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

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...

Viewers around the world are watching more than 1 billion hours of YouTube videos every day, setting the online video service on the path to beat regular TV viewership, according to a report this week by The Wall Street Journal. The 1 billion hour milestone, which YouTube passed sometime late in 2016, is said to have been reached thanks to Google's "aggressive embrace of artificial intelligence...

Google has revealed to the BBC that it will bring its Home smart connected speaker to the United Kingdom this spring. Rick Osterloh, Google's vice president of hardware, told BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones that he believes the Home's "AI skills and vast data" will give it the edge over rival Amazon Echo. A Google spokesperson later confirmed to Engadget on Tuesday that the company's smart...

Amazon is building upon the Alexa voice-recognition technology found in its Echo range of speakers so that the virtual assistant can distinguish between individual users based on the sound of their voices. According to anonymous sources who spoke to TIME, Amazon's feature would work by matching the person speaking to a pre-recorded voice sample, or "voice print", to verify the speaker's...

SoundCloud has introduced a new lower priced subscription plan to entice users to sign up to its music streaming service, less than a year after its paid membership scheme was launched (via The Verge). The new SoundCloud Go budget tier costs $4.99 per month, half the price of the previous low cost subscription option that rolled out last March. Membership gives users access to over 120 million ...

Mozilla today announced it has acquired read-it-later app Pocket, which it says has 10 million unique monthly active users on iOS, Android, and the web. The app, formerly known as Read It Later, launched in 2007 and is integrated in services such as Flipboard and Twitter. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pocket will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Corporation and...

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming watchOS 3.2 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the third watchOS 3.2 beta and more than a month 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 --> Software Update...

SanDisk today announced that its iXpand Flash Drive is now available in a larger 256GB storage capacity for $279.99, expanding upon existing 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities available for between $49.99 and $129.99. The iXpand Flash Drive connects to the Lightning port on an iPhone or iPad to provide the device with up to 256GB of additional storage space through the SanDisk iXpand...

At Mobile World Congress today, enterprise application software company SAP gave more details about its partnership with Apple, which will result in the creation of a toolset that aims to help developers build "enterprise-grade" apps for iOS. Called the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS, the tools will use Apple's programming language Swift to present developers and designers with a collection of...

T-Mobile today announced that, starting March 1, new and existing customers can activate three lines of T-Mobile ONE with unlimited data, talk, and text for $100 per month after bill credits. The plan usually costs $100 per month for two lines, and $140 per month for three lines, so the third line is essentially free. T-Mobile is also offering an additional line for free to existing...

All Withings products will be rebranded under Nokia by the summer, according to Withings CEO Cédric Hutchings. The announcement was made on Sunday during Nokia's event at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Withings makes iOS-compatible smart connected home products as well as a range of health and fitness wearables. Nokia bought the French health tracking company last year for an ...

Amazon and Netflix yesterday collected the first Academy Awards for streaming services, sharing four gold statuettes between them at this year's Oscars. Amazon Studios bagged a Best Actor trophy for Casey Affleck's portrayal of a grieving man in "Manchester by the Sea". Bought by Amazon for $10 million at the Sundance film festival, the movie also won Best Original Screenplay. It has earned...

With reference to the upcoming Galaxy S8 at this year's Mobile Wold Congress limited to a March 29 launch date confirmation, Samsung chose to put the focus on two new tablets, the Android-powered Galaxy Tab S3 and the Galaxy Book, which runs Windows 10. Aiming to compete with the iPad Pro, the Tab S3 comes with a 9.7-inch HDR-ready Super AMOLED display running at 2,048 x 1,536 resolution. On...

Google today announced that its AI helper, Google Assistant, will begin rolling out to users with smartphones running Android 7.0 Nougat and Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Previously, the company's AI assistant was exclusive to the Pixel smartphone, Google Home, the Google Allo app, and Android Wear devices. Google Assistant will first arrive to English users in the United States this week, followed ...