Apple

Another alleged iPhone 8 dummy with rear Touch ID surfaces

Cody Lee ∙ June 2, 2017

A new set of images surfaced this morning showing an alleged iPhone 8 dummy unit. It features a large display with small bezels, a vertically-aligned dual camera, and what appears to be a rear-mounted Touch ID/Home button.

While the device bears Apple and iPhone logos, and some of the rumored iPhone 8 features, serial leaker Benjamin Geskin says it's not the real thing. Geskin pointed to the photos on Twitter, calling the handset a "Chinese clone."

The consensus thus far seems to be that the next-generation iPhone will have Touch ID embedded into its display, but rumors—and as you can see, alleged leaks—claiming that it will have a rear-mounted Home button have persisted.

It's possible Apple considered such a design at one point, and it may have even made it to the prototyping stage. It's also possible this is the oft-rumored iPhone 7s expected to debut alongside the iPhone 8 this fall—it's been reported that Apple has had issues with mass-producing displays with embedded Touch ID, so this would be a cheaper, more efficient option. Or this could just be a Galaxy S8 clone that's been rebranded for higher pricing.

Apple's WWDC keynote is next week, where it is expected to preview the next major version of iOS. It's also believed we could see a new iPad model with slimmer bezels, which may give us some insight on the next iPhone's design.

What do you think of this iPhone 8 dummy?

Source: Twitter

Apple begins decorating McEnery Convention Center ahead of WWDC 2017

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 1, 2017

Various images are currently popping up on social media as Apple begins decorating the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California for next week’s WWDC 2017 event.

Among the decorations are a large banner at the front and sides of the building and various smaller banners on nearby light posts and street signs signifying exactly what’s taking place starting Monday, June 5th at 10 A.M. local time (1 P.M. Eastern time).

Nike’s new sneaker-matching Apple Watch bands now available for purchase

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

A significant number of new Nike Apple Watch band colors are now available for purchase from Nike’s Website, signifying an expansion of the Apple/Nike partnership.

The four new colors are intended to match that of Nike's Air VaporMax Flyknit 'Day to Night' shoe lineup, giving users a way to match their tech to their shoes in style.

Apple updating Swift Playgrounds with support for robots, drones, and instruments

Cody Lee ∙ June 1, 2017

Apple today announced a significant update for its iPad app Swift Playgrounds. The app, which is geared towards teaching beginners to code in a fun and interactive environment, will soon work with robots, drones and musical instruments.

Scheduled to be released next week, Swift Playgrounds version 1.5 will support programming a slew of new devices including the Sphero SPRK+ ball, UBTECH Jumu Robot MeeBot Kit, Wonder Workshop's Dash, Parrot drones and LEGO Mindstorms.

“More than 1 million kids and adults from around the world are already using Swift Playgrounds to learn the fundamentals of coding with Swift in a fun and interactive way,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Now they can instantly see the code they create and directly control their favorite robots, drones and instruments through Swift Playgrounds. It’s an incredibly exciting and powerful way to learn.”

“Today we’re combining efforts with Apple to provide even more students around the world with the opportunity to learn how to code,” said Esben Stærk Jørgensen, president, LEGO Education. “We’re pairing the familiar LEGO bricks and our hands-on approach to playful learning found in LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 with Swift Playgrounds' powerful learning platform so now anyone can program their LEGO MINDSTORMS creation with real Swift code.”

Swift Playgrounds 1.5 will be a free update for the app and will be released June 5.

Source: Apple

Apple expected to increase Intel LTE chip orders as fight with Qualcomm grows

Cody Lee ∙ June 1, 2017

Apple is expected to up its LTE chip orders from Intel as it looks to distance itself from Qualcomm, reports DigiTimes. Despite inferior performance, Intel has gone from supplying around 30% of iPhone 7 baseband chips in 2016 to 50% in 2017. And experts say it could be supplying over 70% of the baseband products for iPhones by 2018.

Earlier this year, Apple filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in a California district court for charging unfair prices to license its tech. Qualcomm has since countersued Apple, and withheld around $1 billion in royalty rebates from the iPhone-maker as retaliation for its participation in a Korean Fair Trade Commission investigation.

