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Top iOS Apps 2019

In 2019, the iOS apps we used, the games we played, were exceptional with their delightful design, inspirational storytelling, and incredible visuals. The innovative use of the latest technologies has helped developers to deliver unprecedented and compelling experiences. Following are the top free and paid apps from the App Store:

Top Free iOS Apps: Google Pay for India

Google Pay is an online payment system developed by Google earlier known as Tez. It is built on the UPI (Unified Payments Interface) platform which is developed by the National Payments Corporation of India. With an UPI-enabled wallet, you can transfer money to the recipient without requiring their bank account details. Almost all the major telecom providers, e-commerce companies and banks support digital payments. Google Pay has made it easy to send or receive money from friends. You can also pay bills, recharge your phone, pay the nearby café, or buy online. Google Pay is a simple and secure payment iOS app by Google.

Top Paid iOS App: CamScanner

With CamScanner, you no longer have to search for a white surface and decent lighting conditions to be able to use your iPhone as a scanner. It comes with multiple features where you can crop the document, adjust the colours and add effects to it. You can also protect your documents using a password even when you send them through a link.

Source: https://apps.apple.com/in/story/id1484100916

Top Free iOS Game app: PUBG Mobile

PUBG mobile is one of the biggest and most popular battle royal games. It has been a top free game on the Apple App store for two consecutive years i.e. 2018 and 2019. Above all, PUBG mobile has excellent functionality and optimization for all kinds of smartphones and tablets. It is the most intense multiplayer action game which you can play for free anywhere and anytime. Furthermore, it allows you to compete against 100 different players in real-time with realistic graphics, 3D effects, HD audio coupled with 7.1 sound.

Top Paid iOS Game app: Minecraft

Minecraft is one of the most critically acclaimed and the single bestselling video game of all time. In September 2019, the Guardian classified Minecraft as “The Best Video Game” of the first two decades of the 21^st century. It is a multiplayer game where you can play with up to eight players anytime and anywhere in the world. The game is playable across different platforms such as Windows 10 PCs, Android devices, iOS phones and tablets, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Virtual Reality.

Source:https://apps.apple.com/in/story/id1484100878

iPhone App of the year 2019: Spectre Camera

Apple crowned Spectre Camera the best iPhone app of the year 2019 as a part of its App Store Best Apps and Games awards. Spectre Camera is an AI-powered camera app that allows you to capture high-quality long exposures with your smartphone. It combines the hundreds of photos taken over three to nine seconds. As a result, creates an effect that makes light streaks from a car at night, makes look flowing water smooth like a painting, or removes the crowd from the spot.

Source:https://developer.apple.com/app-store/best-of-2019/

Game of the year 2019: Sky: Children of the light

Sky: Children of the Light was nominated for “Mobile Game of the Year” at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards and also for “The Best Mobile Game” at The Game Awards 2019. The game sends the player on an adventure through seven regions to solve a mystery and socialize with like-minded players around the world.

Source:https://developer.apple.com/app-store/best-of-2019/

Arcade game of the year 2019: Sayonara Wild Hearts

The game is about a heartbroken woman who tries to restore the balance of the universe by collecting hearts and defeating little death and her allies. Sayonara Wild Hearts is a pop album. Similarly, video game split up into multiple levels represented by different soundtracks just like the album. At every level, you are introduced to a new mechanic to make things feel fresh.

Source:https://developer.apple.com/app-store/best-of-2019/

Angular vs Flutter: Which is better?

To start with we should consider and think why we are comparing Angular and Flutter! When there are other technologies that we could compare. The answer is both the frameworks are developed by Google.

Angular is a hybrid framework which is good to build a web application as well as a mobile application but it gets complex when it comes to creating specific framework application for mobile.

If Angular is used to make a mobile application for android, then to build the same application for iOS, it should be rebuild from start.

To overcome this problem Google came with another framework called “Flutter” which is a single code-based language. Flutter is a framework and SDK that allows you to build native mobile apps for iOS and Android with one language.

Angular uses the typescript language and HTML structure to control and to build new web application whereas Flutter simply uses DART programming language which is similar to Java in syntax along with HTML5 CSS3 and JavaScript, these are the modern frontend UI specific development method of web pages.

Compare to Angular, Flutter is faster in performance however when it comes to usability Angular is more stable as Flutter has been in the development stage, that also means that there will still be some bugs, missing features that need to be added in the framework.

