MacRumors

Newton Mail today announced an update for its iOS app that aims to make it easier than ever for users to keep track of email conversations by making the "Sent" folder obsolete. Called "True Inbox," the feature automatically places any sent emails at the top of the Inbox, no matter if the recipient has responded to the message or not.

This treats each email conversation more like a messaging app, with each thread sorted by activity so that any time a response is sent or received, that conversation shifts to the top of the screen. As usual, Newton users can still archive, snooze, star, view read receipts, and more from the new True Inbox, but now "there's absolute no need to go to Sent folder any more."

In the blog post announcing the update, Newton designer Umesh Gopinath explained the company's purpose for getting rid of the Sent folder.

When I start a new conversation, the mail I sent, remained in the Sent folder, till I received a reply. Which meant, I had to still jump between Inbox and Sent folders to follow up on mails. I always wondered why Gmail never thought of it. People found work-arounds for this problem by Auto BCCing mails to themselves to bring sent mails to inbox. Another recent way was to snooze the sent mails. Needless to say, we found all these hacks ugly, non intuitive and cumbersome.

When we designed Read Receipts in Newton to show 2 ticks on a conversation, like a chat app, we felt that the only time it took one step backwards was when I started a new conversation and then had to go to Sent folder to see the ticks. We really wanted to fix this problem. We wanted to truly make email modern.

Newton users will begin seeing True Inbox automatically, but Gopinath mentioned that the update will see a rollout in "phases" to start. Those who don't want to wait can turn the feature on in Settings > General > Conversation View > True Inbox. Newton Mail is available to download from the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link].

Yesterday during its F8 conference, Facebook announced that an update coming to Messenger would simplify the chat app and reduce the amount of visual clutter that had been added into the user interface over the last few years. The Next Web has shared images of this new update, showing off the cleaned up interface, a dark mode, and more.

The updated Facebook Messenger greatly reduces the number of buttons on the bottom of the screen to just three, and moves the camera and call buttons to the top right of the UI. In the current app, the bottom row has five buttons for Home, People, Camera, Games, and Discover. As The Next Web pointed out, Facebook doesn't appear to be removing any features from Messenger, so anything that appears missing is believed to be combined into another button.

Messenger will still open on a recent chat list, with circles of friends aligning the top of the screen that includes a + button to add to your Messenger Day story, the app's Snapchat clone feature. When you click on a chat, the bottom-screen UI buttons shift to include options for chat bots, the camera, and emoji. In this screen, you'll also be able to customize your chat with various color options and set what appears to be a shortcut to your favorite emoji.

During the keynote on the update, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company knows its users want a "simple and fast experience" in a chat app, so it would be "taking this moment to completely redesign Messenger to focus on these ideas." Facebook introduced a pared-down version called Messenger Lite in 2016, but it was only made available for Android devices and has yet to launch on iOS.

For the new update to the iOS Messenger app, Facebook said it's coming "very, very soon." Yesterday, the company also unveiled a "clear history" tool for ads and analytics, showed off a dating feature to rival Tinder, and launched a standalone VR headset "Oculus Go."

Nokia has revealed plans to sell its digital health business back to the co-founder of Withings, the French health tracking company Nokia bought in 2016.

Finland-based Nokia originally acquired Withings for $192 million in an effort to re-establish a presence in the consumer electronics market, rebranding Withings' iOS-compatible smart connected home products as well as a range of health and fitness wearables.

However, it looks as if the acquisition simply didn't pay off for the erstwhile mobile phone powerhouse. In 2017, the digital health division earned just $62.4 million in revenue, but the rest of the company posted sales of $27.9 billion. Now Nokia is handing back the business to Withings' co-founder, Éric Carreel. The sale will likely be at a significant loss, although the Nokia press release didn't mention figures:

Nokia announced a review of strategic options for the Digital Health business in February 2018. The planned sale is part of Nokia's honed focus on becoming a business-to-business and licensing company. The transaction is subject to terms agreed in the negotiations and completion of the information consultation with the Works Council of Nokia Technologies (France) SA., with the deal expected to close in late Q2 2018.

