MacRumors

New York and New Jersey have launched COVID-19 contact tracing apps based on Apple and Google's Exposure Notification technology.

In a press release on the New York State website, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced the release of COVID Alert NY and COVID Alert NJ for iPhone and Android users.

Like other apps that take advantage of the ‌Exposure Notification‌ API from Apple and Google, the two apps are designed to track who people come into contact with each other using Bluetooth, providing a notification if one of those people later comes down with the coronavirus.

As well as launching their own state contact tracing apps, the New York and New Jersey governors said they would join Pennsylvania and Delaware in creating a regional network that will enable the apps to work across state lines.

In the United States, Virginia, North Dakota, Arizona, Delaware, Nevada, Alabama, Wyoming, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania have launched apps that use Apple's ‌‌Exposure Notification‌‌ API. Connecticut is also expected to launch an app in the next few weeks.

More information on Apple and Google's ‌‌Exposure Notification‌‌ API, such as how it works and where it's available, can be found in our guide.

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.

Live View in Google Maps uses your iPhone's camera and GPS to provide augmented reality directions when you're walking somewhere, and this week Google announced that it's enhancing the feature and making it available in additional transit scenarios.

In Live View, arrows, directions, and distance markers are placed right on top of your surroundings to visualize your destination in the real world, and Google will soon bring landmarks to this AR mode, too. From The Keyword blog:

Soon, you’ll also be able to see nearby landmarks so you can quickly and easily orient yourself and understand your surroundings. Live View will show you how far away certain landmarks are from you and what direction you need to go to get there. These landmarks can include iconic places, like the Empire State Building in New York and the Pantheon in Rome, and easily recognizable places, like local parks and tourist attractions.

Landmarks will start rolling out soon on iOS in nearly 25 cities, including Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Dubai, Florence, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Kyoto, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Milan, Munich, New York, Osaka, Paris, Prague, Rome, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, and Vienna.

Live View is accessed from the transit tab in Google Maps, but previously, it would be unavailable if your directions involved a combination of transport types like walking, driving, cycling, and transit.

Now though, as long as your transit directions include a walking portion in the journey, you can use Live View to find your way, which should be useful when you exit a transit station and don’t know which way to go, for example.

In addition, Google said it will soon expand Live View to Location Sharing, so that when a friend chooses to share their location with you, you can tap their icon and then on Live View to see where and how far away they are, with overlaid arrows and directions to help you know where to go.

Google says it has made improvements to global localization, the underlying technology that powers its Live View features on Google Maps, so it's now better able to take the elevation of a place into account, which enables it to more accurately display the location of the destination pin in Live View.

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

Popular accessory brand Anker today is launching its latest diminutive charger, a 20W Anker Nano that packs fast-charging power into a tiny wall adapter.

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The new Anker Nano, priced at $19.99, is an updated version of the previous PowerPort III Nano, raising the power from 18 watts to 20 watts to match the wattage of the fast charger Apple is launching alongside the new iPad Air. But even with the higher wattage, the Anker Nano with USB-C is roughly the same size as Apple's barebones 5-watt USB-A charger.

With it looking more and more like Apple won't be including a charger in the box with the iPhone 12 lineup, users will be looking at their charging options, whether it be existing chargers around the house or new chargers from Apple or third parties. The Anker Nano is capable of charging an iPhone to around 50% in just 30 minutes, and similar performance should be anticipated with the iPhone 12 lineup.

Anker has variants of the Anker Nano available for the US, UK, and EU markets, and with the new iPhone right around the corner, Anker has put together a "survival kit" of recommended accessories to help users get the most out of their charging setups.

In addition to the 20W Anker Nano that offers an extremely portable solution for fast charging a single device, Anker's 60W PowerPort III offers a pair of USB-C ports to charge two devices such as a combination of iPhone, iPad, and smaller Mac notebook models simultaneously. It also comes with interchangeable prongs for US, UK, and EU outlets.

And for connecting your devices to the chargers, Anker offers its PowerLine III USB-C to USB-C cable for charging your Mac notebook, iPad Pro, or the upcoming ‌iPad Air‌ and its high-end braided PowerLine+ III USB-C to Lightning cable for charging your iPhone or a lower-end ‌iPad‌. For those looking for a cheaper Lightning option, there's also Anker's Powerline II USB-C to Lightning cable.

Update: This article originally stated that the new Anker Nano was a gallium nitride (GaN) adapter, but Anker has since clarified that this is not the case.

New adventure game "Slash Quest!" landed today on Apple Arcade. Made by Green Pillow and Noodlecake Games, the title promises players plenty of "enemy chopping, puzzle solving, door unlocking, river crossing, fire setting, gear spinning," and more.

