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

Skype today announced a new update for both its iOS and Android mobile apps that introduce a new design experience, a few tweaks to the service's messaging functions, and some enhanced search functionality. The new update, version 6.0, promises to be a "simple, familiar" experience for Skype users, but with a bevy of new features and touch inputs that will help the service's users get in and out...

Griffin today announced an expansion of its popular Survivor case lineup for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, introducing the new Survivor Summit and the Survivor Journey. Like its existing Survivor cases, both the Summit and the Journey offer military grade protection for Apple's iPhones. The Survivor Summit is Griffin's most protective Survivor case yet, featuring a sealed weatherproof design that's ...

Apple is believed to have sold over over 1.07 million Apple Watches in China, according to data analysis company TalkingData (via Business Insider). The company uses a monitoring platform supported by over 80,000 mobile apps -- including the country's most popular app WeChat, with over 1 billion registered users -- to receive its data. Many remain curious as to how many Apple Watches the...

Philips today expanded its Hue lighting lineup with the launch of the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus, which adds new white lighting options to the colorful mood lighting introduced with the original Philips Hue Lightstrip. Like the first LightStrip, the new Lightstrip Plus is a two-meter LED-studded adhesive-backed strip that can be used behind televisions, under desks, and more, as mood...

CBS Sports this week announced it will expand its streaming NFL coverage on the Apple TV, with plans to stream two regular season games, four playoff games, and Super Bowl 50. The games will be available on laptops, computers, and tablets via CBSSports.com, in addition to being available on connected television devices like the Apple TV, Roku, Xbox One, and Chromecast. Games will be streamed...

In just a couple of weeks, Apple is going to make it ridiculously easy for Android users to switch to iOS with an upcoming app alongside iOS 9 called "Move to iOS." It will give Android users the ability to wirelessly migrate contacts, message history, photos and videos, web browser saves, mail, calendars, and more. Until then, we have to do these things manually. Luckily, it isn't difficult ...

Apple today used Beats 1 radio to announce additional acts for its upcoming Apple Music Festival, confirming The Weeknd, The Chemical Brothers, Take That, James Bay, and Leon Bridges will all perform in London later this month during the 10-day event. #AppleMusicFestival announcements continue! Welcome @theweeknd, @ChemBros & @takethat. More info coming soon. pic.twitter.com/vnx8dGbnNh— Apple ...

For our latest video review, we went hands-on with the Solpro Helios Smart, a solar-powered battery pack that can recharge using three built-in solar panels. It sports a 5,000mAh battery that can charge an iPhone 6 from dead to full twice over, and when the battery is exhausted, it can be charged through an included micro-USB cable or by opening its solar panels and sticking it in the bright...

Hulu today revealed a new plan option that will grant subscribers immunity from the service's embedded advertisements by paying $11.99 each month instead of the traditional $7.99 (via Re/code). Available for new and existing users, Hulu's CEO Mike Hopkins notes that it took months for the various companies and providers available on the service to support the new subscription tier, but he still...

Apple updated its Apple Pay participating issuers list today with 18 additional banks, credit unions and financial institutions supporting the contactless payment service in the United States. Apple Pay now has over 450 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...

A new rumor out of Apple's supply chain in Asia suggests that the company could be returning to using ultra-thin glass-on-glass touch panels for next year's line of iPhones, but will remain using in-cell touch panels for the "iPhone 6s" and "iPhone 6s Plus," both predicted to launch this month (via DigiTimes). The sources cite Apple's issues with production bottlenecks of the in-cell technology...

LUNATIK, the company that made a name for itself a number of years ago by creating popular watch bands such as the TikTok and LYNK for the sixth-generation iPod nano, has debuted a similar offering for the 42 mm Apple Watch with its new EPIK lineup. EPIK began as a Kickstarter project that raised over $240,000 and offered a protective anodized aluminum casing for the watch itself paired with...

Instagram today announced a major update to the Instagram Direct feature that it first introduced in 2013, allowing users to send threaded messages and content from their feeds through the private messaging function. Prior to today, Instagram Direct could only be used to send a single photo privately to a friend or a group of friends, where it could be commented on away from the public eye....

Amazon's Prime Video streaming service today announced the ability for its users to download television shows and movies to an iPhone, iPad, or Android device (via Re/code). The service had previously supported such a feature, but it was exclusively available for Amazon's own Fire tablets, with today marking the first expansion onto Apple's smartphones. The feature will let Prime users...

Adonit, known for its range of styluses, today announced the Jot Dash, the company's latest stylus that aims to closely replicate a standard pen. The Jot Dash is a thin-tipped active stylus that has a plastic 1.9mm tip that offers more precision than a standard rubber-tipped stylus. Priced at $49.99, the Jot Dash bridges the gap between Adonit's inexpensive Jot Pro and Jot Mini and the pricier ...

The UK Cards Association announced on Tuesday that the upper limit for Apple Pay and other contactless payments is now £30 per transaction in the United Kingdom (via AppleInsider). Apple Pay transactions were previously limited to £20 since the service launched in the U.K. around six weeks ago. British retailers will be updating their payment terminals starting today and over the coming weeks...

GT Advanced is laying off 40% of its workforce as it negotiates the terms of a $95 million bankruptcy restructuring plan, according to The Wall Street Journal. The cuts will enable the former Apple supplier to save $20 million per year as it looks to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. The report claims GT Advanced had about 1,000 employees when it filed for bankruptcy...

Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 4.9 with several new features that developers can implement in iPhone and iPad games on the App Store, including efficient dynamic shadows, movable lights and decals, improved in-app purchase functionality, remote push notifications and CloudKit support. Unreal Engine 4.9 supports dynamic modulated character shadows from directional lights on iOS and...