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

Apple has updated its Italian website with an Apple Pay page, confirming its introduction in the country is close at hand. Last month, Apple added complete translations of Apple Pay support documents to its Italian and German regional websites, indicating the launch of the mobile payment system in those countries is just a matter of time. Today, for Italy at least, that launch appears one ...

Sonos today announced the PLAYBASE, its newest speaker designed for home theater sound systems. According to Sonos, the PLAYBASE is a thin, powerful speaker that sits under a television set to offer enhanced sound for TV shows, music, and movies. The PLAYBASE measures in at just 58mm tall, but it includes 10 drivers (six mid-range, three tweeters, and one woofer) for what Sonos says is great...

Fitbit today announced the Fitbit Alta HR, which the company is calling the "world's slimmest fitness wristband" that has a continuous heart rate monitor. The Alta HR launches just over a year after Fitbit debuted the original Fitbit Alta, which included new "Reminders to Move" to tell users to stand up and move around a bit, like Apple Watch stand notifications. The main upgrade for the...

Bragi announced its Dash earphones at CES way back in 2015, when wireless Bluetooth headsets were still relatively niche. Since then we've seen Apple, Samsung, and a host of other companies launch their own "truly wireless" headphones, prompting Bragi to give the market another pop with "The Headphone" ($149), a less expensive, more awkwardly named variant of its original cord-free buds....

A few Facebook Messenger users have noticed that the company's "Reactions" are available to use within the app and on the web, along with a long-requested dislike -- or thumbs down -- button (via TechCrunch). Similar to Tapback in the iOS 10 Messages app, to use Reactions in Facebook Messenger users simply have to hover over a specific message and tap the small emoji button. Images via ...

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...