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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Pokemon GO is now available to users in Germany, the official Pokémon GO Twitter account announced today. A report earlier in the week indicated Pokémon GO would launch in the UK and other parts of Europe in a matter of days: it appears Germany is the first lucky country to be able to officially play the hit mobile game. Find the game in the App Store.
At least in the current beta seed, the iOS 10 lock screen has a bit of a loophole due to the new expanded notification system that developers and public beta users should be aware of. In short: anyone can view and reply to iMessages or text messages from the lock screen without entering the device passcode or authenticating with Touch ID. This security issue persists even while the ‘Reply With Message’ setting is disabled and applies to other apps like Twitter as well.
This means that anyone can reply to messages if you are running the iOS 10 developer or public beta. Occasionally, the phone will correctly ask for passcode input, but in the majority of cases in our testing iOS 10 allowed us to reply freely without fingerprint or passcode. To try this out for yourself, follow the steps after the jump …
According to The Moscow Times, Apple is planning to open a central center for iOS device repair in Russia after a lawsuit argued Apple does not sufficiently supports its products in the country. Dmitry Petrov raised a lawsuit last year that Apple chain stores and service companies were not equipped to deal with screen repair problems, having refused a device replacement or paying for an outside company to perform the repair.
It appears Apple may be working to expand the Dark Mode feature for macOS. Introduced with Yosemite, OS X Dark Mode changes the appearance of just the Dock and menubar to a black translucent style rather than white/silver.
A developer/hacker on Twitter has seemingly found a way to activate a more comprehensive dark appearance for some system apps such as Safari or System Preferences, as pictured. It’s unclear what method or technique the developer is using to activate this and there’s no indication that this headed to public release anytime soon.
Following our clearest look yet at the 4.7 inch phone yesterday, this morning photos of the larger 5.5 inch ‘iPhone 7 Plus’ have purportedly appeared on Weibo. Some sources have described the 5.5 inch model as a separate SKU, an ‘iPhone 7 Pro’ as it were, although whether this will come to pass is unclear. These latest iPhone 7 photos once again show a very similar design to the iPhone 6s Plus … with the interesting addition of a Smart Connector, visible at the bottom of the device on the back side.
There have also been rumors of a flush capacitive Home Button in the cards for iPhone 7. Although the quality of these photos are not very clear, it does appear that the Home Button design has been tweaked. More details after the jump …
Via USA Today, Apple has become the first US company to donate to China aid efforts following the mass flooding and rainfall in the region since June. The natural disaster has affected over 30 million people in 500 cities; 164 people have been killed in the tragedy.
Although a million dollar donation pales in contrast to Apple’s total business, the donation will significantly help relief efforts in China and Apple is the only American company to offer financial support so far. Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the catastrophe on Chinese social media site Weibo.
While I upgrade my iPhone every year, I’ve found that I stick to the same basic set of accessories thanks to their reliability, style or functionality. What to buy in terms of cables and docks is a common question for iPhone users, new and old. Here are my picks for essential iPhone accessories: lightning cables, dock, case and headphones.
These are my recommendations based on what I have bought, used and kept over the years. Are these the only good choices? Of course not. They do have the potential for universal appeal, however. In general, the things I use are relatively inexpensive and focus on practicality, not style, so keep that in mind. Read on for my recommendations for essential must-buy iPhone accessories.
A survey by Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster is trying to get a feel for early demand expectations for Apple’s imminent new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Investors and analysts had worried that meagre design changes for the new models, which largely resemble the iPhone 6s in appearance, would not inspire customers to buy into this cycle. Some analysts are already expecting Apple iPhone sales to decline this year below 2014 levels as worldwide smartphone growth slows.
Pokemon Go has become a smash hit (available for free on the App Store), rallying hundreds of millions of players in just a few short days. Widespread media coverage of the game (and its consequences) has made the Nintendo freemium title somewhat of a phenomenon, continuing to top App Store charts.
This success — likely propelled by pent-up demand for a ‘real’ Pokemon game available on iOS — comes despite the game only launching three regions; the United States, New Zealand Australia. A new report from the Wall Street Journal indicates fans from other countries will not have to wait long for an official launch of Pokemon Go in the UK, Europe and more.
About eight weeks away from the next iPhone debut, widely dubbed the iPhone 7, it seems like we have a pretty clear idea about what to expect: similar design to iPhone 6s, revamped cameras, upgraded internals, removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack. Although it doesn’t show anything we haven’t seen before (via NowhereElse.FR), a new high-quality photo of the iPhone 7 has surfaced that gives us the clearest image yet of what the back device will look like …
Apple is continuing its expansion of its NFC mobile payments service, Apple Pay, today. This time around, Apple Pay has made its way to Switzerland, the second European launch after the United Kingdom. iPhone users in Switzerland can now setup their Visa and MasterCard bank cards in Apple Wallet and start using contactless payments at merchants from today. Apple Pay requires an iPhone with integrated NFC chip: iPhone 6, iPhone 6s or iPhone SE.
Update: Apple has posted an official press release detailing the new organ donor options in iOS 10 Health. Apple will allow users to sign up for organ, eye and tissue donor registry via Donate Life America. The registrations are sent to the National Donate Life Registry — the interface will surface as part of Health’s Medical ID feature.
Apple will promote organ donation with its newest mobile operating system, iOS 10, when it ships in the fall. Via the Associated Press, Apple will include a new simple sign-up button inside the Health app to enable users to register to become an organ donor in a national donor registry. It appears the integrated sign up option will only be available to US iPhone customers, at least at launch.
