MacRumors

Each week, Apple chooses an "App of the Week" to highlight in the App Store, making it free to download for seven days. This week's pick is a camera app called 8mm Vintage Camera, which is normally priced at $1.99 on the iPhone and iPad.

8mm Vintage Camera is a photo editing app that's been around for awhile, but this is the first time that it's been made available for free since its 2010 launch.

The app is designed to capture the "beauty and magic" of old school vintage movies using a selection of virtual lenses and films that include 1920, Noir, 60s, 70s, Sakura, XPro, Siena, Pela, Indigo, Tuscan and Two-Color. Apple's App Store editors had this to say about the app:

Shooting movies on film may be a dying art, but just because we live in the digital age doesn't mean we have to abandon our analog past. We get warm, nostalgic fuzzies from 8mm Vintage Camera's grainy, flickery film filters and lens effects, conjuring up memories of vacation travelogues screened in wood-paneled basements. It's not just about old-school kicks, though--this powerful suite of tools can give any video an authentic period look.

When capturing video with 8mm Vintage Camera, you can see the live effect displayed right in the app. It supports up to 1080p HD video recording and includes features like a jitter button to imitate frame shakes and a sound switch to add a projector sound.

8mm Vintage Camera can be downloaded for free for the next seven days, and after that, a new App of the Week will be chosen. There are separate versions for iPad and iPhone. [Direct Link: iPhone] [Direct Link: iPad]

Instagram Stories, the feature that allows users to upload ephemeral photos and videos to a special daily timeline, is expanding to the web on both desktop and mobile devices, the company announced today.

As with Instagram Stories in the mobile app, on the web, Stories will be featured at the top of the page. Clicking or tapping into a story will allow it to be viewed. For now, Instagram Stories is view only, but in the future, Instagram plans to allow Stories uploads from the web on mobile devices.

Instagram launched Stories just over a year ago in August of 2016 to compete with Snapchat, and the feature has been highly popular with Instagram users. As of April, Instagram Stories has more daily active users than Snapchat.

The feature allows users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Like Snapchat, it includes filters, stickers, emoji, and other image enhancement tools. Today's update also includes new weather-related filters that can be applied to photos.

According to Instagram, Stories on the web is rolling out starting today, but it will take a few weeks for the feature to show up to all users. Posting from the mobile web will be implemented in the coming months.

At the IFA trade show in Berlin, popular drone manufacturer DJI announced two new drones, which are upgraded versions of its popular Mavic Pro and Phantom 4 drone lineup.

The Mavic Pro Platinum is identical to the Mavic Pro, but it comes in a new platinum color and it features both an 11 percent gain in flight time and a 60 percent reduction in noise. With the flight time improvements, the Mavic Pro Platinum's battery will last for 30 minutes before needing to be recharged.

To enable the longer battery life and quieter operation, DJI is using new electronic speed controllers and new propellers, with the propellers compatible with existing Mavic Pro models.

The Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian, part of the Pro line designed for professionals, features a matte-gray shell color and a magnesium electroplated gimbal that has an anti-fingerprint coating.

DJI also plans to introduce new firmware for its smallest drone, the Spark, introducing a panoramic photo with a fisheye lens effect that can be shared to social media sites. The new firmware will be available in the upcoming DJI Go 4 mobile app.

DJI's new Mavic Pro Platinum is available for pre-order immediately from the DJI website, and it will begin shipping in September. It's priced at $1,099, a $100 premium over the standard Mavic Pro.

The Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian will retail for $1,499. It will be available for purchase in September from the DJI website.

Netatmo today announced plans to add HomeKit support to its existing Welcome and Presence home security cameras.

Both cameras will gain HomeKit compatibility through an upcoming software update that will enable HomeKit for both new devices and those that customers have already purchased.

"Having both our security cameras compatible with Apple HomeKit through a software upgrade demonstrates our ability to constantly provide our existing and new users with the most advanced technologies. All our cameras will benefit from the HomeKit transition, no matter when they were commercialised. Netatmo products are long lasting capital goods. Through regular software updates, we ensure they offer the best services to our clients" explains Fred Potter, Founder and CEO of Netatmo.

Presence is Netatmo's outdoor security camera that's able to detect people, cars, and animals outside of the home and send activity notifications to users. Presence features 1080p videos with a 100 degree field of view and a 65 foot detection range, making it ideal for keeping an eye on the outside of your home.

