AppShopper

Google Now, a personal assistant service that first debuted for Android devices last year, has arrived for the iPhone and iPad through an update to the Google Search app.

Google Now provides users with relevant information based on individual search history, Gmail account contents, and current location. This information, including local weather and traffic details, upcoming appointments, events, and birthdays, flight statuses, and more, is shown to users unprompted in the form of virtual cards in the main view in Google Search.

Here’s a promotional video showing how Google Now works within the Google Search app:

Google Search is free to download and requires iOS 5.0 or later on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. To use Google Now, you’ll need to log in with your Google account since that’s how Google accesses your information to populate what Google Now shows you.

I like what Google Now can do but it’s not as robust as it could be (more thanks to Apple and its limitations on what apps are allowed to do than any failure on Google’s part). And it’s a little bit creepy as well.

Google Now lacks any sort of push notification option so you have to open the app to see what Google Now has to tell you. Google Search isn’t an app I use regularly so opening it just to see this information isn’t particularly appealing to me. Also, though I’ve had a Gmail account for years now and I know that part of the terms of service I agreed to when opening it states that Google will essentially read through my emails, it feels a little creepy that Google will “snoop” through my email, contacts, and calendar, and parse through my Google searches to bring me all of this information.

This aside, Google Now could be incredibly useful to those who make full use of Google’s suite of services. Now if only Apple would let Google and other developers integrate apps more closely with iOS so getting this kind of information is seamless and more fluid…

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  Google Search

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  iOS Universal

  Search faster and easier with the latest Search app from Google. Get just the right information at just the right time with Google Now. Search hands­free with enhanced Voice Search. Answers before...

The third version of Delicious Monster’s popular media cataloging app, Delicious Library, debuted in the Mac App Store today, along with a companion barcode scanning app for iPhone and iPad.

Delicious Library made its first appearance in 2004, with version 2 released in 2008. The core functionality of Delicious Library remains in version 3: easy scanning and cataloging of your books, CDs, DVDs, and games. Version 3 goes well beyond this with the addition of recommendations of new items based on your ratings of items in your current media library and the ability to create wishlists to keep track of what you’d like to get in the future.

Your library is displayed on a virtual wooden bookshelf, a design motif present in the app since 2004 that has been mimicked by many others, including Apple in the iBooks app.

If you lend items to friends, Delicious Library 3 will help you keep track of who borrowed what and when. You can also share your library with others and see the libraries of your friends (all the better to know what you can borrow from them).

Getting items into your Delicious Library, um, library is easy, particularly if you have an iPhone or iPad. The free Delicious Scanner app will let you roam around your house to scan things willy nilly, and as long as your iPhone or iPad is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Mac, these items will be added to your library automatically. If you scan items with the app while you’re away from home to, say, catalog items you own at work, they’ll upload automatically to Delicious Library 3 once you’re home and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad, you can use a compatible USB or Bluetooth scanner, or even the iSight camera on your Mac. You can also add items manually if you have that kind of time or come across something in your collection that can’t be scanned.

I downloaded Delicious Library 3 this morning and am finding it to be more fun to catalog my media collection than I was expecting, mostly thanks to the Delicious Scanner app. If you frequently find yourself lending stuff to your friends and would like to keep better track of what you own, or if you simply want an easy way to catalog what you own for insurance or other purposes, Delicious Library 3 is a simple yet robust app that can handle the job easily.

Note that version 2 of Delicious Library is still available in the Mac App Store today for those running OS X Lion or earlier and while it’s cheaper than version 3 at just $9.99, it lacks many of the new features in version 3 and won’t work with the free Delicious Scanner iOS app. Delicious Library 3 requires Mac OS X 10.8.3 or higher while Delicious Scanner requires iOS 6.1 or later.

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  Delicious Library 3

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  Mac OS

  Catalog your books, movies, music, video games, gadgets, and more. Delicious Library helps you create a comprehensive inventory, share it with friends, and get holistic recommendations based on your...

