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

ESPN is releasing a new tvOS app for the fourth-generation Apple TV that allows viewers to watch up to four live sporting events simultaneously. The multicast feature means a sports fan could, for example, watch two NFL games, an MLB postseason game, and an NBA game on a Sunday in October all at once, with each stream taking up an equally-sized quadrant of the TV. There are multiple...

A massive four-hour power outage that affected 17 cities and counties across Taiwan on Tuesday had no material impact on the production of new iPhones, according to industry analysts speaking with Nikkei Asian Review. iPhone 8 dummy model sandwiched between an iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Apple suppliers Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, PowerTech Technology, and ChipMOS Technologies said the ...

Twitter this week began expanding a new section of the Explore tab on iOS and Android, where it will populate tweets aimed at each unique user based on their own interests. Twitter confirmed the update's appearance to BuzzFeed, and it follows a few months after Twitter debuted a notable redesign for its mobile apps and website. The new categories in Explore include topics such as "Popular in...

Google's second-generation Pixel smartphone will be made by HTC and feature "squeezable" sides to perform different functions, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday. The filing essentially confirms that the Google Pixel 2 will borrow the squeezable frame from the HTC U11. Screenshots included in the document show the feature is to be called "Active Edge"...

Facebook today announced plans to make several changes to the Facebook News Feed with the intent of making it "more conversational and easier to read and navigate." The "look and feel" of News Feed is being refreshed with improved color contrast to make typography more legible, larger link previews to make it easier to read links, circular profile pictures, and updated icons and Like, Comment, ...

Walmart's streaming movie service VUDU will be available on Apple TV starting on Tuesday, August 22, following the official launch of the new VUDU app, reports Variety. With the launch of a dedicated Apple TV app, VUDU users will no longer need to AirPlay content from an iOS device in order to watch VUDU content on the Apple TV. VUDU first confirmed work on an app for the...

Popular Facebook-owned image sharing site Instagram is today being updated with comment threads, a small but long-awaited feature that will bring better organized comments for the first time. With comment threads, comments on Instagram will more closely resemble comments on Facebook, with replies clearly listed under top-level comments. Prior to comment threading, all comments, even those that ...

Apple, Twitter, Snap, Facebook, Microsoft, and a collection of other technology companies have filed a legal brief this week, aimed at the Fourth Amendment and its "rigid analog-era" protections that lag behind protecting users in the modern age (via Reuters). The brief was filed in regards to the case Carpenter v. United States, which is a Supreme Court case focusing on the warrantless search ...

In its ongoing push into retail, Amazon today announced the opening of five "Instant Pickup" locations in the United States, allowing Prime subscribers to choose from a selection of "daily essentials" that are made available for pick up in two minutes or less (via Reuters). The essential items include snacks, drinks, electronics, and Amazon's own devices. The Instant Pickup process begins...

Schlage today released a new Wi-Fi adapter that enables iOS and Android users to control the Schlage Sense Smart Deadbolt away from home. Schlage Sense is a Bluetooth-enabled smart deadbolt compatible with HomeKit, allowing homeowners to control it using Siri voice commands or the Home app on iOS 10 or later. The lock has a touchpad and comes in various finishes. The adapter plugs into a...

Drone company DJI this week announced a new "local data mode" that breaks any internet connection between the DJI drone and a user's smartphone, which the company said will greatly enhance security and data privacy when users enable the mode (via Reuters). The announcement comes a few weeks after the United States Army ordered its members to stop using DJI drones due to "cyber...

Google is set to pay Apple nearly $3 billion this year to remain as the default search engine on iPhones and iPads, according to U.S. research and brokerage firm Bernstein (via CNBC). According to the investor note, Google is paying out three times as much to Apple as it did in 2014 for the same privilege, with Google's licensing fees making up a large bulk of Apple's services business. "Cou...

Snapchat is currently trialling a new concert-related feature on the platform that stitches together individual video clips from different users to create one seamless video. Called Crowd Surf, the feature uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to work out when multiple users are actively recording the same event. By combining the two technologies, Crowd Surf is able to match...

Sony today introduced its new XAV-AX200 in-car audio receiver, which doubles as an aftermarket CarPlay system. The double-DIN XAV-AX200 has a 6.4-inch touchscreen, but Sony didn't specify if its capacitive, or resistive like its XAV-AX100 predecessor. Other key features include both CarPlay and Android Auto support, Bluetooth, SiriusXM satellite radio compatibility, a built-in...

Workflow, the automation app that Apple purchased back in March of this year, was today updated to version 1.7.5, introducing a long list of bug fixes. There are fixes for a range of third-party apps like Trello, Google, Dropbox, and Evernote, along with updates to address issues in iOS 11. For example, Open In, Post to Instagram, Create Note, and Save with Transmit were all actions that were...

Chris Lattner, once responsible for leading the teams behind Xcode and Swift, made headlines earlier this year when he left Apple to work at Tesla. At the time, Lattner told MacRumors the opportunity to work on Tesla's self-driving project with the Tesla Autopilot team was "irresistible." Lattner lasted just six months at Tesla, however, and left the company in June. "Chris just wasn't the...

Facebook is introducing a new "Trending News" section to the Facebook app on iOS and Android devices, designed to make it easier for Facebook users to access current and trending news stories, reports TechCrunch. Trending News aggregates news stories from a wide range of sources and ranks them by the number of publications that are sharing a particular story. The Trending News section can be...

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update designed for the fourth-generation TV, one week after seeding the fifth beta and more than two months after releasing the first beta during the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference. Registered developers can download tvOS 11 by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C cable and installing the beta software using iTunes. ...