MacRumors

Minneapolis has the fastest average LTE speeds of all major cities in the United States, according to a recent study conducted by OpenSignal.

OpenSignal found that the average LTE download connection in Minneapolis was 21.5 Mbps, almost twice as fast as the 11.65 Mbps average it measured in Las Vegas, which was the slowest among the 35 cities it tracked.

Four out of the five fastest cities were in the Midwest region, with Minneapolis joined by Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis in the rankings.

OpenSignal said 29 of the 35 cities exceeded the national LTE download average of 13.98 Mbps. When compared to global speeds, though, only 14 cities had 4G speeds higher than the worldwide LTE download average of 16.6 Mbps.

OpenSignal collected its data from millions of smartphones with its app installed under conditions of normal usage.

It's not Friday, but we're doing an extra giveaway this week, in partnership with MagBak. If you're not familiar with MagBak, it's a magnetic case that originally started out as a popular Kickstarter.

The latest MagBak cases are for the iPhone X, Apple's newest flagship iPhone. The MagBak for iPhone X is made from a soft, flexible rubber material that protects the iPhone on all sides. MagBak is available in Black, Gray, Blue, and Red.

There are cutouts for the camera, mute switch, Lightning port, and speakers, but the rest of the iPhone is covered, giving it protection from drops and bumps. There is a lip around the MagBak that also keeps the display from getting scratched when the iPhone is placed face down on a surface. A plastic material at the sides adds grip, so it's easy to hold onto the iPhone X in the case.

The MagBak isn't just a simple case, though. It has built-in magnets that allow it to mount to any magnetic surface, like a refrigerator. It also ships with two magnetic "MagStick" strips that can be applied to any flat surface via adhesive, allowing the iPhone X to be mounted in the car, in the kitchen, and more.

In addition to shipping with two magnetic MagSticks, MagBak also bundles the MagBak with an alcohol-based cleaning pad to be used before placing the MagSticks and a SIM tool. There's a cutout inside the MagBak case for the SIM tool, so you can make sure you always have one with you.

MagBak for iPhone X is normally priced at $39, but we have 15 cases to give away. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

Last month, HBO announced a new project called "Mosaic," a murder-mystery TV show that allows you to interact with and discover branching paths based on characters you choose to follow. This interactive version of Mosaic has now arrived in the form of an app for iOS and tvOS, and in 2018 a traditional, linear version of the story will debut on HBO. HBO will air the plot line that creators Ed Solomon and Steven Soderbergh envision for the series, which viewers can compare with their own versions.

The free app allows you to choose from various viewing orders, character decisions, and branching information options over the course of a 7.5-hour mini series, which stars Sharon Stone, Garrett Hedlund, Beau Bridges, Paul Reubens, and more. "Mosaic" won't just be a one-off series, with Soderbergh telling TechCrunch that he has made two more "made-for-Mosaic" shows, which will be coming after this first series launches. Soderbergh referred to the app as an "open source format" that will be available to other creatives in the future.

Soderbergh says “I looked at this as sort of an open source format that other fimmakesrs can come in and push.” Beyond the next two Mosaic titles he’s making, it’s unclear if other creators will launch their own separate apps based on the Mosaic tech, or if today’s app will become a hub for viewing or even buying this branching narrative content.

Soderbergh explained that the outcome of the story doesn't change because of choices you make, but that the app is more focused on what information you have -- or lack -- based on the branches you've taken. On Apple TV and iOS devices, the branching narrative will pop up with options after the end of certain scenes, letting you decide what a character should do next or switch to another plot line completely.

As you delve more into the mystery, you'll unlock "Discoveries" with extra clips, documents, and secrets that serve as additional pieces of the show's overall puzzle.

“The outcome and the events of the story don’t change based on your choices” says Soderbergh who avoided making Mosaic an overly-complicated video game. “It’s merely what information do you have about the story based on what you’ve been following.’ Some people like to just keep making choices and get to the end of a path, some people like to minesweep” jumping between separate characters in chronological order.

The Mosaic app was developed by PodOp, which was said to have filed 14 patents for the technology behind the interactive storytelling experience. The developer built storyboard management software that assisted Soderbergh and Solomon in planning out and scripting the branching narrative, as well as analytics tools that will help HBO and the creators see how audiences respond to the new format. If you'd prefer to wait for a more traditional experience, HBO's linear cut of the show will be six hours and debut on January 22, 2018.

You can download Mosaic on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV for free starting today. [Direct Link]

Following the success of Pokémon Go, TechCrunch is reporting today that developer Niantic Labs' next augmented reality game will be themed around the world of Harry Potter. The smartphone app will be called "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite" and is set to launch in 2018.

