MacRumors

In early 2016, AT&T began its first test of a fixed wireless 5G cellular network within Austin, Texas and expanded that test to new local businesses this past June, including a car wash, an apartment unit, and a church. Today, the carrier announced that its test of next-generation 5G cellular connectivity will be expanding to new businesses and residential customers in three new U.S. cities by the end of 2017: Waco, Texas; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and South Bend, Indiana.

AT&T noted back in 2016 that the 5G trials introduced download speeds in gigabits per second, improving upon the normal megabits per second that customers on current wireless networks see, allowing 5G customers to "download a TV show in less than 3 seconds." In today's press release, AT&T said that it has seen speeds up to 1 gigabit per second in Austin, and latency rates "well under 10 milliseconds." In 2016, the carrier predicted 5G latency at somewhere between 1 to 5 milliseconds.
In the Austin apartment unit, AT&T set up a fixed wireless 5G home with various apps running simultaneously on the same connection, with usage centering on streaming DIRECTV NOW, 360-degree video, and international video calls without lag. While the test remained at fixed locations in Austin for over a year, AT&T said that its findings demonstrated "how people can live, work, and play in a connected home of the future."

AT&T said that its findings in Austin will help during the expansion to the three new cities, with new insights gained into millimeter wave performance and propagation, and how obstructive objects (foliage, buildings, etc), the weather, and device placement can impact the 5G signal in the real world. As with other carriers, AT&T's 5G test data is being contributed to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a group of telecommunications organizations that oversee the development and maintenance of major communication networks.

“In Austin, we see all types of weather and substantial foliage,” said Marachel Knight, senior vice president, Wireless Network Architecture and Design, AT&T. “Taking our fixed wireless 5G trials out of the lab and into the real world helps us learn important factors about mmWave and 5G. And in doing so, we’re learning how to better design our network for the future.”

As it expands, the carrier said it will apply the knowledge it gained from the Austin tests, while also increasing the number of participants and expanding the physical footprint of the 5G network trials in each new city, hinting at much larger tests coming to Waco, Kalamazoo, and South Bend. In these three cities, trial participants are said to potentially include universities, hospitals, churches, restaurants, and other small businesses, bringing the ability to stream live TV and experience faster broadband services over the 5G connection.

AT&T will continue to test both fixed and mobile wireless solutions based in the millimeter wave spectrum in these field trials, and in closed "testbed" settings. The goal for the new expansion is to "help speed up" the deployment of new 5G network standards, with AT&T hoping that this deployment will happen as soon as late 2018. AT&T is working with Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia, and Intel during these trials, which also includes a test location in Indianapolis as of July, 2017.

Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have also announced interest in 5G networks, with Sprint saying its own wide-scale 5G network will launch by 2019, and T-Mobile aiming for nationwide 5G coverage by 2020. Of course, all of this progress hinges on the 3GPP first completing the 5G Release 15 standard. According to AT&T, once Release 15 is out then 5G-supported "commercial equipment" will be available within six months.

Bicycle sharing service Citi Bike released version 6 of its iOS app on Tuesday to bring Apple Pay support to customers in New York City and New Jersey.

Now that Apple's mobile payment system is supported by the service, riders using the app are able to purchase a single pass or Citi Bike membership using their digital wallet instead of plastic.

The app includes a color-coded map of New York City and New Jersey which help users discover nearby bicycle stations including live information on bike and dock availability, with the option to reserve a bike supported in selected locations.

In addition to Citi Bike's core service features, the app also includes recent ride stats such as start and stop location, ride time, distance, and calories burned, while push notifications alert customers to their ride time and when they have securely docked their bike.

Citi Bikes are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Jersey City. The Citi Bike app is a free download for iOS from the App Store. [Direct Link]

(Via AppleInsider.)

Xiaomi has announced that it will unveil the second-generation version of its nearly bezel-free Mi MIX smartphone on September 11, just one day ahead of Apple's expected "iPhone 8" launch event in California.

The Chinese mobile maker confirmed rumors of its event in Beijing next month by sharing a launch poster over microblogging site Weibo featuring a profile of the "full screen" Mi MIX 2 and the accompanying phrase "Evolution, approach to final perfection".

