Introduced in the summer of 2014 with the goal of becoming open source, Apple's new programming language for iOS and OS X development, called Swift, is now officially available for download via Swift.org.
A wealth of resources is available at the website, including the official documentation to get you up to speed, various Swift downloads, Getting Started guides, the source code and more.
According to a research note that KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo sent to clients this morning, a copy of which was obtained by AppleInsider, Apple's rumored four-inch iPhone refresh will be released in early-2016, possibly in time for the spring.
It will feature an iPhone 5s-like exterior design with an iPhone 6s-like display that's curved at the edges.
The device apparently sports a colorful metal chassis, runs the A9 system-on-a-chip manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung (which also powers the latest iPhone 6s series) and includes NFC to support Apple Pay transactions.
It cracks me up that a jailbreak was needed to let Apple TV user enjoy their own media libraries directly on the device—and yet here we are today as FireCore, the same developer behind the aTV Flash(Black), unveils an Apple-sanctioned media player app for the new Apple TV.
As I wrote in my preview a few days ago, Infuse 4 for Apple TV (releasing later today in the App Store) is an awesome app that turns Apple's fourth-generation set-top box into a powerful, easy-to-use media center.
No longer do you have to worry about video formats, file conversion and subtitles—Infuse 4 for Apple TV takes care of all that jazz, and then some more. The app can stream your media from a Mac or Windows PC, NAS or Wi-Fi drives and even through a server app like Plex, Kodi or Servo.
It automatically fetches movie details and artwork, integrates with trakt.tv for keeping watched progress in sync on multiple devices, retrieves subtitles from OpenSubtitles.org and more.
Most importantly, its powerful decoder renders any “foreign” video format directly on the Apple TV hardware, no conversion needed, in silky smooth sixty frames per second.
What more can you ask for?
Yahoo today announced it's re-launching its venerable messaging software—Yahoo Messenger—on iOS, Android, on the web and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop.
The app offers a fresh new messaging experience rebuilt from the ground up, integrates the best of the Flickr, Tumblr and Xobni, does photo sharing and animated GIFs and is focused on group messaging with features such as sharing, unsending and liking.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could use the Siri Remote that came with your new Apple TV to control media applications on your Mac? After all, the remote is Bluetooth-based and Mac itself has robust support for Bluetooth networking.
With SiriMote, a new freeware app, now you can. Created by Vienna, Austria-based Eternal Storms Software's Matthias Gansrigler, SiriMote lets you control various functions of the Mac using your Apple TV's Siri Remote.
Hot on the heels of Facebook's release of an SDK for tvOS which lets developers create apps with Facebook Login based on eight-digit security codes, Twitter today announced bringing a similar feature of its own to the set-top box.
Digits, Twitter's own login and verification system based on phone numbers and verification codes, is coming to tvOS. This means that developers can now start writing Apple TV apps that users can log into by entering a short alphanumeric code in Safari on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Several major apps have added 3D Touch support earlier today. Wunderlist and LinkedIn, for example, have brought out support for Home screen shortcuts and Peek and Pop gestures within the app with 3D Touch. And now, Starbucks has issued a similarly-themed update to its iPhone application in the App Store.
With Starbucks 3.3.4 for iOS, you can press the app's Home screen icon lightly on your iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus to bring up a 3D Touch menu with several quick actions: Nearby Stores, Order, Reload Card and Pay.
Just in time for the holidays, Wunderlist, a to-do, lists and tasks application that was acquired by Microsoft this summer, released a brand new experience for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad today.
The new Wunderlist 3.4 for iOS packs in full support for 3D Touch Home screen shortcuts and Peek and Pop gestures within the app. In addition, the app is simpler, more lightweight and intuitive than before and comes with iOS 9 productivity-boosting features.
Kevin Smith, the developer behind the MAME emulator that allows you to run classic Nintendo and Sega games, as well as play arcade games on your fourth-generation Apple TV, is back with another cool software: an unofficial client that can stream Steam games from a Windows PC to Apple's new box.
The solution takes advantage of an iOS edition of Moonlight, an open source implementation of Nvidia's GameStream technology used by its Shield console.
Moonlight technology makes it possible to stream the full collection of Steam games from a PC to the new Apple TV without needing to run on the Apple TV hardware.
LinkedIn, the leading business-oriented social networking service, today released a major update to its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad application in the App Store. Featuring a brand new interface redesigned from the ground up, the app is now streamlined into five core areas: Your Feed, Me, My Network, Messaging and Search.
In addition, owners of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus can press firmly LinkedIn's Home screen icon for Search, New Message, View Activity and Share features.
Periscope, a Twitter-owned live video streaming app, was launched in March 2015 and by August 2015, just four months since its inception, the service had surpassed ten million accounts.
On Periscope, which is also available through the fourth-generation Apple TV, over 40 years of video is being watched every day. But such a dizzying array of real-time broadcasts can become quite overwhelming after a while.
Has Periscope been tiring you lately? Are you considering leaving the service? If so, this tutorial will help you delete your account with Periscope, explain how deleting your Twitter account affects your Periscope experience and more.
Google's Chrome browser was updated yesterday to version 47 on Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest stable release of the browser includes bug fixes and removes a rarely used feature: the notification center in the Mac's menu bar.
Chrome for iPhone, iPod touch iPad also received an update yesterday in the App Store, bringing out support for 3D Touch shortcuts on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus and enabling more shortcuts via external wireless keyboards.