Welcome is Netatmo's indoor home security camera with a 120 degree field of view, a live video feed with audio, facial recognition, and night vision support.

When HomeKit support is added, both the Presence and the Welcome will be accessible in the Home app and will be able to respond to Siri voice commands. In addition to viewing a camera feed, Siri commands can be used to adjust the accompanying light on the Presence outdoor camera.

Netatmo plans to add HomeKit connectivity to Presence in the fall, while HomeKit compatibility will be added to Welcome in early 2018.

Sphero today unveiled all-new iPhone-controlled Star Wars toys, including R2-D2 and a new character from Star Wars: The Last Jedi called BB-9E (via TechCrunch). This latter droid is described as originating from the same astromech series as BB-8, but is instead associated with the villainous First Order.

Similar to Sphero's BB-8 droid from 2015, BB-9E (priced at $149) comes with a set of pre-programmed moves and voice lines, but users can also manually control the droid from their iOS device. BB-9E's head is equipped with LED lights and is magnetically attached to the droid's body, so it can roll around similar to the character within the upcoming movie.

The company said that BB-9E will interact with its other Star Wars iPhone-controlled droids, as well as react to Star Wars films when users watch with the droid nearby. Sphero said that BB-9E will receive consistent updates, including new voice lines, particularly as the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi draws closer.

Additionally, Sphero revealed an iPhone-controlled R2-D2 droid (priced at $179), which includes all of the same features as the other Star Wars products from Sphero. R2-D2 can patrol on its own and includes fully-functioning LED lights and an integrated speaker that produces the droid's recognizable sounds.

Both BB-9E and R2-D2 use the same app that Sphero launched with BB-8 two years ago, so users can simply keep adding new droids to play around with, without needing to download a separate app for each. Both of the new droids will support a few augmented reality experiences in the connected app, where fans can view iconic Star Wars settings and characters through their iOS device, with the Sphero characters interacting in the same space.

Force Friday II begins tomorrow, September 1, and previous reports have stated that Apple Stores will be getting a few Star Wars-themed items to participate in the toy release celebrations. Since BB-8 originally went on sale in Apple Stores for Force Friday back in 2015, it's expected for the same thing to happen this year for BB-9E and R2-D2, but many details regarding the shopping event are still under wraps with information about specific toy releases just beginning to emerge today.

If customers do stop in at an Apple Store this weekend, they'll be able to participate in a few Star Wars-themed sessions where they'll learn how to build a Star Wars trailer in iMovie, program a droid, and more.

Apple today seeded the ninth beta of an upcoming tvOS 11 update designed for the fourth-generation TV, just a few days after seeding the eighth beta and more than two months after releasing the first beta during the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Registered developers can download the tvOS 11 update by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C cable and installing the beta software using iTunes.

tvOS 11 didn't receive a lot of attention at the Worldwide Developers Conference because it's a modest update, but according to Apple's release notes, it does introduce a few new features to the operating system.

tvOS 11 brings automatic switching between light/dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options that keep multiple Apple TVs in a household in sync, new background modes and notification support, Focus API improvements, custom sound support, network-based pairing and development support, improvements to Mobile Device Management, and more.

The ninth beta of tvOS 11 most likely focuses primarily on bug fixes and other small refinements, as the first eight betas did. Apple's new tvOS 11 update is available for both registered developers and public beta testers and will see a public release this fall.

Update: Apple has also made a new public beta of tvOS 11 available for public beta testers.

Contrast and Agile Tortoise, the developers behind popular apps Launch Center Pro and Drafts, respectively, have teamed up to introduce a new weather app called Weather Atlas.

Weather Atlas has been developed from the ground up with the unreleased "iPhone 8" in mind, and it is meant to take advantage of the device's taller display. It also incorporates iOS 11-style design elements like bolder text and crisp, simple icons, and bottom-focused app controls, so it'll fit right in on Apple's upcoming 2017 devices.

The app has also been built to take advantage of all of the latest functionality in the iOS operating system, so it also supports features like Split View on the iPad Pro.

Meant to offer up a wealth of information in a single glance, Weather Atlas features both hourly weather and 10-day forecasts overlaid on a map with standard radar and cloud layers so you can check the temperature and see weather patterns at the same time. The 10-day forecast features prospective highs and lows along with precipitation, wind speed, and sunrise and sunset.

