Apple

Jonathan Mann’s new song has lyrics written by an iPhone, using iOS 8’s autocomplete feature

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Jonathan Mann, a musician, songwriter and unabashed Apple fan, has been churning out one song a day for nearly six years straight.

You may remember his iPhone Antenna song, posted to YouTube on the eve of the Antennagate presser.

Apple actually used it to open the event and Steve Jobs even danced to it. The song-a-day man also created a Siri duet not long after the iPhone 4s was released and another one to wish Siri a happy birthday.

He's back today with an entirely different experiment that somehow manages to sound catchy and listenable, which is remarkable given the meaningless lyrics were actually written by an iPhone using iOS 8's autocomplete function.

Poll: how often do you use Reachability?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

So I've finally managed to snag an iPhone 6 Plus this past weekend and boy does that 5.5-inch form factor take some getting used to.

Just ahead of the official announcement I, along with many other bloggers, was wondering whether a bigger iPhone might force Apple to rather unceremoniously abandon its unwavering principle of one-handed use.

Fortunately, Apple's smart engineers soothed our collective fears by creating a smart software feature dubbed Reachability, which lets you double tap the Touch ID button to slide the top half of the screen to the bottom half so you can reach touch targets in iOS positioned at the top, like Safari's address bar.

I've been loving Reachability a lot and using it on a daily basis. How about you?

Apple announces iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus expansion in 36 more countries

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 13, 2014

Apple announced in a media release Monday that its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus handsets are coming to an additional 36 countries and territories across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa by the end of October.

Both new handsets will be available in a total of 69 countries and territories by the end of the month as Apple reiterated it's self-imposed goal to deliver the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in more than 115 countries by the end of the year, calling it “our fastest iPhone rollout ever”.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus pre-orders reportedly top 20 million in China

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 13, 2014

During a three-day period since the start of pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on October 10, Chinese carriers and e-commerce site Jingdong Mall (JD.com) have collected a combined total of an estimated 20 million units, according to a Tencent report [Google Translate] Monday relayed by Digitimes.

The country's three leading wireless operators — China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom — have collected about ten million pre-orders while Jingdong Mall processed about 9.5 million pre-orders, of which 4.66 million are for the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model and 4.82 million are for the bigger 5.5-inch handset.

Apple retail employees begin training on Apple Pay as launch nears

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

As Apple readies the launch of Apple Pay for later this month, it has initiated a mandatory, one hour training program for its retail employees and is coordinating with third-party retailers to ensure that stores will be able to complete transactions via Apple Pay starting on launch day.

Per a recent leak, screenshots indicate that Apple Pay establishment will be an option when setting up the rest of the device, and credit card details can be entered manually or scanned in with the device's camera. A new report by 9to5mac suggests that settings can be adjusted and additional credit cards can be added through an upcoming "Passbook & Apple Pay" tab in iOS's Settings app.

Apple revamps iTunes Store in iTunes 12 ahead of OS X Yosemite launch

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple has rolled out a revamped version of its desktop iTunes Store to iTunes 12 today. Folks with access to the developer preview or public beta of OS X Yosemite should see the new storefront with various changes including cleaner, flatter design elements.

As you can see in the image above, Apple has axed the 3D rotating carousel of featured content in favor of a new card-style layout. There's also no longer a backdrop shadow behind the album art, or in the navigation buttons, and the fonts have been changed.

Chinese carriers take in 1 million iPhone 6 pre-orders in 6 hours

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus officially began in China today, and it sounds like sales for the two handsets are doing well thus far. Tencent reports that the country's three major wireless carriers recorded more than 1 million pre-orders during first 6 hours of availability.

There's been no word on what sales looked like throughout the rest of the day, and the 1M figure doesn't include orders taken directly by Apple, or its 6,000 authorized resellers. It also doesn't account for the 9+ million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus reservations that were made last week.

Bose and Beats settle noise-canceling patent infringement suit

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Premium audio company Bose Corp. and the now Apple-owned Beats Electronics have settled their patent infringement suit, reports Bloomberg. The two companies a U.S. court in Delaware they’ve settled their claims, and asked the International Trade Commission to cease its investigation.

Bose originally filed the complaint against Beats in July, claiming that Beats Studio and Studio Wireless headphones, which both feature "adaptive noise cancelation," infringe on five of its noise-canceling patents. Clearly a settlement was reached here, but terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Apple to live stream October 16 iPad event

Cody Lee ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Apple has posted a notice on its website this morning to confirm that it will be providing a live video stream of next week's iPad event. There's no countdown timer this time, but the company published the above image showing the stream will begin at 10am on October 16.

We're expecting Apple to unveil new iPads—at least a new iPad Air—with Touch ID support, thinner profile and possibly higher resolution displays. It's also believed that we'll finally see new iMacs with Retina displays, and of course OS X Yosemite will get some stage time.

Apple said to remove Bose products from store shelves next week

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 10, 2014

Apple is reportedly on the verge of removing audio products and accessories by the audio equipment specialist Bose from both its store shelves in addition to the demo units as early as next week, MacRumors learned Friday from a source privy to the matter.

Although the report comes short on specifics, the decision may have something to do with Bose's patent infringement lawsuit against Beats. As you know, Apple purchased Beats Electronics and Beats Music for $3 billion earlier this year.

The development seemingly coincides with a new agreement Bose signed with the National Football League banning its players from wearing Beats headphones while on television.

Cinamatic gains iPhone 6 support, iOS 8 manual camera controls and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 10, 2014

Cinamatic, a nicely done and versatile video capture and editing app that Apple named its Free App of the Week back in July, on Friday received an update bringing the full range of manual camera controls available to third-party iPhone photography apps in iOS 8.

In addition to native support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus display sizes, the new version soups up your device by enabling manual adjustment of the focus, exposure, white balance, shutter speed and ISO, while you're shooting video.

And if you own an iPhone 5s, 6 or 6 Plus, you'll enjoy Time-lapse capture at three, six and nine frames per second speeds and silky smooth slow-motion video at 120 and 240 frames per second. Jump past the break for additional enhancements.

Readability updated with iPhone 6 support and iOS 8 extension

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 30, 2018

Good news, Readability fans! Your favorite read-later service on Thursday received a refresh enabling native display support for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus so you can see more article contents with less scrolling.

This is a big deal for mobile apps that focus on content consumption: as you know, iOS 8 blows up non-optimized apps to fill the new screen sizes, resulting in fuzzy appearance and enlarged content as opposed to seeing more of it.

The app, available free of charge, has also been optimized for iOS 8 with the Share sheet extension and other features outlined below.