MacRumors

Following the announcement that Nintendo's next two mobile gaming apps will center around the Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem franchises, DeNA Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu today mentioned to The Wall Street Journal that both games will be "free-to-start apps," which a Nintendo spokeswoman has now confirmed. DeNA is the Tokyo-based mobile gaming studio assisting with the creation of Nintendo's five smartphone titles, still on a planned trajectory for launch before March 2017.

When Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem were announced for iPhone and Android last month, neither company confirmed the payment strategy the games would adopt for mobile platforms. Nintendo and DeNA's first game, Miitomo, rolled out with a similar free-to-play model where users could end up spending more money in-game on various outfits for their virtual Mii avatar. Although its popularity in the field died down somewhat after initial launch excitement, Nintendo confirmed Miitomo was downloaded and played by over 10 million users worldwide since its debut.

In the original announcement, Nintendo said that Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing were both "pure game applications," especially in comparison to Miitomo's more socially-driven atmosphere. What's still unclear is how Nintendo plans to implement in-app purchases within each game, although it seems that the free-to-play model is a continuation of the company's hope to build up a user base consisting of a wide demographic of players, instead of a purely hardcore one who would be willing to pay outright for each title.

In earlier announcements centering around Miitomo's freemium model, Nintendo mentioned that future games would be pay-to-download, so there's still a chance that the remaining games created between the company and DeNA could be more traditionally priced apps. The rollout plan was already pushed back when Miitomo missed its 2015 launch, but if the company stays on track now, there should still be two more Nintendo apps hitting iOS and Android sometime between this fall and March of next year.

Google has begun selling its affordable VR viewer to customers in the U.K., France, Germany, and Canada.

The viewer works by phone owners inserting their handset into a cardboard shell that contains optical lenses. With a supporting game or app running on the phone, the image on the screen is split into two halves.

By looking into the lenses, the images are combined into one immersive, 3D image. Many Cardboard apps also use a phone's gyroscope and accelerometer to let users look around the virtual world.

Previously the popular cardboard device was only available outside of the U.S. via third parties and promotional offers, but Google is now offering it direct to international customers via its online store.

The VR viewer is available in Canada for $20 each or $35 for a pair, 20 Euros each or 30 Euros for two in France and Germany, and £15 each or £25 a pair in the U.K.

Cardboard supports Apple's range of iPhones and has an interactive click button that works with all compatible handsets.

(Via The Verge.)

Facebook yesterday released its Moments private photo sharing app in Europe and Canada, almost a year after it appeared in the U.S. App Store.

The app helps users find Facebook photos of themselves, their friends, and particular places, and collects these together for private viewing or sharing. It does this by attempting to recognize who appears in them based on facial features, and also takes into account the date, time, and location where the photos were taken.

The U.S. and international versions of the company's photo-centric app use facial recognition technology to identify people in Facebook photos, but the feature ran afoul of privacy laws and regulations in Europe and Canada.

To get around the ban, the new modified version has been stripped of facial recognition technology and instead groups together multiple photos that "appear to include the same face", according to the social media company (via TechCrunch). It does this by relying on a less accurate form of technology that uses object recognition to analyze the distance between a person's eyes and ears.

Moments also integrates with Facebook and Messenger apps, where users are alerted to the fact that their friends have shared photos featuring them.

Moments is a free app for iPhone and iPad available for download in the App Store. [Direct Link]

Former Apple CEO John Sculley went on camera yesterday to give his thoughts on Apple's current product lineup and offered a couple of interesting tidbits on where he thought the Apple Watch could be improved.

In an interview with The Street, Sculley said he still loved Apple products and used his iPhone, iPad and MacBook daily, but that he'd so far passed on owning the company's smartwatch offering. "I think the Apple Watch is beautiful, but it doesn't have enough utility to be something that I feel I have to have at this point in time," he said.

Asked what Apple would need to change to make it a worthwhile purchase for him, Sculley said that first the company needed to de-connect the hardware from the dependency it has on the iPhone. "When you go jogging, I don't want to carry my iPhone and Apple Watch to count the steps – Apple will solve this though, they are good at that kind of stuff."

Secondly, Sculley said Apple needed to take advantage of the "incredible excitement" over smart messaging which he called the "next big thing". "Whether it's WeChat or Facebook M, we are starting to see a move to an era where messaging could be an intelligent assistant, and that could be a perfect application for the Apple Watch if they can incorporate it."

