MacRumors

Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has shared another Medium post today, this one outlining a plan to enact a national right-to-repair law in the event that she is elected. Her stance on right-to-repair laws is just a portion of her Medium post, which mostly focuses on "leveling the playing field" for American farmers.

One of Warren's points centers on the fact that many farmers are forced to rely on authorized agents to repair equipment, leading to higher prices for the farmer. Warren says this is "ridiculous" and that farmers should be able to repair their own equipment, leading to her "strong support" for a national right-to-repair law.

Although Warren's post focuses on agriculture, Motherboard points out that her legislation would impact American customers across the board, from farmers fixing tractors to an iPhone owner looking to fix their smartphone at a lower cost without breaking warranty.

Elizabeth Warren: Farmers should be able to repair their own equipment or choose between multiple repair shops. That’s why I strongly support a national right-to-repair law that empowers farmers to repair their equipment without going to an authorized agent.

The national right-to-repair law should require manufacturers of farm equipment to make diagnostic tools, manuals, and other repair-related resources available to any individual or business, not just their own dealerships and authorized agents. This will not only allow individuals to fix their own equipment — reducing delays — but it will also create competition among dealers and independent repair shops, bringing down prices overall.

Apple encourages users to visit authorized repair shops, or Apple itself, to fix its devices. The company also builds its devices with many proprietary tools that make it difficult for users to repair at home, as many iFixit teardowns have proven. If Warren's legislation passed, this practice by Apple would seemingly be under a microscope in Washington.

This is the second Medium post that Warren has shared that could affect Apple in some way if she becomes President of the United States. Earlier this month, Warren outlined a plan to "break up" big tech companies to prevent monopolistic behavior. For Apple, this means that it would either have to choose between running the App Store or selling its first-party apps on it, but not both simultaneously.

The presidential candidate also wants to unwind big mergers like Amazon and Whole Foods, Facebook and Instagram, and Google and Nest. Warren argued that undoing these mergers would promote healthy competition in the tech market and put pressure back on big tech companies, making them more responsive to user concerns about privacy.

You can read Warren's latest Medium post here.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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.

A year and a half ago, Flexibits branched out from its popular calendar app Fantastical to debut Cardhop, an intuitive contacts management app for macOS. Cardhop took Apple's Contacts to the next level, offering a smart input field that intelligently parses the text you're typing and figures out what you want to do. Customizable quick actions let you easily perform tasks related to your contacts, such as placing a phone call, sending an email, or contacting on Skype.

While Cardhop's contact cards will look very familiar to those who are used to Apple's native Contacts app, Cardhop's enhanced abilities make it much easier to manage and use the information stored on those cards.

Cardhop for iOS makes it easy to edit your contacts, as all you have to do is tap and hold on the piece of information you're looking to update. As on macOS, there are customizable action keys that give you one-tap access to whatever functions you're most interested in, and those action keys live right above your keyboard at all times.

Cardhop for iOS offers a choice of dark and light themes, as well as a combination theme that shows your lists and results in a dark color and individual contact cards in a light color. Siri Shortcuts are also supported in Cardhop, letting you automate various actions with your contacts and integrate those actions across apps.

Notes is another area Flexibits has chosen to emphasize with Cardhop. While Apple's Contacts app lets you take notes about people stored in your database, Cardhop makes the feature more prominent with a slide-up interface and distinctive background (yellow or gray depending on theme), encouraging you to save information about the people you meet for more meaningful future interactions.

Cardhop also supports personal business cards, letting you customize a card with the information you want to share and displaying it like a business card on your phone. With a QR code embedded on the card, it's easy to share just by letting others scan the code using the camera app on their phones.

The natural language input field in Cardhop supports English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese, and if the app incorrectly parses your input, you can hit a flag icon to help the app learn what it should have done.

Finally, Cardhop for iOS supports directory lookups for Google Contacts, G Suite, and Exchange to let you quickly pull down contact information from your accounts on those services. A free update to Cardhop for macOS launching today also brings directory lookups to the desktop.

Flexibits is launching Cardhop for iOS as a paid universal app with no additional in-app purchases required. A limited-time launch sale will see Cardhop priced at $3.99, and once that expires the regular price will be $4.99.

Apple today updated its Apple TV Remote app, which doesn't receive new features very often. According to Apple's release notes, there's nothing major that's included in the update, but it does feature a new app icon.

The prior icon was an Apple logo next to the word "TV," the branding that Apple uses for its ‌Apple TV‌ set-top boxes. The new logo resembles the ‌Apple TV‌ Remote, making it clearer what its function is.

Today's revamped logo matches the updated logo for the ‌Apple TV‌ Remote option in the Control Center on iOS devices. Apple also changed that icon from the ‌Apple TV‌ branding to a remote control design in the iOS 12.2 update.

iOS 12.2 brought other changes to the Remote option on the iPhone and iPad as well, introducing a design that is darker, more streamlined, and takes up the majority of the iPhone's interface. With a full ‌Apple TV‌ Remote available in Control Center on modern devices, there's little reason to download the standalone ‌Apple TV‌ Remote app.

