MacRumors

Developer Square Enix recently launched a new game called Mobius Final Fantasy, which the company said is "custom-tailored for mobile platforms," and is now available on iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. Some of the team behind the game includes producer Yoshinori Kitase and writer Kazushige Nojima, who penned both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X.

Like with most games in the series, Mobius Final Fantasy is an RPG with in-depth character customization options and a turn-based battle system "specifically designed for mobile devices." The company said that the game's character personalization options come from the "job system," a mechanic seen in previous Final Fantasy entries, which lets players specialize in a specific area of expertise to combo different classes with "specialized elemental abilities" and gain an advantage over enemies in battle.

According to Square Enix, the game will see upcoming releases debuted in "chapters," which will bring new in-game events, playable content, and avatar items, although it was left unclear if these will be locked behind a paywall. In its App Store page, the main source of in-app purchases centers around "Magicite," which is the game's version of in-world currency that lets users pay real money to get slightly ahead if their in-game monetary intake is drying up.

Unlike most titles from Square Enix on the App Store, like the recently released $8.99 Apple Watch game Cosmos Rings, Mobius Final Fantasy is a free-to-play entry in the series, so players interested can download the game and try it out without having to pay. In addition, anyone who starts up the game before August 31 will have a chance to gain special items related to past titles in the series, including Tidus’s signature weapon from Final Fantasy X, and other various ability boosters and consumable tokens.

You can download Mobius Final Fantasy from the iOS App Store for free. [Direct Link]

In a post on the company's official blog, YouTube yesterday announced that its paid subscription service -- dubbed YouTube Red -- will now encompass YouTube Kids, enabling "a whole new set of features for the family to enjoy" whenever parents sign up for Red. Available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, the move comes about 15 months after YouTube Kids came under fire by some prominent child advocacy groups, who claimed the app was deceptively targeting its underage viewers with ads.

Stemming from restrictions placed on kids entertainment from the 1970's, the worry centered around a child's undeveloped ability to repel targeted advertisements, since most don't understand that they're being targeted in the first place. The groups asked Google to look much deeper into YouTube Kids because of such concerns, even going so far as to ask the company to remove all of its popular "unboxing videos" from the kid version of YouTube because, "They're an ad, in essence, for toys."

YouTube is now hoping that bundling Kids into its $9.99 per month Red service will address some of these concerns. The biggest bullet point is that paying for Red brings ad-free videos to everywhere on YouTube, which will now include Kids for families under the Red umbrella, the company saying that this is a way to "let your kids learn and laugh along with their favorite characters without paid ads." Google also dropped a few other pros of its new Kids-friendly bundle, which essentially echo the benefits of YouTube Red's main service.

Parents who sign up for YouTube Red enable a whole new set of features for the family to enjoy, including:

Ad-free videos: Let your kids learn and laugh along with their favorite characters without paid ads.
Offline videos: In the car or on grandma’s couch—automatically have videos when you need ‘em, even if you don’t have a connection.
Uninterrupted music: Keep family sing-alongs going while you use other apps on your phone.

There might still be cause for concern for parents out there, however, since the only direct removal of advertising comes in the miniature ads sometimes placed before videos. In the original list of concerns and complaints from 2015, the FTC was asked to investigate specific aspects of YouTube's basic structure in its new Kids app, especially "branded channels," like one for McDonald's, which could potentially "take advantage of children because they do not understand that the entire channel is actually advertising."

YouTube has made no such move to moderate content like this in its app for children, and originally stated last year that it "consulted with numerous partners and child advocacy and privacy groups" when building YouTube Kids. In today's blog post, the company said that more updates to the Kids app are incoming, and hinted at more regulatory control for parents in the future: "we’ll be making some changes to the app that’ll give parents more choice on how to customize the content that appears or doesn’t appear in their YouTube Kids experience."

YouTube Kids is available for free on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]

The developers of popular running and cycling app Strava have announced a new safety feature for premium members that lets users broadcast their location in real time to friends and family.

The new feature, called Beacon, means runners and cyclists can now share their whereabouts with select contacts, who can then easily locate them if they don't return from their workout when expected or in the event of an emergency, for example.

"Let's say it's 3:30, you said you'd be home at 3:00 and you're not moving towards home," said Ethan Hollinshead, Senior Product Manager on Strava's blog. "That's a good indication that they should reach out to you and see what's up. Maybe you stopped for a coffee, or maybe you got a flat tire. Where it's really designed to help the cyclist or runner is in that peace of mind scenario – to keep people from unnecessarily worrying about you."

