Apple

Apple releases watchOS 2 beta 5 to developers

Cody Lee ∙ August 6, 2015

In addition to iOS 9, Apple on Thursday released the fifth beta of watchOS 2 to developers. The update can be downloaded and installed over-the-air using the Apple Watch app, but be careful because it requires your iPhone be on a recent iOS 9 beta and it's very difficult to downgrade.

Today's beta 5 comes a little over two weeks after beta 4, which activated Apple Pay and fixed issues with Apple ID in the Messages app and the Activity complication. It also arrives roughly two months after Apple first unveiled watchOS 2 during its June developer conference keynote.

Apple seeds iOS 9 beta 5 to developers, beta 3 to public testers: here’s what’s new

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple on Thursday seeded the fifth beta of iOS 9 to developers. The update is available to registered developers as an over-the-air download via the Settings app for those on beta 4, or as a standalone download from Apple's developer portal.

Today's release comes more than two weeks after Apple released the fourth beta to developers, which brought about redesigned Settings icons and other changes, and two months after it first unveiled the software during its WWDC keynote.

CARROT Weather makes its way to the Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 6, 2015

CARROT Weather, the popular app featuring a robot assistant with a personality and attitude, is now available on the Mac. Like its iOS counterpart, sadistic robots in CARROT Weather's Mac app will taunt you when it’s going to rain while offering some hilariously twisted weather forecasts based on Forecast.io's accurate weather data.

In addition to the new Mac app, CARROT Weather for iOS has been updated with a bevy of new features such as notification forwarding from the Mac app to your iPhone or Apple Watch when you're away from your desk, new radar and satellite maps and a Time Machine feature which lets you check out the weather for any location up to 70 years in the past, or ten years in the future.

Here comes world’s first 6″ 4K AMOLED display with an unprecedented density of 734 PPI

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 6, 2015

Competition in the market for mobile display technology intensified Thursday with news that manufacturer Everdisplay showed off the world's first six-inch AMOLED screen boasting an unprecedented density of 734 pixels per inch.

To put that in context, the iPhone 6 Plus's 5.5-inch full HD screen has a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch (PPI) while the rest of Apple's iPhone lineup has 326 PPI Retina screens.

Outlook’s Apple Watch app updated with replying from your wrist, all-new glance and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Outlook's Apple Watch has been updated Thursday with the ability to reply to emails directly from your wrist using Siri dictation, emoji or canned responses, among other new features and enhancements.

The new features make the wearable app much more functional than before. Before today, Outlook for Apple Watch only allowed you to see your emails but not reply to or interact with them.

Other changes in Outlook 1.3.5 for iOS include a glance with upcoming appointments and incoming emails, rich notifications that can be interacted with and other tidbits.

Apple confirms 11 million Apple Music signups

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Ending weeks of speculation, Apple on Thursday at last gave us a number: Apple Music has signed up eleven million people for its three-month free trial, one month after the new music service debuted. The number was officially revealed by Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services in a statement to USA Today, who said "We're thrilled with the numbers so far."

Apple’s TestFlight app receives support for native Watch apps and iOS 9’s App Thinning technologies

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 5, 2015

TestFlight, an online service for over-the-air installation and testing of mobile applications that was purchased by Apple last year, in its most recent version 1.2 update has introduced support for testing upcoming iOS 9 features, including native Apple Watch applications with watchOS 2.

In addition, the application has been optimized with support for App Thinning, a set of Apple-provided optimization technologies designed to reduce download sizes of iOS 9 and Apple Watch apps by tailoring app delivery to the capabilities of the user’s particular device.

Apple seeds OS X 10.10.5 beta 3 to developers

Cody Lee ∙ August 5, 2015

Apple on Thursday seeded the third beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 to developers. The software, labeled build 14F25a, is available to all registered Mac developers in the Updates section of the Mac App Store, or as a standalone download from Apple’s dev portal.

Beta 3 of 10.10.5 comes just one week after the second developer beta, suggesting that the software is nearly ready for a public release. The most recent OS X update, 10.10.4, arrived at the end of June with Wi-Fi fixes, and improvements to Mail and Photos apps.

WhatsApp for iPhone receives a dozen new features in latest update

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

Not to be outdone by rival Viber which rolled out animated stickers, location sharing, a brand new keypad and other enhancements in yesterday's refresh, Facebook-owned WhatsApp today pushed a substantial update to its App Store application.

WhatsApp for iPhone now features richer notifications settings with per-chat rules and mute options, a new swipe gesture to mark chats as read or unread, the ability to directly share contacts from the Contacts app and locations from Apple Maps, backups for your videos and much more.

This concept video gives us a good idea why Force Touch iPhones will be a big deal

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 5, 2015

Force Touch parts for Apple's upcoming 'iPhone 6s' and 'iPhone 6s Plus' phones have recently begun shipping in volume.

We even recently got our glimpse into the implementation of a force sensing layer on a leaked iPhone 6s screen. That being said, some people continue to be puzzled as to what benefits, if any, Force Touch would bring to their iPhone experience.

Maximilian Kiener set out to create a nice mockup video which gives us a good idea how pressing an iPhone's screen firmly could be a valuable user interface shortcut.

The next Mac security update will patch a serious privilege-escalation DYLD bug in OS X

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 5, 2015

A “privilege escalation” bug plaguing Apple's OS X desktop operating system will be patched in the next security update that the company is working on as we speak, a company spokesperson said today.

The Guardian newspaper reported that a fix for the dangerous zero-day vulnerability, known as DYLD, will be patched before OS X El Capitan releases for public consumption this fall.

Pei Wei restaurants now accepting Apple Pay at nearly 200 U.S. locations

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 5, 2015

Pei Wei, a restaurant chain in the United States, announced Wednesday that it has begun accepting Apple Pay in all of its nearly 200 locations for customers using iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch.

“Accepting Apple Pay is a win for Pei Wei because it’s convenient and gives our guests the flexibility to use their preferred method of payment,” said Pei Wei CEO Ralph Bower.