Apps

WhatsApp, the mobile service that has established itself as a free alternative to texting, has reached new heights.

The company announced on its Twitter page on Wednesday that in the previous 24-hour period, it had set a new one-day record of handling 27 billion messages. According to the company, its users sent over 10 billion messages during the period, and received 17 billion messages.

WhatsApp has been growing by leaps and bounds. On December 31, the company hit a new record for itself of handling 18 billion messages in a day.

Parse is simultaneously shooting down naysayers and tooting its own horn with the announcement that it's now powering more than 100,000 applications, a 25 percent increase since being picked up by Facebook.

At the end of April, Facebook purchased 2-year-old Parse, a backend services provider for mobile-app makers, for a reported $85 million as part of an ongoing strategy to entice developers to incorporate Facebook hooks into their apps. The deal also had the potential to scare away future or existing customers worried that Facebook would abuse its power as the new landlord of their data.

But that … Read more

In a maneuver to improve Flickr, Yahoo has purchased GhostBird Software, makers of iOS camera apps, for an undisclosed sum. The buy comes less than a month after the media titan released an overhauled version of its photo service that wasn't greeted with the warmest of welcomes.

Today we acquired @ghostbirdsoft for @flickr. Get ready to see your mobile photos in a whole new light! bit.ly/11zOvNY

Yahoo announced the acquisition with a tweet Wednesday and told Flickr users to expect to see their mobile photos in "a whole new light.&… Read more

Uber is now offering its ride-sharing service -- which lets users get rides from people in their personal cars -- at prices lower than taxi cabs, the company announced today.

The peer-to-peer service uberX, which mimics the models of companies like Lyft and Sidecar, will now have fares in San Francisco that are 10 percent lower than taxi prices, according to Uber. San Francisco is just now seeing this competitive pricing that Uber's other ride-share cities already have, aside from New York. UberX in Seattle, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston are cheaper than taxis.

"This is … Read more

C2 Enterprises has improved the performance and abilities of Photosmith, its iPad app for screening, cataloging, and rating photos before they're handed off to Adobe Systems' Lightroom.

Photosmith 3 is a complete overhaul, developers said in a blog post: "Much of the core of the app has been rewritten or updated to provide more stability. Key areas have been optimized for speed." The software arrived on the App Store on Wednesday.

Version 3's reworked import process is much more flexible, they promised. Instead of storing photos in the iPad's camera roll, Photosmith 3 can store … Read more

This is serious.

All over the world, people are are using apps from Apple's App Store in order to save lives, better lives, or change them completely.

Whether it be Skyscape Medical Resources, Galileo, Cherokee Language, or Proloquo2Go, these apps affect human beings.

So Apple has released a touching 9-minute film that tells some of the stories of how apps such as these truly make a difference.

I defy you to remain emotionally grounded on seeing Paralympic bronze medalist rower Oksana Masters explain that her app has made it possible for her to put on high-heeled shoes.

You might … Read more

Polyvore, the e-commerce site for fashionistas, announced Wednesday that users have downloaded its iOS app 1 million times.

To mark its milestone, the profitable company has added a few features, including hashtags and ways to edit your collections. Users can now undo or redo changes they make in the editor, resize the images to fit the screen, realign text, and add arrows, numbers, textures, and patterns.

In addition to hashtags, Polyvore added another social layer. Users also can add friend mentions in comments with an "@" symbol. The mention will prompt a notification to the friend, and clicking on … Read more

Five months after launching the new Myspace to the public, Justin Timberlake and friends are making their social service for creatives, artists, and their fans available on the iPhone, perhaps where it was meant to be all along.

In 2011, Specific Media co-founders Chris and Tim Vanderhook and their music-mogul pal Justin Timberlake acquired what was left of the forgotten social network for $35 million. Since then, a Los Angeles team has set about rebuilding Myspace into a destination people actually want to visit -- not for traditional social networking per se, but for streaming music and connecting to everything … Read more

As the first day of Apple's 2013 World Wide Developer Conference draws to a close, the results are in for what the company found the best apps running on its platforms.

The annual Apple Design Awards recognizes the achievements of developers who created particularly well-designed software, be it in looks or overall functionality, for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac.

Apple began its annual design awards program in 1997 under the moniker the "Human Interface Design Excellence," changing to its current name just a year later. Those who win get promotion on Apple's developer site, as well … Read more