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

Twelve South today launched the latest in its line of BookBook cases, this one for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Like previous editions, the new BookBook includes wallet slots for credit cards and a driver's license, all housed in a vintage leather-bound case that looks like an old novel. A removable shell protects the iPhone 7 both inside of and out of BookBook, and the case can fold into a...

Home automation manufacturer Fibaro today announced a new set of HomeKit-enabled products that offer basic motion detection and home security, as well as a Flood Sensor, which the company calls "the first water sensing and leak detection device in the Apple HomeKit ecosystem." Each of the three new products -- Fibaro Flood Sensor, Fibaro Motion Sensor and Fibaro Door/Window Sensor -- include...

Weight Watchers today introduced a variation of its OnlinePlus subscription plan that includes a new 38mm model Apple Watch Series 2 with an annual membership. The subscription plan has an initial installment fee of $99.95 in the first month, followed by a monthly fee of $34.95 for the next 12 months, for a total price of nearly $520. Apple Watch Series 2 models start at $369, while a standa...

Instagram announced today that it now has more than 600 million users, with the last 100 million of those users joining the photo and video sharing service in the past six months, a period in which it has added several new Snapchat-like features. Instagram has doubled the 300 million users it had in December 2014. A lot has changed this year, but the Instagram community and the diversity of...

One year after testing color-coded rider pickups in Seattle through a system called "SPOT," Uber today announced that the initiative is now called "Uber Beacon," and beginning December 16 it will expand to Miami, Denver, Nashville, and Newcastle in the United Kingdom. Uber Beacon is a piece of hardware that attaches to a driver's windshield and "uses color-pairing technology" to match up drivers...

Pebble has moved to reassure its customers that software and services will continue to run through 2017, following Fitbit's acquisition of the company last week. Fitbit bought out Pebble for its software assets, not for its hardware, which has concerned many existing owners of Pebble smartwatches about the continued functionality of their devices. Today, however, Pebble sought to allay fears...

Web domain registrar GoDaddy and donation platform Causemo today separately announced they now accept Apple Pay on their respective websites. GoDaddy is providing Apple Pay to all of its online store merchants who enable credit card payments through Stripe on mobile devices. Causemo, a startup platform enabling non-profit organizations to acquire and retain donors, is providing Apple Pay ...

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 10.1.1 update to developers for testing purposes, just days after releasing the tvOS 10.1 update and more than a month after launching tvOS 10. Designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV, the tvOS 10.1.1 beta can be obtained by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C to USB-A cable, downloading and installing the software from a ...

Instagram today launched a small update for its iOS and Android apps, allowing users to save a post they're interested in to check out later. Underneath each post in the feed users will find a small bookmark icon, and tapping it will send it to a new Saved Post section in the Profile tab. Saved Posts are private and only visible for you to view, and Instagram says that it'll help organize and...

Twitter today will begin rolling out a new update for its iOS and Android apps centered around the introduction of a full-featured live video client within the social networking app (via The Verge). The live video functionality is "powered by Periscope," but doesn't require users to have downloaded that app separately. The new update is an expansion of the "Go Live" Periscope button Twitter...

Apple TV universal search received a major update this week, expanding to 10 new apps in the United States. On the fourth-generation Apple TV, users can now search for movies and TV shows on Apple Music, Animal Planet GO, Crunchyroll, CuriosityStream, Investigation Discovery GO, Science Channel GO, TBS, TNT, TLC GO, and Tribeca Shortlist. For those unfamiliar with universal search, it's a...

After launching on Apple.com early yesterday with a delivery window somewhere between December 19 and December 22 for most countries, Apple's new wireless headphones have now slipped to 4 week delivery estimates for most launch countries and territories. Within 90 minutes, shipping windows for Apple's United States website slipped to 4 weeks yesterday, but most European countries held onto...

Amazon today announced that its Prime Video streaming service has expanded to over 200 countries including India, the company's largest available market outside the U.S. Prime Video is automatically available at no additional cost to Amazon Prime members in Belgium, Canada, France, Italy and Spain, and to customers in new Prime Video territories at an introductory price of $2.99 (or 2.99...

South Korea's Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) said it is considering an investigation into whether some iPhone 6s devices experiencing unexpected battery shutdowns is a safety issue, according to The Korea Herald. "The agency is well aware of recent iPhone issues and is taking a close look at it," an unnamed KATS official told The Herald. While KATS hasn't officially...

Google Drive was updated today to make it easier for users to transfer their content from iOS devices to Android devices, Google announced. The company also published a new web page on the Android website detailing how it works. Once a user downloads Google Drive from the App Store, they can navigate toward the backup wizard by going to Menu > Settings > Backup in the app. From there, users...

Amazon today introduced a new app called "Amazon App: Browse, Search, and Shop," which is designed to let users look for and purchase items from Amazon.com. Anyone can use Amazon's new app to browse through and search for products using dictation, but to make a purchase, an Amazon Prime membership is required. Amazon Prime costs $99 per year and offers benefits like Amazon Video and free...

Snapchat has gained Shazam's music recognizing abilities in its camera screen, which Shazam says is an even easier way to discover new songs and send each one to friends as Snaps. To use the new feature, all users have to do is press and hold anywhere on the Snapchat camera screen when music is playing nearby to begin the Shazam process. From there they can dig deeper into more info about the...

Following the release of watchOS 3.1.1 yesterday afternoon, a few early-installers of the latest operating system for the Apple Watch have found that their devices become bricked during the update process. Users in the MacRumors forums, email tipsters, and quite a few Redditors have begun reporting a red exclamation mark on their Apple Watch's screen that guides them to www.apple.com/help/watch. ...