If we look into Architecture and Functionality point of view

Components of Angular

Angular creates Applications using components like:

Data binding,
Type Components,
Service Components,
Provider Components,
Filter Components,
Dependency Injection

Which works as Building blocks of User Interface.

Components of Flutter

There are four components that create the “SDK” platform and make Flutter Architecture vastly usable:

Flutter Engine
Dart Platform
Foundation Library
OS Design Specific Widgets

Though angular is a renowned open-source Framework and highly used as of now. But in the coming year, as Flutter gets it upgrading we may see this framework for developing cross-platform apps.

Uber Cargo Store App: A new way to shop while riding

People generally ride longer distances such as to and from the airport or sometimes the ride gets prolonged due to city traffic. To make this time more productive (from a business point of view) and entertaining for the ride-sharing passengers Uber has launched Cargo Store App a shopping app in collaboration with Cargo. Uber and Cargo first partnered on 19^th July 2018 expanding their operations to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The aim was to sell goods to their passengers such as snacks, chocolates, gums, chargers, beverages, and other beauty products from the car console.

Cargo app was first launched in June 2017. Since its launch, it has partnered with a bunch of big industry players such as Grab & Go, Coca Cola, and SeatGeek.

How do Cargo Store App works?

Riders can download the app from the App Store or Google Play Store. After downloading the app riders need to slide into Uber and scan the QR code on Cargo Box. Now the rider can start shopping from the app. Once the purchase is complete Cargo will start shipping the items directly to the rider’s home without any delivery charges within two to five business days.

Riders can also enjoy the in-ride entertainment such as watching movies on Movies Anywhere App from Universal Studios which the riders can purchase between $5 and $10 each or in a bunch for $15 and $20.

Products:

From the app, riders can shop Electronic products as wells as Cosmetic products such as:

Apple AirPods
Apple Watch Series 4
Away: The Carry-On
Amazon Echo
Bose QuietComfort 35 Wireless Headphones
Christian Louboutin Nail Colour
Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer
Echo Dot – Charcoal
Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6
Glossier the Makeup Set
Mophie Charger
Nintendo Switch
Oculus Go
Quip Electric Toothbrush Set
Ray-Ban Wayfarer Classic
Tabletop Foosball
Voluspa Crisp Champagne Candle
Wander Beauty Gold Eye Masks

The only hurdle while using this app is you can only use it when riding Uber. You have to be in the car with a driver who has installed a Cargo console and then you can download the Cargo app to shop. According to Cargo CEO Jeff Cripe, about 30,000 Uber drivers in 10 U.S. cities have downloaded the cargo consoles.

Benefits of Cargo Store app for Rider and Driver:

Making a purchase will benefit riders to get 10% value back in the form of Uber Cash which they can utilize on future rides or while shopping on Cargo app during Uber rides.

Whenever the rider purchases from the Cargo Box in-car driver will earn 25% of the total purchase. If the purchase is made for the first time through a new app then the driver will earn extra $1 for each first purchase. Even though shopping costs money it is still a win-win situation for both Riders and Drivers.

According to a survey, millennials in 2019 make 60% of their purchase online. Undoubtedly online shopping is gaining an edge over traditional shopping. This new partnership might help Uber to step into the e-commerce business.

Nintendo brings Dr. Mario World for iOS and Android

In the month of June, Nintendo announced that it is going to launch its latest smartphone game Dr. Mario World on 10^th July. But Nintendo launched the title a day earlier to the launch date. Dr. Mario World a game series originally debuted on NES and Game Boy in the 90s is now available on both Android an iOS. Even after 30 years of its launch, it feels the same with some new twists in the game. The only difference you will feel while playing is game controls. On previous games, controllers were used to moving the capsules whereas now it has become easier with touch screen controls.

Game Developers:

Dr. Mario World is developed by Nintendo EPD a division of Nintendo in collaboration with Japanese company LINE and South Korean company NHN Entertainment.

About the Game:

Dr. Mario World is basically a single-player free-to-play puzzle game where you control your character with swipes and taps on your smartphone screen. You have to play this game within a time limit terminating the viruses with the help of a limited number of color-coded capsules. To eliminate the viruses you have to match the appropriate capsules with the right colored viruses. The objective of the game is to completely remove the viruses from the board before running out of time and capsules.

