MacRumors

If you got a new iPhone or iPad for Christmas and you already have at least one iOS device that's running iOS 11, setting up the new device is simple and quick with Automatic Setup.

Introduced in iOS 11, Automatic Setup streamlines the setup process for new iPhones and iPads, transferring over Apple ID info, your WiFi network credentials, your preferred settings, and your iCloud Keychain.

1. Power on your new device, which will open up to a menu asking you to pick a language.
2. After choosing a language, you'll see a "Set Up Your iPhone (or iPad)" prompt.
3. When this appears, place your existing iOS device near the new device to initiate Automatic Setup.
4. Your existing device will show a pop up letting you know you can use Automatic Setup. Tap "Continue" to start.
5. An Apple Watch-style pairing image will appear on the new device, and you'll be instructed to scan it with the camera on your existing device.
6. In an area with decent lighting, hold the existing device's camera over the image on the new device to pair the two together.
7. Enter the passcode from your existing device on the new device.
8. From there, all of your data will start transferring from the old device to the new device.

When the first few Automatic Setup steps are complete, your iPhone or iPad will walk you through setting up Touch ID/Face ID, Siri, and Apple Pay, which are separate steps.

An additional "Express Settings" feature following Automatic Setup is designed to speed up new device activation even further. Express Setup automatically enables Find My iPhone, location services, and analytics, so if you don't want these features on, make sure to tap "Customize Settings" to change them.

Once you've transferred all of your settings with Automatic Setup, you can restore from an iCloud backup to get all of your apps transferred over. If you want to set up a device as new without downloading all of your old content, though, you're finished once Automatic Setup is completed.

If you don't have an iOS device running iOS 11, you'll need to go through a more traditional setup process. The steps are a lot like Automatic Setup, but instead of choosing an existing device after setting a language, you'll need to manually enter data like your Apple ID and your WiFi password.

As it has done in previous holiday seasons, Google today began tracking Santa's journey on the web, mobile web for iOS, as well as on Android mobile and Android TV. With the tool, you can easily track Santa's trip as he delivers presents around the world in real time, including an estimated arrival time for your specific area. This marks Google's thirteenth year of tracking Santa's journey.

To start tracking, open a web browsing app on your iPhone or iPad (Safari and Chrome support the mobile optimized tracker), and then visit the official website for Google Santa Tracker. On both mobile and desktop, the site will show you a live map of Santa's location, his next stop, a live video feed of his trip, and an estimated arrival time for your area.

If you scroll down you can see pictures of the places he's already visited, more details about these locations, a live count of the gifts he's delivered, and more. Google last year added these features into its main Google Maps app for iOS, but as of writing the Santa tracker does not appear to be in the iOS app this year.

Of course, there are plenty of other Santa tracking services and apps on the App Store, including NORAD Tracks Santa Claus [Direct Link]. NORAD's Santa tracking app is mainly a countdown timer that links you out to the mobile web when you want to start tracking the journey.

Similar to Google, NORAD details where Santa was last seen, where he's heading to next, and how many gifts he's delivered. You can also interact with a 360-degree video feed of Santa's sleigh as he makes his journey around the Earth. If you're on Mac or other desktop computers, you can visit NORAD's full Santa tracking website right here.

At the time of writing, Santa was last seen over the Andaman Sea and heading to Thailand.

Although sales on App Store and iTunes gift cards usually end soon after they launch, Amazon and PayPal still have 15 percent discounts on $100 iTunes cards happening in the last few days before Christmas. The ongoing sales make for easy last-minute gift ideas since you can get a code emailed in under 24 hours.

At Amazon, if you purchase $100 or more in iTunes credit you'll get $15 off once you enter the promo code ITUNES15 during checkout. This will lower the $100 iTunes card to $85, and Amazon's storefront limits the promotion to one card per customer.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

PayPal's sale is happening through its Digital Gifts eBay store and is the same as Amazon's: you can buy the $100 iTunes card for $85, but no promo code is required. You'll need a PayPal account to complete the purchase, and the card will be valid only on purchases made on the United States App Store. With both sales, you can enter your own email address, or enter the email address of a friend or family member and directly send the code to them.

App Store and iTunes gift cards can be used for a variety of items and services found on Apple devices. You can rent and buy movies on iTunes, subscribe to Apple Music, pay for your monthly iCloud storage, purchase a new app, expand your iBooks collection, and much more. If you're looking for more specific ideas, MacRumors will be sharing a roundup of apps, games, movies, books, subscriptions, and more that you can buy with any iTunes cards you might get this Christmas, so be sure to check back on Monday for the full list.

