A significant number of new Nike Apple Watch band colors are now available for purchase from Nike’s Website, signifying an expansion of the Apple/Nike partnership.
The four new colors are intended to match that of Nike's Air VaporMax Flyknit 'Day to Night' shoe lineup, giving users a way to match their tech to their shoes in style.
Learn how to prevent the Mac's Mail app from downloading all email attachments locally and taking up a lot of unnecessary space.
Apple today announced a significant update for its iPad app Swift Playgrounds. The app, which is geared towards teaching beginners to code in a fun and interactive environment, will soon work with robots, drones and musical instruments.
Scheduled to be released next week, Swift Playgrounds version 1.5 will support programming a slew of new devices including the Sphero SPRK+ ball, UBTECH Jumu Robot MeeBot Kit, Wonder Workshop's Dash, Parrot drones and LEGO Mindstorms.
“More than 1 million kids and adults from around the world are already using Swift Playgrounds to learn the fundamentals of coding with Swift in a fun and interactive way,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Now they can instantly see the code they create and directly control their favorite robots, drones and instruments through Swift Playgrounds. It’s an incredibly exciting and powerful way to learn.”
“Today we’re combining efforts with Apple to provide even more students around the world with the opportunity to learn how to code,” said Esben Stærk Jørgensen, president, LEGO Education. “We’re pairing the familiar LEGO bricks and our hands-on approach to playful learning found in LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 with Swift Playgrounds' powerful learning platform so now anyone can program their LEGO MINDSTORMS creation with real Swift code.”
Swift Playgrounds 1.5 will be a free update for the app and will be released June 5.
Source: Apple
Microsoft on Thursday unveiled a major redesign for its Skype video conferencing app. Rebuilt from the ground up, the company says the new app vastly improves the ways you can connect with your favorite people, putting chat front and center.
Early reactions to the new design have pointed out that the interface has kind of a Snapchat vibe. Group chats are more lively, expressive and personalized, and there's a new Stories-like Highlights section that allows you to share a photo or video.
Highlights can be decorated with emojis and text, and they remain available for a full week instead of the usual 24 hours. They can be viewed by anyone who follows you on Skype, or you can choose to send your Highlights to a specific group or user.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU9w41tPXyc
Other new features include Facebook-like reactions to Highlights and chats, in-video chat overlays for emojis, text, stickers and photos, and the addition of smart assistant Cortana. Skype is also adding bots from Bing, Expedia, YouTube and others.
The Skype update hits Android first, later today, iOS within the next few weeks, and Mac and Windows devices within the next few months.
Source: Skype
Apple is expected to up its LTE chip orders from Intel as it looks to distance itself from Qualcomm, reports DigiTimes. Despite inferior performance, Intel has gone from supplying around 30% of iPhone 7 baseband chips in 2016 to 50% in 2017. And experts say it could be supplying over 70% of the baseband products for iPhones by 2018.
Earlier this year, Apple filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in a California district court for charging unfair prices to license its tech. Qualcomm has since countersued Apple, and withheld around $1 billion in royalty rebates from the iPhone-maker as retaliation for its participation in a Korean Fair Trade Commission investigation.
Given the nature of this feud, don't be surprised to see Apple work to dramatically reduce its reliance on Qualcomm over the next several months. The company recently hired Esin Terzioglu, Qualcomm's VP of Engineering, to head up a new chip project. It's believed they are developing their own, in-house baseband modems.
Source: DigiTimes
Plex on Thursday announced that they're rolling out support for live TV to their various Plex apps. They're starting with Android TV and iOS, and say updates for other platforms like tvOS will follow suit.
The live TV feature is built right into the Media Server, so you'll be able to stream everything from game shows to sporting events in real time, from pretty much anywhere in the world.
The app is also getting other improvements: in-app DVR management, meaning you can now browse the program guide and manage recordings directly from within the app, and expanded tuner support. Last September Plex announced support for the HDHomeRun tuner line, and now it's opening up to tuners from Hauppauge, AVerMedia and many more.
Plex Live TV and DVR are available immediately for Plex Pass users only. The service costs $5 per month, $40 per year, or $120 for life (20% off for a limited time). It's a bit pricey, but it's definitely worth looking into if you're thinking about cutting the cord.
Source: Plex
Twelve South just launched a new Space Gray color option for its popular BookArc stand for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro on Thursday.
It's intended to look great with the OEM Space Gray color Apple offers for its MacBook with Retina display and 2016 MacBook Pro (with or without the Touch Bar), and it joins the classic silver finish, made to match the standard aluminum finish of the previous generation MacBook Pro, along with other notebooks in Apple's lineup.
Apple announced Thursday morning that developers all over the world for its platform have generated over $70 billion in total revenue, a new record since the launch of the App Store almost nine years ago in 2008.
The number 70 appears to be Apple’s lucky number this year, as app downloads have also soared 70% in the last 12 months, illustrating interest in numerous new app titles that took the App Store by storm.