According to Strava, selected contacts don't need to be users of the app. Rather, the app sends a text message to the contacts that includes a secure web link showing the user's location on a map, allowing them to track the user's progress in real time.

Once premium users have updated the app, the Beacon feature will appear in the lower right of the New Run or Ride screen. A tap of the Beacon icon lets users choose up to three safety contacts who will receive their location when they confirm to send the text.

Strava Running and Cycling is a free download available for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. [Direct Link] A premium Strava membership costs $6 per month.

Intel is recalling its Basis Peak sleep and activity tracking watch due to overheating issues, and says it is shuttering the acquired startup behind the technology "immediately".

The chip company initially reported the overheating problem in June after some Basis users complained of blistering and burns caused by the wearable device. Intel told its customers not to use the watch until a firmware update was deployed to solve the issue. The update never materialized, however.

"We had hoped to update the software on your watch to address the problem," the company said in a statement on the Basis website. "Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we aren't able to develop such a solution without completely compromising the user experience. As a result, we are asking that you return your Basis Peak watch and authorized accessories for a full refund at your earliest convenience."

The recall and subsequent closure of Basis Science is a blow for Intel's ambitions in the wearable tech sector. Intel bought the San Francisco startup in March 2014 in a deal said to be worth more than $100 million. However, Basis failed to exceed its 1 percent share of all smartwatch sales, according to market research firm Canalys.

Basis Peak owners will be able to access their activity data from the watch until the end of the year, according to the company. Further refund information can be found on the support section of the Basis website.

Britney Spears has announced that Glory, her first album in three years, will be available on Apple Music from August 26, in what looks like another high-profile exclusive for the streaming service.

Spears revealed the news yesterday through her Twitter account and called the fresh release "the beginning of a new era", as she notified fans they could pre-order the album on iTunes from midnight Wednesday Eastern Time.

While it's unclear if Glory will remain exclusive to Apple Music, the album's streaming debut is another victory for Apple in its battle for music service supremacy, coming quick on the heels of news that R&B singer Frank Ocean's long-awaited album Boys Don't Cry will also be released exclusively on the service this Friday.

Other recent high-profile exclusive Apple Music releases have included Drake's Views album, Taylor Swift's 1989 World Tour LIVE film, and Katy Perry's single "Rise".

Rival streaming service Tidal has tried to fight off Apple's competing service with its own album exclusives, but a series of tweets by Tidal co-owner Kanye West last week suggest the company is looking to negotiate a buyout deal with Apple.

Earlier in the year, Kanye said his new album The Life of Pablo would stay exclusive to Tidal and "never" be made available on Apple Music, only for it to appear on Apple's streaming service the following month.

Apple today updated its Apple Music app for Android to version 1.0.0, officially dropping the app's beta status and announcing its full release. Apple Music is one of the first Apple-branded apps that Apple has brought to Android devices.

First introduced in November of 2015, Apple Music for Android made the Apple Music platform available on Android-based smartphones and tablets for the first time. When the app initially launched, Apple iTunes chief Eddy Cue said Apple wanted to bring Apple Music to "everyone in the world" and let people enjoy music "no matter where you were and what products you were using."

Over the course of the beta testing period, Apple added a handful of new features to the app to bring it in line with the iOS app, including support for music videos, family billing plans, a home screen widget, saving songs to an SD card, and more. Apple Music for Android and Apple Music for iOS now share many of the same features, so the music listening experience is the same across multiple platforms. Today's update, in addition to removing Apple Music for Android's beta status, also includes minor performance and stability improvements.

Apple Music is now available on Android. Thank you for your feedback during the beta period.

This update includes equalizer settings and a variety of performance, playback, and stability improvements.

Apple Music for Android is available from the Google Play Store for free. Customers who are new to Apple Music can sign up for a three-month free trial to test out the service.

Password managing app 1Password today announced the launch of a new subscription plan for individual users priced at $2.99 per month. The new model will be added to 1Password's existing subscription tiers, including a team plan (beginning at $3.99 per month) and a family plan ($4.99 per month). This will allow users not in need of enterprise- or family-related perks to join in on 1Password's various subscription benefits.