Given the nature of this feud, don't be surprised to see Apple work to dramatically reduce its reliance on Qualcomm over the next several months. The company recently hired Esin Terzioglu, Qualcomm's VP of Engineering, to head up a new chip project. It's believed they are developing their own, in-house baseband modems.

Source: DigiTimes

Twelve South’s BookArc stand for Apple notebooks now available in Space Gray

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 1, 2017

Twelve South just launched a new Space Gray color option for its popular BookArc stand for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro on Thursday.

It's intended to look great with the OEM Space Gray color Apple offers for its MacBook with Retina display and 2016 MacBook Pro (with or without the Touch Bar), and it joins the classic silver finish, made to match the standard aluminum finish of the previous generation MacBook Pro, along with other notebooks in Apple's lineup.

Apple: App Store developers earned over $70 billion in revenue since debut

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 1, 2017

Apple announced Thursday morning that developers all over the world for its platform have generated over $70 billion in total revenue, a new record since the launch of the App Store almost nine years ago in 2008.

The number 70 appears to be Apple’s lucky number this year, as app downloads have also soared 70% in the last 12 months, illustrating interest in numerous new app titles that took the App Store by storm.

Apple’s begun manufacturing its Siri speaker ahead of WWDC

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 31, 2017

Apple has started manufacturing its Siri speaker ahead of the WWDC keynote next week.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has learned from people familiar with the matter that the new smart home appliance won't be ready to ship until later in the year. However, Apple could debut the gadget during next Monday's keynote presentation at WWDC.

People who have seen it told Bloomberg that the product won't have a touchscreen, unlike what KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo speculated.

Taipei-based AirPods manufacturer Inventec has been tapped as the sole manufacturer of the Siri speaker. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple employees have been secretly testing the device in their homes for several months.

The forthcoming Siri gadget reached an advanced prototype stage late last year.

Apple is reportedly seeking to differentiate the Siri speaker from Amazon Echo and Google Home by offering virtual surround sound technology, Apple Music and other integrations.

The Siri speaker would also act as a HomeKit hub to let users remotely control smart home appliances such as lights, door locks and window blinds, a feature that currently requires either a fourth-generation Apple TV or an iPad.

Here's an excerpt form the article:

Along with generating virtual surround sound, the speakers being tested are louder and reproduce sound more crisply than rival offerings, sources in the know said.

Apple has also considered including sensors that measure a room’s acoustics and automatically adjust audio levels during use, one of the people said.

“This will be a platform for developing Apple’s services,” says Gene Munster of Loup Ventures.

Gurman speculated the Siri device could be tucked into Apple’s $11 billion “Other Products” category along with other devices like Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods and Beats accessories.

Apple declined to comment.

Siri speaker mockup via iFunnyVlogger on Twitter.

Apple is giving away popular platformer Chameleon Run via Apple Store app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Chameleon Run, the popular auto runner by developer Noodlecake Studios, is now available at no charge for the next two weeks but only through the official Apple Store app.

On App Store, the game currently sells for $0.99.

If you haven't had a chance to grab Chameleon Run back in February when Apple featured it on App Store as part of its weekly Free App of the Week promotion, download the official Apple Store app now to claim your free copy of this awesome platformer with a colorful twist.

This promotion will expire on June 15, 2017.

Featuring smooth execution, this fast-paced auto runner requires you to switch your character's color to match the ground as you run and jump from platform to platform.

The game's expertly crafted levels “will have you running back for more”.

Chameleon Run features pixel-perfect physics, simple two-button controls, fun jumping mechanics with special moves (i.e. “double jump”, “head jump” and so forth), non-linear levels with three special objectives in each one and other perks.

It plays especially well on the fourth-generation Apple TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrIAedC-wJY

To claim your free copy of Chameleon Run, first download the official Apple Store app.

Next, launch the Apple Store app and tap the Discover tab at the bottom. Scroll halfway down until you spot the Chameleon Run offer, then tap “Download now for free”.

You should see an overlay offering basic information about the game.

Tap the blue Download Now For Free button at the bottom to continue.

You'll be asked if you'd like to finish redeeming your gift in App Store. Hit Continue to bring up the game's App Store page, then hit Redeem to claim your free copy of Chameleon Run. Once you've successfully redeemed the promo code, hit Done.

