In this week’s top stories: iOS 10, macOS Sierra, watchOS 3, and new features for Apple TV with the upcoming tvOS 10 release, our coverage of Apple’s WWDC 2016 announcements make up the majority of this week’s top stories.
What will Apple unveil at its event this Monday, June 13 to kick off WWDC 2016? Below we roundup the latest reports along with some of our own information on what Apple is currently planning for the keynote.
Minecraft Pocket Edition, the iOS version of the popular Minecraft PC game, is getting what developer Mojang says is the app’s biggest update yet today. Version 0.9.0 introduces a number of new features carried over from the original game including infinite worlds, much improved caves, wolves, new items, and much, much more.
In addition, Mojang is bringing over new biomes from the PC version of the game with mesas, jungles, swamps and extreme hills, and you’ll also notice abandoned mineshafts, villages and “new feature generation, including lakes, vines and monster rooms.” That doesn’t even include a fraction of what’s actually included in today’s update. A full list of new features from new blocks to new and updated features for biomes, mobs, AI and feature generation is below.
The game also receives some welcomed UI tweaks in the update including a new “interaction” button that Mojang hopes will cut down on accidental sheep punches.
Infinite worlds!
Caves!
Loads of new blocks and items including Monster Eggs and huge mushroom blocks.
Wolves! Tame a loyal companion.
Loads of new flowers! So pretty.
New mobs, including the spooky endermen and less spooky Mooshrooms.
New biomes from the PC version, including mesas, jungles, swamps and extreme hills.
Abandoned mineshafts, villages, and many other cool places to explore.
A brand-new “interaction” button. Never accidentally punch a sheep again!
New feature generation, including lakes, vines and monster rooms.
Many bugs fixed, and possibly a few added.
The updated Minecraft Pocket Edition version 0.9.0 is available now on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.
The full huge list of what’s new via Mojang is below:
New features
New blocks
New mobs
New and updated biomes
New world feature generation
Tweaks to caves
New AI
Tweaks and bug fixes
Known Bugs
Known bugs requiring attention
I’ll admit, I’ve never felt the need to purchase network-attached-storage (NAS) hardware for storing and accessing my media or backing up my files. These days most of my content, from photos and movies to back ups of important files for work, are already stored in the cloud. My photos are (supposed to) auto backup to Photostream in iCloud, iTunes has all of my music downloadable from all my devices from the cloud, and any important files and everything else go directly to Dropbox or Google Drive. Around 90% of my content is already stored and accessible from anywhere in the cloud.
That being said, for the last year or so I’ve been hearing more and more about Synology DiskStation products. Coworkers can’t stop talking about them, and the products have received a lot of praise from many other reviewers as well.
I’ve been putting the Synology DiskStation hardware and brand new DiskStation Manager 5.0 software to the test in recent months to see if I could really benefit from a NAS solution despite all my content already being on the cloud and backed up. With today marking the release of 5.0, the company’s biggest software update yet, I thought now would be as good a time as any to share my experience.
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Apple just released a beta version of iOS 6.1 to developers following the public release of iOS 6.0.1. We get mostly expected fixes in 6.0.1, but we already started discovering new features in the 6.1 beta. Here’s what’s new so far in iOS 6.1 beta. Let us know in the comments below if you find anything else:
— Apple is making it easier to report issues with its new iOS Maps app. As you can see in the image above, Apple changed what used to be a small link to a huge “Report a Problem” button that is larger than all of the other Map settings…
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Google just updated the Gmail iOS app with a number of new features. Perhaps the most notable is that Notification Center support provides users with banners, alerts, and lock screen notification options that are manageable from settings. Google also noted on the Official Gmail Blog that notifications in the updated app are “up to 5x faster than in the previous version.”
Another new feature is a “From:” option when composing a new message. It allows you to switch between sender addresses under Settings->Accounts->Send mail as from Gmail on the desktop. Finally, Google explained the improved “persistent logins” would allow you to stay logged in as long as you want:
“we’ve improved the login process to allow you to stay logged into the app for as long as you’d like. You can still choose to sign out of your account, but you won’t be automatically logged out after a certain period of time has elapsed.”
What’s New in Version 1.2.7812
– Notification Center support. Banners, alerts and lock screen notification options.
– “Send-as”. Alternate sender support, if configured within Gmail.
– Persistent login. Sessions no longer expire.
What is it? Network Link Conditioner is a new utility in OS X Lion (via the free Xcode 4.1 app) that will allow you to simulate less than desirable network conditions, such as a bad 3G connection or Edge with “Good Connectivity”. This is an especially useful utility for those developing apps and sites that highly rely on network connectivity, whether it’s a multiplayer game or just an animation heavy web app.
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