Follow Benjamin on Threads to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
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The simple podcast platform Anchor today launched an iPad version of its iOS app, which lets users record, edit and publish a podcast from inside one application. You can use the hardware mic or plug in external accessories for better quality. On iPad, Anchor app supports iOS 11 Drag and Drop features to bring audio snippets straight into the library.
A report from supply chain sources, via Korean language publication The Bell, suggests that the largest of Apple’s 2018 iPhone lineup will be the most popular. Apple is set to announce an ‘iPhone X Plus’, or whatever Apple ends up branding it, with a 6.46-inch OLED screen, packing a ~6.5-inch screen into roughly the same size as the existing 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus. Just like with the iPhone X, the Plus’ forehead and chin will be dramatically reduced enabling Apple to fit a much larger display into a phone about the same size as the current Plus models.
The Bell report says Apple has ordered more screen panels for the X Plus than any other model. It forecasts 45 million 6.46-inch panels, about 25 million panels for the 5.8-inch iPhone X successor, and 30 million 6.04-inch LCD screens for the new lower-priced flagship.
The HomePod today launches in three new regions, bringing Apple’s smart speaker to Canada, France and Germany. The smart speaker offers leading sound quality for its size class, with native Siri voice control for Apple Music ($9.99 per month) and smart assistant tasks like controlling HomeKit accessories, checking the weather and more.
HomePod understands French and German languages, alongside the new country rollouts. Apple will be adding support for Canadian French later this year.
Apple has updated the Apple Online Store portal for tracking your orders with a fresh new look, befitting the more modern iOS and macOS aesthetics with bold fonts and large photos. Recently purchased products are now illustrated with large product imagery, and you can click through to a much cleaner details view than what they had before.
Apple Maps has been down for many hours today, causing mayhem for customers seemingly worldwide. Whilst Apple’s system status reports no issues, users across Twitter and Apple Support forums are finding that is currently impossible to search for locations or get directions. The map tiles appear to be loading normally, but points of interest and critical functions of the app are simply not working.
Update: Apple has now confirmed the issue on its support site, noting that ‘all users are affected’ by maps navigation and search issues.
Update 2: As of 1:20 pm ET, service has been restored.
Intel is now making its next-generation modems, the XMM 7560, which will be used in the 2018 iPhone lineup. The modem represents a milestone for Intel in a couple of ways; it is the first chip to be manufactured solely in-house and it is Intel’s first chip to support CDMA and GSM. In previous years, Intel outsourced manufacturing to TSMC and all CDMA iPhones (e.g. Verizon and Sprint models) had to use Qualcomm chips as the Intel modem could not support CDMA.
Apple’s original plan for the 2018 iPhones, via Nikkei, was for Intel to have exclusivity on modem orders for the first time — amidst its legal disputes with Qualcomm. However, this is apparently not going to happen this year because Intel has faced some as-yet-unresolved quality issues as it ramps production.
Apple is expected to transition its iOS devices to USB-C connectivity later this year, by shipping a Lightning -> USB-C cable and a new 18W charger, previously rendered here. This will move new iPhone buyers over to using USB-C for charging with a cable. It will also mean that customers can take advantage of Type-C fast charging without needing to buy additional accessories.
Next year, Digitimes reports that Apple will add USB-C ports to the iPhone itself. This would be a major shift for the product line and would presumably be the beginning of the end for Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector.
Apple stock is taking a hit in pre-market off a report from Nikkei that Apple’s orders for new iPhones are down about 20% compared to last year.
The report claims that iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X orders topped 100 million. This year, orders for the new 5.8-inch iPhone X successor, 6.5-inch ‘iPhone X Plus’ and cheaper 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, are in the 80 million range according to this report.
The Apple Maps app didn’t get any major changes in iOS 12, but the MapKit team announced at WWDC that they are officially launching MapKit as a web framework for others to use. Google Maps is incredibly popular as an embedded map for other web services, and now Apple is trying to take a slice of that pie. MapKit JS is the same map component that Apple uses in many of its web properties, including Find My iPhone on iCloud.com, and the WWDC 2018 site.
The Apple MapKit JS library is launching in beta this week. It mirrors the MapKit API available to native iOS apps, with Apple Maps iconic cartography and data sources.
iOS 12 doesn’t change the Battery Health screen that was the answer to the performance throttling furore of late 2017, a screen that is still marked as ‘Beta’ even on iOS 12, but it does bring some new detailed charts to the main Battery view. As well as screen on and standby usage, you can now see how quickly the battery level depleted during the day. The charts are interactive so you can drill down further …
watchOS 5 includes a fantastic new time saver, that for some reason Apple opted not to mention in the keynote.
You can now access Notification Center and Control Center panes from anywhere in the watchOS interface. On previous versions of watchOS, you always had to swipe from the clock face; swipe from the top to open notifications, swipe from the bottom and access the system toggles and control shortcuts.
With watchOS 5, you can access both of these screens from inside any Watch app. You can still swipe up or down from the watch face like normal, but to avoid conflicts with in-app navigation, the gesture to reveal Notification Center and Control Center has an extra necessary step. Here’s how …
One of the key features for iOS 12 is performance. Apple said it has paid particular attention to its older devices, which is good news as iOS 12 runs on every iPhone and iPad that could run iOS 11. iOS 11 gained a reputation for being buggy and sluggish, and the scuttlebutt over Apple ‘slowing down’ people’s iPhones from #BatteryGate didn’t help that public perception.
