This week’s roundup of iOS includes fresh upgrades for some of your favorite apps—plus a few new apps for those of you impressed by novelty.
Daily Curiosity adds to your sum of knowledge, serving up a new factoid each day for you to learn, and offering links to source texts and videos to let you go in-depth on the topic.
Love Disney? Love posting GIFs? Then Disney Gif probably hits your sweet spot. (Same if you’re a fan of Star Wars or the Pixar films.) There are hundreds of images available to help you express just the right message at just the right time.
Version 4.0 of Google Hangouts has launched with an improved user experience—particularly if you want to go beyond text. The app offers quicker access to photo attachments, buttons, emojis, and stickers, so that the rich possibilities of non-lingual communication is open to you.
Remindify lets you create reminders quickly—in less than 10 seconds—and they display as symbols instead of text. There are more than 200 symbols available in the system to remind you of everything from workouts to work projects and more.
If you like to create postcard-style images out of words, Retype is helpful: The $3 app features a range of 3D, shadow, and multi-color layer fonts, which used in combination with a growing library of background photos, offers nearly endless ways to express yourself.
With Apple Music having arrived on the scene, apps like SoundCloud are trying to up their game. Sure enough, this week’s update includes the ability to find and play tracks related to the one you’re listening to, a new shuffle feature, the ability to add or remove tracks directly to and from playlists, and the ability to share a track directly from your list of “liked” tracks.
Snapchat features a major change: “You no longer have to press and hold the screen to view a Snap or Story—instead, simply Tap to View! This means no more tired thumbs while watching a several-hundred-second Story.” The updated app also makes it easier for you to post selfies, and features two-factor authentication to protect your security.
The latest update to the $5 Tweetbot app includes support for Quoted Tweet notifications, support for longer Direct Messages, and improved video uploading.
Hyundai Blue Link (pictured) lets you start your car directly from your watch … You can now control your VLC for iOS video app from the watch … Dash for Apple Watch lets you create custom Glance screens especially for your watch.
Author: Joel Mathis
Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.