Apple

Twelve South unveils ‘TimePorter,’ a travel tote and portable charging stand for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

Twelve South, the maker of premium Apple-exclusive accessories, on Thursday announced a combined charge and travel stand for the Apple Watch, dubbed the TimePorter. Resembling a luxury eyeglass case, this stylish accessory is designed to hold your Apple Watch charging cable, as well as extra Watch bands USB chargers and more. The case incorporates the Apple Watch charging disc and converts into a travel charging and display stand in an instant.

Samsung expects 10 percent profit growth on better-than-expected Galaxy S7 sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

According to preliminary results posted Thursday, there's a light at the end of a long tunnel for Samsung Electronics and that light is the new Galaxy S7 flagship smartphone. After more than two straight years of decline in its mobile division, the South Korean firm is now projecting more than ten percent profit growth for the first quarter of 2016, beating market estimates.

The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge were announced back in February ahead of their March 11 debut. Both phones, which have managed to address some of user complaints like memory expandability, were met with mostly positive reviews. Thus far, the new devices have moved three times as many units in their first month compared to their predecessor, the Galaxy S6/edge series, according to Bloomberg.

Siri co-founder to demo Viv, ‘the global brain’ that provides an intelligent interface to everything

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

Dag Kittlaus, a brilliant artificial intelligence engineer who helped create an advanced personal digital assistant that Apple bought and marketed as Siri, is about to show his brand new artificial intelligence product to the world at TechCrunch's Disrupt NY 2016 conference later this week.

Kittalus, who co-founded Siri and was the CEO of the startup, has since moved on and co-founded another startup with Siri veterans Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, called Viv Labs, with the goal of radically simplifying the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything.

Watch teaser trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, upcoming Star Wars Anthology film

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

The first trailer for LucasFilm's upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story film went online and boy does it look great. Set shortly before the events of Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, the story of Rogue One centers on a group of Rebel spies on a mission to steal the plans for the Galactic Empire's new weapon, the Death Star.

Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Gary Whitta and Chris Weitz from an idea by visual effects supervisor John Knoll, Rogue One will be the very first standalone movie set in the Star Wars universe.

FBI confirms a tool it bought to unlock terrorist’s iPhone 5c does not work on iPhone 5s and newer

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 7, 2016

James Comey, Director of the Federal Bureau of iPhones—that is, Investigation—confirmed in an interview with CNN yesterday that a tool that the agency had purchased from a third-party to unlock San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone 5c cannot be used to bypass security protections on newer models, from the iPhone 5s onward.

This implies the tool relies on the fact that the iPhone 5c and earlier models lack hardware features like the Secure Enclave embedded in Apple's mobile processors (from the iPhone 5s's A7 chip and onward) which keeps encrypted sensitive information and stuff like the number of passcode attempts isolated from the rest of the system.

Reddit: The Official App hits the App Store

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Nearly a year and a half following its acquisition of Alien Blue, the popular iOS client for Reddit, the popular social news service today released its long-awaited official client for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Reddit: The Official App, as it's called, is available at no charge in the App Store and if you download it during its launch weekend, they'll treat you to three free months of Reddit Gold membership.

OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 beta 1 also seeded to developers

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

Just over two weeks after posting OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 for public consumption, Apple this morning seeded the first beta of OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 to its registered developers. A fifth major update to the the most recent operating system powering the Mac, OS X 10.11.5 includes bug fixes, performance improvements and general security and stability fixes.

It is not expected to bring any major user-facing features. The new beta carries a build number of 15F18b and can be installed on computers running a prior OS X beta through the Mac App Store's Updates tab.

Apple seeds watchOS 2.2.1 to developers

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

Apple today seeded the first beta of watch OS 2.2.1 to the members of its Apple Developer Program. The pre-release software can be installed on an Apple Watch through the My Watch → General → Software Update section within the companion Watch app running on an iPhone with the new iOS 9.3.2 beta, which was also seeded to developers this morning.

The software came with a build number of 13V413 and arrived approximately two weeks following the public release of the watchOS 2.2 firmware, a minor update for the Apple Watch that brought out an improved Maps app, support for multi-watch pairing and other tidbits.

Apple may soon permit users to hide unwanted stock apps on iOS, iTunes metadata suggests

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 25, 2017

Strings discovered in iTunes metadata suggest that the ability to remove Apple's stock iPhone and iPad apps such as Compass, Voice Memos, Find My Friends, Tips and Stocks is coming very soon.

For those wondering, iTunes metadata provides information about iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps that can be found on the App Store, such as the date an app was released, its size, the store category it’s in and so forth.

As explained by AppAdvice, a pair of new keys—labeled “isFirstParty” and “isFirstPartyHideableApp”—started showing up in iTunes metadata a few weeks ago on every app in the App Store.

Facebook app gaining Live button, video broadcasts now more Periscope-like

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

The Messenger button in the mobile Facebook app for iOS and Android which sent users to the Messenger app has been replaced with a Live button as the popular social network aims to push live and pre-recorded videos in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

Announced in a blog post Wednesday, the company is also rolling out new features for Facebook Live that give users more ways to discover, share and interact with live video.

Siri trick that let you activate Night Shift while Low Power Mode is enabled no longer works

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

The iOS 9.3 software update includes Night Shift mode that helps users get a good night's sleep by reducing the amount of blue light emitted from a backlight of their iOS device.

Night Shift is unavailable when an iPhone is in Low Power Mode and a workaround that let you ask Siri to activate Night Shift in this mode no longer works.

As first reported on by 9to5Mac's Jeff Benjamin, asking Siri to enable Night Shift while the device is in Low Power Mode now yields a warning message.

Apple supplier Sharp starts prepping AMOLED production lines, likely for future iPhones

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 6, 2016

Hot on the heels of a reported $3.5 billion acquisition of Sharp by Apple's contract fabricator Foxconn, Sharp has reportedly begun setting up production lines dedicated to churning out AMOLED smartphone panels as Apple is said to be lining up suppliers to support its major move to outfit future iPhones with AMOLED screen technology.

According to a report Wednesday by DigiTimes, a Taiwanese trade publication, Sharp is setting up three production lines that should have total monthly capacity of 9.85 million 5.5-inch equivalent AMOLED panels.