MacRumors

Apple today provided developers with the sixth beta of an upcoming 9.2 update to tvOS, the operating system that runs on the fourth-generation Apple TV and powers its built-in App Store. Today's tvOS 9.2 beta 6 update comes more than a week after Apple released the fifth beta of tvOS 9.2 and one and a half months after the release of tvOS 9.1.1, a minor update to tvOS 9.1. tvOS 9.2 has been in testing since January 11.

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. Those who have already installed the first tvOS 9.2 betas will be able to download the sixth update over the air.

Along with Bluetooth keyboard support, the tvOS 9.2 update introduces support for grouping apps into folders on the Home screen like on iOS devices, plus it includes a new look for the App Switcher interface and it brings support for iCloud Photo Library and Live Photos. There's an update for the Apple TV Remote firmware, adding improved motion sensor performance and support for additional sound bar and receiver hardware.

Support for dictation allows Apple TV users to dictate text and spell user names and passwords rather than typing them in. Dictation capabilities are available in all countries where Siri is available on the Apple TV. With tvOS 9.2, Siri also gains the ability to search for App Store apps, improving app discovery. Siri can search for a specific app or bring up a category of apps, such as games.

tvOS 9.2 also introduces MapKit so developers can incorporate maps into their tvOS apps, and it adds Siri support for US Spanish (in the US only) and French Canadian (in Canada only). UK English, Australian English, and US English are also now available as Siri options in the UK, Australian, and US Storefronts when English is set as the tvOS language.

We'll update this post with any new features that are discovered in the sixth beta of tvOS 9.2, which may be the last beta we'll see. tvOS 9.2 is likely nearing the end of its beta testing period and could see a public release soon.

Electronic Arts today announced a new game in the popular Plants vs. Zombies series, called Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, that ditches the tower defense mechanisms of past mobile installments for a collectible card format in the vein of Hearthstone (via VentureBeat). EA and PopCap Games aimed to make the game "accessible, with a lot of depth" to satisfy those new at card battling games but keep experts playing for a while.

The game introduces new "Super Hero" classes of plants and zombies that act as the franchise's version of the heroes from Hearthstone. Some of these include The Green Shadow, an elusive but powerful peashooter, and Impfinity, a Zombie Imp Hero with the ability to create multiple Imp clones during battle. They serve as the main character supporting the "rest of your team," or the deck you've built, and lead the charge in a multiplayer battle against another Super Hero.

In the game, you need sun energy to make moves on the plants side. When you play a card, an enemy can attack. You always get a chance to attack back. To win he game, you have to defeat the enemy Hero and defend your own. You can buff your units to make them stronger. Some units can only be played in water or roof lanes. Once you reach a certain level, you can start playing as zombies. Zombies have their own advantages, like hiding played characters under gravestones so you can’t see their capabilities.

Other than multiplayer, users will be able to travel through a single player adventure, compete in tournaments, lower the pressure in casual mode, and even see familiar faces of the franchise. Most notably, the new mobile game appears to directly reference the recently released Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, which is the franchise's version of a third-person shooter that launched on consoles in February.

Plants vs. Zombies Heroes will have over 300 unique characters with unique animations, which EA hopes will help the game become more accessible to a larger group of people. For that same reason, it'll keep games to short 10-15 minute runs and leave "about a third of the characters" as easily unlockable options, "but you may have to dish out real money to buy character packs to get more characters."

Brian Lindley, senior producer at EA, knows the company's new game falls closely in the category that Hearthstone has helped legitimize, noting that “Hearthstone is both inspiration and competition. They took the genre in a good direction.” Blizzard's card game makes it easy to opt-out of paying for most of its in-app purchases and still have fun with the game, so hopefully EA keeps that in mind for any potential micro-transactions in its own card battler.

For anyone interested in playing Plants vs. Zombies Heroes ahead of the wide release, our sister site Touch Arcade has a how-to guide listing the steps to download soft-launch games like this one outside of the debut territory.

Readdle has updated PDF Expert with Handoff support, allowing users to start working on iPhone or iPad and easily pick up on Mac where they left off.

To transfer a PDF document from an iPhone or iPad to Mac, click on the Handoff button in PDF Expert for Mac and select the file. Handoff will automatically transfer the PDF document to the desktop, including all annotations and edits. The iPhone or iPad must be on the same Wi-Fi network as the Mac.

