May, 2013 - Softonic English

New Grand Theft Auto V gameplay details revealed

Game journalists from around the globe descended on Rockstar’s New York City headquarters for a 30 minute preview of Grand Theft Auto V. This is the first time anyone has gotten to see the game in action. Up until now, everything we knew about the game came from watching the trailers Rockstar released. Now we have a better idea of what to expect from this game.

Grand Theft Auto V is without a doubt, very ambitious. The game features three characters instead of one and the open world of Los Santos is better than any city in the previous games in the series. Los Santos is also a very different city than the New York City inspired Liberty City of Grand Theft Auto IV. While Liberty City gave players a gritty, dark, and realistic game, Los Santos doesn’t take itself too seriously and offers more varied environments.

So what have we learned from the short demo given to game journalists? Continue reading “New Grand Theft Auto V gameplay details revealed”

Angry Birds Friends now available for iOS and Android

You can now download Angry Birds Friends free for Android and iOS, which allows you to link up with your Facebook friends for weekly tournaments of bird flinging action. It requires an internet connection and Facebook account to play.

Angry Birds Friends

The Facebook version has got 15 million active players, so developer Rovio has decided to give them mobile access to the game. The basics of the game are the same – launch the Angry Birds at the pigs who have stolen their eggs. The difference in Angry Birds Friends is that you’re competing with friends to win the bronze, silver or gold trophies.

Sharing scores and competing with friends is the main attraction here, as the game doesn’t offer anything else new to the formula.

Download Angry Birds Friends for iOS or Android.

Reddit will introduce new privacy policy on May 15th

Reddit is one of the few really popular sites where user anonymity is still the norm. But that has never meant Reddit doesn’t collect any data on its users, and now it has rewritten its privacy policy so it is easier to understand.

The new document doesn’t change Reddit’s privacy policy, just clarifies it. It’s very clear about what data they collect, and what happens to messages you leave there if you delete your account and so on. Much of the data Reddit does store is only kept to make the community running well and to prevent abuse and spammers.

They promise never to disclose any data they store, except when required to do so by law. The privacy policy also makes it clear that although they ‘welcome users from all walks of life, our site is not aimed at children,’ so no one under the age of 14 is allowed to create a Reddit account.

If you’ve never used Reddit, it can be quite a shock. It has a design that ignores pretty much everything other sites do, instead being little more than a list of titles and links you can explore. It is essentially a site for people to share whatever information they want and discuss it with other users. The tone is irreverent, and it can take a while to get used to how redditors (reddit users) talk.

Reddit is an excellent source of information, and if you want to know what the big issues are on the internet, it’s a great place to start. Many popular stories and memes start life on Reddit, hidden amongst its subreddits and threads.

Twitter for iOS and Android updated with improved trends

Twitter for iOS and Android has been updated with improved trends functions. You can now choose to follow both local and global trends, as well as trends near you.

Twitter has also improved Vine video playback in iOS, which was surprisingly poor considering it’s a Twitter product. Replies to retweeted tweets now show the original author and the user who retweeted it, which makes following stories and conversations a bit easier. This echoes how the popular Tweetbot app works.

Twitter claims you can invite friends to the service from within the app, but it’s not clear how this works (in fact, I can’t find it).

There have been lots of developments from Twitter in recent weeks, with the hyped #music service, which didn’t live up to our expectations, and rumors of an official app for Google Glass.

Android users demand offensive Angry Birds parody ban

Android users are demanding that Google withdraw an Angry Birds clone from the Play app store due to religious offence caused by the game’s content.

Angry Prophets has been available in Google Play since April 21. The game features two characters who bear a likeness to Jesus and the prophet Muhammad. Just like in Rovio’s popular game, players launch these characters heads to defeat their enemies, in this case devils.

At the time of writing, the game has an average rating of 2.9 in Google Play. “This game must be deleted”, comments one user in his short review of the game. “I hope Google will do something about this. It’s such a disgrace to our beloved Prophet Muhammad and seriously not funny”. Visually depicting Muhammad is forbidden in Islam.

The campaign to have the Angry Birds for Android parody removed began on Twitter a few hours ago. The steps to follow are simple: if you agree that the game should be banned, simply open the game’s Google Play page on any Android device. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Flag as inappropriate.

What do Google’s Developer Program Policies say on the matter? Under the heading ‘Hate Speech‘, Google says “We don’t allow the promotion of hatred toward groups of people based on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity.”

