iPhone

Government officials in Iran have threatened to ban iPhones from the country, and ‘collect’ existing ones, unless Apple appoints an official representative in the country.

“If Apple will not register an official representative in Iran within the next few days, all iPhones will be collected from the market,” Tasnim News Agency quoted the director of Iran’s anti-smuggling office as having said on Sunday.

The move is said to be aimed at countering the smuggling of smartphones into the country …

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Apple is continuing to emphasise its ‘Shot on iPhone’ campaign, where it features photos and videos taken by ordinary iPhone users, with two new video commercials. One of the ads features a macro close-up clip of an ant carrying a leaf by Tim W. The other is another close-up of a squirrel eating a nut, credited to Linda H.

Watch the two fifteen-second commercials below …

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In this week’s top stories: iPhone 7 leaks, Pokémon GO mania continues, Apple recruits developers for its ‘Planet of the Apps’ reality TV show, and much more.

iPhone 7 |

We kick things off with the latest iPhone 7 reports, including one alleged leak of the device on video, and yet more leaks claiming to show Lightning EarPods as Apple’s ‘AirPods’ trademark surfaces once again.

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Reports from local French newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré (via iPhone.fr) claim Apple has signed contracts to open a new R&D lab in Grenoble, France focusing on imaging technologies.

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The iDevices Socket is an adapter that goes between your lighting fixture and a standard bulb to add Wi-Fi and iPhone app control to any lightbulb. It also adds support for control via Siri voice commands and the iOS 10 Home app through Apple’s HomeKit platform.

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The annual iPhone Photography Awards have recognized the top images taken with an iPhone as well as the top iPhone photographers for the last 9 years, and now this year’s winners have been unveiled. This year, “thousands” of images were submitted from photographers across 139 countries, but the grand price went to Chinese photographer Siyuan Niu for an image he called “Man and the Eagle.”

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SanDisk’s latest iXpand product is a Lightning flash drive in the form of an iPhone case, allowing you to easily have extra storage for your iPhone at all times. And the  iXpand Memory Case has an optional battery pack that attaches magnetically, turning the case into a single solution for both extra storage and battery life.
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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.

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Last year, police departments started speaking out against a wave of gun-shaped iPhone cases that were gaining popularity. If common sense wasn’t enough, police departments warned that using such cases was a “terrible idea” and puts people in danger. Nevertheless, a London man could be facing charges for  having a gun-shaped iPhone cased while at London Stansted Airport this week.

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Apple appears to be slowly rolling out its new voicemail transcription feature to iOS 10 beta users, as the feature just appeared on my iPhone 6s in the last few minutes.

Voicemail transcription is exactly like it sounds: it processes audio from voicemails and displays the message in text form right from within the voicemail interface inside the built-in Phone app. 
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Apple lost share of the Chinese smartphone market with a decline in iPhone sales during May, pushing it to fifth place behind local brands Huawei, Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi. The data comes from Counterpoint Research and was published today by Bloomberg.

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Following several sketchy reports, The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the iPhone 7 will indeed ditch the 16GB tier. For the first time ever, the base iPhone model will come in at 32GB. While this was a move largely expected by users, a set of leaked images earlier this year led some to believe that Apple was sticking to the 16GB base.

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Update: Verizon’s new plans and features are now official.

Verizon is planning an announcement tomorrow and CNET reports that it’s part of a big overhaul of its plans that will see increased data caps come alongside price hikes and other new features. Customers will also reportedly soon get access to unlimited usage through a new feature dubbed ‘Safety Mode’, rollover data options, and more. 

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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 …

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The MLB today announced a deal with Blast Motion that will see it allow teams to use the accessory maker’s Blast Baseball iPhone-connected swing analyzer sensor.

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T-Mobile’s prepaid carrier MetroPCS will begin offering the iPhone for the first time to its customers starting tomorrow, but only in one market: Florida. MetroPCS will carry a range of models including the iPhone 6s Plus as well as the recently discontinued iPhone 5s.

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Apple today has drastically simplified the iPhone trade-in program that allows eligible smartphones to be traded in for credit towards the purchase of a future device. Today’s changes allow customers to use the trade-in credit to help lower the cost of the a new iPhone purchase or to reduce monthly payments made to a carrier.

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A recorded episode of the French TV show On n’est pas Couché (We are not Asleep) was filmed with iPhones after a power outage at the studio took out the TV cameras.

You can watch the video below of the moment when the power went out, together with footage of filming continuing using iPhones …

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In this week’s top stories: Rumored iPhone 7 pricing and the latest leaks, new iOS 10 details, Thunderbolt Display gets discontinued, Mark Zuckerberg’s MacBook security advice and much more.

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