MacRumors

Facebook today announced a new feature for its iOS app called "Music Stories" that will allow users to sample 30-second clips of songs that their friends and family post to the social network from services like Apple Music, iTunes, and Spotify. Users will be able to stream the clip directly from their feed and even follow a link to purchase or add the music directly into their Apple Music or Spotify playlists.

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There are few things people love more than music. People find out about it from artists and friends alike, and they love to share their discoveries. Today we are enabling better music discovery and sharing on Facebook.

We hope by making this experience better, artists will share more, friends will share and engage more, and music will become a better part of the Facebook experience overall.

The company promises that support for other streaming music services will be coming soon, and that it sees Music Stories as a way to further mold Facebook into a one-stop experience where users can get updates on friends, family, entertainment and political news, and now new song and album recommendations. Facebook didn't give any word on when the new music-centric feature would be making its way to other platforms like Android or the web.

We’re introducing “Music Stories” today to enable better music discovery and sharing on Facebook. The new post format allows people to listen to previews on Facebook from Apple Music and Spotify. You can read more about it on Facebook for Media: http://media.fb.com/blog Posted by Music on Facebook on Thursday, November 5, 2015

Recently, the social network company faced a widespread issue of users reporting dramatic battery drain while the Facebook iOS ran in the background, even with background app refresh switched off. It has since repaired the issue, but left some Facebook users unsure of the company's intentions, like MacStories' Federico Vittici, who said the company had "a deep lack of respect for iOS users" when his hypothesis of silent background audio running to produce a snappier experience was proved to be correct.

Country music singer Kenny Chesney is the focus of the latest Apple Music advertisement, which aired last night during the Country Music Association awards on ABC. Taking a glimpse behind the scenes of Chesney's "No Shoes Nation" tour, the ad shows the singer going through a day of preparing for his next concert by creating a "Show Day List" playlist on Apple Music and touting the service's "human element."


Chesney can also be seen working out with an Apple Watch early on in the ad, checking on his progress with the help of the device's activity rings. The one-minute ad ends with a promotion for Apple Music's three month free trial, which still runs for any new users signing up for the music streaming service.

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Apple has been debuting a wave of commercials as the holiday season grows nearer, not only for Apple Music but for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch 10
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)

Apple has placed LCD display driver orders with touchscreen supplier Synaptics for its next-generation iPhones, indicating the Cupertino-based company's in-house development of touch and display driver integration (TDDI) chips may have fallen behind schedule, according to Taiwanese website DigiTimes.

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iPhone 7 concept with integrated Touch ID by designer Martin Hajek

Synaptics acquired Renesas SP Drivers, reportedly the sole supplier of LCD driver ICs for iPhones, in September 2014 in an effort to maintain orders from Apple, and for now it appears the iPhone maker will remain one of its customers. The supplier also works with Google, HTC, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony and other smartphone makers.

Apple previously recruited senior Renesas engineers to internally develop TDDI chips with Touch ID integrated into the display. The single-chip solution could allow for the Home button to be eliminated on future iOS devices, but Apple ordering regular display drivers from Synaptics indicates the technology may not be ready for the iPhone 7.

Apple has filed multiple patents for displays with integrated Touch ID and trackpad capabilities over the past few years, and the iPhone 7 lineup is due for a significant redesign, but it remains too early to predict whether Apple will ever remove its iconic Home button on future iPhones.

In March, Synaptics announced the first TDDI single-chip solutions for smartphones and tablets, allowing for thinner and brighter displays with best-in-class capacitive touch performance. The reduced number of components, fewer lamination steps and increased manufacturing yield of TDDI chips also lowers production costs.

Related Forum: iPhone

Popular retailer Walgreens today announced that its Balance Rewards loyalty program can now be linked with Apple Pay and used by its customers across the country. The partnership will allow Apple Pay users to link their Balance Rewards card with the mobile payments service so they can earn and redeem loyalty points without having to scan their physical Walgreens card. Following Kohl's launch of Apple Pay support for its store-branded credit card, Walgreens is the first retailer to support a loyalty rewards program within Apple Pay.

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“We’re excited to be the first to provide our customers with increased ease of access to their Balance Rewards account and information when using Apple Pay,” said Sona Chawla, president of digital and chief marketing officer for Walgreens. “This offering supports our commitment to removing friction and enabling a simple and convenient customer experience.”

