App Roundup: Steam for macOS, Day of the Tentacle, Carrot Weather, Dashlane 6, LinkedIn, m...
The App Stores and other digital marketplaces are inundated with new apps and updates to existing releases every day. AppleInsider highlights some of the new additions and software updates that took place this week for iOS and macOS apps.
This week's highlights include a fan-made homage to Day of the Tentacle, extreme weather updates to Carrot, Dashlane 6, voice messaging in LinkedIn, and major chat changes to Steam.
The Street View app isolates a core feature of Google Maps with the goal of exploring landmarks and businesses, including select indoor locations. Users can also upload their own 360-degree panoramas, using either an iPhone or a dedicated spherical camera.
The app now supports the edge-to-edge display on the iPhone X, improving the interface and creating more immersive views. Google has additionally improved panorama rendering.
Get it for iOS: Free. Requires an iPhone with iOS 9 or later.
MacPaw's archival utility has been given a facelift for version 4.0.0, with a new UI and icon, and localization updates. The app has also been given a speed boost, allowing access to archived files quicker than ever before.
The update also includes a number of fixes, including those relating to RAR4 and RAR5 files, the breaking of symbolic links in ZIP archives, crashes when opening large archives or password protected files, and reducing the number of "Extract To..." pop-ups when extracting multiple files.
Get it for macOS: Free. Requires OS X 10.7 or later.
A fan-created sequel of classic point-and-click adventure Day of the Tentacle, the Return of the Tentacle pays homage to the original, retaining the 2D art style and including an original soundtrack.
In the story, Purple Tentacle attempts to enslave humanity once again, just as it attempted in the original. Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie head back to the mansion of mad scientist Dr. Fred and take part in more time travel hijinks to keep the world from tentacle control, including time-based puzzles for players to solve.
The game is labeled as a "Prologue," suggesting the fan project may add more to the story in the future, but this will ultimately depend on if Double Fine and other rights holders allow it to continue existing.
Get it for macOS: Free.
The password management service has made some significant changes in the latest version, which it hopes turns the software into an all-round solution for "online risk prevention."
The first addition is the Identity Dashboard, which provides an overall guide to the user's online security, and how to improve. The dashboard includes monitoring of the Dark Web for up to five email accounts for breaches, credit monitoring alerts powered by TransUnion, and other alerts.
For identity theft, the firm now offers phone support for restoring a user's online identity and credit record. There is also identity theft insurance, which offers up to $1 million in damages if the user suffers a loss caused by the theft.
There is also enhanced password management options to show when passwords need updating, 1GB of secure file storage, and a VPN for use on unsecure connections.
Get it for iOS and macOS: Here. The free service provides storage of up to 50 passwords for one device. For the paid tiers, the premium $5 per month version includes the VPN, synchronization, and dark web monitoring, while premium plus at $10 per month includes all of the features.
The weather app with an attitude's update to version 4.7.2 adds hurricane tracker notifications alongside a number of smaller updates. Available to Premium Club members, the app will provide updates for tropical storms in North and Central America.
Continuing the theme, the U.S. severe weather alert notifications can now be tapped to open the alert directly in the app. Daily Report notifications will no longer overwrite older updates, providing more of a history.
It is also possible to show Fahrenheit and Celsius side-by-side in hourly and daily results. Lastly, there are fixes to the iPad landscape layout, bugs with anniversary achievements, and the place search database for users in China.
Get it for iOS: $4.99, with varying Premium and Ultrapremium Club options. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
A major new feature in the private messaging app is the ability to store copies of official documents on the service. The Telegram Passport stores an encrypted version of government-issued identification in the cloud, which could be used as proof of identity by other apps.
In effect, instead of proving their identity to an app or service, the user could instead point the app to Telegram, which will have already confirmed the identity, without needing to re-upload and risk their documents being acquired by unsavory entities online.
Aside from being stored under encryption, it will also handle all communications with end-to-end encryption, just like messages sent across the service, in order to keep the data secure.
Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 6.0 or later.LinkedIn
The Microsoft-owned business social network is increasing the ways people can get in touch with each other over the service, by sending voice messages. Recordable on the mobile app, users can create a verbal message of up to a minute in length to send to other users.
