MacRumors

You can create custom sounds and ringtones for alerts, texts, phone calls, and more on your iPhone, but did you know the same functionality exists for vibrations?

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Choose Sounds & Haptics.
3. Select Ringtone, Text Tone, or another alert option from the list.
4. Choose "Vibration" from the very top of the screen.
5. Scroll down to "Custom."
6. Choose "Create New Vibration."

From here, you can use taps to create short vibrations and a press to create longer vibrations, varying the two to create a unique vibration pattern.

Choose "Play" to test out your vibration pattern, and choose "Save" to give it a name and save it. Custom vibrations are available for all of the different native alerts on your phone, including ringtones, text tone, voicemail, mail, sent mail, calendar alerts, reminder alerts, and AirDrop.

Apple is sponsoring a London concert that will feature Anderson .Paak and The Free Nationals, the company announced on its Apple Music Twitter account this morning.

The one-night-only concert, hosted by Apple Music exec Dr. Dre, will take place on March 13, 2018 at O2 Academy Brixton, one of London's most popular music venues.

Anderson .Paak recently released his first new single since 2016, "Til It's Over." The song made its debut in Apple's new "Welcome Home" HomePod ad directed by Spike Jonze.

Netflix this week gave a briefing to a group of reporters in its Los Gatos, California company headquarters, revealing data about its subscribers' device streaming habits and how these habits might change over the course of a few months (via Recode). While the information isn't particularly shocking, it is one of the rare times that Netflix has provided data and opened up about the streaming habits of its users.

In terms of global Netflix user signups, 40 percent of signups happen on a Mac or PC, but after six months those users have dwindled down to just 15 percent still watching Netflix on their computer. Over time, users understandably migrate to larger screens, with 70 percent of total global Netflix streams ending up on television sets six months after first signing up.

Under TVs and computers, smartphones represent 10 percent of Netflix streaming six months after signing up, followed by tablets at just 5 percent.

The favoritism for TV continues when broken down by genres, although there are slight variations in percentages where device preference varies from genre to genre. Kids shows, for example, are the least popular on computers and the most popular on TVs, while also favoring handheld devices like iPhones and iPads. Dramas have popularity on iPhones and other handheld products, while Documentaries are the third most popular genre to stream on a TV, behind Kids and Family.

CNET had a few additional tidbits of information, stating that about 25 percent of Netflix's total global streaming for any given day happens on mobile networks, as users watch shows or movies on the go. Users also tend to watch movies more often on weekend evenings, while gravitating towards shorter TV show episodes during the hours of the day.

Earlier this week, Netflix said that it will soon add expanded parental controls across devices in the coming months, including the ability for parents to add a PIN lock to individual TV shows and movies. Ratings will also be more prominently displayed across Netflix apps and when content begins playing, so parents are more aware if shows and films are appropriate for their children.

As soon as April, Netflix will be rolling out vertical video clips that provide 30-second snippets of the service's most popular content as a way to provide users with a quick glimpse into what the shows and movies are about.

Today is International Women's Day, which recognizes the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

Apple is celebrating the day by highlighting a selection of songs, movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts created by, about, or inspired by women across Apple Music, iTunes, and iBooks, as it did last year. Look for featured banners in the iTunes Store or tap on the Browse section in Apple Music.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also tweeted a quote from Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for female education, as mentioned in her autobiography I Am Malala. Yousafzai became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her struggle against the suppression of young people's right to an education.

In addition, there's an Activity Challenge that tasks Apple Watch users with doubling their Move ring today in return for a set of still and animated stickers that can be sent to friends and family members via iMessage.

Note: Due to the 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.

Smart lock and doorbell maker August, which was acquired by Assa Abloy last October, today announced that all August Doorbell Cam Pro and Doorbell Cam owners will now have access to 24 hours of free video storage under a new subscription plan. Called the "Basic August Video Recording" subscription, users will be able to replay any moment they might have missed from the past 24 hours in the connected iOS August app.

Under the new Basic plan, users will also get access to saved clips of all activity captured by the Doorbell Cam, and be able to download and share saved videos. This plan will be included for free with the purchase of August's Doorbell Cam devices.

If users need more video storage, the Premium Video Recording plan has up to 30 days of storage for $4.99/month or $49.99/year. More information on the distinction between the plans can be found on August.com.

“We believe video recording is such an important feature for video doorbells that we are adding 24 hours of video recording, for free, with both of our Doorbell Cams,” said Jason Johnson, CEO of August Home. “Now if you miss a motion notification or experience a porch pirate walking off with a package from your doorstep, you can access and review the stored video from the August app.”