Users simply need to add their Balance Rewards card into the Wallet app, going through the same process as adding a traditional credit or debit card, to be able to use the new feature at Walgreens on an iPhone and Apple Watch. The announcement comes just over a week after NFC abilities were discovered alongside Balance Rewards cards in the Wallet app, hinting at incoming loyalty rewards support from Walgreens.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

iPhone-trioApple has opened a subsidiary company in Vietnam to import and distribute iPhones directly in the country, one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Reuters.

Vietnam's national business registry website confirms that Apple Vietnam Limited Liability was established in Ho Chi Minh City on October 28 with a registered capital of 15 billion dong, or roughly $672,000 in U.S. dollars.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based firm will conduct wholesale businesses of various products including its signature smartphones, provide information technology and maintenance services as well as advising services, the announcement said.

Vietnam was one of Apple's fastest growing markets after iPhone sales tripled in the first half of its 2015 fiscal year, which is a growth rate five times faster than India, despite having a significantly smaller population, according to the report.

Apple also operates a subsidiary in Ireland for corporate tax-related purposes.

Related Forum: iPhone

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today published a patent application initially filed by Apple in May of 2014, describing a method for users to designate a specific finger to unlock an iPhone with using Touch ID, which would then cause the iPhone to enter a "panic mode" (via Business Insider). The mode could then tell the iPhone to completely lock down, limiting access to personal data if a user is being forced to unlock their iPhone.

Currently, Apple allows users to enter up to five different fingerprints to unlock an iPhone, so users would just have to designate which is the "emergency" print in the Touch ID settings menu. Apple's patent describes a situation in which a thief attempts to rob someone's iPhone from them to gain access to their personal and private data stored within, and the user being robbed quickly placing the panic mode finger on Touch ID so the thief can't access any data.

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The company is going one step further with the patent application, however, describing a way in which the activation of panic mode turns on the iPhone's camera and microphone to capture a robbery or crime as it happens and sending all the data to both a user's iCloud account and possibly even local police. Another section of the patent details a possible way for the device in panic mode to act as a beacon, alerting nearby devices (other iPhones, computers, etc) to a possible crime in their vicinity so they can alert the authorities and come to the panic mode activator's aid.

In some embodiments, the mobile device 104 may be activated into the panic mode in emergency situations to act as a beacon. If there is a nearby device, the nearby other device (e.g., a PDA carried by another person, a computer in an automobile, etc.) can be alerted with an alarm so that the user of the other device might come to the aid of the user initiating the panic mode.

For example, triggering the panic mode can send out a signal on multiple frequencies, channels, links, etc., to provide location information relative to other devices so that users of the other devices can provide assistance. Furthermore, as discussed in more detail below, the panic mode may include a locator function that uses, for example, global positioning systems (GPS) and/or cellular location systems to provide the location of the mobile device 104 to emergency response providers.

The new patent -- inventor credit going to Karthik Sudhir -- also describes more basic functions of the feature, including a straight-forward klaxon that blares until a user confirms that they're safe and even a way for Touch ID users to set up specific apps to open immediately when they unlock the iPhone with specific fingers. As with all other patents, "panic mode" is far from confirmed and may never even make it into a future version of the iPhone, but it remains an interesting glimpse into the internal discussions at Apple regarding the company's possible future products.

Tags: Patent, USPTO
Related Forum: iPhone

Developer Steve Troughton-Smith has explored the code and found that HeadBoard, tvOS' UI, includes support for folders. Yesterday, Apple seeded the first beta of tvOS 9.1 to developers, the first software update to tvOS 9.0.

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Image via Steve Troughton-Smith

Folders on tvOS currently work in a similar way to iOS, notes Troughton-Smith. A user would just have to drag one app over the other to create a folder. Users would also have the ability to rename folders. Troughton-Smith was able to activate the folders using the LLDB software debugger. The folders appear to use a 3 x 3 layout and sit alongside apps on the Apple TV's home screen, just like folders do in iOS.


In recent days, Apple has been updating the Apple TV's new App Store with Top Charts and Categories for better discoverability. However, those updates were server-side updates that didn't require users to update their software. Folder support would require a software update, but it's unclear which software update Apple would enable it in. Last year, iOS 8 code pointed to split-screen multitasking, but the feature didn't become official until iOS 9 almost a year alter.

Correction: An earlier version of this story wrongly indicated that Steve Troughton-Smith had found the code for tvOS folders in tvOS 9.1. He found the code in the public, released tvOS 9.0.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Google today updated its Google Maps app to version 4.12, adding spoken traffic alerts in navigation mode as well as the ability to easily add new or missing businesses from the app's sidebar.

