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

Mophie today unveiled new Apple-exclusive 18W Powerstations designed for iPhones able to take advantage of fast charging, offering quicker charging speeds than previous Mophie Powerstations were capable of. The Powerstation, Powerstation Plus, Powerstation Mini and Powerstation Plus XL Wireless range in price from $30 to $100 and along with quicker charging, offer sleek new designs in pink,...

OWC is currently holding a sale on audio devices that includes the HomePod in White for $204.99, down from Apple's price of $299.00 ($94 off). The Black color is slightly higher at $207.99. These are currently the best prices for the HomePod among the major Apple resellers online, and just about $5 more than the best-ever price tag of $199.99 seen on Black Friday. Note: MacRumors is an...

A new slate of offers from popular U.S. cellular carriers has emerged this month, offering customers a chance to save money on their monthly cellular bill, smartphones, smart watches, and more. Because of the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday, some of the carriers are also offering special deals when purchasing two smartphones. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. ...

Twitter has updated its official iPad app, introducing a change to the main interface that many users will welcome. Twitter for ‌iPad‌ with multi-column view disabled (right) The last major update to Twitter for ‌iPad‌ attempted to make better use of the iOS device's larger screen by introducing a multi-column view that placed the timeline on the left and the search bar with trending topics...

This week marks 15 years since Google Maps first launched, and Google is celebrating with some notable new features and updates for the mapping service app on iOS and Android. The five tabs on the new Google Maps navigation screen Starting today, the Google Maps will feature a new navigation system across the bottom of the interface including five icons, two of which are completely new:...

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming tvOS 13.4 update to developers, one week after releasing the tvOS 13.3.1 update. Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 13.4 developer beta can be downloaded onto the ‌‌‌‌Apple TV‌‌‌‌ via a profile that's installed using Xcode. tvOS updates are usually minor in scale, focusing on under-the-hood bug...

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming watchOS 6.2 update to developers, one week after releasing the watchOS 6.1.2 update with bug fixes. Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated ‌‌Apple Watch‌‌ app on the iPhone by going to General > Software Update. To install the...

Apple's annual Back to School event launched in Japan today, with Apple offering students a gift card worth up to 18,000 yen ($165) when making a purchase. The highest gift card amount is available with the purchase of a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac Pro, or ‌iMac‌, with Apple offering 12,000 yen for iPad Pro and iPad Air models. As noted by Japanese site Mac Otakara, the educational...

The latest slate of Anker products have been discounted on Amazon this week, and we're seeing solid sales on portable batteries, wireless chargers, USB-C wall chargers, Bluetooth speakers and headphones, power strips, and more. Many of the items have been automatically discounted, but some do require promo codes, which you can find below. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon....

Apple Card users will be able to export their transaction data in an OFX file format for use with third-party financial apps "within the next few days," a support representative said in an online chat with customer Jed Schmidt. The exporting feature rolled out last month, but only with CSV file support. Apple said an OFX option would be available in the future. The option to export...

Nearly five months after the release of iOS 13, Google has finally updated its Translate app with Dark Mode support on the iPhone and iPad, although the color scheme is dark gray rather than true black. Dark Mode in the Google Translate app is tied to the system-level appearance selected in Settings > Display & Brightness > Appearance. Google has been slowly adding Dark Mode support to...

A new vulnerability has been discovered in the Philips Hue smart lighting system that could let hackers gain access to the local host network and other devices connected to it. Discovered by Check Point Research and demonstrated in a video, the flaw relates to the Zigbee communication protocol used by Philips Hue bulbs and a number of other smart home devices, including Amazon's Ring,...

Apple was the fastest growing premium smartphone brand in India last year with 41 percent annual growth, according to new data gathered by Counterpoint Research. Premium smartphone shipments in the country reached a record high in 2019, increasing by 29 percent year over year. The growth is said to have been driven by affordable premium smartphones, aggressive offers like significant price...

Apple's head of business for Apple News+, Liz Schimel, has departed the company less than a year after the $9.99 per month service launched, reports Bloomberg. Schimel was responsible for relationships with advertisers and news partners for ‌Apple News‌+, and before that, she served as the president of international business at Conde Nast. Apple is said to be looking to hire a "notable...

"Verified," a video service from Genius, is available on Apple Music as of today, reports The Verge. "Verified" features artists like Billie Eilish and Cardi B explaining the meaning behind the lyrics of their songs. Under the terms of the deal, ‌Apple Music‌ will co-produce "Verified," and episodes will premiere on ‌Apple Music‌. After a set period of time, new content will also be available...

Every year in February, Apple hosts a company wide fitness challenge for all of its employees at its corporate and retail offices around the world. Employees are tasked with closing all three of their Apple Watch Activity rings every day during the month, and those that are successful earn a reward. Apple's 2020 challenge, which is in February because February is Heart Month, has been...

Microsoft today updated its Outlook app with full support for Split View on compatible iPad models, allowing users to multitask in a variety of ways, such as having an email and calendar open side by side. Split View also enables users to drag and drop text, photos, and files from one app to another, such as dragging text from Safari into an Outlook email. To drag and drop text, select the...

Google has emailed some users of Google Photos to inform them that some of their private videos were accidentally sent to strangers, reports 9to5Google. The "technical issue" is said to have affected people who used the Google Takeout service to download their data between November 21 and November 25 last year. The problem resulted in a small number of users receiving videos in their archive...