iOS

The first official implementation of BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer technology hits iOS and the Apple TV today, but not in the way you may have expected. OTT News, a small team bringing a different perspective to the election coverage, has launched an app in partnership with BitTorrent to livestream coverage of the New Hampshire primaries and beyond.

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Apple is now deploying its new screen protector program to Apple Stores across the United States and other countries from today. The introduction of the program was first reported by 9to5Mac and rolled out to Japanese Apple Stores last week. The program allows customers to get a Belkin screen protector carefully applied to their iPhone in store. At Apple Stores across America, customers can purchase a Belkin screen protector and have it applied in store by an Apple Store employee. The program supports only Apple’s latest iPhone models in both 4.7 and 5.5 inch variants: the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

The service has been offered in select stores from late last week, but has officially launched today according to Belkin’s website. The main benefit of the service is the assisted application, which prevents bubbles or imperfections from appearing on the screen when the protective cover film is applied …

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Apple today has released the third iOS 9.3 beta to registered developers for testing. The first iOS 9.3 beta introduced at the start of the year introduced new 3D Touch shortcuts on new iPhones, Touch ID-secured Notes, a new Night Shift mode for blue light reduction, and much more. iOS 9.3 beta 2 added a Night Shift toggle in Control Center and other tweaks. We’ll check out the latest beta version of the upcoming release and highlight any changes below.

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Apple today has started selling the View-Master Virtual Reality Starter Pack on its online store. With all the news about the company building out and prototyping virtual reality tech, it’s interesting to see it offering a glimpse at what that future tech may be by selling the device on the online store. Harkening back to the classic ideals of the View-Masters from the past, the new View-Master allows users to go on exciting new adventures. Utilizing a mix of augmented reality and virtual reality, these adventures are now taken to a whole new level. Taking advantage of Experience Packs, users can navigate space, various destinations, and wildlife through a mix of AR and VR.

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Apple has quietly added a server-side API to CloudKit, following an announcement on the developer news blog. This will enable developers to add a lot of functionality to apps powered by CloudKit, enabling developers to interact with the iCloud CloudKit database outside of user interaction with iOS, Mac or web apps. The web service API enables developers to run independent code on servers that can add, delete and modify records in the CloudKit stack.

Until now, interaction with CloudKit has been limited to the APIs Apple provided in apps. Although this was useful, it lacked the options for more advanced use — most modern apps rely on servers to perform tasks whilst users are away. With the addition of the web API, developers can create many more types of applications using CloudKit as the backend. For instance, an RSS reader app can now add new feed items to the CloudKit stack from the server. Before, this action could only occur when a user opened a CloudKit-powered app, which was essentially impractical and meant developers had to use other tools.

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There’s been a lot of conversation this week around the quality of Apple’s software and services, and yesterday’s brief App Store outage certainly didn’t help. It’s true that new services like Apple Music and iCloud Photo Library are improving but aren’t rock solid yet, but there are two things that currently sour the app experience for me.

First, Apple only does a so-so job of implementing new software features from operating system updates into their own apps. It’s too easy to rattle off a dozen examples. Second, major players like Facebook and YouTube don’t have first class apps that showcase new software features either, and this is where customers spend the most amount of time.

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For anyone who knows the pain of having to look for a public notary, you may be interested in the new Notarize app that just hit the App Store today. Users can actually get documents legally notarized conveniently from the iPhone. Here’s how it works:

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Apple has today listed 20 new Flyover locations on its iOS 9 feature availability page, five of them in the USA, the rest overseas. The latest U.S. locations are:

• Columbus, Ohio
• Louisville, Kentucky
• South Bend, Indiana
• Springfield, Missouri
• Tucson, Arizona …

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The team at Bloom Built has today released the latest version of its journaling app Day One. Five since its original debut, with 40 free releases since then, Day One 2 sets the precedent for the direction of the new app. Albeit awkwardly titled, version 2 of Day One includes new overall features for both the iOS and Mac versions. Having been built from the ground up with data reliabilty and security in mind, Day One 2 lays the foundation for exciting new features to come in later versions.

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Apple is currently aiming to unveil the new 4-inch the iPhone 5se, the iPad Air 3, and new Apple Watch band options at an event on Tuesday, March 15th, according to sources. We previously reported that Apple was on track to launch the new products during the week of March 14th. As the scheduled event is still a month-and-a-half away, the date could conceivably still shift or turn into an online announcement. The media event would be Apple’s first since September, and much like the fall event, is planned to touch on three major product categories for the company.

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Today marks the official kick off of Americans deciding who will be the next President of the United States with the Iowa caucuses taking place tonight. So without stepping into partisan territory, I wanted to share a few helpful tips for keeping up with the whole election season using your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

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Apple recently has filed a new document with the Federal Communications Commission in which it argues that Made for iPhone, or MFi, accessories should be acknowledged by the organization as alternatives for hearing aid compatibility compliance. Recently, the FCC has proposed that all phones and consumer wireless devices must be compatible with hearing aids.

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<a href="http://9to5mac.com/2016/01/05/speck-pocket-vr-viewer/" target="_blank">Speck’s VR solution on the iPhone</a>

During this week’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook answered a question on virtual reality by saying “I don’t think VR is a niche…It’s really cool and has some interesting applications.” It looks like Cook’s statements have some background to them. According to a new Financial Times report, Apple had reportedly been prototyping VR headsets in the past under Steve Jobs in the mid-2000s, but the project was eventually abandoned once the technology was found to still be immature. With new acquisitions and a dedicated VR team, the effort is said to be once again a new focus.

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