MacRumors

Apple's augmented reality developer framework, known as ARKit, launched within iOS 11 on September 19. The debut turned hundreds of millions of iPhones into advanced AR-capable devices in the span of a few days, leading to the first wave of ARKit apps on the iOS App Store.

One of these apps is called "Pixie," which existed prior to ARKit with its own proprietary AR technology, but the company updated its main app and "Pixie Point" trackers with Apple's technology last month. I've been testing Pixie's new ARKit-enabled tracking devices for about a week, and so far the app's augmented reality solution to finding lost items has provided a fun and engaging experience for item rediscovery, when it works.

Unfortunately, my experience with Pixie was too often plagued by a low-quality app guidance system and inconsistent success in its main function, making the whole package feel like a beta product for a better iteration down the line.

Like other Bluetooth trackers, you attach Pixie Points onto items you might lose frequently, or simply fear losing in the future. For Pixie's tracking technology to work reliably, one of the Points has to be attached to your iPhone via an included silicone-like case.

The Pixie Point sits embedded in the top right of the case's back, and this coupled with the slippery feel of the case made me more conscious of how I was holding my iPhone and how close it was to falling from my hand at times. You could also use the Point's adhesive backing to stick it directly to your iPhone, but for obvious reasons I preferred not do that.

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August Home today announced that its new August Doorbell Cam Pro is now shipping following nearly three weeks of pre-orders.

Like other video doorbells, the Doorbell Cam Pro is equipped with a full-color HD camera and microphone for two-way audio and one-way video. Using the companion August Home app (HomeKit isn't supported), homeowners can see and speak with visitors at their door in real time, even when they're not home.

A built-in motion detector triggers instant alerts via push notifications when something's happening at the door. A new feature called HindSight adds a few extra seconds to the beginning of a video recording so homeowners can see what's happening just before motion is detected, rather than someone walking away.

The updated camera features a built-in floodlight that enables it to work during the night. By comparison, its competitor Ring uses infrared in the dark.

An optional August Video Recording plan, available for $4.99 per month or $49.99 for a one-year plan, lets users replay, download, and share recordings of activity at their door through the August Home app.

The video doorbell replaces a home's existing wired doorbell, and has a USB dock for easy setup ahead of installation.

August Doorbell Cam Pro is available immediately for $199 USD in silver and dark gray from August.com and select other retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy. By comparison, the Ring Video Doorbell starts at $179.

Pixelmator today updated its iOS app with full support for iOS 11, including importing HEIF images and Drag and Drop functionality on iPad.

Drag and Drop support enables iPad users to easily move images and graphics between Pixelmator and other apps. For example, users can move their entire composition into apps like Mail, Messages, and Keynote by simply touching and holding outside the image canvas, then dropping the image into the other app.

With support for HEIF images, Pixelmator for iOS users can now import images saved in the High Efficiency Image File Format. The new, more efficient format reduces file sizes without sacrificing quality, and is now used as the default on the iPhone 7 and later. Learn more about HEIF in our earlier coverage.

Last week, Pixelmator for Mac was also updated to include HEIF image support and integration with Apple's Photos app on macOS High Sierra.

The update also includes bug fixes for issues such as Pixelmator quitting unexpectedly when zooming in after starting a selection, compositions sometimes disappearing when adding or removing layers, and certain buttons in the Color and Format popovers occasionally not responding to touches.

Pixelmator version 2.4 is available on the App Store [Direct Link] as a free update for existing users. The app costs $4.99 for new users.

Apple Music subscribers will be able to watch an exclusive short film about the making of Niall Horan's new album "Flicker," with the movie and album set to launch simultaneously on October 20 (via Billboard). The film will showcase Niall in a behind-the-scenes look at the making of his debut album, similar to the short film that Apple Music released about Harry Styles around the launch of his own debut album in May.

"On The Record: Flicker" will feature interviews, footage of acoustic rehearsals, and "insight into Horan's creative process and this watershed moment in his career -- all with heart-on-sleeve honesty that he pours into his songwriting." Prior to the October 20 debut of the film and album, there will be an "intimate private screening" for fans of the movie in Los Angeles on October 19, after which Horan will premiere the songs from Flicker in a live performance.

