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

Instagram is today beginning a small test for a new feature called "favorites," which allows users to create a customized list of their closest friends, and from there choose to share posts and story updates only with their favorites list. Instagram product lead Robby Stein told The Verge that the company has been working on the feature for more than a year, and a broader release is expected over ...

Russia has threatened to block access to the Telegram messaging platform unless the company that runs the app provides more information about itself (via Sky News). The head of communications regulator Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, said repeated efforts to obtain the information had been ignored by the company and warned that "time is running out" for the app. "There is one demand and it ...

Tesla is reportedly in talks with music labels to sound out the feasibility of launching its own streaming music service that would come bundled with car ownership. Recode reports that music industry sources say the electric car maker has had talks with all of the major labels about licensing a proprietary service that would integrate with vehicle dashboards. The service could begin with a...

YouTube made several announcements at the annual VidCon convention in California on Thursday, covering VR, YouTube TV, new original series, and a number of changes coming to the YouTube web and app interface. First up, YouTube announced a brand new high resolution video format called VR180 that it said would make VR content easier to create. VR180 works on both mobile and desktop, and focuses...

Online streaming television service Sling TV has made its cloud DVR feature available on iOS for the first time. The latest version of the Sling TV app for iPhone and iPad includes the ability to record shows and movies on the majority of available channels. The feature made its way onto Apple TV in April. The service's DVR "First Look" option costs an extra $5 per month on top of a regular...

Apple is asking visitors to its U.K. site to consider making a donation to help those affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London by purchasing the iTunes single "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which went straight to the top of the U.K. charts just two hours after it was released on Wednesday. Artists for Grenfell represents more than 50 musicians including Craig David, Liam Payne, and...

Griffin today announced a new range of Survivor cases designed for Apple's new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, introducing the Survivor Rugged Folio, Survivor Journey Folio, and Survivor Journey. The Survivor Rugged Folio is the most protective case of the bunch, protecting the new iPad Pro from drops, dings, and scratches. It keeps the iPad safe from drops up to four feet with a polycarbonate exterior...

During Apple's WWDC keynote this year the company debuted new features coming in watchOS 4, some of which include fresh watch faces for Apple Watch. Following in the footsteps of the animated Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse faces, watchOS 4 is gaining new Disney characters for Apple Watch wearers in the form of Jessie, Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and more from Toy Story. The Toy Story characters...

Punchh today announced that Quiznos, Smashburger, MOD Pizza, and select other restaurant brands in the United States will soon accept Apple Pay integrated with its cloud-based loyalty program for customers. At participating restaurants, Apple Pay users will supposedly receive a push notification at checkout prompting them to add the restaurant's loyalty program to Apple's Wallet app. Once...

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming tvOS 10.2.2 update to developers for testing purposes, a little over one week after seeding the third beta of tvOS 10.2.2 and more than a month after releasing tvOS 10.2.1, a minor update focusing on bug fixes. tvOS 10.2.2 is only available for the fourth-generation Apple TV. Registered developers can download the new update by connecting the...

Announced earlier in February, Pioneer's Rayz Plus Lightning earphones allow Apple users to simultaneously listen to music or make a phone call while also charging their iPhone, thanks to the inclusion of an inline charging node. Today, the company announced a new feature called "Smart Mute" coming to the earphones as well as two new Rayz Plus colors launching exclusively on Apple.com and in...

Apple began publicly selling its Pride Edition Woven Nylon band for Apple Watch during WWDC week earlier in June, one year after it handed out a similar band to its employees at Pride events in San Francisco. During its first few weeks up on Apple.com, the company made no mention as to whether any portion of the profits made off of the band would go towards LGBTQ organizations, but a new...

Twitter-owned live video streaming platform Periscope received an update on Wednesday that introduces a new feature enabling broadcasters to earn revenue for the first time. Since Periscope's inception, viewers have embraced the "like" or "heart" function as a way to show their appreciation for broadcasts while they're streaming, but until now there's been no means for users to reward...

British chip maker Imagination Technologies, which lost 70 percent of its value following a dispute with Apple, has put itself up for sale, it was reported on Thursday (via Reuters). Apple informed Imagination in April that it plans to stop using the company's PowerVR graphics technology over the next two years as it begins using its own in-house chips for products like the iPhone and iPad....

Apple's first retail store in Taiwan will open on Saturday, July 1 at 11:00 a.m., according to Apple's Taiwanese website, which the company has been updating with new details on the store since it was announced. To celebrate the store's opening, paper-cutting artist Yang Shih-yi will showcase a huge and intricate tree cutout designed to welcome people into the store and highlight a tree as a ...

Apple is said to be aiming to reduce the share of revenue record labels get from streaming music as it works to establish new deals for Apple Music and iTunes, reports Bloomberg. Apple is reportedly pursuing lower rates as part of an effort to revise its "overall relationship" with the music industry. Apple's current deals with record labels expire at the end of June, but Bloomberg's sources...

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 4 update to developers, a little over two weeks after its introduction at the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the watchOS 4 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General --> Software update. ...

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update for the fourth-generation Apple TV, a little over two weeks after seeding the first beta following the keynote of 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. tvOS 11 received...