Fox today debuted a new app called Movie of the Day! [Direct Link] which aims to provide customers a new daily discount on one movie from Fox's large catalog (via Engadget).
Every day the app updates with a new movie deal, ranging from "from blockbusters to acclaimed indies, and everything in between," at a discount which goes up to 70 percent off of the original price. To start off, the app is available only for iOS devices, but there are plans to expand to other app stores like Google Play. In addition to the basic daily discount, the app also lets users browse a movie's cast, check out other user reviews, and read a quick synopsis of the film.
Going live today in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and France, the app's first discount is a $6.99 version of X-Men: First Class, originally $14.99. Every movie showcased within the new Fox app links back to the iTunes store, so anyone taking advantage of the daily sales will be able to build up their iTunes movie catalog at a cheaper rate than normal.
Although the company hasn't made any confirmation of the next few movies to be showcased, the app's screenshot carousel hints that films like Rio 2, Fight Club, and The Fault in Our Stars could be discounted in the coming weeks. Those interested can download Movie of the Day!for free right now on the App Store.
Bellabeat, a company focused on creating technology products designed for women, is today ready to launch its first wearable, the Leaf activity tracker. First announced last year, the Leaf is an activity tracker that looks more like a stylish piece of jewelry than a standard activity tracker from a company like Jawbone, Nike, or Fitbit.
The Bellabeat Leaf is, as the name suggests, a leaf-shaped activity-tracking wearable that can be positioned as a clip, necklace, or bracelet. Depending on where it's worn, it's advertised as being able to track metrics like activity level, sleep quality, stress level, and ovulation.
Described as a wearable "you'll actually want to wear," the standard leaf is made from a light maple-colored wood and accentuated with a steel leaf plate that's available in five designs. Bellabeat is also introducing a new limited edition gold version that's made from a dark marshwood and accompanied by a gold-plated leaf, plus the company is selling a range of bracelet and necklace accessories to pair with the Leaf.
The Leaf is designed to be worn all day, tracking activity, sleep, and stress. It works in conjunction with an upcoming Leaf app, which is able to track information on menstrual cycles to provide a complete picture of health. Leaf will also deliver vibration-based notifications on activity level throughout the day.
Receive real-time feedback in the form of slight vibrations, notifying you to increase or decrease your activity and reminding you about other aspects of your health, such as getting more sleep. The LEAF app even helps to monitor your monthly menstrual cycle by tracking expected days and providing information based on your activity, sleep and stress levels.
As you continue to use the LEAF, it becomes smarter by learning your personal habits and tailors feedback accordingly. The LEAF is truly unique in that it allows you to cross reference your cycle with trends in your daily activity, all easily viewable in your app.
Tracking activity and sleep is a function included in most smart wearables, but stress detection is relatively unique. When worn as a pendant or a brooch near the chest, the Leaf monitors breathing and uses that along with user-provided information as a metric to determine stress levels.
The Leaf ships with a necklace chain, but it can also be added to existing jewelery and paired with the aforementioned accessories Bellabeat plans to offer. It includes a standard watch battery, so there is no need to charge it on a daily basis, but the battery will need to be replaced after approximately six months.
Bellabeat previously accepted pre-orders for the standard edition of the Leaf, but those quickly sold out. Today's sales of the Leaf and the Limited Edition Leaf mark the official launch of the Leaf, which will begin shipping out to customers on June 15.
The Leaf and the Limited Edition Leaf can be purchased from the Bellabeat website beginning today. The standard Leaf is available for $119, while the limited Edition Leaf is available for $250.
Apple was named the most valuable global brand in market research firm Millward Brown's tenth annual BrandZ brand value report [PDF], seeing a 67% rise in brand value to $246.9 billion. The Cupertino-based company surpassed Google, which ranked first in the 2014 report, to reclaim the top ranking in the study for the fourth time in the past five years. See BrandZ's annual reports in 2011, 2012 and 2013 for reference.
"With a 67 percent rise in Brand Value to $247 billion, Apple returned to number one in the BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking. Success of the iPhone 6 and the related excitement surrounding the Apple brand drove the increase. Apple also led in the rate of brand value growth over 10 years – 1,446 percent."
The top ten most valuable global brands in the report is made up almost entirely of technology and telecom companies, with Microsoft, IBM, Visa, AT&T, Verizon, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Marlboro rounding off the top ten after Apple and Google. Other notable technology companies on the list include Facebook (12th), Amazon (14th), HP (39th), Oracle (44th), Samsung (45th) and Twitter (92nd).
