Apple is losing long-time veteran and VP of Product Design Steve Zadesky, reports The Wall Street Journal. Zadesky has been with the company for 16 years, where he worked on the iPhone and iPod, and most recently spearheaded its ambitious automobile efforts.
Apple is planning to announce new Apple Watch models in March, reports 9to5Mac. But the refresh will be in line with what we saw in September of last year, in that we may see new bands made out of new materials, and new brand partnerships, but no new hardware.
Instead, the outlet claims Apple is going to wait until September to show off its second-generation Watch. This contradicts recent rumors that the new wearable is going to be ready for production this month, but it does lines up with this last week report from TechCrunch.
Apple is preparing to launch a new 4-inch iPhone this spring, reports 9to5Mac. The oft-accurate Mark Gurman claims he has it on good authority that the device, codenamed N69, will publicly be called the "iPhone 5se," and should begin shipping by March or April.
Gurman says the device that made headlines yesterday, which looked identical in design to Apple's current smartphones, is a fake, and the real 4-inch iPhone looks a lot like the iPhone 5s. He also notes that contrary to recent rumors, the handset has a headphone jack.
In August of last year, Catalyst unveiled the first (to my knowledge) fully waterproof case for the Apple Watch. Where other cases merely provide drop protection or, at most, water resistance, the Catalyst Case is fully IP-68 spec waterproof for up to 5 meters.
Given Catalyst’s reputation for making well-designed products, I jumped at the chance to give their Apple Watch case a try. I’ve been using it every day on my own sport model Watch for the past several weeks, and I’m finally prepared to share my thoughts.
Apple has hired Doug Bowman, one of the top US researches in virtual reality, reports the Financial Times. Mr. Bowman recently joined the Cupertino firm after taking a brief sabbatical from his position as computer science professor at Virginia Tech. He also served as the director of the university's human-computer interaction centre.
According to the FT, Bowman's experience spans both fully-immersive VR and augmented reality, and he is well respected by his peers. He has received several industry awards and other recognitions for his work, including a $100,000 grant from Microsoft for a HoloLens study, and he's consulted for Walt Disney's Imagineering unit.
Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to remain the default search engine on iOS, reports Bloomberg. The staggering number comes directly from a transcript of court proceedings in Oracle's ongoing copyright lawsuit against Google, which stated that the search giant has an agreement with Apple that gives it a percentage of search revenue generated through iPhones and iPads.
Apple on Thursday shared a new video advertisement for the Apple TV on its YouTube page. Aptly named "The Future of TV is Apps," the spot highlights a number of popular games and applications that are available through the tvOS App Store.
Titles mentioned include WatchESPN, Asphalt 8, and HBO Now, and instead of showing them in action in a normal Apple TV interface, the ad illustrates them using 3D animations. It's a bit hard to explain, so you should probably just watch it.
Facebook on Thursday began rolling out new 3D Touch features to iPhone 6s users via its mobile app. The Verge reports that the additions include the ability to peek and pop things like web links, profiles, pages, groups, events and photos.
The Facebook app has supported 3D Touch since October, but until now it has mostly been about the Quick Actions—the shortcut menu for Home screen icons. Facebook has added a new one of these as well, which takes you to your Timeline.
Folks in the market for a good productivity app will want to head over to the App Store as soon as possible. Apple kicked off a new "Get Productive" promotion on Thursday that takes 50% off some of the most popular titles in the category.
Among the apps included in the sale are Duet Display, which allows you to use an iPhone or iPad as an extra display, the highly respected PCalc calculator, Readdle's PDF Expert 5, and the celebrated task, reminder and to-do list app Clear.
Apple on Thursday updated its App of the Week promotion in iTunes, and this week's selection is MarcoPolo Ocean. This means that the game, which is highly rated in the kids-education-puzzler category, is going to be free from now through next Thursday—a handsome savings of $3.
The concept of MarcoPolo Ocean is pretty simple. It's a digital sandbox of sorts, where kids are encouraged to do things like explore the deep sea, build a coral reef, and much more. Plus, its animations and playful narration help reinforce vocabulary, ocean concepts and other attributes.
Key Apple TV designer Ben Keighran is leaving the company, reports Recode. The outlet spoke to Keighran, who says he's making his exit soon, and he'd eventually like to start something new. “I want to create not just a killer product, but my own iconic company.”
Mr. Keighran came to Apple in 2012 as part of its Chomp acquisition—a search startup he cofounded. During his three years in Cupertino, he helped oversee the look and feel of the software on the fourth generation Apple TV, which was just released in November.
In addition to iOS 9.2.1 and OS X 10.11.3, Apple also seeded an update for iMovie today. The release brings the popular movie editing software to version 10.1.1, and it includes a number of improvements and bug fixes that are sure to appease users.
Among the bugs fixed are a known issue with YouTube sharing that caused problems for users with multiple accounts, a problem that prevented white balance adjustments from being applied to clips, and one that caused incorrect display of still images.