Specific details about the app's gameplay have not yet been released, but it's said that "there will be significant influence" from Niantic's original game, Ingress, which also influenced Pokémon Go. The developer's previous two games task players with exploring the real world to perform in-game actions, defending locations, and collecting items. Still, it's unclear which aspects of the Harry Potter universe would be used to create an augmented reality experience.

Niantic Labs had tremendous success with Pokémon Go, which paired their expertise in building location-based augmented reality mobile experiences with a top-flight IP with a ravenous fan base. So, it stands to reason that we should expect a similar fan response to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, an AR title set to launch in 2018, co-developed by Warner Bros. Interactive and its new sub brand Portkey Games.

The app is now official, bu the details are still scarce, with the launch timeframe of just sometime next year, but it sounds like there will be significant influence from the Niantic game Ingress, which allows players to roam the real world collecting power-ups, defending locations and exploring their environment.

Augmented reality is quickly becoming a popular feature on smartphones, particularly for Apple's products. This year, the company debuted ARKit in iOS 11, greatly expanding the reach and availability of AR apps on the iOS App Store. Company CEO Tim Cook is constantly referencing his excitement for the technology, and a report by Bloomberg earlier today reinvigorated rumors that Apple is now on a "very aggressive" timeline to debut AR glasses by 2020.

Update: The official Harry Potter: Wizards Unite website is now up and running, so you can visit it to sign up and get updates about the game. Niantic also posted about the new AR app on its own blog, explaining that players "will learn spells, explore their real world neighborhoods and cities to discover & fight legendary beasts and team up with others to take down powerful enemies."

Instagram this week announced that users can now add photos or videos that are more than 24 hours old to Stories.

Instagram removing the 24-hour limitation reflects a continued assault on Snapchat, which should come as no surprise given Instagram has essentially been copying Snapchat for well over a year.

Just like you normally would, swipe up from the camera to open your Camera Roll or tap the gallery icon. Scroll to choose your photo or video, and tap to select what you want to share to your story, which still disappears after 24 hours itself.

If you choose a photo or video that's more than 24 hours old, you'll automatically see a new sticker that helps you add context for when it was taken. The sticker can be rotated, resized, or removed as usual.

The updated version of Instagram is available now on the App Store [Direct Link].

In 2009 developer Zynga debuted Words With Friends, a Scrabble-like game on the iOS App Store that quickly became one of the most popular and well-known apps associated with iPhone gaming. Today, Zynga is launching the first proper sequel to the game, Words With Friends 2, as a brand-new and free app on the App Store, and it'll carry over all of your friends, running games, and settings from the first app.

In terms of gameplay, Words With Friends 2 plays the same as the original, offering up a word-creation board game against your friends in an asynchronous multiplayer experience. Additionally, Zynga said that it has added in a few new features to the sequel, "requested from the Words With Friends player community," including a Solo Challenge that pits you against an AI bot, a team versus team Lightning Round, and an enhanced Social Dictionary.

Solo Challenge is meant to help you develop your strategy and vocabulary in a single player-style experience of "increasingly tough matches." The Lightning Round mode is Zynga's first-ever synchronous multiplayer feature, allowing you to play against more than one person in the same match by joining a team of five total players, resulting in a "faster and more competitive" mode than the traditional gameplay.

All of the new features come in an app that's also newly designed with a "refreshed, modern look and feel," according to Zynga.

“As one of Zynga’s most popular and iconic forever franchises, Words With Friends continues to connect millions of people around the world every day through a shared love of social wordplay,” said Bernard Kim, President of Publishing, Zynga. “Words With Friends 2 honors the rich, pop-culture legacy and beloved social gameplay of Words With Friends, while introducing innovative features in the largest refresh in the game’s eight-year history.

We’re proud to bring our loyal fans a brand-new experience that’s inspired by all the ways they want to play. Whether it’s teaming up in our first-ever synchronous multiplayer mode with Lightning Round or improving their vocabulary prowess in Solo Challenge, Words With Friends 2 gives players more opportunities to master their favorite word game than ever before.”

Zynga mentioned that over the course of eight years, more than 140 billion words have been played in Words With Friends, and to this day over 6.5 million matches are created every day. The popular original game spawned numerous spiritual successors created by Zynga and tackling other well-known game genres, including Hanging With Friends, Chess With Friends, Matching With Friends, Crosswords With Friends, Boggle With Friends, Word Streak With Friends, and more.

You can download Words With Friends 2 on the iOS App Store for free beginning today [Direct Link]. The sequel is also available on Google Play for Android devices.

