Swype, one of the most popular alternative Android keyboards, has finally moved passed the beta phase and made its way over to Google Play, where it’s available for $1. The official version comes bundled with Dragon Dictation for enhanced voice-to-text, and adds a few new features.
Some of the cooler features include Swype’s “living language” which crowd-sources and updates your dictionary with the latest trending words; “next word prediction” where Swype is trained on your device to learn your unique vocabulary and predict your words based on previous usage; smart editor that analyzes an entire sentence, flagging potential errors for a quick fix, and includes suggestions for the most likely alternatives, and more updates and fixes.
The $1 price (£0.65 UK) is for a limited time only and Swype isn’t saying when that will change, but it’ll likely increase, so I’d recommend you get it now!
Swype @ Google Play
Yahoo have just released a new iOS weather app that has a beautiful user interface that shames all others. It’s as easy to use as the default iOS weather application, with more information, and is all gussied up.
Yahoo weather uses Flickr photos based on the specified locations (or current location) as backdrops to display the weather on its home page, with a big temperature indicator for quick access of current temps, as well as highs and lows for the day. Scroll down and you’ll see more info including the daily forecast, the weekly forecast, radar map (with weather overlays), wind speed and pressure, and even information on sunrise, sunset, and the moon phases.
You can try out the app for free using the link below – I’d recommend that you do.
Yahoo! Weather
Facebook have released the 5.2 update to their iOS app. This introduces the long sought after ability to re-share stories, images, video etc from users news feeds, as well as tagging people within post, comment and image content (and not just at the tail end). Also included was support for emoji and other emoticon within messages, for those smart phones that have it enabled.
Have you downloaded the app? Do you like the new additions or think something is missing – let us know in the comments.
If you have followed us on Twitter, or seen some of the screenshots featured on the site, you know we are a big fan of iOS Twitter app Tweetbot by Tapbots. It’s a great Twitter app that has every feature you could need with a sweet user interface (they don’t pay me to write that, I’m an honest fan of the app), that recently got even better with the much sought after addition of customisable push notifications, which it had been sorely lacking for so long. Well yesterday iTunes approved their new 1.4.3 update for the app which has added the following:
- Added sleep time for push notifications (notification quiet hours)
- Option to receive push mentions only from people you follow
- When emailing a link, the subject is the page title if sent from a web view
- Blocking/Reporting for spam now deletes associated tweets from the timeline
The added customisation abilities for Push notification are a nice touch to whittle down when and who from you receive your notifications, which you don’t see a lot in app’s. The Tapbots blog also states that since they instituted push notifications, it has gone pretty smoothly, so they have opened it up for everyone (check the settings for each of your Twitter accounts in Tweetbot to enable them if you haven’t already done so). Lastly they state that they are working hard on v1.5 which will have a much requested feature (that’s not twitlonger or an iPad version), which is interesting. Considering how often Tapbots updates come for the app, we shouldn’t have to wait long.
If you have an idea about what the new feature might be, or what you would like to see, let us know in the comments below.
via Tweetbot 1.4.3 — Tapbots Blog.
I’m a bit late to the party with this one, but its pretty cool so I figured I would post about it. Swype has been available as a keyboard alternative for Android phones for some time now, but only recently has development started on an iOS version for jailbroken iPhones and iPads, called iSwipe (formerly known as Swype for iOS) currently in its third beta version.
The beta 3 version of iSwipe has a lot more of the features that make the Android Swype keyboard so appealing (that weren’t present in earlier iOS releases), including the blue tracer line to show your text input, third-party app keyboard compatibility, as well as an alternate word suggestions bar that appears after finishing a word for when the word iSwipe “guesses” is not the correct one.
Click here to read how to try iSwipe (Swype) for iPhones
Here at MobileSacrifice we love Dropbox for its access anywhere file syncing between internet enabled computers, smart phones (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) and more. If you haven’t tried it before, you can get a free 2gb account here (shameless plug – I could always do with more storage space!).
Dropbox have an application for the Android platform already, but its basic in its approach. Thats where Dropsync steps in. Dropsync increases Dropbox syncing capabilties on your Android device with a butt load of extra features and in their own words – full two-way(!) syncing.
Synchronization features are unpopular on smart phones as they are known to chew up battery life due to syncing occuring too frequently. Dropsync allows for greater control over these syncing process including setting necessary battery levels present for syncing to occur, which data connections are allowed for syncing (wifi/3g), SD card folder monitoring and more. Dropsync basically enables a more enjoyable and stress free sync experience between all your Dropbox devices.
Check out the link below to download the free app to your Android device (v2.0+), and let us know in the comments what you think.
Dropsync
Via Dropsync Is a Feature Rich Android Dropbox Synchronization App – How-To Geek ETC.
At Microsoft’s MIX11 developer event yesterday, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows Phone program management, Joe Belfiore, announced that a major update for the Windows Phone 7 platform called ‘Mango’ (really?) will be coming later this year. Of note was the fact that applications and games popular on other mobile platforms’s such as iOS and Android, including Skype, Spotify and Angry Birds among others were finally coming to Windows mobile phones. Angry Birds will arrive on May 25th, whilst Skype and Spotify later on, as they are apparently dependent on the Mango update.
The Mango update will also include new multitasking features (such as background music playing, downloads and alarms), app list extensions and live tile enhancements. You can read more about the update at the article, which also includes screenshots of the mentioned apps and Windows Phone 7 updates. In the past, updates for the mobile OS have been very slow compared to the release schedule of both Android and iOS, so hopefully users won’t have to wait long for this great sounding update! What’s your opinion on the Mango update, let us know in the comments below or via Twitter.
Microsoft Demos Multitasking, Promises Skype for Windows Phone 7 via Gadget Crave
Multitasktures is a great looking extension for your jailbroken iOS device that lets you swipe left and right, or use other specified gestures in the settings, to navigate between open apps. The extension relies on Cydia app Activator to work, which if you’ve already used you should be familiar with how Multitasktures functions. Lifehacker has a great guide, including a video (above) on just how simple it works as well as how to install it, so check it out.
If you have used Multitasktures, or know of any other great iPhone tips let us know in the comments below or via our Twitter account.