"I always knew that if I ever made a solo album what it would sound like," Horan says in a preview of the film. "I spent the last year and a half between the four walls of a studio and I'm ready to go and show how proud of the album I am."

Another recent Apple Music short film looked into Pink's creative process when making her new album "Beautiful Trauma." The film -- titled "On The Record: P!nk - Beautiful Trauma" -- included interviews and behind-the-scenes footage with Pink "reflecting on her art and her career, on motherhood and the world we live in--all with the sort of honesty and sense of humor we've come to love and expect." Similar to Horan's film and album, Beautiful Trauma is set to release on October 13 alongside the short film about the album's creation.

Nokia on Tuesday announced that it is halting the development of its $45,000 Ozo virtual reality camera, citing "slower than expected development of the VR market" as the reason behind the company's rethink.

The news comes at the expense of 310 jobs in the U.S., the U.K., and Finland – the home of Nokia – as the company optimizes its investments in virtual reality and targets faster growth in digital health products and services instead.

In digital media, the slower-than-expected development of the VR market means that Nokia Technologies plans to reduce investments and focus more on technology licensing opportunities. The unit aims to halt development of further versions of the OZO VR camera and hardware, while maintaining commitments to existing customers.

Nokia acquired French health tracking company Withings in 2016 for an estimated $192 million, signaling the company's long-term investment in consumer digital health and the Internet of Things sector. Withings completed its rebrand to the Nokia label in June of this year and simultaneously launched two new connected health products under the Nokia brand.

Nokia announced the professional-grade Ozo camera back in 2015, when it had a $60,000 price tag. The 360-degree 3D camera is capable of live streaming, live monitoring and automatic stitching. Disney, UEFA, Sony Pictures and other media companies bought Ozo camera units, and Nokia later dropped the price to $45,000, but sales clearly didn't warrant continued development.

Apple is investigating designs for Apple Watch bands that self-adjust to fit the wearer's wrist using an integrated tensioner mechanism (via AppleInsider). A patent application granted on Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office describes multiple designs that utilize such a system, which could one day replace magnetic clasps, velcro, and other fasteners used in current bands.

Titled "Dynamic fit adjustment for wearable electronic devices", the patent begins by highlighting the cumbersome nature of existing fastening methods, which can be inconvenient to adjust or require special tools to achieve the desired fit, and often fail to offer fine-grained adjustment.

The patent goes on to note that not only can a sub-optimal fit be uncomfortable, it also risks decreasing the sensitivity of onboard biometric sensors and reducing their measurement accuracy. These potential problems are often exacerbated by sweat and motion during exercise, the document notes.

A number of possible solutions are offered, using variations of a built-in tensioner mechanism that adjusts automatically or at the wearer's request, tightening or loosening as required. Variations include embedded shape memory wire, internal ratcheting apparatus, gas or fluid bladders, retractable band elements, and even extendable portions of the device housing.

As always with patents, it's not known whether the inventions will ever be used in Apple's consumer product line-up, but the designs clearly relate to potential future models of Apple Watch or watch band, the latest being the Sport Loop with hook-and-loop fastener.

Twitter is developing a new Save for Later feature that will allow users to bookmark tweets for later reference, a Twitter product manager announced today.

On Twitter, product manager Jesar Shah said Twitter began working on a Save for Later feature during a recent Hack Week. An accompanying video demoed the new bookmarking option, which offers an "Add to Bookmarks" tool for preserving tweets.

Shah says Twitter is aiming to build the bookmarking option with input from Twitter users, with Twitter planning to ask users for feedback as the company designs and experiments with the feature. Twitter users can offer feedback and comments using the hashtag #SaveForLater.

At the current time, Twitter has no official feature for keeping tweets to revisit. Twitter users use liking, retweeting, and self DMing as tweet saving methods right now, but a bookmarking option will make saving tweets for later reference much easier.

More information on the feature will be coming soon.

