MacRumors

Apple today seeded the first version of an upcoming watchOS 2.2.2 update to developers, three weeks after releasing watchOS 2.2.1, a minor update that introduced bug fixes and performance improvements.

The watchOS 2.2.2 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on an 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 Apple Watch charger, and it must be in range of the iPhone.

We don't know what's included in watchOS 2.2.2, but as a 2.x.x update, it's likely to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements rather than outward-facing design changes and feature tweaks. We'll update this post with any changes that are discovered in the watchOS 2.2.2 beta.

Apple today provided developers with the second beta of an upcoming 9.2.2 update to tvOS, the operating system designed to run on the fourth-generation Apple TV. The second tvOS 9.2.2 beta comes two weeks after the release of the first beta and three weeks after the public launch of tvOS 9.2.1.

tvOS betas are more difficult to install than beta updates for iOS and OS X. Installing the tvOS beta requires the Apple TV to be connected to a computer with a USB-C to USB-A cable, with the software downloaded and installed via iTunes or Apple Configurator. Once a beta profile has been installed on the device through iTunes, new beta releases will be available over the air.

As a minor 9.x.x update, tvOS 9.2.2 appears to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements, much like tvOS 9.2.1, the current version of the tvOS operating system. According to Apple's release notes, the first beta included bug fixes and security improvements and no outward-facing changes were spotted.

We'll update this post if any new features are found in tvOS 9.2.2 beta 2.

Uber recently introduced a couple of new features into its driver-focused Partner App, intended to address some issues that the company's drivers have with the service, namely destination requests and rider wait fees (via The Verge). The company says that the updates are directed at removing a few of the pains with driving for Uber, and less about addressing ongoing litigation generated by its opposers.

One of the biggest new features is a way for drivers to specify a route on which they can pick up and drop off riders. This way, if a driver is already leaving the house with a location in mind, or going home, the Uber app will filter out any riders that aren't on their intended route. This addition has been tested in San Francisco for a while, but is beginning to see a wider rollout today.

The company is also letting drivers more easily end or pause their rider pick up requests. In the "current trips" section of the app, drivers will be able to toggle a slider to "go offline," letting them prevent incoming requests before their current trip ends. Uber hopes it'll let its drivers end their sessions before a rider hails their car, and potentially gives them a poor rating when the pick up is declined.

The update also supports the launch of Uber's fee system that charges riders for making a driver wait longer than two minutes at a pick up location. According to Uber, "In the cities where we’ve been testing this, we’ve seen that riders are more likely to be prompt." An expansion of its branded debit card -- intended to help drivers receive payments faster and better handle their finances -- is also rolling out concurrently with the new update.

Perhaps most interesting to those interested in driving for Uber, the company is offering discounted rides to all of its drivers. Those who complete 10 trips in a week will get a 15 percent discount on an UberX ride, and if they can complete 20 trips in one week the company will knock off 50 percent from one UberBLACK ride.

Uber has faced encroaching competition over the years from similar ride-hailing companies like Lyft, and has remained above water in the face of multiple class action lawsuits against the company. Most recently, a settlement was reached in two cases, where it was decided that Uber drivers would remain "independent contractors" and not "employees." Uber still had to pay $84 million to the approximately 385,000 drivers represented in the cases.

Looking forward, Uber has even announced entry into the self-driving car race happening in the industry. With testing occurring on the streets of Pittsburgh initially, the company aims to ultimately adapt the technology to eliminate the need for drivers from the service completely. Given the status of self-driving cars in the field, Uber's future goal is undoubtedly a ways off from being implemented.

AT&T this morning announced that new 5G data tests are hitting the speeds estimated earlier in the year by the carrier, with results coming in at over 10 gigabits per second in some cases.

According to AT&T, the early tests show "positive signs" for customers in the future who would use the multi-gigabit speeds and low latency of 5G, which the carrier even hints as a possible benefit if included in self-driving cars. Overall, results from AT&T's tests describe speeds that are "10-100 times faster than today’s average 4G LTE wireless connections."

“We’ve seen great results in our 5G lab trials, including reaching speeds above 10 gigabits per second in early tests with Ericsson,” said Tom Keathley, senior vice president – wireless network architecture and design, AT&T. “Nokia is joining to help us test millimeter wave (mmWave), which we expect to play a key role in 5G development and deployment. The work coming out of AT&T Labs will pave the way toward future international 5G standards and allow us to deliver these fast 5G speeds and network performance across the U.S.”

