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News - page 526

Students will get Apple TV+ as part of their $4.99 Apple Music subscription

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Streaming services like Apple Music dominate the US music market
That's another reason for students to sign up to Apple Music.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s launched its first bundle deal for Apple TV+ — but you’ll have to be a student to take advantage of it.

On Dickinson star Hailee Steinfeld’s Instagram page, the singer/actress noted that Apple Music subscribers on Apple’s $4.99 Student plan will receive Apple TV+ in addition to Apple’s streaming music service.

Antitrust investigators want to know if retailers were compelled to use Apple Pay

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Antitrust investigators want to know if retailers were compelled to use Apple Pay
Could Apple Pay be breaking the law?
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

European antitrust regulators are asking online retailers if they are contractually obligated to use Apple Pay over rival services.

The European Commission suggests it has information that Apple could have restricted online payments for goods and services using rival payment solutions. This would be in breach of EU antitrust rules.

Samsung teases new clamshell folding phone concept

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Samsung
Samsung's new concept phone doesn't have a name yet.
Photo: Samsung

Samsung is doubling down on its efforts to make smartphones with a folding display a thing.

During Samsung’s annual developers conference this morning, the company unveiled a new folding phone concept that’s drastically different than the Galaxy Fold. Instead of folding from a regular-sized smartphone into a tablet, the new concept folds into a clamshell, kind of like a futuristic version of Motorola’s Razr phone.

Take a look:

Double the resolution of your iPhone photos with this trick

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photography Usman Dawood
It's OK to be a little shaky.
Screenshot: Sonder Creative/YouTube

A relatively simple technique can double the resolution of an iPhone image. Shockingly, the trick is best executed with shaky hands.

What sounds counterintuitive will make sense when you see the steps in the video at the end of this post. It shows how a little hand movement helps make a sharper image.

The secret to Apple’s sales success [Live from Cupertino book excerpt]

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All great presentations begin with a Sharpie and then a Mac. A
All great presentations begin with a Sharpie (and then a Mac).
Photo: Michael Hageloh

Excerpted from Live from Cupertino: How Apple Used Words, Music, and Performance to Build the World’s Best Sales Machine by Michael Hageloh and Tim Vandehey.

Prologue: What were once devices are now habits

When I set out to write this book, one of my goals was to see if I could insult fifty million people in one sentence. Here goes. Years ago, before I was excommunicated from New York City and became a resident of Texas (a state so backward that someone in our town once asked my wife and me if being Jewish was like being Catholic), I lived in Florida, which is so appealing to the unbalanced that when I took the “Florida Challenge” (where you google “Florida man” and your birthday to see what kind of headlines pop up) for April 24, the first result read, “Florida man kisses venomous snake and is immediately bitten on the lips.”

Mission accomplished. Now, let’s move on.

The AirPods Pro fix almost everything wrong with the originals [Opinion]

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AR AirPods Pro
Even AR AirPods Pro look great!
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Here’s a short list of things that are wrong with regular AirPods:

  • They don’t fit in the ears properly.
  • They don’t seal out environmental noise.
  • Those grilles get gunked up with earwax really easily.
  • They lack a volume control.

The new AirPods Pro fix all of these problems, apart from the last point on the list. And to be honest, it’s so easy to change the volume by squeezing your iPhone through your pocket, or by using an Apple Watch, that the lack of a volume control isn’t that big of a deal.

The original AirPods (and the faster, updated version) might be the most-loved new Apple product in recent years, and the AirPods Pro improve on them in almost every way. So, are the AirPods Pro perfect? Maybe …

Apple TV+ pursues lofty goal: Exploring human relationships

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Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, Apple’s two heads of worldwide video programming
Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht got the tough job of building Apple TV+ from nothing.
Photo: Apple

The first slate of Apple TV+ shows would seem to have little in common — they range from a teen comedy to a sci-fi epic — but the company’s top entertainment programming execs say they are all about relationships.

They also worked hard to make this new streaming service fit with the rest of Apple.

Haptic feedback could make iPhone or iPad displays feel like rocks or fur

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Haptic feedback could make iPhone displays feel like rocks or fur
Who needs boring old glass?
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Imagine being able to touch your iPad or iPhone screen and feeling like you’re touching metal, wood, or fur — despite the fact it’s just a flat glass display. Impossible, surely? Not if a new haptic feedback patent Apple has filed comes to pass.

This haptic feedback technology could complete the sensory AR experience Apple is aiming for. Slap on some AirPods and summon up some ARKit visuals, and you’d have truly immersive augmented reality.

Apple pulls iOS 13.2 update that bricked some HomePods [Updated]

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HomePod Volume Controls closeup
You might want to think twice about rushing to update your HomePod.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

For some HomePod owners, the latest software update really was a killer upgrade. Loads of irritated people say the update bricked their HomePods.

New HomePod features like voice recognition for multiple users and the ability to send messages and make calls might sound awesome. But having your smart speaker go belly up sucks out loud. If you previously turned on automatic HomePod updates, you might want to flip the switch and wait until Apple gets to the bottom of the problem.

