Chromecast users can now control YouTube streaming to their TV from the lock screen of their iPhone, thanks to the latest update to the YouTube app.
Like YouTube for Android devices, version 12.03 of the iOS app adds play, pause, previous, next, and volume controls to the iPhone's lock screen whenever YouTube is casting to Chromecast devices, smart TVs, game consoles, and other living room devices. The same controls can also now be found in the iOS Control Center.
In addition, the update enables iPhone owners with a paired Apple Watch to access the same controls from their wrist. YouTube is available to download for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]
The Apple Pay mobile payment system will be available in Taiwan soon, Apple announced on its regional website today.
A total of seven banks, including Cathay United Bank, CTBC Bank, E. Sun Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank, Taishin International Bank and Union Bank of Taiwan, will join Apple to launch the mobile payment service initially, Apple said.
Taiwan becomes the 14th region to gain access to Apple Pay, following the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, China, France, Russia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Spain, Singapore and Japan.
During Apple's 2017 first quarter earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said Apple Pay was "setting records", with transaction volume up over 500 percent year over year. Apple Pay on the web is also seeing great results, said Cook, with nearly two million small businesses now accepting the payment system online.
Facebook is rolling out a new section to its mobile app called "Discover People", which is designed to encourage connections between people who aren't yet Facebook friends (via TechCrunch).
The new feature, which can be found at the bottom of the navigation section of the app, allows users to scroll through a list of upcoming events to see who else is going, as well as browse through lists of people in the local area or those who share the same employer.
Image via TechCrunch
Entering "Discover People" for the first time, users are asked to introduce themselves by updating the various sections of their public profile. Once the profile is set, a list of upcoming events appear below, featuring any events the user plans to attend, has registered an interest in, or has been invited to. Users can also check out the profiles of others similarly linked to the event.
True to the feature's billing, profiles of people already befriended on Facebook don't show up in the lists, only people who don't know each other – though whether this "discovery" mechanism will sit comfortably with all users is unclear. For example, not everyone automatically wants to make their interest in an event public knowledge, and currently there's no way to control privacy settings when a user registers such interest.
Facebook has tested similar features in the past, only to roll them back following users' privacy concerns – "Friends Nearby" being one example. TechCrunch suggests that with the latest attempt to connect people, Facebook is pushing back against dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, two apps that recently expanded their dating remit to include finding new friends to hang out with.
"Discover People" was first launched late last year, but was initially restricted to New Zealand and Australia. Facebook says the feature is rolling out now and should appear for all iOS users in the coming days.
Facebook is free download on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. [Direct Link]
Apple is currently working on renovating its iconic Fifth Avenue Apple Store in Manhattan, and when finished, the new store will be more than double the size of the original location, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
The store will be expanded from 32,000 square feet to 77,000 square feet, giving Apple more space to work with. The company's plans were shared by Douglas Linde, president of Boston Properties Inc., which owns the General Motors Building where the store is located.
Apple spokesman Nick Leahy said the company anticipates an "incredible" new Fifth Avenue store, "where our customers will enjoy new services and experiences in a much larger space."
While construction is underway, Apple has relocated the store to a nearby empty storefront that formerly housed the FAO Schwarz toy store. Plans to renovate the Fifth Avenue store were first announced in 2015 and are part of a wider set of Apple Store renovations Apple has undertaken.
It is not clear how long it will take Apple to revamp the store, but while work is underway, the temporary FAO Schwarz location will remain open.
Apple shipped a record-breaking 5.2 million Apple Watch units last quarter, making it by far the most popular smartwatch of the holiday shopping season, according to the latest data from research firm Strategy Analytics. Apple captured an estimated 63.4% of the worldwide smartwatch market during the quarter.
Apple's closest competitor Samsung shipped only 800,000 smartwatches in the quarter, for an estimated 9.8% market share, according to Strategy Analytics. All other smartwatch vendors, such as Garmin, Fitbit, and Huawei, combined for an estimated 2.2 million shipments and 26.8% market share.
