MacRumors

MacRumors has partnered with Elevation Lab to offer our readers an exclusive discount on the company's MFi certified ElevationDock 4 for iPhone. We've listed all the details you need to know about this sale below, along with notable discounts on the 2019 AirPods and some new offers from Sprint.

ElevationDock 4 Exclusive Sale

You can shop for the ElevationDock4 on Amazon in either White or Black, add one to your cart, and then enter the code MacRumors40 in the gift cards and promotional codes box in the checkout screen to get 40 percent off the order.

This will bring the price of the ElevationDock 4 down to $29.97, from $49.95. Elevation Lab's accessory locks to smooth surfaces to keep itself in place and ensure stability for any docked, Lightning-enabled iPhone.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

The Dock4 is made of a medical-grade silicone and comes with a braided USB cable to connect it to a wall or computer power source. This exclusive sale will last until May 5.

2019 AirPods Price Drop

In another sale, Costco is offering one of the first major discounts on the recently released AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, which you can get for $179.99, down from $199.99 if you're a Costco member.

Additionally, the retailer is offering the AirPods with Charging Case for $139.99, down from $159.99. For both versions of the 2019 AirPods you'll have to add $4.99 shipping and handling to your order if you can't find a local store to purchase the headphones.

We've seen a few similar price drops for the AirPods with Charging Case over the past few weeks, but Costco's deal marks the first notable discount on the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case seen since the new headphones debuted in March. Of course, you'll have to be a Costco member to see the deals.

Sprint iPhone Offers

At Sprint, there are multiple offers for Apple's iPhone that you can take advantage of if you're an existing customer, or if you're thinking about switching over to the carrier. These include pre-owned iPhone 7 and 8 devices, brand new iPhone XS and XS Max devices, and a 50 percent off monthly lease offer for the iPhone XR.

• iPhone 7 and 7 Plus (pre-owned) - Get a $100 prepaid Mastercard when switching to Sprint and purchasing iPhone 7 or 7 Plus pre-owned (exp. 7/18)

• iPhone 8 (pre-owned) - $5/month lease (exp. 5/2)

• iPhone 8 and 8 Plus - Lease any iPhone 8 and get a second iPhone 8 at no cost (exp. 5/16)

• iPhone X - Lease any iPhone X, get the iPhone 8 at no cost (exp. 5/16)

• iPhone XS and XS Max - Get a $250 prepaid Mastercard when switching to Sprint and purchasing iPhone XS or XS Max (exp. 5/16)

• iPhone XR - $15/month lease (exp. 5/16)

Visit our full Deals Roundup for more information on this week's sales.

Moment, the company behind the popular Moment lenses, today updated its Moment Pro Camera app for iOS devices, adding new features and a new pricing structure.

For those unfamiliar with Moment Pro Camera, it's an iOS app that was designed to work with the Moment line of lenses, but those lenses are not required to access the features. The app also works on a standalone basis, offering up full manual photography tools along with other features to improve your iPhone images.

The updated Moment Pro Camera app features a new Zebra Stripes option, which is designed to let you see a visual representation of areas that are either under or overexposed so that you can adjust your camera settings. In areas that need adjustment, you'll see stripes in the viewfinder.

On iOS, the pricing on the Moment Pro Camera app is changing from freemium to paid. Previously, you could unlock pro tools within Moment through an in-app purchase, but now the app will require an upfront purchase.

Moment is now available from the App Store for $5.99, and to celebrate the launch of the updated app, Moment is offering 15 percent off all of its lenses and gear. [Direct Link]

Facebook's developer conference, F8, took place today, and Facebook announced a number of changes coming to the social network in the future.

Facebook is set to gain a refreshed design, that's meant to be "simpler, faster, and more immersive," situating Facebook Groups more prominently. The new design will "make it easy" for people to transition from public spaces to more private ones.

There's a redesigned Groups tab to make it easier to find content from your groups, along with a new discovery tool for recommendations for new groups. Content from groups may show up more prominently in the News Feed, and content from the News Feed will be able to be shared directly with groups.

New features for specific types of groups are coming, such as an option to post without a name in a health support group and an option for employers to post job openings in job groups. Gaming groups will get a chat feature, and Buy and Sell groups are getting an option that will let people ask questions and place orders during live broadcasts.

A "Meet New Friends" feature is coming to help people start friendships with new people from shared communities like a school, workplace, or city, and this summer, a new Events tab is coming to allow users to see what's happening around them.

Facebook's redesign is rolling out on mobile devices starting today and will be available on the desktop site "in the next few months."

As was announced earlier today, Facebook also plans to introduce a Messenger app for macOS, a re-engineered mobile Messenger app, a feature for watching videos with friends, and a dedicated space for messaging close friends and family.

During today's event, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that privacy will be more of a focus going forward. Facebook will focus on six principles as it makes site and app changes in the future: private interactions, encryption, reduced permanence for content, safety, interoperability, and secure data storage.

