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

Google is working on a standalone hardware device that will integrate the company's search and voice assistant technology, reports Recode. According to sources, the product is said to be similar to Google's smart home enabled OnHub wireless router and is set to compete against the likes of Amazon's Echo. OnHub wireless router (Image: Google) Google declined to comment on the rumor, but...

Apple has been unsuccessful in its attempts to retrieve data from a waterlogged iPhone that belonged to one of two Florida teens who were lost at sea last summer, reports ABC News affiliate WPBF 25. 14-year-old Austin Stephanos' iPhone 6 was found in an abandoned boat off the Bermuda coast in March, eight months after he and friend Perry Cohen, also 14, went missing during a fishing expedition ...

Google's Google Translate app was today updated to version 5.0.0, adding a new feature that allows users to translate words and phrases even when offline in 52 of the 103 languages available in the app. With the offline update, the app remains useful when no cellular or Wi-Fi connection is available, making it ideal for traveling. Today's update also adds instant camera translation between...

Instagram has been updated today with an all-new colorful icon, moving away from its iconic brown and beige logo that still had an iOS 6-style skeuomorphic design, long after many popular developers have since adopted flatter aesthetics. "Today we're introducing a new look," the company wrote in a blog post. "You'll see an updated icon and app design for Instagram. Inspired by the previous app ...

Following the announcement that Nintendo's next two mobile gaming apps will center around the Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem franchises, DeNA Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu today mentioned to The Wall Street Journal that both games will be "free-to-start apps," which a Nintendo spokeswoman has now confirmed. DeNA is the Tokyo-based mobile gaming studio assisting with the creation of Nintendo's...

Google has begun selling its affordable VR viewer to customers in the U.K., France, Germany, and Canada. The viewer works by phone owners inserting their handset into a cardboard shell that contains optical lenses. With a supporting game or app running on the phone, the image on the screen is split into two halves. By looking into the lenses, the images are combined into one immersive,...

Facebook yesterday released its Moments private photo sharing app in Europe and Canada, almost a year after it appeared in the U.S. App Store. The app helps users find Facebook photos of themselves, their friends, and particular places, and collects these together for private viewing or sharing. It does this by attempting to recognize who appears in them based on facial features, and also...

Former Apple CEO John Sculley went on camera yesterday to give his thoughts on Apple's current product lineup and offered a couple of interesting tidbits on where he thought the Apple Watch could be improved. In an interview with The Street, Sculley said he still loved Apple products and used his iPhone, iPad and MacBook daily, but that he'd so far passed on owning the company's smartwatch...

ZENS' Apple Watch Power Bank is a compact Apple Watch charging solution that's one of the first to come with a built-in Apple Watch charging puck, eliminating the need for bulky, complicated cable winding systems used in other Apple Watch stands and docks. Because the charging puck is included in the body of the Power Bank, it's one of the smallest Apple Watch charging options available, and...

Pebble today updated its official Pebble app and Pebble firmware to bring new health-related features to its line of Pebble smart watches. With the 3.12 update, available now, all Pebble Time smart watches support new health charts for better sleep and activity tracking over time. A new Health tab within the app features interactive charts that display the step and sleep activity captured with ...

T-Mobile has announced a new Family Match promotion that offers families four lines of unlimited talk, text, and 6GB of 4G LTE data per line for $120 per month starting May 11. Additional lines can be added for $20 per month.As America gets set for summertime travel, summer camps, summer concerts and more fun in the summer sun, the Un-carrier’s got you covered. Starting tomorrow, families can...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office today granted Apple a patent that describes a collection of iPad-compatible Smart Covers that could integrate various display technologies to greatly enhance "the overall functionality of the tablet device." The original patent application was published in August 2012 and dates back to August 2011, four years before Apple introduced the original iPad...

TIME published an article yesterday that offers an interesting take on Apple's long-term plans for the Apple Watch, noting that Steve Jobs' desire to improve the healthcare system indirectly inspired its development. The article is written by technology consultant Tim Bajarin, who recently spent time at the company's headquarters and met with Apple executives involved with the Apple Watch. He...

Apple manufacturer Foxconn is close to signing a deal with the Indian government to open a manufacturing facility intended to make iPhones, reports ET Now (via AppleInsider). The project would cost $10 billion and be built on top of 1,200 acres of land in Maharashtra, India. While several other Indian states were in consideration for the plant, Foxconn chose Maharashtra, the third largest...

An anonymous tipster has submitted a photo of a possible preproduction iPhone 7 dummy unit that could easily be fake, but offers a good visual representation of rumors surrounding the next-generation smartphone. The unverified photo shows what appears to be a silver iPhone 7 with a similar form factor as the iPhone 6s, beyond at least three notable differences. The first is the absence of ...

Opera today announced the launch of a brand new privacy-focused app, called Opera VPN, which allows users to block ads and even change their virtual location to circumvent restricted internet access (via TechCrunch) In addition to these features, Opera VPN will stop ad-tracking software from gaining information about your internet habits that create personalized advertisements within browsers...

Spotify today announced 12 new original series coming to the music streaming platform this summer and fall, which the company hopes will keep its users drawn into the service more often (via Bloomberg). The shows will surround music and pop culture in general and be "centered around three main themes – music performances, music profiles and music culture," with episodes lasting up to...

Although Drake's newest album "Views" was only available on iTunes and Apple Music for one week, under the terms of the company's exclusivity deal with the artist, the album managed to sell more than one million copies in just five days, which The Wall Street Journal calls "a rare achievement in an age of rapid streaming growth and declining sales of downloads and CDs." Most of those sales...