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

Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller today tweeted out that November 2016 had "the highest monthly sales ever in App Store history." Schiller didn't offer any specific numbers in regards to the company's record-breaking month. Earlier in January, Apple announced that customers spent $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases in just two weeks over the holiday...

A new app called myLINGO lets Spanish-speaking users listen to studio-recorded dubs of the most popular movies while they're in theaters, thanks to backing from studios including Disney, Paramount, and Sony. The app has also obtained "strategic partnerships" with Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark Theaters within the United States. myLINGO works by letting users search for the movie...

Sony is set to release up to six games for iOS in the financial year starting April in the hope of replicating Nintendo's phenomenal success with Pokémon Go (via Reuters). The upcoming titles will bring popular Sony franchises such as Everybody's Golf to iOS devices for the first time, said the company. Previously Sony has only launched a few games for smartphones through its music...

Amazon has expanded its Family Plan for Amazon Music Unlimited to the U.K., following initial rollout across the U.S. last month. The plan costs £15 a month, or £149 a year, which works out at a lower price of £12 per month. The subscription supports up to six family members (at least 13 years of age) for simultaneous listening and personal recommendations. On the plan, a single family ...

Pandora previewed its long-awaited Apple Music and Spotify competitor today at a special event with select publications. The new service is called Pandora Premium, and will launch in early 2017 with a likely price of $9.99 per month, reports Engadget. The new app offers on-demand access to a large music library and looks a lot like Rdio. In November, Pandora announced that it had acquired...

In September Square introduced the "Cash Virtual Card," letting users of the Square Cash app create a virtual Visa debit card that allows them spend their Square Cash anywhere Visa is accepted online. Today at the Code Conference in San Francisco, CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the Virtual Card now works with Apple Pay, reports Recode. Image via Recode The move gives the Cash Virtual Card a...

Apple today published its top 2016 content picks for the iTunes Store and the App Store, choosing the best apps, music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and books of the year. "One Dance" from Drake was named Apple's Top Song of 2016, while Drake's "Views" Album was named the Top Album of the Year. Other top songs, which are available via an Apple Music playlist, include Rihanna's "Work," Flo...

Apple today announced that Apple Music has surpassed 20 million subscribers, reports Billboard. The service crosses the mark as it turns a year and a half old. Apple Music had 15 million subscribers on its one-year anniversary in June and notched 17 million subscribers a couple months later in September. Eddy Cue, Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, tells Billboard that 60% of...

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming tvOS 10.1 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the fourth tvOS 10.1 beta and over two months after launching tvOS 10. Designed for the fourth-generation Apple TV, fourth tvOS 10.1 beta can be obtained by connecting the Apple TV to a computer with a USB-C to USB-A cable, downloading and installing the software from a...

Mophie today debuted the Juice Pack Air battery cases for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, bringing the company's signature battery case line to Apple's latest smartphones. In addition to featuring extended battery life in a slim design, the new cases also take advantage of Mophie's Charge Force wireless charging technology. The case magnetically aligns with all other Mophie Charge Force...

A new update coming to Instagram will allow users to turn the comments section under each of their posts off completely, continuing the app's anti-harrassment toolset it began introducing with a keyword moderation update in September. Users will simply have to tap "Advanced Settings" when crafting a post and select "Turn Off Commenting," so no followers or strangers can write a comment...

A recent update to ride-hailing app Uber is generating a negative reaction online, with customers concerned over the company's decision to track their location "from the time of trip request through five minutes after the trip ends," no matter if the app is open or not. The only option now available for users to negate the background tracking of their location is to go into iOS Settings > Privacy ...

Apple has added AMC and The Hallmark Channel to the universal search function on the fourth-generation Apple TV in the United States, enabling viewers to search for popular TV shows such as The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul in addition to holiday-themed programming such as Countdown to Christmas. For those unfamiliar with universal search, it's a feature that allows users to conduct Siri ...

Netflix yesterday briefly became the number one top-grossing iOS app in the U.S. for the first time, holding at bay the likes of Spotify and Candy Crush Saga for most of Monday. The app also occupied the coveted top spot on iPhone in India, Mexico, and Colombia yesterday, as noted by app tracking company SensorTower, which offered a timeline leading up to the achievement in a blog post. Im ...

Apple's iCloud service appears to be down or working slowly for many users, according to reports sent in by MacRumors readers and comments on Twitter. Customers who are affected by the outage are not able to log into the iCloud website and are receiving server error messages. iCloud features like Calendar and mail are also not working for users in areas where iCloud is down. Apple's System...

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of an upcoming watchOS 3.1.1 update to developers for testing purposes, one week after seeding the fourth watchOS 3.1.1 beta and more than a month after releasing watchOS 3.1, the first update to the watchOS 3 operating system. watchOS 3.1.1 can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General -> Software Update. To install ...

Apple customers may be familiar with the option of walking into an Apple retail store, purchasing a product with the Apple Store app, and walking out without checking out or even speaking to a single employee, and now Amazon seeks to one-up that experience with a new concept called Amazon Go. Amazon Go provides a checkout-free shopping experience that, to the naked eye, looks exactly like...

A robbery at an Apple Store in Palo Alto over the weekend has continued a string of Apple Store-related burglaries plaguing the Bay Area over the past few weeks. In Palo Alto, the University Avenue Apple Store was targeted by between eight and ten individuals who drove a rented SUV directly into the store's floor-to-ceiling glass front, and made away with an unspecified amount of iPhones, iPads,...