Year: 2016

Google’s new video calling app Duo hits App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 16, 2016

Duo, a video calling app announced at Google I/O 2016, released today in the App Store as a free download. A one-to-one video calling app “for everyone,” Duo allows iPhone users to call their Android-toting friends, and vice versa. After signing up with your mobile phone number, you can place video calls to contacts who also have Duo installed on their device. According to Google, Duo for Android and iOS began rolling out today and will be live worldwide in the next few days.

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Let’s Talk iOS 148: Size matters

Sébastien Page ∙ August 16, 2016

Now at the peak of rumors season, Cody and Sebastien go back and discuss what we might very well see in the new MacBook Pro, the new iPhone, as well as the new Apple Watch. This is not your typical round up of rumors, but rather a chat about some features that are very likely to make the cut in these new devices.

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Envoy lets you remove the unwanted sections from Facebook Messenger

Anthony Bouchard ∙ August 16, 2016

It seems to be a mutual interest of a great number of Facebook Messenger users to remove those unwanted "Favorites" and "Active Now" sections from the Facebook Messenger app.

Although we covered a tutorial in the past on how to remove these features manually for a temporary period of time, they would always come back after a few days or weeks. A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed Envoy aims to change that.

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Former Apple Watch engineer talks working with Jony Ive’s design team, secrecy, and more

Cody Lee ∙ August 15, 2016

Former Apple engineer Bob Messerschmidt recently sat down with Fast Company for a wide-ranging interview. Messerschmidt joined the iPhone maker in 2010, when it purchased his startup, and led the team that designed the Apple Watch's heart rate sensor.

As you can imagine, the interview is pretty interesting. Messerschmidt talks about everything from working with Jony Ive's vaunted design team, to how secrecy is embedded in Apple's culture. We've highlighted some of our favorite excerpts from the article below.

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Microsoft’s mobile Office apps pick up support for drawing with a finger/stylus on iPhone

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

Microsoft today issued updates to its mobile Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps on the App Store, adding support for drawing with your finger on the iPhone. Back in January 2016, the Windows maker brought its inking tools to the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil support. With the latest update, iPhone owners can take advantage of the Draw tab to draw, highlight and annotate documents with their finger or a stylus.

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Tim Cook just admitted that Apple’s doing “a lot of things” on augmented reality

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 20, 2016

“I think augmented reality is extremely interesting and sort of a core technology,” Tim Cook told The Washington Post in an interview published Sunday. “So, yes, it's something we're doing a lot of things on behind that curtain we talked about.”

This, boys and girls, right there is Apple's first public admission that not only has it been dipping its toes in augmented-reality technology, but possibly creating its next major computing platform.

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KGI: 10.5″ model joining iPad Pro lineup in 2017, radically overhauled AMOLED iPad in 2018

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo—who has a decent, but not stellar track record in predicting future Apple products—just issued a peculiar note to clients regarding the future of Apple's iPad lineup.

In the note, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, the well-connected analyst does not expect any major refreshes to iPads in this year.

But for 2017, the analyst is calling for three new models: a brand new 10.5-inch iPad Pro size joining a second-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro and a low-cost 9.7-inch iPad. These devices are predicted to be followed by a “revolutionary” iPad model in 2018 that should bring “radical changes” in form factor design and user behavior while adopting flexible AMOLED panels, which so-called Tenth Anniversary iPhone is expected to gain in 2017.

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Here are the best iPhone 7 Space Black images yet

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

Dummies produced by third parties previously hinted at what an Apple Watch Space Black-like colorway reportedly in tow for the next iPhone might look like. Such photos are as fine as plasticky dummies go, but there's nothing quite like seeing the real aluminum unibody construction with Apple fit and finish.

Leaked out of China and discovered by Dutch blog TechTastic.nl, the latest batch of photographs presumably taken inside a Foxconn factory give us our best look yet at the rumored Space Black finish for the iPhone 7.

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Google Photos amps up advertising with funny new ad focused on automatic backup feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

Like many photo-syncing apps, Google's Photos online service and the mobile app provide an optional feature that automatically backs up to the cloud every image and video in a user's photo library. Apple, too, offers such a feature with iCloud Photo Library but its free five-gigabyte iCloud storage tier is no match for Google Photos unlimited cloud storage for your (recompressed) images (up to 16MP) and videos (up to 1080p). To drive that point home, they've put together an amusing new ad solely focused on that feature.

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