Website favicons have finally returned to Safari in macOS Mojave. The teeny-tiny icons, which make it easier to distinguish between sites in open tabs, are also coming to iPhone and iPad for the very first time with iOS 12.
After beating out every other photo-sharing platform and stealing Snapchat’s lunch money, Instagram is jumping into video.
A new report claims the service is adding support for uploading videos up to an hour in length. It is also in talks with content creators and publishers about the possibility of delivering original long-form videos that could compete with shows from the likes of Apple and Netflix.
At Monday’s WWDC keynote event, Apple introduced its new Screen Time initiatives which will help users keep tabs on just how much they use their iPhones. It’s something that people have been pushing for a while, and it’s absolutely the right move on Apple’s part.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be the source of humor. In a new skit, late night talkshow host Conan O’Brien skewers the concept with his idea for an iPhone Basic — with no screen, no buttons, and basically nothing that could distract you from living in the real world. Check it out below.
Given his influence and notorious temper, hosting a celebrity roast of Steve Jobs would have been pretty darn scary. But that’s what EFF co-founder, Grateful Dead lyricist and cyberlibertarian John Perry Barlow was once asked to do.
Even worse, it came at a time in Jobs’ career when seemingly everything was going wrong. The results earned Barlow — who passed away earlier this year — a severe telling off from Jobs’ wife, Laurene.
Apple has finally fixed one of the biggest complaints about its Mac and iOS App Stores: free trials. Developers can now offer free time-limited trials of their apps, with a one-time in-app purchase to unlock the full version. This little amendment to the App Store guidelines may prove to be huge, paving the way for developers to make much better, pro-level apps for iOS.
The idea of luxury watches is that they last a lifetime, maybe more. Patek Philippe makes this explicit with its tagline, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”
Clearly Apple didn’t get the memo, though. The company’s ultra-expensive Apple Watch Edition — which started at $10,000 and ran up to $17,000 — will soon be obsolete, thanks to Apple introducing watchOS 5 at this week’s WWDC event.
Nine months after debuting in the U.S., the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE Cellular is set to arrive in four new countries, starting next week.
The countries include Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. The device will be made available for pre-order on Friday, June 8. Last month, Apple rolled out the LTE Apple Watch Series 3 to Denmark, India, Sweden, and Taiwan.
The very first beta version of watchOS 5 launched yesterday, but was pulled this evening after reports it was mucking up people’s devices.
It’s not clear yet exactly what the problem is, but Apple’s vague description seems to indicate that Watches were getting bricked.
Apple believes strongly in protecting our privacy, and that even extends to helping us use strong passwords. Rather than letting us put in weak ones, iOS 12 extends password suggestions to third-party applications.
The next version of Apple’s phone and tablet operating system also makes two-factor authentication easier, and will warn users about weak passwords.
Apple put on a good show for its WWDC keynote, but realistically it was a lot of hype without much substance. Dark Mode for macOS Mojave and Memojis for iOS 12 was about as exciting as it got. And you know what, that’s a good thing.
Both these operating systems have serious problems, and it’s far more important for Apple to spend a few months fixing them than adding new bells and whistles.
Didn’t have a chance to catch Apple’s WWDC 2018 keynote yet? Well, you could read our summary, or if you want to watch the entire thing, Apple just uploaded it to YouTube.
Tim Cook and the gang busted out a bunch of new software during the keynote. iOS 12, macOS Mojave, tvOS 12 and watchOS 5 all got their moment to shine with new features, UI changes and plenty of surprises.
Watch all the action right here:
iOS 12 is shaping up to be one biggest software updates Apple’s ever released and it’s so stuffed with major and minor new additions there wasn’t time to go over a lot of them at the WWDC 2018 keynote.
We’ve been combing through the first iOS 12 beta looking for all the new goodies and have found some underrated new features that will totally change how you use your iPhone and iPad this fall.
These are the little iOS 12 features you need to know:
After a particularly rough patch for the tech industry, Apple used yesterday’s WWDC keynote to atone for some of Silicon Valley’s biggest sins. The company showcased key features in its upcoming operating systems that reinforce the fact that it thinks different about how technology should work.
Undoubtedly eager to position itself as one of the good guys, Apple directly responded to some of the biggest tech scandals of the past year.
Hot off the heels of Apple’s announcement of ARKit 2.0, creative software giant Adobe revealed its own foray into augmented reality. Soon many more people should be able to create 3D, animated content that seems to float in the real world.