"Demand for Apple's new Watch Series 2 as a holiday-season gift in Western markets was surprisingly strong and it enabled Apple to clear a large backlog of smartwatch inventory during the quarter," said Strategy Analytics director Cliff Raskind.
It is important to acknowledge that these are estimated figures, and that shipments do not necessarily reflect sales.
Apple does not break out Apple Watch sales like it does with iPhones, iPads, and Macs, and instead groups the device under its "Other Products" category. Given the category also includes the Apple TV, Beats products, iPods, AirPods, and other accessories, figuring out Apple Watch revenue is deliberately challenging.
Strategy Analytics will not disclose its exact methodology for competitive reasons, but executive director Neil Mawston told us the company uses "a blend of channel checks, financial analysis, and other sources" to estimate Apple Watch shipments. "It is the same methodology we have used for phones since the 1990s and for wearables since the modern market first emerged circa 2013."
Apple saw its "Other Products" revenue drop 8% to $4.02 billion in the quarter compared to $4.35 billion in the year-ago quarter, a sizeable decline that Apple financial chief Luca Maestri attributed to declining Apple TV sales.
Strategy Analytics said the smartwatch industry is showing "tentative signs of recovery" this year, but Raskind noted there remain "several barriers to growth" that must be addressed.
Smartwatch vendors like Samsung need to launch more exciting or cheaper models, Apple must engage closer with mobile operators to stock or subsidize its popular Watch portfolio, while component makers need to develop more accurate sensors for health and fitness tracking that consumers will trust and use more.
Apple Watch shipments totaled 11.6 million units in 2016, or slightly more than half of the estimated 21.1 million smartwatches shipped by all vendors in the year, according to Strategy Analytics. The firm's data shows a slightly lower 20.8 million smartwatches were shipped globally in 2015 for comparison.
Olloclip has been making lenses for the iPhone since 2011, expanding the range of tools at an iPhone photographer's fingertips. For the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, Olloclip has redesigned its product lineup, offering the same lenses in a new package that better fits the latest iPhones and provides more utility, like a stand.
I've been using Olloclip to spice up my iPhone photographs since the iPhone 5, so I was eager to try out Olloclip's latest products with the iPhone 7 Plus, which has two rear cameras instead of one.
Olloclip sent me its Core Lens Set, priced at $100, its Macro Pro Lens Set, priced at $80, and its Active Lens Set, priced at $120.
The Core Lens Set features a fisheye lens, a 120 degree wide-angle lens, and a 15x macro lens, while the Macro Pro Lens Set includes three macro magnifications at 7x, 14x, and 21x. The Active Lens Set, Olloclip's most expensive, offers a 2x telephoto lens and a 155 degree ultra-wide lens.
All of the lenses are compatible with both the rear and front-facing cameras of the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, snapping right on for quick access. Each one is interchangeable, so if you own multiple lens sets, you can create your favorite combination to have on-hand at all times.
Apple is developing a new ARM-based chip for its Mac lineup that would "take on more of the functionality" handled by Intel processors, reports Bloomberg.
In development since last year, the chip, codenamed T310, is said to be similar to the chip used to power the Touch Bar in the new 2016 Macbook Pro. It's built using ARM technology and will work with the standard Intel processor, handling "Power Nap" low-power mode functionality.
Apple engineers are planning to offload the Mac's low-power mode, a feature marketed as "Power Nap," to the next-generation ARM-based chip. This function allows Mac laptops to retrieve e-mails, install software updates, and synchronize calendar appointments with the display shut and not in use. The feature currently uses little battery life while run on the Intel chip, but the move to ARM would conserve even more power, according to one of the people.
Apple's 2016 MacBook Pro uses an independent ARM-based chip called the T1 to power the Touch Bar, the Touch ID fingerprint sensor built into the Touch Bar, and the secure enclave that stores payment and biometric data.
According to Bloomberg's report, the upcoming ARM-based chip will "go further," connecting to storage and wireless components to take on additional power management capabilities.
Apple could begin using the new chip in an upgraded version of the MacBook Pro set to launch later this year, but it could be introduced as a quiet update with little fanfare as the chip that powers the Touch Bar was not promoted by Apple.
