Apple has apparently hit the delete button on a proposed rifle emoji that was previously accepted. Unicode, the group behind the character standard, ultimately decided to pull the rifle character from the next emoji set in Unicode 9. Buzzfeed reports, however, that Apple (which has voting rights within the group) largely led the opposition to the rifle emoji:
If there’s one thing guaranteed to eat your data plan’s allowance at an alarming rate, it’s streaming video. T-Mobile has been gradually adding more services to its Binge On program – which allows customers to stream lower-quality video from specific services without using up any of their data – and Re/code reports that Facebook video may be next in line.
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 …
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 …
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) …
Nomad already makes some of the most versatile and practical accessories for Apple hardware, and now the California company is teaming up with Chicago’s Horween Leather Company to offer some high quality and stylish gear. The two companies are starting with new versions of Wallet, Nomad’s ordinary billfold that cleverly tucks a 2400mAh rechargeable battery and Lightning cable within, now available in two sizes and wrapped in Horween leather.
Microsoft and LinkedIn announced today that the two companies would become one after Microsoft purchases outstanding shares at $196 in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIn’s net cash.
The new organization will give Microsoft a big social graph for professional life and is interestingly announced just hours before Apple’s WWDC.
LinkedIn also owns the popular Pulse Reader for iOS/Web.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89PWn0QaaY
At WWDC on Monday, Apple will unveil the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 10. With the conference being light on hardware, expectations are high for Apple to announce some major new features for iOS 10 on iPhone and iPad. The rumor mill is quieter than usual, so there’s definitely a bigger opportunity to be surprised with this year’s keynote.
We have some idea about what to expect but we want to hear what you want to see Apple announce next week. Join in the poll after the jump to have your say on what you want to see in iOS 10 …
Late last year we got an early look at improvements coming to the next version of Bluetooth, and now the Bluetooth Special Interest Group has revealed the name of the upcoming version plus more specifics about the new standard. Bluetooth 5 will be the successor to Bluetooth 4.2, which was released at the end of 2014, suggesting a notable release this year. The new standard will be announced next week, and this is what we know so far.
Apple has released a special ‘Shot on iPhone’ TV commercial for European markets called ‘The beautiful game’. It features iPhone photography of football stadiums, goalposts and players. The ad will likely air during the UEFA European Football Championship games, which kicks off tomorrow …
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You have to feel a little sympathy for Microsoft. At a time when everyone wants to be writing apps for iOS first and Android second, Windows 10 is left out there as a platform people might get around to if they have time. But the company seems to be compensating by beefing up its efforts to both sell its services to iOS developers and create more iOS apps.
In the latest installment of their Uncarrier initiatives, T-Mobile today announced their new #GetThanked campaign. The campaign puts a focus on “thanking” T-Mobile customers for their loyalty to the company and brand by giving away free T-Mobile’s stock, gifts and promotions ever Tuesday, and inflight Wi-Fi for domestic fliers with Gogo.
Update: We’ve had the chance to review them and they are great.
Bose is one of the best-known names in noise-cancelling headphones with its QuietComfort 25 model a popular choice, and the firm is now gearing up for the rumored removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 with a wireless version.
The new Bose QuietComfort 35 headphones, launched today, offer the same noise-cancelling performance as their wired predecessors, but with Bluetooth and NFC pairing.
These are our best headphones. In making them wireless, we had one goal: seamlessly merge Bluetooth and our Acoustic Noise Cancelling technology together with no compromise to the technologies or the audio performance we’re known for …
Tony Fadell hasn’t been able to shake the bad press as CEO of Nest since Google (now Alphabet) acquired his smart home accessories company, and today that story’s coming to a close as Fadell announced publicly that he’s stepping aside and ‘leaving the Nest’.
Update 2: Apple is reporting that the iCloud.com services have also been restored.
Update: Apple is reporting that the availability of some services has now been restored but several features of iCloud are still down and undergoing maintenance.
As noted by Apple’s system status page, a multitude of Apple services are currently experiencing instability and downtime for some users. The affected services include the App Store, Mac App Store, Apple TV services, iTunes In The Cloud and critical features like Find My iPhone. We have also had a few reports of Apple Music downtime, seemingly repeating the outage yesterday, but Apple’s official status report does not mention any problems with Apple Music at this time.