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Spoken traffic alerts will tell users about traffic congestion and incidents on a user's route. Additionally, users will get traffic descriptions summarizing traffic conditions before they set off on their journey. The feature is similar to Google-owned Waze's notifications, which also verbally points out traffic congestion, incidents and the location of police in the area.

Google Maps is a universal app available for free in the App Store. [Direct Link]

Apple's SVP of software and services Eddy Cue today spoke at the Dropbox Open conference, where he talked about Apple's enterprise efforts and the upcoming 12.9-inch iPad Pro in an interview with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. Several conference attendees covered Cue's remarks in a series of tweets with the hashtag DropboxOpen, giving some insight into the topics he covered.

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Image via James Titcomb

According to Cue, Apple's success in the enterprise segment is a natural evolution of its success in the consumer space, as it's bridged the gap between devices used at home and devices used at work. Things "important to the consumer," he says, are "important to the enterprise."

We've always been a consumer company. We've been trying to create products for individuals and part of that was creating a product that had tools that allowed people to do things with them that we could never even imagine. And what's happened is if you look at the world today you work 24 by 7.

You're awake, you take it home with you, you take it everywhere. There's no longer the "enterprise" in the sense of the products you use there that you don't use somewhere else. Now you get to use the products everywhere.

Apple is hoping the iPad Pro will further boost its enterprise sales, with Cue saying there's still a "huge opportunity" for growth. Cue also said he believes enterprise has a long way to go to catch up on new mobile technologies the way consumers have. During the interview, Cue brought out an iPad Pro to show off on stage, and teased the audience, asking them to look under their chairs to find nothing underneath.


At the start the interview, Houston said he couldn't wait to get his hands on an iPad Pro, to which Cue responded "Only a few more days," potentially suggesting the iPad Pro's launch will happen soon. Current rumors have indicated the iPad Pro will be available in stores on November 11, but it's possible Apple could accept pre-orders before that date.

Related Roundup: iPad Pro
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Apple appears to have updated the tvOS App Store to add a new Categories section, which should make it easier for new Apple TV owners to discover apps on their devices. Like the iOS App Store, the new Categories section arranges apps into different sections based on purpose, like Games and Entertainment.

First noted by iDownloadBlog on an Apple TV running the new 9.1 tvOS beta, the new Categories section appears to be rolling out to Apple TV users now. We were able to get the Categories feature to show up on an Apple TV running tvOS 9.0 following several device restarts.

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Shortly after the Apple TV was released, there were multiple complaints about the state of the tvOS App Store. At launch, the App Store displayed only a list of featured apps, leaving the rest to be discovered through searches. Apple has been improving the tvOS App Store over the past few days, with the Categories section joining a Top Charts section that was added to the App Store on Monday.

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Apps that are displayed when selecting the "Entertainment" category

Game and app developers were previously concerned with app discovery on tvOS when the App Store was limited to featured apps, but the inclusion of the Top Charts and the Categories section will go a long way towards bolstering the discovery process.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
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Apple is hoping to sign an agreement with the city of San Jose that would allow it to build a massive campus in the northern part of the city, reports the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Apple is in talks with city officials over a development agreement that would lead to a campus up to 4.15 million square feet, larger than both its existing Infinite Loop campus and its second Apple Campus under construction in Cupertino.

The draft agreement, which is not yet completed, will come before the city's Planning Commission later this month, officials said. It would lock in development rights -- and expectations for both sides -- for the next 15 years in an area that sprawls across 86 acres north of Highway 101 across from the Mineta San Jose International Airport.

Apple has already bought or leased much of the land that would house the campus in a series of real estate deals that have happened over the last few months. Apple purchased a 296,000 square foot research and development building in May, and it leased a 43-acre development site in August, which is approved for up to 2.8 million square feet of office space. Apple has also leased a nearby 202,000 square-foot office building. The agreement covers all three of these sites.

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According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the development agreement is not the same as a concrete project and gives no guarantee that Apple will build on the space, but given Apple's land grab in the area, it seems the company has plans for something big.

Along with its expansion into North San Jose, Apple has also purchased or leased office space in other Bay Area locations. In early October, Apple signed a deal for a 770,00 square foot campus in Sunnyvale, and back in June, it leased 76,000 square feet of office space in the popular (and pricy) South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood in San Francisco.

ios_9_iconApple today seeded the second beta of iOS 9.2 to public beta testers, one day after seeding the second beta to developers and a week after releasing the first iOS 9.2 public beta. iOS 9.2 follows iOS 9.1, which launched on October 21.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple’s beta testing program and have will receive the second iOS 9.2 beta as an over-the-air update.

