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

Lawmakers in Nebraska, Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Kansas have introduced legislation aiming to legalize "Right to Repair" rules for electronic devices, including Apple's iPhone, reports Motherboard. The laws would require manufacturers to sell replacement parts to independent repair shops and customers, and force them to make service and diagnostic manuals public. The bills are...

HBO today updated its HBO GO app for iOS devices and the Apple TV with support for Single sign-on, allowing subscribers to access HBO content more quickly. With Single sign-on, HBO customers will no longer need to enter their cable credentials separately when logging in to the HBO GO app. Instead, the app will use universal credentials that are stored by Apple. HBO GO is also now available in...

Last October, Twitter began testing out an enhanced version of a new "Explore" tab on its iOS app, giving a small group of users access to trending topics, simplified search tools, and "Moments," the news aggregating feature which previously had its own dedicated tab within the app. Beginning today, the "Explore" tab will be available to all users on the iOS Twitter app, giving them one-stop...

Popular freelancing website Upwork today released its quarterly study ranking the fastest-growing skills employers are looking for, and Apple's Swift programming language scored the number two spot, meaning it's one of the most sought after skills for freelance developers. Swift, along with the other top 10 skills that made the list in the fourth quarter of 2016, experienced more than 200...

Dong Nguyen, creator of the popular iOS game Flappy Bird, today launched an all-new game on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store called Ninja Spinki Challenges!! [Direct Link] (via TouchArcade). The game is a collection of six mini-games that task users with completing a set of trials centered around training to become a ninja. TouchArcade went hands-on with the game earlier this week,...

Google Translate recently updated its iOS and Android applications, bringing Japanese-to-English and English-to-Japanese translation support to its augmented reality "Word Lens" feature. Thanks to the added support, English-speaking users can point their smartphone camera at Japanese text and instantly get an English translation on screen. The same can be done for Japanese tourists visiting...

The official Apple Support app for iPhone and iPad launched in additional countries this week, including but not limited to Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The app first launched in the Netherlands in November and expanded to the United States last month. The app mirrors Apple's support website, providing users with a list of their Apple devices, options ...

Facebook has hired Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra to lead its virtual reality business, following the vice president's announcement earlier this week that he would be leaving the Chinese smartphone maker. On Monday, the former Android executive at Google said he would be returning to Silicon Valley next month to reunite with friends and family, and to take some time off before "embarking on a new ...

Google updated its Maps app for iOS today to include the live crowd-tracking feature that's been popular with users of its Maps web service for some time. While the maps app has had day-by-day, hour-by-hour charts that display when a business or retail location tends to be at its busiest, version 4.27 of the app augments that information with live data to tell users how busy the location is...

Facebook today announced that it has begun testing ads in the Messenger app. The test will be limited to users in Australia and Thailand and will allow businesses to place ads on the Messenger home screen below favorite users and most recent conversations. The company says that "no one will see an ad in a conversation without clicking on an ad experience on the Messenger home screen or...

After copying Snapchat inside of Instagram with last year's "Instagram Stories" update, Business Insider today learned that Facebook is gearing up to launch the exact same feature in its mainline Facebook mobile app. Now called "Facebook Stories," the social media company is bringing over the same circular user interface to its main app for users in a small test in Ireland, letting them post...

Verizon customers running the new iOS 10.3 beta have discovered that the carrier has added an option for Integrated Calling (Calls on Other Devices). The feature enables iPhone users to make and receive Wi-Fi calls on other iCloud-connected devices, including the iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and most 2012 or later Macs, even if the iPhone is turned off or not on the same Wi-Fi network. The ...

Apple has updated the App Store in Australia to mark the beginning of celebrations for the country's national holiday Australia Day, which takes place annually on January 26. The landing page for the iOS App Store now sports a collection of apps and categories that highlight Australia's green and gold national colors. The update includes an emphasis on in-game additions with Australia...

iPhone supplier Japan Display has come up with a plan to battle the increasing popularity of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel manufacturing, without needing to delve into the costly practice of creating OLED panels itself. According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, the supplier has figured out a way to manufacture flexible liquid crystal display (LCD) panels using technology...

Owners of Jawbone products have been met with a wall of silence from the speaker and activity tracker company's customer support, it was reported on Wednesday. Customers told The Verge they had contacted Jawbone in recent months or weeks about faulty products and had not received any response, while calls to the company's support number are being continually met with automated messages about...

Yesterday, Apple announced it was introducing new App Store review features in iOS 10.3 and macOS Sierra 10.12.4 that would allow developers to respond to customer reviews for the first time. A few more details of note have emerged from Apple since then, courtesy of The Loop's Jim Dalrymple and Daring Fireball's John Gruber. Speaking to Gruber, Apple said that developer responses to App Store...

Alongside iOS 10.3 and macOS Sierra 10.12.4, Apple is introducing new App Store review features for developers. Going forward, developers will be able to respond to customer reviews on the App Store "in a way that is available for all customers to see." This will allow developers to address negative reviews for the first time ever, something that has long been a point of contention in the iOS...

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 10.2 update to developers for testing purposes, one month after releasing tvOS 10.1, the first major update to the tvOS 10 operating system. tvOS 10.2 comes a day after Apple released tvOS 10.1.1. Designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV, the tvOS 10.2 beta can be obtained by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C to USB-A...