MacRumors

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Internet of Things platform Stringify to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a Philips Hue white and color ambiance starter kit to use with the free Stringify app. [Direct Link]

Stringify is a pretty popular home automation app that's able to link together a long list of Internet-connected devices and apps, connecting products like the Nest Thermostat, Hue bulbs, and Fitbit with apps like Dropbox, Slack, Twitter, and Yelp.

Basically, Stringify is a centralized app for controlling all of your home products and automating a huge variety of actions. If you've ever used IFTTT, Stringify is similar to that, but it's more powerful because it can connect to a lot more devices. It's an app that tells your devices "when this happens, then do this."

Most people are probably familiar with the Philips Hue at this point, but if you're not, it's a line of Wi-Fi connected bulbs that are linked together via a HomeKit-enabled hub. The starter kit we're giving away includes a hub and three color bulbs, which can turn any color or any shade of white.

Stringify uses "flows" to link devices together to perform specific tasks. With Stringify and the Philips Hue, it's possible to set up complex flows involving timers and location that aren't available with the regular Hue app. Flows can also be used to get the Philips Hue to work with other connected home products, like the Nest. Some examples:

• On weekday evenings at 11 and location is at home, turn bedroom Hue lights on, set a timer, and fade off both lights.
• Every weekday between 5pm and 7pm, turn on Hue lights when leaving work.
• At 5:30 a.m. on weekdays, turn on Bedroom Hue lights, send a message with a weather report, and set the Nest thermostat to 62 degrees.

Creating flows between home products and apps is done through a simple drag and drop interface that makes it easy to set up the desired effect. With the Hue lights, there are a huge number of triggers that can be used for actions in Stringify, based on parameters like time, weather, location, and more.

Want to set a trigger to turn on the lights whenever a new story is posted on MacRumors? That's possible. Want the lights to turn blue whenever rain is forecasted? That's also possible. There are a near endless series of triggers and events you can set up with the Hue, and there's even more you can do if you own multiple Stringify-compatible products.

Stringify can be downloaded immediately and used with the products you already own, but Stringify also has a Philips Hue Starter Kit to give to one 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.

Apple is planning to introduce new versions of tvOS and watchOS at the Worldwide Developers Conference, but unlike iOS 10 and OS X 10.12, we haven't heard any details on new features that could be bundled into the releases.

A lack of rumors hasn't stopped our forum members from dreaming up a list of most-wanted features in the two operating systems, so we took a look at some tvOS and watchOS wishlists to get an idea of the kinds of improvements people are hoping to see in the updates.

watchOS

One of the most desired features for the Apple Watch, unsurprisingly, is a better variety of watch faces to choose from. New digital faces and square watch faces like the Hermès Apple Watch face are high on the wishlist.

MacRumors reader mavis wants to see faces that include an optional second count, and moxxham outlined a feature for dynamic complications on watch faces that sounds useful.

It would be great to set up time dependant complications and notifications. In the morning once your alarm is turned off, that complication disappears and is replaced by the activity complication. If your watch is charged over night, when you put the Apple Watch on, the battery complication will disappear and be replaced by weather. Just simple things like this would be great. It would really stop you from changing different faces all the time to suit your needs. The watch would predict based on your usage which complications would suit you and at what time.

Sleep tracking is a feature some readers would like to see, but it's unlikely to be introduced in the current Apple Watch due to battery life concerns. The ability to reassign the side button to access something other than a contact list is another interesting feature request from anthonymoody.

Other watchOS 3 wants:

• More workout options and controls
• Reminders app
• Ability to scroll through Glances with Digital Crown
• Speed/efficiency improvements
• Ability to control Apple TV with Apple Watch Digital Crown and Siri
• Option to disable Time Travel
• Watch Face activated at all times
• Glance for checking iPhone/Watch battery

Read more about the features people are hoping for in watchOS in the dedicated watchOS 3.0 wishlist thread on the forums.

tvOS

There are two threads our forum members have created covering tvOS features they'd like to see, one that was started shortly after the Apple TV launched and another that started up in April.

