MacRumors iPhone and iPad Blog: Apps, News, and Rumors

A year and a half ago, Flexibits branched out from its popular calendar app Fantastical to debut Cardhop, an intuitive contacts management app for macOS. Cardhop took Apple's Contacts to the next level, offering a smart input field that intelligently parses the text you're typing and figures out what you want to do. Customizable quick actions let you easily perform tasks related to your contacts, ...

Apple today updated its Apple TV Remote app, which doesn't receive new features very often. According to Apple's release notes, there's nothing major that's included in the update, but it does feature a new app icon. The prior icon was an Apple logo next to the word "TV," the branding that Apple uses for its ‌Apple TV‌ set-top boxes. The new logo resembles the ‌Apple TV‌ Remote, making it...

Apple in September 2019 launched its subscription gaming service, Apple Arcade, allowing App Store users to pay a $4.99 monthly fee to get access to hundreds of games that have no in-app purchases or additional costs. This guide features everything you need to know about Apple Arcade. What is Apple Arcade? Apple Arcade is Apple's premium subscription gaming service that lets users download ...

Apple today released an updated version of Shortcuts, introducing support for several new actions related to the Notes app. There are options for Create Note, Append to Note, Find Notes, and Show Notes, all of which can be incorporated into your shortcuts. There's also a new Get Numbers input action for pulling numbers from text, and Get Time Travel includes more details like route name,...

Spotify today announced its latest acquisition, this one related to a podcast company called Parcast (via Reuters). This marks Spotify's third podcast-related acquisition in two months, and represents the company's ongoing plan to boost the music streaming platform as a hub for podcasts that can compete with Apple Podcasts. Last month, Spotify purchased Gimlet Media for $300 million,...

Apple yesterday began sending emails to Apple Pay customers, warning them about new changes to the service that are taking effect immediately with iOS 12.2 and watchOS 5.2. With the updates, Apple has ended support for sending money through ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash using a credit card (including the upcoming Apple Card). Previously, users could link their credit card to fund person-to-person...

Apple refreshed its AirPods wireless earbuds in March 2019 and released Airpods Pro later the same year, adding a number of new features that set the two models apart from the original AirPods. One of those features is the ability to summon Siri entirely handsfree, allowing you to speak a variety of commands and ask questions. With the first-generation AirPods, you had to use the default...

More than 40 million Android smartphone owners around the world have now installed the Apple Music app from the Google Play Store, according to data shared this week by Sensor Tower. It's projected that ‌Apple Music‌ will see 3.8 million installs on Android devices by the end of Q1 2019, up from 3.3 million in Q4 2018 and a year-over-year increase of 65 percent. Apple has been able to...

Apple in March 2019 launched second-generation AirPods that include several new features over the original models, including the ability to wirelessly charge using third-party charging pads. In October 2019, it then launched AirPods Pro, which offer the same functionality. Third-party charging mats from the likes of Anker can charge AirPods 2 and ‌AirPods Pro‌ Apple also launched a Wireless...

Austria's largest bank Erste Bank und Sparkasse today announced that Apple Pay is "coming soon" with a teaser on its Twitter account. ‌Apple Pay‌ has been gradually expanding across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The service launched in Belgium and Kazakhstan in November, made its long-awaited debut in Germany in December, and became available in the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia last...

Apple has updated its Apple Music app for Android devices, introducing the redesigned Browse tab that debuted on iOS last week and new support for Chromebooks. The new Browse tab has been tweaked to highlight an assortment of different playlists from various musical genres to make discovery quicker and easier. Android users will now find Apple's "Daily Top 100" playlist featured prominently...

Apple in March 2019 debuted second-generation AirPods, featuring several updates over the original massively popular wireless earbuds of the same name. Then, in October 2019, Apple launched the AirPods Pro, a higher-end version of its existing AirPods with a unique design, noise cancellation technology, better sound, and a more expensive $249 price tag. If you've just received a version of...

Apple News+ is Apple's paid subscription service for the ‌Apple News‌ app. ‌Apple News‌+ lets you access magazines and paywalled content from some news sites. You have to pay a subscription fee to access ‌Apple News‌+, and it is an add-on service that lives right alongside Apple's existing free ‌Apple News‌ content. This guide covers everything that you need to know about ‌Apple News‌+, from...

After upgrading to iOS 12.2, the newest version of iOS, AT&T users began seeing a "5GE" icon in place of "LTE" for their cellular connection. This is AT&T's misleading name for an enhanced 4G LTE network, and as explained in the guide below, is not actual 5G connectivity. Why am I seeing a 5GE icon? According to AT&T, customers who upgrade to iOS 12.2 or later will see the "5GE" icon...

Apple today unveiled its rumored premium Apple News subscription service, ‌Apple News‌+. ‌Apple News‌+ provides access to more than 300 magazines and a handful of paywalled news articles from sites like The Wall Street Journal all for $9.99 per month. Signing up for an ‌Apple News‌ subscription can be done in the U.S. or Canada on an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12.2. Here's how: Open up...

Alongside the iOS 12.2 update that was introduced following Apple's services-focused "It's Show Time" event, Apple has also debuted a new 12.2 software update designed for the HomePod. The new ‌HomePod‌ software will be installed automatically on the ‌HomePod‌ after you update to iOS 12.2, but you can also manually update and check your software version by following the instructions in our...

Apple today held a services-focused event at its Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, where it unveiled several new services including Apple News+ for subscription news and magazines, Apple TV+ for original TV content, Apple Arcade for App Store games, and Apple Card, a new Apple-branded credit card with special capabilities in wallet. During the event, Apple showed several videos, all...

Apple today released tvOS 12.2, the fifth update to the tvOS 12 operating system designed for fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models. tvOS 12.2 comes more than two months after the launch of tvOS 12.1.2. tvOS 12.2, a free update, can be downloaded over the air through the Settings app on the ‌Apple TV‌ by going to System --> Software Update. ‌Apple TV‌ owners who have automatic software...