Those who want to be a part of Apple’s beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and OS X betas. As iOS 9.1 was recently released, it will likely be several weeks before we see the public release of iOS 9.2.

According to the release notes for the first iOS 9.2 beta, the Safari View Controller (the view of Safari you see within apps) is being updated with support for third-party Action Extensions that will let it more closely mirror the Safari app. It also includes options to reload content and request a desktop site, as in Safari, and iOS 9.2 beta 2 improves Safari View Controller further, introducing support for dismissing it with an edge swipe.

Along with improvements to Safari View Controller, iOS 9.2 also introduces support for AT&T's NumberSync Wi-Fi Calling feature and includes bug fixes for iCloud Keychain, Apple Watch syncing and pairing, audio quality when streaming to stereo systems, and more.

Tag: iOS 9.2
Related Forum: iOS 9

Sotheby's will soon be auctioning a contemporary Macintosh painting by the late Andy Warhol, a successful artist known for his paintings of iconic American objects like Coca-Cola and Campbell's Soup and celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Muhammad Ali.

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The acrylic and silkscreen canvas painting is part of Warhol's "Ads" suite from 1985, one year after the original Macintosh launched. The painting, which features Apple's old rainbow logo sandwiched between the words Apple and Macintosh, is estimated to receive between $400,000 and $600,000 U.S. at auction.

"We went into Sean [John Lennon's son]'s bedroom–and there was a kid there setting up the Apple computer that Sean had gotten as a present, the Macintosh model. I said that once some man had been calling me a lot wanting to give me one, but that I'd never called him back or something, and then the kid looked up and said, 'Yeah, that was me. I'm Steve Jobs.' And he looked so young, like a college guy. And he told me that he would still send me one now. And then he gave me a lesson on drawing with it. It only comes in black and white now, but they'll make it soon in color...I felt so old and out of it with this young whiz guy right there who helped invent it." — Andy Warhol

The starting bid for the Macintosh painting will be $280,000 U.S. when the eBay auction starts on November 12 at 9:30 AM Eastern. The painting is in very good condition overall based on the Sotheby's report, with only light wear and handling along the edges, minor hairline craquelure, possible retouching and a few other blemishes.

appletvremoteinhandDespite Siri's availability on iOS in over fifteen different languages and over thirty countries, the voice assistant's support on the new Apple TV has remained limited to eight countries: Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States, Germany, France, Spain, and Japan.

In a new report by MacPrime [Google Translate], the importance of "film and television content" -- including altering the phonetic pronunciation of movie titles and actor names -- was given as the main reason behind this initially small Siri support on the new Apple TV.

The explanation: Siri on Apple TV is different in large parts of Siri on iOS. The voice control of the set-top box Apple had to put a special focus on television and film content. These include in particular film titles and names of actors, directors, producers and the like. Apart from the various translations of movie titles, the pronunciation of titles or name differs depending on the country or region.

Specifically, examples for film titles like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the actor Matthew McConaughey were given as the most different from the way Americans tend to say them. Since the new Apple TV is fueled by an extensive Siri voice search functionality, Apple feared that releasing the feature to a more global audience, who may run into problems and become frustrated, would dilute its overall appeal.

The project managers that MacPrime spoke to noted incoming support for more countries and languages, although the company has yet to give an exact date to the expanded regions that will gain Siri functionality on the Apple TV. Those areas that still received the fourth generation set-top box at launch, but are without Siri, were given a remote that looks identical to the Siri Remote but has been dubbed the "Apple TV Remote" due to its lack of full voice control capabilities.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who passed away in October 2011 following a lengthy battle with a rare illness, contemplated building a so-called "Apple Car" as recently as 2008, according to his former advisor Tony Fadell.

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Tony Fadell discussed an Apple Car with Steve Jobs in 2008 (Image: Bloomberg)

In an interview with Bloomberg, Fadell, who led Apple's iPod division between 2001 and 2010, said he had discussions with Jobs on multiple occasions to hypothesize about what features an Apple-branded vehicle could have.

"We had a couple of walks," Fadell said in an interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. The pair posed hypothetical questions to each other, such as: "If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?"

Jobs, who drove a Mercedes, decided not to move forward with the idea at the time, said Fadell, instead focusing Apple's efforts on the iPhone, which accounted for about two-thirds of the company's net revenue last year according to SEC filings.