In addition, the company announced today that Middletown, New Jersey will be joining Austin, Texas as a testing ground for the carrier's 5G trial run. The small-scale tests help AT&T -- along with partner Nokia -- "simulate real-world environment scenarios" to see what kind of strain the service can handle before a wide launch. Labs are also being set up in Atlanta and San Ramon, California to begin software architecture work on 5G's infrastructure.

As it stands, 5G is still a ways off. AT&T admits that the company -- and any carrier interested in the new wireless technology -- must wait for a new standards-setting process that is expected to be completed by a group of telecommunication associations, known as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, in 2018.

Following that, AT&T's own 5G network rollout is expected a few years later in 2020, and Apple's adoption is completely unclear in terms of which potential future iPhone would support 5G. Despite being so far off, AT&T hopes its tests in Middletown and Austin help introduce a "strategy for future deployment" of 5G once the standard becomes widespread.

Wireless bluetooth headphones have been gaining traction over the past few years as potentially reliable replacements to the traditional wired headsets offered with most smartphones.

Interest has increased only further since rumors began suggesting that Apple's upcoming iPhone 7 may feature a thinner body with no headphone jack, leaving users to rely on the Lightning port and Bluetooth as ways to connect to the device.

Meanwhile, other rumors suggest Apple could use new audio technology in the iPhone 7 to improve noise cancellation and even extend the feature to a new set of Apple-branded wireless headphones.

Amid all the Apple speculation, the company best known for inventing premium noise cancellation technology – Bose – today unveiled a new wireless version of its flagship QuietComfort headphones, along with three other potential wireless options for the future iPhone 7 user.
Priced at $350 and available in black or silver, the QuietComfort 35 headphones feature the same around-ear design as previous wired QC cans and Bose claims they offer similar audio quality to its QC25 headphones.

The Verge says "they do a great job of making it feel like you're alone with whatever's playing through them", and that typical everyday ambient noise — subway stations, busy city streets, and so on — are "turned down to a whisper" by the QC35s.

Bose also announced today an all-new pair of noise-cancelling earbuds called the QuietControl 30s, which have a black plastic band that wraps around the back of the neck. The level of noise cancellation in the QuietControl 30s can be adjusted using either the Bose mobile app or via the physical controls on the buds. The QuietControl 30s cost $300 and will be available in September.
Bose has used significantly enhanced dual microphones in both products which the company claims do a better job of picking up the user's voice while effectively filtering out background noise.

Finally, Bose also today introduced two new models of fitness-oriented Bluetooth earbuds, the SoundSport Wireless ($149) and SoundSport Wireless Pulse ($199). Both models are water and sweat resistant, while the latter include a built-in heart-rate monitor inside the earbuds (similar to offerings from the likes of Samsung and Jabra), but neither models have Bose's patented noise cancellation smarts.

Alternatively, if you're more interested in the potential benefits and drawbacks of using Lightning headphones with an iPhone with no headphone jack, be sure to check out MacRumors' video on the subject.

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Parrot to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a Bebop 2 drone with a Skycontroller as part of Parrot's "It's Flying Season" event where the company is discounting its entire line of drones by $30 to $100.

During the promotion, all Minidrones are available for $30 off, the Bebop 2, Bepop, and AR Drone 2.0 are available for $50 off, and the Bebop 2 Skycontroller Black Edition is available for $100 off. Parrot's discounts are active from May 6 to July 4.

The Bebop 2, priced at $500 during the sale, is Parrot's newest drone, launched in December of 2015. It's lightweight and compact at 500 grams, and according to Parrot, it's been built with the "latest generation" of sensors and technologies to reach 25 minutes of flying time with a 2700 mAh battery. Its four three-blade propellers are designed to offer optimal maneuverability and it's able to reach speeds of 37 mph horizontally and 13 mph vertically.

A dual-core processor powers the Bebop 2, and a stabilization camera takes a photo every 16 milliseconds to determine speed. An ultrasound sensor analyzes flight altitude up to 16 feet, and a pressure sensor measures altitude beyond that. Positioning is controlled through an accelerometer and a 3-axis magnetometer, and a GPS chipset geo-localizes the drone and helps measure speed.