The announcement follows recent reports of layoffs from the company, as well as a leaked memo that revealed the digital health division was in a bad way with little prospect of turning things around. Then in October, Nokia announced a $164 million write-down of the division's assets. Google and Samsung were reportedly looking into taking the ailing health business off Nokia's hands, but today's announcement suggests nothing substantial came of the negotiations.

Apple's "Other Products" category, which includes AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, HomePod, Beats products, iPod touch, and other Apple-branded and third-party accessories brought in nearly $4 billion in revenue, up an impressive 38 percent compared to the year-ago quarter that brought in $2.9 billion in revenue.

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Apple Watch, one of the most lucrative products in the "Other" category, saw strong revenue growth "in the double digits" year-over-year, setting a March quarter revenue record. Apple does not break down "Other" product sales, so specific numbers on Apple Watch sales are unavailable.

Cook described AirPods, another popular "Other" product as a "runaway hit" that the company is still working to keep in stock.

Wearables saw a combined revenue increase of almost 50 percent year over year, which includes AirPods, Beats, and Apple Watch. Cook said that Apple's wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 300 company.

Cook didn't have much to say about the HomePod, which is also in the "Other" category, but he said that he believes it is a "breakthrough" speaker that will change the way we listen to music.

Apple is "looking forward" to adding new features to the HomePod and introducing it to more markets soon, but he gave no timeline for these updates.

Apple's services category has continued to see rapid growth and it is becoming an increasingly important revenue driver for Apple.

In the second fiscal quarter of 2018, Apple's services brought in $9.19 billion in revenue, up 31 percent compared to the $7 billion in revenue services earned in the second quarter of 2017.

For the last several quarters, Apple's services revenue has grown so quickly that Apple sets a new record with each earnings announcement, and the second quarter of 2018 is no exception. Apple's services category includes iTunes, the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Pay, and AppleCare.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that in Q2 2018, the App Store, Apple Music, Apple and iCloud set all time revenue records. Apple Music set a new record for both revenue and paid subscribers, which, as was announced recently, has hit 40 million.

Apple's paid subscriptions surpassed 270 million, up 100 million from a year ago and up 30 million in the last 90 days alone.

Recently, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty predicted that over the course of the next five years, services revenue growth will contribute more than 50 percent of Apple's total revenue growth.

Huberty estimated that services revenue is at $30 per device, with just 18 percent of Apple's total device install base subscribing to paid Apple services, leaving a lot of room for growth in the coming years.

Apple in 2016 set itself a goal to double its services revenue by 2020, and the company is well on its way towards hitting that goal. Apple in 2016 earned $24 billion in revenue from services, so the double goal is $48 million.

Apple is planning to expand Apple Pay to Norway, Poland, and Ukraine in the near future, Apple CEO Tim Cook said this afternoon during Apple's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2018.

Cook did not provide specific information on a potential launch date, beyond the announcement that it would be coming "in the next several months."

Cook said that Apple Pay continues to see strong growth, with the service setting a new all-time quarterly revenue record.

Apple Pay activations have doubled year over year, and total Apple Pay transactions have tripled. With launches for transportation services in countries like Japan, Apple Pay has seen significant growth. Cook said that Apple Pay is no the most successful mobile transit payment system in Toyko.

Over the course of the last few years, Apple has been working rapidly to expand Apple Pay to additional countries, and it is now available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, France, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, UAE, and Brazil.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this morning hosted a keynote event for the F8 developers conference, where he unveiled several new features that are coming to the social network.

Watch Party is a new Facebook feature that will allow you to watch videos while also chatting with your friends. When introducing the feature, Zuckerberg joked about his recent congressional testimony. "Let's say your friend is testifying in Congress," he said. "Now you can watch and laugh together, cry together."

Facebook plans to overhaul the Groups feature, which Zuckerberg says is one of the most meaning parts of Facebook. There will be a new groups tab to make groups more central to the overall Facebook experience. A new join group button and plugin will be available to developers and website administrators to make it easier for Facebook users to create and join groups.

The other major feature that's coming to Facebook is a dating feature, which Zuckerberg says is designed to help people build meaningful relationships. "This is for building real long-term relationships, not just hookups," said Zuckerberg.

