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

Running and cycling app Strava today announced a new update focused on expanding the social aspect of the app's toolset, launching first for 36 professional athletes and expanding to all users later this summer. Called "Athlete Posts," the new feature will let the group of athletes post personal stories, ask their fans questions, share gear tips and recommendations, detail their workout plans,...

Photos emerged online overnight that allegedly reveal the design of Fitbit's first "true" smartwatch, rumors of which we covered last month. The images were originally published by Yahoo Finance and appear to show that the company's upcoming Apple Watch rival looks very similar to the $150 Fitbit Blaze fitness watch, which has been on sale since early 2016. The watch's square face, physical...

Apple is exploring an electronic tagging solution to make it easier for Apple Watch users to track their calorie and nutritional intake as part of a healthy lifestyle, as shown in a patent newly granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Many of today's healthy eating and diet-based food apps require users to manually input nutrition information into their mobile devices, whether by...

Logitech today announced the debut of the Logitech Slim Folio, a Bluetooth keyboard and case that's designed for the fifth-generation 9.7-inch iPad that Apple debuted earlier this year. The Slim Folio has been designed with what Logitech says are "large, well-spaced keys" that are "stretched from edge-to-edge" and a comfortable layout to make typing quicker and easier. It also features...

Apple has added Spike and Nickelodeon, including Nick Jr., to the universal search function on the fourth-generation Apple TV. For those unfamiliar with universal search, it allows users to use Siri or input text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide range of channels. At launch, universal search only supported a few channels, but Apple has been rapidly expanding the...

Samsung is rumored to be looking into a potential acquisition deal with Taiwan-based PlayNitride, specifically for the company's micro-LED technology, as Apple's micro-LED ambitions for the Apple Watch stretch into 2018. According to sources speaking with OLED-Info, Samsung is willing to offer up to $150 million for the company, and would use the micro-LED tech for VR applications and...

Apple will begin selling iPhones directly through its website in India later this year, according to local newspaper The Economic Times. Apple plans to make the iPhone SE available on its online store by October, in time for the Indian festival Diwali, followed by other iPhone models once it expands local production to include the rest of its smartphone lineup. Apple manufacturing partner ...

Fans of Domino's pizza will gain access to a collection of new mobile ordering advantages thanks to the pizza chain's partnership with automation platform If This Then That, known as IFTTT. With the addition of new Domino's "Applets," anyone ordering a pizza from the restaurant who owns a few connected smart home products -- like Philips Hue -- will be able to receive notifications about their...

Last week, Twitter announced plans to launch a network of news-based TV shows that would stream on the social media company's apps 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, a report by The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Twitter will be partnering with Bloomberg in its live streaming endeavor, and together the two plan to launch a service "that will stream news produced solely for Twitter," and...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Pearl Automation to give MacRumors readers a chance to win the Pearl RearVision iPhone-connected wireless car backup camera system. Priced at $499.99, the Pearl RearVision is a backup camera kit that's designed to be installed on a car's rear license plate, giving iPhone users a simple way to get an aftermarket backup camera. This system,...

Merriam-Webster recently announced that it has added "sheeple" to its dictionary, an informal word that it defines as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced" and thereby "likened to sheep." The first example of the word in a sentence is pretty unremarkable…James Nichols, who ran the family farm here, stamped dollar bills with red ink in protest against currency and told his...

Uber today announced that it will begin rolling out a simplified way for users to permanently delete their personal information from the app over the next few weeks (via The Verge). The news follows a few months of protests against the company that included Uber's perceived opportunistic business tactics during the immigration airport protests in January, the questionable actions of CEO Travis...

Ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing has raised more than $5.5 billion from investors in China, marking the largest amount of funding earned by a technology company ever in the country. Didi, which Apple invested $1 billion into last year, is believed to use its new funding to expand beyond China, invest in artificial intelligence initiatives, and even look into various driverless and automated...

Google made its puck-like, mesh-network based wireless home router available in Canada this week, following availability in the U.S. since December and its U.K. launch earlier this month. Google Wifi is made to boost internet coverage throughout any home regardless of the layout, similar to products like the Linksys Velop. It achieves this by using a multi-unit set-up in which the routers...

Google is rolling out an update to its search engine for iOS users that aims to make it easier to discover media content like songs and movies online (via TechCrunch). Whenever a Google search is performed for a piece of media, the new feature shows users icons for services that offer the content, such as iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Video, Google Play, YouTube, and Spotify. Clicking the new...

In the wake of Jimmy Iovine detailing Apple Music's ongoing efforts to become "an overall movement in popular culture," today Sean Combs -- aka Puff Daddy -- announced that his new documentary Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A Bad Boy Story is coming exclusively to Apple Music on June 25 (via Billboard). The announcement comes after the documentary's premiere at the TriBeCa Film Festival yesterday. Can...

Spotify has announced its acquisition of blockchain technology company Mediachain Labs to help it reward online content owners with royalty payments. The news, first reported by VentureBeat on Wednesday, was relayed via a Spotify press release which has since been removed from its website, explaining that the purchase of the New York-based startup was aimed at facilitating Spotify's "journey...

Danish high-end audio outfit B&O Play unveiled its latest Bluetooth speaker today. The Beoplay P2 features a grilled aluminum and leather design similar to the company's impressive $250 Beoplay A1 speaker, which we reviewed last year, but otherwise there are some notable differences. First of all, the P2 is cheaper at $169, and it comes in a smaller housing than the A1, which the company...