The August Doorbell Cam Pro, which launched in October, integrates with the company's HomeKit-compatible Smart Lock Pro so that users can verify who is at their front door and allow them entry into their house, all from an iPhone. At CES in January, August also announced an expansion of its in-home delivery service August Access, competing in the same market with Amazon Key.

Today's reveal of a new free video storage tier for August Doorbell Cam users appears to be a move to remain competitive in the connected doorbell market. Ring, a similar video doorbell and camera company that was acquired by Amazon recently, offers a few features for free to its users, like smartphone notifications, live-streaming video, and two-way audio. However, without a Ring Video Recording plan (starting at $3/month, $30/year per device) users who miss alerts or live events can not review video footage.

This Saturday, March 10 is "Mario Day," a day when Nintendo celebrates its mascot Mario "and his many awesome fans" around the world. Although the full plan for the company's celebrations on Saturday have not yet been revealed, one part has and it focuses on the iPhone and Android game Super Mario Run (via TouchArcade).

On March 10, Nintendo will discount Super Mario Run's $9.99 in-app purchase that unlocks the full game down to $4.99, and that 50 percent discount will run for two weeks, through March 25. Nintendo has created a detailed table that shows the special discount price of Super Mario Run on the App Store and Google Play Store in every country of availability, which you can see on its website.

The last IAP discount for Super Mario Run came in September 2017, alongside what Nintendo called the "biggest update ever," introducing a new gameplay mode called Remix 10, new character Princess Daisy, new world, and more. It's unclear if the game will be getting more content this weekend, like it did last September, alongside the price drop.

For Mario Day last year, Nintendo celebrated in a variety of ways, including working with nonprofit Starlight Children's Foundation to provide hospitalized children with brightly colored hospital gowns featuring the company's well-known characters. There were also Mario-themed frames on Facebook, games on sale across Nintendo console platforms, and major events at PAX East in Boston and the Kids' Choice Awards on Nickelodeon.

You can download and play the first few levels of Super Mario Run for free on the iOS App Store [Direct Link], and the discounted $4.99 in-app purchase should begin appearing on Saturday.

Netflix is set to introduce a new movie and show preview mode to its iOS app next month (via Variety). Announced on Wednesday at the company's Lab Days press event in California, the upcoming feature will mean Netflix subscribers can watch 30-second previews displayed as vertical video on mobile devices.

The previews will appear as round icons on the home screen below a carousel showcasing the latest Netflix content available. Users tap on the icons to watch the previews and can swipe across them to see more. Netflix will debut up to 75 of its custom-crop previews for both original and licensed content when the feature goes live in April.

A similar preview feature has been part of Netflix's TV interface for a few years now, but this will be the first time the company has used a vertical viewing format within its mobile apps. Some subscribers who signed up to the "Test Participation" feature in their Netflix.com account settings may already see the previews in the iPhone app.

Netflix said approximately 20 percent of all viewing happens on a mobile device, which is why the company has been working on several improvements to its mobile offering, including the recent launch of mobile downloads and codec optimization to enable higher-resolution viewing over as little as 200kbps bandwidth.

Last year, Apple brought a display feature called True Tone to its flagship iPhone line-up for the first time, following the technology's debut in 2016 with the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

True Tone works by adjusting the color temperature of a device's screen to match the surrounding ambient light, so that images on the display appear more natural and are less apt to contribute to eyestrain.

If you stand in a dimly lit room illuminated by a table lamp, for instance, a True Tone display appears warmer and yellower, much like a piece of paper would in the same light. Stand outside on an overcast day, however, and the same display looks cooler and bluer, as would the same piece of paper.

In this article, we'll run through how to quickly enable or disable True Tone from within Control Center as well as via the Settings app. We'll also explain how to tweak your device's color settings to help acclimatize you to True Tone's warmer extremes, which some users find too intense under certain conditions.

➜ Click here to read more...

Workflow, the automation app that Apple acquired back in March of 2017, was today updated to version 1.7.8, introducing a new Mask Image action, and a long list of other bug fixes and improvements.

As MacStories points out, the Mask Image action added in today's update is a feature Workflow users have been wanting for several years. The new action, which applies a mask to an image and cuts it into any desired shape, is designed to make it easier to simplify image editing workflows that require image masking features.

By default, the masking feature offers rounded rectangle, ellipse, and icon masking options, but custom masks can also be used.

