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

In China, low-cost smartphones have brought an overall uptick in sales in the second quarter of 2016, while high-end devices -- from companies like Apple and Samsung -- continue to face declining sales numbers in the country (via DigiTimes). Local vendors in China are said to be "focused on promoting entry-level and mid-range 4G models," instead of trying to convince the Chinese public that Apple ...

Microsoft today updated its suite of Office apps designed for the iPhone, adding finger-drawing support to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In January, the company added inking support to its productivity suite for the iPad Pro to take advantage of the Apple Pencil, but now iPhone users can also make use of the feature using their digits. A new Draw tab can be found in each of the three apps. ...

Apple continues to build upon the transit coverage of Apple Maps, today adding the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the City of San Antonio to supported areas in Texas. The support marks the first expansion of transit coverage beyond the state's capital of Austin. In Dallas and Fort Worth, Apple will now offer up several city transit routes, including transportation by the Dallas Area Rapid...

Netflix has released the soundtracks for both its popular sci-fi series Stranger Things, and its new musical drama The Get Down, exclusively on iTunes and Apple Music. There are 36 total songs rounding out the "Volume 1" soundtrack for Stranger Things, and on August 19 a "Volume 2" is expected to launch on Apple's music services as well, with both volumes getting physical CD treatments on...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with well-known storage and memory company Lexar to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a bundle that includes Lexar's Lightning-based MicroSD Card Reader and a high-performance 64GB MicroSD card. Lexar's MicroSD Lightning Reader is a tiny coin-sized dongle that makes it easy to transfer content from a microSD card to an iPhone or iPad, so it's an...

Sonos is a well-regarded brand known for creating some of the best multi-room home speaker setups, and in late 2015, the company debuted its latest product, a second-generation Play:5. The original Play:5 (once called the S5) came out in 2009, so the new Play:5 marks a long overdue update that brings a new design and better sound. As someone new to the Sonos ecosystem, the Play:5 (paired with...

Apple has recently added Australian streaming service Stan to the universal search function on the fourth-generation Apple TV, marking the first third-party service outside of the U.S. beyond Netflix to be supported. For those unfamiliar with universal search, it's a feature that allows users to conduct Siri voice searches or text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide...

Crashes, and subsequent fatalities, of small private planes have "fallen to the lowest levels in decades" thanks to mobile devices that give pilots "much better weather information" than a few years ago, along with other benefits. These devices mainly include Apple's iPad lineup and, in 2015, helped contribute to the lowest rate of fatal crashes ever recorded by the U.S. Federal Aviation...

T-Mobile has announced that qualifying Simple Choice postpaid customers will automatically receive free unlimited data at up to 4G LTE speeds throughout Brazil until September 18, enabling visitors to celebrate the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro without worrying about roaming charges. The carrier is also offering free calls within Brazil and to the United States until September 18,...

Apple has invented a new health wearable device that measures electrocardiographic signals via a series of built-in electrodes (via PatentlyApple). The device was revealed in a new patent application published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and appears to show designs on another wearable apart from the Apple Watch that can be worn on different locations on the body....

App and device interaction service IFTTT has launched a new partner platform that enables third-party developers to bake the company's automated actions into their apps. For those unfamiliar with IFTTT (IF This, Then That), the service lets users link smart devices, services, and apps in the form of workflows that trigger automated actions – saving photos you're tagged in on Facebook to...

Logitech today announced a new single-button device called the Pop Home Switch, designed to simplify the control of multiple smart home products. The interactive accessory company says the idea behind the Pop is to free up control of smart devices so that anyone in the home can operate them regardless of whether they have a smartphone and the associated app for each device. The...

Instagram recently began testing a much-requested new feature that lets users save drafts of potential posts on the social network, instead of having to completely discard edits made to any photo (via TechCrunch). A small number of users mentioned seeing the "Save Draft" feature as far back as July, but Instagram seems to have expanded its testing phase in early August, without rolling it out...

In May, Netflix announced Fast.com, a website where users could quickly and simply check their internet connection speed. The site uses Netflix's servers and technology to give people an instant look at their current internet speed. The site quickly became popular, and Netflix has now released the FAST Speed Test app for mobile devices. Once opened, the app instantly begins giving users a...

The Walt Disney Company has announced it is acquiring a minority 33 percent stake in BAMTech, a video streaming company previously formed by Major League Baseball, for $1 billion. Disney has the option to acquire majority ownership of BAMTech in the coming years. Disney said it will collaborate with BAMTech to launch and distribute a new ESPN-branded multi-sport subscription streaming service...

Apple today provided developers with the fifth beta of tvOS 10, the next-generation operating system designed to run on the fourth-generation Apple TV. tvOS 10 beta 5 comes one week after the release of tvOS beta 4 and approximately two months after the operating system was first shown off at Apple's 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference tvOS betas are harder to install than beta updates for...

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming watchOS 3 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the fourth beta and approximately two months after first unveiling watchOS 3 at its 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference. The fifth watchOS 3 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on an iPhone by going to General --> Software update. To install...

One of the key challenges for Apple in developing the Apple Watch was figuring out how to maintain acceptable battery life for the device in the face of power-hungry components such as the main processor and display. With watchOS 3 introduced at WWDC in June, Apple showed off the ability to allow multiple Apple Watch apps to remain active and refresh in the background, acknowledging that its...