Update: Apple pulled Monday’s HomePod update after owners reported unresponsive devices. If you managed to successfully update your HomePod, you should be careful. An updated Apple support document warns that you should not reset your smart speaker for any reason. You also should not attempt to remove your HomePod from the Home app.

iPhone 11 continues to shine while iPhone 11 Pro Max sales flatten out

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iPhone 11 continues to shine while iPhone 11 Pro Max sales flatten out
The iPhone 11 is a hit.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Apple is reportedly going all-in on OLED displays with the 2020 iPhones. But despite the big advances OLED represent, it seems that many users aren’t yet ready to part ways with their LCD screens.

At least, that’s one takeaway from a new report which claims that Apple is putting in more orders for the LCD iPhone 11, while sales of the higher-end iPhone 11 Pro Max remain flat.

Sorry, binge-watchers: Apple won’t debut every episode of The Morning Show at once

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Snobby critics hate Apple TV+ but viewers can't get enough
Apple isn't taking the Netflix approach to releasing shows.
Photo: Apple

Apple is seemingly taking a mixed approach to the way it will debut new Apple TV+ shows. According to the company, it will release three episodes of The Morning Show, one of its flagship series, when the service launches on November 1. After that, new episodes will debut every Friday.

That’s a change from Netflix’s approach of dumping every episode of a new season at once. It’s also a change from Apple’s plan for Dickinson, which star Hailee Steinfeld recently revealed will debut all 10 episodes straight out of the gate.

Mario Kart Tour has the second best debut month ever on mobile

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Mario Kart Tour has the second best debut month ever on mobile
Mario Kart Tour lags only behind Pokémon GO.
Photo: Nintendo

Mario Kart Tour, Nintendo’s long-awaited Mario Kart game for iOS, enjoyed the second-biggest mobile game launch month in history. (And Nintendo’s biggest.) Across both Android and iOS, the game racked up 123.9 million unique downloads in its first four weeks.

That’s more than 5x the downloads that Super Mario Run‘s 21.8 million downloads.

AirTags and other new Apple gear might land this week

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APple Smart Battery Case iPhone XR
Apple might quietly unveil an iPhone 11 Smart Battery Case this week, like this one for last year’s handset.
Photo: Apple

Rather than having an October event, Apple unveiled AirPods Pro today via press release. This sparked speculation that the company plans to quietly take the wraps off more products this week.

A release date for the Mac Pro, fresh Apple TV hardware, and other items could be announced, one each day.

First damning Apple TV+ reviews indicate an alarming lack of vision [Opinion]

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Apple TV+ could have 26 million paying subs by 2025; 2.6 million currently
Just what is the vision behind Apple TV+?
Photo: Apple

The first Apple TV+ reviews are out — and, broadly speaking, they’re not great. Critics generally slammed the marquee shows on the Apple TV+ slate. Anyone wanting to pull together a movie poster with positive pull-quotes would need to do some serious wading through bile to emerge with choice excerpts.

That’s a shame. And while it might seem easy to write off the bad reviews — based on the just the first few episodes of four shows, all shown to critics prior to the service’s launch — the poor reception might suggest deep-seated problems for Apple TV+. It sounds like a service that suffers from a lack of vision.

iOS 13.2 leaks details on upcoming ‘AirTags’ and iPhone 11 battery cases

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Tile pro pack
Apple is getting ready to do battle with Tile.
Photo: Tile

Details of at least two unreleased Apple products may have been spilled by Apple’s big iOS 13.2 update that came out to the public this morning.

Apple has been rumored for months to be working on Bluetooth tracker tags similar to Tile’s. The official unveiling of Apple’s tracker could come by the end of the year, but references in iOS 13.2 may have just revealed its name.

Google is in talks to buy Fitbit

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Fitbit Versa
Fitbit could get a lifeline from Google.
Photo: Fitbit

Apple Watch could soon get some new competition from Google which has reportedly made an offer to buy Fitbit.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is supposedly aiming to get a slice of the fitness trackers and smartwatch market after ramping up its hardware efforts in recent years. Smartwatch arena Google doesn’t compete with Apple in but buy Fitbit could give the search engine giant a big boost to catch up.

Halide brings Deep Fusion-style photo processing to older iPhones

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Smartest Processing,
Shot with Halide.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Today’s release of iOS 13.2 brings Apple’s new Deep Fusion feature, so iPhone 11 owners can start taking beautifully detailed photographs of sweaters. But if you have an older iPhone, Halide has you covered. The iOS photo app’s new Smartest Processing update brings Deep Fusion-style detail to anybody’s sweater shots.

iOS 13.2 is out now with tons of new emoji and Deep Fusion for iPhone 11

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3-nanometer chips will be ready for 2022 iPhone
3-nanometer chips will be ready for 2022 iPhone
Photo: Apple

Apple released iOS 13.2 to the public this morning after beta testing the software update with developers for a month.

iOS 13.2 and iPadOS 13.2 bring a bunch of new features and bug fixes to the iPhone and iPad, including more than 50 new emoji characters and support for the new AirPods Pro that were just revealed this morning.