It is a vast game with multiple locations to explore and characters to meet. The game consists of various Dr. Mario characters such as –

Dr. Bowser

Dr. Toad

Dr. Peach

Dr. Bowser Jr.

Dr. Luigi

Dr. Toadette

Dr. Yoshi

Dr. Ludwig

Dr. Wendy

Along with Dr. Mario characters, there are even more assistants such as Goomba, Green Koopa Troopa, Piranha Plant, Spiny Cheep, Hammer Bro, Paragoomba, and others. All these characters come with different skills that can make the virus busting easier.

Dr. Mario World has a multiplayer option wherein you can play against each other or together. You can watch the progress of your friends and family and also you can give them power-ups within certain intervals to help them out. Play the various mini-games that pop up at times to access new characters and earn new skills. There are optional in-game purchases during the gameplay which could cost you $1.99 to $69.99 per item.

Device Compatibility:

To play Dr. Mario World on Android devices, the device should be running on Android 4.4 KitKat or later versions of Android. For iOS users, the device should run on iOS11 or later versions. As of now, the game supports English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Korean, and Chinese.

Pre-order your food with Uber Eats new “Dine-In” feature

Food delivery Apps are constantly evolving to make the customer experience better. To earn money on just food orders without even physically delivering them GrubHub, Postmates, and Uber Eats are adding pick-up options to their apps. In this process, Uber Eats is testing its new Dine-In feature in few cities like Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, and San Diego. This feature will be very handy for those who do not want to miss the ambiance of a restaurant or do not like to stand in queues for long hours waiting for their food to come. As a result, they can pre-order their food before they go to the restaurant and have it there as a normal customer or takeout.

How does it work?

Dine-In appears next to the Delivery and Pick-Up options at the top of the Uber Eats app. You just have to place the order from the menu and choose the time you want to eat. The app displays the time required to prepare the food and according to that, you can schedule your time to arrive and have your food. The app notifies you as your order is prepared and advances towards readiness. Besides time, the app also displays the distance to the restaurant, total bill amount, and restaurants rating. This feature does not include delivery drivers, hence, Uber Eats is not going to levy any sort of delivery or service charges. Diners will pay through Uber Eats app and also can tip the restaurant streamlining the experience for both.

How it will help restaurants?

According to Uber, this feature is an effort to bridge the gap between customers and restaurants. Uber Eats wants restaurants to focus on what they do the best such as making delicious food and providing excellent services. Restaurants who focus more on food presentation, don’t do delivery and avoid paying the delivery drivers from their hard-earned revenue, Dine-In feature will help them to attract customers. As most customers get to know about the new restaurants while ordering through the app, the Dine-In feature will let customers experience their meal in person.

Restaurants participating in the Dine-In option will be charged by Uber Eats. The charges will be less than that of delivery services. For Uber Eats, it seems to be an easy way to earn profit from restaurants that partner with this platform without investing money into delivery drivers. For restaurants, this feature will bring customers filling the vacant tables. Restaurants have a benefit of getting 100% of the tip left by the customer.

Other Dine-In apps like Allset and restaurant reservation apps such as OpenTable and Resy who are in business from years could face tough competition from this new feature of Uber Eats. International expansion of this feature is under planning but as of now, Uber Eats has no official announcement about it.

Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall a role-playing game for iOS and Android

One of the most famous and most loved fantasy drama television series Game of Thrones broadcasted its last season in May 2019. There is also news about a prequel in making to Game of Thrones. Transformation of such a famed product into a game is an added advantage for the fans. Acting on that, on 27^th June 2019 Behaviour Interactive, HBO, and GAEA announced Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall.

Game Developers:

Behaviour Interactive, is one of the biggest independent video game developers. Creative director Justin Jones the man behind Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes has created Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall with Behaviour Interactive. GAEA a game development company from China and Behaviour Interactive worked together for about two years to develop this game.

About the game:

Game is set a few decades before the timeline of the show, just after Lord Commander Brynden Rivers disappears while ranging beyond the wall. In this game, players will deal with the events in Westeros.

Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall is a role-playing game. Players playing as Lord Commander need to assemble and lead the heroes into battles against the wildlings, giants, and other dangers of the North. Players can recruit the characters from across the seven kingdoms and command a castle of the Night’s Watch in an attempt to protect Westeros. They also have to manage the characters as they have different strengths, abilities, and traits that make them unique.