Parrot's Bebop 2 is piloted over Wi-Fi using a smartphone or tablet and can be used with an optional RC-style Skycontroller. The Skycontroller allows the Bebop 2 to be controlled from further away (up to 6,561 feet) through two joysticks and customizable buttons for an intuitive flight experience. The accompanying app allows the Bebop 2 to be flown right out of the box, with or without the Skycontroller. Tilting a smartphone left, right, forward, or backward controls the Bebop 2 and an automatic landing button brings it back down when the flight is over.

A 14-megapixel fisheye camera built into a 3-axis framework is included in the Bebop 2 to take wide angle (180 degree) HD photos and videos of the areas where it's flying. The Bebop 2 is built from a flexible glass fiber-reinforced ABS chassis and it has shockproof feet for landings.

We have a Bebop 2 Skycontroller drone to give away to a lucky MacRumors reader. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner and send the prize.

You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter.

The contest will run from today (June 3) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on June 10. The winner will be chosen randomly on June 10 and will be contacted by email. The winner has 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before a new winner is chosen.

Twitter recently began rolling out a new live-streaming Periscope button into its iOS app, letting users initiate a real-time broadcast from Twitter's first party app without having to jump into the company's year-old live-streaming video service Periscope. If a user doesn't have Periscope downloaded, the app will nudge them towards its location on the App Store.

The new "Go Live" button can be found when composing a Tweet, sitting to the right of the Photo and Video media options. The company began testing the feature on Android back in May, but confirmed to BuzzFeed yesterday that a "small group" of iOS users would begin to see the button this week. Of course, the long-term plan and launch window were kept secret.

A rep for Twitter told BuzzFeed News, “a few weeks ago we rolled out a ‘Go Live’ button in Twitter to a small percentage of Android users. We’re beginning to roll this out to a small group of iOS users. Over time, everyone will have the ability to start a Periscope broadcast from Twitter.”

Periscope launched in March of 2015, on the heels of similar live-stream service Meerkat. Since then, Facebook has shifted a lot of its focus into the live video space, updating its mainline app with a live video-heavy "Discovery" tab and discussing its plans for the future during the company's F8 Developer Conference in April. A rumored standalone camera and live video app is said to be in the works at Facebook, as well.

Twitter [Direct Link] and Periscope [Direct Link] can be downloaded on the App Store for free.

AgileBits recently announced that its long-in-beta product "1Password for Teams" has officially launched, bringing an enterprise-focused version of the company's popular password management app to iOS, Mac, and Android. 1Password for Teams will let users in a designated team share secure passwords, documents, and other data through AgileBits' heavily encrypted infrastructure.

Announced first in November, and now just coming out of a seven month-long beta test period, the new team sharing service gives control over a group of users to one administrator, who can then ensure that their entire team remains safe from phishing scams and hacks. With end-to-end encryption, 1Password for Teams ensures that team members don't have to risk a security breach by emailing or texting passwords between one another.

A team's administrator has access to 1Password for Teams' robust Admin Console, from which they can create password vaults and assign member access, restore a master password if a team member forgets their login information, and grant temporary access to guests.

AgileBits also promises that 1Password for Teams is backed by features that let members find "weak and reused passwords" so they can be changed proactively, a security alert system called Watchtower, a master password creator, and other various anti-phishing software. Through the service's security-minded automatic wireless syncing, users can share financial records -- like an office credit card or joint bank account -- and even various word and text documents.

Similar to its 1Password for Families plan, AgileBits has created a subscription model for its new team service. Users can get a standard subscription for $3.99 per user per month when billed annually ($4.99 when billed monthly), which includes unlimited access to 1Password's desktop and mobile apps, offline access, 1GB of storage per person, and a 30 day item history to recover lost documents.

A pro subscription is also available for $11.99 per user per month at an annual rate ($14.99 at a monthly rate), upgrading users to 5GB of storage, priority email support from AgileBits, an unlimited item history recovery system, and other top-tier features. The company is offering these pro-level features at a standard-level rate until August 1, and the pricing will be locked-in forever, so moving forward any added team members will be able to subscribe at the lower cost instead of the premium rate.

Check out more information for 1Password for Teams on AgileBits' website.