Bookmarks (79)

The impact of social media use by kids is perhaps one of the hottest topics in tech. There’s significant evidence that social media apps like Instagram can be harmful to the mental health of children, while others argue that it can also enable social connection. Australia is currently debating a proposed law which would ban the use of social media by children under the...

Uber on Wednesday announced some updates coming to its app this holiday season. In addition to a new category called UberXXL, the company also revealed a new Home Screen widget for and iPad users. more…

The popular podcast player Overcast has gotten a big update today with a new listening stats feature. The app can now show you which podcasts you’ve listened to most over the last two years. Today’s Overcast update also adds an incredibly useful new 48-hour history and undo feature to help you recover from accidentally skipping a podcast. more…

Compared to the iPhone and iPad, Apple Vision Pro has a limited number of apps available in the App Store. Even so, developers have been exploring the device’s capabilities with different projects, one of which is the Formula 1 app “Lapz.” Unfortunately, the app may not even make it to the App Store. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Pinning is a unique calendar countdown app for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision. It offers a visually appealing way of keeping track of birthdays, calendar events, anniversaries, and more! It...

This weekend is Indie Charity Weekend – a new initiative started by notable app developer Will Bishop! Starting today, 100% of this weekends proceeds from the 23 participating apps will go to the charity of the developers choice. more…

Ford fans rejoice: it’s our turn to add widgets for our cars to Control Center. Ford is rolling out a new version of the FordPass app with Control Center toggles as well as a new Home Screen widget. more…

The popular encrypted messaging platform Signal announced on Monday some new features coming to its users. With the update, it’s now easier to join group calls using custom links, so read on as we detail what’s new in Signal. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Currency is a completely free currency conversion app for iPhone and Mac, with no ads, a clean design, and offline functionality. It has support for over 160 currencies, making it an...

As previously covered here on 9to5Mac, Denim is a powerful app that provides tools for creating and customizing cover artwork for playlist. Following an update in August that added many new options to the app, Denim is now getting another update – this time with Spotify integration. more…

Following Tesla last month, Rivian is now rolling out support for Control Center widgets for iPhone users running iOS 18. more…

Mercury Weather is a cool indie app that works as an alternative to Apple’s Weather app. Following an update in August that added new features to the app, there’s now another update available – and this one provides notifications about weather conditions. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Time2Pack is an all-in one app for your travel needs for iPhone and iPad, offering a robust packing list feature, guides to help you pack, flight tracking, and more. It’s an ultimate...

Apple Watch has gained a lot of sleep monitoring features in recent years, but there are still third-party apps that provide a more in-depth analysis of your sleep data. One of these apps is Gentler Streak, and its latest update adds new insights and options for sleep tracking. more…

Instagram head Adam Mosseri has admitted that the company may reduce the quality of your video if it thinks it’s not getting enough views … more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Access is a great companion app to Apple’s new Passwords app, allowing users to securely store sensitive information such as card numbers, gift cards, license keys, and anything else you’d like...

The popular Blackmagic Camera app has just received a huge update with multiple new features for iOS users. The new version brings support for the iPhone 16’s Camera Control, as well as more bitrate options and many other improvements. Read on as we detail everything that’s new in Blackmagic Camera. more…

After teasing a native app for macOS last month, Perplexity AI on Thursday officially launched a version of its app for the Mac. Users can now interact with the platform more easily without having to rely on the web version. more…

The Snapchat camera will soon be available from the iPhone Lock Screen thanks to the iOS 18 feature letting you swap out the standard Camera app and flashlight for apps or shortcut actions of your choice … more…

Canadian Aviation Electronics (CAE), a company specializing in flight simulation and training technologies, announced on Tuesday that it has been working on a new app that will use Apple Vision Pro’s special computing to train pilots. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Qewie is a new iPhone app that allows users to generate unique, eye-catching QR codes in a breeze, providing a clean interface for the whole experience. It’s ad-free, simple, and easy...

Instagram is introducing new measures to protect teens from sextortion, by making it harder for criminals to blackmail them. Separately, it appears to be working on a new Social Library feature intended to make it easier to find posts you’ve shared, liked, or been sent in chat … more…

If you’re looking to make money on Threads, it is possible, say creators, but there’s currently no clear roadmap on how to do so. Even those making thousands of dollars a month say they don’t know how it works … more…

The official NBA app – described as the official home of basketball – has been upgraded to support multiview, in time for the 2024-2025 season. There are a whole bunch of other new app features, and it’ll surprise nobody to learn that these are AI-powered … more…

Photomator, a popular photo editor for iOS and macOS, announced on Tuesday an update that will make it easier for users to organize their photo library using flags and star ratings. Read on as we detail all the new features coming with Photomator 3.4. more…

Infuse, a popular video player available for Apple devices, is getting a big update today. With the launch of Infuse 8, the app now features a new design, as well as a version for Apple Vision Pro. Read on as we detail everything that’s new with Infuse 8. more…

Accidentally released TikTok documents reveal that the company knows the app is addictive to children, and damaging to their mental and social development. The documents also show developer ByteDance knew that screen-time tools it introduced would be ineffective, and were nothing more than a PR measure … more…

Foodnoms is a powerful nutrition tracking app we’ve covered multiple times over the years here at 9to5Mac, and it just got a big update. The update, available now on the App Store, adds smarter recipe import from websites, new Control Center widgets, Foodnoms AI enhancements, and more. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Long Ago is an iPhone and iPad app with a unique design, that aims to help users track habits, medicines, habits, or anything you’d like to do more often. The app aims...

