Apple

Photos of alleged iPhone 7 Plus casing leak out of Foxconn factory

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2016

Allegedly genuine images that surfaced on Chinese forums this weekend, discovered by Dutch blog TechTastic.nl, seem to offer a closer look at an iPhone 7 Plus casing inside a Foxconn factory. Someone who appears to work on the factory floor has been photographed holding what resembles a casing for an iPhone 7 Plus in their hand, showing it from various angles. The images corroborate previous leaks and mark the first time photos of an iPhone 7 unibody chassis have leaked out of Foxconn.

Twitter said to be building Apple TV app to stream NFL games

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018

Twitter is in talks with Apple to bring its Twitter app to Apple TV, reports The New York Times. In a wide-ranging article on Twitter's live-streaming ambitions, the outlet said the social network could use the app to stream several NFL games this season.

For those that missed it, earlier this year Twitter beat out Facebook and other tech giants to win the rights to Thursday Night Football broadcasts. The deal is for 10 games, and the company plans to stream them all live for free (supported by ads of course).

This music video was shot on iPhone 6s in 13 countries over the course of one month

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

A troubled teen growing up in the United Kingdom, Shirazee moved to South Africa as a refugee, living there for four years and dabbling in music before signing to Island Records, represented by Universal Music in South Africa.

His debut single, “Different”, is out now on Apple Music and iTunes, with the accompanying music video shot entirely on an iPhone 6s over the course of 31 days in a total of thirteen countries, including the five he has lived in.

Apple’s presence in Seattle could increase with a big piece of office space

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 19, 2018

Following its reported $200 million acquisition of Turi, a Seattle-based machine learning and artificial intelligence startup, Apple appears to be interested in purchasing hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space in the region to accommodate up to 2,300 engineers, reports GeekWire.

New iPhone 7 dummies show what Space Black model might look like

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

With a little more than three weeks left until Apple's supposed unveiling on September 7, various iPhone 7 dummies have been cropping up everywhere. Judging by the comments, many of you are excited about a rumored Space Black (or Deep Blue?) colorway replacing the Space Gray finish in the iPhone 7 lineup.

A fresh batch of images posted yesterday to Chinese microblogging service Weibo, republished by AppleInsider, showcase an alleged 4.7-inch iPhone 7 model in Space Black, as well as two 5.5-inch models with and without a magnetic Smart Connector on their backside.

Apple TV universal search gains support for Australian ‘Stan’ streaming service

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

After adding support for searching shows from Viacom-owned Comedy Central and music networks MTV and VH1 on the fourth-generation Apple TV a month ago, Apple has recently added Australia's Stan streaming service to the list of providers that support tvOS's universal search feature, as first discovered by MacRumors. Now customers in Australia can find content on Stan by pressing the Siri button on their Siri Remote.

Leaked iPhone 7 assembly instructions reveal a second mic, haptic Home button

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

iPhone 7 dummies and alleged components that have been leaking out of Asia in the past few months have more or less consistently shown a second speaker grille to the left of the Lightning port at the bottom. Many people are convinced that the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack has created space inside the device for another speaker, indicating that the next iPhone may finally have stereo sound.

That conventional wisdom is now called into question as French blog NowhereElse.fr points us to alleged technical drawings, obtained from a Foxconn plant, suggesting that another mic, not a speaker, may be hiding behind these additional speaker holes.

Here’s why Samsung’s building curved-screen phones (it’s not about the looks or info tickers)

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

Samsung started building phones with curved screens beginning with last year's Galaxy S6, a risky move that has now paid off if Samsung's reinvigorated sales are an indication. The current Galaxy S7 has perfected that design and the fact that the latest Note 7 phablet adopts the S7's gorgeous wraparound screen signals Samsung's confidence in the new industrial design which breaks away from the flimsy plastic the firm used just two short years ago.

Apple, too, is said to be rolling out a brand new industrial design for the Tenth Anniversary iPhone in 2017, with rumors and analysts pointing to a Galaxy Edge-like wraparound AMOLED display for the device. Which begs the question, what's the reasoning behind curved-screen phones other than the looks?

Apple given go-ahead to start building its massive $1 billion data center in Ireland

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 12, 2016

Following months of back and forth between Apple and Ireland's independent planning body An Bord Pleanála, plans for a massive $1 billion data center in Galway County have been approved, reports Business Insider. “Despite opposition from a number of individuals and local businesses,” Apple's been granted the go-ahead to build the first stage of the data center on a 197-hectare site.

The facility will support Apple’s online services for customers in Europe, including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri.

iOS 10 Preview: Phone gains spam alerts, VoIP integration, transcribed voicemails & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 11, 2016

iOS 10 turns the iPhone's boring Phone app into a software platform in its own right. Developers are now permitted to add previously unheard-of capabilities to Phone using Apple's new application programming interface (API), called CallKit, allowing Voice over IP (VoIP) calls from apps like Skype and WhatsApp to behave like cellular calls.

CallKit-enabled apps put contact images on the Lock screen for incoming VoIP calls and are deeply integrated with Contacts and Phone's Recents and Favorites.

Phone on iOS 10 packs in other exciting improvements that we honestly started to believe would never get implemented on the iOS platform, like voicemail transcription à la Google Voice and third-party extensions for detecting spammy calls automatically.

So let's get to it...

Is Apple planning to announce iPhone 7 on September 7?

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 11, 2016

With no official invites going out yet, speculation continues to mount as to when Apple might be holding a media event to announce the next iPhone. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are going to be unveiled at an event tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, September 7, less than four weeks from today.

His report yesterday about the next MacBook Pro with an OLED touch strip mentions as a side-note that the refreshed notebooks “aren’t likely to debut at an event currently scheduled for September 7 to introduce next-generation versions of the iPhone”.

iOS 10 tidbit: deleting text faster with 3D Touch

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 11, 2016

Here's a time-saving enhancement discovered in the previous beta of iOS 10: deleting text faster—a lot faster—with 3D Touch. Although this very cool feature originally flew under our radar, we're letting you guys know about it so that you're kept in the loop. Owners of an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus should be especially pleased with iOS 10's expanded use of 3D Touch gestures for things like clearing all notifications, sharing apps and renaming folders.