The game should begin downloading to your device. Chameleon Run supports iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV. As always, you can use the App Store's Purchased section to re-download the game to your Apple TV and other iOS devices using the same Apple ID.

Keep in mind that you must use the Apple Store app in order to grab this freebie. On App Store, Chameleon Run is currently 99 cents after a fifty percent discount, valid for one week only.

Here’s what people are mainly using their smart speakers for

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated May 20, 2024

Smart speakers such as Amazon's Echo, Google's Home (and, soon, Apple's alleged standalone Siri device) allow users to get answers in the more comfortable settings of their homes.

As these things are always listening, there's no need to press a button or pull a phone out of your pocket. But what exactly are people using Amazon Echo and other smart speakers for?

A ComScore study, charted by Statista, says the most common use case is asking basic questions with 60 percent of US smart speaker owners using their device for simple requests, followed by weather queries (57 percent), playing music (54 percent), setting timers/alarms (41 percent), creating reminders/to-dos (39 percent) and more.

In what's bound to be disappointing to Amazon, the study found that very few users of smart speakers use them to order goods or services online, with just 8 percent of US smart speaker owners using their device to order food/services and 11 percent ordering products online.

According to a May research conducted by digital agency Stone Temple, providing answers to basic questions actually is not Alexa’s strong suit.

Amazon's digital assistant powering the Echo family of devices was able to answer just 20.7 percent of the 5,000 questions asked as part of the experiment.

Siri performed similar to Alexa.

Amazon said today that Echo owners and iOS customers who use the mobile Alexa app or the Amazon shopping app can now enable integration with iCloud Calendar.

Speaking of which, the comScore study found that less than one-third of smart speaker owners in the US (27 percent) use their device to find what's on their calendar for the day or add new appointments to the calendar hands-free.

Easily manage all your YouTube notifications via all-new Activity tab

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 31, 2017

Google is rolling out a small update to its mobile YouTube app for iPhone and iPad, bringing out an all-new Activity tab where you can easily find and control all of your notifications.

Now you can see your notifications, opt-out of receiving alerts from specific accounts and more—all in one central place just a tap away no matter where you happen to be in the app.

The new tab joins the app's existing tabs: Home, Trending, Subscriptions and Library.

Before today, accessing notifications was a multi-tap affair: you were required to tap your profile picture in the app's top-right corner, then hit Notifications (see the screenshot below).

Functionally, nothing has changed drastically—the new Activity section still shows notifications from your favorite accounts in the order they were received.

The old way of managing your YouTube notifications was a multi-tap affair.

Tapping the three dots next to a notification allows you to hide that particular notification, just like before, as well as elect to turn off all future notifications for that account and more.

Tapping the option See All Settings takes you to settings where you can turn notifications on or off for any recommended videos, choose whether you'd like to be notified about activity on your comments or others' videos, select how you'd like to be notified and more.

The new Activity tab requires YouTube for iOS version 12.20 or later.

Grab YouTube for iOS for free form App Store.

Twitter’s inbox now separates out messages from people you don’t follow

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 31, 2017

Twitter is rolling out a new inbox section which it says is designed to separate direct messages from people you do and don’t follow, making it easier to accept or delete unsolicited chats.

“If you’ve opted-in to get Direct Messages from anyone, messages from people you don’t follow will go into Requests in the Messages tab,” wrote the company in a tweet yesterday.

New group chats you’re added to by people you don’t follow will also appear in Requests.

Upon entering the chat, you'll be asked to either Delete or Accept the message. Accepting the chat moves it to your inbox, allowing you to continue the conversation with that person.

“Please note that they will not know you have seen the message until you have accepted their request,” said Twitter. All media will be hidden prior to accepting the message.

If you wish to view any hidden media, tap the View Media option.

https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/869608493548011520

Conversely, deleting the message removes it from the inbox although that account is still able to message you in the future unless you block or report it. These new features are available on the mobile Twitter app for iOS and Android and on twitter.com.

TUTORIAL: How to find Messenger chats you didn't know existed

Facebook-owned Messenger introduced a similar feature back in October 2015, replacing the “Other” inbox with a Message Requests section that brought all the messages from people you’re not friends with on Facebook in one central place, separate from your regular chats.

Grab Twitter for iOS for free from App Store.