Apple on Thursday seeded public betas for both iOS 10 and macOS Sierra. The releases, which come just a few days after beta 2 of both software updates pushed out to developers, can be downloaded by members of Apple's Beta Software Program.
iOS 10 brings about a number of changes, including a refreshed Messages app with tons of new features, enhanced notifications, Spotlight widgets, and much more. There aren't quite as many changes in macOS Sierra, but it compliments iOS 10 nicely.
Who wants to pay for podcasts? Thought so... Well, Amazon thinks people will have no issues whatsoever paying for short-form audio shows so it's introducing a new Channels thing through its Audible service, which hosts the largest selection of digital audiobooks on the web.
According to Bloomberg, Channels will host premium shows like Scientific American, The Onion and the WSJ, plus a bunch of own originals like Mortal City, Presidents Are People Too and Breasts Unbound.
Coming straight from Microsoft Garage, which “turns fresh ideas into real projects”, Thinga.Me for iPhone allows you to capture, organize and share real-world objects. Currently available as an invite-only closed beta, the app uses object recognition algorithm to detect and separate various objects on your photos.
Apple will be releasing iOS 10 and macOS Sierra betas to public beta testers who enrolled in the Apple Beta Software Program, The Verge reports. iOS 10 is turning out to be much more than another release, with dozens of refinements and little things on top of headlining new features, some of which allow developers to build apps for the stock Messages, Maps and Phone apps, as well as integrate with Siri.
As rumored, Apple's mobile payment system on Thursday went live in Switzerland, its seventh country, expanding the European footprint for Apple Pay beyond the United Kingdom. The firm announced the service is available with initial support for MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards issued by Bonus Card, Corner Bank and Swiss Bankers, with additional banks and credit card issuers to be added at a later stage. Apple Pay boss, Jennifer Bailey, said the company plans to bring Apple Pay to every major market in which its products are sold.
Some folks with iOS 10 beta 2 installed on their iPhone are finding that they've been locked out of their Apple ID account, unable to perform a password reset. As per a new thread on Reddit, the problem seems to affect a portion of iOS 10 beta 2 users whose Apple ID account has been protected with Apple's two-step authentication system, which requires both a password and a one-time six-digit code when using iCloud on a new device.
We're posting this as convenience for those who have been affected. If you're seeing this, you probably don't need to worry about your Apple ID being hacked and unrecoverable, it's just a bug in iOS 10 beta 2.
Auto Unlock, a new feature in macOS Sierra, gives you instant access to your Mac when you’re wearing an Apple Watch. As its marketing name suggest, Auto Unlock is seamless. You simply wake your Mac from sleep while wearing your watch, and boom—just like that, you’re logged in and ready to go, no password typing required. Here's our entertaining video walkthrough of Auto Unlock and a detailed overview of the feature for those interested in its inner workings and intricacies.
Following a period of field-testing in the United States, Nintendo's augmented-reality game Pokémon GO should become available shortly on App Stores in select countries, including the United States and Japan. A Pokémon Company spokesperson told a Wall Street Journal reporter to “please wait for a while” for formal launch of the game.
Update: Pokémon GO is now available in the US App Store.
The download is already live on the New Zealand and Australian App Stores and is expected to launch later today on the Japanese and US App Stores.
Pokémon GO is Nintendo's second iOS game after Miitomo, an odd title designed as “a friendly conversation starter” and based on Nintendo's lucrative Mii universe.
Safari Technology Preview, an experimental version of the Safari browser meant for testing upcoming new capabilities and web technologies, is a good place to look for clues regarding new features in development. Today, Apple released an eighth update to Safari Technology Preview, which debuted in March 2016, and the browser appears to include pieces of code to support the upcoming Apple Pay integration with websites.
Two weeks after seeding a fourth beta of iOS 9.3.3, Apple today released a fifth beta of the mostly bug-fix software update to members of the Apple Developer Program and public beta testers signed up with the Apple Beta Software Program. The new software is available as an over-the-air update on devices running a prior beta of iOS 9.3.3 through the Software Update mechanism in Settings. Apple also released tvOS 9.2.2 beta 5 to its registered developers and OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 beta 5 to developers and public beta testers.
As you know, security experts were baffled realizing that the iOS 10 kernel in beta 1 was not encrypted. Apple argued it was no big deal because the kernel contained no user data so the company had left it unencrypted intentionally in order to increase general system performance, in their own words.
But Apple didn't stop there.
As first discovered by prominent jailbreak developer and iPhone hacker, MuscleNerd, iOS 10 beta 2 actually leaves more parts of the operating system unencrypted.
What's going on here?
iOS 10 makes waking your iPhone from sleep as easy as raising it in your hand. Aptly named Raise to Wake, this useful feature automatically wakes the screen as you raise the device so that you can instantly see all your notifications at a glance. It may sound like it's no big deal, but it is. However, Raise to Wake requires iOS to constantly capture and interpret data from the iPhone's many sensors to determine how you're holding the phone in your hand.
In order to realize this feature in a power-frinedly manner, it reads data from the sensors using an Apple-designed motion coprocessor, which also happens to be required for tetherless 'Hey Siri' functionality. So, does your iPhone support Raise to Wake on iOS 10 or not?