"I don't think an Apple lover has to have every product, but the ones I have and use I love," continued Sculley, expressing a particular fondness for the iPad Pro. "I think it's a spectacular experience to read the newspaper on it every day and even read books, I much prefer it to a Kindle."

Sculley was vice-president and president of Pepsi-Cola before he served as Apple's CEO from 1983 to 1993, where he is famous for forcing out Steve Jobs from the company, something he has since called "a mistake". In 1987 he was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of $2.2 million. When he left Apple, the company had $2 billion in cash and $200 million in debt.

He is widely considered an expert at marketing, and continues to speak and write about disruptive marketing strategies. He also has investments in a number of high-tech start-up companies, including Zeta Interactive and WorldMate. Jeff Daniels portrayed Sculley in the recent movie Steve Jobs.

ZENS' Apple Watch Power Bank is a compact Apple Watch charging solution that's one of the first to come with a built-in Apple Watch charging puck, eliminating the need for bulky, complicated cable winding systems used in other Apple Watch stands and docks.

Because the charging puck is included in the body of the Power Bank, it's one of the smallest Apple Watch charging options available, and with an included 1,300 mAh battery, it serves as the most portable Apple Watch charger available for travelers.

The Power Bank is cube shaped, measuring in at about an inch and a half wide and just over an inch tall. It's small enough to fit in jacket pocket (it'll fit in a pants pocket too, but the shape is bulky) and it doesn't take up a lot of room in a purse or a backpack.

➜ Click here to read more...

Pebble today updated its official Pebble app and Pebble firmware to bring new health-related features to its line of Pebble smart watches. With the 3.12 update, available now, all Pebble Time smart watches support new health charts for better sleep and activity tracking over time.

A new Health tab within the app features interactive charts that display the step and sleep activity captured with the Pebble Time, plus Pebble Time is now able to automatically detect and track walking and running, delivering summary information on an activity at the time of its completion.

The app will also deliver overall activity and sleep summaries at the end of the day, much like the Apple Watch's fitness app. Pebble Time's sleep-related features are improving too, with a new sleep tracking feature that'll trigger an alarm up to 30 minutes early if a user is in a light stage of sleep.

In addition to the health features, it's also now possible for Pebble Time owners to begin conversations from their wrists with the Send Text app, which enables voice messages or pre-set text messaging for recent or favorite contacts so long as text replies are enabled from a compatible carrier.

Along with these features specific to the Pebble Time, all Pebble smart watch owners are now able to respond to incoming or missed calls with a pre-set text message if text replies from a compatible carrier are available.

What's New in Version 3.12
For Time-series watches running Firmware 3.12 or higher:
- View interactive charts of your step and sleep activity from the new Health tab.
- Health charts show stats for running activities and long walks during the day.
- Start convos from your wrist with the new Send Text app! Message recent or favorite contacts. Requires text replies enabled from a compatible carrier.

For all Pebble models running Firmware 3.12 or higher:
- Respond to incoming or missed calls with a text message. Requires text replies enabled from a compatible carrier.
- Bug fixes and performance improvements.

The 3.12 Pebble app update can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

T-Mobile has announced a new Family Match promotion that offers families four lines of unlimited talk, text, and 6GB of 4G LTE data per line for $120 per month starting May 11. Additional lines can be added for $20 per month.

As America gets set for summertime travel, summer camps, summer concerts and more fun in the summer sun, the Un-carrier’s got you covered. Starting tomorrow, families can get 4 lines with unlimited talk, text and data with 6GB of Un-carrier Data per line for just $30 a line – a savings of $20 per month for a family of four on T-Mobile Simple Choice with Family Match. Additional lines are just an extra $20 each per month with 6GB.

The deal is not quite as good as T-Mobile's past Family Match promotions, including the same four-line deals with unlimited LTE per line for $150 per month or 10GB of LTE per line for $120 per month, but it does provide Simple Choice customers that missed out with another savings opportunity heading into the summer season.

The limited time offer is available for new and existing Simple Choice customers on approved credit, and the promotion can be combined with T-Mobile's other offers, including Binge On, Data Stash, JUMP! On Demand, Mobile Without Borders, and Music Freedom. T-Mobile will also pay up to $650 of your early termination fees if you switch to their carrier from AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint.

The new Family Match plans are available starting Wednesday at T-Mobile stores across the U.S. or by calling 844-222-1927.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today granted Apple a patent that describes a collection of iPad-compatible Smart Covers that could integrate various display technologies to greatly enhance "the overall functionality of the tablet device." The original patent application was published in August 2012 and dates back to August 2011, four years before Apple introduced the original iPad Pro and its Smart Connector. (via Patently Apple).

