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

Apple updated its Apple Pay participating issuers list today with 35 additional banks, credit unions and financial institutions supporting the contactless payment service in the United States. Apple Pay now has over 375 participating issuers nationwide, and dozens more plan to support the NFC-based mobile payment service in the future. The newly added Apple Pay participating issuers are...

For our latest video review, we went hands-on with a waterproof iPhone 6 Plus case from Catalyst, which the company calls "the most protective case in the world." It's waterproof up to a depth of 5 meters (16.4 feet) and it's also shock and drop resistant, made from polycarbonate with a rubber bumper and silicone seals. In our testing, the Catalyst case lived up to its claims and kept our...

While it has been more than a year since Apple launched HomeKit, a software framework for communicating with and controlling light bulbs, thermostats, door locks and other connected accessories in the home, only five HomeKit-approved products have been released to date: the Ecobee3, Elgato Eve, iHome iSP5 SmartPlug, Insteon Hub and Lutron Caseta Wireless Lighting Starter Kit. The slow rollout...

Microsoft today announced "Send," a new app premiering exclusively on iOS that aims to give customers the simplicity of a text-message conversation in the guise of a professional e-mail experience. Specifically, the app will let users send quick, snappy responses to co-workers "without a subject line or formal email constructs." Microsoft hopes that the app acts as a bridge between the texting ...

Beginning August 1, AT&T will raise its activation/upgrade fee for customers signing up for a one- or two-year contract, alongside introducing a specific activation fee for all AT&T Next and Bring-Your-Own-Phone customers. According to sources speaking with Droid Life, the new contract upgrade fee will increase from $40 to $45, while the activation cost for Next and BYOP customers will be...

Square today launched a new app called "Square Dashboard," which aims to provide business owners with complete overviews of their businesses thanks to real-time data read-outs of various sales and analytic figures (via TechCrunch). The app sees Square's continued expansion away from its simple start as a third-party payment processor, and into a more widely used enterprise-focused software...

Instagram has offered access to images uploaded to the Instagram iOS app on the web for several years now, and as of today, the site's gained a new highly desired feature - search. Prior to today, Instagram users could not search for content on the Instagram website, with search being limited to the company's apps. With the new website search feature that's rolling out today, it's possible to...

Apple's scored another exclusive for its Beats 1 radio station, with MTV today announcing plans to unveil its 2015 Video Music Award (VMA) nominees exclusively on Beats 1. MTV will reveal the list of nominees on Tuesday, July 21 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on the Beats 1 "Charts" show hosted by Brooke Reece and Travis Mills. Let the countdown begin! The 2015 @MTV #VMA nominees will be announced ...

Znaps is a new Kickstarter project that aims to make connecting a Lightning cable to your iPhone or iPad as simple as connecting a MagSafe charger to your MacBook. Znaps consists of a connector that plugs into the Lightning port on your iOS device, and an adapter for your Lightning cable that lets it connect to the port magnetically. With the Znaps Connector and Adapter, a Lightning cable can...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with iCandiApps to give two MacRumors readers a chance to win one of the company's first hardware products - the Night Sky MiniScope. The Night Sky MiniScope is a telescope that connects to your iPhone and works in conjunction with the Night Sky app to help you gaze at and capture images of celestial bodies like stars and planets. It has offers 50x...

Apple earlier this week introduced the sixth-generation iPod touch, featuring a new A8 chip and M8 motion coprocessor, 8-megapixel rear-facing iSight camera and Bluetooth 4.1, in six colors: blue, gold, pink, red, silver and space gray. 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB models are available through the Apple Store and Apple Online Store for $199, $249, $299 and $399 respectively. Apple's new ...

Ztylus is a company that specializes in a complete photography kit for the iPhone, bundling a protective iPhone case with a 4-in-1 lens attachment and an additional LED ring light attachment for improving low-light photos. We gave away a special limited edition Ztylus camera kit earlier this year, and now I'm following up with a complete review of the company's accessory system. Compared to...

The Situ Scale, which originated as a Kickstarter Project, is an iPad-connected food scale that's designed to offer up a more precise picture of the calorie and nutrient content in the food you're eating by measuring portion size in ounces or grams and storing nutrition information in an accompanying iPad app. You can take a handful of crackers or an apple, place it on the scale, and get a...

Finnish game developer Rovio today confirmed that its 2009 game Angry Birds is getting a direct sequel, Angry Birds 2, and fans will be able to play it starting July 30. The company released some promo artwork for the game that promises fans of the series a "bigger, badder, birdier" game than the original. Far from the second game in the series, counting spin-offs like Bad Piggies and Angry...

Misfit today announced the debut of Misfit Link, a new app that's designed to add new capabilities to the Misfit Flash, which is the company's inexpensive activity and sleep tracker. With the Misfit Link app, a Misfit Flash can be morphed into a multi-function Bluetooth-connected smart button that can perform tasks like controlling music or activating the camera button on the iPhone for...

If you connect your iOS device to your computer to back up your data instead of using iCloud, some of your most private data is not backing up. For security reasons, by default, an iTunes backup will not include saved passwords, Wi-Fi settings, website history, or Health data. You can save information like passwords and website history in an iTunes backup if you encrypt it, which is an...

Philips today announced that it's partnering with Frima Studio to sync its Hue line of lights with Chariot, a co-op platformer game that's available on Xbox One. Chariot will be the first video game that connects to the Philips Hue lighting system, allowing the lights to automatically sync to match scenes in the game. With over one million downloads worldwide, Chariot is a popular couch co-op...

Earlier this month Logitech announced plans to sell many of its products under the new "Logi" brand name, and as of today, the company is debuting its first line of products that carry the Logi label, a lineup of iPad cases. Logitech is introducing three Logi products for the iPad, all of which come in bright colors and offer drop protection for Apple's tablet: the Logi BLOK Protective Shell,...