Xiaomi turned heads in October of last year when it unexpectedly announced the 6.4-inch Mi MIX, which it called "the world's first edgeless display" smartphone, just as iPhone 8 rumors were beginning to gain steam. The device was pooh-poohed by some as "vaporware" when Xiaomi described it as a "concept phone", but the company began shipping the Mi MIX in December in limited quantities and received some respectable reviews.

Once again, French designer Philippe Starck is said to have worked with Xiaomi on the Mi MIX 2, which is expected to feature an even higher screen-to-body ratio than its predecessor, but will adopt a slightly smaller 6-inch display with an 18:9 (2:1) aspect ratio.

Speculation suggests Xiaomi may choose a metal rather than ceramic chassis to make the handset easier to mass produce this time. Internally, the Mi MIX 2 is thought to include a Snapdragon 835 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 3,400mAh battery. Prices are expected to start at around $600, with a higher tier model featuring 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for around $750.

Other China-based smartphone vendors rumored to be launching all-screen handsets to rival Apple's so-called "iPhone 8" include Huawei and Gionee, with others expected to follow suit. Apple will reveal its first iPhone with edge-to-edge OLED display alongside upgraded versions of its iPhone 7 and 7 Plus next month.

Western Digital today announced the launch of its latest personal cloud storage solution, the My Cloud Home. My Cloud Home is designed to make it easy for customers to set up and use a personal cloud storage solution to meet all of their storage needs.

The company is aiming to make My Cloud Home the one stop storage destination for all of a person's devices, aggregating photos, videos, and files from smartphones, computers, USB devices, social media accounts, and more.

As a connected cloud solution, the My Cloud Home is available on any tablet, smartphone, or computer with an Internet connection using the My Cloud Home mobile app, and because it's a local storage product, there is no subscription fee.

Consumers seek a way to effortlessly consolidate their growing mounds of photos, videos and other files with a solution flexible enough to accommodate content from all of today's devices - from smart phones to computers and from drones to social sites," said Jim Welsh, senior vice president, Client Solutions, Western Digital. "Enabling consumers and professionals to master their digital lives from anywhere in the world is a priority for Western Digital."

My Cloud Home can be set up to automatically copy content from smartphones and computers to provide a hassle-free backup solution, and it connects to social networks and other cloud services like Dropbox. TV Shows, movies, and other content stored in My Cloud Home can be played in Plex through an integration with the Plex app.

Western Digital is offering the My Cloud Home in 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8TB configurations. There's also a My Cloud Home Duo with 4, 12, and 16TB of storage space, designed with RAID 1 functionality to duplicate content onto a second drive for extra security should one drive fail.

The My Cloud Home Duo is priced at $309.99 for 4TB, $399.99 for 8TB, $549.99 for 12TB, and $699.99 for 16TB.

As two new episodes of "Carpool Karaoke: The Series" air tonight, Apple has shared trailers for next week's episodes, which will pair Michael Strahan with Jeff Gordon and Shaquille O'Neal with John Cena.

The first trailer features media personality and former football player Michael Strahan and Fox NASCAR announcer and former professional race car driver Jeff Gordon. The two dress up with props, race on bicycle rickshaws, and sing along to songs like Olivia Newton-John's "Physical."

Tonight's Tonight's "Carpool Karaoke: The Series" episodes are now available to watch. The first episode stars Miley Cyrus, her dad Billy Ray, her sister Noah, her mom Tish, her brother Braison, her sister Brandy, and her brother Trace. The second episode Queen stars Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith with appearances by Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish.

"Carpool Karaoke: The Series" debuted on August 8. Since then, Apple has been uploading two episodes per week. Carpool Karaoke is available solely to Apple Music subscribers.

Amazon today added a new Alexa feature that allows several Amazon Echo devices to be synchronized and controlled across multiple rooms in a home. Echo owners can now target music to a specific Echo device or play the same music on more than one Echo.

The feature works with a variety of music services, including Amazon Music, TuneIn, iHeartRatio, and Pandora, with support for Spotify and SiriusXM coming soon. To use multi-room support, users will need to use the Alexa app to create groups with two or more Echo devices, giving the group a name like "downstairs." Once the group is enabled, commands like "Alexa, play John Mayer downstairs" will work.

