App Roundup: PGA Championship 2018, The Views News, Instapaper Premium, more!

This week's highlights include updates to the PGA Championship app, the introduction of The Views News, a small change to the Gmail app, a revised premium option for Instapaper, Fortnite's new firing and motion controls, and the impending closure of Newton Mail.

The Views News

The Views News is a news-reading app that aggregates stories from multiple outlets, combining them into a single newsfeed. Selecting from six categories at first for the main feed, users can also check out the "Trending Story," a regularly updated selection of articles from the app's editors.

The app differentiates itself from others by having a variety of designs to choose from, with eight themes including a dark mode, featuring native iOS cards in its interface. It is also claimed to be one of the fastest ways for users to read new, with cards showing headlines and opening up to provide more details once tapped.

The Views News also includes Felicity, a smart assistant that can be used to search for news on individuals, places, and organizations, by coming through over 100 news sources.

Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 11.0 or later.

Instapaper

Instapaper has relaunched its Premium subscription service, following its departure from Pinterest. For $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year, users can perform full text search, make unlimited notes, and use the text-to-speech playlists on mobile devices, as well as removing ads on the website, speed reading functionality, and the ability to send articles to the Amazon Kindle reader.

The free version of the app will still be available to download and use without paying the subscription, but the extra features will not be available.

Instapaper has also opened itself back up to users in the European Union. The app withdrew from the continent from the end of May due to the new GDPR legislation, but kept the service alive for the rest of the world. As an apology, Instapaper is providing access to Premium to EU users for six months.

Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.

Gmail

Google has quietly issued an update to the Gmail app for iOS that allows users to disable the conversational view, where emails are grouped together to show the conversational thread. Rolling out to all users slowly, the option can be turned off in their inbox, instead allowing only individual emails to be displayed.

Currently, it can be disabled through the browser, by toggling "Conversation View" in the Settings menu, but it is now possible to do so via the app.

To do so in the iOS app: open the app, tap the Menu lines in the top left, then Settings. Tap the account address, then tap Conversation View to enable or disable it.

Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS V10.0 or later.

Newton Mail

Newton Mail is closing its doors on September 25, with the third-party email app closing for all users. The subscription-based premium app cites the small market for such apps to be too small, and the stiff competition from free apps from Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

"We put up a hard and honest fight, but it was not enough to overcome the bundling and platform default advantages enjoyed by the large tech companies," said founder and CEO Rohit Nadhani.

New sign-ups are now disabled, while monthly subscriptions are also no longer being renewed. The company is also offering a pro-rata refund for annual subscriptions, with instructions on how to claim expected to be published no later than September 18.

PGA Championship 2018

Are you a fan of golf? It is likely that you already know the 100th PGA Championship is underway this weekend, and that means you should get hold of the official PGA Championship 2018 app.

Updated for this year, the app provides live video of marquee groups and other featured coverage, a live leaderboard, exclusive videos and photographs from the championship, alerts, and other daily coverage from the event.

Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 10.0 or later.

Fortnite

Players of the wildly popular multiplayer FPS game now have the ability to use motion controls to aim at their opponents. The control, which can be enabled in the settings menu, gives users an alternative to dragging the screen around to aim, while also freeing up their thumb for other actions.

The fire controls are also refined, with the ability to set a mix of auto fire, tap-to-shoot, and a dedicated fire button, depending on the user's ability and preferences.

Epic has also added new items, including compact SMGs, double barrel shotguns, and some "old favorite" weapons and other objects.

Get it for iOS: Free. Requires iOS 11 or later.