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

With a little over one week until Black Friday -- the popular shopping holiday in the United States -- most of the major retailers have shared the deals you can expect to see when you're out shopping or online next Friday, November 24. Because we're so close to some of the best deals of the year on multiple Apple products and accessories, as usual it's worth being aware that you may want to hold...

The Bento Stack, a new project being funded on Indiegogo, takes the concept of a Bento lunch box and applies it to iPhone and iPad accessories. Available in three colors (silver, space gray, and rose gold) for $38, the Bento Stack is a container that offers up several sections that can hold a variety of accessories like cables, Apple Watch bands, an Apple Pencil, and more. I was able to go...

The latest TV streaming service, Philo, will provide subscribers with a cost that undercuts the price of competing "over the top" services by excluding sports-related content (via Business Insider). This means Philo starts at $16/month for access to 37 entertainment networks, which you can watch on your iPhone, MacBook, connected TV, Roku, and soon the Apple TV. Philo started by providing...

During Disney's latest quarterly earnings call, company chairman and CEO Bob Iger mentioned that its upcoming, exclusive streaming service will have a monthly subscription cost at an amount that's "substantially below" the price of rival Netflix (via Seeking Alpha). Disney has been dropping tidbits about its upcoming 2019 streaming service over the past few weeks, but had not yet hinted at how...

Ten One Design is today introducing the Mountie+, a new version of its popular Mountie device that allows an iPad or iPhone to be attached to the display of a Mac laptop for use as a second screen. The Mountie+ mount for the iPad has been designed with larger devices in mind. Mountie+ uses a two-clip system to attach an iPhone or iPad to a MacBook, and it works with all iPad Pro, iPad Air,...

Adobe Scan, Adobe's document scanning app, was today updated with new features that are designed to make it easier to locate and access scans of receipts, documents, and more. With Adobe Sensei machine learning integration, Adobe Scan is now able to scan the photos in your camera roll to locate all images that appear to be documents, so they can be automatically imported into the Adobe Scan...

Gamevice, a company that makes a Made for iPhone gaming controller for iOS devices, today announced that it has partnered with Sphero and DJI to allow the Gamevice peripheral to control the Sphero SPRK+ robot and the DJI Spark drone. When the Gamevice for iPhone or iPad is used with the DJI Spark app, the Spark drone can be controlled using the physical buttons of the Gamevice, which the...

The Apple Watch may be able to accurately detect hypertension and sleep apnea, according to a new study published today by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Cardiogram, a company that's developed an app that breaks down heart rate data collected by the Apple Watch. Using data collected from 6,115 Apple Watch owners and interpreted by Cardiogram's deep neural network...

Smarter's WiFi-enabled iKettle has been available for purchase in the UK for years now, but the newest version, iKettle 3.0, recently made its way to the United States. Priced at $150, the iKettle is a variable temperature kettle that can heat water to a specified temperature from 68°F to 212°F, making it ideal for tea that requires lower temperatures, baby bottles, and other similar...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.2 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the second tvOS 11.2 update and two weeks after the launch of the tvOS 11.1. Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the tvOS 11.2 developer beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that's installed using Xcode. According to...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 4.2 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after releasing the second watchOS 4.2 beta and two weeks after releasing the watchOS 4.1 update. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4.2 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone...

Amazon is developing a free, ad-supported version of its Prime Video streaming video service, according to Ad Age. The free tier will complement Amazon's ad-free, on-demand Prime Video service that is included with an annual $99 subscription to Amazon Prime, which provides free shipping, deals, and other perks to its online shoppers. Amazon is reportedly in talks with TV networks, movie...

Lyft today announced that it will launch its ride-hailing service in Toronto next month as its first market outside of the United States. Riders in Canada's largest city—and nearby Hamilton, Ontario—will be able to hail Lyft or Lyft Plus vehicles that hold up to four or six passengers respectively, as well as fancier Lyft Premiere, Lyft Lux, or Lyft Lux SUV rides. Lyft hasn't...

Apple appears to have made an exception to its rule that developers "embrace the notch" on the iPhone X, by approving an app called Notch Remover for the App Store. Essentially, all the app does is add a black bar across the top of selected images that the user can then manually assign as a wallpaper in iOS Settings. The result conceals the existence of the notch and the adjacent "ears"...

YouTube has confirmed it is working to resolve a bug in its mobile app that causes significant battery drain on Apple devices, even when the app is running in the background. First covered by tech blog PiunikaWeb, the issue has been noted by several MacRumors forum members, as well as on Reddit and Twitter, and appears to be mainly affecting devices running iOS 11.1.1. Image via PiunikaWeb ...

Our BlackPods giveaways have been extremely popular with MacRumors readers, so this week, we've once again teamed up with BlackPods to offer you a chance to win a pair of AirPods that have been custom-painted black to better match darker devices. Black AirPods pair especially well with the new iPhone X, which features an OLED display with a thin black bezel even on the iPhone X models that...

One year after launching the standalone "Events" app for iOS and Android devices, Facebook today announced a rebranding and relaunch of the app that will also bring bars, restaurants, and nearby attractions to your attention. Now called "Local from Facebook," or simply "Facebook Local," the app combines your Facebook events with nearby hotspots into a single app, which is powered by the company's ...

Instagram is currently testing a new feature that allows users to follow hashtags on the picture-sharing social platform, according to reports. Currently, Instagram users must rely on individual accounts to keep up with content they want to engage with. However the added ability to follow hashtags, first spotted by Twitter user @Social_Pip and The Next Web, could make it much easier for users...