Apple has today launched its Back to School deals for students. Similar to last year, Apple will bundle a free pair of Beats headphones with the purchase of an eligible Apple product for college. If you buy an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro or MacBook Air, you get a free pair of Beats Solo2 wireless headphones worth $299. iPad Pro, iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 buyers can get a free pair of Beats Powerbeats2 wireless headphones, worth $199 retail.
Standard Apple student education discount also applies on Mac and iPad purchases. Although this is one of the best times to buy a Mac or iPad direct from Apple Store, you may save money from buying elsewhere …
Cases claiming to be designed for the next-generation iPhones, currently being dubbed the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, have been released online today. Although the cases do not show anything drastically different to what we’ve been hearing for months, with most of the chassis mirroring the appearance of the iPhone 6s, it is interesting nonetheless to see the design formalized into cases that are apparently going to be on sale by the end of the month.
The case renders include a depiction of what the dual camera system on the 5.5 inch iPhone 7 Plus could look like, suggesting that it will have a binocular-esque appearance of two camera iris holes side-by-side with a sizeable gap between them. The camera flash and rear microphone are also aligned horizontally. The iPhone 7 Plus case also includes space for the 3-pin Smart Connector on the back of the device — more pictures after the break …
Last week, a report emerged claiming that Jawbone, the company behind many Bluetooth speakers and fitness wearbles, was going to stop making its UP line of fitness trackers. At the time, it was reported that the company would stop selling its UP2, UP3, and UP4 trackers. Now, however, Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman has shared a blog post saying that last week’s report is “unequivocally false.”
Satechi is launching a nice-looking new dual USB car charger that comes in iPhone-matching gold, silver, and space gray.
Update: No new Apple display at WWDC … timing unclear but integrated GPU next-gen Apple Display is still in development.
The current $999 (!) Thunderbolt Display is showing its age to put it mildly, now significantly overshadowed by Retina MacBooks and iMacs in terms of screen resolution and quality. Reaffirming earlier reports, we have heard that stock of the Thunderbolt Display at Apple Stores is quickly running out with no indications of more units on the way to replenish availability. This is often a good indicator that a refresh is imminent. We are led to believe that WWDC will be very light on new hardware. However, given the opportunity for cheers in the audience, perhaps Apple could announce the new display at the keynote with a release pencilled in for later in the year.
Independently, we have heard some rumblings about what the new display might offer. Finally bringing it up to speed with its Retina display Mac cousins, the new ‘Thunderbolt Display’ will likely feature a 5K resolution display 5120×2880 pixels. Moreover, sources indicate that Apple will take the display in a surprising direction, specifically suggesting that Apple plans to integrate a dedicated external GPU into the display itself …
In last year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, Apple and Samsung were neck-and-neck at 80%. In this year’s results, released today, Samsung has retained last year’s score while Apple has just edged ahead at 81%.
Apple moves up 1% to take sole possession of the industry lead at 81, just ahead of Samsung, unchanged at 80. Lenovo’s Motorola recedes 3% to 77, as does HTC (75), while LG remains at 74. Microsoft Mobile, with both Nokia- and MS-branded phones, dips to 74, followed by the smaller manufacturers, which edge up 3% to a combined score of 73.
Despite Apple winning out in overall satisfaction across models, it didn’t quite manage the top spot when it comes to specific models …
Native Union makes some really well designed accessories for Apple products, and TAG is the latest to join its collection. TAG is a stylish Lightning cable meant to look attractive enough to carry on your key chain or loop around your bag.
Mophie is today launching a new line of wireless Juice Pack products for iPhone that add wireless charging capabilities to the previous lineup of popular battery cases.
Apple has quietly rolled out a change to the Apple TV App Store on tvOS in the last few days, which affects how apps are listed in the Top Charts. For the Top Charts (Top Paid, Top Free, Top Grossing), the Apple TV App Store will now hide listings for apps that the user has already downloaded, so the charts update dynamically per user. This means users can only browse for apps they don’t already own, removing some clutter and allowing less popular apps more opportunity to be seen. This behavior is novel and isn’t currently replicated by the iPhone and iPad App Stores.
To try this out for yourself, open the Apple TV App Store and download the #1 Top Free app. After force-quitting and re-opening the App Store (by swiping it away in the multitasking tray), the app will disappear from the charts. What was previously listed at #2 will now take the top spot (via Equinux).