MacRumors

Apple doesn't normally release a public beta of its upcoming Apple Watch software, but with watchOS 7, the company appears to have had a change of heart. That means anyone with a compatible Apple Watch can get a taste of the latest new Apple Watch features, such as sleep tracking, new watch faces, watch face sharing, new workout types, and more.

Before you rush to install the watchOS 7 public‌ beta, it's worth remembering that this is pre-release software, so don't expect things to work 100 percent trouble-free. Apple has released relatively stable beta versions of its operating systems this year, but beta software is inherently unstable, as it contains bugs and issues that have yet to be ironed out.

Another thing to note before installing the beta is that watchOS 7 completely removes the Force Touch gesture from the operating system, so expect a slightly different experience for some functions and menus. Also, bear in mind that there's no way to downgrade to watchOS 6 after installing the watchOS 7 beta.

watchOS 7 is compatible with Apple Watch Series 3, 4, and 5. If you have one of those models, here's how you can install the watchOS 7 public beta.

How to Install the watchOS 7 Public Beta

You need to be running the iOS 14 beta on the iPhone that your Apple Watch is paired with. Follow our walkthrough guide on how to do that, then come back and follow these steps.

1. Open a browser on your ‌iPhone‌ and navigate to the Apple Beta Software Program website.
2. Tap the chevron in the top-right corner of the webpage and select Sign In from the dropdown menu.
3. Enter your Apple ID credentials.
4. A Guide for Public Betas screen will appear. Select the watchOS tab, scroll down to the Get Started section and tap enroll your Apple Watch.
5. Scroll down and tap Download Profile.
   
   

6. Follow the onscreen instructions to install the watchOS 7 public beta.
7. Tap Allow in the prompt to download the beta profile to your ‌iPhone‌.
8. Tap Install in the top-right corner of the screen and enter your passcode if required.
   
   

9. Read the consent information, then tap Install two more times.
10. Tap Restart if prompted to restart your ‌iPhone‌.
11. Launch the Watch app on your ‌iPhone‌.
12. Select General -> Software Update.
    
    

13. After a few moments, you should see watchOS 7 available to download. Place your Apple Watch on its charger and tap Download and Install.

After a few minutes your Apple Watch will restart with the new watchOS public beta running.

Apple has reached a first-look deal with renowned filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who will produce and direct films and series for Apple TV+ as part of a multi-year agreement with his company Sikelia Productions, according to Deadline.

Scorsese is best known for his crime and gangster movies, such as 1973's Mean Streets, 1985's After Hours, 1990's Goodfellas, 2004's The Aviator, 2011's Hugo, 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, and 2019's The Irishman.

Amazon will add podcasts to its Amazon Music and Audible services, according to a confidential email obtained by The Desk.

Amazon said in the email that it would soon allow Amazon Music and Audible users to subscribe, download, and stream free podcasts on the services. Podcasts will also be available to customers of Amazon Music's ad-supported free tier, in addition to its premium paid service. The launch date of podcasts in Amazon Music and Audible was not stated in the email.

The email was reportedly sent to some podcast producers on Monday, with the offer to submit a podcast feed before the feature becomes publicly accessible. This is needed to allow the new podcasts feature to launch with popular shows already available.

During submission of a podcast feed, producers are required to agree to terms and conditions. Strikingly, one term in particular stated that podcasts on the platforms could not include comments that disparage Amazon or its products.

Podcast features would allow users of Echo smart speakers and Fire TV devices to stream podcasts through Amazon's default apps, rather than via third party apps. Amazon Music had 55 million subscribers as of January, just five million less than Apple Music's 60 million.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Apple is working on original podcasts that will be exclusive to its Podcasts app. Podcasts are increasingly becoming an area of competition between major tech companies, with Apple, Spotify, Google, and now Amazon heavily investing in the sector.

Back in January 2017, independent subscription app service Setapp launched as an alternative to the Mac App Store, and now offers unlimited access to over 190 Mac apps across a wide range of categories for a flat $9.99 monthly fee.

Today, Setapp announced that users can now also unlock and use premium iOS versions of apps that are currently hosted through the service.

In order to use iOS apps, Setapp subscribers register their iPhones and iPads as additional devices on their plans (per device price has been reduced from $4.99 to $2.49). Once they've done that, they can check out the iOS versions of Mac apps that appear in the "Available on iOS" category section of the Setapp UI.

Each app in the section has two scannable QR codes associated with it: One that installs the app on the user's iOS device through the App Store, and one that unlocks the full version of the app via Setapp activation.

