iPhone

Stay up-to-date on the latest iPhone news and learn new tips and tricks with our comprehensive tutorials. From software updates to new features, we’ve got you covered.

Facebook unveils group payments via Messenger for desktop

Facebook announced this morning that sending or receiving money between groups of people is now supported on the Messenger service. The social networking company debuted peer-to-peer payments on Messenger in March 2015. The new group payments feature, currently limited to users in the United States, is available starting today on Messenger for Android and via the company's desktop app at messenger.com. Group mobile payments will be coming to Messenger for iPhone and iPad at a later stage.

Second betas of iOS 10.3.2 and macOS Sierra 10.12.5 now available to public beta testers

Both iOS 10.3.2 beta 2 and macOS Sierra 10.12.5 beta 2 are now available to the general public via the Apple Beta Software Program. Public betas of iOS 10.3.2 and macOS Sierra 10.12.5 follow their developer-only releases yesterday. If you're enrolled in Apple's public beta program, you should receive the latest iOS 10.3.2 and macOS Sierra 10.12.5 betas through the Software Update mechanism in Settings on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and via the Updates tab in Mac App Store on your Mac.

iPhone 3GS untethered bootrom exploit released

Today saw the release of a new bootrom exploit for the iPhone 3GS, an unpatchable vulnerability which gives jailbreakers total control of this device forever.

Although the iPhone 3GS is now very much a legacy device and few users will be actively using them, the rarity of a bootrom exploit makes it worthy of note. There have been no publicly released exploits of this kind since limera1n, which supported only up to the iPhone 4.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition gains Chinese Mythology mashup pack & other goodies

Microsoft announced today that Minecraft: Pocket Edition is gaining a Chinese Mythology mash-up pack along with a few other goodies and improvements, such as a free Redstone Mansion map available via a new Worlds section in the in-game store.

The new features are available at no charge to existing players and require Minecraft: Pocket Edition version 1.0.6, which is rolling today on App Store.

iPhone modem supplier Qualcomm countersues Apple

iPhone modem supplier Qualcomm is countersuing Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, saying the Cupertino company could not have “built the incredible iPhone franchise” without its fundamental cellular technologies. The chip maker accused Apple of contributing “virtually nothing” to the development of core cellular technologies.

Instagram Direct now combines ephemeral and permanent messages in one thread

Photo-sharing service Instagram today announced an update for its direct messaging feature, called Direct, which now combines auto-dissapearing photos and videos along with your text conversations in a single thread. Previously, disappearing photos and videos were separated under their own Stories bar at the top of the Direct section. A redesigned Direct feature is rolling out today via Instagram's version 10.16 update.

Analyst predicts Apple will build its own power management chips for iPhones by 2019

Apple's been designing mobile chips for iOS devices in-house since 2010 and could soon be making its own GPUs as well. But one analyst predicts that the California company is set to build its own iPhone power management chips, too, within two years.

Analyst Karsten Iltgen with German investment bank Bankhaus Lampe wrote in a note to clients Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg, that there is “strong evidence” that Apple is developing its own power-management integrated circuits that should replace the chip made by Dialog Semiconductor “at least in part”.

Hide the waveform and activity bar when using voice memos with discreetVoiceMemos

The Voice Memos app is useful for recording conversations to listen back on at a later date. On the other hand, when trying use it discreetly, the app is far from helpful. It drops obvious hints that it’s being used by displaying an animated waveform on the Lock screen and a bloated red Status Bar everywhere else in iOS.

If you were hoping for a solution to this problem, then you’re in luck because a new free jailbreak tweak called discreetVoiceMemos by CydiaGeek helps to make your Voice Memos usage more sneaky by hiding these highly-visible features from your device when the app is in use.

Apple posts second betas for iOS 10.3.2, macOS Sierra 10.12.5, watchOS 3.2.2 & tvOS 10.2.1

Apple on Monday released second betas of what would become the iOS 10.3.2, macOS Sierra 10.12.5, watchOS 3.2.2 and tvOS 10.2.1 software updates. iOS 10.3.2 beta 2 (build 14F5075a), macOS Sierra 10.12.5 beta 2 (build 16F54b), watchOS 3.2.2 beta 2 (build 14V5475a) and tvOS 10.2.1 beta 2 (build 14W5573a) are now available to Apple's registered developers over the air or as standalone downloads via the Apple Developer Center.

Tip: save storage space on your iPhone and iPad by clearing Periscope’s stored data

Clearing caches in your favorite apps is one of the many ways of saving storage space on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that may be lost to the cruft accumulated on your devices. We've already shown you how to clear Twitter's web and media storage as well as delete Dropbox's caches.

In this tutorial, we'll discuss how to clear any cached files in Twitter's Periscope app for iOS, which will help save that precious storage space on your device.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Confero 2, SpecialFaces, Springtomize 4, & more…

While security researcher Luca Todesco may have retired from the jailbreak community, the Yalu jailbreak for iOS 10 lives on in those of us who made the jump when we were told to do so.

For those that are hanging onto their jailbreak, you might've noticed that there have been some attention-worthy jailbreak tweak releases this week, and in this roundup, we'll go over all of them starting with our favorites.

Facebook Messenger not loading on your Apple Watch? Try this…

Facebook Messenger users who try to set the app up on a new Apple Watch might find themselves plagued with problems loading the app. Similar problems affect Apple Watch users that aren't new, but rather have un-paired and reconfigured the device after troubleshooting problems with it.

There appears to be a significant bug in the Facebook Messenger app, and while the direct cause of the issue is unknown, there's a quick fix for getting your Facebook Messenger conversations to load properly on your Apple Watch, and we’ll show you how it's done it in this tutorial.