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  Delicious Scanner

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  iOS Universal

  Delicious Scanner is a companion app to Delicious Library 3 for OS X that scans UPC and EAN barcodes. If you don’t own Delicious Library 3, do not get this app, it won’t do anything useful...

After a prolonged absence, an official AppShopper app is back in the App Store! Our original AppShopper app was removed from the App Store due to a conflict with a new set of App Store rules introduced last year. Since that time we’ve been hard at work creating a new app to continue to provide useful functionality to our users and also remain in compliance with Apple’s rules.

Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve released AppShopper Social [iTunes Link]. The new version of the app still contains the core Wish List functionality that we’ve always had, but also introduces a social discovery portion to the app. This is a brand new app, so it is a separate download (not an update). You will be able to keep your existing AppShopper app on your device as well.

New Social Features

The main view is now composed of your Friend Stream which shows you apps that your fellow AppShopper friends have added to their Wish List or My Apps lists.

With AppShopper Social, you can maintain a Friend/Follower list. When you add a friend to your list, your personalized stream becomes composed of apps that that they have added to their own lists. While you can add any other AppShopper user to your friends list, we’ve created a few special accounts for you to get started with.

In the screenshots above, you can see we are friends with:

• 148apps
• appshopper
• macrumors
• toucharcade

These are specially created AppShopper accounts that are automatically populated when apps are mentioned or rated on their respective websites.

Our stream shows Dungeon Hunter 4 because it had just been reviewed by TouchArcade.com. Similarly Skitch and Yahoo! Mail where mentioned on MacRumors, and Golf Star reviewed by 148apps.com. These appear on your list as soon as they appear on their respective websites. If you’d like to link your own website automatically to an AppShopper account, please contact us.

In the case of TouchArcade and 148Apps, we already have review integration in the app, so you can read the reviews right from the app:

Same Old Features, Some Coming Back

Long time AppShopper users will be happy to know that the core Wish List and My App features remain in place. You can still get Push Notifications for updates and price changes to your apps. You can also search for any apps. Following the appshopper user will get you a list of the AppShopper Featured apps.

A few features didn’t make the first cut. “What’s New” and “Top 200″ were temporarily dropped while we sought re-approval. We will see about returning those features in a future version.

Also, in the interest of time, we haven’t yet updated the iPad version yet. In its present form, AppShopper Social is not a Universal app. We will be working on a Universal update soon.

More to Come, Please Spread the Word

In the 1.0 version, we’re aware that there are several obvious features that are absent. Top on our priority list is the ability to browse friends’ lists individually by tapping on their name. Also, an easier method for friend discovery and friend recommendation are also something that is clearly necessary. Even without these features, AppShopper Social is an incredibly useful tool for App Discovery, but there’s a lot of potential to be even better.

We lost a lot of momentum with the removal of our App Store app, so we’d ask you to spread the word on AppShopper Social. A large user base will guarantee future updates and improvements.

Download now: iTunes Link

For press inquiries, please contact us by email

Orchestra’s mail management app, Mailbox, debuted in the App Store in February and while it impressed many, there was a long virtual line before most people could actually use it. Yesterday, Orchestra announced that the virtual line to use the app has been eliminated.

Good news! Mailbox is now available without having to wait in line. After 10 weeks of around-the-clock hard work, our engineering team has scaled the Mailbox service to deliver over 100 million messages per day (and growing). We believe we can now confidently handle new users as they sign up, so we’ve pulled down the reservation system.

If you missed the hubbub around Mailbox, the app lets you manage your email inbox with gestures to re-order, delete, archive, and even snooze your emails for later handling. Here’s the promo video so you can see it in action:

It works only with Gmail accounts at the moment and the app is free to download and use. I was able to start using Mailbox a couple of weeks or so after it was released and while I like the concept, it doesn’t help me be more productive for work though if it gets the ability to handle IMAP accounts outside of Gmail, I’d definitely use it for my personal email.

If you’ve been waiting patiently to give Mailbox a whirl or are just hearing about it for the first time, now is the time to get it. If you’re already using Mailbox, you’ll be happy to know that it got some smarter snooze options, interface improvements, and bug fixes in version 1.2.0 that was released earlier this week.