After the disappearance of Lord Commander Brynden Rivers (a.k.a Bloodraven and eventually as the Three-Eyed Raven) from Night’s Watch, players follow his footsteps beyond the wall into the dark mysteries through the eyes of first ranger Alvar Spyre and his right-hand man Dramon Blackwood.

Players can use the mysterious powers of the Weirwood Trees to visit key moments from the history of iconic characters Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Jaime Lannister, Melisandre, and Tormund Giantsbane. With the help of this feature, players can collect different costumed versions of these characters across various game events and further use the characters in other gameplay modes including combat.

With detailed hero interface, players can customize their units by using different traits, equipment’s, and skills. An important Meta layer also exists in the game where players send their ravens to fetch items, tactics, and abilities to strengthen their roster.

Pre-registration rewards:

Players can start registration for the game on its official website and it is also available on Google Play Store and App Store. Pre-registrations for Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall from the official website will receive bonus characters and items along with the game updates, interviews and more.

More players pre-register the greater will be the rewards.

For 250K registrations 10,000 copper pennies.
For 500K registrations 10 Shards of Jon Snow, The Old Bear’s Steward.
For 750K registrations a Knight of Vale.
For 1M registrations 10 Shards of Daenerys Targaryen, Breaker of Chains.

The developers did not give any official date for the launch of the game but will release sometime in 2019. The game will be available in China as well as other territories.

Bye Bye Camera: An iOS app which removes unwanted humans from your photos

Clicking photographs of beautiful places while roaming around tourist spots becomes difficult when people come in between. The best-captured images sometimes get ruined by unwanted people. With Bye Bye Camera app this is not an issue anymore as it removes all the humans from images you capture leaving dogs intact.

Bye Bye Camera app is a practical art project which has been developed by the good people of Do Something Good and launched by the artist who goes by the title Damjanski. ‘Do Something Good’ was started a few years back by Damjanski. It is a collective of 16 people from different fields who collaborated with each other on different projects. Bye Bye Camera project is the creation of Damjanski and his long-time collaborators from Russia Andrej and Pavel.

Bye Bye Camera uses Artificial Intelligence tools which are already being used by others. This app utilizes the functionality of an image recognition app called Yolo and further combines it to a neural network which analyses the background elements in the image and fills up the gaps once the person is removed.

The artist, Damjanski, has worked on multiple digital projects, for example, CAPTCHA. In short, it is one of the most recognized projects which exclude humans and sets up a dialogue between two agents. “This app is for the post-human era that takes out the vanity of any selfie and also the person,” Damjanski said

MoMAR:

Damjanski became a familiar name in the society of traditional artists when a collective of eight internet artists transformed the Jackson Pollock room in the New York City Museum of Modern Art into an augmented reality gallery without taking the museum’s permission. With the use of augmented reality, these eight artists calling themselves as MoMAR overlaid their work on top of seven Jackson Pollock paintings. Anyone with the smartphone could see their work by downloading the MoMAR app. Damjanski says MoMAR is “an unauthorized gallery concept aimed at democratizing physical exhibition spaces, museums, and the curation of art within them.”

Besides, the photos taken from this app are very strange and often remind us of Lewis Baltz. Baltz used to create photographs of generic office parks with complete vacant space and no human. Basically, the app was designed to capture the post-human scenes by wiping all the humans in the photograph and not just the ones sneaking into it. This app is available on the iOS App Store for USD 2.99. User reviews for this app in the App Store are not very satisfactory, thus, developers should identify the glitch and add an update to it.

Hopper App now expands its services to predicting hotel prices

After testing a beta version of its new service for almost a year in New York, Hopper announced its hotel services last week on Thursday. Basically, Hopper app is an AI-based airfare forecasting app that precisely tells travellers when to buy the flight tickets at best prices. Now it has expanded its services to hotels which will help travellers to book hotels at minimum prices without wasting their time on price comparisons.

Hopper app uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to predict hotel prices. Since its inception, the hotel figure has multiplied in the last one year from 200 hotels across 20 U.S. markets. This app now covers 270,000 hotels in 200 countries across 1600 major cities and are directly available for booking on the Hopper app for iOS. As 90% of sale comes from push notification, Hopper app will notify you the instance prices drop or it will secure a private deal.

