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

Sonos is gearing up to launch an all-new smart speaker that includes voice control functionality fueled by far-field microphones, picking up on user commands from anywhere in a room. The information was discovered in a filing with the FCC (via Zatz Not Funny), and hints that Sonos could be yet another company planning to enter the smart speaker market, following Amazon, Google, and Apple this...

Apple is now selling a trio of Beats products in new "Neighborhood Collection" colors on its online store and retail stores around the world. Solo3 Wireless Headphones and Powerbeats3 Wireless Headphones are now available in Asphalt Gray, Brick Red, Break Blue, and Turf Green. The Beats Pill+ Speaker comes in only Asphalt Gray and Turf Green. • Solo3 Wireless Headphones ($299.95) • Powerb...

Fitbit today announced a collection of all-new products and services, centering upon the company's first smartwatch, the Fitbit Ionic, along with a new subscription coaching service, Fitbit Coach. The Fitbit Ionic includes improved GPS and heart rate tracking, is water resistant up to 50 meters, supports contactless payments, smartphone notifications, on-board music, and more. Like past Fitbit ...

A recent report by Mac Otakara [Google Translate] has delved into a few of the specifications that could be coming to the inductive-style wireless charging feature of the iPhone 8, iPhone 7s, and iPhone 7s Plus. According to the site, citing a source well versed in the Wireless Power Consortium, Apple's devices will only support half of the power profile currently standard in Qi version 1.2,...

In celebration of Force Friday II later this week, Apple has invited customers to attend free Star Wars–themed sessions and workshops at select Apple retail stores between Friday, September 1 and Saturday, September 9. Participating countries include the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, Hong Kong, Sweden, Taiwan,...

Apple Maps has been updated with comprehensive transit data in the Edmonton, Alberta area, enabling iPhone users in Canada's fifth most populous city to navigate with public transportation, including buses and trains. Apple Maps can provide routes for both Edmonton Transit System (ETS) buses and Edmonton Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains throughout the Edmonton area, including to and from the...

Back in October, Apple published its first research paper related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. The paper, titled "Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training," focused on advanced image recognition techniques and the use of both simulated and real images to train an advanced AI image program. Apple's research paper was accepted to the 2017...

This week was a massive week for iOS gaming news, so much so that there's not even time for witty intros. Jumping right in, Ridiculous Fishing was updated to 64-bit. This was a 32-bit title we were watching very closely as we gave it our Game of the Year award in 2013, and Ridiculous Fishing has won basically every other award an iOS game can win outside of that. The update adds haptic feedback,...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Toddy Gear to give MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone prize pack that includes a Bottle Opener Case for the iPhone 7, an iPhone charging cable, a microfiber Smart Cloth, and a Wedge iPhone stand that doubles as a screen cleaner. Toddy Gear has been known for its colorful, high-quality microfiber cloths for years. The cloths, priced at...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has arrived in Austin, Texas, the latest destination on his mini trip around the United States this week. Photo: Capital Factory Cook started his day by visiting the Capital Factory tech accelerator and incubator in downtown Austin, where he met with local developers and entrepreneurs like Joah Spearman, the co-founder of local travel recommendation app Localeur, and...

Facebook today announced a few updates and expansions coming to its popular memory features, one of which will present users with monthly and seasonal memory recaps instead of just memories that happened on one specific day. Similar to On This Day, monthly and seasonal recaps will appear on user News Feeds and can be shared with their friends. The social network is also implementing new...

According to a tip that we received early this morning, as well as information gathered from European product listing sites, a few new colors are being introduced to the Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphone line exclusively at Target in the United States and John Lewis in the United Kingdom: Break Blue, Asphalt Gray, Brick Red, and Turf Green. At retailers like Apple, Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones ...

Apple is "aggressively" cracking down on apps created by Iranian developers for users in Iran in an effort to comply with U.S. sanctions, reports The New York Times. Apple does not offer its products in Iran, nor is there an Iranian App Store, but there are still millions of iPhones in the country that have been smuggled in from places like Dubai and Hong Kong. Iranian developers have created...

Some of the more interesting types of smart home devices are thermostats, which can help save energy by optimizing scheduling, automatically sensing when the home is occupied or vacant, and more. One of the early entrants into the field on the HomeKit side is Honeywell, which has introduced several different smart thermostats, starting with the second-generation Lyric Round, which debuted early...

Two years after the original "Force Friday" launched in celebration of new toys and gadgets for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney is now gearing up for "Force Friday II," which will see the launch of new merchandise centered on Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Force Friday II will run September 1 through September 3, with toys being sold at Apple, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, and more (via Reuters). ...

Amazon is currently offering $101 off the price of Sony's highly rated MDR-1000X noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones, which came out last October and usually retail at $399. The headphones boast the same drivers as the company's well-regarded MDR-1A headset made for listening to Hi-Res Audio, as supported by the company's Walkman range and its line of wireless home speakers and in-car audio...

Apple has made a subtle tweak to Safari in iOS 11 to ensure the browser automatically strips out Google AMP URLs when a web page is shared or copy-pasted on an iPhone and iPad (via The Verge). The discovery was made yesterday by MacStories' Federico Viticci when he tried sharing an AMP article viewed in Safari to iMessage and Reading List. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open source...

Hulu's Live TV service can now be streamed to a Mac or PC using Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and more, Hulu said in an announcement this morning. With browser support, Mac and PC users can now stream Hulu content directly to their computers in addition to set-top boxes and mobile devices. To date, we've offered Hulu with Live TV on multiple living room and mobile devices, but we know many of...