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Castro, A New Podcast Player for iOS, Does Two Things Well

Castro, a new “high fidelity” (come on… I mean really?) podcast player for iOS, looks good and has a few clever ideas for podcast listening. Forget playlists: Castro presents podcasts in a day-to-day timeline that keeps the most recent shows at the forefront. I don’t know if I’m a fan of how text is overlaid on translucent show art since the app’s look is dependent on whether the podcast you listen to has appealing cover art, but I am a fan of the player’s decided simplicity when it comes to podcast controls. There are no timers, no speed settings and no share button. However, underneath the show notes and behind the basic forward, back, and pause/play buttons is a hidden scrubber, which lets you scrub to any position in the currently playing episode with surprising ease. I don’t think it’s discoverable, but it’s unique and surprisingly accurate. It was the thing that John Gruber pointed out and the first thing I showed Federico when discussing the app. Update: Also hidden is a playback speed setting if you tap and hold the play/pause button (thanks Twitter).

The biggest thing Castro has going for it, in my opinion, is its search feature. It’s fast. Like, it’s really fast as podcasts appear as you type. If you’re making a podcast app, I’m pretty sure Castro has set the new high bar here. It made subscribing to a bunch of shows for the first time pretty painless.

Grab it from the App Store for $2.99.

Discover The Meaning of Acronyms with Acronymph for iPhone

Acronymph

Acronymph

Acronymph, developed by Calvin Robertson, is an iPhone app to discover the meaning of acronyms.

With a variety of built-in categories that range from Internet slang and sports to music, economy, and goverment acronyms, Acronymph simply displays matches it finds in its built-in database. You can’t configure sources you want to see/hide because the app has no settings, but a recent update added a URL scheme that lets you send an acronym from apps like Launch Center Pro or Drafts directly to Acronymph without having to tap the app’s search box and type.

When results are found, you can tap on them to copy them, open a Google search, or share them to other apps. I’m nitpicking, but I don’t like how “@AcronymphApp” is appended to an acronym’s meaning when you’re sharing a result to Mail or Twitter.

Acronymph is simple and effective. I’ve looked up several acronyms in the past weeks and the app always found meanings in less than two seconds; it’s the kind of utility that you likely won’t need on a daily basis, but that will come in handy if you don’t need a full-featured dictionary app like Terminology. And, btw, Acronymph is $0.99 on the App Store.

Apple Adds Bloomberg, Local ABC News, Crackle, and KOR TV to Apple TV Channel Lineup→

Less than a month ago Apple brought channels like Yahoo Screen and PBS to the Apple TV, and today they’re bringing over streaming news services like Bloomberg, ABC (for streaming local content from ABC news affiliates), Crackle for movies and TV shows, and Korean language channel KOR TV. Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch echoes what I suggested last month regarding the Apple TV as a viable alternative for cable cutters:

This launch is just the most recent in what’s been an increasingly fast-paced rollout of new content partners on Apple’s set-top box, but it brings some interesting ingredients to the mix, including local broadcast TV streaming and a 24-hour news channel, which are key ingredients to what many users would consider basic TV service. Apple TV didn’t start off as a really viable cord-cutting alternative for people looking to ditch their cable subscriptions, but it’s been building up a piecemeal library of a la carte content that begins to become a truly worthy option.

In a nutshell, the Apple TV now has a 24-hour news channels, multiple sports outlets, various channels for kids, and channels apps for watching TV shows and movies on demand.

For a listing of channels currently available on the Apple TV, check out the “Whats on Apple TV” page at Apple.com.

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Spotify Brings Free Music to Tablets and Mobile Devices, Adds Led Zeppelin to Music Library

Spotify’s opening up their entire music library to tablet and mobile devices today, with a twist. Free subscribers listening on tablets running Android or iOS will gain on-demand access to playlists, artists, and albums, mirroring the desktop experience. On smartphones, Spotify is adding shuffle play to their previous Spotify Radio offering, which lets free subscribers stream music from any artist or playlist. As always, free subscribers will have to listen to an occasional ad between songs. Check the table below for a quick comparison of Spotify’s current offerings:

Spotify’s online music streaming service is rolling out in 22 more countries today as well, making Spotify available in a total of 55 markets.