Millward Brown explains that its brand valuation methodology is based on three million consumers and more than 100,000 different brands in over 50 markets, with brand appeal measured against actual sales performance. The overall brand value of BrandZ's index saw a 14% year-over-year increase and 126% growth over the past decade.
A new bug has been discovered in the Messages app, allowing a string of characters sent to a person via iMessage or SMS to crash an iPhone and cause the Messages app to crash after being opened. The bug, which requires a specific string of symbols and Arabic characters to be sent, was first noticed on reddit earlier this afternoon and has been spreading around the Internet since then.
Sending the string of characters to an iPhone results in an immediate respring, causing an iPhone to crash and quickly reboot. From there, if the Messages app was opened at a list view, the Messages app crashes automatically when you try to open it. If it was opened to the conversation where you received the message, the app will open, but attempting to go to another conversation causes Messages to crash.
MacRumors tested the bug on iPhones running iOS 8.3, but it may also be affecting other versions of iOS.
If you receive one of these messages, there are a few possible fixes that have worked for us and for other people who have encountered the bug. If the Messages app was opened to the conversation with the person who sent the offending message, the Messages app can be reopened to this conversation. Sending a reply message fixes the problem.
If Messages was opened to the conversation list view, the app will crash when you attempt to open it. You can fix this by having someone send you a message or by sending a message to yourself. There are several options for sending a message to yourself, including sending yourself a message via Siri or through the Share sheet in any app.
To send yourself a message in Siri, tell Siri to "Send a message to myself." Siri will open up a dialogue where you can give her a quick message like "Fix" that'll be sent to your iPhone to clear away the malicious message.
Alternatively, you can open an app like Notes, craft a quick note, and use the Share option (the little document with an arrow) to message it to yourself. Sending yourself something though the share sheet of an app opens a new messages window where you can enter your own contact information.
According to a Twitter user who spoke to Apple support, Apple's engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a fix.
In today's fourth OS X 10.10.4 beta, Apple made a significant behind-the-scenes change that could result in improved networking performance for some users -- the removal of the "discoveryd" process. As noted by MacRumors forum members and 9to5Mac, in OS X 10.10.4 beta 4, the discoveryd process has been replaced by mDNSresponder.
Since OS X Yosemite debuted in October, there have been ongoing complaints about discoveryd consuming CPU resources, draining battery life, and causing issues with Wi-Fi. These problems have lingered for several months, even after multiple bug fixes and performance improvements included in OS X 10.10.1, 10.10.2, and 10.10.3.
Discoveryd was introduced with OS X Yosemite, replacing mDNSResponder for managing Mac networking tasks, but it's led to a host of problems like those listed above along with issues like slow wake from sleep, failures to resolve DNS names, duplicate machine names, and more, as detailed in a post earlier this year by Ars Technica. Several developers have also complained about discoveryd in Yosemite, including Instapaper's Marco Arment and Iconfactory's Craig Hockenberry.
It's no secret in the tech community that discoveryd is the root cause of so many problems. There are even crazy workarounds. With so many issues, you'd expect some information from Apple explaining ways to mitigate the problems.
The removal of the unstable discoveryd process in OS X 10.10.4 beta 4 may improve network stability problems for many users who have been experiencing continual issues. With the removal of discoveryd, Apple has reverted back to using the earlier mDNSresponder process that was used before discoveryd was implemented with OS X Yosemite.
Apple has been working on adding mass transit routing information to its Maps application for several years, and while the feature appears to be ready to debut as part of iOS 9, it could be limited in scope at launch. The transit service may initially be available only in a small number of cities across the United States, Canada, Europe, and China when iOS 9 is released to the public, according to sources that spoke to 9to5Mac.
San Francisco and New York are said to be two of the locations in the United States where transit directions will be available. Both major cities are known for their public transportation options. In Canada, Toronto will likely gain transit routing options in the Maps app, as will London, Paris, and Berlin in Europe. Cities in China will also be included in the initial launch.
Apple is planning to expand access to transit information to additional cities following the fall launch of iOS 9, and cities that the company is hoping to add support for in the near future include Boston, Massachusetts and Tokyo, Japan, among others. Apple will likely work quickly to expand the feature even further across the rest of 2015 and into 2016.
