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

Apple VP Eddy Cue says the U.S. government could force Apple to secretly implement surveillance technology in its devices if the FBI's current demands in the ongoing iPhone encryption dispute are met. The company's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services made the ominous prediction during an interview yesterday with U.S.-based Spanish-language TV network Univision, a transcript ...

With the 2016 March Madness college basketball tournament set to begin on March 15, the NCAA has updated its March Madness app with new features for iOS, the fourth-generation Apple TV and Apple Watch. The brand new Apple TV app comes with a significant feature for basketball fans: the ability to watch two games side-by-side in a split-screen interface. The feature, which is exclusive to...

Apps that add real-time filters to selfies and videos are growing in popularity, and today Facebook announced the acquisition of the team behind MSQRD, a much-downloaded live filter app available on iOS and Android devices. First introduced in January of 2016, MSQRD applies live filters to photos and videos captured with the iPhone's front-facing camera. It includes face swapping capabilities, ...

French lawmakers yesterday backed a plan to impose penalties on companies like Apple that deny access to encrypted data during a terrorist investigation. Under the proposals, a technology company with operations in France would be hit with a €350,000 ($386,000) fine and its executives could be jailed up to five years if it refused to comply with a request to aid investigators in accessing...

Ulysses saw its first universal app for iOS hit the App Store today, bringing the popular distraction-free Mac writing software to the iPhone for the first time. Ulysses Mobile for iPhone and iPad features cross-platform iCloud synchronization, Spotlight integration, iPad Pro optimizations, and support for 3D Touch, Split View and Slide Over on compatible devices. Surprisingly, the 2.5...

Incipio today announced the debut of its first HomeKit-enabled products, the CommandKit Wireless Smart Outlet and the Wireless Smart Light Bulb Adapter, both of which connect to other HomeKit-enabled products over Wi-Fi and work with Siri through the accompanying CommandKit app. The CommandKit Wireless Smart Outlet, like other similar smart outlets on the market, turns any electronic device...

Apple today updated its iOS feature availability page with 23 new Flyover locations around the world, including cities in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Flyover is an Apple Maps feature that provides photo-realistic 3D views of primarily large cities and landmarks. In satellite view, users can zoom, pan, and rotate ...

Google has released an update to its Google Photos iOS app that adds support for Live Photos, the camera feature available to iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus owners that captures sound and motion just before and after the moment a still photo is shot. The official support means users can now store, view and organize Live Photos separately from their device's Camera Roll inside Google's app. Once...

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has backed Apple in its fight with the FBI over the agency's request that it unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooter investigation. Wozniak appeared yesterday on late-night TBS talk show Conan to share his thoughts on the high-profile case, asserting that the FBI had "picked the lamest case they ever could: the two phones owned by the people ...

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming watchOS 2.2 update to developers, less than a week after seeding the fifth watchOS 2.2 beta and three months after releasing watchOS 2.1, the first major update to the watchOS 2 operating system that runs on the Apple Watch. watchOS 2.2 has been in testing since January 11. The latest watchOS 2.2 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated...

Apple will have to pay a $450 million settlement in the protracted e-books antitrust case, which saw the company found guilty of conspiring with publishers to inflate the prices of e-books back in 2014 (via Bloomberg). In October, Apple submitted an appeal to overturn the guilty ruling, but today the United States Supreme Court declined to question the verdict, meaning Apple must now comply...

Following the recent January 1, 1970 iPhone bricking bug, a different long-standing issue related to Unix time and emails is gaining renewed attention, as highlighted by The Telegraph. The non-malicious glitch has been gaining new traction online recently, with some iOS users sharing screenshots of their devices receiving emails from December 31, 1969 or January 1, 1970. The glitch has been...

A video that has gone viral which claims to reveal a glitch allowing anyone to unlock a passcode-protected iPhone has been exposed as false. The YouTube clip, called "iPhone Unlock Without Passcode Glitch", depicts a user gaining access to a Touch ID-equipped device by first asking Siri what time it is. When the spoken request brings up the time, the user taps on the clock face to reveal...

The New York Police Department's counter-terrorism chief John Miller has accused Apple of providing aid to criminals by using encryption to secure its iPhones, according to The Daily News. Speaking on AM radio host John Catsimatidis’s The Cats Roundtable show on Sunday, the deputy commissioner hit out at Apple for its encryption policies, arguing that recent changes to the iPhone operating...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Spyder to give three MacRumors winners a chance to win a PowerShadow battery case for the iPhone 6, 6s, 6 Plus, or 6s Plus. Described as the "world's thinnest" battery case for Apple's latest iPhones, the $99 PowerShadow case measures in at 14.5mm thick and includes a 2,750 mAh battery for the iPhone 6/6s version and a 3,500 mAh battery for the...

Apple is gearing up to launch a refurbished iPhone market in India, according to a new report from The Times of India. The company is seeking permission from the Indian government to import pre-owned iPhones into the country, and has submitted a formal request to the ministry of environment and forests to begin doing so. "An application from Apple regarding import of certified pre-owned...

Amazon has removed the ability to encrypt data on its consumer devices in the latest update to its Fire OS operating system. The change effectively kills local encryption on the company's range of Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers and streaming media devices, leaving the data on these devices vulnerable to attacks and potentially accessible to thieves if the devices are stolen. Kindle Fire,...

Video network Vimeo has released an update to its iOS app that brings an overhauled interface to improve content discovery and added support for iOS 9 features. The redesign offers clearer navigation and adds 16 human-curated video content categories for users to explore, including Music, Animation, Documentary and Travel. The update also takes advantage of devices running iOS 9, with an ...