MacRumors

This week's Apple Pay promo offers concertgoers and sports fans the chance to get $10 off a purchase of $100 or more from StubHub. To get the discount, browse tickets in the StubHub iOS app, use Apple Pay to checkout before August 1, and enter the code APPLEPAY-10 during the checkout process.

The new promotion is themed around summer music festivals, and encourages users to pay with Apple Pay in apps like Airbnb and Lyft to book rooms and order rides to and from events. The company is also pointing customers towards a few clothing apps like Abercrombie & Fitch, GOAT, Hollister, and HBX.

The Stubhub promo follows a few Apple Pay promotions that have been themed around summer activities as well, which offered customers the chance to get discounts on Fourth of July dinners from TGI Fridays, save money on new Adidas shoes to wear during summer workouts, and redeem two free bike rides with the ofo app.

Google has added support for Morse code typing to its Gboard app for iOS, providing an accessible method of digital communication for people with disabilities.

The customizable feature replaces the letters of the keyboard with large dot and dash keys to enter text, and offers text-to-Morse sequences to the auto-suggestion strip above the keyboard.

Google has also launched a Morse Typing Trainer web game that teachers users how to communicate in Morse code using Gboard.

Tania Finlayson, an assistive tech developer with cerebral palsy who works on the Gboard project, explained in a Google blog post how Morse code has helped her communicate more effectively:

"At first I thought learning Morse code would be a waste of time, but soon learned that it gave me total freedom with my words, and for the first time, I could talk with ease, without breaking my neck. School became fun, instead of exhausting. I could focus on my studies, and have real conversations with my friends for the first time. Also, I did not need an adult figure with me every moment at school, and that was awesome."

For existing Gboard users, the Morse code feature is delivered in an update (version 1.29). Gboard is a free download for iPhone available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

The Procreate app for iOS was today updated to version 4.1, introducing several major new features that will enhance the drawing and art creation experience on the iPad.

A new Metal 2-powered Liquify feature lets artists push, pull, expand, pinch, and twirl their art using either touch-based gestures or Apple Pencil pressure for more control.

The Symmetry Drawing Guide in Procreate 4.1 lets users mirror strokes as they paint, with customizations that include half, quadrant, or radial devision with both mirror and rotational modes. Symmetry can be used with any brush or paint tool, along with Liquify and ColorDrop for unique works of art.

A new Warp Transform mode offers 16 adjustable nodes and depth layering, and it can be used alongside the existing Freeform and Distort Transform modes, while a new Layer Select gesture option lets users select a layer by touching the layer's content.

The built-in Perspective tools in Procreate have been improved with 2D and Isometric Guides, offering more control over grid measurements. Drawing Assist also snaps lines to guides for faster, more precise sketches.

Other notable improvements include Brush Set import and export, a 30-second time-lapse export option, and a color invert option for layers.

Procreate 4.1 is a free update for existing users. New users can download Procreate from the App Store for $9.99. [Direct Link]

Pinterest today announced the launch of a new social collaboration tool, called the "activity feed" for group boards. This section of the app will let members weigh in with a quick like or comment, @ mention another user, or start a new thread, and includes updates when members add new pins, create new sections, new members join, someone likes or comments, and more.

The app had comment support before, but each comment had to be attached to a specific pin. Now all comments will be organized in the activity feed so that conversations are easier to follow, and users will be able to start threads of their own on the collaborative board for all members to see, or under specific activities in the feed.

Pinterest is hoping to further facilitate the use of its platform as a party-planning tool for birthdays, weddings, and other events by introducing deeper social features that keep its users within the app. Earlier this year, the company introduced a "Following" tab that makes it easier to discover new ideas from users you follow.

The majority of Pinners use group boards to collaborate with family and friends as they plan parties, events and projects together. These updates are in direct response to requests from Pinners just like these, and they’re part of our ongoing effort to make Pinterest a more productive place to bring events and other projects to life.

The group activity feed will be available starting today across Pinterest's mobile apps and on the web.

Astropad today introduced new updates for both its Astropad Studio and Astropad Standard apps, bringing support for the Luna Display adapter, which is also now available for pre-order.

Introduced as a Kickstarter project last year, the Luna Display is designed to turn any iPad into a wireless second display for the Mac.

Astropad alone mirrors the Mac display, but Luna Display is designed to extend the Mac display rather than simply mirror it.

The Luna Display adapter plugs into a Mac using Mini DisplayPort or USB-C, and then after downloading the app, the Luna Display serves as an extension of the Mac, letting Mac content be accessed directly from an iPad.

Both of the Astropad apps now support Luna Display, and the Luna Display itself can be pre-ordered from the Luna Display website for $69.99.

Astropad also announced today that it is discontinuing all support for third-party styluses. The company says that third-party styluses deliver poor performance compared to Apple Pencil and create engineering complexities.

Astropad no longer recommends third-party styluses for artists. Support will cease at the end of 2018 to allow Astropad to focus on optimizing its apps for the Apple Pencil.