The audio messages can then be listened to by the recipient through the app or the website.
LinkedIn suggest the messaging could help with explaining longer or more complex ideas in a shorter time than typing it, allows for quicker responses to questions, is handy to respond while on the move or under a time pressure, and for job applicants to better express their personality.
Get it for iOS: Free with paid plans also available. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
Valve's wildly popular gaming store has undergone a number of changes this week, including its transition to being a 64-bit app on Mac. This change is mandated due to Apple warning users that 32-bit apps will not work in macOS for a future release.
The chat system has been given an overhaul, with a more flexible friends list that can be grouped by game, party, and favorites, with it also showing where in the game the contact is. Group Chats allow for friends to chat with each other, simplifying conversations.
The chat itself has been upgraded to include images, video embeds, tweets, and other content.
However, this does not mean that games bought through the service will be migrated to 64-bit. That choice is still up to the developer.
Get it for macOS: Free. Requires OS X 10.7 or later.
This week's highlights include a fan-made homage to Day of the Tentacle, extreme weather updates to Carrot, Dashlane 6, voice messaging in LinkedIn, and major chat changes to Steam.
Google Street View
The Street View app isolates a core feature of Google Maps with the goal of exploring landmarks and businesses, including select indoor locations. Users can also upload their own 360-degree panoramas, using either an iPhone or a dedicated spherical camera.
The app now supports the edge-to-edge display on the iPhone X, improving the interface and creating more immersive views. Google has additionally improved panorama rendering.
Get it for iOS: Free. Requires an iPhone with iOS 9 or later.
The Unarchiver
MacPaw's archival utility has been given a facelift for version 4.0.0, with a new UI and icon, and localization updates. The app has also been given a speed boost, allowing access to archived files quicker than ever before.
The update also includes a number of fixes, including those relating to RAR4 and RAR5 files, the breaking of symbolic links in ZIP archives, crashes when opening large archives or password protected files, and reducing the number of "Extract To..." pop-ups when extracting multiple files.
Get it for macOS: Free. Requires OS X 10.7 or later.
Return of the Tentacle
A fan-created sequel of classic point-and-click adventure Day of the Tentacle, the Return of the Tentacle pays homage to the original, retaining the 2D art style and including an original soundtrack.
In the story, Purple Tentacle attempts to enslave humanity once again, just as it attempted in the original. Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie head back to the mansion of mad scientist Dr. Fred and take part in more time travel hijinks to keep the world from tentacle control, including time-based puzzles for players to solve.
The game is labeled as a "Prologue," suggesting the fan project may add more to the story in the future, but this will ultimately depend on if Double Fine and other rights holders allow it to continue existing.
Get it for macOS: Free.
Dashlane 6
The password management service has made some significant changes in the latest version, which it hopes turns the software into an all-round solution for "online risk prevention."
The first addition is the Identity Dashboard, which provides an overall guide to the user's online security, and how to improve. The dashboard includes monitoring of the Dark Web for up to five email accounts for breaches, credit monitoring alerts powered by TransUnion, and other alerts.
For identity theft, the firm now offers phone support for restoring a user's online identity and credit record. There is also identity theft insurance, which offers up to $1 million in damages if the user suffers a loss caused by the theft.
There is also enhanced password management options to show when passwords need updating, 1GB of secure file storage, and a VPN for use on unsecure connections.
Get it for iOS and macOS: Here. The free service provides storage of up to 50 passwords for one device. For the paid tiers, the premium $5 per month version includes the VPN, synchronization, and dark web monitoring, while premium plus at $10 per month includes all of the features.
Carrot Weather
The weather app with an attitude's update to version 4.7.2 adds hurricane tracker notifications alongside a number of smaller updates. Available to Premium Club members, the app will provide updates for tropical storms in North and Central America.
Continuing the theme, the U.S. severe weather alert notifications can now be tapped to open the alert directly in the app. Daily Report notifications will no longer overwrite older updates, providing more of a history.
It is also possible to show Fahrenheit and Celsius side-by-side in hourly and daily results. Lastly, there are fixes to the iPad landscape layout, bugs with anniversary achievements, and the place search database for users in China.