As of writing, seven iOS apps are available through Setapp, including Ulysses, Paste, Gemini Photos, Taskheat, SQLPro Studio, Mind Node, and PDF Search.

"The addition of iOS apps to Setapp has been one of the most popular requests since we launched Setapp more than three years ago," said Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO and founder of Setapp. "Today we're excited to provide the option for people to use their favorite apps, wherever they go on their mobile devices. We look forward to the new opportunities this provides for enhancing productivity and getting work done."

In order to get into Setapp, Mac apps must pass a review process conducted by Setapp that examines items such as user experience, security overall functionality, respect for user data and privacy, appropriate use of notifications and reputation. iOS apps accessed through Setapp are reviewed by Apple before becoming available in the ‌App Store‌.

Setapp distributes customer revenue back to developers based on app usage within the service. New apps for macOS and iOS will be regularly added to Setapp, updates are free and all the apps are full-featured pro versions.

Setapp's catalog includes many popular apps in categories including productivity, design, writing, social media, and maintenance tools, all from approved vendors, and all apps on Setapp are available without ads or in-app purchases.

In a research note shared by Business Insider, Wedbush Securities analysts said that Apple may release a cheaper iPhone 12 in early 2021 with no 5G connectivity.

Wedbush initially believed Apple would launch a mix of 4G and 5G iPhone 12 models this fall. Following re-examination of Asian supply chains, analysts Daniel Ives, Strecker Backe, and Ahmad Khalil revised the predictions, concluding that they now expect multiple ‌5G iPhone‌ 12 models this fall, and one cheaper 4G-only model in early 2021.

Ives told Business Insider that this 4G-only variant could launch around February, and would be cheaper than ‌5G iPhone‌ 12 models, with a price around $800. He added that the ‌5G iPhone‌ 12 models are unlikely to be more expensive than the current prices of ‌iPhone‌ 11 and ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro, despite the additional connectivity features.

"Price points will be aggressive as Apple goes after their broader customer base," Ives commented. "Especially in a recession, in a COVID-19 backdrop, they need to make sure they're hitting all price categories."

A total of four OLED iPhones in 5.4, 6.1, and 6.7-inch sizes are expected in fall 2020. Rumors suggest the 6.7-inch ‌‌iPhone‌‌ and one 6.1-inch model will be higher-end devices with triple-lens cameras, while the 5.4 and 6.1-inch models will be lower-end iPhones with dual-lens cameras and a more affordable price.

It has been reported that the different sizes may see a staggered launch. During Apple's third fiscal quarter earnings call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri confirmed that Apple is expecting to release this year's iPhones later than usual.

Apple has included an ECG function in new Apple Watch models since 2018, providing users in select territories with the ability to measure the electrical activity of their heart. Apple now appears to be ready to extend the ECG feature to South Korea, based on recent government filings.

According to etnews, Apple has obtained an approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) in South Korea for its ECG app. Apple will likely issue an update to ‌Apple Watch‌ users in the country to enable the electrocardiogram feature and irregular heart notifications on their devices, since the company has now completed every prerequisite for a Korean version.

Apple routinely has to gain approval from government health agencies before marketing the ‌Apple Watch‌'s ECG feature in different countries. Apple won U.S. FDA clearance to promote the function when the ‌Apple Watch‌ Series 4 launched in 2018.

In May, Japan and Brazil gained approval for ECG functionality and irregular heart rhythm notifications on Apple Watch, but it appears as though users in those countries are still waiting for the features to be enabled.

Twitter today announced it will begin testing a feature with a small group of users that automatically translates tweets that are in a language they may not be able to read.

Currently, users whose primary language is set to English in Twitter can tap or click a button to manually translate a tweet in their feed that's in another language.

Starting today, however, users in Brazil will see English-language tweets that have been automatically translated to Brazilian Portuguese, rather than having to manually opt to translate it themselves.

Twitter explained the pilot test in a blog post:

In order to make it easier to understand the conversations you follow on Twitter, we are experimenting automatic translations to Tweets in other languages that appear on your home page. We know that sometimes it can take a long time to translate Tweet by Tweet and stay on top of what is relevant to you.

Twitter says that one part of the testing group will see the translated text and can click to return it to the original language, while the other part will view the translation and the original text in the same tweet in a standard way. If a tweet is translated, it will be accompanied by the warning, "Translated from English by Google" or "Translated from English by Microsoft."

According to 9to5Mac, however, some Brazilian users have already voiced their frustration with the experimental feature because the automatic translations are enabled by default, and inevitably some machine translations aren't always accurate.