Despite Apple's plans to offload some tasks to a new ARM chip, Apple is said to have no intention of abandoning Intel chips in its laptop and desktop computers.
Snap is said to be working on a collection of "smarter lenses" that would let users overlay virtual images and objects onto landscapes in the real world, "not just faces," and let them interact with the virtual objects similar to augmented reality (via The Information). The smarter lenses are an advancement of the "world lenses" that came to Snapchat last year, which placed various simple animations on top of real world scenes, like clouds and snowstorms.
The difference with the new technology is that it "can identify environmental elements," subsequently allowing virtual objects to interact with objects in the real world, instead of acting as a simple filter. As with most of Snapchat's popular camera additions, the smarter lenses are believed to eventually lead to bountiful advertising opportunities for brands on the social media app.
An example of Snapchat's World Lenses from last year
Currently, the new lenses are only being tested on the company's internal version of the app, and they are "not on Snap's near-term product roadmap." If and when they are released, people familiar with the matter believe users would receive the lenses first, ahead of advertisers, who could then construct campaigns and strategies based on how Snapchat's user base reacts to the advanced feature.
The addition of new features and a potential boost to advertising support is seen as a keen strategy on Snap's part, amid news that the company is planning to go public in the coming weeks.
Smarter lenses for its users could also help convince Snapchatters to stick around amid growing competition from Instagram and Facebook. Last summer Instagram launched a copy of Snapchat's disappearing story idea, called Instagram Stories, and now Facebook plans to extend the feature into the main Facebook app with Facebook Stories. According to Facebook, Instagram has 150 million users posting to Stories every day, roughly mirroring Snapchat's reported user base.
Smart payments company Coin this week announced the shutdown of its various product services, officially closing product support, social media channels, and the connected Coin app on iOS and Android devices on February 28, 2017. The news follows the discontinuation of all Coin products last May, when Coin was acquired by Fitbit and the company subsequently ceased selling its line of smart payment cards.
With no new Coins available to purchase and its services shutting down, users will no longer be able to add new cards to the device without the mobile app being supported. Coins themselves will continue to work until their batteries die (two years from initial activation), so the company is encouraging users to add any cards they want before February 28.
With the acquisition of Coin by Fitbit, all business operations ceased on June 13, 2016. The company is no longer manufacturing, promoting, or selling any new devices or products.
Effective from February 28, 2017, the Coin product services will officially be shut down. As a result, support through the Coin website or through social media channels will no longer be available.
The original Coin, as well as Coin 2.0, was a single credit card-sized device that stored a collection of credit and debit cards that users could toggle through with a small button on the front of the Coin. Once the desired card was selected, users swiped Coin like any normal payment card, and the charge went through to whatever card was chosen.
Coin was first announced and began receiving orders in 2013, one year before Apple would launch Apple Pay in 2014, but Coins didn't begin arriving to customers until 2015. Although Coin's shutdown has been clear since the Fitbit acquisition last year, the growing popularity of smartphone mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay undoubtedly became large competitors to Coin's business in 2015 and 2016.
In Fitbit's own press release last year, the company described a deal that focused on the specific acquisition of "Coin's wearables payment platform," although at the time there were "no plans to integrate Coin's wearable payments technology" into its 2016 roadmap. That still leaves future Fitbit devices in 2017 and beyond wide open for an "active NFC payment solution."
Amid acquisitions of Pebble and luxury watch maker Vector Watch, Fitbit has faced lower-than-expected revenue results for the fourth quarter of 2016, leading to cuts of between 5 to 10 percent to its workforce. With Apple Watch gaining ground in the smartwatch space, Fitbit appears to be gearing up to launch a more feature-rich wearable with its own app store, mobile wallet, and more, instead of the activity-focused wearables it currently sells.
Popular calendar apps Fantastical 2 for the iPhone and Fantastical 2 for the iPad are both being updated to version 2.8, adding support for many new features introduced in iOS 10.