Important points of Hopper App:

With Hopper app, you can filter the hotels by city, neighbourhood, and points of interest and also by rating, price, and amenities.
Besides monitoring the advertised rates Hopper app also monitors private rates of hotels in order to provide the best deals for the users.
Hopper has earned exemplary reviews for predicting the future airfares for up to one year with 95% accuracy.
Travellers can save up to $61/night when the prices are at the highest by booking the hotel at the right time.
As you go on using the app, it will learn your preferences and will give you more personalised suggestions accordingly.

3 best ways from Hopper app to save up to 50% on hotel bookings:

When to check-in: At what day you check-in can change your savings from 15% to 47%. According to the Hopper, to check in to a hotel, Tuesday is the most expensive day and Sunday is the least expensive. Check-in on Sunday can save you up to 19% when the prices are high.

Book in Advance: Book your hotels in advance whenever planning for vacations. Hotel reservation prices fluctuate not more but similar to flights. Regardless of the current fare of a hotel, you can get a discount if booked in advance. Therefore, it is important to book hotels in advance if you already know the plans.

Prefer booking hotels directly: You can see hotels advertising online and on other third-party apps. These apps may offer you hotel bookings at fewer prices but booking hotel directly can give you more perks in a more discounted price as compared to third-party apps.

Hopper app features “Watch a Hotel” characteristic that will observe and forecast the prices of a particular accommodation. This way you can select your favourite travel destinations and book those instantly as soon as the prices go down.

Hopper app will charge 10% as a commission on hotel bookings but not more than that. In case the amount exceeds the said commission hopper will transfer it back to the client’s account. The app will roll out for iOS this week and in the following weeks for Android users.

Spotify separates Music and Podcasts tabs with the new update

Spotify rolled out a major update to refine the view of “Your Library” in its mobile app. But this update is only for premium subscribers. The new update separates Music and Podcast from each other making it user-friendly and accessible. It is simpler to get started and to stay updated giving you a personalised experience. Prior to this update, Spotify provided a podcasts entry in a list that included mostly music related items like playlist, songs, albums, artists and more.

In new version dedicated tabs are given for both Music and Podcasts making it easy to toggle between the two. Inside the Music tab, you can see Playlists, Artists, and Albums tabs, while Podcasts tab has Episodes, Downloads and, Shows.

Music:

Playlist: The songs you listen to are added to a playlist along with the liked songs and playlists you create. A download option is given to listening to songs when offline.

Artists: It shows a list of artists and to add one in this section just follow the artist.

Album: While playing songs in the playlist if you liked a particular album, it will be saved in this section.

Podcasts:

Episodes: It shows new podcasts along with the one you follow and previously listened podcasts to resume it where you left.

Downloads: You can listen to the podcasts you have downloaded when offline.

Shows: Podcasts you follow or listen most frequently are organized in this tab.

Users do not need to worry about the previously saved music as the redesign will retain the saved data. This redesign comes with few other changes. Spotify has created a new automatic playlist called Liked Songs which you can see in the Playlists view containing all the existing and past liked songs. Another change which Spotify made is it launched a new playlist called “Your Daily Drive”. This gives the experience of listening to the radio.

Besides acquiring several podcasting companies such as Gimlet Media and the podcast creation and hosting platform Anchor, Spotify announced a new podcast partnership with Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company ‘Higher Ground’. In this partnership, the Obama’s will develop, produce, and also lend their voices to select podcasts. To compete with Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod Spotify is testing similar devices.

By users and paying members, Spotify is the world’s biggest music service. This new update from Spotify will compete with music apps like Apple Music and Google Play Music.

Death of iTunes and other updates from WWDC 2019

Image of Worldwide Developers Conference

Apple embarked its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose on 3^rd June 2019. The conference will go on till 7^th June 2019, where Apple will show off everything it has been working on. At WWDC 2019 the biggest news for Apple fans was that iTunes will no longer be available.

Apple TV:

Apple announced an update for the operating system of Apple TV i.e. tvOS. The design of the home screen has been slightly changed with the addition of auto-playing full-screen previews. Apple Arcade, a video games subscription service which was announced two months ago, now users will soon be able to use Xbox One and Playstation Dualshock controllers alongside Apple Arcade as Apple TV will support those controllers. Apple TV will provide a more personalised experience with multi-user support. Every member of the family can have his/her own profile on Apple TV for personalised recommendations.

Watch OS 6:

Apple Watch new updates will make you forget your phone which will come to your watch by the end of 2019. This update will be compatible with Apple Watch 4/3/2 and series 1.

