Apps

Yahoo launches Mail app for iPad, Android tablets

Yahoo on Thursday released a Mail app for iOS and Android tablet users and a Weather app for iPhone owners.

A Yahoo Mail app has already been in play for the iPhone and Android smartphones, but the new version takes advantage of the larger screen size of tablets. A full-screen reading mode lets you flip through your e-mail messages as if you were reading a magazine.

Flipping through messages this way feels so much more natural than having to tap on each e-mail in the inbox to read it, especially on a tablet. It's an innovative and welcome approach, … Read more

Finally, Twitter Music is available to all

You don't have to be the host of "American Idol" to use Twitter Music anymore.

A little more than a month after CNET broke the news that Twitter was working on a stand-alone music discovery app and a week after that app was rolled out to an invite-only group of celebrities and others -- including Ryan Seacrest -- the general public can now get its hands on the music discovery app.

Twitter officially unveiled #music on Thursday during "Good Morning America." The company later provided more details about the service in a blog post, saying … Read more

LinkedIn reinvents mobile apps for daily consumption

LinkedIn today released completely overhauled versions of its applications for iPhone and Android as part of an ongoing effort to make its social network for professionals a rich, daily destination for consuming content and connecting with others.

The fresh applications, which bear little resemblance to their former versions, sport a colorful and crisp design, a reworked navigation, and personalization features all intended to make LinkedIn for iPhone or Android a vehicle for rabid consumption. The iPhone and Android apps are also now available in 15 different languages.

The underlying design principle behind the new mobile apps is that everything you … Read more

BeerHunt app wants you to have fun and free beer

If you ever thought you should be rewarded for drinking lots of beer, here's your chance. A new iOS app turns drinking into a game, giving you points, and ultimately physical rewards, for guzzling down microbrews.

BeerHunt, an app created by incubator The Monkey Inferno, launched today at the Demo Mobile conference in San Francisco. The creators described it as a kind of Foursquare for beers. You get points every time you log a beer into your beer profile depending on what type of beer it is. More points if it's a rare beer, a beer from a … Read more

Find local yoga classes with Om Finder for iOS

I think most people who have tried yoga would agree: it's a great way to improve flexibility and blood flow, increase stamina and strength, and even reduce back and muscle pain.

OK, but how can you find nearby classes, especially if you're traveling or you've just moved to a new town?

Yep: there's an app for that. Om Finder for iOS locates nearby classes, studios, and instructors wherever you happen to be in the world. It needs a few tweaks, but it's definitely a handy tool for the om-minded.… Read more

Move over Siri, Sherpa's in town

The march toward a better, voice-controlled future continues, even with Siri, Google Voice Search and newer digital assistants, such as Donna, already on the scene.

The latest entrant is Sherpa, a natural language Android app that's a top app in Spain and Latin America and today is rolling out in the U.S. -- first for Android, eventually for iOS.

Like Siri, Sherpa attempts to help organize your life and perform tasks when you ask the app questions or give it commands. It's the brainchild of Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria, who's based in Bilbao, Spain, and has been working … Read more

Apple named in Chinese porn probe

Apple is again in the crosshairs of the Chinese government.

The iPhone maker has turned up on a list of companies being investigated in China over allegedly offering pornographic material through their Web sites or app stores, The Wall Street Journal said today.

Apple isn't highlighted in the story from the People's Daily, the official newspaper of China's Communist Party. Rather, it's just one of many companies named in the probe. In total, the investigation is looking at 198 Web sites and several app stores beyond Apple's.

Based solely on a rough Google-translated version of the People's Daily piece, … Read more

Six Android apps you'll thank me for (you're welcome)

As a reviewer of Android apps, it's my role to sniff out what's hot and interesting on Google Play. I make it a point to try out apps old and new, as well as big-name apps, apps from startup shops, and everything in between.

Among these, it's not uncommon for me to find a few apps that are just so attention-grabbing that I feel compelled to share them with the masses. They may not necessarily be the best apps of all time, or even the best apps available right now, but they are fresh and interesting titles … Read more

Google still wants Apple to use its maps, Eric Schmidt says

The Apple Maps fiasco may have died down, but Google still wants its mapping program to be default on iOS, said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt, speaking today during an AllThingsD mobile conference, declined to say why Apple decided to go with its own mapping system rather than working with Google as it had in the past. But he said his company is still pushing Apple to use Google Maps as the primary navigation tool on iOS.

"We would still really like them to use our maps," Schmidt said. "It would be easy for them to take … Read more