The test is only in Brazil and applies to a limited group of people on iOS and Android. It's unclear if or when it will expand to more countries – as with all experimental features, there's no guarantee that it will survive the testing phase.

Parallels Desktop 16 released today, bringing some notable new features and performance enhancements to the virtualization software, including full support for macOS Big Sur.

When Apple introduced macOS Big Sur, it ended support for the third-party kernel extensions that previous versions of Parallels were built on. That forced the developers to re-engineer the virtualization software from the ground up, but that challenge has now been officially completed.

While support for Big Sur is the headline feature, Parallels 16 also comes with several new features and improvements. This version claims to launch twice as fast and offers a 20 percent improvement in DirectX performance, with OpenGL 3 graphics in Windows and Linux also said to be improved.

There are new multi-touch gestures for Windows apps such as smooth zoom and rotate multi-touch gestures, while printing from Windows (with Shared Printers) now allows users to print on both sides and use more paper sizes, from A0 to envelope.

Virtual machines can now be set to automatically return unused disk space when shutting down, and Windows Travel Mode claims to be able to increase laptop battery by up to 10 percent.

Elsewhere, Pro Edition users can now name their custom networks, and export virtual machines in a compressed format that are a said to be a fraction of their pre-compressed size. Parallels has also launched a plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio to simplify testing on different operating systems.

Lastly, in addition to all the work that has gone on under the hood to ensure Big Sur compatibility, Parallels 16 also brings a new look to the software that's more in keeping with Apple's redesigned interface in macOS 11.

There's no word at present whether Parallels will run Windows on the forthcoming Apple Silicon Macs that Apple announced at WWDC, but Parallels says it will release further information on this further down the line.

Users with Parallels Desktop 14 and 15 (including Pro and Business Editions) can upgrade for $49.99, while college students in the United States, Canada, Germany and U.K. have access to the reduced price Student Edition. A 14-day trial of the virtualization suite is also available.

Apple CEO Tim Cook's net worth has climbed to over $1 billion, according to calculations by Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

At a net worth of $1 billion, Cook doesn't rank on the chart of the world's 500 richest people, a list topped by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. According to Bloomberg, Cook's net worth was calculated using regulatory filings and market performance.

When former Apple CEO Steve Jobs died in 2011, Apple was valued at approximately $350 billion, and the company has grown significantly under Cook's leadership. Much of Cook's fortune stems from stock awards provided when he took over as CEO. He was awarded with restricted stock units that have vested over time, and has garnered additional stock awards as Apple has outperformed at least two thirds of the firms in the S&P 500.

Later this month, Cook is set to receive his ninth payout, which will include 560,000 shares of Apple stock and should boost his net worth by approximately $100 million.

Cook has said in the past that he plans to give most of his money away to charity, and that he's developing a "systematic approach to philanthropy." For the last several years, Cook has donated $5 million in stock to various charities on a yearly basis, though the charities have gone unnamed and it's unclear if there have been other undisclosed donations.

Apple is facing App Store scrutiny in Russia as the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) today said (via Interfax) that Apple abused its dominant ‌App Store‌ position and limited competition in the iOS app market by banning parental control apps.

The FAS began investigating Apple's ‌App Store‌ policies back in August 2019 after Apple cracked down on parental control apps using Mobile Device Management functionality.

Cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab lodged an antitrust complaint with the FAS after Apple pulled the Kaspersky Safe Kids app from the ‌App Store‌. Kaspersky Safe Kids had, at the time, been in the ‌App Store‌ for three years before Apple said that it was no longer allowed to use configuration profiles.

According to the Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service, since 2018, Apple has limited "instruments and opportunities for the development of parental control apps," leading to the loss of functionality in third-party apps.

The FAS also pointed out that the removal of the parental control apps coincided with the launch of the Screen Time feature, and that Apple is able to block any third-party app even if the app meets Apple's specifications.

"Apple occupies a dominant position with a 100% share of the market for mobile apps based on the iOS operating system because it is only legally possible to install such apps from the ‌App Store‌," said the FAS.

The FAS plans to order Apple to address the regulatory violations. In response, Apple said that it respects the FAS but disagrees with the decision and will appeal the ruling.

Apple is also facing an antitrust investigation in the United States, with Apple CEO Tim Cook recently testifying in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, where he was grilled on Apple's App Store policies.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple today seeded the first public beta of an upcoming watchOS 7 update to public beta testers, one week after seeding the fourth beta to developers and a month and a half after the Worldwide Developers Conference.

