Accidentally butt-dialing someone is annoying. Finding out that you just butt-dialed your way to a $4,280 in-app purchase is a whole lot worse.
That’s exactly what happened to Dr. Ali Vaziri, a physician who was recently surprised to find that he had upgraded to a pricey Enhanced Autopilot mode on his Tesla — by hitting an option on the iPhone app when he didn’t even realize the app was open.
Mass production on Apple’s over-the-ear AirPods Studio headphones won’t be completed until October 20, claims Apple tipster Jon Prosser. That would mean that, if they’re unveiled at Apple’s October 13 “Hi, Speed” event, they may not be available until the end of the month or the beginning of November.
According to Prosser, this timeline means it’s questionable whether Apple will announce the new headphones next month. He suggests that Apple might instead announce them via press release or at an as-yet-unannounced “November event.”
Apple tops analyst firm MBLM’s latest 2020 brand intimacy study, which ranks the companies that made the most emotional connections with customers during the year of COVID-19.
According to MBLM, Apple achieved a “Quotient score” of 74.0 out of 100. Some 40% of users said they could not live without the brand. Meanwhile, 21% said they would be willing to pay 20% more for the brand’s products and services (the so-called Apple Tax in action).
Apple has expanded its Health Records initiative to Canada and the United Kingdom. This enables healthcare institutions in the countries to offer users the ability to safely and securely check their medical records using the iPhone’s Health app.
The service has been available in the United States since 2018. To date, some 500 U.S. institutions support Health Records on iPhone. However, this is the first time Apple has expanded outside the U.S.
Apple will introduce a HomePod mini in 2020, but don’t get your hopes up about a sequel to the original HomePod smart speaker, claims a reliable Apple leaker.
L0vetodream made the claim Tuesday on Twitter after Apple issued invites to its October 13 “Hi, Speed” event. Apple likely will unveil its final new hardware products of the year at that time.
London-based MISHO jewelry designer Suhani Parekh has created earrings that are designed to attach to AirPods to stop them falling out of wearers’ ears.
“The earrings fit on as regular earrings do, with a back and post,” Parekh told Cult of Mac. “They’ve been designed so you can slip your AirPods in and out as you use them through the day without the need to take the earrings off.”
The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee revealed its recommendations for dealing with Big Tech Monday in a 449-page report, following 16 months of investigation.
While the report has recommendations for Amazon, Facebook and Google parent company Alphabet, it also focuses on Apple — and what needs to change to make Cupertino antitrust-compliant.
Turn-based strategy game Total War Saga: Troy is coming to Mac, two months after it debuted on Windows.
The game, which received positive reviews upon its August release for PCs, is set during the Trojan War and the Aegean civilization. Players must engage in battles, harvest resources like wood and bronze, and maintain their approval from the Greek gods. This is the second game in the Total War Saga subseries, following 2018’s Thrones of Britannia.
The U.S. House of Representatives antitrust report on Big Tech reportedly includes a “thinly veiled call to break up” the tech giants, according to a report by Reuters.
The House antitrust subcommittee could publish its report on Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet this week. However, while it’s not been published yet, it’s already causing controversy.
Security researcher Niels Hofmans of ironPeak has confirmed a T2 chip security flaw. These chips have been found in all new Macs made since 2018.
At its worst, the vulnerability — which is reportedly “unpatchable” — could allow an attacker to interfere with Macs in “classic evil maid” attacks involving an unintended computer. This might open the door for new ways for law enforcement to access suspects’ Macs to retrieve information, for example.
TikTok pulled in more than $130.5 million in worldwide user spending in September, making it the top-grossing non-gaming app in the App Store — despite the various existential threats it faces.
In a new report by app analytics firm Sensor Tower, the company notes that user spending on TikTok in September was 7.9 times greater than this time last year. That $130m sum covers both iOS and Google Play revenue.
Apple’s VP of Platform Architecture Tim Millet says the company’s A14 chip, which debuted last month in the fourth-generation iPad Air, will take machine learning to the next level.
“It takes my breath away when I see what people can do with the A14 Bionic chip,” Millet told German magazine Stern.
Manufactured using a 5nm process, the mobile chip boasts an astonishing 11.8 billion transistors, up significantly from the 8.5 billion of the A13. It is expected to power this year’s upcoming iPhones.
Ahead of the expected launch of its over-the-ear headphones, dubbed AirPods Studio, and a possible new HomePod speaker, Apple has stopped selling headphones and wireless smart speakers made by rival firms such as Sonos, Bose and Logitech.
