News - page 1026

You can get a taste of the future of Safari on the Mac today, thanks to the release of the new Safari Technology Preview from Apple that gives regular users and developers an easy way to test new features and improvements that are coming soon to the web browser.

The new stand-alone app for OS X can be downloaded and used for free by anyone, and includes a cutting-edge version of the WebKit browser engine that is still in development. It’s a great way for web developers to get ahead on new features by testing them before they’re public.

Safari Technology Preview can be used side-by-side with the regular version of Safari to test for behavioral issues. It also includes new improvements for Web Inspector.

Here’s a list of the new features:

Right from the start, the current iPhone vs. FBI standoff has revolved around whether it was focused on unlocking one specific handset or setting a precedent that would allow the Justice Department to unlock any phone it wanted.

Well, if you wanted evidence that the government is using the All Writs Act to try and force Apple and Google to unlock a whole lot of smartphones around the U.S., look no further than the below infographic.

Amazon has started cracking down on crappy USB-C cables that could damage your smart devices.

The retail giant now prohibits cables that do not comply with standard specifications laid out by USB Implementers Forum Inc. 

The Samsung vs. Apple patent war has been raging for years now, but it took an interesting twist recently when a three-judge panel in federal appeals court reversed a $120 million jury verdict in favor of Apple.

The reason it’s interesting? Because, according to Apple at least, doing so was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Department of Justice briefly gained the upper hand over Apple this week when it made it clear that it was in no rush to reveal how it hacked the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting case — thereby stopping Apple from plugging that particular vulnerability.

However, it seems that Apple’s back in the driving seat after a new report reveals that the Justice Department may be compelled to reveal its hacking methods if it wants to continue with a case asking a New York court to force Apple to unlock a different iPhone handset.

Foxconn is cementing its importance to Apple by finalizing a deal to acquire a majority interest in struggling iPhone display maker Sharp for a reported 389 billion yen — or $3.5 billion.

The multi-billion dollar bailout of Sharp was originally reported as being completed back in February, only to be placed on hold after previously undisclosed liabilities threatened the deal.

There are times for precision racing games and times for, well, blowing the hell out of some giant vehicles. Guess which category Atypical Games’ newly-announced Infinite Tanks falls into?

Having previously made the entertaining Battle Supremacy and Sky Gamblers, Atypical’s Infinite Tanks is coming to iOS, tvOS and OS X this summer. Check out the trailer below:

Apple has signed a multi-year deal with Major League Baseball that will give an iPad Pro to coaching staff — so that they can easily access performance data, weigh up possible pitcher-hitter matchups, analyze where a player is likely to hit the ball, and even look up videos from previous games.

“We’re not just replacing binders with tablets; we’re actually helping them do things that weren’t possible before,” said Apple SVP of marketing, Phil Schiller.

Details are emerging about how exactly the FBI managed to get into San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s device without the so-called “govtOS” it had been demanding from Apple.

ABC News has spoken to unnamed sources who have outlined the process through which the government finally cracked the stubborn encryption on the iPhone 5c. And while their statements mostly just confirm what we’ve heard before, the story takes some interesting turns.

Check out ABC’s report below.

We’ve all noticed Apple’s latest operating system nomenclature, with each new release a device-centric OS, like iOS, tvOS, or watchOS.

Why not macOS, then?

A bit of source code in the current stable release of OS X (10.11.4) seems to point to that very thing.

We expect navigation apps to warn us about gridlock, give us the best routes, and tell us how long our drives will be. But Waze is rolling out a new speed-limits feature that, while useful, might come off as a pain at first.

The crowdsourced traffic app now includes limits information for thousands of roads, and it will tell you when you’re breaking the law.

If you want to strike it rich on the App Store, here’s a hint: make a game.

Americans who own an iPhone spent an average of $35 on apps and in-app purchases last year, only instead of forking over cash for productivity or education apps, the majority of that money goes to gaming.

Once an app only for photos, Instagram is now greatly extending its video capabilities. Coming soon, users will be able to share videos up to 60 seconds in length. Instagram started rolling out this change today and says more improvements to video are coming in a future update.

One such improvement Instagram says will arrive sooner rather than later is the reemergence of multi-clip video on iOS. This means that you’ll be able to import multiple video clips from your Photos library and stitch them together for a single Instagram video. It might sound familiar because Instagram actually used to have this feature… before taking it away.

Apple Music’s competition in the music streaming battle just got a little fiercer today with the introduction of a new subscription service by SoundCloud.

The new SoundCloud Go service costs $10 per month, giving you unlimited access to the YouTube of Audio’s vast trove of indie content without ads. You can also save files to listen to offline, but that might not be enough to take on Apple Music and Spotify.

The Snapchat revamp you’ve been reading so much about in recent months has landed.

Dubbed “Chat 2.0,” and available today on Android and iOS, it finally brings voice and video calling, improved Snapchat Stories, and 200 brand new stickers.

Finding your iPad or iPhone is about to get a whole lot easier, even under the worst circumstances, thanks to a new app from TrackR that can locate your lost iOS devices regardless of whether or not its connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data.

The new free app called TrackR tablet, runs on both iPhone and iPad, and simplifies the way you find lost iDevices. There’s no sign in process to get into the app. Just open it up and ring your lost iPhone.

The Department of Justice is unlikely to reveal to Apple exactly how it was able to hack the locked iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, according to a federal law enforcement official.

The wait for Nintendo’s first smartphone game is almost over if you live in the U.S.

Miitomo, which racked up a whopping 1 million downloads in three days after making its debut in Japan a fortnight ago, will be available on Android and iOS on Thursday, March 31.

After almost two years of planning, Apple finally launched Apple Pay in China last month — and, wouldn’t you know it, Samsung’s keen to catch up!

To that end, the company officially launched Samsung Pay in China today, partnering with the state-backed China UnionPay to do so.

And, right away, it claims that it will be available in more places than Apple’s rival system.

If, like me, you sank countless hours into Pokémon games during your misspent youth, there’s some great news: Pokémon GO, an augmented reality game for smartphones, is one step closer to rolling out.

And it looks great!

Whether it’s adding tree-lined avenues or high-tech display tables for showing off the Apple Watch or iPhone, the design of the Apple Store is constantly changing.

The latest innovation is a giant floor-to-ceiling television display, which can be seen at Apple’s new Saddle Creek Store in Germantown, Tennessee.

And you thought the 12.9-inch iPad Pro had a big screen!

The FBI’s case against Apple may be over, but the repercussions involved in this battle sure aren’t.

Apple has already made clear its belief that this particular case should never have been brought, and now activist group Fight for the Future — which has played a vocal role in this ongoing story — claims that this will be recorded as the biggest PR disaster in FBI history.

The Justice Department may have dropped its suit against Apple after successfully gaining access to the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters, but according to Apple the case should never have been brought to begin with.

In a statement, Apple doubles-down on its beliefs about the importance of user privacy. Check out the company’s words of wisdom below:

The Department of Justice has removed all legal action against Apple after the FBI successfully hacked the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone without assistance from Cupertino.

Apple and the FBI have been fighting a very public legal battle over whether the government can force the iPhone-maker to create a backdoor into iOS. Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly defied a federal court order to deliberately weaken iOS security for millions of users, but it appears that the feds are backing down — at least for now.

Upgrading to an iPhone with 64GB of storage will cost you an extra $100, but Apple actually only spends about a tenth of that to pay for the bigger memory chips.

With the iPhone 6s and new iPhone SE both starting with a paltry 16GB, shelling out the extra cash for more space is practically a no-brainer, and that plays right into Apple’s plan to milk the margins on its higher end models.