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

Apple showed off a major new app coming to watchOS 5 later this year, called "Walkie-Talkie." Using the app, Apple Watch wearers will be able to send quick voice messages to friends and family members by speaking into their Apple Watch, similar to real Walkie-Talkies. To start using the feature, users will have to allow a connection to one another in the app. After, it will show a scrolling...

Beginning this fall with iOS 12, FaceTime will support audio and video calls with as many as 32 simultaneous participants. Members will be able to drop in and out of group call as necessary, much like an ongoing conference call. The announcement could be a blow to dedicated conference call services like Zoom, as smaller organizations may choose to rely on the the built-in FaceTime rather than...

Apple today at its WWDC keynote introduced personalized Animoji known as Memoji, a feature coming in iOS 12. Memojis are highly customizable, with multiple options for skin colors, hairstyles, head shapes, eyes, eyebrows, facial hair, eyewear, and headwear. Once a Memoji has been created, it can be used just like an Animoji, with the iPhone X's facial recognition sensors mimicking...

Beginning this fall with iOS 12, Apple will allow navigation apps to work with CarPlay, including both Google Maps and Waze. The change was announced at WWDC, and — for consumers — could be one of the most immediately useful announcements made during the entire keynote. Since CarPlay was first introduced a few years ago, Apple has prevented all navigation apps not named Apple Maps...

Apple has revealed a collection of Siri improvements coming to iOS 12, centered around a new app called "Shortcuts." Shortcuts will let users connect certain third-party apps to Siri to greatly streamline voice controls. For example, the Tile app will let you add a shortcut to Siri so you can say "I lost my keys," activating Siri and showing Tile actions right in the Siri UI. Other examples...

Apple has announced at its WWDC keynote that a new For You tab is coming to its iOS 12 Photos app that will include intelligent Sharing Suggestions. Apple explained that the Photos app is gaining a new "For You" tab, similar to Apple Music, that has an "On this day" section showcasing existing memories, looping Live Photos, Portrait photos, and more. The For You tab will also suggest...

Craig Federighi today announced ARKit 2 at WWDC 2018, which will give developers access to improved face tracking, realistic rendering, 3D object detection, persistent experiences, and shared experiences. The company gave a demo of two users sharing a virtual environment using ARKit 2, playing on a table with wooden toys and trying to knock down the other player's objects. Apple says that...

Apple today announced a new augmented reality file format called Universal Scene Description (USDZ) during its keynote event at WWDC in San Jose, California. Apple explained that USDZ was developed alongside animation studio Pixar and is an open file format optimized for creating and sharing 3D Augmented Reality assets in a compact, single file. This means that the format is optimized for...

Apple has developed its own augmented reality-enabled measuring app called "Measure." The iOS app uses ARKit 2 to measure objects, get automatic measurements of things like photos and tables, and more. Numerous measurement apps have been available on the iOS App Store since Apple launched ARKit last year, and now Apple will have its own alternative on the App Store for users. In a demo...

Drone videographers Duncan Sinfield and Matthew Roberts each uploaded new videos to their YouTube channels over the past day, covering the latest views of Apple Park from the sky. The videos come a few hours ahead of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which is happening about 8 miles to the east of Apple Park at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose. Image via Matthew ...

Facebook forged an agreement with at least 60 device makers including Apple and Samsung to provide access to large swathes of user data without explicit consent, in a move that may have violated a 2011 Federal Trade Commission consent decree. According to a lengthy report in The New York Times, the social network made the deals so that device makers could use APIs to include Facebook...

Apple has shared an ad on its main YouTube channel this morning to promote the iPhone X's Animoji feature ahead of Monday's WWDC keynote, which starts at 10.00 a.m. Pacific Time. Titled "Animoji: Taxi Driver", the one-minute short features three Animoji faces singing along to the track "Citizen Kane" by Korean band HYUKOH. Bear Face Animoji takes the lead role in the lip synced song,...

In the months leading up to Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference each year, the company offers free WWDC scholarships to students and STEM organization members who don't have the $1,599 necessary to purchase a ticket to the event. When selected, the scholarship winners gain a free WWDC ticket, free lodging, and a free one year Apple developer membership. On Twitter today, Apple CEO Tim...

A Canadian woman has been found guilty of distracted driving for looking at her Apple Watch, despite claims that she was just checking the time while waiting for a red light to change (via The National Post). A judge in the Ontario Court of Justice ordered University of Guelph student Victoria Ambrose to pay a $400 fine, after determining that she had spent too much time staring at her...

Toshiba has completed the $18 billion sale of its memory chip unit to a global consortium that includes Apple, almost nine months since it announced that the deal had been agreed (via Reuters). The Japanese firm had originally planned to wrap up the sale by mid-March, however a lengthy review by Chinese antitrust authorities didn't finish until last month. Toshiba confirmed this week that...

Telegram today received its first update in two months after an App Store update lockout caused by a dispute with the Russian government and Apple. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov yesterday explained that Apple had been blocking updates to the Telegram app on a worldwide scale since April, when the Telegram app was banned in Russia. As back story, Russia in April banned Telegram because Telegram ...

Apple is adding a small but significant Apple Pay feature that will be of interest to concert attendees: the ability to pre-purchase drinks. According to TechCrunch, Apple tested an "order ahead with Apple Pay" feature at a recent BottleRock music festival near San Francisco. Using the festival app, attendees were able to select a nearby concession stand, choose drinks, initiate a purchase...

Apple is aiming to expand its digital advertising network by offering ad deals to companies that include Snap and Pinterest, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple is hoping to build an Apple ad network that would distribute ads across apps, providing a share of revenue to the apps that display the ads. With these Apple ads, searching for something like "Drapes" in Pinterest could show up an...