All posts tagged: app

MapQuest App Shows You Where License Plate Readers Are in Your Area

MapQuest App Shows You Where License Plate Readers Are in Your Area

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The roads have eyes, and MapQuest can now show you where they are. The navigational app added a feature this week that lets you discover where Flock cameras and other automatic license plate readers are in your neighborhood and beyond. In a post on Bluesky, MapQuest said its app shows locations of license plate readers from Flock and many other companies — Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, Leonardo (ELSAG), Neology, Rekor, PlateSmart, Ubicquia, Verkada and more. To activate the feature, open the MapQuest app, tap the Layers icon and turn on the Surveillance option. You will then see tiny eyeballs on the map that indicate where license plate readers are located. If you click on an eyeball, it will show what type of license plate reader it is — dome or fixed, for example — and the exact coordinates. MapQuest has been riding a wave of relevance, years after being relegated to lower-tier status by the likes of Google, Apple and Waze. In August, MapQuest refused to change Lake Ontario to Lake America …

iOS 27.2 Beta 4 Removes New Health App

iOS 27.2 Beta 4 Removes New Health App

Published by Miika Tikkanen

The iOS 27.2 beta Apple released today removes the updated Health app that Apple was testing in earlier betas. The app’s disappearance from the iOS 27.2 beta is not a surprise because the company made it clear that the updated Health experience was never meant to be included in iOS 27.2. Apple told MacRumors the Health app was being tested in the beta, but wouldn’t launch until later in the year. After upgrading to the fourth beta, the Health app has a popup that says the new app features will come in a future update. Data collected during the beta remains available in the Settings app. Apple is planning to release iOS 27.2 later in October, and the removal of the Health app suggests a launch is getting closer. The HomePod mini 2 that launches on October 30 uses HomePod software 27.2, so the updates will need to come out before that date. Popular Stories iOS 27 Available Now With These 8 New Features Update — 10 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple has released iOS 27. During …

Popular Microsoft app is retired after 35 years, here’s what to do with your files now

Popular Microsoft app is retired after 35 years, here’s what to do with your files now

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Summary Microsoft Publisher retired: Microsoft 365 support ended Oct 1, 2026; perpetual support ended Oct 13, 2026. Recover .pub files: export to PDF/Word from old installs, or use offline PUB viewers or vetted converters. Archive as PDF and migrate layouts to Word, PowerPoint, Affinity or Adobe InDesign to avoid lock-in. After a remarkable 35-year run, Microsoft Publisher has officially retired. Microsoft’s planned phase-out schedule reaches end of support in October 2026; removal for Microsoft 365 apps began rolling out on or shortly after October 1, 2026. Today, 13th October 2026, perpetual license versions (like Office LTSC 2021) are finally ending support. If you open up your system today and find yourself locked out of your old desktop publishing projects, you aren’t alone. Here’s what you can do with your existing .pub files now that the app has stopped working. Related 4 Microsoft subscriptions you can easily replace with free open-source apps Ditch paid Microsoft apps — better free alternatives exist. How to open .pub files without Microsoft Publisher One less application, no price reduction If …

Google’s Dreambeans finds stories on its own, and it’s the first AI app I want to keep

Google’s Dreambeans finds stories on its own, and it’s the first AI app I want to keep

Published by Miika Tikkanen

I’ve spent years testing new apps, websites, and experiments powered by AI. Many of them are the result of solid ideas and middling execution, and it’s tricky to figure out how they fit into your daily life or productivity workflows. Take Gemini Omni or Nano Banana, for example — I don’t need AI to create photo and video slop. I’m admittedly biased, but I also don’t need Google AI Overviews to summarize the news. Often, when I click through to the original source, it says something completely different from the AI Overview’s summary. Google Labs has a new AI app called Dreambeans, and I’ve been using it for about a week. Google says this app provides “proactive, personalized collections of stories,” but what exactly does that mean? Based on my experience, Dreambeans doesn’t wait for you to search for a topic or for a news outlet to write about it. By combing through primary sources and learning your habits, Dreambeans presents you with stories that are genuinely insightful — and aren’t just a rip-off of …

Apple Announces ‘Indie Games Week’ on App Store

Apple Announces ‘Indie Games Week’ on App Store

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Popular Stories Apple Announces iPhone Duo Apps Can Now Be Submitted to App Store Apple today announced that apps optimized for the iPhone Duo can now be submitted for App Store approval, ahead of the foldable device launching on Friday, October 23. While existing App Store apps will automatically run on the iPhone Duo, only apps built with the iOS 27.1 SDK or later can dynamically resize to fill the entire space of the inner display, whereas unoptimized apps will have… X’s Standalone Messaging App XChat Disappears From App Store X’s XChat app is no longer available from the App Store. The app does not come up when searching for it in the App Store, and clicking a link to it on the web returns an unavailable error. XChat allows X users to communicate with one another using end-to-end encryption and disappearing messages. The app’s description says it is a “private, focused space built for conversation.” XChat launched… Apple Asks Supreme Court to Throw Out App Store Contempt Ruling Apple today filed its opening merits brief with …