Lastly, Spotify is announcing that Led Zeppelin’s entire catalog of music will soon be exclusively available to stream, with the company doling out two albums every day until the Zeppelin’s entire discography is available. It’s equivalent to Apple gaining rights to sell The Beatles’ music on iTunes.

Be sure to visit the Spotify Blog for the latest news.

Siri’s Accuracy Continues To Improve→

Erik Slivka:

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has regularly assessed Siri’s accuracy in terms of correctly interpreting and answering queries, has issued the latest version of his Siri report card, noting that Siri has continued to improve under iOS 7, particularly in terms of being able to properly interpret questions being asked.

My experience in the past four months has been the opposite of what Marco describes: the Italian Siri of iOS 7 fails less than before, is faster (even on 3G), and it understands my queries better. Is it because of different servers and the amount of requests that Italian Siri gets? I have no idea.

As I noted in September:

A feature that I didn’t initially like and that I’ve criticized on multiple occasions, Siri, is much improved in iOS 7. I actually am using Siri quite a bit more now, and I was surprised by the quality of the Italian voice, its increased speed, clean new design, and new functions.

It’s still far from perfect, but I’ve been using Siri on a daily basis for phone calls, directions, and Wikipedia integration. I particularly appreciate how iOS 7 made Siri smarter in understanding pronouns, indirect speech, and verb conjugations.

I’m not a “Siri power user” (I don’t know all the possible tricks and commands), but I’m happy with the improvements in iOS 7.

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Daily Weather Summaries with Weather Notifications

Weather Notifications

Weather Notifications

Weather Notifications, developed by Taco23, is a simple utility to get a daily notification with a weather summary on your iPhone. It’s not a weather app in the sense that it lets you browse forecasts, temperatures, or other weather data in a traditional way; instead, Weather Notifications is, as the name implies, a notification tool powered by Forecast.io.

Weather Notifications is, essentially, a Settings screen where you can configure the notifications you want to receive every day for your location. Alerts can be set to fire off at five different times: afternoon before, night before, morning, afternoon, or evening. You can only pick one, and, unfortunately, you’re also forced to pick one location; you can’t tell Weather Notifications to send you a notification the day before for Location A and in the morning for Location B. I set Weather Notifications to send me alerts for Rome the night before, so I’ll have an idea of the weather I’ll wake up to in the morning.

You can choose to receive a daily summary or condition-specific alerts for rain, snow, and fog. There are temperature, wind, and humidity thresholds that you can also optionally configure, but I’ve been enjoying the daily summary, which gives me a succinct recap of weather conditions for the following day.

And that’s it. Weather Notifications isn’t available on the iPad and it could use customizable alert sounds and support for multiple locations; Forecast.io’s accuracy may vary for your area, but it’s been fairly reliable for me in Italy.

Weather Notifications is $1.99 on the App Store.

Filibaba Egg Timer→

Nice app by Filibaba (makers of other vegetarian and vegan recipe apps for iOS) that’s just a virtual egg timer for your iPhone. You can spin the egg in 1-minute increments and the app will send you a local notification when the timer is up. There are backgrounds to choose from and In-App Purchases to unlock different eggs (including a golden one, perfect for your new 5s).

Free on the App Store.

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Apple Releases 12 Days of Gifts App, Available In The U.S. Too

As in previous years, Apple has released a free “12 Days of Gifts” app for iPhone and iPad owners that will give them access to exclusive offers for free content on the iTunes Store. This year, the app is available for US customers as well, although Apple notes that not all content will be available in all countries; the promotion will run from December 26 to January 6, 2014.

From 26 December – 6 January, you can download a gift each day—songs, apps, books, movies, and more—with the 12 Days of Gifts app. Each day’s gift will only be available for 24 hours, so download the free app to make sure you don’t miss out.

Right now, the app comes with a countdown that shows how many days are left until the first free item becomes available; upon first launch, you’ll be asked to accept push notifications (to be notified when offers are released) and to confirm the country for your iTunes Store’s Apple ID.

The app has an animated background reminiscent of iOS 7’s dynamic wallpapers, and there is a built-in FAQ to learn more about downloads. Apple has also included an “Add To Calendar” button in the share sheet: tapping this button will create a recurring all-day event in your default calendar to remember to download the daily gift for every day of the promotion.

You can download the app here.