Get it for iOS: $4.99, with varying Premium and Ultrapremium Club options. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
Telegram
A major new feature in the private messaging app is the ability to store copies of official documents on the service. The Telegram Passport stores an encrypted version of government-issued identification in the cloud, which could be used as proof of identity by other apps.
In effect, instead of proving their identity to an app or service, the user could instead point the app to Telegram, which will have already confirmed the identity, without needing to re-upload and risk their documents being acquired by unsavory entities online.
Aside from being stored under encryption, it will also handle all communications with end-to-end encryption, just like messages sent across the service, in order to keep the data secure.
Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 6.0 or later.
The Microsoft-owned business social network is increasing the ways people can get in touch with each other over the service, by sending voice messages. Recordable on the mobile app, users can create a verbal message of up to a minute in length to send to other users.
The audio messages can then be listened to by the recipient through the app or the website.
LinkedIn suggest the messaging could help with explaining longer or more complex ideas in a shorter time than typing it, allows for quicker responses to questions, is handy to respond while on the move or under a time pressure, and for job applicants to better express their personality.
Get it for iOS: Free with paid plans also available. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
Steam
Valve's wildly popular gaming store has undergone a number of changes this week, including its transition to being a 64-bit app on Mac. This change is mandated due to Apple warning users that 32-bit apps will not work in macOS for a future release.
The chat system has been given an overhaul, with a more flexible friends list that can be grouped by game, party, and favorites, with it also showing where in the game the contact is. Group Chats allow for friends to chat with each other, simplifying conversations.
The chat itself has been upgraded to include images, video embeds, tweets, and other content.
However, this does not mean that games bought through the service will be migrated to 64-bit. That choice is still up to the developer.
Get it for macOS: Free. Requires OS X 10.7 or later.
Comments
Deprecated doesn't mean removed. At least not today.
Apple haven't updated OpenGL for the last 5 years, so it's exactly the same old same old, it's only just official now. OpenGL based games will still run on Mojave, and for all we know they might even run on macOS 10.15 (it might still have OpenGL – the same ancient version it has right now). Some popular games are already ported to Metal, like Dota 2, etc. There are ways to port Vulkan apps to Metal using MoltenVK, as well.
I fixed your problem for you.
Perhaps someone will start an open source OpenGL implementation that runs on Metal.
They refer to OpenGL in the past tense at times and said those APIs weren't even close to working the same way as the hardware and the drivers were doing a lot of work to hide this. Vulkan won't quickly replace OpenGL as there's 25+ years of software and libraries built on it. According to id, who switched completely to Vulkan and away from OpenGL, it takes around 4-6 months to switch a project over and it's around 5000 lines of code for the renderer:
New projects can start with Vulkan, assuming they are targeting hardware that supports it (adoption is around 50% just now). Most small scale games are going to be running on a game engine like Unreal/Unity, which takes care of the rendering and they support Metal and Vulkan. Bigger studios who maintain their own engine have the resources to support the newer APIs and will want to for the best performance.
Apple used to use proprietary APIs (Quickdraw and Interactive Renderman in NextStep) and John Carmack said he helped convince Apple to move to OpenGL:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2146412825593223&id=100006735798590
If Apple removes the ability to run OpenGL software, I'd say the worst affected would be 3D creation software because they use OpenGL to ensure the widest compatibility:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenGL_programs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OpenCL_applications
They also heavily use shaders in previews and having to maintain those in different APIs isn't so easy and they can't build on top of an engine like Unreal/Unity. Ideally Apple wouldn't remove the ability to run OpenGL software for a long time and just treat it as a legacy API.
Perhaps Khronos can change OpenGL into a front-end for all lower level APIs i.e an abstraction layer over Metal, Mantle, Vulkan etc that takes the same shader and renderer code and translates it for each engine. Some kind of abstraction is going to be needed for the browser's WebGL equivalent. This would make OpenGL a very lightweight API that offers a higher level interface to getting a renderer running as quickly as possible. It would mostly just load geometry/texture data, setup a camera and allow people to run shaders:
gl.createScene(window, width, height);
character = gl.addObject(character.fbx);
character.position = (x,y,z);
light = gl.addLight(sunlightshader);
When people need to go lower level, they'd be able to add direct calls to the lower level APIs but having a very simple abstraction layer makes it much more approachable.