Phil Schiller: “We’re never going to get rid of app review process”

As we told you this morning, Apple announced big changes are coming to the App Store this fall in the form of some well thought out improvements to In-App Subscriptions and all-new paid ads for apps in App Store search results.

Yesterday, SVP Phil Schiller sat down for an interview with The Loop's Jim Dalrymple to discuss other changes aimed at making app discovery better. The app review process, however, won't be going away anytime soon.

Magic Leap has been awarded design patent for a Star Wars-like VR headset

Augmented reality startup Magic Leap, which created the Leap Motion Controller for the Mac, has been awarded a design patent today by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a virtual reality headset which looks like a Star Wars helmet or something straight out of the Robocop movies. According to Andy Fouché, Magic Leap's Vice President of Public Relations, the patent does not represent the finished product.

Chinese supplier claims MacBook Pro/Air refresh could happen this month

The new twelve-inch MacBook is the future of Apple's notebook lineup, but the MacBook Pro family being overdue for a refresh doesn't necessarily mean that the MacBook Air will be going away. According to the fairy reliable Japanese blog Mac Otakara this morning, citing an unnamed Chinese supplier, Apple will be announcing some updated MacBook Airs and Pros later this month, possibly at WWDC.

Voice calls come to Slack, video calling and screen sharing in the works

Slack, a cloud-based, cross-platform team collaboration service, has rolled out support for voice calling, the team announced yesterday. With it, team members can call one another without leaving Slack, and calls even have an emoji response feature.

Calls are currently voice-only, but Slack says that features like video calling and screen sharing will come in the future. Slack is available across iOS, OS X, the web and other platforms.

iTunes U gains new import options and other perks in latest App Store update

Apple's iTunes U application has received a refresh in the App Store, bringing out a few new features. For starters, iTunes U 3.3 for iOS now takes advantage of third-party Document Provider extensions.

This enables iPhone, iPod touch and iPad owners to easily add new materials from various cloud services for which they have an app installed on their device, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox and so forth.

Shazam brings back offline mode

Music and media identification service Shazam pushed a new update to its mobile application in the App Store which enables offline mode. The feature used to be present in Shazam from day one before it was temporarily removed in the overhauled app.

With it, you can still Shazam while offline and the app will name any songs you captured in offline mode when you're back online. Shazam is a free app. The paid $6.99 Shazam Encore app is available to those who want to get rid of ads and use advanced features.

Got files that won’t delete from your Mac’s Trash? Here’s why

Sometimes when emptying the Trash on your Mac, you may get error messages that tell you files you're trying to delete are in use. When you're looking to delete everything that's in your Trash to free up some storage space, error messages are going to be the last thing you want to see.

In this piece, we'll talk about why you're getting these messages and how to get your Mac to free up the file so you can delete it safely.

MCX announces it’s ending CurrentC beta test, postponing further releases

MCX (the Merchant Consortium Exchange) has notified testers that it will be ending its CurrentC beta test soon. The Consumerist on Tuesday shared an email sent by the company, telling users that it's going to shut down the mobile payment service on June 28.

On that day, all active accounts will be disabled and beta testers will not be able to access their accounts through the CurrentC app. Worse than that, the email also says that MCX is postponing further releases of CurrentC, and there are no plans for an official launch.

Apple to live stream this year’s WWDC keynote

It looks like Apple is going to once again be providing a live stream of its WWDC keynote address this year. On Tuesday the company updated its event website with a note that a stream of its keynote will go live on June 13 at 10:00 am (PST).

Users will be able to tune in on their Mac and iOS devices, via Apple's Safari web browser, and on Apple TV. Second and third generation ATVs will feature an Events channel, and fourth generation models with tvOS will get a standalone app.

Why I think Spotlight and Siri should be one

Ever since the rumors of Siri making its way to the Mac began gaining credence, I started thinking about how I would like to use the feature on OS X, and what it would mean for Siri on iOS. As I was toying around with the idea of Siri on my Mac, something became apparent very quickly: Siri and Spotlight Search have a lot in common. So much so that maybe it would make sense to merge then into one feature at some point. Let me explain.