PDF Expert is a popular iOS app for reading, annotating, signing, editing, and merging PDF documents. Readdle launched a Mac version of the app last November, which was selected as an "App of the Year" runner-up by Apple in 2015. Readdle is now working on PDF Expert for Mac 2.0, which will include OCR and PDF text editing.

PDF Expert 5 for iOS is $9.99 on the App Store, while PDF Expert for Mac is on sale for $19.99. Readdle says the Mac version is currently 70% off and will return to its regular $59.99 price tomorrow. A free seven day trial is also available. PDF Expert for Mac 2.0 will be a free update for existing users.

Apple has rolled out a small but notable update to the Radio tab in Apple Music, removing the static Beats 1 logo at the top of the landing page and replacing it with a new UI that dynamically updates to the currently-airing live radio show (via 9to5Mac). In addition to the title, the tab will update with new artwork and the airing location of the show.

The change also brings more direct UI cues for users to navigate through the Radio tab, with a "Listen Now" button under the currently airing show and the less-hidden option to "Explore Beats 1."

The app also gave users the opportunity to explore more information by delving into a secondary menu that listed live shows and upcoming hosts and interviews on Apple's radio channel. Some might not have even known about the auxiliary menu, since there was no UI hint to its existence - tapping anywhere on the Beats 1 logo launched it. Now "Explore Beats 1" should help guide more users to the scheduling menu.

Anyone on iOS 9.2.1 -- or the beta iOS 9.3 seed -- should see the Beats 1 update, but a quick multitasking-enabled close of Apple Music will help it show up if you aren't seeing it. As of writing, no similar update was seen on the Mac version of Apple Music.

An Apple patent application that could turn the Apple Watch into a fully fledged medical device was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday.

The application, titled "Care event detection and alerts", envisions a hardware system with the ability to monitor the surrounding environment for events that would require assistance from medical professionals, police, fire rescue or other emergency services.

In one example, the device could be programmed to monitor a user's heart for arrhythmia and send out an alert to a spouse or emergency responder in the event of detection.

As noted by AppleInsider, the Apple Watch is not specifically mentioned in the document, but the device would likely fit the requirements of the system's goals, thanks to its advanced sensors and monitoring hardware.

In practice, a wearable and a host device could work in combination to detect a care event. For instance, an iPhone's accelerometer might detect a sudden change in acceleration in tandem with a loss of heart rate detection on an Apple Watch, signaling a cardiac arrest.

When a care event is detected, an alert is sent out by the system to a "care list", or predefined set of recipients established by the user or included in a device preset.

The patent application notes that fine tuning of the system would be necessary to prevent false alarms, and that building a hierarchy into the care list could allow for a staggered escalation of response. For example, a user's spouse or family might be included in the first level for contacts for mid-severity crises, while the highest level could be saved for emergency responders in high-severity cases.

Prior to Apple unveiling the Apple Watch, reports indicated the device would come with 10 sensors to track health and fitness data. Many of these features were ultimately dropped by Apple because of inconsistency issues, leading some healthcare professionals to find the wearable disappointing in this regard. However, should it ever come to fruition, the system described in this latest patent could go some way to answering similar criticisms in the future.

Mobile security company Lookout released an app yesterday that alerts Apple Watch users if they are about to leave their iPhone behind.

The iOS and Apple Watch app uses the Bluetooth connection of an Apple Watch to keep tabs on a user's iPhone location, so that if the wearer steps out of range of their phone, the app automatically buzzes their watch.

Lookout can also make an iPhone in silent mode emit a loud alarm or "scream" to help the owner find the device, even if it is out of Bluetooth range, by way of a local Wi-Fi connection.

If an iPhone has been misplaced but is within Bluetooth range, the user can consult Lookout's distance meter display that shows how far away they are from the device. As they move around, the bar changes color to indicate if they're getting "warmer" or "colder" in relation to the phone's location.

If an iPhone has been left a greater distance away, the app displays a map showing the device's last known location using its GPS signal (note that continuous use of this feature is likely to significantly impact iPhone battery life). The facility is similar to that found in Apple's Find My iPhone app, although Apple has yet to release an app for Apple Watch from which to use the location service.

Lookout for iPhone is available for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple VP Eddy Cue says the U.S. government could force Apple to secretly implement surveillance technology in its devices if the FBI's current demands in the ongoing iPhone encryption dispute are met.

The company's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services made the ominous prediction during an interview yesterday with U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Univision, a transcript of which was provided by Apple to Business Insider.