Both have some interesting feature requests like a dark mode for the user interface, an Apple Music-style "For You" iTunes section for movie and TV suggestions, and unsurprisingly, support for games that only use a controller. Right now, tvOS apps with controller support are also required to support for the Apple TV remote, limiting controller functionality.

Other feature requests:

• Picture-in-picture and/or Split View
• Cloud backup and storage
• iCloud syncing for multiple Apple TVs
• VPN support
• Better parental controls
• Easier switching between accounts
• Remote installation of tvOS apps from iOS devices
• Always-on Hey Siri
• Slow motion playback
• Continuity and Notifications

The new versions of watchOS and tvOS will be unveiled alongside iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 on Monday, June 13 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. The event is set to kick off at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

While Niantic and The Pokémon Company's much-anticipated iOS and Android game Pokémon Go is still a few months from launch, TechCrunch recently got to go hands-on with the app to discover how it plays in a real-world scenario. Walking around San Francisco, TechCrunch's Greg Kumparak particularly liked the game's endearing ability to encourage hometown exploration, alongside its more intense, cooperative aspects.

Kumparak notes pausing at the base of the Bay Bridge when his phone vibrated to notify him that a virtual cache was hiding nearby. When opened, some historic details about the bridge were shared, alongside a few Poké Balls and one Pokémon Egg. Later, when he and the Niantic team arrived at a major San Francisco landmark -- Cupid's Span -- his phone notified him again, this time that a Pokémon was lurking nearby.

After catching a Horsea near the shore of the Bay, Niantic encouraged Kumparak to engage in a battle in the nearby "Gym," located at Cupids' Span. Previous news surrounding the game detailed a user's ability to choose the yellow, blue or red team, who would all be in constant battle over gyms scattered throughout the real world.

As Kumparak battled within the Gym, Niantic divulged information on the cooperative elements required by players who take on Gyms with more than just one or two simple, low-level Pokémon.

To take over a gym, you have to boot out the Pokémon that are already there. You and your friends can work together to take them on; if you win, you get to leave some Pokémon there to defend it. Battles are fairly simple (it seems mostly about tapping the screen quickly vs. the strategy of the original games.) As more players join, gyms get more and more powerful, capable of holding more Pokémon, and thus harder to take over.

“So might it ever reach a point where you’ll need, say, dozens of people to gather together in one place to take over a gym?”, I ask.

“Oh, absolutely”, one of the devs responds. “That’s what’s supposed to happen.”

Overall, Kumparak came away largely pleased with Pokémon Go, saying that the experience made him want to "walk around San Francisco aimlessly" to discover new Pokémon and find a few new items for his character. A release date has yet to be set for the augmented reality game, but Niantic has said it aims to launch the game by the end of 2016.

Check out TechCrunch's full hands-on report of Pokémon Go for more details on the game and how it plays.

After Apple announced a handful of new changes heading to the App Store under Phil Schiller's reign -- including a new revenue split for subscriptions and ads in search results -- Spotify recently commented its opinion on the announcements. Speaking with The Verge, Jonathan Prince, Spotify's head of corporate communications and global policy, said simply, "It's a nice gesture, but doesn't get to the core of the problem."

One of Spotify's major hangups centers around the fact that the new rules still prohibit apps from offering "special offers or discounts," because price flexibility is prohibited. The Cupertino company's policy makes sure that it's a constant presence between the customer and developer, "which means developers will continue to lack visibility into why customers churn."

"Unless Apple changes its rules, price flexibility is prohibited, which is why we can never provide special offers or discounts, and means we won't have the ability to share any savings with our customers," Prince continued. "Apple still insists on inserting itself between developers and their customers, which means developers will continue to lack visibility into why customers churn — or who even qualifies as a long-term subscriber."

Prince also said that the rules make it hard to even determine which customers could be considered as a long-term subscriber - an important factor to take into account now that Apple will take only a 15 percent cut if a user stays subscribed to a service for more than a year. Apple currently takes 30 percent of a subscription fee when users sign up to a service on the App Store.