The update can be downloaded after installing the proper profile from Apple's Public Beta website. watchOS 7 should not be installed on a primary device as it is still an early beta and there could be bugs.

watchOS 7 is a major update that introduces a new Sleep Tracking feature for the Apple Watch, which is designed to measure how long you're asleep as you wear the Apple Watch while sleeping.

It comes along with a Wind Down feature that helps you establish a bedtime routine to make it easier to fall asleep at night, as well as a Sleep Mode that turns on Do Not Disturb and dims the Apple Watch display.

The Apple Watch can also wake you up with haptic vibrations, providing a weather report in the morning as well as info on battery life so you can get your day started.

Along with these sleep tracking features, the Apple Watch has automatic handwashing detection that listens for the sound of running water and handwashing motions and then starts a 20-second timer so you can make sure you're washing your hands for the appropriate amount of time.

There's a new watch Face Sharing feature that lets you share watch faces with others and install new watch faces from the App Store, Messages, Mail, websites, and more.

There's a new Chronograph Pro face with tachymeter, updates to complications, and new workout options in the newly renamed Fitness app, which was previously the Activity app.

The Maps app now supports directions for cyclists, Siri provides spoken translations, and there's a Shortcuts app on the Apple Watch. For more on what's new in watcOS 7, make sure to check out our watchOS 7 roundup.

watchOS 7 is limited to the Apple Watch Series 3, Series 4, and Series 5 models, and is not compatible with the Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2.

Apple News in iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur has a toggle that's designed to open web links from ‌Apple News‌+ publishers directly in ‌Apple News‌, which has the effect of directing users who tap to read a news story in Safari to the ‌Apple News‌ app instead of to the publisher's website.

Enabled by default in the Settings app, the option to open web links in ‌Apple News‌ is an ‌Apple News‌+ "feature," so an ‌Apple News‌+ subscription is required to have the ‌Apple News‌ app open when a web link is tapped.

The option to open links in ‌Apple News‌ instead of on the web was highlighted by Tony Haile, who points out that Apple is intercepting traffic from websites and directing it to the ‌Apple News‌ app instead, cannibalizing a publisher's audience and drawing more users to ‌Apple News‌+. Haile suggests that Apple can accelerate News+ growth by intercepting publisher traffic, with the ultimate aim of attracting more publishers to the platform with a growing subscription base.

Publishers are not likely to be appreciative of this feature, even limited to ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers, because the feature is enabled by default in the iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur updates. Apple has struggled to gain new subscribers to ‌Apple News‌+, while also dealing with publishers who are not happy with the service because of its low subscription rates.

There have been multiple reports suggesting publishers are unimpressed with the revenue generated from ‌Apple News‌+, which has fallen below Apple's initial promises. ‌Apple News‌+ attracted multiple magazine publishers from launch thanks to Apple's acquisition of magazine service Texture, but it has struggled to entice news publishers.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have refused to participate in ‌Apple News‌+, as have many other news sites. The New York Times recently ended its Apple News partnership entirely and pulled all articles from the service, stating that ‌Apple News‌ does not "align with its strategy of building direct relationships with paying readers."

The redirecting feature appears to be limited to publishers who participate in ‌Apple News‌+, so this change in iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur could perhaps spur additional publishers to end their relationships with ‌Apple News‌. ‌Apple News‌+ readers on iOS 14 can open the News section of the Settings app to disable "Open Web Links in News" while macOS Big Sur users can get to the toggle by opening the News app and then going to the settings section.

Many ‌Apple News‌+ users have been asking for a way to open up web links in ‌Apple News‌+ to avoid paywalls on the web, so ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers that pay for the service are likely to be appreciative of the new feature.

Google today announced the launch of several features for Google Maps on Apple products, including new CarPlay functionality and a new Google Maps app that works on Apple Watch.

The new Google Maps app for Apple Watch works similarly to the iOS app, allowing Apple Watch owners to get directions for a car, bike, public transit, or on foot.

The app supports estimated arrival times and step-by-step directions on Apple Watch when using saved destinations like Work or Home. Other destinations require navigation to start on iPhone, with the directions then picked up by Apple Watch.

For ‌CarPlay‌, there's ‌CarPlay‌ Dashboard integration for switching or pausing songs from a media app, rewinding or fast forwarding podcasts or audiobooks, or quickly checking calendar appointments all while turn-by-turn directions remain on the ‌CarPlay‌ display. All info is displayed in a split screen view.

Google Maps works with ‌CarPlay‌ Dashboard on all ‌CarPlay‌ supported vehicles around the world. The Google Maps app for Apple Watch will be rolling out in the coming weeks.

Google Maps can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]