MacRumors

Apple today seeded the seventh beta of iOS 10 to developers and public beta testers for testing purposes, just four days after releasing the sixth beta and more than two months after first unveiling the new operating system at its 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference. It is not clear what is included in beta 7, but given its unconventional release date, it may contain critical bug fixes.

iOS 10 beta 7 is available as an over-the-air download to those who installed the first six betas or the beta configuration profile and it's available for direct download via Apple's Developer Center (developers only).

iOS 10 is a major iOS update with a ton of new features and design tweaks, including a new Lock screen experience with 3D Touch-enabled notifications, a more easily accessible camera, a redesigned Control Center, and a new widgets screen. According to Apple, iOS 10 is the company's biggest iOS update ever released.

iOS 10 is currently available to developers and public beta testers, with a full public release planned for the fall. iOS 10 beta 7 is likely to be the final update before the golden master version is released. For full details on iOS 10, make sure to check out our iOS 10 roundup.

The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, in celebration of its 50th anniversary, has announced that Steve Jobs will be posthumously inducted into its Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri, which recognizes the work of pioneers, artists, and innovators who have pushed photography forward.

Jobs will be one of eight new inductees on October 28, alongside Photoshop co-creators John Knoll and Thomas Knoll, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, photographers Ernst Haas and Annie Leibovitz, singer-songwriter and digital photographer Graham Nash, and documentary photographer Sebastião Salgado.

"As we look ahead to the next 50 years of the IPHF, we are honored to continue to recognize and celebrate photographers and industry professionals that have made significant contributions to the profession, helping to shape and define modern photography," said Patty Wente, executive director of the IPHF. "This year's inductees represent the perfect combination of innovation and artistry; bridging photography's pioneering past with its fantastic future."

Jobs' induction is closely linked to the iPhone, which Apple in the past has described as the world's most popular camera:

Steve Jobs was an American inventor and entrepreneur who cofounded Apple and led it to become the world's most innovative company. Steve helped create products that revolutionized the creative world and became essential tools for designers, filmmakers, music producers and photographers. Passionate about photography both in his work and personal life, his most profound contribution to the artistic community and the world is the iPhone which, in less than a decade, has changed both the art of photography and the industry around it.

Past inductees include Philippe Halsman, who famously photographed Albert Einstein in 1947, Ansel Adams, George Eastman, Edwin Land, Edward Steichen, and 64 other esteemed professionals. Inductees must have made a "notable contribution to the art or science of photography" and "have a significant impact on the photography industry and/or history of photography."

Jobs, who co-founded Apple alongside Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, passed away on October 5, 2011.

Apple, AT&T, Google, and 30 other companies will join efforts with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission this year to crack down on automated phone calls, otherwise known as "robocalls," according to Reuters.

AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson will make the announcement at the first "Robocall Strike Force" meeting at the FCC later on Friday, the company said.

The so-called "Robocall Strike Force" will provide the FCC with "concrete plans to accelerate the development and adoption of new tools and solutions" to crack down on automated phone calls by October 19, the report claims.

Last month, the FCC sent a letter to phone companies and intermediaries, presumably including Apple, expressing how robocalls and telemarketing calls are the number one source of consumer complaints it receives. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler urged the companies to respond within 30 days with concrete, actionable solutions to tackle the problem, and AT&T was quick to agree that action is needed.

AT&T is prepared to take a leadership position in the industry in the development of comprehensive solutions. We currently allow many of our customers to block calls using black-listing software like Nomorobo and we are committed to providing our customers with the best blocking tools available for use with their knowledge and consent. […]

For these reasons, and at the request of Chairman Wheeler, Mr. Stephenson has agreed to chair a new Robocalling Strike Force, the mission of which will be to accelerate the development and adoption of new tools and solutions to abate the proliferation of robocalls and to make recommendations to the FCC on the role government can play in this battle.

The U.S. has some protective measures in place to prevent automated phone calls. The FCC, for example, requires private companies to have prior consent to robocall or robotext mobile phones. Americans can also add their phone numbers to the FTC's Do Not Call list to prevent legitimate telemarketers from calling. Last, the FCC expects carriers to respond to consumer requests to block robocalls.

The strike force will push for further solutions, such as developing secure Caller-ID authentication technology, supporting the Anti-Spoofing Act of 2015 in U.S Congress, and implementing new technologies to identify and block robocalls. Apple's involvement in the strike force remains unclear, but iOS 10 will include at least one combative measure: a new caller ID extension for spam alerts.

An Australian antitrust regulator has denied a request from three of the country's biggest banks to collectively negotiate a deal with Apple over the use of third-party digital wallet software on its iPhones (via AppleInsider).

Last month, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB), and Westpac lodged a joint application with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to negotiate with Apple over gaining access to its NFC-based mobile payment technology, having so far resisted signing deals to use Apple Pay.

Apple strongly criticized the attempt to negotiate a deal over access to its payment hardware, claiming it would compromise security and dent innovation, and the company asked the ACCC to take the full six-month statutory period to assess the application more thoroughly.

Apple will be encouraged to learn that on Friday the ACCC decided not to grant the banks' request during this early stage of its assessment process. ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement that the commission requires more time to consult and consider the views of all the parties involved and other interested parties.

The entire ACCC authorization process usually takes up to six months, including the release of a draft decision for consultation before making a final decision. We expect to release a draft decision in October 2016. The ACCC's decision not to grant interim authorization at this time is not indicative of whether or not a draft or final authorization will be granted.

