MacRumors

iPhone SE online orders, which commenced March 24, are now shipping to select customers in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, and elsewhere, ahead of the new 4-inch smartphone's official March 31 launch tomorrow in twelve countries and territories.

Multiple users tracking their iPhone SE shipments in the MacRumors discussion forums have received delivery estimates of between March 31 and April 4. As usual, it appears that UPS is Apple's primary courier for orders placed in North America, while DPD and UKMail are handling deliveries in the United Kingdom.

iPhone SE Order Tracking

→ United States
→ United Kingdom
→ Canada
→ General Discussion

iPhone SE should also be available tomorrow at Apple retail stores, and through AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and select other carriers. Authorized resellers like Best Buy may too have limited stock, generally on a first-come, first-served basis. Some retailers may accept reservations for in-store pickup.

Apple's first wave launch countries for iPhone SE include the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. Orders started March 29 in an additional 20 countries, with more to follow in early April.

9.7-inch iPad Pro orders have also shipped for many customers. Keep track here.

Apple and Major League Baseball have agreed to a deal that will see the sports league's coaching staffs use iPad Pros in dugouts to make better use of data during games, according to The Wall Street Journal. Baseball managers and coaches have traditionally used notebooks, pieces of paper and binders to keep track of data.

Teams will be able sift through performance stats from current and past seasons, weigh potential pitcher-hitter matchups, look at “spray charts” showing where a player is likely to hit a ball, even cue up videos of plays from previous games.

Each team will receive 12.9-inch iPad Pros with rugged cases sporting the team's logo. MLB's Advanced Media division, with assistance from Apple, have built an app called MLB Dugout, which will serve as the central destination where managers and coaches can look at their data. "We're not just replacing binders with tablets, we're actually helping them do things that weren't possible before," Phil Schiller, Apple SVP of marketing, told the WSJ.

For instance, players will now be able to watch video of pitchers during the game rather than having to retreat to the locker room. New York Mets' third-base coach Tim Teufel noted that the app will likely come in handy when the "game changes in unexpected ways," like when a pinch hitter steps up to the plate or a relief pitcher subs in.

The Dugout app will serve up proprietary data for each franchise, which means each team will only draw upon their own data rather than league-wide data well. The app will be preloaded before each game, but the MLB eventually hopes to update the app so that data could be provided in real time. The app was tested during the postseason last year.

The deal is similar to the one Microsoft signed with the NFL, putting Microsoft Surface tablets in the hands of NFL coaches and players on the sidelines. That deal was initially marred by glitchy tablets and announcers repeatedly calling the devices "iPads" rather than Surfaces. While the NFL required that the Surface tablets be shown on the sideline during each game, the MLB is making iPad Pro use optional. However, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he thinks most teams will use them, saying that he hopes they'll help speed up the game.

The MLB has embraced Apple's technology before, adopting iBeacon technology in 2014 and outfitting 20 ballparks in time for that season.

Apple has confirmed that it is aware of an issue causing web links to crash in multiple iOS apps like Safari, Mail, and Messages, reports TechCrunch. Following multiple complaints about the bug over the past few days, Apple says it is working on a fix that will be released "soon" via a software update.

Shortly after the release of iOS 9.3, iPhone and iPad users began complaining about a bug that causes multiple built-in and third-party apps to crash or freeze after a web link is tapped or pressed using a long press. The issue does not affect all users, but based on threads in the MacRumors forums and the Apple Support Communities, it is impacting a wide range of iOS users and a long list of iOS devices including the iPhone 5, 5s, 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini.

The specific cause for the issue is still unconfirmed, but there is speculation that it is related to Apple's Universal Links feature. According to mobile specialist Ben Collier, the Shared Web Credentials daemon, which allows apps and websites to share login credentials for Universal Linking purposes, may be a factor.

Apps with large deep linking files for use with Universal Linking could also be causing the problem, as many users who had installed the Booking.com app have experienced crashing and freezing issues. The Booking.com app, though now fixed, was originally using an overly large 2.3MB deep linking file.

While there is no fix for the crashing issue, some users have had success turning off JavaScript in the Settings app by going to Safari --> Advanced, but this is a suboptimal option because it will degrade the web browsing experience. Force closing affected apps and restarting the iOS device does not solve the problem.