Apple confirmed during its big WWDC keynote on Monday that iOS apps are coming to macOS.
The company has spent two years developing the frameworks required to make the ports possible. Several of its own iPhone and iPad apps, including Apple News and Voice Memos, will be available inside macOS Mojave this fall.
In a new interview, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, reveals more about how iOS apps will work on a Mac. He also promises that they won’t make your Mac feel like a super-sized iPhone.
Maybe the most important new feature of iOS 12 is something that helps you to do less with your iPhone, not more.
If any other company had introduced Screen Time, the new system-wide toolset for limiting phone distractions, then it would (rightly) be dismissed as a gimmick, a sop to the increasing worries about phone addiction. But as is typical of Apple, Screen Time looks like it took a lot of work to get just right.
Screen Time may seem to be about combatting app addiction, and reducing the amount of time “wasted” on your iPhone. However, taken together with the new Do Not Disturb settings in iOS 12, it’s more about putting users back in control of their iPhones.
These are the devices that can run iOS 12 and macOS Mojave
There’s good news and bad news for fans of keeping old hardware running. While iOS 12 will run fine on any device that currently runs iOS 11 — and may even make older hardware run faster — macOS 10.14 Mojave is dropping support for older Macs.
Let’s take a look at which machines will work with iOS 12 and macOS 10.14.
Near the end of Monday’s WWDC 2018 keynote, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi addressed a question that’s been circulating in the tech press for a while: Are Mac and iOS merging?
His answer was direct and unequivocal: “No.”
Then he delivered a “sneak peek” of Apple’s long-rumored cross-platform project codenamed “Marzipan.” In line with the past six months of rumors, the idea of the framework is to allow UIKit-based iOS apps to run natively on Mac. While that probably sounds exciting to Mac owners, it could yield an unwelcome unintended consequence. It could trigger a “lost year” for Mac apps.
The Foxconn-owned Sharp Corp. has agreed a deal to acquire an 80 percent share in Toshiba’s PC business. Foxconn currently assembles Macs for Apple, while Sharp is an iPhone display maker.
The move won’t compete directly with Apple, although it puts Foxconn and Sharp in charge of a company which, at its 2011 peak, sold 17.7 million PCs in a year. That number fell to just 1.4 million units last year. Toshiba led the world in producing some of the earliest laptops. Its first laptop launched in 1985.
Apple didn’t deliver the new iPad we were hoping for during its WWDC keynote on Monday, but it seems the company is certainly working on it.
iOS 12 makes small but significant changes to the user interface on Apple tablets, paving the way for an edge-to-edge Super Retina HD display and Face ID.
Apple has revealed the winners of its prestigious 21st Apple Design Awards, offering a nice boost to the indie developers in question and some good recommendations for users.
The awards span nine different countries and a variety of app types, from note-taking apps to games. Check out the winners below.
Apple has updated its App Store guidelines to include new rules for remote desktop clients.
Apps can no longer display a “store-like interface” that allows users to “browse, select, or purchase software” they don’t already own, but they can allow transactions if they are processed by a host device.
The change comes just a few weeks after Steam Link for iOS was rejected by Apple because it allowed purchasing inside PC games. It’s not yet clear whether the new rules pave the way for Steam Link’s approval.
Following yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Tim Cook participated in an interview on CNN with Senior Technology Correspondent, Laurie Segall.
In a wide-ranging interview, Cook discussed everything from the threat of machines taking over to the “fundamental human right” of privacy to why he’s not interested in running for office. Here are the big takeaways:
The just-released beta of iOS 12 can be set to partially deactivate the Lightning port after an iPhone hasn’t been used for an hour. This is a clear attempt to make useless the unlocking tools employed by law enforcement.
Police across the country are purchasing a tool called GrayKey. When hooked to an iPhone’s Lightning port, this swiftly enters thousands of passcodes until the correct one is reached. Deactivating the Lightning port would block its use.
It is always exciting to capture the WWDC keynote in sketchnotes, and this year I filled up four pages of my notebook with drawings showcasing the biggest new features coming in iOS 12, macOS Mojave and watchOS 5.
As seen in my first sketchnote, above, iOS 12 makes performance on both old and new devices a priority. ARKit 2 brings more augmented reality goodness to Apple devices, including the ability for up to four people to share the same AR space at the same time.
For a quick and easy recap of the rest of the WWDC 2018 keynote highlights — plus a bonus sketchnote that proved kind of prescient — check out the rest below.