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  Mailbox

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  1.3

  iOS Universal

  The fast, fun mobile inbox that puts email in its place.   Note: Currently for Gmail only. Other email platforms coming soon. Mailbox is a completely redesigned inbox that makes email light,...

Earlier this month, Facebook announced a new interface for select Android devoices dubbed ‘Facebook Home’. The interface puts the focus on interactions with your Facebook friends, featuring images and updates from your Facebook stream and the ability to chat from anywhere without needing to open a specific app. Today, Facebook updated its iPhone and iPad app to incorporate some of these new features.

Version 6.0 of Facebook hit the App Store this afternoon. One of the most notable features of Facebook Home is “chat heads,” which are tiny head shots used to represent your friends. On the iPhone and iPad, chat heads pop up when you receive a new message in the Facebook app and they remain on your screen even as you navigate around the app. Tapping on a chat head brings up a chat window over whatever else you’re browsing in the app.

Also new are stickers to spice up your chats with cute images. In the description of what’s new in version 6.0, Facebook notes that both chat heads and stickers will be rolled out to users “over the next few weeks” so don’t get discouraged if you don’t have these new features yet. I downloaded the update today and have the chat heads feature but I don’t see any of the new stickers yet.

If your’e curious about this whole Facebook Home thing, check out Facebook’s promo video embedded below. Note that the video shows Facebook Home on Android devices but it will still give you an idea of how chat heads work.

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  Facebook

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  iOS Universal

  Keeping up with friends is faster than ever. • See what friends are up to • Share updates, photos and videos • Get notified when friends like and comment on your posts • Text, chat and have...

Apple’s App of the Week promotion goes big again this week, offering Halfbrick Studio’s wildly popular Fruit Ninja for free. The respective versions of Fruit Ninja for iPhone and iPad will cost you zero dollars right now and should continue to do so until April 18 if Apple’s timing remains consistent.

Apple started the App of the Week promotion last summer and it’s featured a few major titles recently, including Angry Birds, which had never gone free before, last month and Plants vs. Zombies in February.

Fruit Ninja has been in the App Store since 2010 and it’s even been featured in one of Apple’s iPad commercials. If you’re not familiar with it, you’re armed with a virtual sword in the game and your goal is to slice as much fruit tossed on the screen as possible by swiping with your fingers. There are various game modes where you need to avoid slicing bombs, avoid letting any fruit drop un-sliced, or slice as much fruit as possible in a short period of time.

Here’s the trailer for the iPad version:

Not convinced it’ll be fun? Download it anyway – it’s free!

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  Fruit Ninja

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  For the hundreds of millions of fans around the world with trillions of fruit sliced - thank you for you amazing continued support! You have made Fruit Ninja one of the most popular games of all...

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  Fruit Ninja HD

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  The worldwide smash hit iPhone game Fruit Ninja has now arrived for the iPad, featuring glorious HD graphics and incredible unique content not to be found on any other platform! ******* ...

Starbucks expanded its “Pick of the Week” program to iOS apps in 2011, offering cards with download codes in its stores for patrons to get paid apps for free. As reported by CNET, Starbucks is now offering the ability to download the Pick of the Week app directly through its Starbucks iPhone app or through the Starbucks Digital Network, the free Wi-Fi network available in its stores.

In the iPhone app, you can now see the Pick of the Week app in the Messages section. Within that message is a download button that will generate a free redemption code for you behind the scenes and take you right to the App Store app to download the current week’s offering. Once you enter your iTunes password to complete the redemption, your download will begin.

This week’s Pick of the Week is Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars for iPhone, which is a nice start to kick off the expansion of Starbucks’s partnership with Apple. Even if you don’t frequent Starbucks, it’s totally worth it to download Starbucks for iPhone and join the the company’s loyalty program (which is free) just so you can receive the messages and get the Pick of the Week app each week.

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  Starbucks

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  The official iPhone application from Starbucks! In addition to paying from Starbucks for iPhone, you can now add a Starbucks Card to Passbook. It’s the fastest way to pay at Starbucks – just scan...