Former Plaud exec raises M for AI app that listens to you in the background

Former Plaud exec raises $26M for AI app that listens to you in the background

Published by Miika Tikkanen

One of the core promises of AI is that the more it knows about a person, the better it will be able to assist them with tasks and make appropriate suggestions, which, if you’ll believe the tech companies, requires apps and devices to listen, watch or record users’ activity all the time and gather all possible context. There’s obviously privacy and data security concerns with anything that’s collecting data about you continuously. But startups are building such apps undeterred anyway, arming themselves with the belief that the market for personalized assistance is big enough to swallow such concerns. Former Plaud exec Peter Mo is building Ambi to do something similar. The app aims to provide real-time intelligence and insights to people by listening to them all the time. The company said on Monday that it has raised $26 million across multiple funding rounds led by Luminous Ventures, which has backed companies like Meituan and Unitree Robotics, and Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) Huaqin. Ambi is also releasing apps for iPhones, Macs and Apple Watch. These apps …

Dunking on Dating App Profiles Is Content Gold. People Are Getting Sick of It

Dunking on Dating App Profiles Is Content Gold. People Are Getting Sick of It

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Evangelizing to his 512,000 TikTok followers occasionally requires that dating coach Chad Franklin post the private communications of his clients, who pay upwards of $5,000 for his services. In September, Franklin shared a DM conversation in which a woman implied she couldn’t afford an Uber with the text overlay “Don’t date POOR women!!!” That same month, he uploaded a video of a client’s successful text exchange on Hinge where they talked about the need to “flirt over some margaritas.” In the clip, Franklin can barely contain himself, noting that it was the type of tête-à-tête that gets his “dick hard”: “This is what men are looking for. We lead, you follow.” Franklin posts under the alias @DefundSimping, and has made it his mission to help straight, career-driven guys in their “post-breakup, post-divorce” era undo their “simp” behavior, which he defines as putting women on a pedestal or giving them too much attention. I reached out to the 30-year-old content creator because I wanted to talk about Hinge’s decision to start testing screenshot protection in India. …

How I made a paid Mac app in 11 days with Claude – without writing a single line of code

How I made a paid Mac app in 11 days with Claude – without writing a single line of code

Published by Miika Tikkanen

ZDNET’s key takeaways I shipped a Mac app without writing a single line of code. Vibe coding took 502 directives, not one magic prompt. App Store promo images took almost as long as the app. At around noon on Sunday, Sept. 20, I came up with an idea for a Mac app. One week later, on Sunday, Sept. 27, also around noon, I submitted my completed app to Apple. Four days later, Apple accepted the tool, and it went live on the App Store. Also: AI completely changed how I develop iPhone apps … and I think I love it Icons were good to me When I started my first software company, one of the first products I introduced was Icon Factory for HyperCard. It won several awards. This product supported my company and our employees for years. Those icons were all black and white, as was HyperCard. Also: After the vibe-coding rush comes the debugging hangover In 1997, after years of customer requests for colorful Finder desktop icons, we created a three-volume set of 32×32 …

My next Windows PC won’t need hours of app installs thanks to this one file

My next Windows PC won’t need hours of app installs thanks to this one file

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Installing the important apps is among the first things I do on my new PC. No surprise there, but it’s a tedious process. Taking note of all the apps I’ve installed and then reinstalling them one by one is a chore. Fortunately, I’ve stopped manually reinstalling apps from scratch and now rely on the popular UniGetUI, a free app manager that can save a list of your apps and help you reinstall them quickly after a fresh Windows install. Do a little cleanup before anything Remove what you don’t use before saving the list I’m always surprised by the number of apps I’ve installed. Only a handful of them are what I use day to day, and the rest simply sit there taking up space, never to be used again. Granted, for someone like me who tests apps for a living, this is expected, but we all have more apps than we need. So, consider this a good chance to clean up your PC before you create any list. Every app you remove now is …

Switching from Spotify felt impossible until I found this app

Switching from Spotify felt impossible until I found this app

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Spotify had been my faithful music provider for years, and I liked almost everything about it, especially the social aspect that allowed me to share with friends and like-minded listeners. Then, all of a sudden, my Spotify family account was canceled because I moved to a different country than the rest of my family, and after dutifully paying a considerable monthly fee for years, I felt this was unfair. However, was it really worth all the trouble of switching and leaving years of data behind? Related This was the moment I knew it was time to buy CDs again — and drop Spotify I hit play on an artist I loved, and Spotify gave me everything except their music. Leaving Spotify felt impossible Years of music playlists made switching services seem like too much work Having used Spotify for over ten years, I had built up a history on the service that was more valuable than I initially thought. I’ve got playlists I’ve been gradually adding to for years. Some contain music I’ve discovered recently, …