Mass transit routing options have been missing from Maps since 2012, when Apple's native mapping system first replaced Google Maps in iOS 6. Transit directions were initially expected as part of iOS 8, and hints of transit options were indeed found in iOS 8 documentation, but organizational issues and staff shortages allegedly delayed the feature's release.
Apple's acquired many mapping-related companies since it introduced its Maps app, including transit apps HopStop and Embark, and in recent years, the company has also been expanding its in-house routing team as it furthers its work on the transit feature.
iOS 9, with the new Maps transit feature, is expected to be introduced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8.
Local news affiliate ABC 15 Arizona is reporting that Apple's facility in Mesa, Arizona, which it acquired through its ill-fated partnership with GT Advanced last year, caught fire this afternoon. While the second-alarm fire has since been extinguished on the rooftop, which is equipped with multiple solar panels, local firefighters and emergency crews remain on the scene and authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze.
Apple confirmed in February that it plans to repurpose the GT Advanced facility as a $2 billion data center. The data center will reportedly act as a "global command center" for Apple's global data network. Mesa fire crews confirmed that the fire was located near Elliot and Signal Butte Roads in east Mesa, coinciding with where the GT Advanced facility is situated.
Update 12:20 PM Pacific: ABC 15 reports that fire crews from Mesa, Gilbert and Superstition Fire worked together to extinguish the fire within 35 minutes, and there are no reports of any injuries. The local news affiliate says the fire appears to have originated on the solar panels on the roof, and does not appear to have spread inside the building.
Apple is considering issuing about 200 billion yen ($1.62 billion) in bonds as early as June in Japan, in what would be the company's first fundraising activity in the country, according to Nikkei. The report claims that Apple plans to take advantage of low interest rates in Japan to procure the funds, which could be used to boost shareholder rewards and expand Japanese operations.
"Early this month, Apple started gauging potential demand for the yen-denominated bonds among regional banks, life insurers and other institutional investors," claims the Nikkei Asian Review. "The bonds will target Japanese investors but will likely be sold to overseas investors as well."
Apple has issued 2.8 billion euros ($3 billion) and 1.25 billion Swiss francs ($1.31 billion) in bonds since last year, and will reportedly benefit from an interest rate on bonds in Japan about 1 percentage point lower than in the United States. It was also reported in February that Apple was planning to raise $6.5 billion in a corporate debt sale. The funds are used for corporate purposes such as repurchasing of common stock and payment of dividends through Apple's capital return program.
Apple today seeded the fourth beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers, just over two weeks after releasing the third OS X 10.10.4 beta and a month after releasing the first OS X 10.10.4 beta. OS X 10.10.4 has been in testing since mid April, following the early April release of OS X 10.10.3 with the new Photos for OS X app.
The new beta, build 14E26a, can be downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Mac Developer Center.
OS X 10.10.3 brought several consumer-facing changes including the new Photos for OS X app, a redesigned emoji picker, and diversified emoji, but OS X 10.10.4 appears to be an under-the-hood update that brings performance enhancements and bug fixes. Thus far, OS X 10.10.4 betas have not included outward facing design changes or feature additions.
The first two updates to OS X Yosemite, OS X 10.10.1 and OS X 10.10.2, were also minor behind-the-scenes updates that improved performance through bug fixes and enhancements.
Following a recent report suggesting that iOS 9 could feature "Rootless" security, "Trusted Wi-Fi" and support for legacy A5-based devices, today 9to5Mac followed up on a few smaller-scale improvements to Apple's next major software version that could have a big impact on the overall experience for iPhone and iPad users.
The next-generation iPhone will feature some form of Force Touch as one of the biggest new additions to the hardware, a rumor that has been circulating since the beginning of the year and only gaining forwardmomentum. The report today, however, specifically mentions that Apple has designed iOS 9 "to be Force Touch-ready" and is already hard at work with developers to integrate the technology into various apps.
Since Apple's work on Force Touch runs the gamut of iOS devices, there's also a possibility of updated Force Touch displays on new iPad models sometime this year. All iOS versions of Force Touch are also expected to provide the real-time haptic feedback buzz similar to that of the Apple Watch to provide users a physical response when their deep presses have been noticed. As 9to5Mac points out, however, since any new Force Touch on iOS announcement automatically requires the confirmation of new hardware, any iPhone and iPad support for the feature is unlikely to happen at WWDC.