The Queen's evergrowing talking sword is lost in a faraway land. Luckily you showed up to wield it back to the castle. You do know how to swing a sword, right? Right?!

Forget your power fantasy. Slash Quest's simple yet unfamiliar controls will put you in the shoes of an unlikely knight with a big heart, an even bigger weapon, and absolutely zero skills. But worry not! Just like Shep and Swordie's friendship, before you know it everything will feel right and everyone will be counting on you to save the Queendom.

The gameplay hinges on a unique growing sword mechanic and customizable controls to take players through a storyline-driven 12 levels where they can look forward to several boss fights, dozens of side quests and challenges, upgradeable skills, collectible cosmic items, engaging mini games and Game Center Leaderboards integration.

As an ‌Apple Arcade‌ title, "Slash Quest!" is available across iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS and includes support for physical controllers.

There are now more than 125 games available on ‌Apple Arcade‌, with Apple adding new titles regularly. ‌‌Apple Arcade‌‌ is priced at $4.99 per month, and that price point allows the whole family to play games without ads or additional in-app purchases.

Tonight, the YouTube website has started allowing iOS 14 devices to use the built-in Picture in Picture functionality for its videos even without a Premium account.

This is an apparent reversal of a change that YouTube explicitly made following the release of iOS 14 which blocked such behavior. At that time, YouTube would only allow that capability for users with Premium accounts. Tonight's change means that any YouTube visitor can use Picture in Picture in Safari.

iOS 14 introduced native Picture in Picture capability to the iPhone for the first time, however, apps have to explicitly support the feature. YouTube's native app has never supported Picture in Picture for any of its users even though iPadOS has offered the capability for some time. There have been reports that YouTube has been testing this feature, but there have been no announcements.

As a result, iOS 14 users have had to resort to using YouTube in Safari as a workaround. Since there have been no announcements either way, it's unclear if this change is permanent or not.

Thanks Jorge

Apple today updated its investor relations page to announce that it will share its earnings results for the fourth fiscal quarter (third calendar quarter) of 2020 on Thursday, October 29.

Fourth quarter earnings calls typically provide some insight into the early sales of new iPhones, but since this year's iPhones have been delayed until October, initial iPhone sales data will not factor into fourth quarter revenue.

Apple will perhaps provide detail on sales of the Apple Watch Series 6 and the new Apple Watch SE, which did launch during the September quarter.

Apple declined to provide guidance for the fourth quarter of 2020 during its third quarter earnings call due to the ongoing global health crisis, which continues to affect Apple's product launch timelines and sales.

Apple in the third quarter brought in $59.7 billion in revenue, marking a record June quarter bolstered by products and services growth and a surge in Mac and iPhone sales due to people working and learning from home.

The quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on October 29.

A transaction labeling error with the Apple Card has been causing confusion for some ‌Apple Card‌ owners, with AT&T charges listed as "Waters, Hardy & Co" instead of AT&T on ‌Apple Card‌ statements.

The problem appears to have started at some point yesterday, with tax preparation service Waters, Hardy & Co receiving hundreds of phone calls from confused customers. In a Facebook post, the company said that it had received so many calls from ‌Apple Card‌ owners that its phones had to be turned off.

MacRumors reader Kyle alerted us to the problem. He found an incorrect merchant charge for "Waters, Hardy & Co" listed in the Wallet app, which was actually his bill from AT&T. He contacted the company and received a voice recording with a message that said Apple had incorrectly listed Waters, Hardy & Co as the merchant for the AT&T charges.

Another MacRumors reader mentioned the same issue yesterday, noting a "weird charge" on the ‌Apple Card‌, presumably from Waters, Hardy & Co. Based on the reports we've seen and the hundreds of calls received by Waters, Hardy & Co., this appears to be affecting quite a few AT&T customers who use ‌Apple Card‌ for their bills.

MacRumors reader Kyle says that he contacted Apple Support about the problem and was told that the issue was known and was in the process of being corrected. Waters, Hardy & Co. also says that it is working to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible.

Update: According to Apple, the issue has been fixed and AT&T transactions will no longer be mislabeled.

Following the release of iOS 14.0.1 on Thursday, September 24, Apple has stopped signing iOS 14, which means downgrading to the launch version of iOS 14 after upgrading to iOS 14.0.1 is no longer possible.

Apple routinely stops signing older versions of software updates after new releases come out in order to encourage customers to keep their operating systems up to date.

iOS 14.0.1 was a bug fix update fixing issues that weren't able to be addressed in the initial version of iOS 14. The update fixed a bug that could cause third-party apps set as the default to reset after the iPhone is restarted. It also addressed a bug that could prevent the ‌iPhone‌ from connecting to some WiFi networks, and fixed an issue that could prevent sending email with some mail carriers.

iOS 14.0.1 is the current publicly available version of iOS that people can download, but there's also an iOS 14.2 update that has been provided to developers and public beta testers. iOS 14.2 introduces new emoji 13 characters, a Shazam Music Recognition feature for the Control Center, and some other Apple Music-related Control Center tweaks.

