News - page 451

This week on The CultCast: A tipster says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro is right around the corner! We’ll tell you what we know. Plus: Apple is readying its secret over-the-ear headphones, and a mysterious little product called the AirPods X. We discuss! And we wrap up with a USB-C charger that can charge it all, Logitech’s new StreamCam and a double-duty iPhone/Apple Watch stand in an all-new Under Review.

Facebook announced Thursday a new feature designed to help reduce distractions from the social network by letting users temporarily mute push notifications.

Called “Quiet Mode,” the new setting can be activated within a scheduled time period or set intervals.

Apple followed various other streaming services Thursday, making a handful of its original Apple TV+ shows and movies available for free to anyone with an Apple ID.

Dickinson, Little America, Servant, For All Mankind, Snoopy in Space, Helpsters, Ghostwriter and The Elephant Queen are available now in the United States. In many other countries, the free Apple TV+ streaming begins April 11. It remains unknown how long the shows will be available at no charge.

Apple updated its COVID-19 screening application for iPhone with information from each U.S. state’s health department to help users know what’s expected in their area.

This fits with the goal of Apple’s app — giving people resources to stay informed on steps they can take to protect their health during the coronavirus outbreak.

LG took the wraps off a dozen large-screen TVs on Thursday, all of which support Apple’s AirPlay 2 and HomeKit so they can be integrated into an iPhone-controlled smart home. Screen sizes for these 2020 TVs range from 49 inches all the way up to 86 inches.

A cyber-security firm in the United Kingdom has identified 32 iOS apps that it dubs “fleeceware” for subscriptions and in-app fees that amount to a form of online fraud.

More than 3.5 million iOS users installed the apps, most of which were image editors, QR and barcode scanners, horoscope and fortune-telling apps and face filters for selfies. Two astrology apps making the list are among the first 20 in top-grossing iPhone apps in the UK.

NASA needs your help on its mission to save the planet’s coral reefs. The US space agency created a new video game for iPhone, iPad and Mac that sets players off on an underwater voyage to map coral reefs around the world.

Dubbed NeMO-Net, NASA’s game uses real 3D imaging data obtained during recent drone flybys in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and elsewhere. Players set off in their own ship, the Nautilus, and scan the ocean floors identifying and classifying different corals.

Apple hasn’t abandoned the idea of building reverse wireless chargers into its devices. It’s been considering for years the idea of enabling a MacBook to send power to an iPhone without the hassle of wires. And the ability to recharge another handset, or an Apple Watch, was supposed to be a feature of the iPhone 11, but it didn’t happen.

Nevertheless, undeniable evidence that Apple engineers are still working on the technology came to light on Thursday.

TikTok is chipping into the global fight against COVID-19 with one of the largest financial contributions we’ve seen yet from a major tech company. The video-sharing platform has been one of the biggest bright spots of joy and inspiration during this quarantine age, and now it’s ready to pay it back.

On Thursday, the company revealed it is pledging $375 million in relief that will be distributed in various ways to individuals, hospitals, companies and other organizations.

iOS 14 will reportedly be able to run part of third-party applications, giving users access to some of their features without them needing to install the entire app on their iPhone, according to a published report. How much of each application would be available in these “Clips” would be up to that app’s developer.

Some of the most anticipated iOS 14 features that allegedly leaked though an early beta build of the upcoming software are on full display in a fresh iOS 14 concept that’s full of stuff like widgets on the home screen, list view for apps, new call alert screen and more.

The new iOS 14 concept created by Jack Phillip imagines how Apple’s planned mentions feature for iMessage would work, while also tossing in some new ideas, like a list view in Calendar, a Habits app, an overhaul of the Music app’s UI and so much more.

These are our favorite features:

Snapchat is offering a very Snapchat experience for its legion of users willing to donate money to fight COVID-19.

Snap Inc., the company behind the popular social media app, launched three COVID-19 lenses that let users donate money through the experience of augmented.