According to AgileBits, the company behind 1Password, the biggest advantage of signing up for a subscription on the password organizing app is that users will "get all the 1Password apps for every platform, along with Pro Features, free updates, and free upgrades to every new version of 1Password." The service allows its subscribers to cancel at any time and alleviates the worry of having to face licenses and paid upgrades down the line.

The individual subscription service runs on the same new hosted platform that AgileBits created for 1Password Teams and 1Password Families. The company said that using the $2.99 per month subscription model provides users with "the simplest and most feature-packed way to use 1Password."

Our new individual hosted service comes with everything you expect from 1Password, along with these new features:

-Built-in automatic sync across all devices
-Data loss protection
-Web access to your data on 1Password.com
-Item History for restoring deleted or changed items
-Secure Document storage
-Brand new multi-factor security model

As a launch special, anyone who signs up for the new individual plan will get the first six months of 1Password free, without needing to even add their credit card information into the app. To take advantage of the offer, users will need to sign up for the $2.99 per month model before September 21, 2016. The 1Password app is available to download from the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link] -- with the option to choose a one-and-done upgrade to 1Password Pro for $9.99 -- and the Mac App Store for $64.99. [Direct Link]

Update: As 1Password mentioned on Twitter, the company has "no plans to eliminate standalone licenses," so any user who prefers to avoid subscription tiers can still do so.

Dropbox today announced the expansion of its collaborative document editing service "Paper" onto mobile devices running iOS and Android. Paper originally required an invitation to join its beta, but the company is now also opening up access to anyone who's interested in trying out the service, either on desktop or mobile.

Paper lets work teams tackle projects at the same time, within a singular document, and even embed videos, images, and more to create successful projects. With feedback from its first beta users, Dropbox has introduced a few new feature updates to Paper as well: image galleries are easier to create and edit with drag-and-drop functionality, both web and mobile apps now have notifications, and Paper's search has been boosted "to help you quickly find the docs you need."

"From a strategy perspective, Paper's right at the center [of Dropbox]," Dropbox project manager Kavitha Radhakrishnan said. "We're looking at Paper as being a core part of the Dropbox experience, and our momentum over the last year should be a pretty strong signal about how seriously we're taking this."

In an in-depth dive taken by Engadget, Paper's new iOS app positioned itself as a mobile companion to its desktop counterpart. With the app, users will be able to read notifications, check out which team member is editing and participating in what document, and respond to direct messages sent their way, but any robust editing or creation tools are left out of the mobile app. Still, "basic document editing features" will allow for quick text and image edits, and the app even automatically saves any document marked as a favorite so it can be worked on and edited offline.

Dropbox is encouraging anyone interested to sign up for the open beta of Paper today, as well as downloading the free app from the iOS App Store [Direct Link] and Google Play Store.

Astropad today launched version 2.0 of its iPad app, which transforms a compatible iPad into a drawing tablet for a connected Mac. Once connected, Astropad mirrors the Mac's display onto the iPad to let users take advantage of the tablet's touch controls for drawing and editing photos in various Mac apps. The new update follows last year's introduction of support for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

Free for any existing Astropad user, version 2.0 of the app brings a "high-performance Liquid upgrade" to the connected drawing app in order to triple its performance speeds and "massively" reduce any pixelation. The rest of the update adds similar performance-enhancing features to Astropad, including improved image quality and latency, lessening the strain on the iPad's battery, and making the actual drawing performed within the app more naturalistic.

High-performance Liquid upgrade: Powered by Liquid core technology, now running three times faster with massively reduced pixelation
New Velocity control: Analyzes network conditions dozens of times per second to balance image quality and latency
Uses 3x less CPU and 4x less memory: Allows longer work sessions and extended battery life
Refined pressure curve: Hand-tuned by artists for a more natural drawing feel
Enhanced software compatibility: Supports panning and zooming gestures across more programs, including: Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Art Rage, Clip Studio Paint, Lightroom, Mischief, Autodesk Sketchbook
Hidden cursor: Settings option to auto-hide the cursor while drawing
Updated UI: Sleek new look and feel

Otherwise, Astropad retains its general, high-quality drawing performance, with touch feedback at 60fps "for super smooth drawing" that results in interesting, diverse pieces of art. Users can connect their iPad to a Mac both via Wi-Fi or USB, with equally solid results, although compatible iPad devices must be running iOS 8 or later, while any Mac with Mavericks or later is required to use Astropad.

For users who have yet to purchase, Astropad Drawing Tablet is available for $29.99 on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]