I’m a big fan of the Wallet app as a single place to store all my tickets and passes for everything from travel to theater, but not every company directly supports the app. Passbook is one of a number of apps which allow you to take any existing ticket and import it into the Wallet app, to keep everything together … more…

The legal status of the free music streaming app Musi has long been unclear – but the matter may now be settled, thanks to a lawsuit the developer has filed against Apple. Musi sourced its music from YouTube using a method it claims was perfectly legal, while parent company Google disagreed. When the two sides were unable to reach agreement, Apple pulled Musi from...

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. GroceryBot is a new iPhone app that aims to simplify your grocery planning and shopping experience, making it a one stop shop for meal prep and food planning. more…

In an age of more social networks than ever, managing your content across all of them can be pretty time-consuming. That’s where the incredibly cleverly named “Croissant” app enters the equation. Developed by Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh, Croissant lets you post to Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky with a beautifully designed interface. more…

While Google seems in no hurry to build a YouTube app for Apple Vision Pro, developers such as Christian Selig (known for his work on Apollo for Reddit) have created alternative apps to access the platform on visionOS. Unfortunately, it seems that Google wasn’t happy about this and asked Apple to remove the YouTube app “Juno” from the App Store. more…

Following the release of the ChatGPT app for macOS earlier this year, Perplexity AI has now announced that it will soon be launching its own app for Mac as well. But unlike ChatGPT for macOS, Perplexity will be available for download on the Mac App Store. more…

Funn Media makes some of our favorite health and fitness apps (plus one of the most addictive iPhone games ever). This year, Funn Media is rolling out updates to its full suite of apps to take advantage of iOS 18, including new Control Center widgets, support for new Home Screen features, and much more. more…

The growing phenomenon of dating app burnout is leading major players to do at least a partial pivot into friend-finding, according to a new report … more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. MoneyCoach is an all-in-one personal finance app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. It has unique budgeting features, helps track your financial goals, and prioritizes privacy. more…

As someone who loves playing the “credit card points game,” CardPointers is one of my all-time favorite iPhone and iPad apps. CardPointers makes it incredibly easy to know which card to use to maximize your rewards on each purchase. But here’s a quick PSA: CardPointers is set to get more expensive next week. 9to5Mac readers can get ahead of that price increase and save...

The fan-favorite cutting app Channels is rolling out a big update this month focused on personalization. Channels 6.0 for Apple TV and iOS adds a new “Personal Sections” feature, customized navigation, a new “Theater Mode” experience, and more. Head below for the full details. more…

Microsoft has announced a big shift for its mobile app strategy. The standalone Xbox Game Pass app is being discontinued, with its features being merged into the existing Xbox app for iOS. Here are the full details. more…

A new bill in California, dubbed “Click to Cancel,” has been signed into law. It requires companies to make it as quick and easy to cancel subscriptions as it was to subscribe in the first place. Thanks to FTC interest, with Adobe being specifically called out on this, the provision may also become federal law … more…

Raycast, the powerful launcher app for Mac, is officially in the works for iPhone (and Windows). The popular power user tool has been Mac-only since its debut, but the iPhone version is coming next year, and there’s a waitlist to join a beta sooner. Here’s what the company had to say about it. more…

macOS Sequoia screen recording permission reminders can now be permanently vanquished, thanks to a new pay-what-you-like app. Apple’s new security feature was intended to make Macs safer, by reminding us that we’d granted a powerful and potentially dangerous permission to an app, but many experienced users simply found it irritating … more…

Obscura is a powerful third-party camera app for iPhone, and it just got even more capable. With the launch of iOS 18 and the iPhone 16, Obscura can now be accessed directly from your iPhone’s Lock Screen, adjusted via the Camera Control, and more. more…

Welcome to Indie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If you’re a developer and would like your app featured, get in contact. Pyxis is an interesting and new location based note taking app that allows you to quickly jot down things down, attach photos, and assign tags to keep them organized. Once you...

Dark Noise, the powerful ambient noise app, has been updated to take advantage of iOS 18. This includes new dark and tint mode icons, as well as deep integration with the all-new Control Center experience in iOS 18. more…

Setapp Mobile, a third-party iOS app store offering multiple apps for a single monthly subscription, is now available to anyone in the EU. It follows an invitation-only beta that launched back in May. As with any third-party app store, Apple makes you jump through quite a few hoops to install it, but downloading apps from within it is then quick and easy … more…

Widgetsmith, everyone’s favorite aesthetic app, is getting a big update today to take advantage of iOS 18. As detailed in a blog post, Widgetsmith 7 “takes device customization to all-new levels.” The update focuses on new customizable Actions that can be added to the Control Center, Lock Screen, and Home Screen. more…

You’d think that dating apps would help people find better partners, given that they allow daters to expand their dating pool beyond the people they meet organically, but new research suggests that isn’t the case. The research even suggests that online dating may have negative effects on society as a whole, by reducing social mobility … more…