In the extensive interview, the Apple executive reiterated a number of arguments offered by the company over the last weeks, but Cue put special emphasis on the risk of facing a slippery slope that could invite more insidious demands should the FBI get its way and be provided a backdoor to iPhone users' data.

"When they can get us to create a new system to do new things, where will it stop?" Cue asked. "For example, one day the FBI may want us to open your phone's camera, microphone. Those are things we can't do now. But if they can force us to do that, I think that's very bad. That should not happen in this country."

The Apple VP offered a fresh analogy to explain the company's issue with the FBI's demand, likening it to giving someone a key to the back door of your home.

What they want is to give them a key to the back door of your house, and we don't have the key. Since we don't have the key, they want us to change the lock. When we change the latchkey, it changes for everyone. And we have a key that opens all phones. And that key, once it exists, exists not only for us. Terrorists, criminals, pirates, all too will find that key to open all phones.

Cue also accused the FBI of being out of step with other government agencies, stating that the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who is responsible for the NSA, "wants encryption to continue getting more and more secure, because he knows that if we create some way to get in, criminals and terrorists will get in. They don't want that."

Cue explained that Apple engineers are continually working to make its devices more secure, and that people should not view the current case as Apple versus the government, but rather an example of Apple's attempts to keep the public safe from criminals and other dangerous actors.

It's Apple engineers against terrorists, against criminals. They are the people we are trying to protect people from. We are not protecting the government. We want to help. They have a very difficult job, they are there to protect us. So we want to help as much as possible, but we can not help them in a way that will help more criminals, terrorists, pirates.

He also underlined the U.S. government's recent poor record of keeping the public's information – and even that of its own employees – secure, arguing that "the only way we can protect ourselves is to make the phone more safe."

Cue is the second Apple executive this week to publicly comment on the case, following Craig Federighi's Monday op-ed in The Washington Post in which he criticized the FBI for wanting to turn back the clock to a less-secure time.

Apple has officially opposed an order that would require it to help the FBI break into the iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook and will now face off against the government in court on March 22.

Eddy Cue's full interview can be read on the Univision website.

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.

With the 2016 March Madness college basketball tournament set to begin on March 15, the NCAA has updated its March Madness app with new features for iOS, the fourth-generation Apple TV and Apple Watch.

The brand new Apple TV app comes with a significant feature for basketball fans: the ability to watch two games side-by-side in a split-screen interface. The feature, which is exclusive to Apple TV, also allows users to switch the audio from both the games, allowing basketball fans to hone in on exciting matches easier than before. Lisa Estrin, NCAA Digital's senior UX lead, told Variety that the Apple TV was the "perfect" platform for the feature.

"We believe Apple TV is the perfect platform to experiment with this and bring the two together in a shared environment," said Lisa Estrin, senior UX lead, NCAA Digital, at a Los Angeles showcase for Apple TV apps hosted by Apple earlier this week. "We look forward to more collaboration in the future."

The iOS version of the app received several new features, including AirPlay and Google Cast support. In addition to multitasking support, iPad users will also see a redesigned version of the app with an "immersive" new experience that features a new game timeline, up-to-the-minute stats and curated highlights from Twitter and Instagram. The March Madness app has also been made available for Apple Watch, allowing users to receive alerts for their favorite teams and quick access to scores and the tournament schedule.

All versions of the NCAA March Madness app require logging in with TV provider credentials to stream games.

NCAA March Madness for iOS is available in the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Update: Games broadcast on CBS cannot be live streamed through the March Madness app even after cable authentication.

Apps that add real-time filters to selfies and videos are growing in popularity, and today Facebook announced the acquisition of the team behind MSQRD, a much-downloaded live filter app available on iOS and Android devices.

First introduced in January of 2016, MSQRD applies live filters to photos and videos captured with the iPhone's front-facing camera. It includes face swapping capabilities, along with a range of filters and masks that include celebrities, animals, and effects like larger eyes or rabbit ears. Filters like these have been gaining popularity in recent months following their implementation in Snapchat last fall.

Apple has made an investment in similar technology, having purchased real-time motion capture firm Faceshift in 2015. Faceshift worked with game and animation studios on technology designed to quickly and accurately capture facial expressions using 3D sensors, which could be used to create real-time video avatars for video chat. It isn't clear what Apple will do with the technology, but it could potentially be incorporated into Photo Booth or FaceTime.

Though the technology has been acquired by Facebook, MSQRD will continue to be available on iOS devices as a standalone product. The app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]