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

Apple today launched a new promotion in its retail and online stores, offering a $60 Apple Music / iTunes gift cards with the purchase of Beats headphones or speakers. The promotion, first spotted by 9to5Mac, runs from December 3 to December 28, 2015. The promotion is available for all Beats headphones and speakers save for a select few, including the Beats Mixr high-performance headphones,...

Uber yesterday announced SPOT, a new initiative to make sure drivers and riders experience less hassle finding one another in dark or crowded areas. The technology will allow someone calling for an Uber to designate a specific color so that their driver can easily spot them when arriving at the pickup location. SPOT is the latest experiment in our ongoing effort to make Uber pickups as...

ESPN today announced an update to its iOS app that will let users stream live sporting events from the separate WatchESPN service directly within the core app, a feature that would previously redirect users to a separate download of WatchESPN. Specifically concerning videos, the ESPN app before today's update only allowed for short clips and game highlights. “Offering the convenience of live ...

iPad Pro launched in the U.S. and 40 total countries in November, and this week the 12.9-inch tablet became available in the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan through the Apple Online Store and select authorized resellers. Pricing for the 32GB Wi-Fi base model in the three Asian countries starts at ₱42,990.00 in the Philippines, ₩999,000 in South Korea and NT$27,900 in Taiwan. 128GB...

T-Mobile has announced a third "Un-carrier Unwrapped" holiday promotion that offers AT&T customers a 128GB iPhone 6s for the same price as a 16GB model, which is a $200 savings. The offer is valid for AT&T, GoPhone and Cricket postpaid and prepaid customers that switch a phone number to a T-Mobile Simple Choice postpaid plan between December 4 and December 13. AT&T customers can combine the ...

Nuance Communications today announced the launch of its voice dictation and productivity app, Dragon Anywhere, for iOS devices. Although the app includes a bevy of document management and enterprise-focused features, its main selling point is its continuous, cloud-based dictation that lets users create and edit documents without a time or length limit set in place. “Expanding Dragon Anywhere ...

A coalition of authors and well-known booksellers have come forth to back Apple in a petition to overturn a recent ruling that stated the company was liable in conspiring to fix the prices of electronic books when its iBooks store launched on the iPad in 2010 (via Cult of Mac). Together, the Authors Guild, Authors United, the American Booksellers Association, and Barnes & Noble have filed a...

Roughly a year ago, popular accessory company Withings introduced its Home security camera and air quality monitor, giving users an easy way to keep tabs on their homes with video streaming, push alerts for activity, and cloud storage of footage. Withings has continued to improve the Home with software updates since the launch, and several recent additions such as an app for the new Apple TV and...

Following in Facebook's footsteps, Twitter today announced plans to make some of its Fabric developer toolkit available for tvOS apps. Developers will be able to integrate Twitter's Digits feature into apps, allowing end users to securely sign into tvOS apps using SMS verification. With Digits, customers can sign up for an app or service using a phone number with Digits providing a...

Logitech's Create Keyboard Case for the iPad Pro was one of the first third-party keyboards available for the device, because Logitech created it with help from Apple. Because Logitech partnered with Apple for the accessory, it's also the only third-party keyboard that's currently able to take advantage of the Smart Connector on the iPad Pro, meaning it doesn't need to connect to the iPad over...

United Airlines today announced a plan to equip its customer service representatives in each United States-based hub with Apple's iPhone 6 Plus. The airline said that the plan will allow each rep to assist passengers' needs faster while giving them access to "additional operational information" without needing to search for outside help. "Our employees told us they needed better tools to serve ...

Developer Kevin Smith, who previously demonstrated a version of the MAME emulator running on the new Apple TV, has now made some tweaks to existing open source tools to allow game streaming from a PC to the new Apple TV. Smith took advantage of the Moonlight iOS open source project based on NVIDIA's GameStream, modifying it to run on tvOS. Using this modified version of Moonlight iOS, Smith...

LifeProof has announced that its popular waterproof FRĒ case is now available for the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus. The case retails for $89.99 and is available in six colors: Black, Avalanche, Bonzai Blue, Sunset Pink and Crushed Purple. LifeProof is accepting pre-orders now for the black version, with an estimated in-stock date of December 11. LifeProof's FRĒ is a rugged case that is...

Apple has updated its Apple Pay participating issuers list with 40 additional banks, credit unions and financial institutions supporting the contactless payment service in the United States. Apple Pay now has nearly 800 participating issuers nationwide, and several more plan to support the NFC-based mobile payment service in the future. The newly added Apple Pay participating issuers are...

In a new study performed by InfoScout, nearly half as many possible Apple Pay customers used the mobile payments system on Black Friday in 2015 as they did in 2014 on the same sales-laden holiday (via Quartz). The study polled a total of 300,000 people to gather the information, discerning the time around March 2015 as Apple Pay's peak, with another understandable resurgence in the fall...

In the spirit of the holiday season, Microsoft today released a new ad that focuses on calling for peace between the company and its public rival, Apple. The 60-second advertisement sees Microsoft employees making their way from the company’s new Fifth Avenue store in New York City over to Apple's flagship store to share a festive carol with the Apple employees and others. The ad's event...

A sketchy report from Chinese website TechWeb [Google Translate] (via GforGames) claims Apple's rumored "iPhone 6c" could feature a colorful metal design and Touch ID, lack 3D Touch and launch in February 2016, corroborating previous rumors claiming Apple will release a new 4-inch iPhone in early 2016. The report, citing unnamed "Foxconn insiders" and other various sources, confirms that...

In a follow-up to an interview Apple executive Eddy Cue had with CNN senior correspondent Brian Stelter a month ago, the senior vice president of Internet software and services discussed Apple's thoughts on the News app, which launched alongside iOS 9 in September. When asked why Apple decided to turn it into a pre-installed app, Cue offered a look into how Apple determines what constitutes a...