Astropad Standard can be downloaded from the App Store for $29.99. [Direct Link]

Astropad Studio, which costs $11.99 per month for syncing and monthly feature updates, is free to download initially. [Direct Link]

App developer Serif today launched Affinity Designer for iPad [Direct Link], a precise vector graphic design tool that aims to help users create marketing materials, websites, icons, user interface designs, concept art, and more, all without needing to be tied to a desktop computer.

The new app is based off the similarly titled Affinity Designer software available for Mac, and now optimized for iPad with Metal enhancements, full Apple Pencil support for drawing with pressure, tilt, and angle, and iCloud Drive integration for file storage and sharing.

When creating a design, Serif notes that panning and zooming is always live at 120 frames per second, and there are live gradients, transforms, effects, and adjustments available during the creation process. The app supports a split screen mode, wireframe view, and live pixel and retina view of vector artwork.

In terms of color and output features, Affinity Designer for iPad supports the professional CMYK, LAB, RGB, and Grayscale color models, as well as full 16-bit per channel editing and end-to-end ICC color management. Check out more of the app's features below:

- Seamless switching between tools and editing modes for frustration-free design.
- Advanced Lanczos 3 image resampling plus Bicubic, Bilinear and Nearest Neighbor methods.
- Live effects, blend modes, image adjustments, and raster and vector masks for any part of your design.
- Use the strengths of vector and raster behaviours for the best of both worlds.
- The best pen tool, pencil tool, corner tool, curve editing, geometry operations, and smart shape tools available.
- High quality raster tools for texturing, masking and finishing artwork. Create your own brushes too.
- Artboards, symbols, constraints and stored assets give the ultimate flexibility for UI and graphic design.

In February, Serif updated its Affinity Photo iPad app with a suite of powerful features, including the ability to shoot in RAW or HDR video directly within the app. At the end of last year, Apple awarded Affinity Photo as iPad App of the Year for 2017.

Affinity Designer is available for iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, and iPad (early 2017 and newer) for $13.99 [Direct Link], and requires iOS 11 or later.

Apple Pay will launch in Austria in the "coming months," according to well-known Austrian newspaper Der Standard. The report cites two unnamed sources and says Bank Austria could be one of the participating issuers.

Apple Pay first debuted in the United States in October 2014, and its availability has since expanded to over 20 countries and territories around the world, most recently including Norway, Poland, and the Ukraine:

Apple Pay enables users to add a debit or credit card from participating banks to the Wallet app and pay with a compatible iPhone or Apple Watch at stores that accept contactless payments, or in apps and on the web.

(Thanks, Michael and Rudolf!)

Apple quietly fixed a bug in iOS 11 that caused some devices to crash when the word "Taiwan" was entered in a text field or the Taiwan emoji was used, according to a security researcher (via Axios).

Digita Security's Patrick Wardle outlined in a blog post how the glitch in iOS 11.3 caused instant crashes on a variety of native and third-party iPhone and iPad apps, including iMessages, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Wardle explained that although some aspects of the bug remained unclear, his investigations found that a "null" code would prompt the crash when a "removeEmoji" operation led the system to check the device's language/region settings.

The glitch appears to be the unintended result of some lines of code that Apple added to iOS to hide the Taiwanese flag emoji on devices set to the China region. Apparently, the code worked for iOS devices set to China, but caused crashes on devices that had somehow ended up in an "unsupported region-less state." It's unclear, however, exactly how a device could end up in that state.

While Apple fixed the glitch in iOS 11.4.1 after Wardle reported it, the bug's occurrence highlights Apple's willingness to placate China when it comes to sensitive political matters. Taiwan and China have had a fractious relationship ever since the Chinese Civil War, with China long considering Taiwan to be under its sovereignty, despite Taiwan officially self-recognizing as an independent democracy wholly separate from mainland China.

Apple has made similar moves in the past to protect its important Chinese market. In July 2017, for example, Apple removed many VPN apps from the App Store in China, following regulations passed earlier in the year that require such apps to be authorized by the Chinese government.

In December 2016, the company was forced to remove both the English-language and Chinese-language versions of The New York Times app from the Chinese App Store, after being informed by the Chinese authorities that they were in violation of local regulations.

Another case of Apple censoring in China included the forced shutdown of iTunes Movies and the iBooks Store, following the release of controversial independent movie Ten Years, which won best picture prize at the Hong Kong Film Awards. The dystopian film imagines Hong Kong in 2025 with language police, mini Red Guards, radical protest and social alienation rife.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Japan's antitrust watchdog on Wednesday said Apple may have breached antitrust regulations by forcing three major domestic network carriers to sell its iPhones cheaply and charge higher monthly fees (via Reuters).

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said that Apple had forced NTT Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank to offer subsidies and sell iPhones at a discount.

In the eyes of the FTC, this made it hard for the mobile service providers to offer lower rate plans for long-term subscribers and effectively denied consumers a fair choice. FTC anti-monopoly law explicitly forbids such acts as "unfair restraint of trade" that disregards the operations of business partners.

Apple and its Japanese arm have told the FTC they will review their contracts in light of these criticisms, according to sources who spoke to Nikkei Asian Review.

Japan's FTC started investigating Apple's sales practices in 2016, but didn't punish the company after it agreed to revise its contracts with the carriers, according to Reuters.