Last week, Apple lambasted the banks for asking the ACCC for an interim authorization, which would have allowed them to collectively boycott Apple Pay while the negotiations took place.

"These banks want to maintain complete control over their customers. The present application is only the latest tactic employed by these competing banks to blunt Apple's entry into the Australian market," the company wrote in a three-page submission to the ACCC. "In Apple's view, interim authorization of the cartel by the ACCC should be refused."

ANZ is the only bank in Australia's "Big Four" that played no part in the original joint application and has agreed to allow its cards to be used via Apple Pay.

ANZ reportedly gave up some of its interchange fee to Apple as part of the deal, but the other big banks appear unwilling to forfeit the millions of dollars they would have earned through the fees.

Apple plans to announce new Apple Watch models this fall with improved health tracking and GPS chips, according to a new Bloomberg report that confirms previous rumors we've heard about the Apple Watch 2.

The upcoming Apple Watch 2 will not, however, feature cellular connectivity to make it less dependent on the iPhone, as Apple has not been able to compensate for the extra battery life that a cellular connection consumes.

Apple had been in talks this year with mobile phone carriers in the U.S. and Europe to add cellular connectivity to the watch, according to people familiar with the talks. A cellular chip would have theoretically allowed the product to download sports score alerts, e-mail and mapping information while out of an iPhone's reach.

During the discussions, Apple executives expressed concern that the cellular models may not be ready for release this year and that the feature may be pushed back to a later generation, according to the people. Apple warned that, even on an aggressive schedule, the earliest possible shipment time-frame for cellular models would have been this December, one of the people said.

Apple is researching low-power cellular chips for future versions of the Apple Watch, but has been unable to make it work for 2016. The company's "ultimate goal" for the Apple Watch is to decouple it from the iPhone, but technology will need to improve before it is able to do so. LTE connectivity and significant Apple Watch design changes are not expected before 2017.

The addition of a GPS chip, something planned for the next-generation Apple Watch, will allow the device to more accurately determine a user's location for better fitness and health tracking capabilities along with improved navigation. Previous reports have also suggested the Apple Watch 2 will include a barometer, a higher capacity battery, and improved waterproofing techniques.

Bloomberg's report does not give a specific launch date for the next-generation Apple Watch beyond "fall," but it is possible Apple plans to launch new Apple Watch models alongside the iPhone 7, which is expected to be unveiled at an event that will take place on September 7.

A previous rumor from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has suggested we will see both a second-generation Apple Watch with the aforementioned new features and an upgraded first-generation Apple Watch with an improved processor and superior waterproofing.

The latest numbers from research firm Gartner reveal that the smartphone industry continues to be a virtual two-horse race between iOS and Android. The operating systems combined for a record 99.1% worldwide market share in the second calendar quarter of 2016, compared to 96.8% in the year-ago period.

Android remained the world's most widely used smartphone operating system with 86.2% market share in the second quarter, up from 82.2% a year ago, while iOS dropped to 12.9% market share from 14.6% in the year-ago period. Windows and BlackBerry smartphones continued their long-running descent, dropping to 0.6% and 0.1% market share worldwide respectively.

Symbian was essentially discontinued in 2012, beyond being used on a few regional smartphones in Japan, while BlackBerry released its first Android smartphone last year. Meanwhile, Microsoft scaled back its Windows Phone efforts earlier this year following continuously poor sales of Lumia devices.

A new leaked image of the iPhone 7's rear camera module has been posted online today (via Nowhereelse.fr), bringing with it more concrete evidence that the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 will include optical image stabilization alongside its various other camera improvements. Previous reports surrounding the smaller-screen iPhone have hinted at the inclusion of image stabilization, but today's camera module leak provides the first visual hint of its addition into the upcoming 4.7-inch iPhone.

With optical image stabilization now believed to be coming to both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the different camera abilities will be focused on the single-lens and dual-lens hardware for the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch versions of the smartphone. Mockups over the last few months for both devices have shown larger camera bumps when compared to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, and the camera hardware in general has been believed to be one of the major selling points of an otherwise modest update year.

Currently, it's believed that Apple will reveal the iPhone 7 at an event on September 7, and open up pre-orders on September 9. The specific launch date is a bit more ambiguous, with both September 16 and September 23 flagged as potential options.

Apple appears to be making a slight branding change to its retail business, dropping the "Store" moniker when referring to its Apple Store locations. Apple has already made the change online, and all of its store pages now refer to stores by names like "Apple Union Square" or "Apple Valley Fair" or "Apple The Grove," instead of "Apple Store, Valley Fair" or "Apple Store, The Grove."

It's a change that appears to have started rolling out with the launch of the newer Apple Stores, like the Union Square location in San Francisco. Apple has always referred to that store as just Apple Union Square, and over the course of the last few days, the company has updated all of its retail store webpages to remove the "Store" branding. What was once "Apple Store, Fifth Avenue," for example, is now just "Apple Fifth Avenue."

The decision to remove the "Store" portion of Apple's line of retail locations likely has to do with efforts to turn newer stores into more than just simple stores, positioning them as gathering places for their communities. Apple Union Square, for example, features an outdoor plaza with regular acoustic performances and a 6K video wall with seating called "The Forum," aimed at allowing artists, photographers, and musicians to inspire and educate customers through year-round programs, events, and classes.