Next, Apple is rumored to be working on a new keyboard experience for iOS 9, with the company experimenting on multiple designs, like one that is "slightly longer than the current keyboard" and provides users with a more robust suite of editing options while in portrait mode. Also in the works is a more accessible way to access the QuickType keyboard and a redesign to the unpopular Shift Key to provide an easier visual understanding of when shift or caps lock is engaged.
Today's report also falls in line with previous rumors reporting that Canada will be the first country outside of the United States to support Apple Pay, with the report claiming that iOS 9's Passbook app includes a "necessary foundation" to support various banks, credit and debit cards, and credit unions within the country. Although Canada is well-prepared for such a service, with many retailers and businesses across the country equipped with the contactless payment terminals needed for Apple Pay, such an expansion outside of the United States has proved difficult for Apple, especially in places like China, so a WWDC announcement yet again seems unlikely.
The final minor update to iOS 9 reported today includes the addition of read receipts to both group chats in iMessage as well as on a per-contact basis. Users will be able to turn on the read receipt functionality for specific recipients while leaving the read status of a message in the dark for other contacts. The company also seems to be considering removing the little-used Game Center app altogether in iOS 9, and minor data points suggest a few additions and updates to the new Health app, as well.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today published a patent application filed by Apple in September 2011 (via AppleInsider), detailing a new keyboard that includes inputs for both traditional mechanical keystrokes along with a new touch-sensitive interface laid over each individual key.
The so-called "Fusion keyboard" would be able to detect the traditional swipe and zoom inputs of a MacBook trackpad, simply spread across the touch-sensitive interface of individual keys. The keyboard - noted to be both an integrated or external accessory, meaning the feature could come to both iMac and MacBook - could also allow for a sort of multi-touch input, meaning a user could simultaneously type something with their left hand while using a touch gesture for cursor control, for example, with the other.
Notably, the new keyboard patent also includes two-position mechanical switches that perform certain tasks at different levels of pressure, unlike the single-position design of not only the Mac line but most keyboards used today. The first level of pressure could act as a normal text input, while the second level could generate some alternative command similar to that of a mouse click. Although no indication of increased forceful pressure is described in the new patent, the two-position switches do sound akin to Apple's new Force Touch technology which debuted on the Apple Watch and is now found on the company's MacBook trackpad.
Although Apple debuted a new kind of lighter butterfly mechanism keyboard with the new 12-inch Retina MacBook, the patent described today could be aimed at either the beefier line of MacBook Pro and iMac models, or some unannounced update yet to come. Like with every other patent, it'll be quite a long time before we see any tangible manifestations of today's patent, if ever, but it's still an intriguing glimpse at the company's possible future.
Microsoft today announced that its Cortana personal digital assistant will be available for iPhone and Android smartphones later this year, after multiplerumors hinting at cross-platform expansion of the service over the past year. Windows 10 will also feature a new "Phone Companion" app as a central place for PC users to install Cortana and other Windows-related apps for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone.
Microsoft unveiled Cortana on Windows Phone 8.1 last April as the company's answer to Siri and Google Now, and the company is also bringing the personal digital assistant to the desktop as part of Windows 10 this summer. Cortana's features include contextually-aware reminders, routing and mapping, current weather and traffic conditions, sports scores, biographies and more.
Some of Cortana's features on Windows Phone won't initially be available on iPhone and Android smartphones, including toggling settings, opening apps or "Hey Cortana" hands-free invoking of the personal digital assistant. Microsoft will also release an updated version of its Xbox Music app for iOS with free streaming playback of your music files and playlists from OneDrive in late June or July.
Apple today announced the appointment of Jony Ive to a newly created position of Chief Design Officer, allowing him to continue overseeing design aspects of numerous projects within the company while turning over the day-to-day management of the design teams to Richard Howarth and Alan Dye, who have both been elevated to vice president positions. Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the changes today in a company-wide email.
Alan Dye, Jony Ive, and Richard Howarth (Gabriela Hasbun for The Telegraph)
Team,
I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.
Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.
Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.
Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.
Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.
Tim
Alongside the announcement, Stephen Fry has published an exclusive interview with Cook and Ive at The Telegraph that addresses the legacy of Steve Jobs at Apple and Ive's continually expanding role with the company, among other topics. That expansion of Ive's duties, which has seen him add user interface design and increase emphasis on retail store and Campus 2 design leadership to his previous position as head of industrial design over the last several years, has led to today's restructuring that will free up some of Ive's time.