"Over the next few years we are going to build more of our services around these ideas," Zuckerberg said. "This isn't just about building features. We need to change a lot of the different ways that we run this company today."

When we share videos and images here at MacRumors, we often get a lot of questions about where our wallpapers are from, so we thought we'd offer a look at some of our favorite wallpaper app options so you can find new backgrounds for your iPhone, iPad, and even your Mac.

• Walli (Free) - Walli is a free wallpaper app that lets artists share photographs and artwork that can be used as your ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌ background. Walli has content organized into categories, plus there's a search tool and options for viewing recent, popular, and featured content. Walli offers all free content and displays ads in the app.
• Unsplash (Free) - Unsplash is a community-based image sharing app that provides royalty-free photographs for you to use as wallpaper or for other purposes. It's not focused solely on wallpapers, but there's an interesting range of content and a huge number different options. There are featured categories along with a robust search tool for finding just what you're looking for. Along with an iOS app, Unsplash also has a website so you can get Mac wallpapers too.
• Vellum Wallpapers (Free) - Vellum is an app that aggregates wallpapers from a variety of sources, so it offers a good range of different wallpaper options. Some of the content overlaps with the other wallpaper apps we've mentioned, but it also has unique wallpapers you won't find elsewhere. It has a nifty blurring tool for cutting out details on a wallpaper you might want to use as a background for the Home screen, so app names and icons won't be hard to see. It's free, but you can remove ads for $1.99.
• Atlas Wallpaper (Free) - Atlas is a unique wallpaper app that's designed to let you create a wallpaper based on a map anywhere in the world. You can search for a specific location, see a general overview map, and then customize the color palette to create unique wallpaper maps.

Along with the apps mentioned above, Reddit can be a great resource for new wallpaper content, specifically in the /r/wallpaper subreddit, and just a simple Google search for images can also be helpful if you're looking for something more specific.

Do you have favorite wallpaper app or resource that we didn't mention? Let us know in the comments.

Apple CEO Tim Cook today shared some details on upcoming Apple Pay providers during Apple's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2019.

Ticketmaster is set to begin accepting ‌Apple Pay‌ for ticket purchases on the web in the near future, and more than 50 entertainment and sporting event venues are launching contactless tickets this year, including most NFL stadiums.

New York's MTA transit system is piloting ‌Apple Pay‌ on a couple of lines at the current time, and Cook says ‌Apple Pay‌ will roll out to the rest of the lines in "early summer," which is new information.

Cook believes the introduction of ‌Apple Pay‌ support for transit systems across the U.S. will bring in even more ‌Apple Pay‌ customers who don't currently use the payments service.

‌Apple Pay‌ transaction more than doubled year over year, and Apple is on track to reach 10 billion transactions in 2019. ‌Apple Pay‌ is available in 30 markets, which Apple expects to expand to 40 markets by the end of the year.

Apple CFO Luca Maestri today said that Apple's Wearables, Home, and Accessories category, which includes devices like the AirPods and the Apple Watch, set a new March quarter revenue record of $5.1 billion.

According to Maestri, AirPods demands continues to be "off the charts," and Apple is "working hard to catch up with the incredible customer demand" for the earbuds. Earlier in the call, Apple CEO Tim Cook called AirPods a "cultural phenomenon."

Last month we introduced new AirPods, the second generation of the world’s most popular wireless headphones. Demand has been incredible. This is nothing less than a cultural phenomenon. With a new Apple-designed H1 chip, the new AirPods deliver faster connect times, more talk time, and the convenience of hands free "Hey Siri."

As for Apple Watch, it continues to be the best selling smart watch in the world, with three quarters of Apple Watch sales during the quarter going to first time Apple Watch owners.

The Apple Watch saw its best quarterly results for a non-holiday quarter, and Apple's wearables business saw growth close to 50 percent in Q2 2019. Apple's wearables business has now reached the size of a Fortune 200 company, which Cook said is "an amazing statistic" since it's only been four years since the Apple Watch was introduced.

During today's earnings call for the second fiscal quarter of 2019 (first calendar quarter), Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple's iPhone trade-in efforts have been highly successful.

According to Cook, Apple saw an all-time record response to the company's trade-in promotions, and Apple saw more than four times the number of trade-ins from the year-ago quarter.

When asked which devices people are trading in, Cook said that it's "all over the place." ‌iPhone‌ 6, 6 Plus, 7, 7 Plus, and fewer 8 and 8 Plus models. Some customers, he says, are on a two-year upgrade cycle, some on a one-year upgrade cycle, and some on three or four year cycles.

Cook said that Apple is aiming to offer better than average trade-in values to provide "extra benefits" to ‌iPhone‌ users.

In our stores we offer a trade-in value that is more than the blue book of the device, for lack of a better description. And so we have topped those up to provide extra benefit to the user.

Apple in November began offering a limited-time promotion that provided up to $100 in additional credit when trading in an ‌iPhone‌. The program allowed customers to buy a new ‌iPhone‌ XR, XS, or XS Max at a more heavily discounted price when trading in an older device.