"In just the last few months, we've added dozens of new features to Alexa that enhance your entertainment experience--control of Amazon Fire TV and your home entertainment systems via Echo; music lyrics, Amazon Video, and movie trailers on Echo Show; and activity-based music searches--and we're just getting started," said Toni Reid, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. "Today, we're making Alexa even smarter with an all-new feature that lets you play music synchronized on multiple Echo devices to provide room-filling music throughout your home."

Amazon's move to add support for multiple Echo devices comes as Apple prepares to launch both the HomePod and an AirPlay 2 protocol. Multiple HomePod devices can be used simultaneously, and with AirPlay 2, speakers that support the feature can be paired together for a whole-home music experience.

Multi-room music support is available for the Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show in the United States, UK, and Germany starting today. Amazon says it plans to extend the ability allow users to control multi-room music on other connected speakers with just a voice command through a new Multi-Room Music SDK that device makers can build into their speakers. Amazon plans to work with brands like Sonos, Bose, Sound United, and Samsung, and some of these manufacturers are also working to support AirPlay 2 in future devices.

In other Echo-related news, the original Amazon Echo is out of stock on Amazon.com, fueling speculation that a new device launch is imminent. Rumors have suggested Amazon is working on a new version of the Echo that's designed to better compete with Apple's upcoming HomePod. The new Echo device is said to feature improved sound quality, better microphone technology, and a new design.

Instagram has allowed users to share multiple photos in a single post since February, but those photos have been limited to the traditional square aspect ratio, preventing users from sharing landscape or portrait mode images in a multi-photo post.

Starting today, that limitation is changing. Instagram is now allowing users to share multi-photo posts in any aspect ratio, including taller portrait mode photos and wider landscape mode photos.

After we first rolled out in February, these posts could only be made up of squares. Now, when uploading your photos and videos, you'll have more creative flexibility with the ability to share in landscape and portrait formats. To keep the experience smooth and consistent, however, all photos and videos in your post must be shared in the same format.

While there will no longer be a need to crop portrait and landscape photos when sharing them in multiple photo posts, all images in the post need to share the same aspect ratio, so there's no mixing portrait and landscape photos in one post.

Instagram says the new photo uploading capabilities are available starting today, but it appears the feature may still be rolling out to some users as it is not yet available to everyone.

Apple today updated its developer site with new sample code for ARKit, providing developers with additional details on what can be done with the upcoming feature.

According to Apple, the new code is available alongside new ARKit "best practices" published in the Human Interface Guidelines. Apple also asks developers working on an "amazing" ARKit experience to share it with the company.

Design intuitive augmented reality experiences for iOS using the best practices now available in the Human Interface Guidelines, and explore new sample code for ARKit. We can't wait for your apps to be available to hundreds of millions of people with the launch of iOS 11 this fall. If you're working on creating an amazing experience with ARKit and would like to share it with us, let us know.

The new demos cover interactive content in ARKit and audio in ARKit, while the Human Interface Guidelines cover ideal app design like using the entire display, creating convincing illusions, being mindful of user safety, interacting with virtual objects, positioning virtual objects, and more.

Along with new ARKit info, Apple today also informed developers that starting in the fall, apps will need to support App Store transactions of promoted in-app purchases for in-app purchases to be properly displayed on the App Store.

iOS 11 includes new functionality that will let users browse in-app purchases from the App Store app and purchase them before downloading an app, and developers will need to implement support when the GM version of the Xcode 9 is released.

With iOS 11, users can browse in-app purchases directly on the App Store and start a purchase even before downloading your app. During the iOS 11 beta period, promoted in-app purchases are displayed on the App Store without the ability to buy. Starting this fall, your app must handle App Store transactions of promoted in-app purchases in order for your in-app purchases to be displayed on the App Store. Once the GM version of Xcode 9 is released, simply implement the new delegate method within SKPaymentTransactionObserver, rebuild your app, and submit for review. You can also customize which promoted in-app purchases a user sees on a specific device with the SKProductStorePromotionController API.

Apple is expected to release iOS 11 in September alongside new iPhones, and that's when the first ARKit apps will become available for download.

Google today announced its "parking difficulty" indicator in Google Maps for iOS and Android will now appear in 25 additional cities around the world. The feature was previously available in the United States only.

The simple feature shows a "P" icon with a difficulty level such as "moderate" or "limited," based on how easy it will be to find parking at the destination entered. The feature is based on historical parking data and machine learning.

The following cities support the feature starting today:

Google Maps is available for free on the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone and iPad.