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Best List: Button-Stud Apple Watch Band by Form Function Form

Making Apple’s “most personal device ever” personal to you is super-serious business for one Florida purveyor of handmade leather goods.

Echoing the individuality of Apple Watch, Form Function Form takes customization to new levels in the design of its one-of-a-kind Button-Stud Apple Watch Band. This ingenious leather strap has 21 different size options, one of which is sure to fit even the thinnest or fleshiest of wrists. If it doesn’t, the company provides free size adjustments for the entirety of your life.

We’ve added seven new leather colors to the Watch Store lineup! Read on for my review:

One of the most appreciated features of Signal for Mac is that messages sent by this communication app can be set to automatically erase themselves. However, security researchers have found a flaw in the system.

The problem comes from the notifications macOS provides for incoming Signal messages.

Miitomo, Nintendo’s first mobile game, is officially dead just two years after making its debut.

We were warned that the game was closing back in January, and now the few players who were still enjoying the game can no longer log in.

Apple to many seems to have lost its mojo for innovation. But it knows how to build a pile of cash.

This is the impression of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who told CNBC Wednesday the very thing that feeds the frustrations of Apple fans – innovation in Cupertino is slipping.

Apple is one of a number of big companies seeking permission to be part of a new U.S. drone testing program, launched by President Donald Trump last year.

With the government now opening up applications for the new program, Apple has joined other tech giants including Amazon, Intel and Qualcomm in applying. It’s not yet clear what Apple is interested in achieving with its drone ambitions, although companies such as Amazon have been outspoken about their desire to pursue drone deliveries.

iPhone X remained the best-selling handset in Europe throughout the first quarter of 2018, despite a substantial drop in overall shipments as a result of “smartphone fatigue.” Apple reportedly shipped more than 10 million devices during the three-month period.

Apple has opened its first developer academy on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia.

The move is to comply with new government regulation regarding local content requirements. Laws state that 30 percent of content for 4G devices sold in Indonesia must be produced locally. While that’s somewhat difficult to work out with a multinational company like Apple, the laws note that this percentage can cover manufacturing, software, and “innovation.”

Fortnite Battle Royale players can bag more free loot by linking their Twitch Prime subscription to their Epic account.

The exclusive giveaway includes an outfit, back bling, a pickaxe, and a dancing emote that you can’t buy in the item shop or unlock with your Battle Pass.

Another Unicode text bug has been discovered in iOS, which will repeatedly crash Apple’s Messages app by overloading its memory.

The “black dot” message contains an emoji like ⚫, although it’s not actually the emoji which causes the message to crash the app. The bug affects iOS 11.3 and the current iOS 11.4 beta seeds. A similar message recently did the rounds on Android. As of yet, Apple has yet to release a fix.

In the fallout from Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, Apple has begun cracking down on apps which share user location data with third-parties. Apple has started sending out emails to developers who infringe on these guidelines, saying that “upon re-evaluation” of their apps they have been found to break App Store rules.

In particular, Apple refers to the clause in the App Store guidelines which notes that Apple can turn down apps which transmit, “user location data to third parties without explicit consent from the user and for unapproved purposes.”

Anyone who’s used an iPhone X already knows how to navigate around in the next version of Google’s mobile operating system. The company showed off Android P at its developer conference today, and it includes a touch bar at the bottom of the screen, just like Apple’s flagship phone.

Android P also natively supports screen cutouts, so device makers will be able to easily produce iPhone X clones.

A TV advertisement for the iPhone 7 Plus’ camera won Best in Show at the prestigious ADC annual awards. The ‘Barbers’ ad comically demonstrates that Apple’s smartphone can make anyone look good.

Watch it below:

Microsoft acknowledged today that PCs take second place to phones for most consumers.  This wouldn’t be an amazing admission for most companies, but it’s startling coming from one that makes virtually all its revenue from desktop/laptop software.

Especially considering Microsoft’s attempts to compete with the iPhone all went nowhere. 

Google just took the wraps off its big software lineup for 2018. If Apple executives were watching, there’s a lot they should be worried about.

Artificial intelligence has always been one of Google’s strengths over Apple. But in 2018, the search company is going all out, putting AI in everything. Pretty much every app the company has is getting some new machine-learning tricks in the next few weeks that make certain iOS features look ancient.

Check out the biggest announcements from this morning’s Google I/O keynote.

Smart speakers are about to get upstaged at home by an arguably smarter device – smart displays.

During its I/O developers conference Tuesday, Google announced smart displays with Google Assistant would hit store shelves in July, adding yet another screen to vie for our already fractured attention.

Google I/O 2018 kicks off in less than an hour.

There’s loads to look forward to this year, including an update on Android P, and previews of what’s to come for Chrome, the Google Assistant, Android Auto, and more. The recently-rebranded Wear OS may also get some much-needed attention.

Google is live-streaming its big keynote, which kicks off at 10 a.m. Pacific. If you can’t tune in, follow our live blog below to stay up to date with everything that’s happening in Mountain View.

Google I/O 2018 kicks off today in Mountain View, California. The two day event starts with a big Google keynote that will see the company lay out its plans for the future of its biggest products, including Android and Chrome OS.

You can watch the whole thing live right here from 10 a.m. Pacific.

If you’ve got Philips Hue lighting in your home then you’ll want to make sure to upgrade to the latest version of the associated iOS app.

Making the company’s smart home lighting even smarter — both figuratively and literally — the app has received a visual overhaul, along with a number of nifty new features. And the gratefully received return of an old favorite.

The Apple Watch has come a long way since it was first introduced back in 2015. One thing it hasn’t done? Gone circular, with Apple instead opting to stick with its rectangular display for all iterations of the wearable device.

But that could (possibly) one day change, based on a granted Apple patent that was published earlier today.

Twitter is testing a “Secret” messaging feature that will protect users’ private messages with end-to-end encryption. The feature has already been baked into the Twitter app for Android, but it hasn’t yet been activated inside a public release.

Google has begun rolling out a big Gmail update for iPhone and iPad, adding the ability to snooze emails and send money via Google Pay.

The release comes less than a week after Google confirmed it is bringing Google Pay to Mac and iOS through Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Apple is reportedly going all-in on MicroLED displays, and long-time supplier Foxconn wants to get in on the action!

According to a new report, the Foxconn Group recently took a 7.32 percent share in the company Epileds Technologies, and aims to soon buy anoter 20 million shares to become its largest shareholder. Epileds is one of only a couple of Taiwan-based LED firms that have valuable RGB technological capabilities key to MicroLED technology.

The larger iPhone X Plus will be roughly the same size as the current 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus, a new report claims. Despite that, its greatly reduced bezel will give it a screen size of 6.5 inches, making it by far Apple’s largest-ever iPhone display.

By comparison, the current iPhone X measures 5.8 inches on the diagonal. The first iPhone, released back in 2007, had a display of just 3.5 inches.

The co-founder of Microsoft joined the chorus of voices speaking positively about Apple today. Bill Gates’ relationship with Apple goes back to the very dawn of the company, and he and Steve Jobs were the best of frenemies.

Now that he’s a philanthropist rather the CEO of Microsoft he can speak openly about a former rival.

Microsoft unveiled an app today designed to allow Windows users to  show the text messages and notifications from their smartphone. Plus, Your Phone will make moving images between phone and PC easier.

Also at its Build 2018 developer conference, the company announced that the new Windows Timeline is coming to  iPhone and iPad.