MacRumors

HealthKit supports some medical Bluetooth accessories natively, allowing accessory makers to skip developing apps for iOS and focus on their hardware, according to 9to5Mac.

The accessories that will be built-in and supported natively by HealthKit include heart rate and blood pressure monitors, glucose sensors, and health thermometers. Apple is using official standard specs for Bluetooth LE devices from http://Bluetooth.org, which is what allows iOS 8 to automatically establish a connection with the devices listed above without the manufacturers worrying about anything on the software side.

HealthKit can automatically detect these Bluetooth medical devices and gather data from them, syncing them to the new Health app without the user having to do anything in a third-party app, making it easy for users to find health information in a single place. Additionally, device makers won't have to spend resources and time making an app rather than focus on their hardware.

HealthKit and the Health app are available to developers in the iOS 8 now. All three will launch in the fall for the general public.

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Apple's brand new campus in Austin, Texas today at its opening celebration, according to various Apple employees. Cook recapped the announcements Apple made at WWDC earlier this week and teased that "exciting" new products are on the way, reports 9to5Mac.

Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue was also in attendance, commenting about Beats Music and Beats Electronics. Cook also reportedly talked about new hires, mentioning how new retail head Angela Ahrendts was the best person for the job.

Many Apple employees took to Twitter and Instagram to share Cook's visit to the campus, which is similar in style to the current Cupertino headquarters and complete with advanced facilities for Apple support, engineering and operations. Only part of the first phase of construction has been completed, with the complete first phase expected to finish by the end of 2015 and the entire project to be completed by 2021.

Engineers working on iTunes Radio prefer to listen to Spotify and Pandora because they were better platforms, according to a new report from Buzzfeed. It claims that not only did those employees prefer Apple's competitors over its own radio service, but it says middle management was willfully ignorant about how Spotify worked, thinking it was just another streaming service.

It's "why they thought iTunes Radio would be a Spotify killer," said one employee. The piece alleges that Apple has been overly focused on driving downloads on iTunes and slow to adapt to a shift in user listening preferences towards subscription-based services.

Past and current employees in the company with direct knowledge of iTunes and Apple's services Ping and iTunes Radio told BuzzFeed that Apple engineers involved with those products often preferred to use Spotify and Pandora. "Everyone's excuse was it's because we work on iTunes, running and closing the app after every code change," one source said. "But it's really because Spotify has all the free music with a real social platform." In their personal time, sources said, employees used Spotify and Pandora.

Apple employees confirmed that management actively ignored iTunes' streaming competitors, with some managers refusing to open or use Spotify. One source said that as recently "as last year," some members of management didn't even know that Spotify was an on-demand streaming service, assuming it was just a radio service.

The disconnect between employees, along with a belief that Spotify and Pandora weren't real threats to iTunes, may have been a significant contributing factor to Apple's slowness to embrace streaming music. A reluctance to cut into its iTunes sales was also likely a factor, as it was the platform that revolutionized the music industry back in 2003.

According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, Apple's main goal with iTunes Radio was boosting both device sales and sales of iTunes music, which largely ignored the real problem -- the growing popularity of on-demand streaming music and the products being offered by competitors. iTunes Radio was viewed as a "baby step" into the streaming music industry when what Apple really needed was a leap.

Apple had a similar issue back in 2010 when it launched Ping. Designed as a social networking and music recommendation service, Ping was created to push users to purchase songs rather than as a true effort towards improving recommendations, which ultimately led to its failure in 2012. "The biggest reason why Ping failed was because Apple was not interested in making a network -- they were interested in making a purchase pusher," said one of Buzzfeed's sources.

With the purchase of Beats, it appears that Apple is finally ready to make a significant leap into the streaming music industry, though a cautious one. The company reportedly plans to keep Beats as a standalone brand rather than integrating it directly into iTunes, which gives it a safety net should the service ultimately fail.

Along with the streaming music service itself, Apple is also gaining fresh blood for its music endeavors. Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, both of whom are set to join Apple as employees, both have extensive experience in the music industry and an invaluable rapport with a younger generation of listeners.

