MacRumors

Apple today seeded the third beta of watchOS 3.1 to developers for testing purposes, just over one week after seeding the second beta and a month after releasing watchOS 3 to the public. watchOS 3.1 has been in testing since September 21.

watchOS 3.1 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 must have 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it must be in range of the iPhone. watchOS 3.1 requires an iPhone running iOS 10 to install.

watchOS 3.1 appears to focus on bug fixes and under-the-hood performance improvements rather than outward-facing changes, as no new features were discovered in the first two betas. Should any changes be found in the third beta, we'll update this post.

watchOS 3 brings a new interface to the Apple Watch, with a dedicated App Dock and instant launch apps. There are new Activity sharing features, a "Breathe" app guides you through daily deep breathing sessions to cut down on stress, and there are new Reminders, Find My Friends, and Heart Rate apps.

Three new watch faces are included, and an SOS feature can automatically call emergency services. A revamped Messages app makes it easier to reply to incoming texts, plus there's a new "Scribble" feature for writing replies on the Apple Watch face with a finger. For more details on what's new in watchOS 3, make sure to check out our watchOS 3 roundup.

Online radio service Pandora today announced a rebranding of its iOS and Android apps, complete with a new logo that includes a "vibrant and bold color scheme" that the company says will showcase "the next phase of the product and the music experiences Pandora brings you." The app's icon has transitioned from a gray background with a navy blue "P" to an all-white background a lighter, bolder "P." It's also shifted from an uppercase to a lowercase font choice for "Pandora."

Music is a personal experience for everyone, from the artists creating it all the way to the fans listening to it. And as Pandora continues to evolve the most personal music experience, our new look embraces the dynamic range of sound and color, visualizing the energy and emotion that artists pour into the creation of music, and that we feel as listeners. Our dynamic brand is composed of form, color and pattern, which we implemented into the new P icon and serves as your portal into the unique and diverse range of music you love.

The rebranding comes ahead of Pandora's impending on-demand music listening service, which CEO Tim Westergren has confirmed will arrive "later this year." The service is believed to cost $9.99 and offer users the ability to listen to any song and musician they want, create playlists, and various other features, all putting it in the competitive music streaming category alongside Apple Music and Spotify.

Amazon today also entered the on-demand music streaming space with Music Unlimited, which grants users access to tens of millions of songs and costs $9.99 per month (or $7.99 for Amazon Prime subscribers). If users have an Amazon Echo, they can also subscribe to an Echo-only $3.99 streaming option.

For Pandora, the company mentioned that the rebranding will begin to rollout to iOS and Android users throughout today, "whether you listen to ad-supported Pandora or Pandora Plus." The new look will then make it to the desktop, web, and other devices "over the year."

Following confirmation that Samsung has discontinued the Galaxy Note 7 amid its well-publicized fire-catching problems, the company today gave the first indication of how much the move will cost it for the third quarter of 2016. In a report by Bloomberg, Samsung is said to have cut its third quarter operating profit by $2.3 billion and adjusted profit expectations from 7.8 trillion won ($6.9 billion) to 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion).

The company's projection "effectively erases all the mobile business profit that analysts had been projecting," with revenue expected to dive from 49 trillion won to 47 trillion won. On the wave of Samsung's woes, Apple shares reached a record high this year, but Samsung had yet to divulge its potential quarterly loss. Analyst Greg Roh said that Samsung's prediction accounts not only for defective units, but also "the inventories of Note 7s in the channel as well as the components they bought a few months back.”

“This is a huge cutback,” said Greg Roh, an analyst at HMC Investment Securities Co. “It means Samsung has reflected not only the sales loss from the shutdown but it also means it would bear the costs of the inventories of Note 7s in the channel as well as the components they bought a few months back.”

Samsung’s mobile division was projected to report operating income of 2.7 trillion won in the quarter, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. HMC’s Roh said the revised outlook probably erased that number. “We expected the mobile division to see about 2.6 trillion won previously but it will only see a mere 0.3 trillion won in the third quarter,” he said.

Samsung's manufacturing division -- which sees the output of semiconductors, glass panels, appliances, and other materials -- is expected to keep the company profitable for the quarter.

As the recall of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones continues, the company has begun delivering fireproof shipping boxes to customers affected by the exploding smartphone (via TechCrunch). In one video shared by XDA Developers, the contents of the box are revealed to include three smaller boxes within the larger packaging and a static shield to place the Note 7 in.

Dropbox for iOS is being updated today with iOS 10 support and new features to improve the file storage and sharing experience.

With Messages integration, Dropbox users can select Dropbox files from within the Messages app and share them with friends and colleagues, alleviating the need to open the Dropbox app and copy a link. A new Dropbox widget can be added to the lock screen, providing easier access to tools for creating, viewing, and uploading files.

There's a new tool in the Dropbox for signing PDFs, and there are options for getting notified when a file has been updated by a colleague so it can be refreshed with a tap.

Dropbox now includes support for picture-in-picture, a feature designed to let iPad users watch videos while performing other tasks. Split-screen support for compatible iPads is also coming in the near future, but won't be included in today's update.

