MacRumors iPhone and iPad Blog: Apps, News, and Rumors

Sphero today announced the "Bolt" robotic ball, which is aimed at teaching kids basic programming with its advanced sensors, LED matrix, and infrared communication that lets it interact with other Bolt devices (via Gizmodo). The Bolt is the same size as previous Sphero balls, but has an increased runtime of two full hours thanks to a bigger battery. The device connects to the Sphero Edu app,...

The iOS App Store Twitter account over the weekend revealed that the 2007 Nintendo DS game Professor Layton and the Curious Village will be making its way to the App Store in the United States in the near future (via Engadget). Japan received a port of the puzzle game on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store this past June. Of course, with just a single tweet there isn't much additional...

Following the addition of 116 global "Daily Top 100" charts that display the most-streamed songs on Apple Music, the service has now introduced another long-requested update: separating an artist's main albums from various singles and EPs (via Reddit). Previously, when you navigated to an artist's profile on Apple Music, you would find a scrollable list of their entire body of work, combining...

Apple on Sunday won its first Primetime Emmy for original content, landing the accolade for Apple Music's Carpool Karaoke, which won Outstanding Short Form Variety Series at this year's Creative Arts Emmy Awards (via Deadline). Carpool Karaoke began as a viral segment on CBS' The Late Late Show With James Corden, before Apple acquired the rights in 2016 to develop an offshoot that it would...

Instagram has added an emoji shortcut bar to its mobile app that places the user's most-used emojis above the keyboard whenever they start to comment on a post (via The Verge). The new emoji bar doesn't appear on other occasions in the app that call for the use of the onscreen keyboard, such as when a user creates a post or comments on a Story. Instagram has obviously identified post...

Apple has removed the Infowars app from the App Store, just a day after controversial Infowars radio show host Alex Jones was permanently banned from Twitter. Apple confirmed the app's permanent removal to BuzzFeed late on Friday, but instead of giving a specific reason for taking action now, Apple simply cited its own general App Store guidelines, which prohibit content that is "offensive,...

Dozens of popular iPhone apps are sharing the location data of millions of mobile devices with third-party data monetization firms, according to a group of security researchers called GuardianApp (via TechCrunch). The apps in question are mostly news, weather, and fitness apps that require access to location data to work properly, but then share that data to earn money. According to...

Fortnite players across platforms have taken to Reddit and Twitter over the past day to point out a few performance bugs plaguing the game in the wake of the new "High Stakes" event, with a glut of users calling the iOS game unplayable over the last 12 hours. Following the complaints, Epic Games this morning responded to players, stating that it is aware of the iOS performance issues and...

Best Buy's latest flash sale is for the Apple Watch Series 3 today only, particularly those models with GPS and Cellular capabilities. In the sale, you can save $300 on the Ceramic/Sports Band and Stainless Steel/Milanese Loop collections. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep...

Nintendo's latest smartphone app Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp has just reached $50 million in player spending across iOS and Android globally, according to data tracked by Sensor Tower. It took the game 289 days to reach this goal, becoming the slowest of Nintendo's latest apps to do so. Super Mario Run reached the $50 million mark 222 days after its release, while Fire Emblem Heroes...

Broadcom on Thursday offered analysts an upbeat end-of-year revenue forecast, thanks in part to the imminent launch of Apple's 2018 iPhone lineup, which is expected to boost the chipmaker's wireless business. Reuters reports that Broadcom predicted current-quarter revenue largely above estimates, due to higher demand for components that power data centers, as well as an increase in...

British Airways says it is investigating the theft of customer data from its website and mobile app over a two-week period, during which 380,000 payment cards were exposed (via The Guardian). "From 22:58 BST August 21 2018 until 21:45 BST September 5 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on our website and app were compromised," the airline revealed in ...

Twitter is testing an updated version of its desktop site that includes a new Bookmarks feature, the company outlined in a tweet earlier today. Bookmarks is a feature that was added to the mobile version of Twitter earlier this year but has yet to make its way to the desktop. The Bookmarks option is designed to allow users to save tweets for later access. Love to use Bookmarks and want it on ...

Twelve South has long offered a PlugBug accessory designed to provide interchangeable plugs for travel purposes, but earlier this month, an updated version debuted that adds an extra USB port. The new Twelve South PlugBug Duo is an ideal travel accessory because it adds international plugs to your MacBook adapter and it lets you charge accessories like an iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch while...

Smart home tech company Brilliant today launched its touchscreen-based "Brilliant Control" light switch priced starting at $299.00. Announced in early 2017, Brilliant Control replaces any existing light switch to enable touch and voice control over smart home devices from Amazon, Google, Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell, Ring, Philips Hue, and Wemo, but at launch not HomeKit. Amazon Alexa is built...

The European Commission today announced it has approved Apple's proposed acquisition of music recognition service Shazam. "After thoroughly analyzing Shazam's user and music data, we found that their acquisition by Apple would not reduce competition in the digital music streaming market," said Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition. The regulatory body concluded that...

With the latest Apple Pay promotion you can get 10 percent off your next order from Under Armour through Wednesday, September 12. If you're in the United States, you can shop in the Under Armour app and then place your order before next Wednesday to see the discount automatically applied when you check out using Apple Pay. Apple is promoting the beginning of football season with the new...

Apple has temporarily halted plans to launch Apple Pay in India after facing troubles with regulators in the country and a few technical hurdles, according to The Economic Times. Specifically, Apple is said to be concerned about the Reserve Bank of India's recent data localization rule, which requires companies to store all of their payments data for local users only in India. Because of...