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

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with The ONE Music Group to give MacRumors readers a chance to win a 61-key portable Light Keyboard that's designed to integrate with an iPhone or iPad to help you learn how to play music. Each key is backlit and touch responsive, lighting up in time with sheet music and video lessons to make it easy to pick up the basics and move on to more complex...

Police in Michigan are reportedly attempting to use a 3D model of a fingerprint to unlock a murder victim's phone and reveal clues that could help solve an open case. Fusion reports that the investigation is still ongoing, therefore details remain murky, but essentially instead of requesting that the phone manufacturer unlocks the murder victim's handset, officers have asked computer...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has helped to design an iPhone 6 case that detects if a handset is transmitting data when it's in Airplane Mode. The project was announced yesterday by design collaborator and American hacker Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, the founder of Bunnie Studios and best known for being the first person to hack the Xbox and for legally challenging the DCMA act. Mockup of ...

Pokémon Go finally launched in Japan this morning after the game's release was delayed following an email leak about the developer's sponsored retail partnerships. Social media excitement reached a peak on Niantic's announcement that it was "finally broadcasting" in the game's birthplace, over two weeks after it was released in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Pokémon Go is now available...

Apple has created 14 country specific Apple Watch woven nylon bands for the 2016 Olympics. The bands, which were first spotted by GQ, are designed to reflect the national flags of 14 of the major competitors at the games. The countries included are the U.S., Great Britain, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Jamaica, Canada, China, Brazil, Australia, Germany, and...

Verizon Wireless will begin disconnecting its grandfathered unlimited data customers from its network if they use more than 100 GB of data a month and don't switch to one of the company's new wireless plans, according to a report from Droid Life. Verizon partially confirmed the news to Ars Technica. "Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great...

BBC today released its iPlayer Radio app stateside, so American users on both iOS and Android can now tune in to BBC radio stations airing content from the United Kingdom (via TechCrunch). The iOS app launched in its native territory in 2012, with today marking the first time the company has expanded its app-based radio content to users outside of the U.K. The iPlayer Radio app supports...

T-Mobile has announced that qualifying Simple Choice postpaid customers will automatically receive free unlimited data at up to 4G LTE speeds throughout Brazil during the entire month of August, enabling visitors to celebrate the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro without worrying about roaming charges. The carrier is also offering free calls within Brazil and to the United States in...

Final Fantasy creator Square Enix has launched a teaser website for a game made exclusively for the Apple Watch, called Cosmos Rings (via CNET). The website calls the game an "RPG for Apple Watch," but leaves any other details about its mechanics, story, and launch date completely up in the air. The sole teaser image for the game shows a screenshot of gameplay, with some kind of time...

Desktop email client Polymail recently launched a new iOS version of its app, focusing on simple and intuitive ways to get users through massive email lists with the same connected and social-minded aspects of the desktop app. Polymail allows users to manage their Gmail, iCloud, and Outlook, through the iOS app, which now syncs automatically with the Mac app as well. One of the standout...

Yesterday on Facebook, the company's dedicated messaging app, Facebook Messenger, posted news regarding its recent milestone of surpassing 1 billion monthly active users. As The Next Web pointed out, that's a growth of 200 million users since January, and roughly suggests that 1 out of every 7 members of the population are logging onto Facebook Messenger each month to text with friends and...

Plex and Sonos today announced a new partnership that will see Sonos' speakers supporting Plex music playback through the Sonos Controller app. Starting this afternoon, Sonos users can access their full Plex music libraries and discover new music via Plex using the Sonos app. For Plex customers who have a Plex Pass for premium Plex features, music collections are automatically organized by...

Microsoft-owned keyboard app maker SwiftKey today launched a brand-new iOS app, this time focused on predictive emoji suggestions. Called Swiftmoji, the app runs a crowdsourced usage data algorithm to begin suggesting its users specific emoji characters when they send text messages, with the app set to eventually learn each user's preferences and recommend frequently-used emoji above those hardly ...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to finally approve a three-year extension on local-sourcing rules within the country, granted to Apple due to its single-brand retail company status selling "cutting-edge technology." Those familiar with the matter, speaking with Bloomberg, claimed that the Indian government as a whole is gearing up to make it easier for all companies like Apple to...

Niantic has decided to postpone the launch of Pokémon Go in Japan today, due to an unexpected email leak that revealed details about the company's rumored sponsor partnership with food chain McDonald's. A source close to the company confirmed the delay to TechCrunch, referring to a specific email chain between Pokémon Go's creators and McDonald's as the reason behind the move. The two...

WhatsApp was forced offline in Brazil yesterday after Facebook failed to provide a court with chat logs related to a criminal investigation – only for the block to be lifted hours later. The blocking order by Brazilian judge Daniela Barbosa came after Facebook argued that it could not provide the court with the requested data since all messages relayed through the service are end-to-end...

French music streaming service Deezer officially opened its doors to the U.S. market on Tuesday, meaning for the first time, anyone in the States can sign up for a $10-a-month subscription. Previously the service was only available to U.S. customers if they owned a Sonos system and paid $20 a month for Deezer Elite, or if they signed up to promotion deals through Bose and Cricket Wireless. ...

Popular writing environment Scrivener made its long-awaited debut on iOS this morning. For those unfamiliar with the Mac application, Scrivener is a scalable long-form writing platform and author project management system featuring multiple editing and organization tools. Note cards, character sketches, place descriptions, and research notes are just some of the options available to...