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

Apple is celebrating Thanksgiving this year by urging U.S. Apple Watch owners to bag a special achievement by recording a minimum walking or running distance on Thursday, November 24. Available through the Activity app this morning, the Thanksgiving Day Challenge is the first activity challenge of its kind from Apple, and includes a share-able Messages app sticker as an enticement to get out ...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Anki to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win one of Anki's new Cozmo robots. Cozmo is an adorable little robot that's able to explore and react to the environment, play games, and interact with people in unique ways. Priced at $179.99, Cozmo comes with a charging stand and three interactive Power Cubes that the robot can stack up, knock over,...

Homebuilding company KB Home today announced "the nation's first HomeKit-enabled community," which comes with the opportunity for buyers to build homes with Apple's HomeKit platform integrated from the get-go. A report last month brought news that Apple was working with homebuilders to install HomeKit and the Apple ecosystem of connected devices into properties at the beginning of construction. ...

iHome has announced it will soon release the iPLWBT5, the first alarm clock radio featuring both Lightning and Apple Watch chargers. Audio can be played via the docked Lightning device, Bluetooth, USB, or AUX. The dock features an alarm clock with dual alarms, FM radio with 6 preset stations, auto dimming display, built-in microphone, digital voice echo cancellation, answer/end controls for...

Apple is unlikely to reach iPhone 7 supply and demand equilibrium by the end of the December quarter, suggesting stock will remain tight through the holiday shopping season, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Munster checked 134 Apple retail stores in the United States for in-store iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus availability and found 47% of models he checked were available for...

Apple has hired a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Wei Gu, to its public relations department in Shanghai, China. Gu's role, per LinkedIn (via TechCrunch) will be PR Director, which she began this month. Gu's professional history spans 18 years and includes jobs at CNN and Reuters, working as a video journalist and reporter to break news regarding technology companies ...

Apple's Swift Playgrounds app received its first update today, introducing a new set of coding lessons and a few new features to enhance the coding experience. Included in the update is the "Learn to Code 3" module, which features a fresh guided learning experience designed to walk children and adults through basic coding with Apple's Swift programming language. Learn to Code 3 features...

Popular automation app Workflow is being updated today with a new design, a much-improved Gallery experience, and a streamlined on-boarding process, all of which help to make the app more powerful and easier to use. For those unfamiliar with Workflow, it's an automation app that can essentially do anything. It lets you create workflows to accomplish a wide variety of tasks like creating GIFs...

PlayStation today announced that its PlayStation Vue television service has expanded to the fourth-generation Apple TV, allowing PlayStation Vue subscribers to watch live TV and access other Vue features on Apple's set top box. Priced at $30 to $65 per month, PlayStation Vue provides several different live streaming television packages that include live TV, sports, movies, and more, plus it...

Twitter's first-party iOS app recently began rolling out support for rich notifications for anyone on iOS 10, letting users get a larger glimpse at their incoming notifications without having to open their iPhone or the Twitter app. The new notifications include a few formatting retouches, as well as the inclusion of images in relevant posts. With the new notification set-up, users will get...

While the iPhone 7 Plus has a dual-lens camera, only the wide-angle lens supports optical image stabilization. However, that could change next year. In a research note obtained by MacRumors, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo maintains his belief new dual-camera iPhone models in 2017 will support dual optical image stabilization. Kuo believes Apple will redesign the telephoto lens to...

Mozilla today launched a new app called "Firefox Focus," which automatically blocks advertisements as well as online trackers. The company said that due to the new app's removal of heavy ads and tracking software by other companies, "web pages may require less data and load faster." The privacy-focused web browser also comes with an easily accessible "Erase" button at the top of the app, which ...

Apple is looking into integrating its Siri virtual assistant into the company's Messages platform, according to a patent published today, enabling the AI to provide directions, retrieve movie times, and assist with peer-to-peer payments, among other potential uses. Picked up by AppleInsider, Apple's application for a "Virtual assistant in a communication session" appeared on the U.S. Patent...

Facebook has temporarily halted the collection of WhatsApp user data across Europe after pressure from privacy watchdogs, according to the Financial Times. The move follows news last week that the social media company, which owns the popular chat platform, agreed to pause data collection in the U.K. while a government probe there inquired into WhatsApp's privacy policy. The Irish Data...

Apple is researching whether iPhone and Apple Watch can be used to "passively monitor data" from patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease, according to Fast Company. Those with Parkinson's often see their doctors every six months, leaving wide gaps between visits where symptoms could improve or worsen, putting some on the wrong dose of medication. Stephen Friend, the Sage Bionetworks...

Twitter today introduced Snapchat-style QR codes, which are designed to make it easier to find and follow friends on the social network. Each Twitter QR code is unique to an individual Twitter user, so when scanned, it'll bring up the person's account. To access your Twitter QR code, you'll need the official Twitter app for iOS. In the app, go to your profile, tap on the gear icon, and select...

T-Mobile has announced a limited time promotion offering four lines of unlimited talk, text, and 4G LTE data for $120 per month. The deal offers new and existing customers with at least two lines an additional two more lines free, including families or individuals adding a smartphone and/or tablet to their plans. T-Mobile ONE regularly costs $70 per month for the first line, $50 per month...

An incoming update to Google Translate on the web and mobile app will enhance the service's ability to translate whole sentences at a time, instead of going word by word. With the help of "Neural Machine Translation," Google said that Google Translate will be able to look at the "broader context" of a phrase to parse out a more naturalistic representation in the native language of the app's user. ...