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

Apple today announced that its Swift Playgrounds app for iPad is now available in five additional languages, including Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Latin American Spanish. The app, which was introduced at WWDC 2016, was previously only available in English. Swift Playgrounds is an iPad app aimed at teaching both children and adults how to code through simple interactive...

Chinese phone dealer and ecommerce site Taobao has posted a teasing picture to a Weibo account that suggests a red color option could be appearing imminently for the iPhone 7 and/or iPhone 7 Plus. As spotted by French tech blog igen.fr, the image very clearly plays on the possibility, with red dots like marching ants outlining a blank handset among a throng of iPhone 7 Plus devices and the...

The Department of Homeland of Security today announced new carry-on restrictions that prevent U.S.-bound passengers from eight Middle Eastern countries from carrying personal electronic devices larger than a smartphone in the passenger cabin. The TSA order, which does not have a stated end date, covers laptops, tablets, e-readers, cameras, portable DVD players, and handheld gaming devices...

Shares in Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) hit an all-time high on Tuesday, coming on the back of record spikes in Apple's share price over the last rontew trading days. TSMC share price rose to 195 New Taiwan Dollars, up NT$3.5 or 1.83 percent on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, breaking a previous record set in October 2016. Shares in other Apple parts suppliers in Asia also rallied ...

Developer Gabriel O'Flaherty-Chan recently shared a project where he managed to get a Game Boy emulator he dubbed "Giovanni" running on the second-generation Apple Watch, allowing it to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. According to O'Flaherty-Chan, it was a challenge finding the right balance "between framerate and performance," but he says the end result is a "surprisingly usable...

Drake's new More Life album was streamed 89.9 million times during its first 24 hours on Apple Music, breaking single-day album streaming records for all music services, Apple told The Verge. With 89.9 million streams on Apple Music during its first 24 hours of availability, More Life was significantly more popular on Apple's streaming service than on Spotify, where it was streamed 61.3...

Apple today seeded the seventh beta of an upcoming watchOS 3.2 update to developers for testing purposes, less than one week after seeding the sixth watchOS 3.2 beta and nearly two months after the release of watchOS 3.1.3, the current public version of the operating system. The watchOS 3.2 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General -->...

Samsung today officially announced Bixby, a new intelligent interface for its devices, starting with the upcoming Galaxy S8. Galaxy S8 renders leaked by Evan Blass Samsung said Bixby will be "fundamentally different" than virtual assistants like Siri and Cortana in that it will be deeply integrated within apps. The interface will be able to support almost every task that an app is capable of...

Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company won't make a decision about moving some of its chip manufacturing into the United States until sometime in 2018, according to company spokesperson Michael Kramer (via Reuters). Although recent reports have focused on Foxconn's potential move stateside for Apple-specific iPhone manufacturing, TSMC chairman Morris Chang in January...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with ElevationLab to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win one of the company's new DraftTable accessories that's designed to work with the iPad Pro. Priced at $99.95, the DraftTable is meant to serve as a stable, sturdy stand to be used with the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil for drawing, sketching, writing, game playing, movie watching, and more. It ...

Last week, Apple added an indie games section to the App Store to promote the huge range of games made by smaller developers. As it turns out, the indie games section is a permanent addition to the App Store, and will be available indefinitely to help users discover new titles to play. Love the games we’ve debuted? Starting today, we’ll have a permanent spot on the App Store just for ...

Indonesian carrier Smartfren has announced it will begin accepting iPhone 7 pre-orders on Friday, March 24. Pricing has not been disclosed, but customers can sign up on Smartfren's website to receive more information. In-store sales at select authorized resellers will begin on Friday, March 31. While the iPhone 7 has been available in many other countries since September, the Indonesian...

Philips today announced that its connected smart bulb lighting system, Philips Hue, is getting a new addition in the form of the E14 candle light bulb. Customers will be able to buy the new bulb in both color and white ambience versions in the U.S. later this year, and in Europe in April. The common candle bulb will fit a wide array of household lighting fixtures, and Philips said this means that ...

Last year Google launched an app called Motion Stills that fixed a lot of issues that users had -- and still have -- with Apple's new Live Photos feature introduced in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. With the new update, Motion Stills now lets users customize the displayed frame that appears automatically in the camera roll of the iOS Photos app. The intent is to display more clearly what...

Swatch is developing its own operating system for an all-new smartwatch intended to compete directly with Apple Watch and Android Wear, according to company CEO Nick Hayek (via Bloomberg). The new smartwatch will be an addition to the Tissot brand, a subsidiary of The Swatch Group, and is set to launch towards the end of 2018. With its debut so far out, details remain scarce on both the watch...

Netflix announced yesterday that it will replace star-based user reviews in its content library with binary thumbs up and thumbs down ratings over the coming weeks. Previous star ratings given by users will be used to personalize their Netflix profiles, but the ability to rate a TV series or movie by awarding stars is set to disappear altogether, according to Variety. Image via Variety Netfli...

ColorWare today introduced a customized iPhone 7 Plus Retro Edition that resembles the appearance of a vintage 1980s-era Macintosh for $1,899. It is a SIM-Free model with 256GB of storage, which normally retails for $969 in the United States. Orders are currently estimated to ship in 2-3 weeks. The design includes a multicolored Apple rainbow logo and dark beige edge stripes painted over...

Amazon today announced that it will introduce its Siri competitor, Amazon Alexa, directly into the company's iOS app over the course of the next week (via VentureBeat). With the addition of Alexa, users will now be able to ask questions about the status of their orders, use their voice to initiate searches, play music, and start audio books from Audible. Alexa's powers go beyond Amazon's...