Apple is looking to tackle that head on in iOS 12 with performance gains system-wide, with quicker app launches, snappier scrolling and more. We are already seeing iOS speed test videos flood the web, with promising results …
Apple is adding a few new gestures to iPad on iOS 12, that mirror how users navigate on the iPhone X. iPad users can now swipe up to the home screen and open Control Center with similar gestures to how the iPhone X works (and the 2018 notch-screen iPhone lineup coming later this year.)
It’s also worth pointing out that the time in the status bar on iPad has been moved to the left side of the screen. Both of these changes hit at a bezel-less iPad with a notch coming later this year …
Apple today announced its plan to bring UIKit to the Mac. This is a multi-year project. Apple is testing the new cross-platform frameworks with its own stock apps in macOS Mojave. It will be available to third-party developers in 2019.
Apple is extending the iOS interface frameworks to work well on the Mac windowing system. It specifically said that it will not be merging iOS and macOS.
Apple is adding four new stock apps to the Mac with macOS Mojave; Apple News, Stocks, Home and Voice Memos. Each of the apps looks an awful lot like the iOS counterpart … with a sidebar.
The new apps include the features that Apple adds in iOS 12, like News inside Stocks. Adding the Home app means Mac users can finally control HomeKit accessories without needing to grab an iOS device.
Apple has just announced watchOS 5, with new features for health and fitness and better ways to stay connected. You can now set 7 day Activity Challenges with friends and earn custom achievement medals. Apple has added support for yoga and hiking in the Workout app as well as a method to automatically detect what workout you are doing without you having to initiate it …
Apple is also introducing a new Walkie-Talkie app that works on WiFi or LTE, support for Podcasts streaming, rich HTML email content, a customizable Control Center, and more …
Apple is looking to tighten its hold over the supply of parts that manufacturers use for its products, according to a new report from Digitimes citing supply chain sources. Right now, ‘non-key’ components like screws are sourced autonomously by third-party partners with Apple approving supplier lists and quality assurance at the end. The new report says Apple will directly set pricing and order volumes of downstream parts, in a move that gives Apple even more control over how its products are made and will likely squeeze the profitability of supply chain partners.
The news was reportedly disseminated to some of Apple’s Taiwanese manufacturers in May. The new policy is expected to come into effect later this year with Apple’s forthcoming MacBook updates.
The Apple Music service has always provided an online tool to generate widgets, that can be used by artists to promote their music on their own websites and blogs. An eagle-eyed Reddit user has spotted that this widget has recently received an interface upgrade … and the ability to log in to your Apple Music account. Once signed in, you can play full songs, albums and playlists from within the web browser, no longer limited to just 30-90 second previews …
Developer Steve Troughton Smith today tweeted photos of macOS 10.14 with some very juicy details about Apple’s upcoming operating system. The OS is very clearly sporting a fresh new dark theme, presumably a toggle-able setting, with the dark UI affecting all application chrome. You can also see an icon for a Mac News app in the Dock, as well as a first look at Xcode 10.
Smith explains that the API the Mac App Store uses behind-the-scenes is including a video preview for Xcode, something that the current Mac App Store does not support. It represents a pretty big leak on Apple’s part ahead of Monday’s keynote. Video of macOS 10.14 in action below:
Apple is featuring apps from WWDC 2018 scholarship winners in a special editorial piece in the Today tab of the iOS 11 App Store. It’s a cool gesture that gives some exposure to apps from upcoming developers. The feature highlights scholarship winners from various regions, with a list of names and links to their apps already on the App Store.
There are usually a couple hundred scholarship places given out at each WWDC, and this list only includes about twenty names. It’s not clear how Apple chose which individuals made the list. The feature will be rolling out to the App Store front page, worldwide, from tomorrow (June 2nd).
It has been well documented by the rumor mill that Apple is launching three new iPhones this year, replacing the iPhone X with an updated 5.8-inch OLED model, a brand new 6.1-inch LCD iPhone to replace the iPhone 8, and a 6.5-inch ‘iPhone X Plus’ model.
These new renders depict the 6.1-inch iPhone, which is expected to look a lot like an iPhone X in industrial design but come in at significantly lower price points. More photos after the jump …
The Pixelmator Team has today released the latest update of its Pixelmator Pro app for Mac. Version 1.1 brings a lot of new features, and a plethora of smaller enhancements and bug fixes.
The photo-editing app now features rich integration with the Touch Bar, a suite of new web export options, machine-learning color adjustments, slicing, SVG vector image editing and many smaller changes.
As expected, the Apple Events app has now been updated so Apple TV owners can easily tune into the WWDC keynote announcements. For tvOS devices, the fourth- and fifth-generation Apple TV, you need to download/update the Apple Events from the App Store. Users of older Apple TVs will notice the Apple Events channel shows up automatically.
Apple is today releasing iOS 11.4, which finally includes AirPlay 2. This will bring multi-room and stereo pairing to the HomePod and Apple TV, calendar personal requests to HomePod Siri, alongside many other features.
The HomePod will also be debuting in several new countries next month; HomePod launches in Canada, France, and Germany on June 18 (via Buzzfeed).
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