The hourly forecast for a single day displays the hourly temperature, humidity, wind speed, and cloud cover along with precipitation.

Multiple locations are supported, so you can see the weather across several cities, and there are built-in weather warnings for your location. There's an option to see the weather patterns on the map over time, and tools for customizing the look of the app and sharing weather forecasts in other apps. Warning layers can be set to provide additional data on thunderstorms and tornados, wind, winter conditions like blizzard warnings, hurricanes, fire, floods, fog, and more.

Weather Atlas is a free app and it is supported by ads, so there are some somewhat intrusive ads at the top of the app and when looking at a full 10-day weather forecast. Removing the ads requires a Pro account, priced at $0.49 per month or $4.99 per year. A Pro account includes support for different themes, extra widgets, improved maps, and of course, no ads.

For the time being, Weather Atlas is only available in the United States, but it may expand to other countries in the future.

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

A collection of ARKit demos have steadily released over the summer following the announcement of the developer platform at WWDC this past June, and now we're merely weeks away from ARKit's debut alongside iOS 11 sometime in September. Today, item tracking company Pixie Technology announced the newest iteration of its "Pixie Point" tracker, which will use a few miniature-sized finding devices and ARKit to guide users to their lost items in augmented reality.

The introduction of ARKit into Pixie follows the company's previous version of the Pixie Point, which originally used a combination of proximity-guiding menus and in-house augmented reality technology to discover lost items. Now, ARKit is being used to improve upon the previous technology with "one continuous AR experience," and Pixie Technology is calling the new tracker and iOS combination, "one of the first practical everyday apps using Apple’s ARKit in iOS 11."

Instead of traditional sound-based Bluetooth trackers, Pixie uses visual data as well as audio cues to provide a more accurate position of a lost item. To use Pixie, users need to attach one of the Pixie Points to an included iPhone case (or use an included adhesive sticker to attach the Pixie Point to a different case), while the second Pixie Point is linked to items of importance. While indoors, users first perform a panorama room scan with the iOS Pixie app to discover a 3D avatar of their missing wallet, keys, or bag.

The avatar will float over an augmented reality area of "Pixie Dust," related to the exact location of the lost item in the room, while the exact distance to the item (down to the amount of inches) will be overlayed on the app's user interface. As users get closer, the avatar grows in size, and once they're within five feet of the item the audio cues kick in from the Pixie Point on the lost item, further helping in rediscovery.

With the help of ARKit, a Pixie Point can be seen through walls and furniture, which Pixie Technology noted will help finding lost items under cushions, in drawers, and in nearby rooms. The company also explained that the Pixie Point's reduced reliance on sound will help item discovery even in noisy environments.

The new Pixie is a complete paradigm shift and leverages Apple’s ARKit, enhanced 3D motion tracking, powerful animation tools and patented signaling technology. As a result, it is:

Faster – Reducing overall search time
Friendlier – Providing the ability to continually use the ultimately intuitive AR interface through the entire finding process even while on the move
Functional – Improved accuracy and the ability to conduct even the hardest searches and even in a noisy environment, increasing Pixie’s leadership as the most accurate finder on the market
Fun – While a serious tool, it is an almost game-like experience that’s super simple and quick to use

The trackers work outdoors as well with a range of 150 feet outside, and within 30-50 feet indoors. Each Pixie Point has a 12 month battery life (there is no discounted replacement program for dead trackers, akin to what Tile offers), are water and dust resistant to IP67 standards, and measure 47mm x 35mm x 3.2mm in size.

Garmin today announced three new wearable devices that it will debut at IFA 2017, including the vívomove HR, vívosport, and vívoactive 3. The Garmin vívoactive 3 closely resembles Apple Watch in terms of features, with Garmin's device tracking heart rate, packing in 15 indoor and outdoor activity apps, and supporting a new "Garmin Pay" contactless payment solution.

Garmin Pay supports Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards from major issuing banks, and the company said that more will be added every day. The smartwatch includes a stainless steel design and an always-on high-resolution Garmin Chroma display, with a watch face that supports thousands of different faces and widgets from the Garmin Connect IQ store. The device is safe to wear when swimming or showering, and will last up to seven days in smartwatch mode, and thirteen hours with GPS turned on.

