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

One of the side effects of the tremendous popularity of iPhones and iPads has been the counterfeit Apple product market, which looks to lure in consumers who want to purchase items like chargers for less money than Apple's official offerings. However, those counterfeit chargers can be fairly dangerous, as highlighted by the tragic story of a Chinese woman who was electrocuted by a counterfeit...

Apple has published its iOS Human Interface Guidelines to iBooks. The guidelines are Apple's recommendations and suggestions to developers for designing cohesive and usable apps that follow similar user interface principles to other iOS applications. The company has long offered user interface guidelines, dating back to the original Macintosh, but has recently only offered its iOS 7 guidelines ...

Google today updated its Google Search app to version 4.0.0, adding new voice question capabilities that let users have smarter conversations with Google. For example, after initiating a casual conversation with an "Ok Google" command, users can ask simple questions like "What's the weather like?" followed by "What about this weekend?" Google Search is able to interpret that the questions are...

Twitter is adding a new "mute" feature to its iOS app and web experience, allowing users to control the content they see in their Twitter feeds by muting other Twitter users. When a user is muted, their Tweets and Retweets will no longer be visible.In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a Tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you'd like to hear...

Facebook today removed its long defunct Facebook Poke and Facebook Camera apps from the App Store, quietly pulling the apps with no notification to users. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the removal to The Verge, but declined to comment further. First introduced in December of 2012, Facebook's Poke app was the company's answer to Snapchat, allowing users to send ephemeral photos, videos,...

Belkin today announced the availability of the QODE Thin Type for iPad Air, adding an ultra-slim keyboard option to its popular QODE line of tablet keyboards. QODE Thin Type for iPad Air features an anodized aluminum design, 79 hours of battery life and iOS specific keys that pair nicely with the iPad. The keyboard's main selling point is its 4mm thin profile that barely adds any heft to the...

Adobe today announced Adobe Voice, a new iPad app that allows users to make simple animated video "stories" that incorporate voice, photos, icons, music, animated themes, and more. Designed for people that have little to no filmmaking experience, Adobe Voice imagines itself as a useful presentation creation tool for everyone from small business owners to students. Designed to help people make...

Apple reclaimed its spot as the highest ranked tablet manufacturer in J.D. Power's latest U.S. tablet customer satisfaction study. Apple earned a 5-star rating and scored 830 on a 1,000 point scale, edging out Samsung, which scored a second place 822. The survey of 2,513 tablet owners found that Apple led its competitors in four of the five measured categories, including performance, ease of...

Google is updating its Google Maps app today, boosting the app's turn-by-turn direction capabilities. Google Maps will now show drivers which lane to use through its new lane guidance feature and it's also easier to access alternate routes while navigating. While Google Maps has always supported the storage of maps for use offline, there's now a specific "save maps to use offline" option...

A pair of LinkedIn job listings spotted by Nokia Power User is being interpreted as a sign that Nokia's HERE mapping and location services may be returning to iOS, but Nokia's Pino Bonetti points out that the company is simply focused on delivering SDK tools to allow third-party developers to incorporate HERE maps into their apps.Hi guys, just to clarify, a mobile SDK is not an app. We are...

In the wake of its acquisition of prepaid carrier MetroPCS last year, T-Mobile US indicated that adding the iPhone to MetroPCS's lineup was "a possibility" but not an imminent move. A year later, things are looking a bit more positive for MetroPCS customers, with T-Mobile's Mike Sievert telling Re/code the carrier is "very interested" in bringing the iPhone to MetroPCS. “We are very...

As first noted by MacStories, Apple today launched a "Best of April" section in the App Store, rounding up the best new apps, updates and games released within the past month. At the top, the new section highlights the "Best App & Game" with separate picks for both the iPhone and iPad. For the iPhone, Apple selected The New York Times' NYT Now news curation app and physics-based adventure...

Popular note taking app Notability has been named Apple's App of the Week, and as a result, it is available as a free download for the first time since it was released in 2011. Notability allows users to make sketches, take notes, annotate documents, sign contracts, record lectures, and more. It supports input via a finger or stylus and includes palm rejection to make note taking easier. In ...

Apple is expanding its iTunes Match service to Japan, according to a MacRumors tipster and the company's iTunes Match availability website. The service, which costs ¥3,980 per year, allows iTunes users to match their existing iTunes libraries with high quality versions of songs from Apple's iCloud. After matching, content is available in iCloud and can be accessed from any device. iTunes Match ...

Apple today expanded iTunes in the Cloud in Germany, adding access to movies and television shows. As noted by German site iFun.de [Google Translation] German users are now able to download TV shows on their Apple TVs, as well as access previously purchased movie and television content on any of their Apple devices. Prior to today's update, iTunes in the Cloud in Germany was limited to...

Streaming music app Beats Music for iOS was today updated to version 2.0.0, adding compatibility with the iPad. The app, first released in January, was previously limited to the iPhone. The new iPad app includes an interface that has been designed specifically for the tablet's larger screen, incorporating features like Just for You, the Sentence, Find It, My Library, and Offline Mode. Support...

Wifarer CEO and co-founder Philip Stanger has left his position at the company he founded to join Apple in a leadership role, reports TechCrunch. Stanger was hired individually and not as part of a larger acquisition of the Wifarer company. Stanger recently updated his LinkedIn profile to reflect his new job at the Cupertino company, while at the same time, the leadership page detailing the...

Research firm IDC today published its tablet shipments estimates for the first calendar quarter of 2014, with Apple holding onto its lead in tablet market share. According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, the iPad accounts for approximately one third of all global tablets shipped in the first three months of 2014. Worldwide tablet shipments in 1Q14 in millions of units (Source: ...