PayPal is already working to incorporate the fingerprint scanning capabilities of the iPhone 5s into its mobile apps, likely planning to use the technology to authenticate users and confirm payments through the use of a fingerprint rather than a password.

Apple first announced a Touch ID API for developers on Monday, which will allow the feature to be integrated into third-party apps for the first time. According to a PayPal source that spoke to Business Insider, PayPal developers attended a developer session on Touch ID at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday to learn about the new API.

"It seems to be a fairly easy API to use, but we're still kicking the tires," the PayPal source tells us.

Anuj Nyar, PayPal's senior director of global initiatives, confirmed in an email that company developers had attended the session.

At the current point in time, Apple's Touch ID feature is limited to unlocking the iPhone and making purchases for apps and music within the iTunes Store. Apple has previously faced significant scrutiny over privacy concerns with Touch ID, which is likely why it has taken nearly a year for the company to allow developers access to the feature.

Since the release of the iPhone 5s, Apple has worked to overcome security concerns by releasing extensive documentation on Touch ID, which works through a "Secure Enclave" within the iPhone's A7 chip, using a secure boot process and other security measures to prevent both Apple and any other third parties from accessing Touch ID data.

Touch ID for developers works in conjunction with Keychain, unlocking Keychain items through a simple yes/no verification process that identifies successful fingerprint matches. During Monday's keynote, Apple software chief Craig Federighi assured iPhone users that fingerprint data remains protected and inaccessible to developers.

PayPal's main app currently allows users to send and request money and to make payments via the service in retail stores, restaurants, and more. Several features require a password to login or confirm payments, steps that may be simplified with Touch ID.

Apple may have plans to build Touch ID into a complete payment service in the future, as the company is said to be working on a mobile payments solution. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, mobile payments were "one of the thoughts behind Touch ID." Apple has also reportedly been in talks with PayPal about a possible payments partnership, so it is no surprise that PayPal is eager to be at the forefront of Touch ID app integration.

Production of components for Apple's iWatch is reportedly starting later this month, leading to speculation by Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brian White that the device will see a launch as soon as September alongside the iPhone 6.

With the theme around wearable technology at Computex this year, our research has uncovered more data points as it relates to Apple’s “iWatch.” Our meeting with a tech supply chain company highlighted that initial production of certain “iWatch” components is scheduled to begin later this month and there are plans for a sharp acceleration into fall.

Given the trajectory of this ramp and our experience analyzing other product ramps at Apple, we expect the "iWatch" to be unveiled with the iPhone 6 in September. Since our research suggests the first iteration of the "iWatch" is more of a companion device, and thus requires a connection to an iPhone, we believe unveiling the two new devices at the same time makes sense.

White believes the iWatch will be available at several pricing increments much like the iPhone and the iPad, indicating that prices could start at $199 to $229 to compete with other smart watches currently on the market.

Several other rumors have pointed towards a fall launch for the iWatch, with KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicting a third quarter launch, which has also been echoed by various Asian news sources including the Economic Daily News and Digitimes. Apple is also likely aiming for a fall launch for its 4.7-inch iPhone 6, which could see the two devices unveiled together.

Little physical information has surfaced on the iWatch thus far, but supply chain rumors have suggested the device will come in two separate sizes (1.3 inches and 1.5-1.7 inches) to accommodate different sized wrists. It is also said to include a multitude of biometric sensors to measure various health metrics and it is also expected to interface with the new Health app in iOS 8.

White also believes that the 5.5-inch iPhone, which was rumored to be delayed due to production issues, could launch alongside the 4.7-inch iPhone and the iWatch. He released a report detailing his reasons yesterday and today confirms that research is "uncovering more evidence that the 5.5- inch iPhone 6 will launch this fall."

Having previously predicted seemingly outlandish products such as the "iRing" able to control an Apple television set, Brian White does not have a particularly solid track record when it comes to predicting Apple's plans, but with multiple rumors converging on a fall release date for both the iWatch and the two versions of the iPhone, it is possible we will see all three products before the end of the year.

Apple continues to explore the various ways solar cell technology can be used to enhance the operation of electronic devices with a new patent application no. 20140152632 published on Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. The document describes a method of using solar cells as ambient light sensors for an iPad, iPhone, or other display-equipped device, reports Patently Apple. The patent application was filed in December 2012, but was just published today.

