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

Earlier this week, Google released a new app called Motion Stills, designed to turn Live Photos captured with the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE into GIFs or videos. Over the past couple of days, we spent some hands-on time with Motion Stills, and have been really impressed with the way it transforms Live Photos into a more useful, shareable medium. Motion Stills isn't just an app...

Apple is planning to announce an iMessage app for Android users at WWDC, according to a report from MacDailyNews citing sources "familiar with the company's thinking."Apple will announce that iMessage encrypted text messaging is coming to Android users at WWDC next Monday at WWDC 2016, according to a source familiar with the company's thinking. [...] Apple is increasingly focused on services...

Philips today announced the launch of the Philips Sonicare Flexcare Platinum Connected toothbrush, the company's first brush that includes Bluetooth connectivity and connects to an iPhone to track brushing habits. The Flexcare Platinum Connected toothbrush includes "Smart Sensor technology" to track specific brushing locations in the mouth, making sure all teeth get proper attention. It also...

HealthKit-enabled Apple Watch app Cardiogram has received its 1.0 release, bringing native watchOS 2 compatibility, 3D Touch for supporting devices, and a redesigned interface. The app has been developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of California San Francisco's Health eHeart study, which aims to help end heart disease. The program wants to develop a way to detect atrial ...

Pebble has published the algorithms that drive its native fitness tracking app, following the launch of its crowdfunding campaign for three new fitness-focused smartwatches, the Pebble Core, Pebble 2, and Time 2. The move is a first in the wearables industry, and appears to be an effort by the company to demonstrate serious ambitions in the burgeoning "quantified self" and health data tracking ...

Just hours after Apple announced plans to implement App Store revenue sharing changes that will see developers getting an 85/15 revenue split for subscriptions maintained for longer than a year, Re/code says Google is planning on implementing a similar change for Android. According to unnamed sources, Google is going to implement the same 85/15 split, but unlike Apple, Google will make the new ...

The United States Department of Justice today urged the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that was in Apple's favor and send the Apple vs. Samsung case back to trial court, reports Reuters. The DoJ submitted an amicus brief on Samsung's behalf as the Supreme Court prepares to hear the long-running Apple vs. Samsung case. Apple's dispute with Samsung made its way to the Supreme...

Apple analyst Brian White of Wall Street brokerage firm Drexel Hamilton has issued a research note to investors in which he estimates that Apple will reach a bottom in iPhone sales, and overall revenue and profit, in the third quarter of the 2016 fiscal year, a three-month period that ends in late June. White claimed that all of Apple's supply chain partners that his firm tracks reported May...

The United Kingdom's House of Commons this week passed the controversial "Investigatory Powers" bill, which gives spy and government agencies the ability to "engage in bulk surveillance and computer hacking," and has met stern opposition from various technology companies, including Apple. In the House of Commons, the bill passed by a vote of 444 to 69 (via Bloomberg). The original wording of...

Image messaging and social media app Snapchat has had its Stories page redesigned to increase exposure of commercial publisher's content and boost the company's ad revenue. The new look, which goes live today, enables publishers to include an image and headline with each daily story in user feeds to increase visibility. The more popular user-contributed Live Stories will now compete for...

Microsoft today launched the Microsoft Surface Membership, an upgrade plan for Surface devices that allows business customers to "get the latest Surface devices, accessories, support and training." The new plan was first spotted by Thurrott.com (via Engadget). The plan is similar to Apple's iPhone Upgrade Plan. The Surface Membership is available for three Surface devices with payment plans...

Withings today announced the launch of its latest connected health product, debuting the Body Cardio, a scale that incorporates Pulse Wave Velocity measurements to give users an overview of their cardiac health. According to Withings, the Body Cardio represents the first consumer scale that uses Pulse Wave Velocity, a measurement of the velocity at which a person's arterial pulse propagates...

Developer and Tendigi CTO Nick Lee, who previously got an Apple Watch to run Windows 95, today showed off a new project he's been working on, which allows Android to work with an iPhone using a specialized iPhone case. As seen in the video below, Lee created a 3D printed iPhone case and outfitted it with a built-in Lemaker HiKey board, a battery pack, and other hardware so it could support a...

Apple today released an update for the WWDC app for iOS devices and the Apple TV, introducing a number of bug fixes ahead of the kickoff of the conference next Monday. The 5.0.1 update addresses several issues, fixing bugs that could cause news and schedule updates to display in the wrong case and making videos on the Apple TV more stable.Thank you for your bug reports and feedback. This...

Apple Pay will expand to Switzerland on Monday, June 13, marking the seventh country where the mobile payments service is available, according to German-language financial website Finews (via iPhone-Ticker). Swiss private bank Cornèr Bank will purportedly be one of the first participating issuers in Switzerland, but the report did not specify if the country's two "big banks" UBS and Credit...

Microsoft recently announced that it will be holding an afterparty at WWDC this year, taking place next week on Monday, June 13 following Apple's State of the Union keynote (via WinBeta). In partnership with its software-focused company Xamarin, Microsoft's party is centered around "The Future of Apps," and is confirmed to last from 5 PM to 8:30 PM PDT, located in Twitter's headquarters near the...

Apple was granted patents today that include a concept for water-resistant iPhone speakers and a bone conduction technology that could bring advanced noise cancellation to future earbuds (via AppleInsider). The first application granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is titled "Liquid resistant acoustic device" and details a protected acoustic port that uses a special mesh "umbrella"...

Apple has created a new "Apple Music Fashion" channel available to Apple Music subscribers, which features three new Apple Music playlists curated by fashion designer Alexander Wang, among other curated selections from Vogue, Burberry, and more. As shared by Vogue, Wang's playlists, entitled Chill, Hype, and Vibe, feature a mix of R&B slow jams to hardcore rap to "dance-floor ready tracks."...