While the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus aren’t supposed to start arriving to pre-order customers until this Friday, at least one lucky AT&T customer got a surprise today. A Twitter user by the name of @MoonshineDesign based in San Diego today received her iPhone 6s in the new Rose Gold color variant. According to her tweets, she ordered the device through AT&T.
Google today has released a major update to its Wallet app on iOS, completely redesigning and repurposing it. Similar to an update released to the Android version of the app earlier this year, the update gives the app a focus on sending money between users, rather than paying for goods from merchants.
Apple’s annual Apple Music Festival is taking place at the Roundhouse in London this week and this year, the company is going a step further in its activities at the venue. As announced in tweet by Apple’s VP of Environment Lisa Jackson, the company is giving the Roundhouse an “environmental makeover.”
In addition the release of watchOS 2 earlier today, Apple this evening has released iAd Producer 5.1, its advertisement development environment. The update comes a little over a year after the initial release of iAd Producer 5.0 last September. Today’s update is more minor than the release of iAd 5.0 was, which saw the addition of support for creating iTunes Radio ads on Mac and Windows.
iAd 5.1 comes in at 248MB and can be downloaded for free via Apple’s developer website or via the Mac App Store. The only change Apple lists is a fix for an issue where part of an ad could be displayed in the wrong orientation. There are likely some other minor bug fixes and performance improvements, as well.
Earlier this summer, a former Apple employee detailed an interesting use case for iAd Producer, explaining how it can be used to prototype iOS and Mac apps prior to development.
iAd Producer is available via Apple’s developer website now.
Ahead of the official launch on Friday, Apple has now sold out out of all iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus on Apple.com in the US and worldwide, twelve launch countries in total. The earliest delivery quote you can now get for a new iPhone is September 29th. The iPhone 6S Plus has been sold out for about a week now and now the 6s has followed suit, four days ahead of release.
Apple has released a public beta version of the upcoming OS X 10.11.1 update. The OS was first seeded to developers last week and includes a variety of new emoji icons, such as an eye roll and a taco. The popular middle finger emoji is also included.
How does the upgraded camera on the iPhone 6s Plus perform under real-world conditions? Today we get our best look yet thanks to a photo gallery of a recent MLB game shot by photographer Brad Mangin for Sports Illustrated.
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Apple has reportedly hit the gas on its plans to launch an electric car and added another 1,200 employees to the development team, according to the Wall Street Journal. The team working on the electric vehicle has now tripled in size. The reason behind the push? Apple wants to finalize the project in 2019, a full year ahead of the originally-reported 2020 production date.
Like iPhone 6s, the iPhone 6s Plus will also have a smaller battery than its predecessor. Chinese website Apple.Club.TW has obtained photos of the iPhone 6s Plus battery that clearly show a capacity of 2750 mAH (milliampere hour). This is compared to 2915 mAH battery in the iPhone 6 Plus, about a 5% reduction. This mirrors the already-known battery capacity reduction in the 4.7 inch iPhone 6s, which has a 1715 mAH battery. This is also 5% smaller than the 1810 mAH battery in the iPhone 6.
Apple’s new iPad mini 4 was slightly overshadowed by its new plus-size iPad Pro during the unveiling earlier this month, but today DisplayMate gives us its usual in-depth analysis of the device’s new display for those considering making the purchase.
While the standout feature of the new iPad mini 4 was upgraded processing power to match the iPad Air 2, the display, as noted by DisplayMate, in many ways beats out the iPad Air 2 and makes for one of Apple’s best tablet displays yet.
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After slightly missing the originally announced release date due to a last-minute bug, the watchOS 2 software update is now available for downloading through iOS 9’s Watch app and installing on your Apple Watch.
watchOS 2 comes just six months after the Apple Watch officially launched, and what Apple is labeling as a full successor to watchOS 1 feels a lot like a more polished version of what it likely had in mind from the start. It incorporates a few features first shown off last September and even includes fixes for a few common complaints over the original software.
The big story with watchOS 2 is support for native apps, which launch quicker and have more access to hardware, but there’s several small changes within the update worth discussing as well. Let’s explore:
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Apple first showed off the next-generation software for its smartwatch earlier this year, revealing that it would allow the wearable devices to run native applications directly on the watch, vastly improving performance and allowing apps to interact with the watch hardware in new ways.
Following a significant delay due to a critical bug, watchOS 2 is out now and can be downloaded for all Apple Watches through the companion app on the iPhone. The update seems to have an new build number, indicating that, like iOS 9, it was updated after the GM build was seeded to fix whatever issue held up release.
While a lot of the new watchOS 2.0 update will be familiar, there are some new features throughout the update that will help make your life with the Apple Watch even easier. Check out the video below from 9to5’s Dom Esposito for a rundown of some of the best new additions.
Last week, Apple filed a trademark request for an updated HomeKit logo under a Delaware Corporation known as iGuide LLC. The registering representative Stephen Brown has known ties to Apple, as first noted by Conosomac.fr. This particular house-themed logo differs substantially from the logo used on Apple’s HomeKit development pages and within the iOS 9 settings panels. Here’s the current logo for comparison:
The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus won’t hit shelves until 8 am Friday morning, but Apple Stores have already been offering both leather and silicone cases from Apple’s new collection.