Apple appears to have pulled the latest macOS Mojave Security Update (2020-005), which was released on September 24 alongside the macOS Catalina 10.15.7 update. Apple has also removed Safari 14 for macOS Mojave from download.

Both the Mojave Security Update and the Safari 14 update were causing numerous problems for those still running macOS Mojave, as outlined by Mr. Macintosh.

macOS Mojave users who installed the updates have been noticing memory issues, slow boot times and Finder stalling, numerous system.log entires, and crashes when attempting to use Migration assistant, among other problems. Complaints about the update started shortly after it was released, but Apple did not pull the updates until yesterday.

Those who had already downloaded the Mojave Security Update or installed Safari 14 should soon be getting a fix in the form of updated software that addresses the bugs that were introduced. Reverting to a Time Machine backup, reinstalling macOS Mojave, or installing macOS Catalina also seem to successfully fix the issues.

(Thanks, Jeff!)

Update: Apple has released a supplemental update for Mojave which presumably addresses the issues above. It should become available in your macOS software update.

The new Apple Maps app that Apple has been rolling out over the course of the last year is expanding to the UK and Ireland as of today, according to Apple.

Apple's updated Maps app provides faster and more accurate navigation and richer, more detailed views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls, and more, to provide a better-than-ever navigation experience. In Apple's article announcing the availability of the new Maps in the UK and Ireland, Apple's services VP Eddy Cue said that Apple is "excited" to expand the new experience.

"Apple Maps is the best way to explore and navigate the world -- all while protecting your privacy -- and we're excited to bring the new map to our users in the UK and Ireland," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We have rebuilt the map from the ground up, with better navigation, richer detail, more accurate information for places, and incredible features like Look Around, cycling directions, and curated Guides from trusted resources. We've reimagined how Maps can help users find the places they love and get to where they're going even faster and easier."

With the updated Maps app, Apple is launching Look Around in the UK and Ireland, allowing users in these countries to see a street level view of what's around, similar to the Google Street View mode. Apple first introduced Look Around in iOS 13 in a limited number of areas, but has since been expanding its availability. Look Around in the UK and Ireland is available in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin at launch, with more areas to come in the future.

Guides, an iOS 14 feature, provides a curated list of places to visit within a city, with resources created by Time Out Group, Lonely Planet, and The Evening Standard, and UK users in London also have access to cycling directions and routes with EV stops.

Apple has been testing the new maps in the UK and Ireland since August after finishing the rollout in the United States back in January.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 7.1 update to public beta testers, two days after providing the beta to developers.

The ‌watchOS 7‌.1 update can be downloaded after installing the proper profile from Apple's Public Beta website. Once the profile is in place, the ‌‌‌‌watchOS 7.1‌‌‌‌ beta can be downloaded through the dedicated ‌Apple Watch‌ app on the iPhone by going to General > Software Update.

To update to the new software, the ‌Apple Watch‌ needs to have 50 percent battery life, it must be placed on the charger, and it must be in range of the ‌‌‌‌iPhone‌‌‌‌.

There were no new features discovered in the first two betas of watchOS 7.1, so we don't yet know what new additions may be included in the update. It likely focuses on under-the-hood improvements and bug fixes for issues that weren't able to be addressed in the initial ‌watchOS 7‌ release.

Today's update does re-enable blood oxygen monitoring and watch faces that were disabled in the prior beta update.

AMC+, which includes content from AMC, BBC America, IFC, and SundanceTV, is available through the Channels feature in the Apple TV app as of today, according to AdWeek.

AMC+ provides access to ad-free programming from AMC channels and other streaming services like Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films Unlimited, AMC library shows, and early access to AMC series before they air on TV. It also includes on-demand content and live feeds of AMC, BBC America, IFC, and Sundance, though live content will include ads.

Prior to today, AMC+ was limited to Comcast, Dish, and SlingTV subscribers, but there was no standalone option that did not involve a cable subscription. Subscribing to AMC+ through ‌Apple TV‌ Channels will cost $8.99 per month, with a 7-day free trial available to test it out. The service is also available through Amazon Prime Video.

Those who subscribe to AMC+ can get early access to the new "The Walking Dead" spinoff called "The Walking Dead: World Beyond," along with anthology series "Soulmates."

