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

Apple has officially opened its new App Accelerator in Bangalore as part of an effort to support engineering talent and boost growth in India's iOS developer community (via Mashable). At the center, experts will lead briefings and provide one-to-one app reviews for developers. Apple is calling the facility "the first of its kind" in the country, and says it will provide specialized support to...

Apple is currently offering popular minimalist puzzler Blyss as its Free App of the Week on the App Store. Blyss combines a unique puzzle mechanic with serene and calming aesthetics, some of which have a Monument Valley-style vibe. The game itself involves white blocks laid in a formation against varied backgrounds and themes, with each block presenting a certain number of dots. These dots ...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) today issued a determination that again denies authorization for the major banks in the country to work together to negotiate with Apple to gain access to the NFC chip within iOS devices. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation, National Australia Bank, and Bendigo and Adelaide bank had asked for permission to...

Back at Mobile World Congress in February, Apple and enterprise application software company SAP, which first teamed up in 2016 announced plans to launch the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS in March, and as of today, the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS has been made available. The platform features a toolset that is designed to help developers quickly and effortlessly build "enterprise-grade"...

Popular automation platform IFTTT today announced a few new iOS-focused toolsets that will integrate Apple's Calendar and App Store into new applets, allowing users to streamline certain workflows related to each of Apple's applications. With Calendar Applets, users can get important information funneled right into their daily agenda. This includes automation flows that add in weather reports...

Twitter today announced that usernames such as @MacRumors will no longer count towards the 140-character limit for tweets. Now, the usernames of anyone who a user is replying to will appear above the tweet rather than within the tweet itself, so that users have more characters to have conversations. Twitter said users will be able to tap on "Replying to…" to see and change which users are...

Facebook today announced that it will begin allowing its users to generate their own crowdfunding campaigns directly within the social network's mobile app, meant as a way "to raise money for themselves, a friend, or someone or something not on Facebook, for example a pet." Any user 18 or older will be able to set up a personal fundraiser, which Facebook hopes will be a way for people to more...

Uber today is beginning to roll out a new "pickup corrections" feature in its iOS app, which will allow riders to change their pickup location after it's been entered and a ride has been requested. With the new addition, riders who accidentally enter a wrong pickup location can tap "edit" next to it, enter the new address, confirm it, and send it to the driver, who is updated on-the-fly about the ...

Mobile messaging app Telegram introduced voice calls today, bringing the communications platform's secure feature list up to date and more in line with rival chat apps WhatsApp, Viber, Messenger, and Signal. Telegram said in a blog post that the voice calls are based on the same end-to-end encryption methods as its Secret chats feature, but says it has introduced a new "key exchange mechanism" ...

All regulatory hurdles that previously made it difficult for Apple to sell the iPhone in Argentina are set to be removed next month, allowing Apple's suite of smartphones to be legitimately sold in the country for the first time in years. According to a person familiar with the Argentinian government's plans (via Bloomberg), President Mauricio Macri is seeking to lift restrictions placed by his...

Apple is currently offering panoramic Instagram image-sharing tool Panols as a free download from within its Apple Store iOS app. Usually $1.99, the Panols app takes pictures from a user's photo library that have been shot in panoramic mode and accurately splits them into three images. The triptych of photos can then be uploaded in the official Instagram app using the new Multiple Picture post ...

Connected home security cameras have been on the market for quite some time, but D-Link recently began selling the first HomeKit-compatible security camera. Priced competitively at $199, the D-Link Omna 180 Cam HD camera has several perks over competing cameras that don't offer HomeKit integration -- it's guaranteed to have Apple's required level of encryption, it works with Siri, and it can...

Google today announced it has updated its Calendar app with long-awaited iPad support. The app is essentially the same as the iPhone version, but it is now optimized for the tablet's larger screen. Google said a Today view widget for Notification Center and the Lock screen is coming soon. Here's a quick overview of the app's features:• Different ways to view your calendar - Quickly...

Apple today provided its public beta testing group with iOS 10.3.2, an upcoming update that was first released to developers on March 28. iOS 10.3.2 comes shortly after the release of iOS 10.3, a major update that brought features like a new Find My AirPods feature and Apple File System. Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the iOS 10.3.2 beta update...

Readdle has hired former Apple Mail engineering manager Terry Blanchard in a position that will focus on creating the "future of email" for Readdle's popular email client "Spark," working with an entirely new team of his choosing in Silicon Valley. Blanchard's new role, per his LinkedIn page, is vice president of engineering for Readdle. Spark is modernizing email as we know it. We share a...

Last year Apple Music announced that it would be launching a new version of James Corden's Carpool Karaoke as a standalone, original series for subscribers of Apple's streaming music service. Today, Spotify has countered Apple's move with its own car-based music series called Traffic Jams, which has a twist focused on original music creation in an attempt to differentiate itself from Carpool...

Apple SIM partner GigSky today announced that its data plans are now available in over 180 countries around the world. MacRumors obtained a list of the 40 or so new countries and territories that GigSky has expanded into as of this week: Algeria Bangladesh Belize Bhutan Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Burkina Faso Cameroon Cape Verde Chad Christmas Island Côte d'Ivoire Curaçao F...

Apple yesterday updated its iTunes U education app with some notable new annotation and media sharing features. In an extension of iTunes U's markup support, which was previously limited to PDF documents, version 3.5 of the app now enables users to apply visual notes to image files using the same annotation toolset. Elsewhere, video messages can now be shared between teachers and...