New in iOS 9: 30 second auto-lock

By now, it's apparent that the new iPhone 6s features a somewhat smaller battery to accommodate the device's internal changes. By the sheer nature of physics, battery life will inevitably suffer. Fortunately, iOS 9 is being used to make up for the loss. It employs several changes in the code to increase battery life, and even includes a new Low Power Mode to throttle down the CPU and get rid of battery-draining visual effects.

But there's another change that's available to users to help increase battery life. Inside iOS 9's Auto-Lock preference panel, you'll find a new 30 second auto-lock option—a setting that could potentially reduce battery usage even more.

The 30 best watchOS 2 features [Video]

After a unscheduled delay, watchOS 2 was released on Monday for the Apple Watch. As we've noted in the past, watchOS 2 is a significant upgrade over the first version. It brings with it several big name features, including third-party complications, native apps, Nightstand mode, and a handful of all new watch faces.

No, watchOS 2 isn't as big as last week's release of iOS 9 in terms of features, but if you're an Apple Watch owner, it's something that you'll definitely want to update to without delay. Have a look at our video walkthrough to see many of the new features in action

How to import your old Health and Activity data into your new iPhone

Moving over your existing Health and Activity data from your old iPhone to a new one can be a tricky business unless you know exactly what you're doing. The problem stems from the fact that Health and Activity data is not stored in regular iTunes backups, which are unencrypted by default, unless you remember to turn on encryption manually. It's a security precaution to prevent malicious users with access to your computer to mine your sensitive medical data from unencrypted iTunes backups.

The approach also poses a major challenge to folks who log their fitness and health data in Apple's Health and Activity apps. Surely you don't want to start from scratch and lose all the Health and Activity data that you'e amassed in the past year or so.

As it turns out, there is a way—actually, two ways—to preserve your complete Health and Activity data logs when you switch to a new iPhone.

Pebble debuts ultra-thin Round smartwatch

Pebble on Wednesday announced a new addition to its smartwatch lineup called the Pebble Time Round. As the name suggests, the device sports a round face, and the company is billing it as "the world's lightest and thinnest smartwatch."

At 7.5mm thin, with a weight of just 28 grams, this may very well be true, but the size reduction comes at a steep cost: battery life. While Pebble watches are typically known for near-week-long battery life, the Round only lasts about 2 days.

Apple releases iOS 9.0.1 containing various bug fixes for Safari, Setup Assistant, alarms, and more

A week after Apple pushed iOS 9 to the public, it has followed up with the release of iOS 9.0.1. As you may have guessed by the version number, iOS 9.0.1 is a bug fix update. All users running iOS 9 should therefore update to iOS 9.0.1 for increased system stability.

Perhaps most notably, we saw several users in our comments talk about failed upgrades, where iOS would freeze when using the Slide to Upgrade feature in the Setup Assistant. That issue should now be solved thanks to iOS 9.0.1.

Apple seeds iOS 9.1 beta 2 to developers

Apple on Wednesday seeded the second beta version of iOS 9.1 to developers. The software is available to registered developers either over-the-air, for those running the first iOS 9.1 beta, or via Apple’s developer website.

Introduced earlier this month, iOS 9.1 will bring about new features for the just-announced iPad Pro, such as support for new accessories. The update also includes support for Unicode 8, which will add several new emoji.

Twitterrific update with iOS 9 and iPad multitasking support, new features and improvements

Twitterrific 5, The Iconfactory's freemium Twitter client for iOS and OS X platforms, has received its iOS 9-focused update this morning.

The app is now fully optimized for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 9 and supports new Slide Over and Split View multitasking modes on compatible iPads. If you own an iPad Air 2 or an iPad mini 4, you can now run Twitterrific and another app side-by-side in iOS 9's new Split View mode.

This is a great feature as you can now pin Twitterrific on the right and configure it to use Safari as your browser instead of in-app. In addition to iOS 9-specific support, this edition of Twitterrific includes other changes and improvements listed further below.

Watch the first full-length trailer for the official Angry Birds movie

Angry Birds is coming to the silver screen next summer and now Sony Pictures and Rovio have published the first full-length teaser trailer for The Angry Birds Movie, the official 3D animated movie based on the famous bird-flinging franchise.

Starring Jason Sudeikis as Red, Josh Gad as Chuck, Danny McBride as Bomb and Bill Hader as the villainous pig Leonard, the movie promises to reveal why the famous birds are so angry in the first place.

Spark email app gains iOS 9 support, default From: account, customizable quick replies and more

Spark, Readdle's excellent iPhone app for Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud and other email services, is now compatible with iOS 9 features, including 3D Touch on new iPhones.

Spark 1.2 for iPhone also includes the ability to select any email account or alias as default FROM: address for new emails. The app now lets you customize canned replies to your liking and includes a host of other improvements.

Pixelmator gains 8K resolution and iOS 9 support, including iPad multitasking features

Pixelmator, the tremendously popular Photoshop replacement available for both iOS and OS X platforms, today gained an update which adds several new features on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices.

For starters, Pixelmator 2.1 for iOS is now fully compatible with iOS 9 (in fact, it's now an iOS 9-only app) and supports Slide Over and Split View iPad multitasking modes.

With Split View on compatible iPads, customers can use Pixelmator and any other app at the same time. More importantly, the app now opening and editing images in 8K resolution.

Fantastical 2 for OS X gains El Capitan support with split-screen multitasking and more

Developer Flexibits today rolled out an update to Fantastical for Mac, its reminder and calendar replacement available on both iOS and OS X.

Fantastical 2.1, the first major update to the Mac edition, features full support for Macs running OS X El Capitan ahead of its release next week, including support for El Capitan's split-screen multitasking.

A host of other changes and improvements have found their way into this release of Fantastical, such as swiping to delete events on El Capitan systems.

People on Yosemite and earlier versions can now scroll to a specific day or week in the Week and Month views with a trackpad and organize Reminders by list, but that's just tip of the iceberg.

Apple to offer local Xcode downloads in China, posts official XcodeGhost malware FAQ

The XcodeGhost malware couldn't have arrived at worst time for Apple as the company prepares to launch its iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus tomorrow. The company has already removed the App Store apps infected by the malware, which has been found to inject its payload into apps compiled with compromised copies of Xcode that were distributed on non-Apple servers in China.

Wednesday, the Cupertino firm has confirmed plans to mitigate the threat by hosting local Xcode downloads within China. In addition, Apple has posted an XcodeGhost FAQ webpage on its Chinese website detailing the XcodeGhost malware and how customers might be affected by it.