Google has reportedly poached one of Apple's top chip designers, as it continues to pursue plans to design its own chipsets for consumer devices like its Pixel range of smartphones.

According to The Information, the search giant has hired well-regarded Apple chip expert John Bruno, who has worked on silicon architecture for iPhones since 2012. Before moving offices to Cupertino to help with Apple's ARM-based mobile chip push, Bruno worked at Advanced Micro Devices and led chip design at ATI Technologies.

Bruno founded and managed Apple's silicon competitive analysis group, which sought to keep the company ahead of competitors in the area of chip performance. He follows several other experienced chip engineers who have defected to Google from Apple over the past year, including Manu Gulati, Wonjae (Gregory) Choi and Tayo Fadelu.

The hires highlight Google's attempt to keep pace with Apple, which has been designing its own mobile chips since 2010. Recently, Google said it would sell chips known as Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPU) to other companies so that they could benefit from its deep learning tool set, TensorFlow. However, the recruitment drive is more likely to be aimed at making own-branded chips for Google's Pixel smartphones.

Indeed, Google's first mobile chip could be right around the corner, according to Jim McGregor, an analyst at Tirias Research who spoke to The Information. With the help of off-the-shelf intellectual property, the Mountain View-based tech giant could have a multifunctional system-on-a-chip up and running in as soon as six months, McGregor said.

Popular pro-grade photo editing software Darkroom reached version 3.3 on Saturday, bringing improved image format handling to the app and smoothing out a handful of new features that were introduced in November's iPhone X focused redesign.

Last month, Darkroom v3.2 embraced Apple's latest dual-lens camera smartphone with a brand new 5.8-inch user interface and support for Wide Gamut Color, which makes the most of the OLED screen's full-color depth and contrast. It also received a 20 percent boost in performance thanks to its implementation of Metal 2 rendering.

The big news in today's v3.3 update is added support for RAW+JPEG images. Now, when Darkroom detects that a photo is a RAW+JPG composite image, it will default to treating it as a RAW image.

The feature is designed to appeal to DSLR users who prefer shooting in RAW, as well as bring Darkroom into a greater level of harmony with the Halide camera app, which is often included in user workflows. The only caveat is that Darkroom users won't have access to the JPEG variant of the composite image, although the developers aim to add support for the file type in the future.

Moving on, Darkroom now has an in improved Modify Original export option which aims to make workflows that rely on multiple apps more seamless. Users can now continue editing on top of previous edits made either by Apple's native Photos app or other third-party apps.

Previously, Darkroom had an issue where image edits would be double applied when the image was edited in another app, after being exported from Darkroom using Modify Original. That's now been fixed. This update also fixes an issue where depth information captured using Portrait Mode would be lost upon export.

Elsewhere, an option has been added to the recently introduced Auto Align setting that allows users to turn it off or back on at will. A bug has also been fixed that caused the app icon to show incorrectly on iPad.

Darkroom is a free download from the App Store and includes in-app purchases for some tools. [Direct Link]. The developers are currently promoting a weeklong holiday giveaway: users are encouraged to share their Darkroom-edited holiday photos with the #darkroomapp hashtag on Instagram, to be in for a chance to win one of 50 promo codes to unlock absolutely everything in the app.

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with PureGear to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a HomeKit-enabled PureSwitch Wireless Smart Plug.

PureSwitch fits in any standard U.S. outlet, and it's designed to let you manage your energy use by allowing you to wirelessly control whatever's plugged into the Smart Plug. It can turn any appliance or lamp into a smart device that can be controlled alongside the rest of your HomeKit products.

The PureSwitch Smart Plug connects to your HomeKit setup over WiFi, and it can be controlled with the PureSwitch app, Apple's Home app, or Siri voice commands. It can also interact with other HomeKit products and it can be used in scenes for automation purposes.

At $39.99, PureSwitch is priced competitively with other HomeKit-compatible smart plugs on the market, and at one side, there's a built-in 2.1A USB-charging port you can use to charge your iPhone, iPad, or any other USB device.

Like any other HomeKit product, the PureSwitch can be controlled on all of your devices, including iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and with Home hub functionality enabled through an Apple TV or an iPad, it can be controlled remotely.

We have seven of the PureSwitch Wireless Smart Plugs to give to MacRumors readers. 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.

Tidal today announced that starting on Christmas Day anyone will be able to try out its music-streaming service for free for a period of 12 days. This free trial will include the company's $19.99/month High Fidelity tier that includes lossless sound quality, and it does not require a credit card for you to start so all you will need is an email address (via The Verge).