Mar 01
Shameless in-game purchases aimed at kids have been in the new recently. But this five-year-old kid spent more than most: he blew $2,500 on in-game junk in just 10 minutes. That’s impressive. More »
Mar 01
5-Year Old Kid Racks Up Over $2,500 In In-App Purchases, Apple Promises Refund
Posted in: Today's Chili
I’ve never liked the freemium model simply because it usually causes gamers to spend more than they would had they bought the game outright. Unfortunately it is a model that many developers are starting to adopt, most notably in the mobile scene where games such as the recently announced Real Racing 3 are free, but in order to speed things up in the game, unlock features and etc., gamers would have to fork out additional money. It seems that in the UK, a 5-year old boy might have gone a tad overboard and has gone on a spending spree with his parents’ credit card, racking up an iTunes bill of a whopping £1,700 (~$2,555)!
In a way the parents were partly to blame as they were busy with guests when this happened. Basically the boy asked his dad for the iTunes password in order to download a free game. As you know, once a password has been entered, there is a 15 minute window in which it does not have to be entered again, and unfortunately that’s when the spending spree began. The parents initially thought it was a mistake until their bank called them to confirm the charges. The good news is that Apple has since agreed to refund the parents the money. Phew!
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: iPhone 6 Rumor To Feature Polycarbonate Body, Conan O’Brien Tells Us What Everyone Uses Their iPads For,
Feb 28
Autodesk’s been trying to bring its special effects expertise to bear on various handheld apps, and now its turning to cameras with its first release of Socialcam (version 5), since it bought the app last July. With the release, it’s bringing updated visual effects, 720P resolution, HDR video with one-click mapping, color correction and a new logo to the to the app’s estimated 20 million users. You’ll be able to grab it gratis for iOS at the App Store today, or on Play for Android at an unspecified date next week. We’re not sure if future releases will include the ability to add creatures to your vacation snaps, but we can always dream. There’s more info in the PR after the break, or hit the source to grab it.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets
Source: App Store
Feb 28
Earlier today, Evernote pulled the trigger on version 5.2 of its iOS application. The newfangled software introduces an updated PDF viewer that adds multi-page viewing, screen rotation lock, two-page display within landscape mode and the ability to search text inside a file. Other new app features include plain text note formatting and offline Notebook support for business accounts. iPad users now have access to Snippets list viewing, Business Notebook syncing and the ability to download third-party Trunk software from within the app. If your device is running iOS 5.0 or later and you’d like to sample this smorgasbord of new features, head on over to the App Store or visit the source link below.
Source: iTunes, The Evernote Blog
Feb 28
YouTube For iOS Gets Send To TV Feature With Xbox 360, PS3, Smart TV Support
Posted in: Today's Chili
Google introduced its Send to TV function with its YouTube Android application this past November, although it was only possible to perform the feature on Google TV set-top-boxes. Over the following weeks, native YouTube applications on game consoles and Smart TVs supported the feature, and today, iOS users can finally get in on the action as the official YouTube application has received the Send to TV” function.
The Send to TV function currently supports the Xbox 360, PS3 and Smart TVs that have a YouTube application available to it. If you’re asking where’s the support for the Wii U, we don’t think that’ll happen any time soon considering how the Wii U’s gamepad can interact with the console in a similar way. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Consumers Spent More On Mobile Games Than Handheld Games Last Quarter, Dolphin Nintendo Wii, GameCube Emulator Running On Android,
Feb 28
Feb 28
The YouTube app for iOS updated today with a cool new feature that allows your iOS device to pair with a select number of smart TVs and set-top boxes in order to push videos from your device to the television. YouTube says it’s just another way they’re working to make it “super easy to watch YouTube on any screen.” The update is available now.
As for what smart TVs and various other home theater devices that the YouTube app works with, the company says that it’s compatible with Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic and Sony devices right now. However, companies such as Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio, and Western Digital will add support later this year, with even more companies to add to the list later on as well.
So technically, you won’t need a smart TV, but a receiver or a set-top box will also do the trick. To get your TV and your mobile device synced up, just head into “Settings” and then tap on “Pair YouTube TV.” From there you’ll enter in the “Pairing Code” and the name you want to give the TV. To get the code, open up the YouTube app on your TV.
