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

Apple has purchased the rights to "Hala" a coming of age drama directed by Minhal Baig and produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, reports Variety. The movie premiered at the 2019 Sundance film festival, and marks Apple's first purchase of the event. It's not known if "Hala" will debut on iTunes or if it will be shown in theaters. "Hala" follows the life of Hala, a 17 year old girl "navigating...

Apple today sent out its latest Apple Pay promo, which is offering ‌Apple Pay‌ users a 20 percent discount on a purchase of $25 or more from the Fanatics app or the Fanatics website in celebration of the upcoming Super Bowl. Fanatics is a site that offers up team-themed gear for sports fans. The site has partnerships with the NFL, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, NBA, and more. To get the 20 percent...

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 12.2 update to its public beta testing group, a few days after providing the beta to developers and a week after releasing the tvOS 12.1.2 update. The tvOS 12.2 public beta can be obtained by going to the Settings app on the Apple TV and navigating to the Software Updates section under "System." "Get Public Beta Updates" will need to be...

Today only, you can save on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro from 2017 thanks to a flash sale at B&H Photo. The retailer has the 512GB model (Wi-Fi + Cellular) for $799.00, down from an original price of $1,279.00. This sale has all three colors available, and there are a few other storage capacities and Wi-Fi only versions discounted as well. The main flash sale represents the lowest-ever price...

Nine out of every ten iPhone users who upgrade their smartphone will stick with the ‌iPhone‌, a recent survey suggests. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners surveyed 500 consumers in the U.S. who activated a new or used phone in the final three months of 2018 and found that 91 percent of iOS users upgraded to another ‌iPhone‌. Android users were also loyal, with 92 percent of respondents...

At CES this year, Vizio announced that their SmartCast TVs would be receiving support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit in a free over-the-air update later this year. This would allow iOS and Mac users to stream music and video to SmartCast-enabled Vizio TVs, as well as allow users to control the TV from their Home app on iOS or via Siri voice commands. Vizio promised that beta testers would be...

Back in November, I took a look at Fiat Chrysler's Uconnect infotainment system and CarPlay integration in the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan, discovering a quite positive user experience that nearly seamlessly incorporates ‌CarPlay‌ into Uconnect. That seamlessness comes thanks to an 8.4-inch Uconnect display that keeps a top status bar and a bottom menu bar visible at all times for easy...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Function 101 to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win one of the company's new BentoStack Charge accessory organizers. We've covered the handy BentoStack accessory organizers before, but this new version, the Charge, does even more. In addition to keeping all of your cords, cables, and odds and ends organized, it includes a 5,000 mAh power bank...

Adobe this week updated its Photoshop Sketch and Illustrator Draw apps for iPad with support for the second-generation Apple Pencil. In the latest versions of the apps, 2018 iPad Pro users can now take advantage of the new ‌Apple Pencil‌'s double-tap functionality to switch between drawing tools, activate the color picker, and zoom in and out of the canvas. The double-tap gesture can be...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to integrate three disparate messaging services -- Facebook Messenger, Instagram messaging, and WhatsApp -- into one "underlying messaging infrastructure" (via The New York Times). Facebook Messenger These services will continue to operate as their own standalone apps, but the company's work will make them interoperable with one another. This means...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum this week, and today he met with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. Babiš shared photos of his meeting with Cook on Facebook (via Letemsvetemapplem.eu), and provided some details on what the two discussed. According to Babiš, the two talked about technology in the Czech Republic, also touching on topics such as AI and...

Apple's iPhone XR was the best selling ‌iPhone‌ in the U.S. during the holiday quarter despite the fact that it was not released until the end of October, according to data shared today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. The ‌iPhone‌ XR accounted for 39 percent of sales during Apple's first fiscal quarter 2019, which equates to the fourth calendar quarter of 2018. The ‌iPhone‌ XS and...

Pennsylvania-based entity Rembrandt Wireless Technologies has filed a lawsuit against Apple today in the U.S. district court for Eastern Texas, accusing the iPhone maker of infringing on two of its Bluetooth-related patents. In its complaint, obtained by MacRumors, Rembrandt alleges that all Apple products that support Bluetooth 2.0 or newer with Enhanced Data Rate, including the ‌iPhone‌...

Last fall I had the chance to take a look at ZENS' all-new Dual + Watch Wireless Charger, which offers spots to charge two Qi-enabled smartphones and one perch for the Apple Watch. I came away quite liking the accessory, which should be a great charging hub for anyone in a two-person household, and now the company has launched a companion accessory called the ZENS Dual Wireless Powerbank....

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming watchOS 5.2 update to developers, two days after releasing watchOS 5.1.3, a minor update focused on bug fixes. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software update. To...

Apple this morning seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 12.2 update to developers for testing purposes, two days after releasing the tvOS 12.1.2 update. Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 12.2 developer beta can be downloaded onto the ‌Apple TV‌ via a profile that's installed using Xcode. tvOS updates have historically been minor in scale,...

Six months after MoviePass began placing numerous restrictions on its subscribers in an attempt to prevent the service from completely shutting down, the company today has relaunched with a new advertising campaign and the promise of a new unlimited plan. As reported by Variety, the so-called "MoviePass 2.0" is rolling out with a few new plans this month, with prices that change depending on...

The latest Apple Pay promotion offers 10 percent off Under Armour purchases. The 10 percent offer will automatically be applied in the Under Armour app at checkout with the use of ‌Apple Pay‌ through January 31, 2019 in the United States, according to Apple. The offer is not valid at Under Armour retail...