One advantage to integrating the ambient light sensor into the display would be the ability to reduce bezel sizes around the display, allowing more of the device's surface to be dedicated to display. For example, the iPhone currently includes several components embedded in the bezel above the display, including the earpiece, FaceTime camera, ambient light sensor, and proximity sensor. Moving at least some of those components into the display itself could allow Apple to reduce the height of the top bezel.

According to the patent, a solar cell's ability to sense incoming light could be connected to circuitry that adjusts the display brightness in response to the solar cell input, as with current sensors. When not being used to adjust the display, this solar cell technology could provide a trickle charge to the device's battery.

An electronic device is provided with a display and a solar cell ambient light sensor that receives light through a portion of the display. The solar cell ambient light sensor may include one or more thin-film photovoltaic cells. A voltage that accumulates within the thin-film photovoltaic cell in response to ambient light is sampled and converted into ambient light data. The device includes control circuitry that modifies the intensity of display light generated by the display based on the ambient light data from the photovoltaic cell. The solar cell ambient light sensor is attached to a transparent cover layer, a color filter layer, or any other layer of the display. When the accumulated voltage is not being sampled for ambient light measurements, the voltage may be used to provide charge to a battery in the device.

Apple has long expressed an interest in solar cell technology with patent applications and solar-related rumors extending back at least six years. More recently, Apple was awarded a patent that describes a method of integrating a solar panel into a mobile touchscreen device with a flexible display.

The organizers of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today announced that they will be honoring Bono with the first ever LionHeart Award later this month at the 61st annual festival. The award is being given for Bono's work with the (RED) campaign to raise funds for the fight against AIDS.

Alongside the honor, Bono and Apple design chief Jonathan Ive will participate in an on-stage interview to discuss their collaboration on the campaign, which has seen contributions from the purchase of (PRODUCT)RED Apple products reach $70 million. Ive last year also partnered with friend and designer Marc Newson to auction off a number of one-of-a-kind items, including a unique red Mac Pro and rose gold-plated EarPods, to benefit the (RED) campaign.

In an exclusive seminar for Cannes Lions delegates, Bono will join Jonathan Ive, Apple Inc’s Senior Vice President of Design, in a discussion moderated by Shane Smith, CEO and Founder of VICE Media, and introduced by Anne Finucane, Global Strategy and Marketing Officer of (RED) partner, Bank of America. Bono and Jonathan Ive will discuss the success of (RED) and [its] unique collaboration with global partners – including Apple, (RED)’s largest corporate contributor to the AIDS fight – and the record-breaking (RED) Design Auction curated by Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson. The auction resulted in $44 million for the Global Fund on World AIDS Day last year.

The 45-minute interview, which will represent a relatively rare public appearance for Ive, will take place on June 21. It is unclear whether video of the interview will be made available after the event, but we have contacted festival organizers to inquire about the possibility.

(Thanks, Joe!)

Apple has debuted a new TV ad called "Strength" during the first game of the Stanley Cup finals, focusing on fitness accessories and apps for iPhone 5s.

The ad uses the song "Chicken Fat" by Robert Preston, which was created in 1961 to get schoolchildren to do more daily exercise. It also showcases accessories such as Misfit's Shine activity tracker and apps such as weightlifting trainer Stronglifts, showing how users can use the iPhone 5s to increase their health.

The ad once again ends with the tagline "You're more powerful than you think", which debuted alongside Apple's "Powerful" ad in late April.

Just a couple days after announcing Family Sharing, a feature that allows families to share iTunes and App Store purchases, Apple has begun emailing developers to ask them to turn on the feature in their iTunes Connect developer portal.

While Family Sharing is a significant addition to the App Store, the opt-in requirement for developers could see some declining to allow their apps to be shared amongst as many as six accounts with no extra charge.

To make your apps available as part of Family Sharing, agree to the updated iOS Paid Applications and/or Mac Paid Applications agreement in Contracts, Tax and Banking on iTunes Connect. To ensure that Family Sharing is also enabled for previously purchased apps, leave the appropriate checkbox selected on the agreements page.