Cellular data is one of those things we seem to always use regularly, but fail to keep track of as efficiently as we could. This becomes a problem when you swear your data provider is over-charging you for your data usage.
A new free jailbreak tweak called DetailedCellularUsage by TheComputerWhisperer helps reveal some of the gray areas where iOS uses your cellular data and doesn’t report it in the Settings app.
Apple has started manufacturing its Siri speaker ahead of the WWDC keynote next week.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has learned from people familiar with the matter that the new smart home appliance won't be ready to ship until later in the year. However, Apple could debut the gadget during next Monday's keynote presentation at WWDC.
People who have seen it told Bloomberg that the product won't have a touchscreen, unlike what KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo speculated.
Taipei-based AirPods manufacturer Inventec has been tapped as the sole manufacturer of the Siri speaker. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple employees have been secretly testing the device in their homes for several months.
The forthcoming Siri gadget reached an advanced prototype stage late last year.
Apple is reportedly seeking to differentiate the Siri speaker from Amazon Echo and Google Home by offering virtual surround sound technology, Apple Music and other integrations.
The Siri speaker would also act as a HomeKit hub to let users remotely control smart home appliances such as lights, door locks and window blinds, a feature that currently requires either a fourth-generation Apple TV or an iPad.
Here's an excerpt form the article:
Along with generating virtual surround sound, the speakers being tested are louder and reproduce sound more crisply than rival offerings, sources in the know said.
Apple has also considered including sensors that measure a room’s acoustics and automatically adjust audio levels during use, one of the people said.
“This will be a platform for developing Apple’s services,” says Gene Munster of Loup Ventures.
Gurman speculated the Siri device could be tucked into Apple’s $11 billion “Other Products” category along with other devices like Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods and Beats accessories.
Apple declined to comment.
Siri speaker mockup via iFunnyVlogger on Twitter.
Chameleon Run, the popular auto runner by developer Noodlecake Studios, is now available at no charge for the next two weeks but only through the official Apple Store app.
On App Store, the game currently sells for $0.99.
If you haven't had a chance to grab Chameleon Run back in February when Apple featured it on App Store as part of its weekly Free App of the Week promotion, download the official Apple Store app now to claim your free copy of this awesome platformer with a colorful twist.
This promotion will expire on June 15, 2017.
Featuring smooth execution, this fast-paced auto runner requires you to switch your character's color to match the ground as you run and jump from platform to platform.
The game's expertly crafted levels “will have you running back for more”.
Chameleon Run features pixel-perfect physics, simple two-button controls, fun jumping mechanics with special moves (i.e. “double jump”, “head jump” and so forth), non-linear levels with three special objectives in each one and other perks.
It plays especially well on the fourth-generation Apple TV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrIAedC-wJY
To claim your free copy of Chameleon Run, first download the official Apple Store app.
Next, launch the Apple Store app and tap the Discover tab at the bottom. Scroll halfway down until you spot the Chameleon Run offer, then tap “Download now for free”.
You should see an overlay offering basic information about the game.
Tap the blue Download Now For Free button at the bottom to continue.
You'll be asked if you'd like to finish redeeming your gift in App Store. Hit Continue to bring up the game's App Store page, then hit Redeem to claim your free copy of Chameleon Run. Once you've successfully redeemed the promo code, hit Done.
The game should begin downloading to your device. Chameleon Run supports iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV. As always, you can use the App Store's Purchased section to re-download the game to your Apple TV and other iOS devices using the same Apple ID.
Keep in mind that you must use the Apple Store app in order to grab this freebie. On App Store, Chameleon Run is currently 99 cents after a fifty percent discount, valid for one week only.
Smart speakers such as Amazon's Echo, Google's Home (and, soon, Apple's alleged standalone Siri device) allow users to get answers in the more comfortable settings of their homes.
As these things are always listening, there's no need to press a button or pull a phone out of your pocket. But what exactly are people using Amazon Echo and other smart speakers for?
A ComScore study, charted by Statista, says the most common use case is asking basic questions with 60 percent of US smart speaker owners using their device for simple requests, followed by weather queries (57 percent), playing music (54 percent), setting timers/alarms (41 percent), creating reminders/to-dos (39 percent) and more.
In what's bound to be disappointing to Amazon, the study found that very few users of smart speakers use them to order goods or services online, with just 8 percent of US smart speaker owners using their device to order food/services and 11 percent ordering products online.
According to a May research conducted by digital agency Stone Temple, providing answers to basic questions actually is not Alexa’s strong suit.
Amazon's digital assistant powering the Echo family of devices was able to answer just 20.7 percent of the 5,000 questions asked as part of the experiment.
Siri performed similar to Alexa.
Amazon said today that Echo owners and iOS customers who use the mobile Alexa app or the Amazon shopping app can now enable integration with iCloud Calendar.
Speaking of which, the comScore study found that less than one-third of smart speaker owners in the US (27 percent) use their device to find what's on their calendar for the day or add new appointments to the calendar hands-free.