The web links fix may be bundled into iOS 9.3.1, which Apple is already working on. Over the last few days, we've seen an increasing number of visits from devices running iOS 9.3.1, suggesting Apple has sped up testing on the update.

The web linking bug is the second major bug to affect iOS 9.3 users. The first rendered some older devices unusable due to a problem with Activation Lock, which required customers to enter the information originally used to set up their iPhone or iPad. Apple issued a new version of iOS 9.3 on Monday to fix the issue.

British bank Barclays appears to be in the process of enabling much-anticipated Apple Pay support in the United Kingdom, as multiple Twitter users have shared screenshots of a new terms and conditions page that now appears when attempting to add a Barclays-issued card to the iPhone-based mobile payments service.

The new terms and conditions landing page is a telltale sign that Barclays may be on the verge of finally becoming an Apple Pay participating issuer, nearly nine months after the service launched in the United Kingdom and within striking distance of its latest promise of a late March rollout.

Barclays has repeatedly hinted that Apple Pay support is coming, but it has yet to deliver on those plans. In July 2015, the bank said Apple Pay support was "imminent," but later confirmed an "early 2016" target, and most recently said the service would launch "within 60 to 75 days" of January 12, or by around March 28.

Barclays has been the largest Apple Pay holdout in the U.K. to date. Other participating banks include First Direct, HSBC, MBNA, Nationwide, NatWest, RBS, Santander, Ulster Bank, and more. iPhone and Apple Watch users can tap to pay at over 250,000 locations across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Update: A tipster who wishes to remain anonymous has informed us that Barclays employees have been testing Apple Pay internally with their own debit and credit cards over the past month, as shown in the screenshot below.

The source believes that Barclays will publicly support Apple Pay within a few weeks pending Apple's approval. Apple is also said to be interested in executing a marketing campaign related to the announcement.

Apple's ongoing fight with the U.S. government over an order that would require the company to unlock the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook has come to an end, after the Justice Department today announced plans to drop its case against Apple.

In a motion asking the court to vacate the original order, prosecutors said the FBI has been able to access the data stored on the iPhone 5c without Apple's help, reports CNBC. From the court filing:

Applicant United States of America, by and through its counsel of record, the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, hereby files this status report called for by the Court's order issued on March 21, 2016.

The government has now successfully accessed the data stored on Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple Inc. mandated by Court's Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016.

Accordingly, the government hereby requests that the Order Compelling Apple Inc. to Assist Agents in Search dated February 16, 2016 be vacated.

Apple was scheduled to square off against the FBI in court on Tuesday, March 22, but just a day ahead of when the court date was set to take place, the FBI asked for a temporary postponement as it had discovered a way to access the iPhone that would not require Apple's participation.

It later came out that the FBI had enlisted the help of Israeli mobile software developer Cellebrite, a company that offers "mobile forensic solutions" to help law enforcement agencies crack the encryption on smartphones to access data. The government has not disclosed the method used to obtain the information on the iPhone, stating only that it has been retrieved.

The withdrawal of the case brings the heated battle between Apple and the U.S. government to a close. The two have been fighting a very public debate over encryption and personal privacy, which kicked off when a court ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock the iPhone 5c in question.

Unlocking the iPhone would have required Apple to build a new version of iOS that bypassed iPhone passcode restrictions and provided the FBI with a way to enter passcodes electronically, something Apple staunchly refused to do as it would set a dangerous precedent for the future of device encryption.

Update: Apple has provided an official statement on the dismissal of the lawsuit.

From the beginning, we objected to the FBI's demand that Apple build a backdoor into the iPhone because we believed it was wrong and would set a dangerous precedent. As a result of the government's dismissal, neither of these occurred. This case should never have been brought.

We will continue to help law enforcement with their investigations, as we have done all along, and we will continue to increase the security of our products as the threats and attacks on our data become more frequent and more sophisticated.

Apple believes deeply that people in the United States and around the world deserve data protection, security, and privacy. Sacrificing one for the other only puts people and countries at greater risk.

This case raised issues which deserve a national conversation about our civil liberties, and our collective security and privacy. Apple remains committed to participating in that discussion.

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.