Apple is no longer running that specific program, but the trade-in page continues to promote new ‌iPhone‌ pricing that's available when trading in an old ‌iPhone‌ and Apple's prices are better than most other trade-in programs for the ‌iPhone‌.

Amid declining iPhone sales, Apple today said in its Q2 2019 earnings report that the iPad saw its strongest growth in six years.

Apple's ‌iPad‌ sales hit $4.9 billion in Q2 2019, up from $4 billion in the year-ago quarter, marking a 22 percent increase in revenue.

Apple in October 2018 introduced all new iPad Pro models that eschew the Touch ID Home button in favor of a Face ID biometric system, allowing for a larger display area. Apple says that the ‌iPad‌'s revenue growth was largely due to a strong customer response to the ‌iPad Pro‌.

In March, Apple added to its ‌iPad‌ lineup with a new $499 iPad Air option, which serves as a middle tier offering between the ‌iPad Pro‌ and the $329 sixth-generation ‌iPad‌.

Apple also introduced a new version of the iPad mini, marking the 7.9-inch tablet's first update in several years. Both the ‌iPad Air‌ and the ‌iPad mini‌ 5 support the Apple Pencil, enabling ‌Apple Pencil‌ integration across Apple's entire ‌iPad‌ lineup.

Apple's services category, which includes iTunes, the App Store, the Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and AppleCare, has become an increasingly important revenue driver for Apple amid stagnating iPhone sales, and Apple has been focusing more than ever on its services category.

During the second fiscal quarter of 2019, Apple's services segment brought in $11.5 billion in revenue, up from the $9.9 billion services earned in the second quarter of 2018. Apple set a new all-time record for services revenue this quarter.

Apple set new March quarter revenue records for the ‌App Store‌, iCloud, ‌Apple Pay‌, and ‌AppleCare‌. ‌Apple Pay‌ is available in 30 markets and expect to be live in 40 markets by the end of the year.

Apple now has 390 million paid subscriptions across all of its services, an increase of 30 million compared to last quarter. By 2020, Apple expects to pass half a million paid subscriptions by 2020.

Apple in March announced a slew of new services that will boost services revenue even higher in the future. Apple News+, a $9.99 per month service that provides unlimited access to more than 200 magazines, has already launched, and later this year Apple is introducing Apple Arcade, ‌Apple News‌+, and a new Apple Card credit card.

Apple has said that it is aiming to reach $14 billion in services revenue per quarter by 2020, and the company is well on its way to reaching that goal.

Apple today announced its earnings results for the second fiscal quarter (first calendar quarter) of 2019, and ahead of the company's upcoming earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared some remarks on Apple's results with CNBC.

According to Cook, Apple's performance in China improved over the previous quarter and saw greater strength towards the end of the quarter.

A sales tax cut in the country decreased the price of Apple products, and Apple also made its own pricing adjustments in the country. Cook also told CNBC that the trade relationship between the U.S. and China had improved, resulting in a "much better" tone.

"The tone is much better than it was in the November-December timeframe. I think that affects consumer confidence in a very positive way," Cook said.

Apple had $10.22 billion in sales in its Greater China category, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong.

During the quarterly earnings call, Cook said that while worldwide revenue was down 17 percent, declines were smaller in the final weeks of the March quarter. Apple says that November and December were the most challenging months, which is an encouraging trend.

Apple reported revenue of $58.02 billion and earnings per share of $2.46. Apple's guidance for the third fiscal quarter of 2019 is $52.5 to $54.5 billion, higher than analyst expectations and an indication that iPhone sales in China are stabilizing.

Instagram today announced the upcoming addition of some new features to the social networking app, including an updated camera design and a new Create Mode, aimed at making it easier to share content without a photo or video.

The updated camera design features a wheel with selectable camera modes and effects, along with dedicated sections for live broadcasting and the new Create Mode. Instagram says the new camera update is designed to make adding effects and interactive stickers to content simpler. Instagram plans to roll out the new camera and Create Mode around the world "soon."

Instagram is also debuting a new shopping feature for finding items creators are using, and it's adding a new donation sticker that will let users raise money for nonprofit organizations.

To use this new feature, open the camera, take or upload a photo, tap the sticker icon and select the donation sticker from the tray. Choose a nonprofit to support and customize your fundraiser using creative tools. Once it's live, swipe up on your story to view the total amount raised. 100% of the money you raise on Instagram goes to the nonprofit you are supporting.

Separately, Instagram told TechCrunch that starting later this week, it will be running a test in Canada that removes the total number of likes on photos and video views in the Feed, Permalink pages, and Profile.

Instagram says this feature is being tested because it wants followers to "focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get." Only a small percentage of Canadian users will be added to the test.

The person who created the post can still open the Likers window to see the names of people who hearted their posts, but no total count is provided. It's not clear how long the test will last and if Instagram will roll this out to other regions in the future.