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Apple Music guided tour series goes live prior to initial wave of free trial expirations

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated June 12, 2018

Just as the initial batch of Apple Music free trials are set to expire, Apple has posted over a half-dozen new guided tour videos on its YouTube channel. The aim of the video series is clear—to help new and existing users understand how Apple Music works.

Although over 11 million users have signed up for the free trial, the general consensus seems to be that Apple Music is more difficult to use than necessary. Apple faces stiff competition, primarily from the likes of Spotify, who's service is fairly straightforward and easy to use.

On the eve of the first wave of free trial expirations, it's a critical time for Apple Music. After giving users three months to test out its service, Apple must convince its trial user base that its monthly subscription service is worth paying for. The new guided tours are aiming to clear up misconceptions, answer questions, and serve as virtual how tos.

You can finally send messages completely hands free with watchOS 2

Sébastien Page ∙ September 28, 2015

A new feature of watchOS 2 finally allows users to send messages completely hands free, and even though there is a catch, it's a much welcome improvement to communicate via text message without having to physically touch the device.

The catch is that this new feature only applies to messages you create from the Home or Watchface screen using Siri. It does not work for replies to messages you receive, and doesn't work if you go straight to the Messages app and tap Reply. Still, if used right, it can make the process of sending messages completely frictionless.

MAME emulator shown running on an Apple TV dev kit

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

The new Apple TV, which still lacks an official launch date, but is scheduled to touch down sometime in late October, is looking like quite the winner. Not only do the apps look great, but the Siri remote looks lightyears better than its predecessor. Even more exciting, for me however, is the prospect of running old school games by way of emulators.

While it's doubtful that we'll ever see emulators allowed in the App Store, users can now take it upon themselves to side load apps using Xcode 7. With this in mind, several developers have taken the initiative to create Apple TV emulators. One of the latest emulators to be shown off is a MAME emulator by developer Kevin Smith.

MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and as its name states, it allows gamers to emulate games from a variety of arcade hardware. As first spotted by MacRumors' Juli Clover, Smith has posted a video of the his MAME emulator running on an Apple TV dev kit.

Review: Password Chef—enjoy untethered password entry with recipes

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 17, 2019

The App Store offers several high-quality apps that help you create strong passwords for various services, manage your passwords and synchronize them between devices with ease, AgileBits' freemium 1Password being perhaps the most popular one.

But there's now a brand new password manager on the block which takes a clever approach to securing all your online accounts with strong passwords but without having to actually remember them.

How about re-creating passwords from recipes?

Welcome to Naranja Studio's Password Chef, a novel $2.99 app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad which takes advantage of unique recipes to basically turn any site name into an easy-to-recall password, canceling the need for additional software or devices.

How to zoom in and out of your iPhone 6s screen with 3D Touch

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

We have been covering various 3D Touch features extensively here on iDownloadBlog and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

In addition to using your iPhone 6s keyboard in trackpad mode, adjusting the sensitivity of 3D Touch and turning the feature on and off, iOS 9 also provides a way for iPhone 6s owners to use its built-in zooming capability in conjunction with 3D Touch, based on the amount of force exerted on an on-screen controller.

They're calling it Peek Zoom and once activated lets you invoke iOS's standard Zoom feature through 3D Touch rather than requiring you to double-tap with three fingers.

Why 4K video matters on the iPhone 6s

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Why would Apple enable 4K video capture on a phone that can't actually display 4K content in full resolution on screen? The reasons are multifaceted, but one obvious reason is that it allows users to zoom in on video while still maintaining crisp resolution.

Coincidently, iOS 9 now supports pinch to zoom and double-tap to zoom on videos in the Photos app. This makes it possible to zoom in to a specific portion of the video without necessarily sacrificing the amount of resolution needed to look great on most of today's displays. Zooming also allows for creative and flexible video editing solutions while working in apps like iMovie, which supports 4K editing. To make a long story short: it's all about the zoom.

Rumor: iPhone 7 will be water and dust-proof and ditch a metallic casing altogether

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

According to MacOtakara, a fairly accurate Japanese blog, the next iPhone could have waterproof and dust-proof features as Apple is apparently producing prototype 'iPhone 7' units that appear to be way more ruggedized than current models are.

In addition, the site claims that next year's iPhone will feature a new exterior design (we knew that, since 2016 won't be an S-upgrade year) and feature a newly designed non-metal chassis, which does sound interesting.

Some iPhone 6s users report poor low-light camera performance with Live Photos enabled

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

Some iPhone 6s owners took to Reddit to say that using Live Photos degrades low-light photography performance on their iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. We have yet to confirm their claims independently but it would seem that the issue stems from how taking Live Photos works.

When you enable Live Photos in the Camera app, your iPhone 6s records 1.5 seconds of video before and after the still photo is snapped, allowing you to see small bursts of motion and sound.

Here's why using Live Photos might degrade your camera's performance in low-light conditions.

If iOS 9 is gobbling up all your mobile data, you should turn Wi-Fi Assist off

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

iOS 9 includes a new feature designed to optimize network performance by automatically switching to a mobile data network if a poor Wi-Fi signal is detected or Wi-Fi responds painfully too slow. It's called Wi-Fi Assist and comes enabled by default on iPhones and cellular iPads running iOS 9 or iOS 9.0.1.

As first noted by Quartz, some iPhone owners with poor Wi-Fi reception are seeing dramatic increases in their mobile data usage after updating to iOS 9.

For example, some folks are reporting a jump from one to as much as seven gigabytes since updating to iOS 9. To avoid unwanted overage fees on your wireless bill, disable Wi-Fi Assist with just a few taps, here's how.

iPhone 6s may suffer from iOS 9 bug affecting some apps which tap into compass and gyroscope data

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

Apple's new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus seem to be affected by a potential software bug present in iOS 9.0 and iOS 9.0.1 that appears to affect some, but not all apps which rely on data collected from the handset's compass and gyroscope sensors.

As first reported by AppleInsider, developer Fifth Star Labs has confirmed that reported issues with the Compass feature in its Sky Guide stargazing app are indeed limited to the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and do not extend to older hardware.

Introducing Switch, a button that turns on Netflix, dims the lights and puts your phone in DND mode

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

In a somewhat amusing move, Netflix at the 2015 World Maker Faire show announced something called the Netflix Switch.

What's that, I hear you ask. It's basically an Internet-connected DIY physical button that turns on Netflix, dims the lights and puts your phone in Do Not Disturb mode to get you ready for a Netflix marathon with just one press.

Apple announces 13M iPhone 6s sales, expansion to 40 new countries beginning October 9

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 28, 2015

Apple on Monday announced record iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus sales of 13 million units this weekend, beating last year's opening-weekend sales of more than ten million units.

In addition, the Cupertino firm has said the new phones will be available in more than 40 additional countries beginning Friday, October 9 including Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan.

The new iPhones will be available in a total of over 130 countries by the end of the year, said the firm.