Stephen Fry, Tim Cook, and Jony Ive at Apple Campus 2 (Gabriela Hasbun for The Telegraph)
When I catch up with Ive alone, I ask him why he has seemingly relinquished the two departments that had been so successfully under his control. “Well, I’m still in charge of both,” he says, “I am called Chief Design Officer. Having Alan and Richard in place frees me up from some of the administrative and management work which isn’t … which isn’t …”
“Which isn’t what you were put on this planet to do?”
“Exactly. Those two are as good as it gets.
Apple's design team is a small, tight-knit group, many of whom have been working at Apple for many years. Last October, it was revealed Ive's close friend Marc Newson had been officially hired part-time for the design team at Apple, but Newson is not publicly taking on any expanded role in the latest shuffling of responsibilities.
Apple Watch tracks your movement and heart rate. It uses that information in conjunction with your gender, height, age, and weight to estimate how many calories you burn during daily movement, including light strolls and dedicated workouts.
However, Apple Watch needs proper calibration to get the most accurate reading of your movement and heart rate, which is used to help determine distance and pace measurements when you are walking or running without your iPhone, or while using a treadmill.
Calibration is fairly easy and takes about 20 minutes of exercise. For this purpose, you will need both your iPhone and your Apple Watch. After calibrating, you won't need to bring your iPhone on walks or runs anymore.
Apple Watch includes storage space for adding content like apps, photos, and music, with up to some of that space dedicated to storing songs. When you add a playlist, you can listen to music on it, even when your iPhone is not in range. While the process is fairly self-explanatory, there are a few steps you don't want to forget in order to play music from Apple Watch to your Bluetooth connected headphones
Adding Music to Apple Watch
In order to listen to music on Apple Watch without an iPhone in range, you must sync a playlist to it first.
Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap My Watch.
Select Music from the list.
Tap "Synced Playlist" to access your iPhone's playlist.
Select a playlist from the list (if there is no playlist visible in this list, you will need to create one on your iPhone).
Place your Apple Watch on its charger to initiate the sync. This step is important. Apple Watch will not sync a playlist if it has not been connected to the charger.
Apple restricted Apple Pay to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus due to the need for an NFC chip that's not included in older phones, which means Apple Pay has been limited to those with newer iPhones since it debuted in October of 2014.
One of the major perks of the Apple Watch is that it enables Apple Pay for some older iPhones because it has the same NFC chip that's in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. If you have an Apple Watch and an iPhone 5, 5c, or 5s, you can now use Apple Pay and the watch to make secure purchases in retail locations.
For those of you who haven't had a chance to use Apple Pay, we've written up a tutorial that walks through how to set it up on your watch.
The Unicode Consortium today released a list of 38 emoji characters that are candidates for inclusion in Unicode 9.0, which is set to be released in the middle of 2016. These represent emoji that could be available on iOS and Mac devices in the future.
Candidates include a range of different character emoji, from "face with cowboy hat to "drooling face" and "lying face." "Selfie," an emoji represented by a hand holding a camera, is also on the list, as is "shrug," and "handshake." As for food, emoji proposals include croissant, avocado, cucumber, bacon, potato, and carrot. There are also several proposed animal additions: fox face, eagle, duck, bat, shark, and owl.
According to the Unicode Consortium, these emoji have been chosen for several reasons. Some are proposed based on expected high frequency of use or due to requests from online communities. Others on the list fill in gaps in existing emoji sets or are compatible with emoji characters in existing systems.
Emoji candidates are not finalized so it's possible that some of the characters on the list could be removed before Unicode 9 is released in 2016, and it's also possible that additional characters could be added to the list.
The emoji proposed for inclusion in Unicode 9 are separate from the emoji that will be included in Unicode 8. Unicode 8, which includes specifications for the emoji modifiers that Apple introduced with iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3, is set to be released in mid-2015 and is currently in beta testing.
Emoji additions proposed for Unicode 8 include zipper-mouth face, nerd face, thinking face, robot face, hugging face, hot dog, burrito, taco, cheese wedge, popcorn, and unicorn face, among others.
It is not known if and when Apple will adopt the Unicode 8 and Unicode 9 emoji as it still has not added the Unicode 7 emoji that were finalized in June of 2014.
It's nearly Memorial Day, which means there's a long three-day weekend coming up and some solid deals on Apple products from vendors who are cutting prices in the hopes of drawing customers into stores over the weekend.
Best Buy's offering a can't-miss deal on the 13-inch MacBook Air and the high-end 27-inch Retina iMac is available for the lowest price we've seen. The 2014 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro is also being sold at low prices following this week's refresh. As always, we've also got some solid deals on Apple accessories and we've rounded up a list of apps you can get on the cheap.
iPad Air 2
Deals on the iPad Air 2 aren't as good as they have been in past weeks, but Apple started offering refurbished iPad Air 2 models this week, so the company's refurbished store is worth checking out if you're looking to get a discount on a tablet.
B&H Photo is offering a small discount on most of its iPad Air 2 models, dropping prices by $30 to $50. With the discount, the 16GB WiFi only iPad Air 2 is priced at $459 and the 64GB model is priced at $549.99. Prices vary somewhat by model, but there are slight discounts to be had.
Discounts for each model and and color vary, but most models are being offered at a lower price than you'll find at the Apple Store, and buying from B&H, you won't have to pay sales tax unless you're in New York.
iPad mini 2
Best Buy, B&H Photo, and Amazon have remaining stock of now-discontinued higher-capacity iPad mini 2 models, which are a good deal if you're looking for an iPad mini. Compared to the iPad mini 3, the iPad mini 2 only lacks Touch ID.
There are quite a few apps that are on sale at discounted prices or available for free for a limited time. We'll highlight a few here, but make sure to check out our sister site AppShopper for a complete list.
Super popular puzzle game Monument Valley is on sale for $0.99 this week, down from $3.99. Death Rally is available for free, down from $0.99. Platformer Bean Dreams is available for $1.99, down from $2.99. Cut the Rope 2 is available for $0.99, down from $2.99. Puzzle game KAMI is available for $0.99, down from $1.99.
Sketching app Procreate Pocket is available for $0.99, down from $2.99. Photography app Enlight is available for $0.99, down from $5.99. Endless runner Alto's Adventure is available for $0.99, down from $1.99.
Puzzle game Magnetized was named Apple's App of the Week, so it will be free to download until next Thursday when a new app is picked.
Apple Accessories
PayPal Digital Gifts is offering $100 iTunes gift cards for $80 on eBay, a $20 discount. Groupon is selling the Lifeproof Nuud Waterproof case for iPhone 5c for $39.99, down from $56.69. Groupon also has Scosche Earphones with remote and microphone for $18.99, down from $79.99. The Incase Nylon Sleeve for the 13 or 15-inch MacBook Pro is available for $24.99 from Groupon, down from $60.
Groupon has the OtterBox Defender Case and Holster for the iPhone 6 available for $29.99, down from $59.95. The Otterbox Defender Case for the iPhone 6 Plus is available for $34.99, down from $70. The Apple iPad mini Smart Cover is available for $17.99, down from $39. The Beats by Dre Pill 2.0 Bluetooth speaker is available for $159.99 from Groupon, down from $199.
The Prong PocketPlug charging case for iPhone 5/5s is available from LivingSocial for $24.99, down from $50. Best Buy is offering the Misfit Shine activity tracker for $20 off, dropping the price to $79.99. Target is selling Beats Solo HD headphones at a $70 discount, dropping the price to $99.99.
The iWalk Extreme Trip battery 10,000 mAh pack is available for $49.99 from StackSocial, discounted from $85. Woot has the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Folio for iPad Air and iPad Air 2 for $59.99, down from $99.99. Groupon's still running a big Apple event and selling a range of Apple products and accessories at discounted prices, including the LifeProof Fre case for the iPad Air, Apple EarPods, Speck MacBook cases, MagSafe chargers, Mophie battery cases, and more.
MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors.
MacRumors tested the bug on iPhones running iOS 8.3, but it may also be affecting other versions of iOS. 
Apple has been working on adding mass transit routing information to its Maps application for several years, and while the feature appears to be 
Apple is considering issuing about 200 billion yen ($1.62 billion) in bonds as early as June in Japan, in what would be the company's first fundraising activity in the country, according to 
Apple today seeded the fourth beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers, just over two weeks after releasing the 
Apple restricted Apple Pay to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus due to the need for an NFC chip that's not included in older phones, which means Apple Pay has been limited to those with newer iPhones since it debuted in October of 2014. 
