Apple has long been praised for its efforts in device accessibility. Back in 2015, for example, they received the American Foundation for the Blind's Helen Keller Achievement Award for the VoiceOver screen reader technology. The various Accessibility features available on iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS have now earned Apple the Louis Braille Award from the Associated Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ASB).
One of the predominant selling points of Apple Watch has always been the notion of having a chummy, yet inspiring fitness pal on your wrist. Since its inception, Apple Watch’s App Store has therefore given rise to a plethora of apps, offering new ways to conduct and manage physical exercise, ranging from running to yoga companions and everything lying in between.
Focussing on one particular branch in the field of exercise - strength training from the comfort of your home or gym - we have put some time aside to cut through the clutter and size up todays’ most prominent apps in the segment. If you are currently on the lookout for a personal trainer on your wrist, here are the best exercise apps for Apple Watch you will want to consider.
The versatile media player Infuse by aTV Flash Black developer Firecore was updated this week with several new features and enhancements, including the ability to play DVD videos saved as VIDEO_TS, .dvdmedia or ISO/IMG archives.
Other new features in Infuse 5.2 for iOS and tvOS include Library and folder search, the ability to stream media from NFS-formatted network shares, sort your media by release date and more.
Google on Friday released Chrome 56 for Mac, Windows and Linux following a period of beta testing which began about a month and a half ago. In addition to various security enhancements, Chrome 56 offers nearly up to one-third faster webpage reloading times with 60 percent less validation requests. Google's desktop browser will now warn you when a website requests confidential information over an insecure connection. It also blocks Flash content, supports Web Bluetooth API and more. Chrome 56 for iOS should follow soon.
Apple has officially joined the non-profit organization Partnership on AI as a founding member alongside other technology giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft. Apple has been involved and collaborating with the Partnership on AI since before it was first announced last year and is “thrilled” to formalize its membership, the organization said Friday.
According to Bloomberg, joining the non-profit is the latest sign that Apple is opening up more and becoming less secretive when it comes to artificial intelligence.
HomeKit, Apple's software framework for communicating with and controlling connected accessories in a user's home, currently works with about a hundred certified devices, Reuters said Friday.
By contrast, there are currently about 250 devices that are certified to work with Alexa, thanks to Amazon's open-systems approach and even financial incentives for some partners.
But HomeKit, which debuted alongside iOS 8 in September 2014, now has an agile competitor in Amazon's Alexa voice-controlled digital assistant which can also control smart accessories in the home with a few spoken words. The Reuters report outlines some of the requirements Apple imposes on device makers who wish to become HomeKit-certified.
Apple today put HBO GO on the list of video apps supported in its new TV app via the Single-sign on feature that recently launched in iOS 10 and tvOS 10.
This lets HBO GO users sign in with their cable or satellite credentials on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple TV to enjoy instant access to HBO shows, not only in Apple's own TV app but in other supported video apps that their pay TV subscription includes.
Yesterday's beta release of what would become the fourth major software update to macOS Sierra doesn't just bring iOS's Night Shift mode to your Mac. Aside from that feature and things like an updated PDF API, expanded Dictation support or the ability for Siri to look up cricket scores and rosters, macOS Sierra 10.12.4 includes better handling of Windows executable files in the Finder.
As discovered by Microsoft's Mac product designer Vaclav Vancura, rather than use a generic icon to represent Windows executables like before, macOS Sierra 10.12.4 now actually parses .EXE files for native Windows resources such as icons.
Another hidden keyboard has been uncovered in iOS, according to developer Steve Troughton-Smith who last night tweeted about his discovery of a one-handed floating iPad keyboard in iOS 10.3 beta code.
While not exposed to users just yet, Steve was able to activate this new keyboard by hacking Apple's iOS Simulator app that developers use to test work-in-progress code on their Mac.
Following yesterday's release of developer-only previews of the upcoming iOS 10.3 and macOS Sierra 10.12.4 software updates, Apple today made the new betas available to public beta testers who are enrolled in Apple Beta Software Program.
iOS 10.3 public beta can be installed via the Software Update mechanism on iOS devices with an appropriate configuration profile installed. macOS Sierra 10.12.4 public beta can be downloaded on your Mac through Mac App Store's Updates tab.
Tucked away amid a flurry of new reports covering upcoming new features in Apple's operating system updates, like Theater Mode on Apple Watch and Siri in watch apps, Night Shift on Mac and Find My AirPods on iPhone, Apple yesterday quietly announced that developers will soon be allowed to change their app’s Home screen icon programmatically, whenever they like.
In other words, an update is no longer required to push out the new icon artwork.
The seemingly unimportant change opens up a world of new possibilities for interactions with your favorite apps that simply were not possible before.
In addition to updating the Popular Times feature in Google Maps for iPhone and iPad with real-time data, the search giant also issued another noteworthy update, this one concerning its dedicated Translate app on App Store. Bumped to version 5.5, the free download can now translate photos of signs, menus and similar items from Japanese to English, and vice versa. That's because its augmented reality feature, called Word Lens, has been updated to recognize Japanese content on photos and video.