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

Samsung is planning to introduce its newest smartphone, the Galaxy Note 8, sometime in the second half of August, according to people familiar with the company's plans (via Reuters). If accurate, the August announcement will come about four months after the launch of the Galaxy S8 and nearly one year since the first cases of exploding batteries in the Galaxy Note 7 were reported by users....

Hive, the U.K. smart connected home company backed by British Gas, today announced the Hive Camera, bringing video to its family of smart devices for the first time. Similar to the Nest Cam, the Hive Camera enables users to monitor their home 24/7 wherever they are, using an accompanying mobile app. The device features motion and audio sensors that can be set to trigger motion and audio...

Withings on Tuesday completed its rebrand to the Nokia label, following news of the buyout last spring, and as part of the transition two new connected health products have been released under the Nokia name. The Nokia Body ($60) is a new connected Wi-Fi scale featuring readouts for weight and BMI, with a Body+ ($100) offering additional metrics like body fat and water percentage plus bone and ...

High-end audio maker Audeze is currently offering 40 percent off the suggested retail price of its SINE closed-back on-ear headphones, including the company's own all-digital CIPHER Lightning cable. The award-winning Audeze SINE cans feature proprietary planar magnetic drivers for improved dynamics and frequency response, are lightweight (300 grams), and fold flat for travel use. The...

Ring today launched the Video Doorbell 2 with 1080p video, up from 720p, and a removable, rechargeable battery pack. Ring's original Video Doorbell also has a battery, but it's not removable, so the whole doorbell has to be unmounted and taken inside every six to twelve months or so to be recharged with an included Micro-USB cable. A removable battery pack makes recharging the video doorbell ...

Niantic and The Pokémon Company today revealed an all-new gym system heading to the popular mobile app Pokémon Go soon, as well as announcing a new cooperative "Raid Battle" update coming in the future. For gyms, the developer said that its goal was to encourage more players to head to friendly gyms because now they'll be able to interact with them in new ways. Notably, gyms will now act as...

In a new interview with The Telegraph, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman discusses a wide range of topics covering the origins of the company, its history with eBay, and potential competition with Apple in the peer-to-peer payments space. PayPal owns Venmo, one of the most popular P2P payments apps available today across iOS, Android, and the web, and Schulman cited this availability across various...

Rapper Jay Z has confirmed that his new album, 4:44, will be released on June 30 and will be available exclusively to Sprint customers and existing Tidal subscribers (via Variety). The album is the first major project between the streaming music service and Sprint, which acquired 33 percent of the company in January in a deal reportedly worth $200 million. Tidal has recently been promoting 4:...

Apple has announced a special shopping event, called "Lose Your Wallet," to be held in San Francisco next weekend, on June 23-25, with a collection of discounts for Apple Pay users. In Hayes Valley and the Marina anyone who has Apple Pay set up on their iPhone or Apple Watch will be able to take advantage of the exclusive discounts and offers at a variety of merchants (via Apple Insider). Some ...

The massive video game conference E3 was this week, and while iOS gaming played at least a minor role at the event in previous years, that definitely was not the case in 2017. It's not that surprising, particularly with excitement surrounding the Nintendo Switch and the unveiling of the new Xbox One X stealing the show. However, the world of iOS gaming is never calm, and there's always tons...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Hidrate to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone-connected Hidrate Spark 2.0 water bottle that's designed to keep track of how much water you're drinking each day. First created as a Kickstarter project, the Hidrate water bottle has been around since 2015, but it's on its second version, the Spark 2.0. The Hidrate Spark 2.0, available...

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou has spoken out about the ongoing sale for Toshiba's memory chip unit, which has made headlines over the past few weeks as multiple companies have entered the bidding to win the sought-after unit. Previously, Foxconn was perceived as a long shot for winning the bid due to its connections with China, a fact believed to sit unfavorably with Japanese-owned Toshiba. Now,...

Rumors that smart thermostat maker Nest is considering adding Apple HomeKit support to its product range appear to be premature, according to a report on Thursday. AppleInsider spoke to a Nest employee who apparently confirmed there are "no immediate plans" to support Apple's smart home platform and "no roadmap" for such a migration. The rumors were apparently stoked by Apple's announcement at ...

Apple has made electronic music-driven infinite jumper game Beat Stomper its Free App of the Week on the App Store. Usually $2, this trippy little game has been rated at least four stars by over 650 gamers for its frenetic jump-and-hold mechanic, combined with a rousing soundtrack which adapts to the action unfolding on the screen. Neon-drenched graphics and rapidly strobing particle effects...

Among multiple software announcements that came out of WWDC last week, Apple unveiled details about watchOS 4, the newest operating system that will arrive on Apple Watch devices later this fall. As developers spend more time with the watchOS 4 beta, new surprises in the software become uncovered, and now MacRumors forum member mrToasty has come across a previously unseen birthday-related message ...

Twitter today revealed a new design coming to twitter.com, Twitter for iOS, Twitter for Android, TweetDeck, and Twitter Lite over the next few days and weeks. The company said the redesign was intended to make an app that's faster and easier to use, while also fixing things that users didn't like about the current design. The first new change is a new side navigation menu with profile,...

Facebook is today rolling out a long-awaited feature within its iOS app, which will allow users to post GIFs directly into comments using a native GIF button. To share a GIF, users will find the button sitting next to the emoji button in the text field of the Facebook comment window, and from there they can search for a GIF by typing, horizontally scroll through the results, and tap to share. ...

Microsoft is today updating its smart camera app for iOS devices, Microsoft Pix, with new features that overlay artistic filters on top of user photos. The company said that the Pix team used neural networks to browse massive datasets of classic paintings in order to "learn the essence of what makes a given style of painting recognizable," all in an effort to fuel Pix's new features. The first ...