If you stop by a retail store to buy one of the new color options for your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus or for your new model coming on Friday, you’ll notice a new approach to packaging the official iPhone cases.
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Today we’re taking the first really deep look at Apple’s fourth-generation Apple TV, which will hit stores next month. In our exclusive video, we explore the upgraded hardware, the Siri Remote, and dig down into tvOS, the new UI that brings the entire experience to life.
Are there surprises? Oh yes. The new Apple TV actually supports Bluetooth headphones and Bluetooth speakers, a special Night Mode, and radically improved accessibility options inspired by iOS. You can learn about all of the great new features below…
A developer who won two Apple TV 4 development kits on both developer accounts is ebaying one of them, claiming in the ad that a loophole allows them to do so despite Apple’s no-resale clause. The auction has a starting bid of $300, well above the $149/199 retail price when it goes on official sale next month.
It is against the policies of Apple to resell this unit “while it is running Apple pre-release software” according to the terms of service but good news! This unit ships without any OS installed on it. You can just download the firmware update from the developer portal and restore it with iTunes when you get it.
Apple made the kits available to developers by lottery, with winners notified a week ago. Developers paid a token of $1, and are of course meant to use the boxes to create Apple TV apps..
The seller, based in Houston, Texas, says that if the buyer doesn’t have a developer account, they can be directed to a download source after the auction. As with almost all of his or her recent eBay sales, the auction is listed as Private, meaning that neither the buyer nor details of what was sold can be seen once the auction ends.
You can find full details of what Apple announced about the new Apple TV, which came as no surprise after our earlier exclusive reporting.
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Apple has confirmed launch details for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus — unsurprisingly the new phones go on sale Friday at 8 AM. Apple says that customer response to the iPhone 6s has been “incredibly positive” although the company is yet to release concrete preorder figures.
Apple also announced that iOS 9 has the fastest rate of adoption of any previous iOS release, with 50% of devices already using iOS 9, which was released last Wednesday.
Sprint has officially confirmed our report last week that it will start selling the Apple Watch from its retail locations as of the arrival of the iPhone 6s/Plus on Friday. The confirmation is in an Apple Watch tab on its iPhone 6s pre-order page.
We’re expecting the Watch to go on sale at other carriers, and it seems a near-certainty that all the major carriers will begin selling it on the same day. T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeted that his company will be selling the Apple Watch, though without naming the date.
Apple has been gradually rolling out sales of the Watch to other retailers, including Best Buy, department stores and computer stores.
If all your Skype contacts are showing as offline, it’s not that your friends have deserted you – Microsoft says there is “an issue with the status settings” for many users and it is working on a fix.
While the problem persists, you’ll be unable to make Skype calls to contacts shown as offline. If you are not logged in to Skype, you may be unable to sign in. Microsoft says it is doing all it can to resolve the problem.
The iOS app got a redesign earlier this month.
Shortly after Apple launched its iPhone Upgrade Program, Forbes reports that Samsung is planning to launch a similar finance plan for its Galaxy smartphones.
Samsung may be launching this leasing program in the next several months, although that timeline may accelerate, the executive said.
Carriers have been moving away from so-called subsidized contracts, where the cost of a new smartphone is hidden in the monthly service plan fee and the cost of a new device appeared to be anything from free to $200. With true purchase costs now much more visible, manufacturers have a strong incentive to offer attractive financing in order to encourage regular upgrades.
Samsung, though, has a stronger motivation than Apple. While Apple has been enjoying record iPhone sales, Samsung has been struggling to compete with both Apple and Chinese Android handsets – its smartphone business seeing a 37.5% drop in operating income in Q2 and the company reportedly planning to lay off 10% of its workforce.
While the terms of Samsung’s financing are not known, it’s likely the company will adopt a similar approach to Apple, where you pay off the cost of the phone over two years but can upgrade to a new model every year. Apple’s plans start at $32/month.
Update 1: The list of apps has now been updated with apps identified by Dutch security company Fox-IT. The company is reporting seeing malware traffic from the apps in Europe.
Update 2: Rovio has advised that only the version of Angry Birds 2 in the Chinese App Store was affected.
I wish to clarify that Rovio can confirm that only the Chinese build of Angry Birds 2 — available only on the App Store in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau — is vulnerable to the security issue. All other builds of Angry Birds 2 available in other countries are completely safe and secure. An update of Angry Birds 2 for customers in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau that fixes the issue is coming very shortly.
After yesterday’s revelation that hundreds of iOS apps on the App Store had been infected by malware, security company Palo Alto Networks has posted a list of some of the affected apps – which include Angry Birds 2.
The apps were infected by a fake copy of Xcode dubbed XcodeGhost, unwittingly downloaded by Chinese developers in place of the real thing. It’s believed they downloaded the fake from local servers because it took too long to download the original from Apple’s own servers. It’s not yet known why Apple’s own checks did not detect the malware when apps were submitted to the App Store.
It’s been suggested that over 300 apps are infected, with 31 of them so far identified (list below) …
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