Apple is, however, still keeping it around, and according to today's release notes, version 2.2 brings "general performance and stability improvements" along with the new app icon.

The ‌Apple TV‌ Remote app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Apple in September 2019 launched its subscription gaming service, Apple Arcade, allowing App Store users to pay a monthly fee to get access to hundreds of games that have no in-app purchases or additional costs. This guide features everything you need to know about Apple Arcade.

What is Apple Arcade?

Apple Arcade is Apple's premium subscription gaming service that lets users download and play included games for one monthly fee with no added costs.

What's Apple Arcade cost?

Apple Arcade was originally priced at $4.99 per month, but it increased to $6.99 per month in late 2023. A free one-month trial is available to test it out, and that trial extends to three months with the purchase of a new Apple device. Apple Arcade is also included in Apple One bundles that include other services like Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud+, and more at discounted rates compared to subscribing to the services individually.

Is Family Sharing included?

Yes. A single $6.99 Apple Arcade subscription lets up to six family members access games. You just need to set up Family Sharing, which requires all family members to have the same credit card associated with their Apple IDs.

What games are included?

Apple has teamed up with both indie developers and big-name gaming companies to create "new and exclusive" games for the Apple Arcade service. Almost all of the content that is released through Apple Arcade is freshly created for Apple Arcade, with the exception of the classic titles that Apple has revamped.

Apple worked with Annapurna Interactive, Bossa Studios, Cartoon Network, Finji, Giant Squid, Klei Entertainment, Konami, LEGO, Mistwalker Corporation, SEGA, Snowman, ustwo games and many other developers for Apple Arcade games.

Apple has been steadily adding new titles to Apple Arcade on a regular basis, so there are now over 200 games to play. This includes original titles, along with many classic games like Fruit Ninja, Monument Valley, Threes, and more. On occasion, Apple also retires underperforming games.

Where can I find Apple Arcade games?

Apple added an Apple Arcade tab to the ‌App Store‌ where you can find all of the games included in the Apple Arcade service. Apple's ‌App Store‌ editors highlights different titles, make suggestions for you, and help you find new games to play.

Are there ads?

Nope. Apple Arcade is a play-all-you-want subscription service with no additional in-app purchases or costs to unlock content. Since there are no ads, there's also no ad tracking, so user privacy is protected. All future upgrades and content additions are also included in the subscription price.

Will Apple Arcade games be able to be purchased separately?

No. Apple Arcade games are available in the ‌App Store‌ only through Apple Arcade and cannot be purchased individually without an Apple Arcade subscription. Some of these games are also available on consoles, however.

Can Apple Arcade games be played offline?

Yep. Apple lets you download these games and play them even without a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Apple Arcade games are downloaded just like any other game in the ‌App Store‌, just through the Apple Arcade tab.

What devices can Apple Arcade games be played on?

Apple Arcade games will work on the iPhone, iPad, ‌Apple TV‌, Macs, and Apple Vision Pro. The games are supported by Made for iPhone game controllers along with PlayStation and Xbox controllers. Apple built controller support into tvOS 13, iOS 13, and iPadOS 13, so iOS/tvOS/iPadOS 13 or later is required if you want to use a controller with Apple Arcade.

Because multiple platforms are supported, you can start a game on one device and then swap over to another without losing your place. So if you want to play a title on Mac and then take it on the go on your iPhone, you can do so.

What countries is Apple Arcade available in?

Apple Arcade is available in more than 150 countries. Basically, any country with an ‌App Store‌ available has access to Apple Arcade titles.

When did Apple Arcade launch?

Apple Arcade officially launched on September 19, 2019, alongside iOS 13, and it is available on all later versions of iOS as well. Apple Arcade games can be accessed on iOS devices, Macs, ‌Apple TV‌, and ‌Apple Vision Pro‌.

Free Trial

Apple offers a free trial to test out Apple Arcade before paying for a subscription. It's worth noting that if the trial is canceled before the expiration date is up, it will end immediately on the date of cancelation. That means if you want to try it for the maximum amount of time without paying, you should wait until the end of the trial to cancel.

Hands-On With Apple Arcade

We tested out Apple Arcade, so if you want to get a little taste of what it's like before signing up, make sure to check out our video.

Guide Feedback

See something we left out of our Apple Arcade guide or have a question not answered here? Let us know in the comments or Send us an email here.

Apple today released an updated version of Shortcuts, introducing support for several new actions related to the Notes app. There are options for Create Note, Append to Note, Find Notes, and Show Notes, all of which can be incorporated into your shortcuts.

There's also a new Get Numbers input action for pulling numbers from text, and Get Time Travel includes more details like route name, arrival time, and distance. You can also now tap on the Library tab to get to the bottom of the shortcuts list more quickly.