Family Sharing also allows families to share calendars, reminders, photos and locations. It also allows parents to monitor and approve downloads and purchases made by their children remotely. The feature is likely to get turned on and tested in the iOS 8 betas before going live when iOS 8 is available for the public later this year.

A new report by Bloomberg highlights how Apple has shifted to producing more of its recent TV ads internally as opposed to relying on its longtime ad agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day and its iPhone unit, Media Arts Lab.

The report notes that Apple's changes came after marketing chief Phil Schiller considered ending its partnership with TBWA in January 2013, as previously shown in leaked emails during the company's second patent trial with Samsung. The relationship between the two companies had been strong for many years, as Chiat/Day and Apple famously worked on the iconic '1984' ad for the Macintosh. The effectiveness of Apple's relationship with TBWA/Chiat/Day reportedly started to weaken after the death of Steve Jobs in 2011. While the ads for Siri involving various celebrities were positively received by consumers, Apple's 'Genius' TV spots were poorly received and pulled from TV and YouTube soon after.

Instead of parting ways with TBWA however, Apple began building its own ad team, notably hiring ad veteran Tyler Whisnand away from Media Arts Lab to head its creative team. Apple also hired renowned music director David Taylor and a number of other veteran advertising executives to fill out its team. Meanwhile, TBWA made changes internally, promoting James Vincent, who had a working relationship with the late Steve Jobs, to CEO while extracting him from day-to-day operations.

Since then, both Apple's in-house ad team and TBWA have worked on a number of successful ads, with the former creating the initial "Your Verse" iPad TV ad that aired this past January, and the latter helping with a recent TV spot that highlighted the iPad Air's use in music composition by conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. However, Apple has also required TBWA and its internal team to compete on each campaign in order to ensure quality.

So far, the in-house efforts have helped stanch a decline in the impact of Apple’s ads since Jobs died, according to ad-monitoring company Ace Metrix Inc. Apple’s average score from this survey of hundreds of consumers fell in 2013 to 548 - just slightly higher than the overall average score for advertisers - - from 621 in 2011. So far in 2014, Apple’s median score has risen to 564, according to Ace Metrix.

Finally, Schiller and creative executive Hiroki Asai are also now said to be determining whether Apple should push digital marketing more following the launch of an ad campaign for the iPhone 5c on Tumblr this past March. It was reported by Ad Age last year that Apple would be adding for digital agencies to help out its online marketing strategy, which would be a shift from Jobs' approach to only focus on TV and print ads.

Jobs reportedly disliked the idea of showing Apple's products in low-resolution online ads, and applied the same distaste to campaigns on social media as Apple could not have full control of its intended message.

The Swift programming language was as close to a "One More Thing" as there was at the WWDC Keynote this week, debuting to significant cheers from the developers in the audience. Immediate reaction after the keynote suggested Swift was "huge news" and the future of development on Apple products.

Apple says Swift code is "concise yet expressive", interactive and fun. For coders, the introduction to Swift is available on the iBooks Store but Chris Lattner, head of Apple's Developer Tools department, shared additional information on Swift on his personal webpage (via TechCrunch).

Now that Swift is public, Lattner revealed that he began working on Swift in mid-2010, with a team of coders "contributing in earnest" late in 2011. Last July, Swift finally became the major focus of Lattner's Developer Tools Group.

The Swift language is the product of tireless effort from a team of language experts, documentation gurus, compiler optimization ninjas, and an incredibly important internal dogfooding group who provided feedback to help refine and battle-test ideas. Of course, it also greatly benefited from the experiences hard-won by many other languages in the field, drawing ideas from Objective-C, Rust, Haskell, Ruby, Python, C#, CLU, and far too many others to list.

The Xcode Playgrounds feature and REPL were a personal passion of mine, to make programming more interactive and approachable. The Xcode and LLDB teams have done a phenomenal job turning crazy ideas into something truly great. Playgrounds were heavily influenced by Bret Victor's ideas, by Light Table and by many other interactive systems.

Lattner says that he hopes to make programming "more approachable and fun" with Swift, getting rid of extraneous materials to make programming easier to learn.

"We'll appeal to the next generation of programmers and to help redefine how Computer Science is taught," Lattner writes.

