iOS

Dr. Dre joined Apple as part of the Beats acquisition last year. Dre’s contribution to (aside from branding) is questioned by critics but fans of his work will be pleased to know he announced his first new album in fifteen years, entitled Compton A Soundtrack. The album can be preordered on iTunes now ready for release on August 7th.

Dre announced his long-awaited new release on his Beats 1 radio show yesterday with rapper and former colleague, Ice Cube. The album will be exclusive to Apple, available to buy on iTunes or stream on Apple Music.

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Strategy Analytics has issued its latest estimates of global mobile phone shipments, and reports that Apple’s market share climbed from 8.2% in Q2 2014 to 10.9% in the same quarter this year. Apple revealed in its latest quarterly earnings that it saw iPhone sales climb 35% year-on-year to 47M units.

The research firm said that Apple’s dramatic growth in iPhone shipments contrasted strongly with an overall industry growth rate of just 2% … 
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I’m not entirely sure why I’ve been rooting for iOS 9’s upcoming Apple News app to succeed. I’ve been a dedicated Reeder user since it debuted in the App Store, quickly dumped alternatives such as Flipboard and Pulse, and don’t need to change my daily news reading routine. But ever since Apple launched Newsstand in 2011, I’ve been waiting for a truly next-generation iOS news reading experience. Apple hasn’t just missed the boat on this; it actually sank the ship it launched, and lost a lot of talented sailors to rival companies that were developing digital book and magazine apps.

Having paid for Newsstand digital magazine subscriptions, I (like many people) was beyond disappointed when Apple abandoned Newsstand and the publishers who supported it. Newsstand was a great first step, and had the potential to become much better. Today, it seems obvious that Apple was hoping to coax Newsstand publishers over to its new app Apple News, but after testing iOS 9, I don’t think News is ready to replace Newsstand. Moreover, unless something major changes over the next few months, I’d be very surprised to see News succeed where Newsstand failed.

Whether it’s Apple or someone else (say, Amazon’s Kindle division), I’d like to see a bold company take the next big step and unify published content — at least traditional newspapers and magazines, and probably also traditional books and Internet-based publications — into a single Reading app with the best features of News, Newsstand, and iBooks. Below, I’ll explain why this would be a great next move for publishers, consumers, and Apple itself…

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Famed designer Surenix and developer Kyle Howells have teamed up to create a new iOS task switcher/Control Center replacement called Alympus, which combines a full screen of toggles with a new music controller and a customizable grid layout for running apps.

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Summer for T-Mobile this year has meant announcing a series of promotions and plans dubbed #UncarrierAmped. Today, the company launched the latest, and last of these moves. This time it’s all about Apple. John Legere announced in a blog post that the company is adding Apple Music to its Music Freedom free music streaming service and is going to offer this year’s — as yet unreleased — iPhone to anyone buying an iPhone 6 over the next couple of months.
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Following the launch of Apple Pay in the UK two weeks ago, Apple is continuing the rollout with the addition of two major banks, HSBC and First Direct. Customers who have credit cards or debit cards with those banks can start using Apple Pay now. As with other UK Apple Pay transactions, there is a £20 transaction limit at most retailers apart from those with upgraded payment terminals that support higher-value contactless purchases. The £20 limit is getting raised to £30 in September.

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When CarPlay was debuted in March of 2014, a variety of automobile manufacturers signed on to support Apple’s in-car offering. One of those launch partners was Honda and despite the manufacturer having promised to support the platform from the beginning, it has yet to release any car model with support for CarPlay. Today, however, Honda announced at an event in Silicon Valley that it will begin shipping cars with support for CarPlay in 2016.

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Apple today has launched a new page on the App Store dedicated to showcasing apps that take advantage of the Accessibility features on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Apple says that the section is meant to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Accessibility featured page on the App Store is further broken down into sections for Vision, Hearing, Speech, Learning and Literacy, and Physical and Motor Skill.

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IDC has just released its smartphone market share data for Q2 2015, and at least one thing is clear: Samsung is still struggling, and Apple is still doing really well. The Korean company’s smartphone market share dropped from 24.8% to 21.7% year-over-year, a 3.1 percentage point drop. Conveniently, while other manufacturers made gains as well, Apple’s numbers are up about the same number — 2.4 percentage points year-over-year to 14.1%…
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Apple is today launching its Back to School promotion for 2015. This year, it will give away a free pair of Beats Solo2 headphones with the purchase of an eligible Mac.  Customers must either purchase an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac Pro with education pricing to qualify, including build-to-order configurations. The Mac mini does not participate in the deal.

Alternatively, customers can upgrade for an additional $100 to a pair of wireless Beats Solo2 headphones, rather than the usual $299 price. The announcement is not yet being advertised on Apple.com apart from a small mention on its rebates page. It is surprising that there appears to be no Back to School promotion for iPads this year, despite Apple pushing the tablet into education markets.

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An example of current Apple Watch stands that must utilize Apple’s official Watch charging cable.

Apple will soon let manufacturers in its Made for iPhone/iPad/iPod (MFi) licensing program include charging pads for the Apple Watch directly in their accessories, according to sources. Currently, dock makers can only offer charging by making unsightly openings in their docks for Apple’s official charger to sit, forcing users to bring their own cable and install it, and compromising an ideal design and user experience in the process. By making charging modules available to manufacturers to use, however, customers will be able to buy docks and stands with integrated chargers without needing to use their own.

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Roughly two weeks after the initial release, Apple has pushed out an update to users testing the iOS 9 public beta on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The latest public beta release follows the earlier release of iOS 9 beta 4 for registered developers developing for the upcoming operating system update. iOS 9 is set to be completed and shipped to all users later this fall. iOS 9 public beta 2 mirror’s yesterday’s iOS 9 beta 4 release.
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Microsoft has today launched Send, an experimental iPhone app that offers a kind of cross between email and instant messaging. Microsoft says that it is designed for “brief, snappy communications” where you want an instant response but also want to retain a record of what was said within Outlook. The app was previously leaked as Flow by Outlook.

While tools like text messaging and IM are great for short messages, you often don’t have your co-worker’s cell phone number or an IM app on your work phone. And we’ve heard loud and clear from people at work, they want all their communications available in Outlook—even if they send them from other apps. This is where Send comes in! Send gives you the simple, quick text message-like experience while allowing you to reach all co-workers and have all of your communications in Outlook for reference later.

Tellingly, Microsoft is launching first for iPhone – ahead of not just Android, but also its own Windows Phone platform … 
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via Ryan Orbuch

In a move that will certainly please iOS developers, Apple has finally disabled the ability to write app reviews on the latest beta version of iOS 9. When attempting to review applications in the store, beta users will now be met with a message informing them that the feature is unavailable. The change was spotted by several Twitter users earlier this evening.

App makers have long been put off by low reviews from users experiencing problems related to unsupported versions of the mobile operating system, which often hurt an app’s overall ratings and possibly affected their downloads as potential buyers took note of the negative feedback without knowing the full context.

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