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 yearly Final Cut Pro X summit starts tomorrow. Whilst the conference is technically run by an external group, it is one of the few third-party events that Apple actively participates in.
Apple TV+ launched on Friday to much fanfare in the tech community but it’s still unclear how many people Apple managed to attract to watch its debut slate of shows.
A report from Parrot Analytics predicts interest in Apple’s premiere content is far behind the top shows on Netflix, at least right now. Separately, a report from Reuters indicates that Showtime is in talks with Apple about a possible bundle deal.
The Apple TV app launched on the Amazon Fire TV Stick recently, and is coming to other Amazon Fire TV devices soon. However, users are hitting a very common roadblock when trying to set up and sign in to the TV app on their Fire Stick. Here’s the fix …
The Apple TV+ debut is a mixed affair. It may only have a handful of shows right now, but people seem to be enjoying them (even if most critics didn’t). I know I am anxiously looking forward to Friday for the next episode of The Morning Show and For All Mankind.
However, Apple TV+ content is only available through the TV app. And the TV app is pretty bad, mediocre at best…
Whatever you think of the material on offer, you can’t really deny that Apple TV+ shows look amazing. With most TV+ content offering 4K HDR video and Dolby Atmos sound, Apple is flexing its CDN muscles with its new streaming service.
Thousands of Twitter users aired their frustration over the weekend thanks to a new update to the official Twitter for iPhone app… and specifically its new tendency to auto-refresh the timeline randomly.
Whilst auto-refresh would be a good feature in theory, the current implementation causes the refresh to happen at inconvenient times, like right in the middle of reading a tweet. The timeline zooms back up to the top and the user loses track of what they were reading…
With the launch of Apple TV+ on Friday, Apple debuted its most ambitious free giveaway promotion in a long time: a free year of TV+ with the purchase of an iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, or iPod touch since September 10. However, the rollout of the promotion has not gone smoothly for everyone.
According to the ever-questionable Digitimes, Apple is partnering with Valve on an AR headset product that would launch in the second half of 2020.
Apple today announced that it is launching a scheme worth $2.5 billion to address the housing crisis in California. Apple wants to tackle the issue of skyrocketing house prices in its home state.
Apple’s commitment includes $1 billion in affordable housing investments, $1 billion in mortgage assistance for first-time buyers, and $300 million worth of Apple land opened up to affordable housing projects.
On iOS, all apps must go through the App Store. On macOS, the Mac App Store is just one method of distribution and developers are free to publish their apps independently on their own website. This means app rejection policies on macOS are not as painful as with iPhone or iPad, but they are nevertheless significant.
Developers are reporting that apps made using Electron (which is a framework that allows companies to ship web apps in a native app wrapper) are now being rejected by the automated Mac App Store review process.
After months of waiting, Apple’s TV streaming service Apple TV+ is now live. You can start watching on any platform that offers the Apple TV app, from iPhone to iPad to Apple TV and support non-Apple devices, as well as on the web at tv.apple.com.
Apple’s TV offering provides no back catalog of content, instead focusing on exclusive originals. Apple is launching with a library of nine titles, with a couple more announced to release over the next few weeks. Apple TV+ costs $4.99 per month, or $49.99 per year. However, many users will be able to take advantage of Apple’s promotional deal to get one year for free…
With the AirPods Pro now available, iFixit has got its hands on a pair and done its usual teardown of Apple’s latest hardware.
Interestingly, rather than the skinny-but-long battery in normal AirPods, the AirPods Pro use a button cell. iFixit could not determine the exact capacity of the buds, but it could see the capacity of the AirPods Pro case. The case battery has increased significantly from 1.52 Wh to 1.98 Wh. Apple still rates the AirPods Pro for the same five hours of listening time, or 4.5 hours with active noise cancellation or transparency mode enabled.
Apple updated its Activity Challenge servers today in preparation for its next Apple Watch challenge (via Kyle Seth Gray).
Apple Watch owners will be able to earn the 2019 Veterans Day badge by doing a workout of 11 minutes or more on Veterans Day: Monday, November 11th.
In a surprise announcement, Apple has announced its first bundle deal for Apple TV+. For subscribers to Apple Music on the student plan, $4.99 per month, Apple will giveaway Apple TV+ at no additional charge.
The news was announced on Hailee Steinfeld’s Instagram page, who stars in Dickinson. Apple TV+ launches this Friday.