Spotify's concerns follow an uptick in subscriber activity in the year since Apple's rival subscription music service, Apple Music, launched to the public. While the latter platform is on track to gain 15 million subscribers for its one-year anniversary in late June, Spotify has grown from 20 million paid users last June, to 30 million in May of 2016. The company noted that since Apple Music launched it has "been growing quicker and adding more users than before."

Earlier this week, Google released a new app called Motion Stills, designed to turn Live Photos captured with the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE into GIFs or videos. Over the past couple of days, we spent some hands-on time with Motion Stills, and have been really impressed with the way it transforms Live Photos into a more useful, shareable medium.

Motion Stills isn't just an app that converts a Live Photo to a GIF. As seen in the video below, it uses Google's video stabilization technology to smooth out jittery images and freeze backgrounds with some impressive-looking results.

Live Photos are viewable on Apple devices running iOS 9 or later or OS X 10.11 or later, and Apple has made an API available for developers to build Live Photos support into their apps, but there are no built-in tools for editing Live Photos or converting them to other formats.

With no native tools available, Motion Stills fills a major Live Photos void. The app isn't perfect, has a few bugs, and works better with certain types of subjects, but overall, it's well worth checking out if you have a device capable of capturing Live Photos.

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

Apple is planning to announce an iMessage app for Android users at WWDC, according to a report from MacDailyNews citing sources "familiar with the company's thinking."

Apple will announce that iMessage encrypted text messaging is coming to Android users at WWDC next Monday at WWDC 2016, according to a source familiar with the company's thinking. [...]

Apple is increasingly focused on services which means opening up certain avenues beyond its own iOS and OS X platforms, the source says. The company release Apple Music for Android last November.

Google recently announced a new messaging app called "Allo," which will be available on both Android and iOS devices. Allo integrates with a user's phone number and includes features like a built-in Google assistant that offers up proactive suggestions, resizable message bubbles, emoji, stickers, smart replies, mini games, an Incognito mode with end-to-end encryption, and more.

With Google set to release a chat app on iOS, bringing iMessage to Android could potentially be Apple's response. Apple has previously released three apps on Android, including Apple Music, Move to iOS for transitioning from an Android device to an iPhone, and Beats Pill*, for controlling the Beats Pill speaker. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said Apple Music is Apple's way of testing the water ahead of bringing additional Apple services to other platforms.

The simplicity, convenience, and security of iMessage is one of the major perks of the iPhone, however, so it is unclear if Apple would want to expand such a key feature beyond its own devices.

MacDailyNews doesn't have a solid track record when it comes to accurately predicting Apple's plans, so today's report should be viewed with some skepticism. The site's source also suggests "plans are constantly in flux" ahead of keynotes so the release could be delayed, but iMessage is "definitely" coming to Android in 2016.

Philips today announced the launch of the Philips Sonicare Flexcare Platinum Connected toothbrush, the company's first brush that includes Bluetooth connectivity and connects to an iPhone to track brushing habits.

The Flexcare Platinum Connected toothbrush includes "Smart Sensor technology" to track specific brushing locations in the mouth, making sure all teeth get proper attention. It also includes scrubbing and pressure alerts to keep users from brushing too hard, something that can lead to gum deterioration, and there's a timer and a monitor to let you know when to replace a brush head.

Sonicare is releasing an app alongside the toothbrush, which will deliver information on brushing habits and let users know the areas that need more attention through a "Touch Up" feature and a personalized 3D Mouth Map.

Sonicare will ship the Flexcare Platinum Connected toothbrush with the AdaptiveClean brush head, one of its newer brush heads featuring flexible rubberized sides and a larger size for four times more surface contact and better plaque removal.

Like all Sonicare brushes, the Flexcare Platinum Connected features several brushing modes, including Clean (standard two minute mode), White (for a quick polish) and DeepClean (a three minute clean), plus different intensity settings.

Philips competitor Oral-B has been offering a line of adult Bluetooth-connected toothbrushes since early in 2015, so Sonicare is late to the connected brushing game with the Flexcare Platinum Connected. Sonicare has, however, been selling a Bluetooth-connected kids toothbrush since late 2015.

Sonicare plans to begin selling the new Bluetooth-connected toothbrush for $199 starting in mid-July.