Inclusion of an App Store on the watch is the biggest update that Apple has brought with Watch OS 6.
Apple has launched three new apps with this update. First is Apple Book which will allow you to listen to audiobooks using Bluetooth headphones. Voice Memos will allow you to speak into your wrist to makes notes. The official Apple application Calculator app has been included for the very first time.
Audio Streaming API will allow your Apple Watch to directly stream audio away from your phone.
Hearing Health a new feature that can listen to what you are hearing and monitor the decibels warning you about the hearing damage.
Watch Faces will change the appearance of your watch. According to your preference you can choose from these faces: Modular Compact, Solar Dial, California, Gradient and Numerals.
Activity Trends will show the history of fitness data for last 90 days compared to the previous year.
Cycle Tracking which is also coming to the Health app on iPhone will allow women to track their menstrual cycle on their watch.

iOS 13:

Sign in option:

Apple is providing a privacy-focused sign-in option for those who don’t want to share their email address with any service. Instead of creating a new username and password for every service, this sign in solution will allow you to log in to a service using your Apple account authenticating with FaceID. This new login system will be compatible with iOS, tvOS, MacOS, and WatchOS apps.

Dark mode:

This mode replaces the light screen with a dark screen and comes in core apps of iOS 13 such as calendar, music, and photos app.

Swipe keyboard:

Finally, Apple has launched a swipe keyboard called QuickPath Typing for iOS users. It is very much faster and accurate also you get spelling suggestions along with it.

Portrait lighting:

With this feature, you can remove duplicate photos and highlight the best shots. Portrait lighting adds a lighting effect to smooth your skin and also changes the intensity and location of light for portrait lighting. If you accidentally shoot the video in the wrong orientation you can rotate it and apply new filters and video effects as well.

Find My:

Apple has combined its two apps Find My Phone and Find My Friends to a single app called Find My. The most important feature of this app is to find your missing devices. According to Apple, the tools are encrypted and anonymous and it won’t let someone install or reboot the phone unless you activate it.

Memoji:

With the new update, Apple Messaging app will get support for Memoji profiles, which puts an emoji on your face into the messaging app. Customize your face by adding makeup over it or braces to your teeth.

Siri:

Siri gets an audio update in iOS 13. With the help of new AI Software, Siri will speak with fewer pauses and non-human sound modulations.

Apps in iOS 13:

Mail gets new fonts.
Notes get a new gallery view and support for shared folders.
In Reminder, you can add details for when and where to remind you.
With Maps, you will be able to see roads, benches, parks, buildings, and tag a place as Maps will get Apple Carplay support by the end of 2019.

iPadOS:

Apple has introduced a new OS for iPad based on iOS called iPadOS. With new iPadOS you will get tighter home screen app grids, you can pin widgets on the home screen, 30 new keyboard shortcuts, flash drive, and memory card support to Files app, refreshed copy and paste gestures- pinch with three fingers to copy, spread to paste and swipe to undo. Apple has made these changes to the iPad to make it feel more like a desktop computer.

New Mac Pro:

Apple has introduced its new and the first most expensive Mac Pro with stainless steel desktop machine that supports up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors, 1.5 TB of RAM, 8 PCI expansion slots and modular configuration.

MacOS Catalina:

Apple has brought Usage Monitoring System to MacOS which was introduced to iOS last year. Users can use their iPad as an external screen on their Mac using its new Sidecar system. Apple’s Project Catalyst is the biggest addition to Catalina which allows iPad developers to port their apps to MacOS. Apple uses this system for its Apple News, Stocks, Home, and Voice Memo apps. Catalina is the one who breaks up iTunes into three new apps Music, Podcast, and TV.

iTunes:

Almost after 18 years of iTunes first launch, Apple has disclosed that it is going wind up the iconic music platform. Apple took this decision against iTunes and in favor of its newer apps Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts. Other content of iTunes like movies and TV shows will be moved to the Apple TV app. With colorful sidebars and clear menus, these new apps are easy to navigate as compared to iTunes.

ARKit 3:

ARKit 3 is the developer’s tool for creating AR applications on iOS. It offers real-time body tracking in the scene and in obstruction allowing AR object to be placed convincingly in front and behind of people. At a time Face tracking can support three people when viewed in the front facing TrueDepth camera. Developers can also access both face and world tracking on the front and back cameras at once.