In a new interview with Variety, Apple’s head of worldwide video programming Zac van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht discuss the Apple TV+ streaming service ahead of its November 1 launch.
The execs say that Apple TV+’s first year of programming is bigger than they thought it would be, with at least one new TV show or movie every month. They tease that the investment is only ramping up, with even higher total number of originals in the second year.
According to a new report by Bloomberg, Apple is investing heavily in its smart home division in an attempt to grow the company’s presence in the smart home market.
Whilst HomeKit has grown significantly in the last few years, it trails Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa platforms in terms of the sheer number of compatible devices. The company is apparently looking at ways to encourage more manufacturers to make HomeKit accessories, and may even release smart home accessories of its own, following the HomePod’s muted reception.
As iPhone 11 season continues, rumors begin to pick up about what is in store for the 2020 iPhone. Many are expecting significant design changes after three years of the same iPhone X series chassis (perhaps with a more squared off design reminiscent of the iPhone 4).
The Chinese version of a new Digitimes report claims that next year’s iPhone will feature a 120Hz screen like the ProMotion iPad Pros, except the iPhone will be a high refresh rate OLED panel whereas the iPad is LCD. All iPhones to date include 60Hz displays.
You may remember that, back in July, Apple released rare bug-fix updates for older versions of its operating system: iOS 10.3.4 and iOS 9.3.6. This was necessary to help keep older iPhones and iPads maintain accurate location functionality as the GPS network goes through a time rollover transition.
However, the problem is even more serious for iPhone 5. Apple is sending out alerts to iPhone 5 owners that their phones must be updated to iOS 10.3.4 before November 3. If the iPhone 5 is not updated in time, it will be unable to connect to the internet entirely, including web browsing in Safari, email, iCloud and App Store services.
The rumours around new AirPods continue to build. A Chinese report today from Economic Daily News indicates that Apple will sell the ‘AirPods Pro’ in multiple colors, like black, white and midnight green. This would be significant as obviously the current AirPods only come in white.
Before Apple TV+ was official, there were a lot of rumors and reporting that Apple was strictly focusing on ‘family-friendly’ content and telling producers to avoid adult scenes depicting sex and violence.
As reported by Sigmund Judge of Screentimes.net, who attended a screening of the first episode, Apple TV+’s premier show ‘SEE’ does not shy away from depicting adult themes in any way, and the events of the episode make a big statement that the rumors were simply incorrect.
Smart home accessory maker Netatmo today announced that its Weather Station now supports Apple HomeKit. With a firmware update, owners of the Weather Station since the 2016 model revision will be able to start interacting with their sensors in the Apple Home app and with Siri voice commands through the HomeKit integration.
The Weather Station exposes the following data to HomeKit: indoor and outdoor humidity, temperature, indoor CO2 level, and indoor air quality. If you have additional beacon modules for other rooms, that info will also be part of the HomeKit home.
Apple is set to introduce major new augmented reality initiatives next year with new 3D rear sensors for the iPhone and the likely debut of Apple’s long-rumored AR headset product.
Bloomberg says Apple has “targeted” to launch the headset in 2020, featuring holographic displays in the lenses. The exact form factor and use cases for the headset is still unclear. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said that Apple would release an AR headset in mid-2020 with a “third-party brand collaboration.”
WIRED released a lengthy report today covering Apple’s ambitions for its Apple TV+ streaming service, which launches on November 1st. The profile includes imagery of sets from one of Apple’s premier shows, ‘For All Mankind’, and an interview with Apple TV+ exec Zack van Amburg, who leads Apple’s video programming division alongside Jamie Erlicht. Amburg and Erlicht were hired away from Sony in June 2017.
In the interview, Amburg says that Apple is “defining our programming by quality”, rather than looking for content to fill demographics like ‘males aged 18 to 34’. Like its array of products, Apple is being selective and targeting quality over quantity.
The TV app is a critical part of the Apple TV experience. In fact, it even has its own physical button on the Siri Remote (by default). Apple uses the TV app as the vehicle to unify content from installed third-party video apps, Apple TV Channels, iTunes purchases, and (soon) Apple TV+ TV shows and movies.
However, we have received a handful of reports of people who are currently unable to use the TV app. The TV app simply crashes as the user browses around, usually on the first swipe down in the Watch Now tab. This issue seems to be linked to the latest tvOS 13 update, which introduced a partial TV app redesign.