The heart rate variability monitor in the vívoactive 3 can keep track of stress levels as well, which users can track both on the smartwatch itself and on the Garmin Connect mobile app. The vívoactive 3 is available in three colors: black/stainless and white/stainless ($299.99), and black/slate ($329.99). There are also various bands users can purchase to attach to the smartwatch, and both the smartwatch itself and the bands are available at Best Buy.

The Garmin vívomove HR is the company's "hybrid smartwatch," combining the advanced features of a smartwatch in the body of a classic analog watch. The device can monitor much of the same data as the vívoactive 3, including heart rate and stress, as well as display smartphone notifications, but the readouts are placed more subtly within a traditional watch face.

There are various stainless steel finishes, as well as both leather and silicone band accessories. The "Sport" version costs $199.99 and the "Premium" leather band version costs $299.99.

Lastly, the company announced a basic activity tracker called the vívosport, which focuses more on fitness features like GPS tracking and a few new built-in sports apps for strength training, cycling, cardio, and more. Users also won't have to worry about battery life thanks to seven full days of battery in smartwatch mode, and then eight hours when using the device's GPS.

Garmin Move IQ automatically tracks data users might forget to log, and LiveTrack lets authorized family members track the wearer's outdoor workouts for safety precautions. The vívosport costs $199.99 and comes in black/slate (small/medium and large), black/fuchsia (small/medium only) and black/limelight (large only).

All of Garmin's new wearable devices connect to the Garmin Connect app, which saves the user's activity stats, connects them to a community of workout enthusiasts, provides more detailed graphs, tracks sleep patterns, and more. For more information on all of Garmin's new smartwatches, visit the company's website.

Sony today announced a collection of new products that it plans to showcase during the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Germany this upcoming weekend. One of the biggest additions to the company's line-up is a new smart home speaker, called the LF-S50G wireless speaker, which looks similar to Apple's upcoming HomePod, has a built-in Google Assistant, and is being pitched with a "high quality" music-focused message.

Users can start off music playback by saying "OK Google," and from there they can ask the assistant for any information that it normally provides, including basic trivia, unit conversions, nutritional information, recipes, and more. The sides of the speaker have an LED clock display, while the top includes various sensors that support gesture controls for starting a song, skipping a song, and adjusting volume.

"Now you can get Sony’s awesome sound quality and design with the Google Assistant built-in," said Mike Fasulo, President and COO of Sony Electronics. "This functionality is another example of Sony’s commitment to customer choice by delivering new and innovative technologies."

The LF-S50G wireless speaker includes a 360 degree, vertical two-way facing speaker system, which Sony said provides for "maximum sound coverage" in any average-sized room. The device's full range speaker reproduces vocal and treble notes, while a dedicated subwoofer reproduces bass sounds and an omnidirectional two stage diffuser evenly spreads the sound to anyone in the room. For music playback, the speaker supports smartphone pairing through Bluetooth and NFC.

Sony is billing the device as a kitchen assistant thanks to its included clock and timer functionality, as well as its IPX3 splash-proof design and a water repellant surface. Users will also be able to control connected smart home electronics, and connect other supported Sony wireless speakers that have Chromecast built-in, syncing the same music across multiple speakers in one home. The LF-S50G wireless speaker will cost $199.99, and Sony said that it will go on sale this October.

Sony also revealed a trio of new wireless headphones that are coming to the 1000X family of products, each bringing advanced noise cancellation features for users. The collection includes the "truly wireless" WF-1000X with an in-ear design, the WI-1000X with a behind-the-neck design, and the WH-1000XM2 with an around-the-ear design and more sound options to adjust to various noise levels and environments. The WH-1000XM2 headphones are the newest versions of the MDR-1000X from last year.

The first device, the WF-1000X, is similar in functionality to many wireless headphones on the market, like Apple's AirPods. When taken out of the included charging case, the earbuds automatically connect to the user's smartphone, and Sony said that the case allows users to listen to nine hours of music on the go. In terms of price, the WF-1000X earphones will cost $199.99, the WI-1000X will cost $299.99, and the WH-1000XM2 will cost $349.99, and all three devices launch in September.

For more information on Sony's announcements, check out the company's IFA-focused press release here. One of the other notable unveilings centered around three new Xperia smartphones coming this fall, with a flagship feature called the "3D Creator." Sony described this as its in-house solution for 3D object scanning that allows users to create avatars, play with augmented reality camera effects, set a live wallpaper, send to friends as a sticker on social media, print on a 3D printer, and various other AR-related options.