Based on prior experience, everything suggests that Angry Prophets will be banned by the Android store. Other examples of apps described as offensive, including Make Me Asian and Make Me Indian, were banned by Google following complaints by users that the apps were based on racial stereotypes.

I’ve contacted Google Play and the app’s developer for comment. I will update this story as and when I receive a response.

iOS 7 will be ready for WWDC despite rumored big changes

It has been widely reported that Apple has moved engineering resources from the OS X project to try to get iOS 7 finished on time. However, this doesn’t mean there will be a delay in either, according to The Loop and All Things D. This also happened before the launch of iOS in 2007, when resources were taken away from the development of OS X 10.5 Leopard.

This means, as we reported earlier this week, that iOS 7 will be ready for a preview at WWDC in June, and release in September, which is very much a normal release schedule for Apple. Every day we hear more ‘sources’ claiming the influence of Jonathan Ive is all over iOS 7.

The previous Senior Vice President of iOS, Scott Forstall, is said to have been in favor of the skeuomorphic design in many iOS apps. The green felt of Game Center, the leather stitching of notes, and the shelves in iBooks are all examples of this, and they are likely to be gone in iOS 7.

Read more about the rumored design changes in iOS 7 and possible delays.

[sources: Techcrunch, The Loop, AllThingsD]

Alternatives to TweetDeck

Twitter purchased TweetDeck in 2011 in an effort to halt third party Twitter clients, but by March 5th 2013 the company announced plans to cull TweetDeck’s features.On May 7th, Twitter will end support for TweetDeck on Android, iPhone, and Adobe AIR altogether. The Mac and Windows versions will continue to be supported for the time being, but their futures are uncertain. While TweetDeck will still remain a web app, this closure is a giant inconvenience to Android and iOS TweetDeck users.

One of the major advantages of TweetDeck is the ability to log into multiple accounts and display multiple feeds at once. It also has support for connecting to Facebook. There are of course no TweetDeck clones, but there are plenty of potential replacements (some even have superior features). We’ll compare and contrast various Twitter clients on different platforms against TweetDeck to help find the best one for you.

We’ll walk through some alternatives and help you choose the best one.
Continue reading “Alternatives to TweetDeck”

LINE messenger has more than 150 million users

LINE, the popular multi-platform messaging app, has broken 150 million users. Earlier this year, the company was excited to announce they had over 100 million users. Four months later, they have added 50 million users, proving that people love cute animal stickers.

This growth isn’t too surprising as apps like Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, and Whatsapp are quickly becoming the preferred method of communication. For the first time ever, chat apps like LINE are surpassing texting. Messaging apps like LINE offer distinct advantages over texting like no character limits, easy multimedia sharing, and read receipts.

While LINE is prospering in Asia, it’s up against tough competition in the United States with Facebook Messenger (who recently added stickers themselves), Viber, and Whatsapp. LINE has a very strong ecosystem with apps for Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, PC, Mac, and Windows 8/RT.

Source: LINE Japan

Twitter for Android brings back the menu button

Twitter must have heard the cries of our editor, Chris Park, who hated the last update to the company’s Android app. The redesigned Android app looked great but got rid of the menu button, which offered quick access to account switching. Well today Twitter brought back the menu button. Rejoice!

While the menu button is back, it has moved. It’s now located to the upper right of the app, next to the search and compose buttons. Previously, users had to navigate to their profiles to find the account switch button but now users can switch accounts from anywhere within the app since the buttons at the top are persistent.

The menu button also reveals the option to change settings for the app.

If you already have the app installed, open Google Play to update or you can download it right here on Softonic.

Download: Twitter for Android

Updated LinkedIn profiles lets you tell your ‘professional story’ with photos, videos

LinkedIn profiles have been pretty boring since the beginning with black text on a white background but the company is changing that today. Profiles can now be customized with photos, videos, slideshows, and galleries for a rich, visual experience. It’s hard to stand out in a sea of text but having richer media will allow your LinkedIn profile to stand out from the crowd.

To add media, enter the editing mode for your profile and you’ll see a new gear “+” icon to select media to upload. You can also add hyperlinks with this button. The new profiles also brings support for major media sites like YouTube, TwitPic, Vimeo, and SoundCloud.

This update signals a company wide buckling down on the visual experience across its products. Just a couple of weeks earlier, LinkedIn updated its Android and iOS apps with a whole new interface and native code.

The new profiles will be rolling out over the next few days in the United States so be patient if you don’t see your profile updated just yet.

Source: LinkedIn