Samsung has decided not to include a fingerprint scanner under the display of its next-generation Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones due to continued technical difficulties, according to South Korea's The Investor.

Instead, the fingerprint scanner will likely remain positioned on the back of each device, just like the current Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ models.

Fingerprint scanning is one of three biometric options for unlocking the Galaxy S8 alongside iris scanning and facial recognition. Samsung says all three solutions provide "defense-grade security" around the clock.

Shortly after the Galaxy S8 launched, however, videos surfaced showing that Samsung's facial recognition system could be fairly easily duped with a picture of someone. The iris scanner was also tricked with contact lenses.

In fine print on its website, Samsung admits that its facial recognition system is "less secure than pattern, PIN, or password." Facial recognition can't be used to authenticate access to the Galaxy S8's Secure Folder or Samsung Pay.

"It is important to reiterate that facial recognition, while convenient, can only be used for opening your Galaxy S8 and currently cannot be used to authenticate access to Samsung Pay or Secure Folder," the company told Ars Technica in March.

Apple was widely rumored to be attempting to integrate Touch ID under the display on the iPhone X, or even on the side or back of the device, but the company's hardware engineering chief Dan Riccio suggested it ditched any form of fingerprint scanning after hitting "early line of sight" with Face ID.

Samsung's facial recognition system is unquestionably less secure than Face ID, which uses significantly more advanced 3D facial recognition and has a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of being duped by a stranger, according to Apple.

Apple is so confident in Face ID that it is planning to abandon Touch ID in favor of the TrueDepth system on all of its new iPhone models released in 2018, according to well-connected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Apple says Face ID only has a possibility of being less reliable for identical twins, siblings who look alike, and children under 13 years of age, the latter because their distinct facial features may not have fully developed.

Apple's Face ID security paper explains how the TrueDepth camera projects and reads over 30,000 infrared dots to form a depth map of your face, along with a 2D infrared image. This data is used to create a sequence of 2D images and depth maps, which are digitally signed and sent to the Secure Enclave.

Face ID is designed to confirm user attention, ensuring a lower false match rate, and mitigation against both digital and physical spoofing.

Postmates today announced the dual-launch of a new curated groceries and essentials delivery service called "Postmates Fresh," alongside a revamp of the company's iOS app. Postmates has long allowed customers to order groceries for delivery on its app, but the company said Postmates Fresh is its "first-ever grocery product" offering the delivery of everything from paper towels to free range chicken to your door in minutes.

When ordering through Fresh, the average delivery time is estimated at thirty minutes, which Postmates said makes it a good source for last minute items. Postmates Fresh will also work directly with local partners to build out the new service, providing users with "curated, locally-sourced groceries," and more directly competing with grocery delivery services like Amazon Fresh. Postmates Fresh will launch first in Manhattan, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Our first-ever grocery product launched today in Manhattan, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The launch of Fresh— a new category that curates high quality groceries and ingredients, is rolling out the same day as our brand new app design. This means customers can now get pesto, paper towels, LaCroix, Halo Top, Kombucha, free range chicken, prosciutto, salmon filet, organic apples, avocados — and pretty much all the essentials they need, in minutes.

Postmates said that the goal of Fresh is to make "locally grown groceries more accessible," leading to the partnership with Farmstead in San Francisco, East Village Farm in New York City, and Urban Radish in Downtown Los Angeles. As the service expands to more markets, Postmates will look for more direct-to-consumer grocers who source from organic farms with the "highest-quality products" to integrate new partners into Postmates Fresh.

Additionally, the new app has been optimized for iPhone X and features a new collections view and scheduled deliveries section, where you can place an order for the future even if the grocery location or restaurant is closed. Postmates consumer product lead David Byttow told TechCrunch that the app's new design and features are the basis for "a whole bunch of things we'll be launching and bringing in the coming weeks."

Update: Bloomberg reports pricing for Postmates Fresh will be $3.99 per delivery or $9.99 per month.

Spectacles company Warby Parker recently updated its mobile app to include a novel implementation of Apple's face recognition technology exclusive to the iPhone X.

The glasses app uses the smartphone's front-facing TrueDepth camera to map the user's face and create an ideal fit for a new set of frames.

Apple's Face ID authentication works by projecting 30,000 dots on the surface of a person's face, accurately mapping its curvature and unique features.

The camera's sensors also capture the data in three dimensions, and it's this technology in particular that the glasses app uses to recommend to the user a series of frames that it thinks will fit their facial structure.

The only failing of the app is that it doesn't (yet) place the spectacles on the user's face, Snapchat-style, to let the customer see what they look like wearing them.

