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

Apple's services category has continued to see rapid growth and it is becoming an increasingly important revenue driver for Apple. In the second fiscal quarter of 2018, Apple's services brought in $9.19 billion in revenue, up 31 percent compared to the $7 billion in revenue services earned in the second quarter of 2017. For the last several quarters, Apple's services revenue has grown so...

Apple is planning to expand Apple Pay to Norway, Poland, and Ukraine in the near future, Apple CEO Tim Cook said this afternoon during Apple's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2018. Cook did not provide specific information on a potential launch date, beyond the announcement that it would be coming "in the next several months." Cook said that Apple Pay continues to see...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this morning hosted a keynote event for the F8 developers conference, where he unveiled several new features that are coming to the social network. Watch Party is a new Facebook feature that will allow you to watch videos while also chatting with your friends. When introducing the feature, Zuckerberg joked about his recent congressional testimony. "Let's say your...

At today's F8 developer conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled some new features that are coming soon to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Instagram's Explore tab will be getting a new look that's more focused on various topics. Facebook also plans to add a new video chat feature to Instagram, allowing two or more people to chat with each other using a FaceTime or...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.3.1 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first watchOS 4.3.1 beta and a month after releasing watchOS 4.3. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4.3.1 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.4 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first beta and a month after releasing the tvOS 11.3 update. Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 11.4 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that's installed using Xcode. tvOS 11.4, paired with...

Ahead of Facebook's F8 Developer Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook is building a new "Clear History" privacy control option to erase some of the data Facebook has collected. Zuckerberg likens the new Clear History tool to the ability to clear cookies and cache on a web browser. Zuckerberg says it "will be a simple control" that will clear browsing history on...

A recent study claimed that the Apple Watch can detect abnormal heart rhythms with 97 percent accuracy, and today Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a new story in which the company's wearable device did just that, saving someone's life in the process. Speaking with Tampa, Florida's ABC affiliate WFTS, 18-year-old Deanna Recktenwald said that one day her Apple Watch warned her that her resting heart...

Following a legal battle that's been ongoing between Apple and LTE chipmaker Qualcomm since early 2017, the latter company today announced an initiative aimed at defusing tensions with Apple. Specifically, Qualcomm says it will "broaden" its use of a lower-cost licensing model moving forward (via Reuters). The move is a response to the FTC's original complaint that Qualcomm was engaging in...

The Lumos Smart Bike Helmet, which got its start as a Kickstarter project back in 2015, is the first bike helmet to make its way to Apple retail stores. Available from the online Apple Store and in retail locations in the United States and Europe as of today, the $180 Lumos Helmet has integrated LEDs to keep you safe when riding at night and built-in gesture controlled turn signals. There ...

Olloclip today announced an all-new mobile lens system that is designed exclusively for Apple's iPhone X. With the lens, iPhone X owners can enhance their field-of-view and shoot "wider and closer" than the iPhone's built-in camera. The company said that the new iPhone X lens system maintains many of the features of previous Olloclip accessories, coming equipped with Connect X...

Microsoft is rolling out several new features for Outlook users this week and in the next couple of months. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Google's recently launched Gmail redesign, and promises changes to the company's Outlook desktop and mobile apps, as well as its webmail service. First up is new support for synced draft folders, which will allow Outlook users to draft a message ...

A Tehran-based court today ordered Iranian telecommunications providers to block popular messaging app Telegram, reports The Wall Street Journal. Iran has been concerned about Telegram's role in recent protests and unrest in the country, which has led to the ban. The order said Telegram gave Islamic State "safe ground" in an attack in Tehran last year and also blamed its role in protests in ...

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum today announced plans to leave the company, which is owned by parent company Facebook. Koum has worked with Facebook and served on the company's board since Facebook acquired WhatsApp for over $19 billion in February of 2014. WhatsApp is the largest messaging service in the world with more than 1.5 billion monthly users. It is highly popular in India, Malaysia,...

The Bank of Ireland, the last major bank in the country that does not offer support for Apple Pay, is working on implementing Apple Pay for its customers, according to information shared with Irish news site Independent.ie. "We expect to integrate phone payments in the future," said a spokesperson. "However we are not in a position to confirm timings." When asked by Independent.ie to clarify...

Apple today updated its Swift Playgrounds app to version 2.1, introducing new features to the iPad coding app designed to teach children and adults to code through several interactive "Learn to Code" lessons. The updated app includes a new "What's Next" feature that offers up other playground suggestions to try based on current progress in the Swift Playgrounds app, providing users with a...

Popular photo taking app Halide Camera was today updated to version 1.8, introducing several major new features, like an Apple Watch companion app, new Accessibility options, and a self-timer. Halide for Apple Watch is designed to complement the Halide app on the iPhone, offering access to tools for framing shots, setting timers, and triggering the camera shutter on the iPhone for hands-free...

A pair of reports out this morning highlight Apple's ongoing struggles in India and China ahead of the company's Q2 2018 earnings results coming tomorrow, May 1. Within India, Apple has been dethroned as the country's top selling high-end smartphone maker in the January-March period, losing out to Samsung. Specifically looking at India's "premium price segment" (devices priced above 30,000...