Fadell, who now serves as Nest Labs CEO at Google parent company Alphabet, said he does not have firsthand knowledge about Apple's car plans, but he did reflect on the similarities between smartphones and modern vehicles.

"A car has batteries; it has a computer; it has a motor; and it has mechanical structure. If you look at an iPhone, it has all the same things. It even has a motor in it," said Fadell, who's now the chief executive officer of Alphabet's Nest home appliances company. "But the hard stuff is really on the connectivity and how cars could be self-driving."

Apple has considered building a car before 2008, Bloomberg noted. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller disclosed in 2012 court testimony that Apple discussed building a car before the original iPhone launched in 2007, while former Apple board member Mickey Drexler has also said Jobs wanted to build a car.

Apple faces growing competition from tech rivals such as Tesla and Google, and traditional automakers, if it chooses to enter the electric vehicle market. Recent rumors suggest Apple has assembled a team of hundreds of employees to develop an electric vehicle that could enter production as early as 2020.

Microsoft this week began the sign-up process that will let a few iOS users test out an early beta version of its Cortana personal assistant ahead of its wide release sometime next year (via The Verge). Specifically, the company said it's looking for a "limited number of people" in the United States and China, with updates rolling out over the next few months to tweak features and provide any fixes to bugs found by the beta participants.

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In the spirit of the Windows Insider Program, we’re looking for a limited number of people to get their hands on an early version of the app. It’s important to keep in mind that this is the first public release of the Cortana for iOS beta. And that for now, Cortana for iOS is only available in the U.S. and China. Over the coming months, we’ll continue to deliver frequent updates to the app to expand the features and functionality.

The company reiterated that Windows is where Cortana "really shines," thanks to a few hardware-specific features, but promises that iOS users can expect a robust personal assistant that makes a "perfect companion" to the Windows experience. Those who are interested in testing out Cortana for iOS can complete a short survey on Microsoft's website to possibly become one of the limited access users of the beta, who will begin receiving download links in their email over the next few weeks.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has released a new research report outlining his expectations for Apple's 2016 iPhone launches, including several interesting tidbits about the upcoming devices.

First, Kuo believes Apple still has a new 4-inch iPhone in the works that "resembles an upgraded iPhone 5s". The device is said to be targeted for launch in the first half of next year and will come equipped with an A9 processor.

As there is still demand for a 4-inch iPhone, we believe Apple will upgrade this product line. Because the iPhone 5s is more popular than the iPhone 5c, we think Apple is likely to launch an upgraded iPhone 5s. We predict Apple will mass-produce this new 4-inch iPhone in 1H16 with metal casings. In order to make the current iOS 9 or next-generation iOS 10 run smoothly, Apple may adopt an A9 chip for this new phone.

Kuo believes this new 4-inch iPhone will not include 3D Touch support as part of an effort to keep it differentiated from the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. He also projects Apple could ship 20-30 million units of this new iPhone through the end of 2016.

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Looking ahead to the next full refresh with the iPhone 7, Kuo expects the usual third-quarter launch in 2016 with an unsurprising upgrade to a new A10 chip to offer increased performance. He does, however, believe Apple will opt to differentiate between the two sizes of the iPhone 7 when it comes to RAM, with the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 carrying the same 2 GB seen in current iPhones while the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus will include 3 GB of RAM for performance reasons.

Kuo believes major winners for the 2016 iPhone cycle include Foxconn, which he expects will be the exclusive supplier for the new 4-inch iPhone, and TSMC, which he expects will be the sole provider of the A9 chip used in that phone as well as the A10 chip used in the iPhone 7.

Related Forum: iPhone

Since launching in September alongside the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, iOS 9 has seen its adoption rate grow to 66 percent of active iOS devices, according to numbers on the Apple Developer Support page. Two weeks ago, iOS 9 adoption sat at 61 percent.
ios9adoptionAfter 24 hours, iOS 9 adoption was in line with the adoption rate of iOS 8. However, in late September Apple announced that the newest version of iOS had the fastest adoption ever and was on pace to be downloaded by more users than any other version of the mobile operating system. iOS 8 only achieved a 64 percent adoption rate by December 23 and a 68 percent adoption rate by January 7, ending up with a high of 87 percent on the eve of iOS 9's launch.

Apple released the first major update to iOS 9 two weeks ago with iOS 9.1, which featured a slew of brand-new emojis. Since that update, iOS 9 adoption has grown by 5 percent. Earlier today Apple seeded the second beta for iOS 9.2, the second major update to its newest mobile operating system.

Related Forum: iOS 9