SwiftUI:

Apple has updated Swift with new UI and features. This updated SwiftUI can reduce hundreds of line to just a few and helps developers to simplify the workflow. SwiftUI will also support features like screen rotation, and dark mode. It will be available across all platforms with a common API.

FlipChat: TikTok owner ByteDance launches new chat app

TikTok owner ByteDance has introduced a new messaging-focused app called as Feiliao or FlipChat in English. FlipChat is the interest-based social app for iOS and Android which combines the usual chats and video call with social network style feed.

FlipChat encourages users to create forums and chat groups based on their hobbies. Users can join different chat groups of different topics, ranging from eccentric boyfriend to popular TV series. Inside the app, there are two chat groups Open group and other is a Normal group. In the open group, all the posts are visible to all users and there is no limit to the number of members. Whereas, normal chat groups are similar to the other chat groups and have a limit of 100 users per group.

As of now, the biggest chat group in the app contains 3500 people which appears to be a group of testing features and not posting actual content. The person who creates a group automatically becomes a group administrator and can name other members as moderators. The other features of FlipChat include sharing photos and videos along with text-based posts, voice recognition to chat including support for GIFs. There’s also a camera with special effects, beauty filter, rich stickers along with mood stickers and soundtrack.

Before the launch of Feiliao, ByteDance had already made its moves with video chat app called as “Duoshan” which was launched this year in January. This app is currently limited to China. Alibaba has partnered with ByteDance providing Alipay as the only payment method in the app. This enables users to transfer cash between users using hongbao or red packets and tip official accounts using gold “likes”.

How to install Flipchat?

The app can be downloaded on iOS devices from the Apple app store, Android users have to download the APK from the official website and then install it, for now. While downloading the app from the App store it shows that the app is still at early stages of its launch. FlipChat is set to compete with WeChat, the messaging app that dominates China. The arrival of FlipChat might also be a threat to Facebook. In its F8 conference, Facebook has bet on private messaging as the future of the company. With TikTok’s popularity, FlipChat may create a strong competition for privacy oriented Facebook’s messaging apps.

ByteDance – world highest valued start-up

According to the reports from Forbes and Bloomberg, ByteDance is the world highest valued start-up. Over 11% of Chinese users spent time on super apps and it is growing rapidly. TikTok being the most downloaded app on the app store for the fifth consecutive quarter, their success might help FlipChat to expand beyond the Chinese audience.

Google Assistant brings “Tell me a Story” feature to Android and iPhones

Google assistant’s “Tell Me a Story” is a story telling feature of Google Home smart speaker which Google has brought to Android and iPhones through Google Assistant on the occasion of National Tell a Story day on April 27. This feature was first introduced in 2018 but it’s made available only now on Google Home devices. Google is taking a serious approach towards Assistant as last month, Google added free YouTube music to Google home devices.

In the month of October last year, Google teamed up with Disney and Penguin Random House to develop a feature called “Read Along”. This feature automatically plays sound effects to the stories you read from select Disney Little Golden Books like Coco, The Three Little Pigs, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Toy Story-3. You just need to say “Hey Google, let’s read along with Disney” and the speakers will play the sound effects to key points in the story.

There is also an inspiring book “Ara the Star Engineer” for young girls to explore the wonders of STEM illuminating the motives like courage, creativity, coding, and collaboration. Over 20 stories including the classic bedtime stories such as Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and other family favourite stories such as Goldilocks, The Tired Alien, The Chef Who Loved Potatoes, The Cats Elopement, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Blaze and The Monster Machines are available on Google Assistant.

Few of the family favourite books are available for download:

Charlotte’s Web
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom
Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
The Collected Stories of Winnie-the-Pooh
Penny and Her Marble

There are options to pause, resume or skip the audiobooks through the voice assistant. Just say “Hey Google, read my book” and you can resume from where you left. To skip to the next chapter just say “Hey Google, skip to the next chapter” and Google will read you the next chapter.

Although the selection of supported books remains limited for now. If you have a good collection of Google play books then you can simply ask Google to read the book with a specific title “Hey Google, read Sleeping Beauty”.

However, Google is not the only one offering audiobooks and narrated stories to kids. Amazon’s Alexa assistant can play audiobooks as well as books without professional narration when connected to Kindle or audible accounts. Amazon has announced last year to make more than 1,000 kid friendly titles available through its free time unlimited program where parents need to pay around $2.99 per month.

Audiobooks are available on the Google assistant in English in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan.