MacRumors

Apple's today sent out emails highlighting its latest Apple Pay promo, which has a back to school focus. Discounts are available for stores like Bed Bath & Beyond, Billabong, J. Crew, and more.

• Bed Bath & Beyond - 15 percent in My Funds rewards when you shop in the app to use toward a future purchase.
• Billabong - 30 percent off a single item with promo code APPLEPAY.
• J. Crew - An extra $25 off when spending $150 or more with promo code APPLEPAY.
• Lands' End - 45 percent off full-priced styles with promo code APPLEPAY.
• Quiksilver - 30 percent off any single item with promo code APPLEPAY.

The deals that are mentioned in the email will be available through August 11, 2021. ‌Apple Pay‌ is required when making a purchase to get the discounts.

Apple today announced a series of new child safety initiatives that are coming alongside the latest iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey updates and that are aimed at keeping children safer online.

One of the new features, Communication Safety, has raised privacy concerns because it allows Apple to scan images sent and received by the Messages app for sexually explicit content, but Apple has confirmed that this is an opt-in feature limited to the accounts of children and that it must be enabled by parents through the Family Sharing feature.

If a parent turns on Communication Safety for the Apple ID account of a child, Apple will scan images that are sent and received in the Messages app for nudity. If nudity is detected, the photo will be automatically blurred and the child will be warned that the photo might contain private body parts.

"Sensitive photos and videos show the private body parts that you cover with bathing suits," reads Apple's warning. "It's not your fault, but sensitive photos and videos can be used to hurt you."

The child can choose to view the photo anyway, and for children that are under the age of 13, parents can opt to get a notification if their child clicks through to view a blurred photo. "If you decide to view this, your parents will get a notification to make sure you're OK," reads the warning screen.

These parental notifications are optional and are only available when the child viewing the photo is under the age of 13. Parents cannot be notified when a child between the ages of 13 and 17 views a blurred photo, though children that are between those ages will still see the warning about sensitive content if Communication Safety is turned on.

Communication Safety cannot be enabled on adult accounts and is only available for users that are under the age of 18, so adults do not need to worry about their content being scanned for nudity.

Parents need to expressly opt in to Communication Safety when setting up a child's device with Family Sharing, and it can be disabled if a family chooses not to use it. The feature uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and because it's on-device, the content of an iMessage is not readable by Apple and remains protected with end-to-end encryption.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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.

Apple today announced that iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will see the introduction of a new method for detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on iPhones and iPads in the United States.

User devices will download an unreadable database of known CSAM image hashes and will do an on-device comparison to the user's own photos, flagging them for known CSAM material before they're uploaded to iCloud Photos. Apple says that this is a highly accurate method for detecting CSAM and protecting children.

CSAM image scanning is not an optional feature and it happens automatically, but Apple has confirmed to MacRumors that it cannot detect known CSAM images if the ‌iCloud Photos‌ feature is turned off.

Apple's method works by identifying a known CSAM photo on device and then flagging it when it's uploaded to ‌iCloud Photos‌ with an attached voucher. After a certain number of vouchers (aka flagged photos) have been uploaded to ‌iCloud Photos‌, Apple can interpret the vouchers and does a manual review. If CSAM content is found, the user account is disabled and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is notified.

Because Apple is scanning ‌iCloud Photos‌ for the CSAM flags, it makes sense that the feature does not work with ‌iCloud Photos‌ disabled. Apple has also confirmed that it cannot detect known CSAM images in iCloud Backups if ‌iCloud Photos‌ is disabled on a user's device.

It's worth noting that Apple is scanning specifically for hashes of known child sexual abuse materials and it is not broadly inspecting a user's photo library or scanning personal images that are not already circulating among those who abuse children. Still, users who have privacy concerns about Apple's efforts to scan user photo libraries can disable ‌iCloud Photos‌.

Security researchers have expressed concerns over Apple's CSAM initiative and worry that it could in the future be able to detect other kinds of content that could have political and safety implications, but for now, Apple's efforts are limited seeking child abusers.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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.

Apple today announced that with the launch of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, it will begin scanning iCloud Photos in the U.S. to look for known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), with plans to report the findings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Prior to when Apple detailed its plans, news of the CSAM initiative leaked, and security researchers have already begun expressing concerns about how Apple's new image scanning protocol could be used in the future, as noted by Financial Times.

Apple is using a "NeuralHash" system to compare known CSAM images to photos on a user's iPhone before they're uploaded to iCloud. If there is a match, that photograph is uploaded with a cryptographic safety voucher, and at a certain threshold, a review is triggered to check if the person has CSAM on their devices.

At the current time, Apple is using its image scanning and matching technology to look for child abuse, but researchers worry that in the future, it could be adapted to scan for other kinds of imagery that are more concerning, like anti-government signs at protests.

In a series of tweets, Johns Hopkins cryptography researcher Matthew Green said that CSAM scanning is a "really bad idea" because in the future, it could expand to scanning end-to-end encrypted photos rather than just content that's uploaded to ‌iCloud‌. For children, Apple is implementing a separate scanning feature that looks for sexually explicit content directly in iMessages, which are end-to-end encrypted.

Green also raised concerns over the hashes that Apple plans to use because there could potentially be "collisions," where someone sends a harmless file that shares a hash with CSAM and could result in a false flag.

Apple for its part says that its scanning technology has an "extremely high level of accuracy" to make sure accounts are not incorrectly flagged, and reports are manually reviewed before a person's ‌iCloud‌ account is disabled and a report is sent to NCMEC.

Green believes that Apple's implementation will push other tech companies to adopt similar techniques. "This will break the dam," he wrote. "Governments will demand it from everyone." He compared the technology to "tools that repressive regimes have deployed."

Security researcher Alec Muffett, who formerly worked at Facebook, said that Apple's decision to implement this kind of image scanning was a "huge and regressive step for individual privacy." "Apple are walking back privacy to enable 1984," he said.

Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge said called it an "absolutely appalling idea" that could lead to "distributed bulk surveillance" of devices.

As many have pointed out on Twitter, multiple tech companies already do image scanning for CSAM. Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, and others use image hashing methods to look for and report known images of child abuse.

It's also worth noting that Apple was already scanning some content for child abuse images prior to the rollout of the new CSAM initiative. In 2020, Apple chief privacy officer Jane Horvath said that Apple used screening technology to look for illegal images and then disables accounts if evidence of CSAM is detected.

Apple in 2019 updated its privacy policies to note that it would scan uploaded content for "potentially illegal content, including child sexual exploitation material," so today's announcements are not entirely new.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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.

Apple today previewed new child safety features that will be coming to its platforms with software updates later this year. The company said the features will be available in the U.S. only at launch and will be expanded to other regions over time.

Communication Safety

First, the Messages app on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac will be getting a new Communication Safety feature to warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit photos. Apple said the Messages app will use on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments, and if a photo is determined to be sexually explicit, the photo will be automatically blurred and the child will be warned.

When a child attempts to view a photo flagged as sensitive in the Messages app, they will be alerted that the photo may contain private body parts, and that the photo may be hurtful. Depending on the age of the child, there will also be an option for parents to receive a notification if their child proceeds to view the sensitive photo or if they choose to send a sexually explicit photo to another contact after being warned.

Apple said the new Communication Safety feature will be coming in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey later this year for accounts set up as families in iCloud. Apple ensured that iMessage conversations will remain protected with end-to-end encryption, making private communications unreadable by Apple.

Scanning Photos for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)

Second, starting this year with iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Apple will be able to detect known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) images stored in iCloud Photos, enabling Apple to report these instances to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a non-profit organization that works in collaboration with U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Apple said its method of detecting known CSAM is designed with user privacy in mind. Instead of scanning images in the cloud, Apple said the system will perform on-device matching against a database of known CSAM image hashes provided by the NCMEC and other child safety organizations. Apple said it will further transform this database into an unreadable set of hashes that is securely stored on users' devices.

The hashing technology, called NeuralHash, analyzes an image and converts it to a unique number specific to that image, according to Apple.

"The main purpose of the hash is to ensure that identical and visually similar images result in the same hash, while images that are different from one another result in different hashes," said Apple in a new "Expanded Protections for Children" white paper. "For example, an image that has been slightly cropped, resized or converted from color to black and white is treated identical to its original, and has the same hash."

Before an image is stored in iCloud Photos, Apple said an on-device matching process is performed for that image against the unreadable set of known CSAM hashes. If there is a match, the device creates a cryptographic safety voucher. This voucher is uploaded to iCloud Photos along with the image, and once an undisclosed threshold of matches is exceeded, Apple is able to interpret the contents of the vouchers for CSAM matches. Apple then manually reviews each report to confirm there is a match, disables the user's iCloud account, and sends a report to NCMEC. Apple is not sharing what its exact threshold is, but ensures an "extremely high level of accuracy" that accounts are not incorrectly flagged.

Apple said its method of detecting known CSAM provides "significant privacy benefits" over existing techniques:

• This system is an effective way to identify known CSAM stored in iCloud Photos accounts while protecting user privacy.
• As part of the process, users also can't learn anything about the set of known CSAM images that is used for matching. This protects the contents of the database from malicious use.
• The system is very accurate, with an extremely low error rate of less than one in one trillion account per year.
• The system is significantly more privacy-preserving than cloud-based scanning, as it only reports users who have a collection of known CSAM stored in iCloud Photos.

The underlying technology behind Apple's system is quite complex and it has published a technical summary with more details.

"Apple's expanded protection for children is a game changer. With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children who are being enticed online and whose horrific images are being circulated in child sexual abuse material," said John Clark, the President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children we know this crime can only be combated if we are steadfast in our dedication to protecting children. We can only do this because technology partners, like Apple, step up and make their dedication known. The reality is that privacy and child protection can co-exist. We applaud Apple and look forward to working together to make this world a safer place for children."

Expanded CSAM Guidance in Siri and Search

Third, Apple said it will be expanding guidance in Siri and Spotlight Search across devices by providing additional resources to help children and parents stay safe online and get help with unsafe situations. For example, users who ask Siri how they can report CSAM or child exploitation will be pointed to resources for where and how to file a report.

The updates to Siri and Search are coming later this year in an update to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey, according to Apple.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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.

Apple today announced a new Apple Music for Artists feature called Shareable Milestones, which is designed to allow ‌Apple Music‌ artists to share key milestones and successes with their fans on social media.

The ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists feature generates automatic milestones for artists of all sizes, which artists can highlight on social media networks. Milestones include new highs and all-time bests across Plays and Shazams, and inclusion in ‌Apple Music‌'s curated playlists.

Artists will see images celebrating their milestones on their iOS overview page for ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists, and can tap the share icon to open up the share sheet. Users will also see relevant milestones on the song and country detail pages. Milestones can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and Instagram stories.

Sharing milestones is a feature that's limited to artists at the current time and the images can only be accessed through the ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists iOS app.

Though limited to ‌Apple Music‌ for Artists at the current time, this is perhaps a feature that Apple could roll out to all ‌Apple Music‌ users in the future, allowing them to share metrics that are normally only available through the year-end Apple Music Replay and Recap features.

Apple Music for Artists is available to all artists who use ‌Apple Music‌. It provides artists and their teams with sales and streaming data for songs, albums, playlists, and more.

Over the last few weeks, an ever-increasing number of Apple users have been frustratingly sharing issues they're experiencing with iTunes Match, Apple's service that allows users to upload songs to iCloud from other sources, such as CDs.

iTunes Match is officially part of an Apple Music subscription and is there known as ‌iCloud‌ Music Library. iTunes Match allows users to upload songs and make them available across all of their devices. iTunes Match only uploads songs to users' cloud if it's unavailable to find that same song within the iTunes library. iTunes Match is available outside of ‌Apple Music‌ for $24.99 a year.

Over the last few weeks, an increasing number of users have taken to Twitter, the Apple Support Forums, and Reddit to note that the service has essentially stopped working. Users reports that iTunes Match is stuck in a constant loop of uploading songs or "Matching your music with songs in the iTunes Store." The issue has become so widespread across Twitter that users have created an "iTunesMatchBroken" hashtag.

A large reason for users' frustration is the silence from Apple on the issue. The Apple Support account on Twitter has only responded to some user reports with vague responses and prompts to send the support team a message. In private conversation, some users were told by Apple Support that there is no ongoing issue with the service and that it's instead an issue with their device, despite the widespread nature of issues.

A few of the reports point to the recent macOS Big Sur 11.5 update as the trigger for the issue; however, users across macOS versions are also sharing their unpleasant experiences.

For the last week, Apple has refused to respond to comment on the situation, including whether the service is in the process of being shut down. If we do hear back from Apple, we'll be sure to let MacRumors readers know.

Update: Apple has updated a support document titled "Subscribe to iTunes Match" with a new notice for users, saying that "It might take some time for iTunes Match to upload your music from your Mac or PC." This seemingly means that for all iTunes Match users facing issues with the service, Apple advises to simply be patient.

A video of a seemingly functional AirPower prototype has been shared on Twitter by Apple device collector Giulio Zompetti, in what appears to be a first-of-its-kind look at the elusive charger in action.

The video shows a unique on-screen iOS animation when the iPhone is placed on the ‌AirPower‌ charging mat, which has only previously been seen in Apple's early marketing materials, making it the first time this animation has been seen in the wild. An ‌iPhone‌ on the ‌AirPower‌ charger would have shown the charge of all of the devices that were placed on the pad.

‌AirPower‌ was an Apple-designed charging mat designed to charge Qi-based iPhones, the Apple Watch, and ‌AirPods‌ that Apple announced in September 2017 alongside the ‌iPhone‌ X. It was designed so that users could place an ‌‌iPhone‌‌, ‌AirPods‌, and Apple Watch on any portion of the mat to have the device charge, which meant that multiple overlapping charging coils had to be included.

‌AirPower‌ missed its 2018 launch date, and after a large number of issues with its development, Apple canceled the AirPower project in March 2019.

Photos allegedly depicting the ‌AirPower‌ surfaced on social networks in August 2020, showing a multi-coil design and the device's internal circuirty, but this is the first video footage of a rare and seemingly functional prototype that presumably leaked out of Apple's development supply chain.

According to reliable Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, Apple is still looking into AirPower-like charging solutions for the future.

Zompetti is an avid collector of Apple prototype devices and has previously shared images of an Apple Watch Series 3 prototype with additional connectors, an original iPad with two 30-pin ports, an iPhone 12 Pro prototype, a third-generation iPod touch with a rear camera, and rare original Apple Watch prototypes.

Apple has published three new support documents with further details about the Mac Pro's new AMD Radeon Pro W6000 series MPX graphics modules, which became available earlier this week. The support documents walk through the many different display setups that can be used with the GPUs and how to use AMD's Infinity Fabric Link technology for increased performance and faster data transfer between the modules.

One notable detail from the support documents is that the Infinity Fabric Link bridges for the new Radeon Pro W6000 series modules are not compatible with previous-generation Radeon Pro MPX modules, according to Apple.

• Use the Radeon Pro W6800X MPX Module with your Mac Pro
• Use the Radeon Pro W6800X Duo MPX Module with your Mac Pro
• Use the Radeon Pro W6900X MPX Module with your Mac Pro

Three new modules are available for the latest Mac Pro as built-to-order upgrade options on Apple's online store, including the Radeon Pro W6800X, Radeon Pro W6800X Duo, and Radeon Pro W6900X. The modules can also be purchased on a standalone basis for customers who already own the latest Mac Pro, with prices ranging from $2,800 to $6,000.

Apple said the new graphics options provide up to 84% faster performance when running the Octane X rendering app and up to 23% faster performance when using the video editing and color correction app DaVinci Resolve on the Mac Pro.

In iPadOS 15, Apple introduced a new productivity feature called Quick Notes that aims to provide a quicker way to jot down things on your iPad without you having to go in and out of the Notes app.

Whether you're on the Home Screen or within any app, you can bring up a floating Quick Note window at any time using your finger or an Apple Pencil, by swiping diagonally up from the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

If you're using a connected keyboard that has a Globe key, simply press the Globe key + Q to launch a Quick Note. You can also add a Quick Note button to Control Center: Go to Settings -> Control Center, then add the Quick Note option from the "Included Controls" section.

The note you call up can be the last note you used, so you can just keep adding to it, or you can create a new note with a tap of the New Note icon in the top-right corner of the interface.

When you tap on the note, it will bring up the virtual keyboard so you can begin typing. If you're using ‌Apple Pencil‌ and you have the Scribble toggle enabled in Settings -> Apple Pencil, you can just start jotting down handwritten notes, and they'll be transcribed into standard text.

Also at the top of your Quick Note window, there's also an ellipsis icon top-right to share the note, and to the left of that, a square quadrant icon that takes you into the Notes app proper, which is where all your Quick Notes live.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the interface, there's a Markup icon in the right corner to bring up standard Markup tools, and if you've created several Quick Notes, you'll see three dots along the bottom of the currently viewed note to indicate that you can swipe between them within the editor window.

Quick Notes can also detect the app you're currently using or just recently used, and will show a dropdown menu at the top of the editor window for you to add a link to the specific message you're viewing in Mail or the website you were just viewing in Safari, for example. Whenever you're viewing a note with a link, just tap the link and you'll be taken directly to the related content.

If the Quick Note window is obscuring your view of something, you can drag it to any corner of the screen. To dismiss a Quick Note at any time, tap the Done button in the top-left, or swipe diagonally towards the corner of the screen it's closest to – you can recall it at any time by tapping the reveal bar off to the side.

That's Quick Notes on ‌iPad‌ in a nutshell. You can also create them on a Mac running macOS 12 Monterey, but be aware that Quick Notes can't be created on an iPhone running iOS 15. However, because Quick Notes live in the Notes app, you can access any that you've created elsewhere on your ‌iPhone‌, just as easily as any other note.

Apple has featured a number of apps with disproportionately expensive subscriptions on the App Store, arousing the ire of some developers.

The ‌App Store‌ feature on the Australian ‌App Store‌, first highlighted by Beau Nouvelle on Twitter, is called "Slime relaxations" and reportedly features apps that are non-functional and seek to charge disproportionately costly in-app purchase subscriptions.

One of the apps, called "Jelly: Slime Simulator, ASMR," features a $13 per week subscription to get past its paywall, amounting to $676 per year. Apple's App Store Review Guidelines state (with emphasis our own):

If we can't understand how your app works or your in-app purchases aren't immediately obvious, it will delay your review and may trigger a rejection. And while pricing is up to you, we won't distribute apps and in-app purchase items that are clear rip-offs. We'll reject expensive apps that try to cheat users with irrationally high prices.

The fact that such apps have passed the ‌App Store‌ review process to be awarded a special feature from Apple on the ‌App Store‌ has induced outrage in some developers, such as Simeon Saëns of Two Lives Left, who took a closer look at one of the apps.

Given that at least some of these apps charge $13 per week, it is difficult to not see them as breaking ‌App Store‌ guidelines, so it is particularly surprising that they were actively featured by Apple on the ‌App Store‌.

Serif today announced across-the-board updates for its popular suite of Affinity creative apps, including Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and the Apple award-winning Affinity Publisher for Mac, all of which were among the first professional creative suites to be optimized for Apple silicon.

For Affinity Publisher, a total rewrite of memory management now enables instant loading times for very large documents, even those with thousands of pages and many gigabytes' worth of linked images. These rewrites have also allowed for smooth live editing and fast scroll, pan and zoom across the whole document.

"We've been excited to see the scale of some of the projects our customers are creating in Affinity Publisher, and knew we could do better to ensure the app remained fast when pushed to the limits," said Ashley Hewson, Managing Director of Affinity developer Serif. "We completely reimagined our memory-handling architecture and the result is that there's really no limit to the size of document you can work on while maintaining that stunning performance."

This performance improvement also extends to Affinity Designer, where the benefit will be most felt by users who import PDF files generated in a CAD app or similar that include hundreds of thousands of objects. Even with less-complex projects, though, everything should feel a lot smoother and snappier, according to the developers.

Elsewhere, Affinity Photo has received "extensive" performance tweaks, so users can expect greater efficiency when blending layers together, while retaining a non-destructive workflow. This version also introduces some options to ensure editing speed remains slick even after building up a complex stack of hundreds of pixel and vector layers, and filter effects, while still maintaining the full layer stack.

Lastly, IDML import in Affinity Publisher is said to be up to four times faster, text flow speeds have nearly doubled, a series of other smaller tweaks and stability improvements have been made to the Affinity suite for version 1.10.

The update is available across all Affinity apps on macOS, Windows and iPad from today and is free to existing users. All Affinity apps are currently available to purchase individually for $60 each on the Affinity website, no subscriptions required.

Walter Isaacson, the biographer of Steve Jobs, is penning a book about entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk, according to Musk.

"If you're curious about Tesla, SpaceX & my general goings on, @WalterIsaacson is writing a biography," tweeted Musk on Thursday.

In subsequent tweets, Musk revealed that Isaacson had been shadowing him "for several days so far," and said he thought all the author's biographies were good, but he "particularly liked" Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin.

Isaacson's forthcoming Musk biography will undoubtedly pique the interest of some Apple watchers, since the book is likely to provide additional insight into Apple's rocky relationship with Tesla, and more recently, Musk himself.

Apple and Tesla have been at odds since Apple started working on the ‌Apple Car‌ project and have notoriously poached employees from one another. Back in 2015, Musk famously called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard," and said "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple."

In December, Musk claimed that he had attempted to speak with Apple about a possible acquisition of Tesla at one point in Tesla's early days, but Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to meet with him.

More recently, Musk criticized Apple's use of cobalt in its products and implied that its business model was a "walled garden" because Apple dictates what software can be installed on the iPhone and requires companies to use its ‌App Store‌.

Just last month, it was reported that Musk once demanded that he be made Apple CEO in a brief discussion of a potential acquisition with ‌Tim Cook‌. Musk has since personally refuted the claim, and even denied that he and Cook have ever spoken or written to each other.

As for Isaacson, since the publication of his best-selling Jobs biography in 2011, the writer has spoken variously about Apple-related topics with keen insight, likely as a result of his deep dive into the company when Jobs was at the helm.

In 2017, he remarked that Apple was no longer the most innovative company, and singled out Apple's lack of movement in the virtual assistant space as an example of where the company had been left behind by the likes of Google and Amazon.

In 2019, Isaacson also revealed that he had "softened" parts of Jobs' biography, particularly criticisms Jobs had made about ‌Tim Cook‌ for not being a "product person."

Isaacson's biography of Jobs went on to be the basis for Aaron Sorkin's screenplay of the Danny Boyle-directed film "Steve Jobs." The film was well received by critics, earning four Golden Globe Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations.

IMDb has released standalone iPhone and iPad apps for its free, ad-supported TV streaming service, meaning users looking to access its video offerings no longer need go searching for it in the standard IMDb app.

IMDb TV offers viewers free access to a range of popular shows and movies, such as "Mad Men," "Malcolm in the Middle," "Wolf of Wall Street," and "How to Train Your Dragon." It also features originals from Amazon Studios, and the company says IMDb TV has half as many ads as traditional terrestrial TV.

The Amazon-owned subsidiary originally launched the free service as Freedive in January 2019, before renaming it IMDb TV. After first rolling out to Roku, IMDb TV apps were released in March for LG smart TVs, PlayStation 4, NVIDIA Shield, and TiVo Streak 4K. The IMDb TV app is also available on Amazon's Fire TV and as a free channel on the Prime Video app.

The launch of iOS and Android apps completes the platform rollout, and should allow the service to expand its U.S. mobile audience. A report last year suggested the company is planning to make the free service available globally, with Mexico and the U.K. possibly becoming the first regions to gain access, with more European countries and Latin America following suit.

(Via Variety.)

Apple this week began highlighting exclusive offers that are available for Apple Card holders, with the offerings presented right in the Wallet app when accessing the ‌Apple Card‌.

As noted by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is offering ‌Apple Card‌ users free access to Apple News+ and unlimited coffee with any order from Panera bread.

This feature is still in the process of rolling out, and tapping on the "Learn More" button leads to a broken link so the full terms of the ‌Apple News‌+ deal are unknown.

Apple has offered special promotions for ‌Apple Card‌ users before, usually in the form of extra cash back from select merchants or discounted prices on digital goods.

Extra cash back deals are also shown right in the ‌Apple Card‌ interface like the ‌Apple News‌+ offer, but this appears to be the first time that Apple has advertised one of its own services to ‌Apple Card‌ holders directly in the Wallet app.

It's not unusual for credit card companies to offer discounts and deals to their customers on various products, but Apple is in the unique position of having credit card customers and services to promote to its credit card users.

Apple in July began providing developers with access to a beta version of the AirPods Pro firmware to test new features ahead of their release. Last Friday, Apple released a second version of the ‌AirPods Pro‌ firmware (4A362b), but it went under the radar until today when it was shared on Reddit.

According to Apple's developer website, the second ‌AirPods Pro‌ firmware update adds support for Conversation Boost, a feature that was missing from the first beta.

Conversation Boost is an iOS 15 feature that uses the beamforming microphones in the ‌AirPods Pro‌ to boost the volume level of conversations, which is ideal for those with mild to moderate hearing challenges.

The initial ‌AirPods Pro‌ firmware beta added support for FaceTime Spatial Audio and Ambient Noise Reduction, two other ‌AirPods Pro‌ features that are coming in the iOS 15 update.

Only registered developers are able to install the ‌AirPods Pro‌ firmware, and the installation process is rather complicated and requires Xcode. We have a walkthrough on installing the profile for the beta, but as with all over-the-air firmware updates, it takes some time for new software to be seeded to users.