Apple has yet to announce official numbers for Apple TV+ subscribers, but Wedbush analyst Dan Ives think he has some answers. According to Ives, Apple’s streaming video service currently has between 30 million and 40 million subscribers.

However, he says the “vast majority” of these Apple TV+ subs are unlikely to be paying $4.99 per month. Instead, they’re taking advantage of the year’s free subscription thrown in because they bought a new iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV. The analyst says he’s confident that things could pick up, though.

The iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and … Apple Blanket and iMattress? That might not sound like the next logical step for Cupertino, but an Apple patent application published Thursday describes a blanket, mattress and, err, camera setup that would monitor users’ vital signs as they catch forty winks.

In addition to sleep-tracking, this could measure users’ movements during sleep, their heart rate, and their body and room temperatures during the night. It could then heat up or cool down accordingly.

Stanford Health Care and Apple have partnered on a new iPhone app for local police officers, firefighters and paramedics in the California Bay Area with guidance on screening for symptoms of first responders and, if needed, schedule testing.

New data reveals the COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on iPhone sales in the United States. Apple Store closures fueled a 56% drop in March. Average selling prices have also crashed.

Tim Cook will host an Apple-wide virtual meeting later this month that will give employees the opportunity to pose questions to Apple’s CEO.

Apple sent a note to employees about the meeting on April 8, a report published Thursday by Bloomberg News states. Apple asks employees to submit questions in advance by the end of Saturday. Employees are encouraged to open up about their experiences working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video conferencing apps ruled the App Store in March, with Zoom benefitting particularly from the fact that most people are stuck home, figures released by leading app analytics platform Sensor Tower suggest.

Zoom was the most downloaded non-game app worldwide for March 2020. Sensor Tower told Cult of Mac that the iOS app was downloaded 27.8 million times in March 2020. That’s an astonishing 2,680% increase from the number of times it was downloaded last March.

China commuters can now use Apple Pay’s Express Transit feature to ride public transportation in 275 cities nationwide. That is as a result of Apple partnering with China T-Union, a contactless transit card that lets holder ride subways and buses, while receiving assorted discounts.

The news comes as China starts to get back to business as usual following the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

Foxconn is back up and running (and raking in the cash) after the coronavirus pandemic eased in China. But Apple’s biggest supply manufacturer is taking precautions to avoid a COVID-19 recurrence while it races toward delivering the iPhone 12 as promised.

According to a Wednesday report, at Foxconn’s primary iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, numerous strict measures have been put in place for employees. The local government seems to have stipulated these measures.

The group that’ll determine which emojis would have been added next year said Wednesday that it’s delaying its decision by six months, until September 2021. This raises the possibility that there’ll be no new emoji characters in next year’s iPhone operating system update.

The new 2020 emoji list has already been unveiled by the Unicode Consortium.

Disney+ is catching up quickly to Netflix’s total number of paid subscribers thanks to the services’ recent launch in Europe and India.

The Walt Disney Company revealed today that it has almost hit its paid subscriber goal nearly four years early as it just passed the 50 million subscriber mark this week. The news comes just five months after Disney+ launched in the US.

Hospitals across the country are turning to iPads to aid in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healthcare workers are fiercely advocating for more telemedicine tools like Apple’s tablet, according to a report from Wired that dives into how hospitals from the East Coast to the West Coast are putting iPad on the front-lines of the battle.

Apple launched a much-needed update to watchOS Wednesday, eliminating bugs and enhancing performance for the FaceTime feature on Apple Watch.

Apple Watch users running watchOS 6.2 were unable to participate in FaceTime audio calls with iPhones running iOS 9.3.6 or Macs running El Capitan 10.11.6 and earlier.

Huawei unveiled its own credit card April 8, just a year after the debut of the Apple Card. That might be a coincidence if the Chinese company didn’t have a long history of copying Apple.