The first integration of a next-generation Smart Cover lies in video playback, where a user could watch a video with the cover folded up into a triangle like Apple's current Smart Covers allow, but now supporting a set of touch-sensitive areas for play, pause, fast forward, and rewind controls. Although the user would not be able to directly see where they were pressing down, "the size and location of the touch sensitive areas can allow for a user to easily learn the locations after a short familiarization period," according to the patent.

Another suggestion for a Smart Connector-enabled cover has an internal display with "a completely customized control scheme," which would let users change up the cover's input to be anything from a traditional QWERTY keyboard to a sketchbook for artists. The addition of another screen of a size in comparison to the iPad's would introduce an iOS experience "much closer to the one enjoyed by laptop users."

One of the more basic and interesting applications lies in a Smart Cover that could show notifications and messages without needing to lift it to reveal the iPad's screen underneath. This potential case could use AMOLED technology to power a minuscule number of pixels to generate the notification text widgets without burning battery life. An expansion on this idea suggests a cover with integrated e-ink screens to display traditional push notifications, as well as provide an area for users to jot down quick notes throughout the day.

There are a handful of other ideas in today's patent descriptions, one of which includes a cover with solar panels that could charge the iPad with direct sunlight. Most of these applications mention technology that Apple has created in the years since the patent's original filing, including both the Apple Pencil and Smart Connector, although neither are referenced directly by name. That being said, it's still advised to take Apple's newest patent application with a grain of salt, since it's impossible to know whether the company will ever move forward with any of these iPad case designs.

TIME published an article yesterday that offers an interesting take on Apple's long-term plans for the Apple Watch, noting that Steve Jobs' desire to improve the healthcare system indirectly inspired its development.

The article is written by technology consultant Tim Bajarin, who recently spent time at the company's headquarters and met with Apple executives involved with the Apple Watch. He asked them to explain their motivation for creating the wearable device, which was released just over a year ago.

According to Bajarin, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs tasked his R&D teams with developing technology that would create a bridge between patients and healthcare providers, after his own experiences within the healthcare system in his battle with pancreatic cancer, which began in 2004. Jobs died from the disease in 2011.

During the intervening years, Jobs had become concerned with what he saw as a lack of connection between patients, their data, and healthcare providers, and sought to bring greater order to the system by developing a mobile platform and an ecosystem of devices that would make patient-doctor relationships more efficient and less frustrating.

During Bajarin's time at Cupertino, he was invited into Apple's dedicated health labs, where Apple has seven full-time nurses monitoring employee volunteers using advanced medical equipment as they perform various exercises in controlled conditions. Bajarin came away from his visit with the take-home message that while Apple has marketed the Watch as a fashionable timepiece, the company is committed to Jobs' original vision for the device as an enhanced health monitoring system.

The last few years has seen the company increase its focus on health and medical technology that integrates with its mobile devices. HealthKit framework debuted in 2014, allowing developers to build health monitoring software that integrates with Apple's Health app. Apple's open source framework ResearchKit was made available to developers in April 2015, enabling them to create their own iPhone apps for medical research purposes.

Just last month, Apple released CareKit iOS, another health-related framework allowing app developers to create integrated software that helps patients and doctors to better track and manage medical conditions.

You can read the TIME article here.

Apple manufacturer Foxconn is close to signing a deal with the Indian government to open a manufacturing facility intended to make iPhones, reports ET Now (via AppleInsider). The project would cost $10 billion and be built on top of 1,200 acres of land in Maharashtra, India.

While several other Indian states were in consideration for the plant, Foxconn chose Maharashtra, the third largest state in the country. The manufacturer hasn't yet picked a location for the facility in the state yet, but does have a couple options it's considering. Once the deal is done, ET Now reports it would take 18 months before the plant is operational.

Last year, Maharashtra Industries Minister Subhash Desai revealed that Foxconn was scouting locations in the state for a manufacturing facility. Foxconn is reportedly looking to build 10 to 12 facilities in the country by 2020. The Taiwanese manufacturer has been looking to re-enter the Indian market after being forced to shut down production in the country once it lost Nokia as a client in 2014.

India has increasingly become important to Apple's business, with the Cupertino company recently gaining approval to open its own retail stores in the country and announcing plans to open a $25 million facility focused on maps development in Hyderabad.