The Samsung Gear app has received an update, bumping it to version 2.2.15011799. Although there isn’t any changelog associated with it, Sammobile is reporting that the update likely brings along fixes for issues related to Android Lollipop compatibility.

Earlier, the app was failing to automatically reconnect to a paired smartwatch after losing connection; the report confirms that the issue has been fixed. Read more »

Apple officially doubled the size limit for iOS applications. Going forward, App Store package submissions can carry a maximum size of 4GB.

The new iOS app size limit marks a serous jump from the previously allowed 2GB. Read more »

Today HTC has decided to issue an update to its Zoe app. This has been available in the Google Play Store for non-HTC Android devices since last summer. The update, which is already up for grabs in Google’s app store, brings with it support for Android 5.0 Lollipop, as well as the Motorola Nexus 6 and the HTC Nexus 9.

So if you own one of those you can now use Zoe, HTC’s social network wannabe based around video highlights. Or if you have another device that runs Lollipop already. This isn’t the only new feature, however. Read more »

After yesterday’s map data update, Nokia’s Here team has some more news for us today – namely, that the Here maps app for Android has now left the beta state. As of the latest update to the app, which is already live in the Google Play Store, the beta tag has been put to rest.

So it looks like Nokia now feels very confident about the stability and performance of its app on Google’s mobile operating system. The update brings with it some new things, naturally. Read more »

Amazon is giving out paid apps for free again, this time the bundle costs $140 in total. Not that you’ll pay a dime of it, if you download the apps from the Amazon App Store. As usual it’s a varied bundle ranging from Office apps to health apps plus a lot of games

The big ticket items are the Longman Dictionary (Audio Edition), which normally goes for $30 and OfficeSuite Professional 8, usually $20. Read more »

Today Nokia has announced a new map data update for its Here apps for Windows Phone and Android. This isn’t an app update per se, but rather an update to the underlying information that the apps use. So if you’ve downloaded maps in Here for offline use, you’ll need to update those to get all the new perks. Otherwise, if you’re only using Here in online mode, you’ll see the changes automatically.

You should get an update notification at some point, regardless of which mobile platform you use. Of course you can also manually trigger the download by going to Here’s settings (on Android) or, on Windows Phone, to Settings > Applications > Maps. Read more »

Facebook and Reliance Communications have launched the Internet.org application in India. Through this app, Reliance users will be able to access 38 sites for free from their phones, i.e., without incurring data charges.

The list of sites includes Aaj Tak, AccuWeather, BBC News, Bing Search, Cleartrip, Daily Bhaskar, Dictionary.com, ESPN Cricinfo, Facebook,Hungama Music, IBNLive, India Today, Maharashtra Times, NDTV, OLX, Times of India, Wikipedia, wikiHow, and many more. Read more »

Skype has updated its Android app to version 5.2, bringing some really useful features including offline photo sharing, support for picture-in-picture view, reduced chat loading times, and call quality improvements.

The updated app lets you send photos to your offline contacts, something which wasn’t previously possible. “When they are back on Skype, photos you shared show up beautifully inline in the chat history, whether or not you’re online – allowing you to easily carry on the conversation,” said Skype in a blog post. Read more »

Just a couple of days after there were reports that Microsoft will soon integrate Cortana into its Office productivity suite the Redmond-based company has updated its digital assistant with a new interest category.

Dubbed Lifestyle, the category contains a Fitness Tracker that claims it will “keep up with your workouts.” The update seems to be rolling out slowly, as not everyone has received it yet. Read more »

The popular third-party iOS keyboard SwiftKey received a major update. Version 1.2 of the application is currently available in the Apple App Store.

The list of new features included in the update is rather extensive. Read more »

The Paper app for iPad, made by the folks at FiftyThree, has today gone 100% free. Previously, you were able to install the app without paying, but you had to shell out $0.99 for each of the following tools: Draw, Sketch, Outline, Write, Color, and Mixer.

From today on these become free, which essentially means you can use the whole app for free. The decision to stop charging for the tools in the app probably means FiftyThree now expects to make enough money to stay afloat simply from sales of its Pencil stylus. Read more »

Nearly three years after VideoLAN launched a beta version of the famous VLC media player for Android, the app is now available as a stable version in the Play Store.

What’s worth noting is that the beta version of the app is also available in Google Play as a separate listing, suggesting that any new features or improvements will be pushed out to the app first before being pulled over to the stable version. Read more »

Microsoft has acquired the popular Sunrise Calendar application for a reported amount of $100 million dollars.

Sunrise is a free calendar application for iOS and Android. It featured an attractive interface design and synced with a wide variety of services such as Google calendar, iCloud, Microsoft Exchange and even Facebook for your events. The app also has other clever features, such as LinkedIn integration, weather forecast for your location, built-in Google Maps navigation for going to events, and timezone support. Read more »

It’s not surprising that Google’s Chromecast HDMI streaming stick has been quite successful. After all it’s cheap and relatively easy to use, and it can instantly make your TV smarter than it was. Today though we get the first glimpse of just how successful the Chromecast was, at least during last year.

That’s because for the first time ever Google has shared some sales numbers with the media. According to a report out of South Korea, the search giant’s arm in that country has revealed that 10 million Chromecasts were sold globally in 2014. Read more »

Here’s something that bloatware haters are going to, well, hate. OnePlus has just announced that the next over-the-air update for its One smartphone will come with the SwiftKey keyboard preinstalled. This means that people who would like to try that app but for some reason haven’t yet downloaded it from the Play Store will now get to do just that.

On the other hand, if you don’t like SwiftKey, you’ll now have to live with it on your OnePlus One, since there probably won’t be an easy way to uninstall it. At least it won’t be selected as the default input method – those who want to try it will have to enable it from the dedicated Settings menu first. Read more »