Apple

This free Apple Watch complication displays the time in words

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 9, 2018

When someone asks you what the time is and you glance at your Apple Watch, are you one of those people who struggle interpreting clock hands on a standard analog watch face? How cool would it be if your Apple Watch displayed the approximate time in words, such as “ten to six”, “quarter past three” or “about five o'clock”?

That's the problem that Roughly tries to solve. Created by Iain Anderson, Roughly is a complication that gives you approximate time, in words.

Available free of charge, it's just fun for most people but I think some users may actually find Roughly genuinely useful.

Microsoft’s Word Flow keyboard launches with one-handed mode, gestures, themes and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 7, 2018

After releasing an iOS edition of its Hub Keyboard last month, Windows giant Microsoft on Monday launched an iOS port of its predictive text Windows Phone keyboard, called Word Flow. The free of charge iPhone app brings many advanced features that speed up typing, like a cool one-handed mode, gesture based typing, predictive text input, custom themes and more. The Word Flow keyboard is available at no charge in the App Store.

Apple warns developers that all new Apple Watch apps must be native beginning June 1

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 22, 2016

Apple on Friday issued an advisory on its portal for developers about an important upcoming requirement for watchOS apps. According to a one-sentence post, “starting June 1, 2016, all new watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be native apps built with the watchOS 2 SDK or later.”

Apple is scheduled to hold its annual pilgrimage for developers, WWDC, from June 13 through June 17, 2016, or two weeks after the requirement to develop strictly native apps kicks in.

Snapchat’s Face Swap now works with your own photos, paid Replays no longer available

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 6, 2016

A small but important update has appeared for Snapchat's free of charge mobile application in the App Store. Bumped to version 9.29, the app's expanded the utility of its popular Face Swap feature which now works with images from your Camera roll.

Face Swap is apparently a new craze. With this feature available in Snapchat in the form of a Lens, users can easily face swap with their friends. And with today's update, they can swap their face with someone else's photo stored in their Camera roll.

Apple promotes recycling with a new television commercial featuring Siri and robot Liam

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 22, 2016

In addition to a nicely done environment-focused video posted yesterday, in which Apple boasts how its data centers run on 100 percent renewable energy, the Cupertino firm this morning released another Earth Day focused television ad on its YouTube channel, this one promoting recycling.

Featuring Siri and Apple's recycling robot Liam, the 25-second video has Siri conversing with the robot, asking him what he's doing for Earth Day.

Analyst talks iPhone 8: OLED screen with no Home button, wireless charging and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 22, 2016

Apple will be launching new iPhones this fall, likely to be marketed as 'iPhone 7' and 'iPhone 7 Plus'.

Should the company stick to its established S-upgrade cycle, and there's no reason to believe it won't, then we should see an 'iPhone 7s' and 'iPhone 7s Plus' in 2017, right? That's what conventional wisdom has taught us, but one analyst's turned that conventional wisdom on its head.

Citing industry sources, Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz recently wrote a lot of nice things about Apple's 2017 iPhone, which he called a “mega cycle” upgrade that will feature a bunch of significant hardware advances that should help increase Apple's iPhone sales by as much as 10.3 percent.

Watch Apple’s cool new environment video: it’s all about iMessage

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 22, 2016

Apple yesterday published a cool new video on its YouTube channel that does a very good job explaining to the general public, in layman's terms, its renewable energy strides.

The 45-second clip is all about iMessage, Apple's own messaging service that's built right into the stock Messages application on iOS and OS X.

With an average of tens of billions of iMessages hitting Apple's data centers on any given day, the Cupertino firm wanted to make it clear that the impact on our environment is negligible because Apple's servers run on 100 percent renewable energy.

How to cancel and delete your Netflix account

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 21, 2020

The slow but inevitable fraying of the cable TV bundle continues unabated. One major network after the other is relenting and finally appeasing cord-cutters with online-only streaming packages that don't require a cable subscription.

As a result, the modern customer today is faced with an ever increasing number of options. If you've arrived at the conclusion that Netflix no longer offers the biggest bang for your buck and want to cancel your streaming plan, you've come to the right place.

In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll take you through the process of cancelling your Netflix membership and closing your account, regardless of whether you signed up for the service through the website or on your Apple TV or iOS device. As a bonus, we'll also lay out how to easily rejoin Netflix later on.

iBooks Store and iTunes Movies shut down in China by state agency

Cody Lee ∙ April 21, 2016

Apple's iBooks Store and iTunes Movies have been shut down in China by a state agency, reports The New York Times. The outlet says the Chinese State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television was behind last week's mysterious outage.

The shutdown occurred just six months after the two services were made available in the country. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company "hopes to make books and movies available again to our customers in China as soon as possible."

FBI paid more than $1.3 million for San Bernardino iPhone hack

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday that the agency paid more to break into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone than he'll make in the remaining 7+ years of his tenure. Reuters crunched the numbers, and that suggests that the FBI paid more than $1.3 million for the hack.

That seems like a lot of money for a tool that doesn't work on the iPhone 5s or newer, but speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London today, the Director said that he believes it was worth it. And of course the FBI will be able to use the tool in other case involving older iPhones.

Second betas of iOS 9.3.2 and OS X 10.11.5 now available to public testers

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS and OS X updates to public testers. Folks in the Beta Software Program can now install iOS 9.3.2 via OTA on their iOS devices, and OS X 10.11.5 via the App Store Software Update mechanism.

These are the same betas that Apple pushed out to developers yesterday, along with updates for watchOS and tvOS. They arrive about a month after the public releases of iOS 9.3 and OS X 10.11.4, which brought about several user-facing changes.

Apple Store app gains 3D Touch support, now available in more countries

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple on Thursday pushed out an update for its Apple Store iOS client, bringing the app to version 3.7. The update brings about new 3D Touch features on compatible devices, and makes the app available in new countries.

As for 3D Touch support, iPhone 6s users have long been able to utilize Quick Actions on the app icon, but now the Apple Store app supports Peek and Pop. So force-pressing on a link within the app now opens up previews.