The rival manufacturers previously had their third-party products available on Apple’s Online Store. However, as Bloomberg reported Monday, they have now vanished. Employees at brick-and-mortar Apple Stores have also been removing the products from shelves.
On Monday, Spotify announced a new feature that lets iOS and Android users hunt for songs by searching for lyrics. This ability has long been built into Apple Music’s feature set. However, now it is available for those using the leading streaming music service by subscribers.
Using the new search by lyrics feature couldn’t be any easier. In the regular search box on the Spotify app, just type the lyric you’re looking for and the song(s) it comes from should pop up in the search results.
An assortment of Disney movies are now available in 4K HDR quality on iTunes. If you’ve not bought them already, the movies can be purchased for the same price as their previous HD counterparts. If you previously purchased the HD version, it will be automatically upgraded to 4K for free.
This includes the Star Wars movies, much of the Marvel catalog, and various Pixar and Disney films — with more being added all the time.
Tim Cook quoted poet Maya Angelou in a tweet commemorating Steve Jobs on Monday, the ninth anniversary of the Apple co-founder’s death.
“A great soul never dies,” Cook’s message reads. “It brings us together again and again.” Cook also added a personal note: “You’re always with us Steve, your memory connects and inspires us every day.”
Meanwhile, on the Apple website, admirers’ remembrances of Jobs flowed across a tribute page.
More than two months after Virginia became the first state to use Apple and Google’s Exposure Notifications API, a total of 10 states now distribute their own contact-tracing apps to fight COVID-19.
The two most recent — New York and New Jersey — launched their apps last week.
Apple has updated its Leadership page to officially show Phil Schiller’s replacement by Greg Joswiak as Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.
Schiller was named an Apple Fellow in August, an honorific title that Apple has given to a handful of top employees over the years. Schiller, who still appears on Apple’s list of leaders, will continue to head up the App Store and appear at Apple Events.
If you upgraded to iOS or iPadOS 14.0.1, it’s no longer possible to downgrade to the earlier, launch version of iOS 14. Apple stopped signing the original iOS 14, thereby stopping users from installing it on their devices.
Apple introduced iOS 14.0.1 last week. The first update to iOS 14, it introduced a bug fix to a problem that kept users from permanently selecting a new email app or web browser.
Once the crown jewel in Apple’s treasure chest, the iPod continues its slow march to the end. This week, the last generation iPod nano, which debuted with new color options in 2015, officially debuted on Apple’s “vintage” list.
On the Rocks, the Apple Originals movie co-produced with A24, debuts in select theaters today, ahead of its debut on Apple TV+ later this month.
The movie reunites director Sofia Coppola with star Bill Murray for the first time since their brilliant 2003 movie Lost in Translation, which won an original screenplay Oscar for Coppola and received an acting nomination for Murray.
Despite far fewer installs than the Google Play app store, Apple’s iOS App Store raked in $19 billion to Google’s $10.3 billion in the third quarter of 2020, according to a new report by Sensor Tower.
Overall spending grew 32 percent in the quarter across both platforms. Meanwhile, overall installs increased 23.3 percent to a total of 36.5 billion. These record-breaking numbers likely had a lot to do with the coronavirus pandemic, which shut down large parts of the economy, but caused a spike in interest for developers while people were stuck home.
Apple TV+ wildlife documentary series Tiny World landed on the streaming service Friday, alongside multiple new episodes of current shows.
In addition to all six episodes of Tiny World — which is narrated by everyone’s favorite actor, Paul Rudd — Apple TV+ viewers also can enjoy new episodes of acclaimed spy drama Tehran and the Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman travel series Long Way Up. Friday also brings the season finale of hit comedy Ted Lasso.
San Francisco-based graphic designer Traf was one of the first to jump on the idea of creating high-quality icons for iOS 14 users to customize their Home screens — and he’s reaping the benefits.
In a new blog post, Traf writes that it took him just six days to rack up 3,626 sales of his stunning monochrome icon set. Because he charged $28 for them, he made $101,528 — officially passing the six-figure mark.
Here’s a slightly crazy statistic: Gamers around the world have spent a combined 10.4 million years playing Fortnite, according to a new report. That’s considerably longer than the 6 million years humans have been around in some form.
In total, the top 10 games played online have been played for some 19.2 million years. World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Grand Theft Auto V and Witcher 3 make up the rest of the top five.