highly impressed with the latest version that comes with full VoiceOver compatibility, making it accessible to the visually impaired.

App developers and designers consider the Apple Design Awards as one of the best honors.

Submission of Apps

To be eligible for the Apple Design Awards, Apple looks for apps that are well-designed, state of the art and innovative. The apps should also take advantage of the latest hardware, OS releases and technologies to offer high performance, rich functionality and extensive system integration.

In the past, Apple accepted nominations, but they no longer do that. If you’re a developer, you just have to create a great app and submit your app to Apple Store or Mac App Store. If your app shines, Apple will find you and nominate you for the most coveted award at the Apple Design Awards 2017.