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

The Unicode Consortium today released Unicode 8, the next update to the Unicode Standard that defines special characters and symbols, including emoji. Unicode 8 introduces 7,716 new characters, including six new scripts and new symbols, with letters to support languages in Africa, lowercase Cherokee symbols, and more. Of interest to iPhone and Mac users is the emoji portion of Unicode 8, which ...

The Apple Watch screen is small. So small that it can be difficult for some people to read messages and other text on the device. Also, even though the Home screen icons get bigger when they are centered on the screen, you might find yourself accidentally tapping the wrong one more often than you'd like. Apple has included a couple of accessibility features that make dynamic text larger on the ...

Dotti and Notti are small iPhone-controlled smart lights created by design company Witti. More fun than practical, the two lights connect to an iPhone over Bluetooth, allowing their colors to be changed and letting them light up when a notification is received. Notti, the more inexpensive of the two at $60, is an angular light that somewhat resembles a candle. Dotti, priced at $80, is a square ...

Google-owned Nest today held an event in San Francisco and announced several new products, including an updated Nest Protect smoke detector and the Nest Cam, a new security camera that builds on technology the company acquired from Dropcam. The second-generation Nest Protect includes a "split spectrum sensor," letting it detect signs of smoke more quickly and allowing it to differentiate...

Apple's newly announced music streaming service, Apple Music, is upsetting a handful of independent United Kingdom-based music labels who house artists such as Adele and Arctic Monkeys (via The Telegraph). Under the terms being proposed by Apple, labels will receive no compensation during the three-month free trial given to Apple Music users. The labels argue that this trial period will...

With exactly two weeks until the launch of Apple Music, details about the revenue sharing model for the streaming music service continue to emerge. Billboard reports that Apple has yet to contact independent music publishers about Apple Music, leading many indie labels to believe that the Cupertino-based company will soon send a bulk email to publishers with an opt-in contract attached....

Beyond casing material and band, there are no other obvious customization options for the Apple Watch, but one product is aiming to change that. WatchDots are small, colorful vinyl stickers that change the look of the Apple Watch's Digital Crown and side button. WatchDots come in six colors and were conceived as a way for Apple Watch Sport owners to match their Digital Crowns to their bands,...

Twitter today announced that it's bringing autoplay video to the web and to its iOS app, causing native videos, Vines, and GIFs to play automatically in the Twitter stream for an improved video-watching experience.Today, it's become even easier to enjoy video on Twitter. Now native videos, Vines and GIFs will begin to play back automatically. So you can keep up with the action without missing a...

In late May, Apple began offering same-day delivery of certain products in its Apple Store app via a partnership with courier service Postmates. Before that agreement was in place, Apple was in talks with Uber about a similar partnership, according to the Wall Street Journal. In recent months, Uber lost out on the opportunity to make deliveries in some cities for Apple Inc. and Starbucks Corp.,...

Photos from the winners of the eighth annual iPhone Photography Awards have been posted on the IPPA website, offering a look at some of the best pictures captured with an iPhone over the course of the past year. As in previous years, the photos feature a range of different subjects, from people to landscapes to animals. This year's first place photo, by Michal Koralewski from Poland, depicts a ...

Kicking off the week of conferences making up the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Bethesda yesterday announced and immediately released a brand new game set in the Fallout universe specifically tailored for iOS devices, called Fallout Shelter [Direct Link]. Revealed alongside long-awaited games like Fallout 4 and Dishonored 2, Fallout Shelter lets players make and run their own "Vault"...

In the months leading up to the introduction of the iPhone 6 last September, Moscow-based luxury modified iPhone company Feld & Volk shared a wealth of information about the device, starting with high-quality photos and video of a rough rear shell and moving on to individual components like the embedded Apple logo and protruding rear camera. Later on, the company was able to obtain nearly all...

In iOS 9, the iPad is gaining a feature that will completely change the way a lot of us use our tablets, introducing functionality that will make it much easier to use the iPad as a serious computer replacement. That feature, which has been much-desired for several years now, is multitasking. We went hands-on with iOS 9 to check out the multitasking feature on an iPad Air 2, and made a quick...

Apple Watch is the perfect device for quickly glancing at the things you need to do today or to fill you in on your plans for the weekend. It is also a useful device for quickly setting up a reminder without needing to pull out an iPhone. While much of the setup for Calendars is done on iPhone, you can use Apple Watch to respond to invites, add a quick event, and get alerts to remind you...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Zivix to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a Jamstik+ Smart Guitar, the company's latest and greatest product. The Jamstik+ is a MIDI guitar controller that feels like a real guitar and works with the iPad, iPhone, and Mac. It's 16-inches long and comes with real metal strings and frets to capture each musician's unique playing style....

BlackBerry is considering releasing an Android-based smartphone for the first time in an attempt to regain market share and promote its cross-platform BES12 device management system, according to Reuters. The report claims the embattled Waterloo, Ontario-based smartphone maker will likely release an Android-based slider device with both a touchscreen and physical keyboard in the fall."BlackBerry...

The Apple Watch may have a small screen, but it's still large enough to show off those pictures of your little one's dance recital to the grandparents. As long as you've got an album synced from your iPhone, you can even view pictures while your smartphone is out of range. To help you get the most out of your photo viewing experience, we've put together this tutorial to explain how to set up ...

Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn plans to travel to India and explore possible locations to reopen production facilities in the country, in a move that could bring iPhone assembly and potentially lower prices to the emerging market. Reuters reports that Foxconn could benefit from lower production costs in India as wages continue to increase in China, where the majority of its operations are...