Fantastical 2 now includes a set of stickers that can be used within the Messages app. The stickers feature an animated, smily calendar icon with useful sayings like "I'm on my way!" or "I'm running late!" so users can send quick messages to friends. There are also a set of emoji-based stickers for general usage.
Rich notifications are now included, so users can see additional details about upcoming events and reminders directly from the lock screen, and on the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, haptic feedback is supported.
"We're really happy about iMessage stickers," said Michael Simmons, Co-Founder of Flexibits. "They are a fun and friendly way to let someone know you're running late or even propose a dinner date."
With all of the iOS 10 features, both versions of Fantastical 2 now require users to be running the iOS 10 operating system. Other new features include improved support for Dynamic Type, improved reliability of the Apple Watch app, and other small fixes and performance improvements.
Apple today quietly put out a firmware update for the AirPods, bumping the Bluetooth headphones from version 3.3.1 to 3.5.1, as spotted by a user on Reddit. The update to AirPods is automatic for any AirPods in their Charging Case and connected to a nearby iOS device. After making sure the AirPods are connected, users can check their current firmware version by going to the Settings app on iPhone > General > About > AirPods.
It's not clear what the 3.5.1 update covers due to its silent release and a lack of specific patch notes, but the AirPods have faced a number of complaints over the past few weeks that the new firmware version could potentially be addressing. Mainly, there have been a number of user complaints regarding battery drain issues with the AirPods and the Charging Case, as well as dropped Bluetooth connections when on phone calls on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus devices.
AirPods launched in December to largely positive reviews from users praising their ease of connectivity with iOS devices, thanks to the W1 chip, as well as their sound quality. Since the launch, the AirPods have been hard to come by both online and in Apple retail stores, with current shipping estimates on Apple.com sitting at the six week mark, arriving mid-March if users order today.
Apple overtook Samsung to become the world's largest smartphone vendor in the fourth quarter of 2016 as shipments reached 439 million units.
According to independent research firm Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments grew 3 percent annually to hit a record 1.5 billion units in 2016. Apple shipped 78.3 million handsets in the fourth quarter of the year – around 800,000 more units than Samsung – allowing it to recapture its number one position with 18 percent global smartphone market share.
Apple shipped 78.3 million smartphones worldwide and captured 18 percent marketshare in Q4 2016, rising a steady 5 percent annually from 74.8 million units in Q4 2015. This was the iPhone's best performance for over a year, as Apple capitalized on Samsung's recent missteps. Samsung shipped 77.5 million smartphones worldwide in Q4 2016, dipping 5 percent annually from 81.3 million units in Q4 2015.
Bolstered by the popularity of the iPhone 7 and particularly the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple's 5 percent increase in shipments year-over-year helped it secure a 17.8 percent share of the global smartphone market, narrowly beating Samsung's share of 17.7 percent, which was negatively impacted by the company's Note7 battery fiasco. Samsung captured 21 percent share for the full year, marking its lowest level since 2011.
Despite the Q4 results, Samsung maintained first position in annualized figures, with 309 million units shipped worldwide in 2016, compared to Apple's 215 million units. Despite struggling in China against rivals like OPPO, Huawei's impressive overseas performance helped it maintain third position, with a record 10 percent global smartphone market share in Q4 2016 – the first time the company has reached double figures – while OPPO held on to fourth position and grew 99 percent annually to capture a record 7 percent global smartphone market share.
The research comes one day after Apple released its Q1 2017 financial results, in which it reported record results over what corresponds to the fourth calendar quarter of 2016. Cook was bullish on the iPhone's future, and talked up the smartphone's importance across a range of segments, including home automation, health, CarPlay, and enterprise. "I think the smartphone is still in the early innings of the game," Cook said during the earnings call. "App developers are still inventing and there are some exciting things in the pipeline that I feel really good about."
Nintendo announced on Wednesday that it plans to launch two or three mobile games every year, a day after the Japanese company made a one-third cut to its full-year operating profit outlook (via Reuters).