Apple's full release notes for the new 2.2 Shortcuts update are below:

- Create and access Notes in your shortcuts with the new Create Note, Append to Note, Find Notes, and Show Note actions
- Pull out numbers from text using the new Get Numbers from Input action
- Tapping on the Library tab will now scroll to the bottom of your shortcuts list
- Get Travel Time now returns more details, including route name, arrival time, and distance
- Bug fixes and improvements

The Shortcuts app, introduced in iOS 12, is designed to allow iOS users to create multi-step shortcuts and automations using both first and third-party apps, with the shortcuts able to be activated using Siri commands.

Through Shortcuts, for example, you can create an automation to do something like turn on the thermostat at home using the Nest app, text your roommate that you're on the way with Messages, and open up the Maps app with directions home all with a single "I'm going home" ‌Siri‌ command spoken when leaving work.

Shortcuts are deeply customizable, with Apple's Shortcuts app providing a gallery of Shortcut suggestions along with the tools to create your own.

Spotify today announced its latest acquisition, this one related to a podcast company called Parcast (via Reuters). This marks Spotify's third podcast-related acquisition in two months, and represents the company's ongoing plan to boost the music streaming platform as a hub for podcasts that can compete with Apple Podcasts.

Last month, Spotify purchased Gimlet Media for $300 million, acquiring the company's big-name podcasts like "Homecoming" and "Reply All." Around the same time, Spotify also purchased Anchor, a company that is more behind-the-scenes of the podcast world and lets its users record and create their own shows that can easily be shared online.

Parcast will be added to that list, and Spotify will now have ownership of its specialization in crime and mystery-themed podcast content, genres that are hugely successful in the market. Parcast is home to a big list of popular genres and podcasts, covering topics like cults, serial killers, haunted places, unexplained mysteries, extraterrestrials, and more.

These purchased shows will also join new and original podcasts created by Spotify, all of which will be curated by the team that built Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist algorithm. Eventually, the music streaming company hopes to become the Netflix of podcasts, able to provide recommendations on what to watch and house both third-party and exclusive first-party content.

Spotify first began its efforts to enter the podcast field around two years ago, when it said it was "coming after" Apple with a strong push into podcasts. The last few years have been marked as a so-called golden age for podcasts, causing many companies to look into entering the field.

Apple and Spotify have been in another dispute this year as well, after Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission. In the complaint, Spotify accused Apple of enforcing App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience" and said that Apple acts "as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers."

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek particularly called out Apple's policy of charging a 30 percent "tax" on ‌App Store‌ purchases. This results in Spotify charging existing subscribers $12.99 per month for its Premium plan via the ‌App Store‌ just to collect nearly the $9.99 per month it charges normally. The spat continued with Apple claiming that Spotify provided "misleading rhetoric," and with Spotify stating that "every monopolist will suggest they have done nothing wrong."

For the podcast initiative, it's unclear when Spotify plans to launch the new part of its service.

Apple yesterday began sending emails to Apple Pay customers, warning them about new changes to the service that are taking effect immediately with iOS 12.2 and watchOS 5.2. With the updates, Apple has ended support for sending money through ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash using a credit card (including the upcoming Apple Card).

Previously, users could link their credit card to fund person-to-person payments in Messages, which are then linked to ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash in the Wallet app. Now, Apple has stopped accepting credit cards as funding options for ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash effective March 25, 2019.

‌Apple Pay‌ users can still send money using a debit card or their existing ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash balance. The company says that the update "will ensure ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash customers never have to worry about cash advance fees that may be charged by issuing banks."

In the same email, Apple discusses ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash Instant Transfers, which lets users quickly transfer money from an ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash balance to an eligible Visa debit card in the Wallet app. These transfers are processed within minutes and a 1 percent fee (minimum fee of $0.25 and maximum fee of $10) is deducted from the amount of each transfer. Traditional bank transfers still remain, offering free ACH bank transfers that take one to three business days.

Lastly, during yesterday's keynote Apple showcased a new name for ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash, now simply called "Apple Cash." The company highlighted the name change during the ‌Apple Card‌ segment of the event, explaining how ‌Apple Card‌ owners will be able to get Daily Cash rewards that instantly appear on their Apple Cash cards.

Jennifer Bailey, VP of Apple Pay: "So when you're buying your morning coffee, shopping for groceries, and any time you pay using Apple Card, you get Daily Cash. Not a month from now, but every day. So every day you spend, cash is added to your Apple Cash card, which is also in the Wallet app.

This simplifies the name, although the change has yet to appear as of iOS 12.2. It's possible the name change will show up alongside the launch of ‌Apple Card‌ this summer.

If you missed yesterday's event, or want a quick refresher, be sure to check out or six-minute recap of everything Apple announced at the event.