Tim Cook told the AP that he hopes Apple’s efforts will help improve the availability of organs to those that need them, saying that the problem “hit home when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs endured an excruciating wait for a liver transplant in 2009”.
Apple is bringing some clever intelligence for Siri with iOS 10, in addition to the publicly-announced features like third-party app integration. Thanks to a reader tip, we’ve discovered a clever enhancement for Siri on iPhones and iPads running iOS 10. When using ‘Hey Siri’ voice activation in a room with multiple nearby devices, only one device will respond. For example, with iOS 10 installed, an iPhone 6s is smart enough to stop listening for voice input if an iPad Pro is also listening.
Although both devices initially wake up, once one starts recognizing voice input, it appears to send a message to other nearby devices to cancel out the operation. This means that only one device keeps listening and prevents the naive havoc that happened on iOS 9, where all devices would try to answer the ‘Hey Siri’ question causing a confusing cacophony of sound from every nearby iPhone and iPad. You can see an example of this behavior in the video after the jump …
Spotify has become very vocal in recent weeks about Apple’s business practices for its App Store. Apple recently revamped its subscription policy for iOS developers, offering a 85/15 split if developers keep customers for more than a year, but Spotify is still not happy with proceedings.
In a letter to Washington seen by Recode, the company now says Apple is being anti-competitive by rejecting its latest update to the Spotify app in order to encourage sales of its own $9.99 Apple Music subscriptions. Spotify is making a lot of noise to suggest Apple is using illicit business practices to elevate the success of Apple Music, by crippling Spotify and other third-party services.
Apple is once again celebrating the LGBT Pride parade in San Francisco with employees (including Apple CEO Tim Cook) joining the march earlier today, showing support of human equality and diversity across ethnicities and sexual orientation.
For the first time, Apple is gifting limited edition Pride Apple Watch bands to employees who take part, with rainbow colored nylon strap and red lugs.
More pics after the break …
The latest round of iPhone 7 images, via NowhereElse.fr, once again purportedly show new camera components for Apple’s upcoming flagship phone lineup.
Although the design is expected to largely resemble the iPhone 6s, rumors have shown redesigned antenna lines and new cameras are on the cards for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
According to the latest story by Digitimes, Apple will reportedly be moving away from OLED screen technology for Apple Watch … at the same time as the iPhone 8 (for 2017, iPhone 7 will continue to use LCD) adopts OLED. The supply chain source says Apple is instead developing Micro LED panels for Apple Watch, to debut in late 2017.
72 new emoji will be making their way to iPhone and iPad soon, likely with iOS 10. The Unicode standards body this week ‘released’ the latest round of new emoji characters, including sneezing face, drooling face, ‘selfie’, boxing glove and ‘face palm’. You can see what these will look like in the image above, which is a mockup by Emojipedia of the new emojis in Apple’s graphic style.
The same developer who found the original iOS 10 Dark Mode references in the Messages app, Andy Wiik, has found even more evidence that Apple was/is developing a black appearance for its iPhone and iPad operating system. The latest screenshots show the iOS 10 Simulator presenting the Settings app in a dark interface style, with black cell backgrounds and white text.
The screenshots are captured from the iOS 10 Simulator where it is easier to inject code and discover unfinished flags and behaviour, like this Dark Mode interface style …
A purported image of the front of an iPhone 7 has appeared on the Internet today, via mobipicker.com. Blurry cams and bad photography aside, the picture claims to a major new detail for the upcoming flagship iPhone 7 launch, which is expected to mostly resemble an iPhone 6s in appearance.
The image shows a tweaked Home Button that appears to be flat with the bezel, meaning Apple will drop the physical click in favor of a fully touch-sensitive capacitive Home Button. Noting that the image could quite easily be faked, it does appear to show a button that has no depth …
[UPDATE: Apple’s Back To School program has now launched in China, as well.]
Apple’s 2016 Back to School Beats kicked off in the United States at the beginning of the month and has today expanded internationally across Europe. Students in United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands and more can now take advantage of the summer promotion at Apple Stores in their country as well as online.
Like the US, eligible purchases of certain Macs come with free Beats Solo2 wireless headphones worth $299 at retail. For iPad and iPhone, select iOS device purchases come with free Beats Powerbeats2 wireless headphones, worth $199 at retail.
Alongside various new features (Siri, Auto Unlock, Apple Pay) coming in macOS Sierra, Apple’s next major desktop operating system, it also ships with the brand new version of Safari, Safari 10. Safari 10 introduces a major change in the way the browser handles plugins. In short, proprietary plugins like Adobe Flash will be disabled by default when browsing the web.
This means that websites will serve modern HTML5 representations of content as often as possible as they will not be able to detect an installation of Flash at all. Safari is smart however — it will allow you to enable Flash temporarily on demand …
iOS 10 has a lot of small features dotted around, beyond the headline changes announced on stage yesterday. One of these changes is exclusive to the big 12.9-inch iPad Pro and will no doubt please its user base: Apple has added three-pane views to Notes and Mail to better take advantage of the larger canvas.
This triple split view feature is only available on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and is not offered on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, because it requires a larger display to be useful …
Siri unlocks a new dimension of functionality in iOS 10, allowing third-party apps to integrate inline into the Siri voice assistant experience. Any developer integration expands utility of Siri dramatically but it’s important to note the limitations of the system Apple announced.
For iOS 10.0, the Siri API will only work with six kinds of application: ride booking (think Uber), messaging, Photo Search (find photos and videos in a particular app), payments (‘Send $100 to John with SquareCash’), VoIP Calling (e.g: Skype) and Workouts (for starting health and fitness activities) …