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

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 4 update to developers, just over three weeks after seeding the second beta and more than a month after introducing the new update at its 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference. The new version is build 15R5321h. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the watchOS 4 beta can be downloaded...

British carrier EE today announced it is extending its free six-month Apple Music subscription offer to all new and existing iPhone and Android smartphone customers with a pay monthly plan. SIM-only customers are also eligible. The offer begins Wednesday, July 19, and customers will be able to register for the deal with a short-code to be revealed next week. EE said any data consumed by...

Amazon is reportedly working on a successor to its Echo connected smart speaker for release later this year in a clear attempt to one-up Apple and its HomePod speaker, which is due to launch this December. Sources who saw a working unit spoke to Engadget, claiming that the new Echo will improve on the first speaker "in every way", being shorter and slimmer than the original, with rounded edges ...

Apple is offering users of its Apple Store app free redeem codes to download photo editing app Infltr. Usually $1.99, the acclaimed photo app for iPhone and iPad offers more than 7 million possible filters thanks to a sophisticated color gradient mapping algorithm, and lets users choose a filter before they take a picture or record video. Moving a finger in any direction over the screen...

Google has updated its Home smart speaker software so that owners can now listen to music they have uploaded to and purchased on Google Play Music. Previously, using a free Play Music account through Google Home was limited to playing radio stations, while paying subscribers could listen to tracks in the streaming service's own online catalog. But now both types of account holders can also...

Microsoft today launched a new app called Seeing AI, which the company describes as a talking camera for people who are visually impaired. The app uses artificial intelligence and the camera of an iPhone or iPad to describe the world around it. It's able to recognize text, objects, and people. The app turns the visual world into an audible experience and using it is as simple as pointing the ...

Up to 14 million Verizon subscribers may have had their sensitive data exposed by Nice Systems, a partner of Verizon, reports ZDNet. Subscriber records from users who called customer service over the past six months were located on an unprotected Amazon S3 storage server controlled by Verizon partner Nice Systems. The data, which included customer names, phone numbers, home addresses, email...

Microsoft today announced some major changes to its Outlook app for the iPhone and the iPad, introducing a redesigned conversation experience, improved navigation, and smarter search features that are coming in the near future. The enhanced conversation design displays more of a conversation on a single screen, and there's clearer separation between each individual message. When opening a...

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update to its public beta testing group, two weeks after providing testers with the first beta. The tvOS 11 public beta marks the first time public beta testers have had access to pre-release tvOS software. Prior to tvOS 11, public betas were limited to iOS and macOS software likely due to the slightly more complicated tvOS beta...

From today, PayPal customers in the U.K., Australia, Canada, Mexico, and the Netherlands can use their PayPal account to pay for App Store, Apple Music, iTunes, and iBooks purchases made on their Apple devices. PayPal said on Wednesday the option would be rolling out to other countries including the U.S. soon after. Previously, Apple users were only able to pay for transactions using a...

Home screen ads in Facebook Messenger, which have been in testing in Australia and Thailand since January, will soon roll out to all users in a beta capacity, Facebook announced in a blog post this morning. The Facebook Messenger home screen currently displays recent messages from friends, "Shared Days," Favorites, and friends who are currently online. When ads roll out, this screen will also...

Today, Microsoft is ending support for Windows Phone 8.1, effectively marking the end of the "Windows Phone" era. Microsoft released Windows Phone in 2010 and, within three years, it became the world's third most popular mobile operating system. But the platform simply couldn't compete with the likes of Apple and Google and, as of earlier this year, iOS and Android accounted for a combined...

Twitter has introduced additional new tools in its account notification settings to help users further reduce the likelihood of receiving offensive replies or seeing abusive account names. The new social network tools include options to mute notifications from accounts that have just been registered, as well as accounts you don't follow, and accounts that don't follow you. All of the...

Google has updated its News & Weather app to bring it in line with the company's recent changes to its News website, splicing up categories to make them more focused and integrating additional navigation controls into the user interface. First up, Google has injected more blank space into the News & Weather UI to enhance readability, and has made the headline news categories along the top of...

Mapping app Waze was today updated with a new Voice Recorder feature, allowing users to record their own voice prompts to enable custom directions in a user's own voice. The Voice Recorder option debuted on Android devices in May, but has now expanded to iOS devices. Recorded voice prompts can be shared with family, friends, and fans, meaning celebrities can also record and then share Waze...

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive transit data in several higher populated areas of Nevada, enabling iPhone users to navigate with public transportation directions throughout the Silver State. Newly supported areas include Las Vegas, including the nearby cities of North Las Vegas and Henderson, as well as the state capital Carson City and the Reno-Sparks metropolitan area in...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update designed for the fourth-generation TV, nearly three weeks after seeding the second beta and more than a month 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...

Apple's market share in movie sales and rentals has been halved by competition from the likes of Amazon and Comcast, according to a report published on Sunday. An article by the Wall Street Journal said Apple's share for selling and renting video content has dropped to between 20 and 35 percent, down from over 50 percent in 2012, according to sources in Hollywood. At the same time as the...