T-Mobile USA began offering pre-orders for the iPhone 5 today prior to the official launch of the device on its network on April 12. T-Mobile is offering some unique payment plans for Apple’s flagship smartphone along with some straightforward and competitively-priced plans compared to other US carriers.

If you’re tempted to switch to T-Mobile but want to check out its network coverage where you live, work, or travel compared to your current carrier, check out Two Steps Beyond’s Coverage app. Coverage just got updated to version 2013.4 and now includes T-Mobile’s LTE and 1900 MHz networks so you can see just how well a shiny, new, unlocked iPhone 5 will work for you.

The great feature about Coverage is that you can choose to view the coverage maps of multiple carriers at once so you can truly do a comparison if you’re looking to switch networks. Of course, coverage maps aren’t always accurately indicative of the quality of the call and data coverage you’ll actually experience in a given area, but it’s a good start that can help you with the decision to switch.

Coverage costs $2.99 and is compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad and requires iOS 5.0 or later. Two Steps Beyond has been very good about updating the app regularly to reflect the most recent carrier coverage maps so you can rest assured you’re seeing the latest data.

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  Coverage?

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  iOS Universal

  The only app that directly overlays and compares carrier coverage maps! Perfect for travelers - research where you're covered across the USA! ** Follow our Facebook page to get update alerts:...

The deadline for filing income taxes in the US is almost here and if you normally wait until the last minute, you should know that there’s a super easy way to get it all done with just your iPhone and an app: Intuit’s TurboTax SnapTax.

SnapTax first debuted in the App Store in time for the 2011 tax season and it’s received several updates since then. The app allows you to use the iPhone’s camera to take pictures of your W-2 and a few other common forms, extracting the information from them so you don’t need to enter much manually. Beyond this, you answer a few additional questions and then verify all of your information.

Here’s Intuit’s promo video for SnapTax – the narrator is way too chipper to be talking about a tax app and it doesn’t show too much of the app itself but it should at least give you decent idea of how it works:

SnapTax gives you a running estimate as you enter information of your tax refund or the amount you owe the government. Once you’re done, you can file your taxes right through the app. Downloading SnapTax is free but it will cost you $24.99 via in-app purchase to file your federal and state returns through the app.

Note that SnapTax is really meant for those with fairly basic tax filing needs. If you own a home, earned more than $100,000 in 2012, or earned income from other sources beyond your job or bank interest, you’ll need to file your taxes another way. If you can use SnapTax, you can be pretty confident it will be easy and accurate if its overall 5-star rating from over 9,000 users in the App Store is any indication.

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  Start your taxes with a snap! TurboTax SnapTax lets you get your taxes done in 10 minutes. We’ll do the math and you get your biggest refund, guaranteed! IT’S SO SIMPLE: 1 - Snap a photo of...

Apple has released iOS 6.1.3 today to fix a bug that allows users to bypass an iPhone’s passcode lock and access contacts and make phone calls. The update also brings improvements to Apple’s Maps data in Japan.

The passcode bypass bug was discovered by JailBreakNation last month. The method to bypass a passcode lock in iOS 6.1 requires several steps in a specific sequence involving the emergency call button available on the iPhone’s lock screen and the device’s sleep/wake button. JailBreakNation stated that creating contacts, viewing photos saved in the Photos app, and sending emails and texts using the contact sharing feature are all possible through the exploitation of this bug.

If you’re concerned about others getting access to your photos and contact information or using your iPhone to make calls despite the fact that you have a passcode lock set, you should download this update. However, if you jailbreak your iPhone, note that this update closes down some of the exploits used in the latest jailbreak method, evasi0n, so once you update, you’ll lose your jailbreak and there’s no way to get it back for most devices according to one of the hackers who created evasi0n.

iOS 6.1.3 applies to the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, the iPad 2 and later, and the fourth-generation and later iPod touches. It’s a free download that can be obtained through iTunes on your computer or as an over-the-air update on your compatible iOS device in the Software Update area of the General section in the Settings app.