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

The latest proposed U.S. tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods name Apple Watch and other activity trackers assembled in China, according to government rulings. Reuters reports the latest rulings list names the original Apple Watch, Fitbit Charge, Charge HR and Surge models, and Sonos Play:3, Play:5 and SUB speakers. If the list goes into effect this fall following its public comment...

WhatsApp says it is limiting the ability to forward messages to multiple chats at once in an attempt to reduce the spread of spam and misinformation. The news follows WhatsApp's recent decision to add labels that indicate to users that a message has been forwarded. The change was announced by the company in a blog post that specifically mentions India, where the spreading of fake messages...

Popular third-party password manager 1Password received an update today that takes the iOS app to version 7.1 and introduces Markdown support in secure notes, stickers for Messages, and a couple of notable fixes. Following on from the Mac version updated in May, 1Password for iOS now lets you create rich secure notes that can include headers, bold and italic text, lists, tappable links, and...

Each year, the iPhone Photography Awards (IPPA) highlights the best photographs captured with an iPhone over the course of the year. This year's winners were announced yesterday, with the winning photographs selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 140 countries. The Grand Prize Photographer of the Year Award went to Jashim Salam, who submitted a...

Instagram today announced the launch of a new feature that's designed to let you know when your friends are active on the social network. When a friend is online, their profile picture will be accented with a green dot in various places within the app. You'll see the green dot in the Direct inbox and in your friends list when you share a post from the feed. Dots will be displayed for friends...

Apple today launched a new Apple Pay promotion called Summertime Savings, offering a range of discounts on Apple Pay purchases made within select apps or on select websites from July 19 to August 1. Participating companies include Fandango, Groupon, Grubhub, Hotels.com, Houzz, and more, with a full list of discounts below: Fandango: $5 off 2 or more movie tickets Groupon: 20% off...

Belkin's Wemo Mini smart plug has gained HomeKit support through a software update, as reported today by CNET. This means that owners of Wemo Mini plugs can simply open the Wemo iOS app, update the device's software, and immediately gain the ability to add the plug into the Home app, add it into existing scenes, and use Siri to control it without the need for a Wemo Bridge. Apple first...

Currently, when users in a certain area face potentially bad weather, threats of danger, or a nearby AMBER alert, their iPhone or other smartphone sounds off and displays a message explaining the emergency. In new legislation shared today, United States senators Brian Schatz and John Thune hope to "explore" ways this system could improve to enhance reliability, including implementing these...

Elevation Lab, known for its range of popular iPhone docks, today announced the launch of its latest product, the NightPad wireless charging pad designed for the iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and future iPhones with wireless charging capabilities. The NightPad features a minimal design and it looks like a simple black puck, with a matte finish over the body of the accessory. A raised ring ...

After a summer of back-and-forth bids between Comcast and Disney for select entertainment assets owned by 21st Century Fox, Comcast today confirmed that it is bowing out of the bidding war for Fox. The company says the move is to instead focus on acquiring European satellite TV provider Sky, another much-sought-after entertainment company that is seeing interest from the likes of Comcast, Fox,...

Chinese mobile maker Huawei expects to ship 200 million smartphones globally by the end of the year, bringing it within range of Apple as the second-largest vendor worldwide behind Samsung (via The South China Morning Post). The target was announced by mobile chief Richard Yu Chengdong as the Chinese company launched the latest additions to its mid-range smartphone line-up, the Nova 3 and Nova ...

Doppler received a significant update today, bringing some notable track and album features to the increasingly popular third-party music playing app for iPhone. For those unfamiliar, Doppler offers mobile users an alternative way to experience their music library, sporting an adaptive minimalist interface with an emphasis on reliable offline playback, and built-in support for importing MP3,...

Popular media player VLC for iOS was today updated to version 3.1, introducing long-awaited support for Chromecast. Chromecast functionality has been a highly requested feature from VLC users. With the update, the VLC app for iOS can stream content to Chromecast-enabled devices. Today's update also brings support for viewing 360-degree videos in VLC by moving the iPhone around, and it...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 12 update to its public beta testing group, giving non-developers a chance to try out the new software ahead of its fall public release. Today's third beta comes two weeks after Apple released the second tvOS 12 public beta, and it corresponds to the fourth developer beta released yesterday. The tvOS 12 public beta can be obtained by going...

Netflix today revealed a new design for its "TV experiences," or TV-based apps, that aims to make it easier to find TV shows and movies on the service. In addition to the rows with various themes, Netflix subscribers watching on a TV will now see a sidebar on the left side of the app that expands when they scroll over to it. This UI has Search, Home, Series, Movies, My List, and New hubs,...

With Prime Day over, Amazon's sale is no longer taking the deal spotlight this week, but Twelve South has branched out of the event with a post-Prime Day sale of its own. Called the "Past Your Prime Day" sale, on TwelveSouth.com you can buy all of the Twelve South products at the same discount that they were available yesterday (and Monday), with a few additional options thrown in. To get in ...

The European Commission hit Google with a $5.1 billion fine today, stating that the tech company broke EU antitrust laws by striking deals with Android phone manufacturers to favor Google's services over rival services (via The New York Times). Android P is the newest version of the software, set to launch this fall Specifically, the European Commission pointed towards the Google search bar...

Apple's Chinese iCloud operator has agreed a deal with state-owned China Telecom to transfer local customer data to the company's Tianyi cloud storage business, according to TechCrunch. China Telecom reportedly announced the agreement in a WeChat post, saying that local Apple partner Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD) had migrated all Chinese iCloud customer data to Tianyi servers. Apple separately ...