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

The continued rise of smartphone and tablet adoption and the addition of Podcasts as a stock app on iOS 8 has resulted in significant growth for podcasts in the United States, reports Ad Age. Overall consumption of podcasts experienced 18% growth in the U.S. between Spring and Fall 2014 as Americans now listen to approximately 21.1 million hours of podcasts per day, according to Edison Research. ...

Last week, it was announced that the February 25 episode of Emmy-winning sitcom "Modern Family" would take place solely on a MacBook screen and only be shot with cameras from iPhones and iPads. BuzzFeed News got in touch with the episode's director and series co-creator Steven Levitan to find out how they shot the episode. In a video originally provided to BuzzFeed News, and now available...

With hundreds of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus cases on the market, it can be difficult to find the perfect solution for your needs, managing the fine line between enough protection and too much bulk. Popular casemaker RooCASE has some promising options that may suit those of you looking for full body protection, which we've outlined in the video below. We went hands-on with the RooCASE Skinny Slimm,...

Apple's iPhone has topped Flickr's list of the top mobile cameras for years, with Apple even surpassing Nikon to be the number 2 camera brand on the service earlier this year. Smartphone photography is booming and there has been no shortage of accessories to help users take even better pictures, and one of the latest entries in this category is the ExoLens system. Apple came to us two years...

Visa announced on Tuesday that it will be rolling out tokenization in Europe, an essential technology that allows for secure and convenient contactless payments using various technologies (via The Next Web). The tokenization service will be available to financial institutions in mid-April and helps pave the way for the launch of Apple Pay in Europe. “This is an exciting time to be in the...

Earlier this month, Apple began selling an updated World Travel Adapter Kit, which offers a set of seven AC plugs and prongs to fit in different electrical outlets around the world. The new kit that Apple's selling no longer includes a 30-pin to USB cable, and rather than adding a Lightning to USB cable, Apple has instead opted to ship the kit with no cable and drop the price by $10....

While it remains unknown if Apple will ever release a new budget smartphone to succeed the iPhone 5c, which was a plastic-backed carbon copy of the iPhone 5, a new gallery of renders from 3D Future provides an early look at what the so-called "iPhone 6c" could look like. The concept smartphone essentially combines an iPhone 5c and iPhone 6 into one, which would seem like a logical move if Apple...

Apple has added a support document to its website stating that customers who use an AOL username to sign into the iTunes Store, App Store or iBooks Store will be unable to continue doing so starting March 31 (via 9to5Mac). Apple customers must convert their AOL username to an Apple ID account in order to maintain access to the storefronts following the deadline."Starting March 31, 2015, AOL will...

Google announced on Monday that it has released YouTube Kids [Direct Link] on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. The new app provides children and families with a kid-friendly portal to discover and explore videos about anything they can possibly imagine. The family-focused content is appropriate for children and broken down into four categories: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore. YouTube...

Foreign display manufacturer Japan Display Inc. (JDI) is seeking to be Apple's next go-to source for iPhone screens in the future, according to someone "familiar with the matter" (via The Wall Street Journal). With the increase in profit overseas, especially following Apple's attempt at a bigger presence in places like China over the past few months, the source reported that JDI is hoping...

Popular web service IFTTT today announced the introduction of three new apps - Do Button, Do Note, and Do Camera - to coincide with the rebranding of the original IFTTT iOS app into IF. The company says these events mark its "transition from a standalone service into a true product company." IFTTT hopes to empower its users with the introduction of the series of "Do" apps, allowing them more...

Snowman on Thursday released its highly-anticipated title Alto's Adventure [Direct Link] on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Alto's Adventure is a beautiful endless runner featuring physics-based gameplay, procedurally generated terrain based on real-world snowboarding, fully dynamic lighting, dynamic weather effects, six unique snowboarders and more. The game departs from the freemium model...

Google on Thursday quietly released an update for Inbox by Gmail [Direct Link] with universal support for iPad, as spotted by TechCrunch. The latest version of the app should be rolling out on the App Store in the United States and elsewhere today, transforming the previously iPhone-only software into a universal iOS app. Version 1.2 also includes an assortment of bug fixes and performance...

There are a lot of battery cases and external battery packs available for Apple's iPhone, but PowerSkin's newest offering, the Pop'n 3, is a fairly unique solution that offers the versatility of an external battery pack with the convenience of a battery case. It's an external battery pack much like the Mophie Powerstation Plus, but it has a suction cup system that allows it to stick to the...

Two banks based out of the United Kingdom - Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest - yesterday announced incoming support of Touch ID in their iOS-based apps, allowing customers to gain access to their accounts without needing to input a user name and password (via BBC News). Customers of each bank will need to activate the Touch ID feature with their existing security information within each...

NBC today announced an update for its Android and iOS television-viewing apps that brings live streaming to select areas of the country along with a small but robust catalog of the network's classic series offerings (via Engadget). Following in the footsteps of the Watch ABC app that introduced to users the ability to live stream the channel on their mobile device, NBC's new update brings a...

The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus are Apple's thinnest iPhones yet at 6.9 and 7.1mm, respectively, and these ultra thin devices have spawned a range of super thin cases that aim to offer scratch protection without adding bulk. Of the dozens of featherweight cases on the market, the Scarf case from California case maker Totallee is one of the thinnest you can buy, measuring in at 0.35mm, and it's ...

Google has quietly removed both the iOS and Mac versions of its Sparrow email apps from Apple's App Stores, amid reports the company is shifting to focus more intently on its revamped Inbox by Gmail app (via TechCrunch). The company bought alternative email client app Sparrow back in 2012 and launched Inbox by Gmail to select users last fall, with a wider release earlier this year. At the...