Yesterday, Nintendo was able to report its first quarterly profit in a year as its mobile games division started to generate revenue, but it wasn't enough for disappointed investors who had hoped profit from games like Super Mario Run would have grown fast enough to offset falling earnings in Nintendo's console business. Shares of Nintendo Co Ltd dropped more than 4 percent on Wednesday following the news.
Launched in December, Super Mario Run helped third-quarter revenue from mobile gaming and related merchandise reach around 7 billion yen ($61.7 million). So far downloads have hit around 78 million, although Nintendo admitted less than 10 percent of users paid the one-off $9.99 fee to unlock all of the game's features. Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said it would be taking steps to make the game last longer for people who had paid as well as those had yet to do so.
"We are taking a number of steps to ensure that Super Mario Run can be enjoyed for a long time, both by those who have already made the full purchase and by those who have downloaded the application but not yet made the purchase. We are also taking steps in-game to raise the ratio of purchases among consumers downloading the application for the first time."
Putting its plans into action, Nintendo yesterday rolled out an update to Super Mario Run that includes a collection of feature additions and bug fixes, along with a new "Easy Mode".
Nintendo's next title, the tactical role-playing game Fire Emblem Heroes, launches on iOS tomorrow, and is a radical departure from Super Mario Run, not least because it will be a free-to-pay title, favoring micro transactions and in-game currency over a one-off unlock payment. However, like Super Mario Run, Heroes will require players to have a persistent internet connection in order to play.
Nintendo's other planned mobile game is a currently untitled iOS version of Animal Crossing, which is expected to launch in the next fiscal year, so anytime between April 2017 and March 2018.
Apple is considering legal action to pressure the Trump administration into rescinding its executive order on immigration, Tim Cook toldThe Wall Street Journal in a new interview. The news comes days after Microsoft, Amazon and other companies pledged declarations of support for Washington state's legal fight against the executive order.
The order, signed last Friday, suspends entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, bans Syrian refugees for an indefinite amount of time and blocks citizens of 7 countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days. On Saturday, Cook sent an email to all Apple employees saying that the order "is not a policy we support," and that Apple's HR, Legal and Security teams were contacting employees who were affected.
Cook says hundreds of employees have been affected by the order and that he's been contacting "very, very senior people in the White House" to tell them that rescinding the order is not only important for Apple, but because the U.S.' strength comes from its immigrant background.
“More than any country in the world, this country is strong because of our immigrant background and our capacity and ability as people to welcome people from all kinds of backgrounds. That’s what makes us special,” said Mr. Cook. “We ought to pause and really think deeply through that.”
Numerous Apple employees have contacted Cook with "heart-wrenching stories" about how the ban will affect them, he says. One employee, according to the WSJ, is expecting a child and is afraid the future grandparents, which have Canadian and Iranian citizenship, wouldn't be able to meet their grandchild.
Apple is still considering its legal options and Cook declined to elaborate on the possibilities, but did note the company wants to be both "productive" and "constructive" in its response. Opposing the order, Cook says, was a simple decision since Apple selling its devices in more than 180 countries makes it important for it to "look like the world." Finally, Cook says that part of the reason Apple opposes the order is because it would not exist if the Syrian immigrant father of Steve Jobs did not have the opportunity to come to the U.S.
Last week, Cook spent a week in Washington, where he met with Utah senator Orrin Hatch to discuss the economy and tech industry and had dinner with Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, one of President Trump's closest advisers.
Outside of legal action, Apple employees have been increasing their donations to refugee relief funds, with Apple matching donations 2-to-1. The move comes as other tech companies find alternative methods to opposing the order, including Airbnb providing free housing to immigrants displaced by the order and more than 2,000 Google employees around the world staging a walkout.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Prince's catalog of songs is headed to Apple Music and other streaming services, like Spotify, Pandora, Google Play and more, on February 12, reports the New York Post. Currently, Prince's songs are only available to stream on Tidal.
It would be the first time in 19 months the singer's music would be available on that many streaming networks. Prince pulled his music from all streaming services except for Tidal 9 months before his death. Since his death, Prince's estate has been working on deals with various services to make his music available for streaming again.
