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

Instagram is gearing up to launch a hub for "longer-form video," according to multiple sources speaking with TechCrunch, in an effort to continue its competition with Snapchat and the "Discover" tab, as well as YouTube. The dedicated space will feature scripted shows, music videos, and more, which will all be vertically shot and viewable in full-screen 4K on compatible smartphones. The...

Last month, when we asked MacRumors readers what they hoped to see in iOS 12, one of the most frequent requests was improvements to Siri, specifically Spotify integration. Currently, Siri can open streaming media apps like Spotify, but it can't play songs or video from third-party sources. While Apple has yet to explicitly support the functionality, one of the components in the newly-announced ...

Apple's latest version of watchOS promises to bring rich HTML content to the wrists of Apple Watch users, thanks to new Webkit optimizations that improve apps like Mail and Messages. Apple expanded on the new WebKit features at a WWDC session, in which it explained to developers how they can optimize web content for viewing on Apple Watch screens. Currently in the watchOS Mail app, rich...

Following our Spring Break partnership with Twelve South a few months back, MacRumors is again collaborating with the well-known accessory maker, this time in celebration of developers and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. The exclusive sale includes 20 percent discounts on Twelve South accessories like the BackPack and Curve, which can be helpful additions to the workflow of developers,...

We're teaming up with Pad & Quill for a series of special WWDC giveaways this week in celebration of the developer-focused event. For those unfamiliar with Pad & Quill, it's a company that makes high-quality hand-crafted leather accessories for iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watches, and more. For our second giveaway this week, we're offering MacRumors readers a chance to win a Heritage...

eBay today launched a sitewide savings coupon for Father's Day that takes 20 percent off "everything" on the online reseller's storefront, with a few exclusions including coins and paper money, gift cards and coupons, and real estate. Outside of these categories, you're free to apply the 20 percent off coupon to any other items today, including Apple products like the HomePod, down to a price of...

Australia is gearing up to release new laws that will force Australian telecommunications companies and global tech companies to comply with law enforcement agencies, when such agencies ask for access to encrypted data on the smartphones of suspected criminals (via ABC News Australia). The laws are the latest in an ongoing global data battle that hit a fever pitch in the United States in early...

In a renewed effort to clamp down on potentially threatening drone use, the United States Department of Homeland Security today will be urging Congress to approve new anti-drone legislation. Specifically, the proposed legislation would give the U.S. federal government new powers "to disable or destroy" any drone perceived to be "threatening" (via Reuters). The DHS deputy general counsel Hayley ...

Testers of the first watchOS 5 beta for Apple Watch are hailing a new option in the software's Settings menu that enables you to manually connect your device to nearby Wi-Fi networks. In previous versions of watchOS, your Apple Watch is locked to the wireless network that your tethered iPhone is using, and there's no way to browse and manually connect to networks from your wrist. But that...

Apple has announced through its regional websites that Apple Watch Series 3 LTE models will be available to pre-order in Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates on Friday, June 8. Brazilian customers hoping to pick up and Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE can expect to pay 3,119 reais (about $826) for the 38mm model and 3449 for the 42mm model. Claro will be the sole network...

Apple's Podcasts service now hosts more than 18.5 million episodes across 555,000 different "active" shows, according to a report from TechCrunch. The podcast stats, which appears to have been sent directly to TechCrunch by Apple, include other data as well. Apple's hosted podcasts come in more than 100 languages, from 155 countries. The podcast total is up from 525,000 back in April, and ...

Apple in 2014 introduced a Live Listen feature that's designed to allow the iPhone to pair with hearing aids and then serve as a remote microphone that beams the audio the iPhone picks up to the hearing aids. As noted by TechCrunch, Live Listen is coming to the AirPods with the iOS 12 update, letting iPhone users position their iPhones as a directional mic and have the audio relayed through...

In celebration of the 2018 Worldwide Developers Conference, which is taking place this week, we've teamed up with accessory maker Pad & Quill to offer a series of giveaways. Pad & Quill is a company that makes high-quality hand-crafted leather accessories for iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watches, and more. Our first giveaway includes the Heritage Leather Men's Satchel Bag, the TechFolio...

Apple Maps now supports transit in North Carolina, enabling users to navigate with public transportation in several metropolitan areas across the state. The largest transit options supported include CATS buses and LYNX trains in the Charlotte area, GoTransit buses in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, GTA buses in Greensboro, and inter-city PART buses in the Piedmont Triad area. Apple...

The iOS 12 beta appears to support adding a second face to the Face ID feature, allowing a second person to unlock an iPhone X without entering the passcode. This was discovered and later confirmed by multiple users on Reddit. Ever since the iPhone X was released last September, Apple's Face ID authentication system has been restricted to recognizing a single person's face to unlock the iPhone ...

Apple didn't touch upon Apple Music at all during its WWDC keynote yesterday, leaving any potential new details about the streaming music service to be discovered by early beta testers of iOS 12. For now, it appears that Apple Music remains largely the same between iOS 11 and iOS 12, but some Redditors have discovered at least one update for artists and their profile pages in the Music app on...

A Reddit user has discovered that the first beta of iOS 12 includes a Music app feature that allows Apple Music subscribers to search for songs using lyric phrases. As the image below shows, using the search phrase "Loving you isn't the right thing to do" – the first lines of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" – successfully returns the relevant song, and quotes the lyrical phrase in the...

Testers of the new watchOS 5 Beta that Apple released yesterday have discovered a new function that allows Apple Watch users to change the arrangement of icons in the Control Center menu, which is accessed by swiping up on a watch face. As shown in this image shared by Reddit user brooksdbrewer, the option appears as an Edit button when you scroll down to the bottom of the Control Center menu. ...