Apple introduced the Channels feature in a revamped ‌Apple TV‌ app that came out in early 2019, providing a way for ‌Apple TV‌ users to subscribe to standalone services right in the TV app. There are several Channels available such as CBS All Access, Showtime, Epix, Starz, Cinemax, and more.

If you have an Apple Watch, chances are you've spent some time customizing your watch faces. Apple lets you adjust colors, choose complications, and select backgrounds so you can get watch to look just how you like, and you can share your personalized watch faces with others, too.

The ability to share watch faces with other people is a fun addition because it means you can impress your friends with your creations, and perhaps surprise someone who's new to Apple Watch by showing them just what's possible. You can also receive watch faces from others. It's easy to do, so keep reading to learn how it works.

How to Share a Watch Face With Someone

1. On your Apple Watch, swipe to the face you want to share.
2. Press and hold on the face until the Edit and Share buttons appear.
3. Tap the Share button (it looks like a square with an arrow pointing out).
   
   

4. Tap Add Contact.
5. If the person you want to share the face with is in the list of favorites and recent contacts, tap their name. Alternately, tap the Dictate button and say their name, then select it from the list that appears.
   
   

6. Select one of the suggested text messages or use Dictate, Scribble, or emoji to create your own.
7. Turn the Digital Crown to scroll down, then tap Send.
   

You can also share a watch face from your iPhone. Simply open the Watch app on your iPhone, select a watch face in the My Watch tab or the Face Gallery tab, tap the Share button, then tap how you want to share it. You can send watch faces using Messages, Mail, AirDrop, or third-party apps like WhatsApp.

How to Share a Watch Face Online

You can also share watch faces online, via websites, blogs, and social media, although the process is a bit more convoluted. Here's how it works.

1. Launch Watch app on your iPhone, then select the watch face you want to share.
2. Tap the Share button, then select Mail.
3. Email the watch face to yourself.
4. Open the email message that you receive, then touch and hold on the .watchface attachment at the bottom of the message.
5. Tap Share, then tap Save to Files.
6. Select a location, then tap Save.
7. Open the Files app and navigate to the .watchface file that you just saved.
8. Touch and hold the .watchface file, then tap Share.
9. Tap Add People.
10. Tap Share Options, then tap Anyone with the link if you want anyone to be able to download the watch face.
11. Tap the Back arrow to go back.
12. Swipe left on the sharing app icons, then tap Copy Link.
13. Use the link that you copied to share the watch face online.

How to Receive a Watch Face From Someone

When someone shares a watch face with you, you'll receive a link in Messages, Mail, or another app. Here's what you need to do with it.

1. On the iPhone that your Apple Watch is paired with, tap the shared watch face link.
2. When the Watch app opens, tap Add to My Faces.
   
   

3. If there are any complications included in the watch face that you don't have the apps for, you'll be offered App Store links to download them. If you don't want the complication, select Continue Without This App and the face will be modified for your Apple Watch.

The shared face will be added to the My Faces section in the Watch app, and will appear on your Apple Watch when you select a watch face.

The EU is planning to implement wide-ranging legal measures to compel major tech companies to share data with competitors and give no preference to their own apps and services, according to a new report by the Financial Times.

As part of its new Digital Services Act, the EU is planning to force the likes of Apple, Amazon, and Google to hand over customer data to smaller rivals in an effort to loosen the grip of big tech on consumers. A draft of the legislation stated that tech companies "shall not use data collected on the platform... for [their] own commercial activities... unless they [make it] accessible to business users active in the same commercial activities."

Likewise, "gatekeeper" platforms that wield their own online marketplaces, such as Apple's App Store, would be limited from using much of the data they collect. The draft states that "Gatekeepers shall not use data received from business users for advertising services for any other purpose other than advertising services."

Perhaps most controversially, big tech companies may be banned from preferring their own apps and services. As it stands, this means that companies will not be allowed to pre-install any of their own apps on devices, or force other companies to exclusively pre-install any of their software. There is also the ambition to allow users to uninstall any pre-installed apps.

The plan would be a major blow to Apple and Google, and result in fundamental changes to how operating systems ship and function. However, it is unclear how shipping an iPhone, for example, with no pre-installed Apple apps from would work, when presumably even the ‌App Store‌ itself could not be pre-installed as it would then be a "preferred" app. Downloading apps or using services of any kind on iOS and Android would have to be completely reworked to allow for user choice and third-party options at every level, with no preference for any of the device-maker's own apps and services at all.

The act contains over 30 paragraphs of specific prohibitions and obligations for tech giants, aimed at curbing their power and influence. The legislation is expected to be publicized in full by the end of this year, and Brussels reportedly hopes to lead global standards for the digital economy, improve competition, and prevent long-lasting antitrust cases.

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.