The new Workflow update also introduces new fields for the Add Things To-Do action, it makes items reorderable in the dictionary action, and it adds support for opening workflows to the URL scheme. Extracting text from PDFs has also been improved, as has drag and drop handling. Multiple bug fixes are included, as outlined before:

• Workflow names are now case-insensitive
• Fixed a crash when running the Edit Image action
• Fixed Todoist and Slack authentication when using a Google account
• Fixed an issue where icons from Search App Store and Get My Workflows were saved as JPEG, not PNG
• Fixed an issue where the Encode Media action may not delete temporary files properly when encoding to MP3
• Fixed an issue where the Custom X-Success URL parameter of the Open X-Callback-URL action did not work
• Fixed an issue where variables could not be added to arrays in the Dictionary action
• Fixed an issue where booleans could not be added to dictionaries inside dictionaries in the Dictionary action
• Fixed an issue where a duplicate workflow could appear after searching for a workflow
• Fixed an issue where Workflow could crash when deleting many workflows at once
• Fixed an issue where double-tapping a variable button cleared the variable
• Fixed an issue where the Tweet and Post on Facebook actions did not work from the Today Widget or Apple Watch
• Fixed an issue where passing the output of Scan QR Code to Open URL did not work properly
• Fixed an issue where workflows could not be edited after being opened via 3D Touch
• Performance improvements to workflow running
• VoiceOver improvements
• Other bug fixes and minor additions

Since purchasing Workflow in March of 2017, Apple has continued to provide regular updates to the Workflow app, allaying fears that it would be discontinued and abandoned.

The last update to the app, introduced a long list of bug fixes for third-party app actions, was released in November of 2017.

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

Google Duo, Google's cross-platform FaceTime-style video calling app, was today updated with a new video messages feature that's designed to allow users to leave video voicemails whenever someone doesn't pick up a call.

All video messages will disappear one day after they were first watched, but can be saved to the iPhone's camera roll if so desired.

Sometimes, your mom isn't free for a video call at the moment you're trying to show off your culinary masterpiece. The same goes when you're trying to catch your best friend to rave about your favorite basketball team's recent win. But even if they miss your call, you shouldn't lose the opportunity to show them what you were calling about. Beginning today on Google Duo, you can leave a video message when the person you're calling can't pick up.

First introduced in August of 2016, Google Duo works on both iOS and Android devices. Users sign up with a phone number and can then place calls to any contacts who also have the Duo app installed. Google Duo, like Google Hangouts, another Google video app with a more enterprise focus, has been fairly popular since it launched.

Duo is consistently within the top 20 free apps in the Social Networking section of the U.S. App Store, and with the new release, it's sitting at the number 15 spot.

Video messaging is available today in the Google Duo apps for Android and iOS. [Direct Link]

Insta360, a company that offers a 360 degree camera, today announced the launch of an exclusive Insta360 ONE Camera Bundle that's available only from the Apple Store.

The bundle, priced at $329.95, includes an Insta360 ONE camera, a selfie stick, a case, a mini tripod, a micro SD card, and a new bullet-time handle.

Designed to attach to an iPhone's Lightning port or connect to an iPhone using Bluetooth, the Insta360 ONE Camera allows users to shoot and livestream 360 degree video and capture 360 degree photos.

Using a FreeCapture mode, the camera lets you shoot footage in 360 degrees and then go back and edit to a traditional 1080p format, so you can shoot an entire scene and then go back later to pick out what you want to highlight.

With the bullet-time handle, the Insta360 ONE camera can orbit a scene while suspended in mid-air, recording action in slow motion, hence the bullet-time name.

The new Insta360 ONE Camera Bundle is available from the Apple online store starting today, and it should be in retail stores later this week.

For the past couple of weeks, speakers equipped with Amazon's Alexa voice-based personal assistant have been randomly laughing, scaring and creeping out speaker owners who have affected devices.

Complaints have been surfacing on Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms over the course of the last few weeks, but the issue started receiving widespread attention this week after it was shared on BuzzFeed. From Reddit:

A friend of mine at work just a couple of days ago told me this very thing happened at his moms house. He was face timing with his her(he jokes she is jealous of Alexa, his dad just loves it) and out of the blue in the background Alexa started to laugh, he even heard it on his end. Said it was super creepy. I'm waiting the have the holy hell scared out of me one quiet evening...or even worse, awakened by the one a foot from my head while I'm sleeping.

Update: Amazon says that in "rare circumstances" Alexa mistakenly hears the phrase "Alexa, laugh" which causes the creepy laughter. Amazon is changing the phrase to "Alexa, can you laugh?" to cut down on false positives.