Dropbox can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Casper has announced it now accepts Apple Pay on the web through Safari on both its desktop website on Mac and mobile website on iPhone and iPad.

Casper is a New York-based startup that sells an award-winning foam mattress exclusively through its website. The online retailer's product lineup also includes a pillow, sheets, foundation, and dog bed, available in the United States, Canada, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Apple Pay on the web is a convenient and secure option for online payments, eliminating the need to repeatedly fill out account, shipping, and billing information for a more seamless checkout experience. Compatible devices include iPhone 6 and later, iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3 and later running iOS 10 or above.

Apple Pay on the web is a new Safari feature on iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, expanding upon in-store and in-app payments. The feature started rolling out in September on websites such as Staples, easyJet, Indiegogo, StubHub, and Wayfair, with other committed partners to follow.

Last month we looked at Bose's wireless QuietComfort 35 noise-canceling headphones ($350) and came away with the feeling that – at least for those willing or able to test premium waters – Bluetooth-based audio fulfillment was finally a possibility.

So it would be remiss not to turn next to rival premium headphone maker and well-regarded German audio company Sennheiser to see what it has to offer in the wireless noise-canceling space.

Sennheiser has dipped its toes into the NC market before with the PXC 250-ii, PXC 450, and its lauded wireless Momentum series, but the firm announced its flagship PXC 550 travel cans ($400/£330) in an almost direct response to Bose's QuietComfort transition to Bluetooth, which makes comparisons here inevitable. First though let's look at the design and features of the PXC 550 headphones on their own terms.

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Accessory manufacturer Netatmo has launched its home monitoring system, called the "Healthy Home Coach," which connects to a smartphone app to inform users of their home's air quality, humidity, temperature, and noise level (via Engadget). As a plus, users of the company's smart indoor climate monitor will be able to integrate the system with Apple's HomeKit and use Siri to interact with the Netatmo device.

Netatmo designed the Healthy Home Coach with the same aesthetic of its security and weather devices, but with the specific goal of elevating the well-being and user awareness of a home's healthy environment. The company says that the device allows users to discover the precise noise level for sound sleeping, and guides them in adjusting a humidifier to hit the target humidity levels for someone with asthma.

The Healthy Home Coach can also tip users and tell them when to adjust the ventilation of a room to balance out air quality -- for better concentration, according to Netatmo -- and warn them when their home's temperature isn't at the right level. The device's connected iOS app pushes out these notifications and tells users when the air quality, temperature, humidity, or noise level is acting out of their pre-set parameters, so they can subsequently address the warning before it becomes a problem.

Anyone interested can purchase Netatmo's Healthy Home Coach from the company's website for $99.99. Although the range of the system isn't given, Netatmo says that it is "easily expandable," so additional monitors can be added into other rooms of a home where only one device can't reach.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today granted Apple another patent that could help the company create a bezel-free, edge-to-edge display for future generation iPhones. The new patent describes "electronic devices with display-integrated light sensors" and specifically refers to methods by which the company could stack the iPhone's ambient light sensor underneath the display, instead of next to it on the iPhone's bezel (via AppleInsider).

In the patent, there are a few configurations through which Apple could execute the technology. One showcases the light sensors -- which help the iPhone detect the ambient light in a room or outside -- integrated directly above the touch-sensitive layer of the display (figure 6), while another has the sensor placed next to the touch-sensitive layer without intersecting it (figure 9). The patent notes that the methods of executing this technology aren't limited to just light sensors, but could be used for "a proximity sensor, or any other sensor."

In a typical device, a light sensor is laterally displaced from an active display region of the display along a front face of the device. Additional space is therefore provided in common devices at the top, bottom, or side of the active display area to accommodate the light sensor.

This can result in an undesirable increase in the size and weight of the device, if care is not taken, displays may be bulky or may be surrounded by overly large borders. It would therefore be desirable to be able to provide improved electronic devices with light sensors and displays.

In the above images, there are two sections of the device's display that Apple notes in the patent as "AA" and "IA." AA is considered the display area that functionally gives information to the user and which responds to touch-based input, while IA -- covering the proposed screen-integrated sensor technology -- is referred to as an "inactive border region."

The patent describes the inactive region of IA as covered with an "opaque masking material such as a layer of black ink (e.g., a polymer filled with carbon black) or a layer of opaque metal," and surrounding the active region of AA. The ultimate goal of IA is apparently to hide components in the interior of a device from user view by camouflaging the region to look similarly like the active display it borders.

In effect, this could mean a future iPhone would successfully lose the bezels of the current generations and gain an edge-to-edge display, but not all portions of that display would be interactive.

Last week, Apple was granted another patent hinting at future iPhone technology that could integrate a fingerprint sensor directly into the display of a device, instead of requiring a separate component and taking up space below the screen of iPhones and iPads. With these two patents, Apple is slowly discover ways to remove the bezel from the bottom of an iPhone (Home Button/Touch ID) and the top (light sensor), although it remains to be seen how the company would handle the front-facing FaceTime camera and speaker in this scenario.