Apple has opted not to move forward with an Elvis Presley biopic series produced by The Weinstein Company following a sexual harassment scandal involving founder Harvey Weinstein, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The Apple Music project with The Weinstein Company was in the early stages of production, and would have seen Apple airing a 10-part Elvis biopic. It was reportedly one of four music-related projects that Apple had in the works with The Weinstein Company, with the others set to feature Michael Jackson, Prince, and Frank Sinatra.

Apple first established the deal with The Weinstein Company ahead of the June hiring of Sony executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, and the Elvis biopic was the only one of the four projects that was nearing development.

The Elvis series was first announced in September of 2016, but at that time, Apple's involvement was not known. It was developed alongside the Presley estate, with the estate offering access to the entire Elvis Presley music catalog, cars, clothing, and Elvis' Graceland home.

Apple's decision to end the project comes following a Thursday report from The New York Times that detailed the decades-long sexual harassment history of founder Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was fired from The Weinstein Company over the weekend, and sources have told The Hollywood Reporter that the company will change its name shortly.

(Image via Elvis.com)

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.

BNZ, aka Bank of New Zealand, plans to begin offering Apple Pay in the near future, reports New Zealand site Stuff. When Apple Pay support is implemented, BNZ customers will be able to use the Apple Pay service with their BNZ Advantage Visa credit cards and BNZ Flexi Debit Visa cards.

BNZ director of products and technology David Bullock said BNZ is planning to offer support for Apple Pay following feedback from customers. "More and more retailers are accepting it," he told Stuff. "There's a fairly high acceptance rate in New Zealand.

Apple Pay launched in New Zealand in October of 2016 in partnership with ANZ, and at the current time, Apple Pay is only available to ANZ customers.

BNZ does not have a set date for the release of Apple Pay, but expects the feature to become available later in the month of October.

The Ionic is Fitbit's first real effort at a "true" smartwatch, and there's plenty riding on the $300 device. Not only is the activity tracker company late to the smartwatch game, its market share in wearables has shrunk because of increasingly sophisticated rival devices from the likes Apple and Xiaomi.

To have a hope of reviving its fortunes, Fitbit sought out a new creative direction and subsequently bought Pebble late last year. The wearable technology that Fitbit inherited as part of the acquisition now powers the new Ionic operating system, called Fitbit OS.

Last month, app makers were supplied with an SDK to see what third-party apps they can come up with for the Ionic. In the meantime, I was interested to look at what Fitbit's smartwatch has to offer out of the box, and in particular, how it compares to its closest kin, the Fitbit Blaze.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook today met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, and over the course of 45 minutes, the two discussed topics like education, the economy, and taxes in Europe, according to French news sites.

Apple would like to extend its "Everyone Can Code" educational initiative to France, and plans to discuss its expansion with the Ministry of National Education.

Introduced in 2016, Everyone Can Code is aimed at adding coding lessons into elementary schools and colleges. Hundreds of elementary schools have adopted Everyone Can Code material in the United States, and community colleges across the country have also begun offering App Development with Swift classes.

As rumored, Apple also plans to open an installation at Parisian startup incubator "Station F" in an effort to help French app developers create and launch iOS apps. Station F is the largest startup facility in the world and other companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Ubisoft, already run startup programs at the incubator.

The two also discussed the relationship between Apple and French suppliers and how it can be improved, with Apple planning to work with additional French suppliers for future products.

Taxes in Europe were the last topic of discussion. Cook and Macron discussed the need for tech companies to contribute to the economy in the countries in which they operate. Led by Macron, France and Germany have called for an aggressive overhaul of how tech companies pay taxes across the European Union with the aim of introducing a more unified corporate tax system across Europe.

Cook and Macron are said to have had a constructive discussion on taxes, with no deadlock in the dialogue, but both agreed that a solution will ultimately be enacted by the European Union rather than France.

Cook had a busy day in France. In addition to meeting with Macron, he also visited iPhone X component supplier Eldim, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, "My Little Paris" recommendation startup, and "CoachGuitar," a company that makes an app for teaching people how to play the guitar.

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.