Evidence of upcoming iMac updates is continuing to accumulate, and the latest hint points toward support for models equipped with Retina displays. As noted by MacBidouille [Google Translate], the OS X Yosemite developer preview includes a new file defining display scaling resolution options for a machine identified as an iMac.

The unreleased machine was first spotted last week in the OS X 10.9.4 beta, but today's discovery includes the observation that Retina-resolution display support is included.

The file includes a series of scaling resolution options for this machine, maxing out at 6400 x 3600 pixels, or 3200 x 1800 as a Retina display. The display itself would carry a somewhat lower native resolution, perhaps 5120 x 2880 to simply pixel double the current 27-inch iMac, but as with the Retina MacBook Pro higher resolutions are specified and generated by the machine before being scaled back down.

The first of these resolutions indicates hexa "00001900 00000e10" is therefore a resolution scaling of ... 6400 x 3600 (probably 3200x1800 HiDPI).
Continues and is 5760x3240 (2880x1620 HiDPI) 4096x2304 (2048x1152 HiDPI), etc..
(There are other resolutions, just make the conversion from hex)

With this alone, it is not possible to guess the native resolution of the machine. This is a resolution that does not appear in the file, since it is native and does not have to be "scaled".
Knowing that there is a gap between the values ​​of 5760 and 4096, one can imagine something between these two (probably 5120x2880, 2560x1440 or in HiDPI), but this is speculation.

As an example of how these higher-than-native resolution options are used, while the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has a native resolution of 2880 x 1800 (giving screen real estate of 1440 x 900 as Retina), the system is capable of generating a 3840 x 2400 desktop that is then scaled down to give the real estate of a 1920 x 1200 display.

In the case of this iMac, a similar scenario would see the initial 6400 x 3600 screen scaled to display as 3200 x 1800 on the Retina iMac.

Apple has been rumored to be working on Retina iMacs ever since the debut of the Retina MacBook Pro in 2012, but the company has likely been challenged by the large number of pixels needed for the desktop machine, particularly the 27-inch model. Recent rumors have pointed toward a lower-priced version of the iMac to help address emerging markets, but Retina models are likely also in the works.

As was seen with the MacBook Pro, Apple may initially move to split the iMac lineup with Retina models initially coming in at higher price points alongside existing or slightly cheaper non-Retina model pricing. Over time, the line would be consolidated as prices for the components needed to support Retina displays come down.

(Thanks, Greg!)

Keyboard developer Fleksy today announced that the company has its iOS keyboard alternative running on iOS 8. Apple revealed earlier this week during its WWDC 2014 keynote that iOS 8 will support the system wide implementation of these third-party keyboards.

An alternative to a traditional keyboard, Fleksy boasts improved typing speeds through the use of automated word suggestions and a sophisticated autocorrect engine that corrects errors on the fly. It also incorporates a gesture system that lets users complete common tasks like inserting spaces and punctuation through swipes.

Fleksy tweeted a screenshot of its keyboard on iOS 8, along with an invitation for users to register for a preview of its iOS 8 keyboard app. iPhone and iPad owners running a beta version of iOS 8 on their devices can sign up for a preview on Fleksy's website. The company will notify customers via email when the public beta program goes live.

Fleksy won't be the only third-party keyboard available to consumers when iOS 8 launches later this year. Both Swiftkey and popular Android keyboard Swype confirmed they plan to launch iOS 8-compatible versions of their keyboard apps.

"We're delighted Apple has decided to embrace the importance of opening its platform to third party keyboards.
...
We first brought a taste of our technology to iOS in January this year with the launch of the free note-taking app SwiftKey Note. Are we going to build SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS 8? Of course we are. We've already started, writes Swiftkey founders Ben Medlock and Jon Reynolds."

Both Switfkey and Fleksy already offer versions of their keyboards for iPhone and iPad owners, but their functionality is limited due to iOS constraints that prohibit their system-wide installation. iOS 8 will remove this restriction, making it possible for all keyboard makers, including iOS newcomer Swype, to bring their keyboards to Apple's mobile platform. The beta version of iOS 8 is available now to developers, with a public release expected this fall.