The dating feature will be within Facebook, and it will be opt-in, allowing people to make a dating profile if desired. Facebook says the feature has been built with "Privacy and Safety in mind." Your friends will not see your profile, friends won't come up as dating options, and you'll only see suggestions of people who fit your preferences

For WhatsApp, Facebook's popular encrypted messaging app, Facebook will add Group Video calling features and it will expand WhatsApp businesses to allow larger companies to access WhatsApp for interacting with customers.

For Messenger, Facebook is redesigning the app's interface with a focus on making it clean, fast, and simple. Messenger will also gain the AR Camera Effects platform for using augmented reality effects when connected to friends and family.

At today's F8 developer conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled some new features that are coming soon to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

Instagram's Explore tab will be getting a new look that's more focused on various topics.

Facebook also plans to add a new video chat feature to Instagram, allowing two or more people to chat with each other using a FaceTime or Skype-style video chatting interface.

You can use the video chat feature to chat one-on-one with someone or with a group of people, and you can chat while continuing to browse Instagram.

Instagram is also gaining an AR Camera Effects platform, which will allow Instagram photos to be enhanced with augmented reality effects.

It's not quite clear exactly when these new features will be coming to Instagram.

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.3.1 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first watchOS 4.3.1 beta and a month after releasing watchOS 4.3.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4.3.1 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

Shortly before watchOS 4.3.1 was introduced, Apple stopped allowing developers to update Apple Watch apps built on the original watchOS 1 SDK. In watchOS 4.3.1, there's an alert when launching a watchOS 1 app that warns that the app may not be compatible with future versions of watchOS. This suggests Apple will drop support for watchOS 1 apps entirely in the future, just as it did with support for 32-bit iOS apps in iOS 11.

Code hidden within watchOS 4.3.1 also suggests Apple is working on introducing support for custom third-party watch faces, but this is likely a feature that would be introduced as part of a major watchOS 5 update rather than through watchOS 4.3.1.

There were no other new features discovered in watchOS 4.3.1, which is unsurprising as this is a minor 4.x.x update. It's likely this update focuses primarily on bug fixes to address issues discovered since the release of watchOS 4.3.

Apple does not provide detailed release notes for watchOS, so we may not know what's included in the update until it sees a public release.

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.4 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first beta and a month after releasing the tvOS 11.3 update.

Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 11.4 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that's installed using Xcode.

tvOS 11.4, paired with iOS 11.4, reintroduces AirPlay 2 features that were present in early tvOS and iOS 11.3 betas but were removed ahead of release. With AirPlay 2, the same audio content can be played on multiple devices (like the Apple TV) throughout your home. After installing iOS 11.4 and tvOS 11.4, the Apple TV will once again be listed in the Home app.

There were no other new features discovered in the first two tvOS 11.4 updates, and it's likely it focuses on bug fixes and other small improvements. Apple's tvOS updates have historically been minor in scale, and we may not find any other new additions.

We'll update this post should new features be introduced in the third beta of tvOS 11.4.

Update: Apple has made a new public beta of tvOS 11.4 available to its public beta testing group.

Ahead of Facebook's F8 Developer Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is building a new "Clear History" privacy control option to erase some of the data Facebook has collected.

Zuckerberg likens the new Clear History tool to the ability to clear cookies and cache on a web browser. Zuckerberg says it "will be a simple control" that will clear browsing history on Facebook, erasing what you've clicked on, the websites you've visited, the ads you've interacted with, and more.

Facebook's first focus will be on the information that Facebook gets from websites and apps that use Facebook's ads and analytics tools. When the Clear History update debuts, users will be able to see and erase this information.

Once we roll out this update, you'll be able to see information about the apps and websites you've interacted with, and you'll be able to clear this information from your account. You'll even be able to turn off having this information stored with your account.

Zuckerberg warns that after clearing your content "your Facebook won't be as good" until it relearns your preferences, but he says Facebook believes this is an "example of the kind of control we think you should have."

Zuckerberg says the company is working to make sure the controls are clear, and that more info will come soon. Additional details on new privacy control options may be shared at today's F8 conference, which begins soon.