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

Apple today seeded the ninth beta of an upcoming watchOS 5 update to developers, four days after releasing the eighth beta and more than two months after introducing the software at the Worldwide Developers Conference. To get the beta, you'll need the proper configuration profile, which can be obtained through the Apple Developer Center. Once the profile is in place, the watchOS 5 beta can be...

DirecTV is warning customers that its True Cloud DVR service will officially come out of beta next week, and any customers who were receiving 100 hours of recording space during the public beta will now be reset to the base 20 hours offered as a free add-on to DirecTV Now packages (via Cord Cutters News and Multichannel News). The end of the beta is said to happen on August 29, and anyone who...

T-Mobile and its subsidiary MetroPCS today disclosed a recent incident where hackers gained "unauthorized access to certain information" of its customers, which the companies have already reported to the police and shut down. The security breach occurred earlier this week on Monday, August 20, and affected two million customers (via Motherboard). T-Mobile promises that no financial data,...

High-resolution photography app Hydra received an update today that brings a couple of much-requested improvements to its camera support. For those unfamiliar with the app, Hydra merges up to 60 individual images to make a single high-quality picture, effectively getting more light from the scene. In this way, Hydra produces up to 32-megapixel high-resolution images (4x the 8-megapixel...

When the iPhone X launched, there was no option to record multiple faces like there was to enter in multiple fingerprints with Touch ID, but that's something Apple changed in iOS 12 and later. Now you can add a second face to Face ID, which is useful if you have a job where your face dramatically changes, such as with a surgeon's mask or protective goggles. Face ID can learn to overcome...

Our sister site TouchArcade this week went hands-on with the just-announced iOS game "Reigns: Game of Thrones." For those unaware, "Reigns" is a series of games created by Devolver Digital that tasks players with making important monarchical decisions using a simple left swipe and right swipe mechanic. The first two games in the series [Direct Links: Reigns and Reigns: Her Majesty] focused on...

DJI today introduced the Mavic 2 Pro and the Mavic 2 Zoom, two drones that are followups to the popular 2016 Mavic Pro. Both of the two new drones feature an upgraded design that incorporates cameras with DJI's latest three-axis gimbal technology for smooth, stable footage. The drones also feature the same convenient, foldable design that was first introduced with the Mavic Pro. The body...

Apple Maps has recently been updated with indoor maps of five airports across Canada, Finland, and the United States. The new additions: Logan International Airport in Boston Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Dallas Love Field Airport Halifax Stanfield International Airport Helsinki AirportApple Maps also recently added indoor maps of various shopping malls in the Spanish cities...

Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto wants the gaming industry to stop "nickel-and-diming" users, and launch games at fixed prices (via Bloomberg). As long as the upfront prices aren't too high, such "premium" games would create a more sustainable business model over the long term, Miyamoto says, seemingly referencing video games across mobile, console, and PC. The Super Mario creator made...

In iOS 12, Apple has added the ability to share pictures or video in your Photo Library using an iCloud.com link that lasts for 30 days. Not only is sharing a link quicker and less burdensome on your data allowance than sending several images or gigabytes of video, you can also share the same link as many times as you want within the expiry limit. For the new photo link option to appear,...

Anker this week has debuted a large new collection of promo codes on Amazon, offering up to 45 percent off wireless chargers, Lightning cables, portable battery packs, and more. Most of the codes last through the end of the week, but some extend into September. We've listed a few of the best deals below, but for the full collection be sure to visit our Deals Roundup and scroll down to the "Anker...

watchOS 5 introduces a new Podcasts app for Apple Watch, which is designed to let you listen to your favorite podcasts on the watch without the need for the iPhone. Streaming podcasts works over Wi-Fi or a cellular connection, and you can also use the Podcasts app to play podcasts from a connected iPhone if desired. Using the Podcasts App on Apple Watch As with Apple Music, when using...

Walmart today announced that it has partnered with Rakuten Kobo to launch its own dedicated eBooks platform, simply called Walmart eBooks. The service will be available as an iOS and Android application, as well as on Kobo's eReaders, and function similarly to rival eBook services from Apple and Amazon. "More than six million" eBooks will be up for purchase on Walmart's site, and once you find ...

Ustwo Games' popular iOS and Android puzzle series "Monument Valley" is being turned into a movie, as reported this week by Deadline. Paramount Pictures and Weed Road Pictures have won the rights to the games, and Patrick Osborne has already been selected to develop and direct the first film. Osborne won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short for his short film "Feast" in 2014, which was...

The New York Public Library today launched a new initiative it's calling "Insta Novels," in which it will post classic novels and short stories as Instagram Stories. You won't need a NYPL card or have to live nearby to gain access to Insta Novels as the feature will be available to anyone who has an Instagram account (via The Wall Street Journal). To start off, the library is offering Lewis...

Popular journaling app Day One reached version 3 today and introduced a number of new features for both free and premium users. Headlining version 3 of the app is an all-new editor interface that the developers say has been built from the ground up. The action of editing an entry has been simplified so that now it's just a matter of tapping wherever in the entry text that you want to place the ...

iOS 12 introduces Notification Grouping, a long-awaited feature that groups all of the notifications from a single app together in one neat bundle that prevents the Lock screen from becoming overly cluttered. By default, all apps have an "Automatic" grouped notification setting, which groups up notifications by app, but does so intelligently. For example, if you have multiple iMessage...

Fortnite could launch on Apple TV at one point in the future, according to a new discovery by the @StormLeaks Twitter account late yesterday. As reported by esports and gaming website Dexerto, @StormLeaks found a single line within Fortnite's code that references "tvOS," suggesting that Epic Games may be planning to launch the popular game on Apple's fourth- and fifth-generation set-top boxes...