Apple's ARKit augmented reality framework would seem to be the obvious solution to this lack. We've reached out to Warby Parker to ask if they have any plans to make use of it, and will update this article if we hear back.

(Via Mashable.)

Longtime Snapchat users should prepare themselves for a radical overhaul of the way the mobile app works, based on comments made by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in his earnings letter to investors on Tuesday.

With the company falling short of lowered projections for growth, Snap put much of the blame on the fact that the social platform is simply a mystery to outsiders. "One thing we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use," wrote Spiegel. "Our team has been working on responding to this feedback."

Few details were provided on the planned redesign, but Snapchat said it was working on an algorithm to show people a more personalized version of the stories they might want to see.

"We are developing a new solution that provides each of our 178 million daily active users with their own Stories experience," wrote Spiegel, "leveraging the tremendous benefits of machine learning without compromising the editorial integrity of the Stories platform that we have worked so hard to build."

Spiegel said that the changes would make it easier for users to see content from people who aren't their friends, but that private conversations between close friends would remain a bulwark of the app.

The esoteric nature of the social platform has apparently moved Snap to make these drastic changes, but the danger is that it could alienate existing users. However, Spiegel said the company was willing to bear the consequences.

"There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don't yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application," Spiegel said in his prepared remarks to investors. "We're willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business."

Snap's third quarter revenue was $207.9 million, not the $235.5 million analysts had predicted. Shares fell as much as 22 percent in extended trading as a result, before recovering slightly to trade down 17 percent.

Sales estimates for Snap have been dropping since its March initial public offering, with the company apparently unable to clearly explain to advertisers how Snapchat works, despite providing investors with detailed instructions during its initial PO. The lack of a news feed and no ability to share, like, or comment on posts has also proved a stumbling block.

Against this backdrop, Facebook's habit of copying Snapchat features and building them into its own apps has only weakened the uniqueness of Snap's offering in the social media landscape - a key factor of the company's business model. It remains to be seen exactly what a redesign will mean for Snapchat and its users, and no timeline for the rollout has been made public.

Update 11/9: Business Insider reports that Snapchat’s redesign is planned to debut on December 4.

Apple's new iPhone X brings the first major design overhaul in years, so I'm taking a look at a wide range of iPhone X cases from different manufacturers to see what's available. This is my second review roundup post, which covers Casetify, Caudabe, and Incipio.

My first review roundup on cases from Twelve South, Nomad, Speck, and Apple can be found here, and in the coming days, I'll have additional review roundups that highlight many other cases.

For all of my reviews, I'm looking at the general usability of iPhone X cases. Extreme drop tests and in-depth testing aren't covered because those factors are less important than how a case works on an average day, and it's often fairly easy to tell from design how protective a case is going to be.

Factors like bulk, button accessibility, grip, thickness, and appearance are what I focused on. With the removal of the Home button, button presses are more important, and there are a surprising number of cases out there that make the buttons a lot more tedious to press.

All of the cases in today's review roundup support wireless charging and I've confirmed that each one works with a Qi wireless charger I have on hand.

Casetify

Casetify offers a huge selection of cases for the iPhone X, some of which are customizable and some of which are more standard case designs.

I'm a fan of Casetify's customizable cases, and I've ordered them several times in the past. They're essentially clear cases that you can add your own images to, or choose one of hundreds of designs from artists.

There are three base customizable cases: the Snap Case ($35), the Impact Case ($45), and the Glitter Case ($45), which has a layer of liquid-filled glitter inside of it.

➜ Click here to read more...

Taylor Swift's new album "reputation" will not be available on streaming music services like Apple Music for at least a week after it launches, reports Bloomberg.

Swift's representatives began notifying streaming music services about the upcoming limitation this week. The album reportedly will not be available for streaming during the first week of sales, and companies are still negotiating to determine when exactly it might be made available.

"reputation" will be available for purchase in retail stores and online stores like iTunes starting on Friday, November 10. If there is a one week waiting period, it could become available on Apple Music starting on November 17.

Swift has been an outspoken streaming music critic, and back in 2015, she wrote a letter to Apple Music executives lambasting the service for initially refusing to pay royalties to artists during the three-month free trial period.

"I think there should be an inherent value placed on art," she said at the time. Swift later reversed course and allowed her music on non-Apple Music services. With her refusal to release her new album on streaming music services at launch, Swift joins other artists like Adele who have made similar decisions. Adele's "25" was not available on streaming services for months after it launched.

At the current time, several singles from the new album are streamable on Apple Music, including "Look What You Made Me Do," "Gorgeous," "...Ready For It?" and "Call It What You Want." The full 15-track album can be pre-ordered on iTunes for $13.99.