Just a few days after releasing the iOS 9.3 update, Apple stopped offering it to a selection of older devices including the iPad Air and earlier and the iPhone 5s and earlier due to an activation issue. When the update was pulled, Apple promised to release a new version of iOS 9.3 shortly.

Apple today made good on that promise and has released a new version of iOS 9.3, build 13E237, which is now available for all iOS 9 users with older devices as an over-the-air update or through iTunes. Customers with older devices who had not yet updated to iOS 9.3 will be able to do so now.

With the first version of iOS 9.3, people with older iOS devices were required to input the Apple ID and password used when originally setting up the device. If the account information could not be recalled, the activation process could stall, rendering the devices inaccessible. To prevent users from installing iOS 9.3, Apple stopped signing the update for several older devices.

Following the release of the new build, Apple has resumed signing iOS 9.3 and the update now asks for current the Apple ID and password linked to the device instead of the original information.

On Thursday night, Apple issued an updated version of iOS 9.3 specifically for the GSM iPad 2, which was afflicted with a separate activation bug that prevented the device from communicating with Apple's activation servers.

Apple last week announced the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which marketing chief Phil Schiller described as the "ultimate upgrade" for both existing iPad and Windows PC users. Nearly one week later, a number of in-depth reviews have surfaced that offer a closer look at the new tablet beyond last week's first impressions and hands-on articles.

The general consensus among early reviews is that the smaller iPad Pro has powerful hardware, but like its 12.9-inch sibling, opinions were mixed about whether the tablet can truly replace your laptop. From $599, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro is certainly a more affordable Mac or PC alternative over the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which starts at $799.

Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:

When I reviewed the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, I said that I was having trouble envisioning the type of user who would choose it over a “real” computer like a MacBook Air or Pro. I still feel the same way today. The full-size Pro is large enough and expensive enough that you could buy any number of high-end Macs or Windows PCs for the same price, and you wouldn’t have to put up with the potentially frustrating limitations of iOS. […]

The equation is a little different for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which is both smaller and cheaper. […] At $599 (plus the cost of accessories), this tablet is competing more against midrange Windows PCs, and it’s substantially cheaper than any MacBook that Apple offers. For many active but less-demanding users, the strength of the hardware and the relative simplicity of the software could be enough to recommend it, though for the time being there are things that regular old Windows PCs are just better at than iOS is (including running legacy apps and connecting to just about anything that needs a standard USB port). It really depends on how you work and what you need to do. […]

If you've already got an iPad and are looking for a newer one, the math is a little simpler. If you have an iPad 2, the third- or fourth-generation Retina iPads, or the original iPad Air and you find yourself using your iPad more often than whatever other computer you have in your house, the iPad Pro is a no-brainer upgrade.

Lance Ulanoff for Mashable:

The best flagship iPad you can buy is now the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. […]

It’s kind of mind-blowing how much power there is in this lightweight tablet.

Benchmark numbers are just as good as the ones I saw on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, despite the fact that the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has half as much RAM (2GB versus 4 GB on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro). […]

Did Apple just raise the price of the best iPad? Yes, it did. Is it worth it? When you consider the components and storage in the $599, 9.7-inch iPad Pro, absolutely.

David Phelan for The Independent:

The new Pro also has a keyboard to go with it, attached by the Smart Connector buttons on the tablet's edge. […]

And it turns the iPad Pro into an extremely effective laptop alternative, complete with touchscreen, unlike Apple's own laptops. In fact, the touchscreen works so well with the iPad Pro and keyboard, it's hard to think Apple isn't considering making a MacBook with touch-sensitive display. We’ll see. […]

But the real reason this is the best iPad yet built is because it combines a stunning display, stonking audio and relentless processing power into a tablet that’s supremely portable.

Rene Ritchie for iMore:

This can still be your everyday iPad, and better so than ever, but it can also be your ultra-mobile productivity machine, with little in the way of compromises. Sure, you lose some display and keyboard real estate, but you gain portability and an excellent camera system.

For people who've had a 9.7-inch iPad for a while but haven't seen a need to upgrade, and for those with aging Windows system looking for a modern alternative, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be compelling.

The new 9.7-inch iPad Pro has been available to order since March 24, with shipments beginning on March 31.