Apple

Public beta testers: iOS 9.3 beta 2 and OS X 10.11.4 now available

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2016

Two days after seeding OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan beta 2 and iOS 9.3 beta 2 to members of the Apple Developer Program, public beta testers who are signed on the Apple Beta Software Program can now freely deploy these new beta builds on their Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.

iOS 9.3 beta 2 is available as an over-the-air update in Settings → General → Software Update on enrolled devices. OS X 10.11.4 beta 2 can be downloaded through the Mac App Store's Purchased tab for those who are enrolled in Apple's beta testing program.

Turn off HDR photo duplicates to save storage space

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 24, 2018

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is great for making the most from your iPhone's camera, especially in high-contrast situations.

With this feature, your iPhone takes multiple photos in rapid succession, each at a different exposure, and automatically blends them together. You get an image that has optimized highlights and really brings the shadows out of the noise, with way better detail in the bright and midtown areas.

When you enable HDR photography by tapping the HDR icon in the Camera app, your iPhone will save two copies of the image in your photo library: the “normal” image (without HDR) along with its HDR counterpart.

This can put a strain on your iPhone's storage, especially when taking a lot of HDR photos. If your iPhone's storage is low, or you're the type of person who likes to plan ahead, read this tutorial to learn how to turn off HDR photo duplicates and save significant amounts of storage space on your device.

Google updates Chrome for iOS with 70% fewer crashes, Spotlight integration and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2016

Google's mobile Chrome browser was updated this morning in the App Store and the new release promises a whopping 70 percent fewer crashes along with a few other goodies, such as Spotlight Search integration.

Google said that the dramatically reduced crash rate is due to Chrome's adoption of WKWebView, a rendering engine from Apple which was first introduced with the release of iOS 8 back in 2014.

In addition, this release of Chrome for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad should be faster overall, with JavaScript execution now “dramatically faster.”

Dictate notes on the fly and display them on your watch face with WatchNotes

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2016

Yesterday, developer Michael Bischoff refreshed its nicely done iPhone application, WatchNotes, with the ability to create, schedule and display notes right on your watch face through a brand new Apple Watch app and a complication.

WatchNotes, which originally made its App Store debut in December 2015 as an iPhone-only app, also lets you dictate a new note directly into your Apple Watch, set up scheduling and travel through time using watchOS's Time Travel feature to look at notes that you've scheduled in the future.

If you've ever wanted to add a note to your Apple Watch face on the fly, you're wholeheartedly recommend to take WatchNotes for a spin, more so considering that watchOS currently lacks a stock Notes app.

How to filter mature language for Siri and Dictation

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 7, 2023

Sometimes when you use the dictation feature on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad—or just converse with Siri and it misunderstands you—you might be in for a surprise seeing explicit language that you don't really want others to see, especially if you talk to Siri on your new Apple TV and kids are present.

Fortunately, both iOS and tvOS give you all the controls you need to prevent profanities from showing up when you use speech-to-text or Siri. In this post, you'll learn how to disable explicit language for Siri and Dictation on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and filter out explicit language for Siri on your Apple TV.

KGI: iPhone 7 Plus will have dual lenses with optical image stabilization and zoom

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 27, 2016

Reliable analyst (if there is such a thing) Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities sent an interesting report to clients, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider.

In it, he predicts that a new, premium edition of Apple's iPhone 7 Plus will be outfitted with a dual-lens system with optical image stabilization and optical zoom, realized through technology Apple obtained from last year's acquisition of Israeli camera technology company LinX Imaging.

Tim Cook: virtual reality is really cool and has some interesting applications

Cody Lee ∙ January 26, 2016

During Apple's Q1 2016 earnings call on Tuesday, Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri discussed the company's performance over the past 3 months. We've put together a nice little roundup of all the interesting stuff, but we thought this particular exchange was worth a separate post.

In the Q&A portion of the call, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster—who made a name for himself through his tireless predictions that Apple was building a TV set—asked Tim Cook what he thought about virtual reality. And in his first public comments on the topic, Cook answered.

15 interesting points from Apple’s Q1 2016 earnings call

Cody Lee ∙ January 26, 2016

Apple announced the financial results for its fiscal first quarter of 2016 this afternoon, and the numbers are pretty solid. The company broke its own records on handset sales, moving 74.8 million iPhones, and revenue, garnering nearly $76 billion during the three-month holiday period.

We’ve just finished up the conference call, where Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri discussed Apple’s performance over the three-month period, and offered up some insights into its future. And as usual, we’ve rounded up the 15 most interesting points from the call below.

Tim Cook: Apple has surpassed 1 billion active devices worldwide

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

"Our installed base recently crossed a major milestone of one billion active devices," Tim Cook said in a statement for the company's Q1 2016 earnings press release. The news comes on the back of a record-breaking quarter, where Apple sold 74.8M iPhones and garnered nearly $76 billion in revenue during the 3-month holiday period.

Apple’s Q1 2016 earnings: 74.8M iPhones, 16.1M iPads, $75.9B revenue

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple on Tuesday released its earnings report for the first [fiscal] quarter of 2016. As most of you know, this was the iPhone-maker's holiday quarter, where most consumer electronic companies—particularly Apple—tend to put up monster numbers. And of course Tim Cook and his team did not disappoint.

Once again, Apple has delivered a record-breaking first quarter. The company sold 74.8 million iPhones, up slightly from last year's 74.5 million, and increased its revenue by more than $1 billion. Not all of the numbers are impressive though, as Mac sales are slightly down and iPad sales continue to tumble.

Apple planning to offer subscription content in News app, report says

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple is looking to add support for subscription content in its News app, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, the outlet says the move will give publishers with paywalls a new way to control who sees their articles and track who is reading them.

Such a change would help differentiate the struggling Apple News with Facebook's Instant Articles, which does not currently offer subscriber-only content. It's unclear right now how Apple plans to authenticate subscribers, or if it's going to take a cut of in-app subscription fees.

Aura for Mac brings Quick Replies to your Gmail conversations

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 28, 2018

Unlike most desktop notifiers that merely send you to Gmail's mobile interface on the web, the most recent update to a cool Mac app called Aura actually implements Quick Reply functionality so you can reply to messages, or add a new message to any thread—right from its notification banner.

This nifty little app can save you time when you need to fire off a one-line response. It supports Gmail and Google Apps accounts, it's fully native and optimized for OS X Yosemite and El Capitan.