iOS software

Apple's Reminders app, introduced in iOS 5, works perfectly well at notifying you according to your time- or location-based criteria. But a new app called Checkmark (99 cents for a limited time) gives you location-based reminders using your GPS and important locations you enter, and with a great-looking interface that's easy to navigate.

You start by adding locations important to you such as Home, Work, the Gym, and a friend's house you often visit. You can locate yourself via GPS, but you also can search for an address on a map and add a location pin that way. The next step is creating reminders based on your locations.… Read more

As players line up across imaginary lines, eyeballing their opponents, wrapped in armor, capped by helmets, and ready to smash into each other with ferocious abandon, it becomes difficult to imagine that this heathen-esque sport, a staple of American athletic fandom, has been completely revolutionized by touch screens.

Specifically, it is Apple's iPad that has changed the way the NFL handles its mental component.

As Jeff Darlington explains on NFL.com, the process by which information is obtained by players and coaches will never be the same. … Read more

Apple's primary concern right now should be coming up with a new device or innovation to kill the iPhone.

That's the opinion of analyst Horace Dediu, who spoke along with Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster on a panel on the future of Apple, at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo.

"We're in uncharted territory," Dediu told the room, referring to Apple's remarkable pattern of growth over the past decade or more. "(Apple) has been able to constantly create new categories and self-cannibalize." … Read more

For months, the Web teemed with rumors that Microsoft would launch Office for the iPad, making it the first touch-focused platform for the cash cow productivity suite.

But when Microsoft unveiled the next version of Office this week, it was clear the iPad would have to wait.

In an interview with CNET, Office division President Kurt DelBene said Microsoft's own Windows is the priority for the newest version of Office. The new touch-friendly productivity suite will debut on Windows 8, which launches in October, in large part because the operating system is the best showcase for Microsoft's application … Read more

Amazing Alex (99 cents) for iPhone or Android is a physics game where you're challenged to create chain reactions with objects to complete objectives. Our hero, Amazing Alex, is a kid who's stuck cleaning his room and tries to get creative with organizing his belongings by building Rube Goldburg-like devices.… Read more

It took more than five years, but Apple has finally won a key patent related to the way lists and documents are displayed in a mobile operating system.

The company yesterday was granted Patent no. 8,223,134 for "Portable electronic device, method, and graphical user interface for displaying electronic lists and documents." According to the patent's description, the technology relies upon a touch-screen display and includes both the function for displaying lists and documents, and how they look on a mobile product.

Patently Apple was first to discover the patent.

Given the current state of mobile … Read more

Apple is not too pleased with Russian hacker Alexey V. Borodin, and a hack he developed that allows iDevice owners to install in-app goods without paying for them.

According to The Next Web, Apple over the weekend blocked the IP addresses of the server Borodin used to facilitate the hack. In addition, the company issued a takedown request to his server's hosting provider. Apple even requested that the video Borodin posted showing his technique in action be removed from YouTube due to a copyright violation.

Borodin last week surfaced with an exploit that re-routes in-app purchase requests away from Apple or a developer's secured server … Read more

Apple's App Store has added a new listing for Food and Drink.

When users tap over to the section, they'll find a host of applications offering everything from recipes and restaurant locators to programs from prominent companies, like Starbucks and Pizza Hut. As of this writing, Food Network in the Kitchen app is tops in the paid section, while the Starbucks app has taken top billing in the free area.

Apple has added new sections to the App Store from time to time. Back in March, for example, the company added a Catalogs section.

(Via 9to5 Mac)

Rovio's Angry Birds is still the top game in the mobile arena. But now, the company is trying something new.

The developer announced today that it has launched Amazing Alex for iOS and Android. The game will allow players to take control of 35 objects that can be set in motion to create a Rube Goldberg device. The objects can "bounce, pop, ricochet, bash, and crash into each other," Rovio says. The game is launching with 100 levels.

Rovio didn't create the game from scratch. Earlier this year, the company acquired the intellectual property rights to Casey's Contraptions, … Read more