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

Google's search algorithms came under renewed fire on Sunday after the BBC highlighted examples in which the company's Google Home smart speaker promotes "fake news" and conspiracy theories through its virtual assistant. BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones tweeted a video yesterday that appears to show the smart device responding to the question "Is Obama planning a coup?" with the...

The iconic home button has been a mainstay of Apple design ever since the first iPhone debuted in 2007. Even the buttons on the elevators at Apple Park are said to resemble it. The button's tactile circularity promises an escape route to familiarity should users get lost or apps go wrong. However, its delicate components converge upon a recess in the phone's bezel, an area that could otherwise...

Apple is currently promoting Vantage Calendar as its Free App of the Week on the iOS App Store. Notable for its novel visual approach to calendar presentation, the app also features a number of lively design options for highlighting upcoming events in the user's schedule. Central to Vantage is a 3D vertical timeline that users scroll up and down to move forwards and backwards through their...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Casetify to give MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone case, iPad case, and Apple Watch Band, all of which can be customized to each person's liking. Casetify, for those unfamiliar with the site, offers a whole range of products that can be ordered in one of many artist-designed patterns or created using custom images. For this giveaway,...

Apple has uploaded a pair of new Apple Music ads called "Best British Male" and "Best British Female" to its YouTube channel in the United Kingdom. The 30-second spots, narrated by Beats 1 radio host Julie Adenuga, were aired during The BRIT Awards for pop music in the United Kingdom on February 22. The ads are in line with a report that said Apple is shifting its focus towards regional...

After a period of testing earlier in the year, Facebook recently began rolling out a new tourism feature called "City Guides" to its iOS app for a number of users (via The Next Web). Located in the Explore tab of the app -- similar to the recently expanded Weather feature -- City Guides presents users with a list of cities visited by their friends and provides recommendations on places to eat,...

Popular photo filter app Prisma has been updated with an in-app store for users to download additional filters for free. The photo app uses the predictive analyses of neural network technology to achieve its stylistic interpretations, which typically makes them more unique than standard photo filters. Prisma says the new store will bring even more originality to users' pictures, with the ...

Spotify is prepping the launch of a lossless audio version of its streaming service, according to The Verge. The new subscription tier is said to be called Spotify Hi-Fi and will offer higher bandwidth lossless audio quality to members. Currently, Tidal is the only major music streaming service to offer an optional "lossless" audio tier, although other, lesser known lossless services do exist. ...

Apple today updated its official list of vintage and obsolete products to add the second-generation Apple TV, originally released in 2010. The second-generation Apple TV was the first Apple TV that featured a black body and an aluminum Apple Remote, an updated look compared to the silver and white Apple TV that was originally released in 2007. Apple sold the second-generation Apple TV from...

Camera-focused company Snap is said to have worked on a drone that would connect to the iOS and Android Snapchat app and let users take photos and videos from aerial angles, according to sources speaking with The New York Times. Details about the drone and any of its other capabilities remain under wraps, but the work is said to help Snap "bolster" its repositioning and rebranding as a modern-day ...

Apple has enabled carrier billing in Austria for Drei customers, Italy for Three customers, and Singapore for M1 Limited customers, expanding upon the feature's existing availability among select carriers in Belgium, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The payment method enables customers to pay for iTunes content, App Store apps,...

Twitter today announced a list of new features for the web and mobile that plan to leverage the company's learning technology to drastically reduce harassment on the service. The updates will place more tools in the hands of the users to "control your experience," and overall Twitter said it intends to be more vocal and "communicate more clearly" about the actions it takes in the realm of...

Google has integrated Google Keep notes into Google Docs, allowing users of the Google Keep iOS app to drag-and-drop their notes directly into online documents. With Google Keep for iOS, users can input notes, lists, photos, and voice memos, set reminders about notes, and organize their note collections with labels and colors. While in Docs on the web, users can now access the Keep...

Apple today posted a limited-time promotion on its Japanese site for its "New Life" campaign, which allows customers using certain company-issued credit cards to receive cashback and other benefits on Apple Pay purchases and store rewards. As noted by Japanese blog Ata Distance, the Apple Pay promotion runs between March 1 and April 30 and takes in app purchases and online services including...

Facebook tonight launched its Facebook Video app for the fourth-generation, tvOS-based Apple TV. The app allows users to watch videos from friends, liked pages, top live videos and more. Videos are split into six channels: Shared by Friends, Following, Recommended for You, Top Live Videos, Saved Videos and Recently Watched. Following contains videos by both friends and liked pages while...

Verizon today announced a new promotion that’s designed to encourage its customers to sign up for both Verizon Wireless cellular service and Verizon Fios internet and TV plans. Verizon Fios customers who activate a new service on Verizon Unlimited will receive $250 in bill credits (applied as a $10 discount over 25 months), while Verizon Wireless customers can get a $250 Verizon Wireless...

According to Apple's System Status page, a small number of users are having ongoing issues with some iCloud services, including iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive, iCloud Notes, iCloud Web Apps, iWork for iCloud, and Photos. Apple says less than 0.04 percent of users are affected by the iCloud problems, with those users experiencing "slower than normal performance." The iCloud slowdowns may be due to ...

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming tvOS 10.2 update to developers for testing purposes, just over one week after seeding the third tvOS 10.2 update and more than a month after releasing tvOS 10.1.1, the current release version of tvOS. Designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV, the fourth tvOS 10.2 beta can be obtained by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C to...