YouTube also announced that the app is available on over 400 million devices, and over 25% of YouTube’s video viewing comes from mobile devices. That’s technically not too surprising, though, as smartphones and tablets have been taking the world by storm lately, and video watching while on the go is becoming quite prevalent.
YouTube for iOS updates with “send to TV” feature is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Feb 28
Yelp updated its iOS app to even version 6.5, and it comes with a healthy amount of new features that users should enjoy. For starters, the business page on the iPad is streamlined with easier and quicker access to business hours, menu items, and phone numbers. The new update also makes the Yelp’s search more social by showing which of your friends are checked in to businesses right from the search results page.
Business pages on the iPad also focus more on photos. Previously, only a few photos were visible on business pages, but now, even more show up on the page, giving users a better idea of the business’s atmosphere and environment. Plus, you can quickly browse through the photos using the new carousel view.
The updated app also now indicates if a business will be closing soon or if it’s just about to open, which is a nifty feature to have if you’re searching for a place either late at night or early in the morning. Yelp says that “getting to a restaurant just after closing is a major bummer,” so they’re looking to solve that issue with this new feature.
And of course, the update comes with “a TON of bug fixes and enhancements,” including showing your review first in the reviews list of a business, supporting updated reviews on iPad, the ability to swipe photos on a business page, as well as “huge speed improvements” on the iPhone 5. Yelp is a free download and the update is available now in the iTunes App Store.
Yelp for iOS updates with improved iPad business page, social features is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Feb 28
Pandora has been the choice for many people who want to listen to radio stations across a number of genres such as artists, decades, and even seasonal. Pandora offers a premium subscription service called Pandora One that allows users to listen without any ads, at a higher audio quality and other perks. The problem is a good majority of Pandora’s users listen to the service’s free service, and as a result, the company is announcing some changes the majority of Pandora users probably won’t be happy to hear.
Pandora is announcing they will begin limiting the amount of time a free Pandora user can listen to their tunes to 40 hours a month on mobile devices. The reason for this change in service is due to the rise of royalty costs, although Pandora’s founder Tim Westergren says only about 4 percent of its over 65 million regular customers will be affected by these limits as the average user listens to about 20 hours of turns a month. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Spotify Gradually Rolling Out New Social Network Features, iPod Engraving Might Not Have Gone The Way This Customer Planned,
Feb 28
Foursquare CEO Looks Beyond Mobile Handsets: Anywhere There’s A Screen, We Want To Be On It
Posted in: Today's Chili
Google has yet to release the Mirror API that will open Google Glass as a platform, but developers of some of the more popular mobile apps today are gearing up for when wearable computing products, like Glass, will. Today, speaking at a keynote at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Dennis Crowley, CEO of social location app Foursquare, highlighted Google’s new headgear as an example of how mobile screens are evolving, and later he told TechCrunch that Foursquare is looking at how it can evolve along with that.
“Anywhere there’s a screen, we want to put our stuff on it, whether that’s on a phone, or a watch, or whatever,” he said. He also added that Foursquare hasn’t yet worked with Google Glass itself.
This week at MWC, Google did not have a formal presence at the main exhibition, but it’s been here nevertheless. Apart from the many Android device makers here — with the biggest of all, Samsung, taking stand space in multiple halls and even the train station nearby — Google had its usual Android party and there have been Google Glass sightings both at the official event and elsewhere.
Wearable computing devices like Google Glass, which make interacting with services ever more seamless, dovetail with how Foursquare is trying to make its services more automatic and easy to use, requiring less proactive input from consumers in order to function.
Crowley said that Foursquare would like to launch a new feature that builds on this concept, enhancing the “contextual awareness” (his words) introduced by like Radar. (Introduced in 2011, Radar alerts users to when they are near places that they have flagged in their app.)
“The best version of Foursquare is the one you don’t think about using,” he told TechCrunch on the sidelines of today’s keynote. “The relaunch of Radar is inevitable: it’s very important to us.”
And while for Foursquare part of reaching that goal is to be on as many platforms as possible, it’s also about integrating with other applications, furthering its own position as a platform for location services. The company already works with 40,000 developers to power location services, including Path, Instagram and Evernote. “We’re slowly starting to become the location layer for the Internet,” Crowley said.
In January, Google started to run its first hackathons, in San Francisco and New York, for developers interested in Google Glass and getting an early look at the Mirror API.
More from TechCrunch’s longer conversation with Crowley coming soon.
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