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

It's no secret that Apple's forthcoming iOS 5 incorporates a lot of new features and ideas that might say the company "borrowed" from third-party developers, but one feature in particular is raising some eyebrows: Wi-Fi Sync. Way back in April 2010, we profiled an app called Wi-Fi Sync that allowed users to sync their iOS devices wirelessly to iTunes. The application was submitted to Apple...

One staple of iOS since its inception has been the Weather app, a simple home screen powered by Yahoo and The Weather Channel that allows users to add locations and see the current conditions as well as a six-day forecast of high/low temperatures and an icon showing the conditions for each day. With iOS 5, Apple has made several minor improvements to the weather functionality, starting of...

One of the major highlights of Apple's iOS 5 discussion at the WWDC keynote was "PC Free" a series of changes designed to make it easier for users to own an iOS device without the need for a Mac or PC for activation, syncing, and other activities. Apple noted during the event that it is increasingly hearing from users who want an iPad or iPhone to be their only Internet-connected device, and...

Quite a few of the 200 new features in iOS 5 are focused on accessibility, to "make it easier for people with mobility, hearing, vision, and cognitive disabilities to get the most from their iOS devices." Apple has long been a front-runner with making their devices easy-to-use for their more challenged users. Buried in the Accessibility settings of iOS 5 is a custom vibration creator....

While it seems most iOS 5 features will work just fine on the iPhone 3GS, the proof is in the pudding. Here's a video from AppleRumors.it (translated), an aptly named Italian Apple blog. They do a side-by-side comparison between the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 and it gives a good sense of the speed differences between the two. It seems 3GS owners (including myself) have nothing to fear...

Reports are coming out that the iOS 5 beta works just fine on the 3GS, which is a relief since just a couple of weeks ago it was rumored that the 3GS wouldn't work at all. According to Apple (emphasis added): iOS 5 will be available as a free software update for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch (fourth generation) and iPod touch (third generation) this fall. Some features may not...

Apple today pushed out an update to its iBooks application for iOS devices [App Store], bringing several improvements including a new "read-aloud" narrator to select children's books. iBooks 1.3 adds several new features and improvements: - Help your children learn to read with the new read-aloud feature included in select children's books from the iBookstore. The read-aloud feature uses a ...

Apple claims over 200 new features coming in iOS 5. One that was listed amongst the slides was a new iPad Music app, and while it was visible and briefly mentioned in during the keynote, some readers may have missed it, so here is a screenshot passed along to us by a...

Some iOS developers are making bank. One of the more visible iOS games over the past year has been Epic Games' Infinity Blade. In a press release today, Epic announced that its revenue from the game had exceeded $10 million in just six months of release. Mark Rein, co-founder of Epic Games: Infinity Blade’s success proves that triple-A gaming experiences can be hugely successful on iOS...

Many readers were perplexed by the lack of an iTunes streaming music service at yesterday's WWDC keynote. Apple instead launched iTunes Match -- a service that allows users to get the same "download anywhere" benefits from songs they have ripped from CD's (or, ahem, *acquired* from other sources) as songs they have purchased from the iTunes Music Store. As All Things Digital's Peter Kafka put...

One of the new iOS 5 features quickly touched on by Apple yesterday in its iOS 5 introduction was AirPlay Mirroring for the iPad 2, enabling users to wirelessly transmit the on-screen content of the device to an Apple TV for display on a television. The iPad 2 currently supports display mirroring via a Digital AV Adapter that provides a wired connection to a TV via HDMI. One of the...

Magellan today released an update to its RoadMate North America and RoadMate USA apps for the iPhone, bringing an overhauled user interface, lifetime traffic and maps, and integration with Yelp and Google Local Search.Magellan today announced a new version of its RoadMate North America App for iPhone is now available on the App Store. With major user interface enhancements designed for mobile...

DigiTimes reports that both OmniVision Technologies and Sony have won orders to supply an 8-megapixel camera sensor for the next-generation iPhone, with Apple's existing supplier OmniVision reportedly set to handle 90% of the load.OmniVision has grabbed a majority of total CMOS image sensor (CIS) orders placed by Apple for the fifth-generation iPhone, market sources have claimed. Meanwhile, power ...

When Steve Jobs told the crowd at Moscone that iTunes In The Cloud would be "available today", lots of iPhone and iPad users were very excited to begin using Automatic Downloads, Purchased Content Listings, iTunes in the Cloud and all the rest. However, one group of users -- those owning a Verizon iPhone, to be precise -- can't participate in the fun, like the losing team at the World Series ...

Apple today announced iMessage, a new messaging service for iOS 5 users called. The service promises unlimited SMS-esque messaging between iOS users on iPod touch devices, iPhones and iPads. iMessages can be text, photos, videos, locations or include contact data. If it sounds like BBM, RIM's BlackBerry Messaging service, that's because, well, it sounds a lot like BBM actually -- and...

Thanks to iCloud, with the introduction of iOS 5 this fall, iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad users no longer need to connect their devices to a Mac or PC in order to use them. Apple is calling the new feature PC Free, and it allows users to activate their devices wirelessly, right out of the box. Future iOS updates can be downloaded over-the-air and iCloud will enable backups of photos, music,...

In the center of the WWDC madness, Taptic Toys was showing off a telepresence robot based around the iPad and Facetime. So, instead of going to the office, you can send your robot in your place. They are using a Mi-Fi device to get around Facetime's Wi-Fi requirement. Seems just to be a prototype, so they are gauging interest for an actual device. ...

Last December, it was revealed that Apple was among the parties interested in bidding on a huge trove of patents from Nortel Networks that had been placed up for auction. While group of over 6,000 patents covers a wide variety of areas, Apple was thought to be primarily interested in those patents related to LTE and other mobile technologies. Competition for the patents has been heating up, ...