The music will go live on streaming services during the Grammys on February 12. The award show will feature a tribute to Prince featuring music artists Rihanna, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd. While the music that will become available on streaming services falls under the late artist's Warner Music contract, the Post says music from his secretive "vault" is also being negotiated.
Social networking site Facebook is currently working on an app for set-top boxes like the Apple TV, reports The Wall Street Journal. The new app is said to be part of a series of projects aimed at expanding Facebook's video content offerings and expanding revenue sources.
Citing sources with knowledge of Facebook's plans, The Wall Street Journal says Facebook is speaking with media companies about licensing long-form TV-quality "premium" programming that would be shared in a Facebook app on set-top boxes. Media companies say Facebook is aiming for videos that are upwards of 10 minutes in length and are created specifically for the social network, with a focus on everything from sports to scripted shows.
Late last year, some employees at Facebook started referring to the platform's future as a type of "mobile TV," one of the people said. The social network is hoping to cut into the time Americans spend watching live television--around four hours a day on average, according to media measurement firm Nielsen.
Facebook has been delving heavily into video content in recent years, promoting both short videos and live video capabilities that allow people to broadcast content live to their friends and family. Facebook is said to be ready to move on from shorter videos and live video to longer form higher-quality videos, including original programming.
There's no word on when Facebook's app designed for television sets could be released, but work on the app has been in high gear since the second half of 2016.
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, released in September of 2016 alongside the smaller 4.7-inch iPhone 7, is the most popular "Plus" model Apple has released, outselling the 2014 iPhone 6 Plus and the 2015 iPhone 6s Plus.
Apple's Plus lineup has always had differentiating factors compared to the smaller iPhones Apple offers, but in the iPhone 7 Plus, the dual camera appears to have been particularly popular with customers. The iPhone 7 Plus features both a standard wide-angle lens and a 56mm telephoto lens, which can be used to improve photos.
It also features a "Portrait" mode that's used with the 56mm lens to create high-quality DSLR-style images with blurred backgrounds to highlight subjects, a unique function that may have drawn more interest.
Customers may also be getting used to the larger form factor in general. In 2014, with the switch to the 4.7 and 5.5-inch sizes, going from the 4-inch iPhone 5 line to the 5.5-inch size was a huge jump, but with two years to adjust to the new display sizes, it's not such a leap.
Cook said that Apple had underestimated demand for the iPhone 7 Plus, leading to supply and demand issues with the device that impacted sales. Despite that, Apple saw record iPhone sales during the quarter, selling a total of 78.3 million iPhones.
During today's earnings call covering the first fiscal quarter of 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about Apple's next moves when it comes to the television, such as original programming, where the company has been experimenting with content for its Apple Music service.
Cook didn't have too much to say on the subject, but he said Apple has a "toe in the water" and will see how things play out going forward. Cook believes the media industry will continue to evolve as the cable model breaks down, perhaps leading to new opportunities.
In terms of original content, we've put our toe in the water doing some original content for Apple Music, and that will be rolling out throughout the year. We're learning from that and we'll go from there.
He went on to say that the Apple TV has gone a long way in the year that it's been available for purchase, and has provided Apple with a "clear platform" to "build off of." Earlier in the call, he said Apple now has 150 million paid subscriptions for first and third-party services, and that's an area where Apple "participates economically" by providing the platform.
Apple is working on several shows that will be used to promote Apple Music, including Carpool Karaoke, a reality television series based on James Corden's Carpool Karoke bit during the "Late Late Show," and "Vital Signs," a drama that will star Dr. Dre. Neither show has an air date as of yet, but as Cook says, they're coming soon.
Cook ended the question by saying "With our toe in the water, we're learning a lot about the original content business and thinking of ways we could play in that."
Nintendo announced on Wednesday that it plans to launch two or three mobile games every year, a day after the Japanese company made a one-third cut to its full-year operating profit outlook (via 
Apple is considering legal action to pressure the Trump administration into rescinding its executive order on immigration, Tim Cook 
Social networking site Facebook is currently working on an app for set-top boxes like the Apple TV, reports 
During today's 
