The world may have passed its peak smartphone moment last year.

Smartphone sales data released today from the number crunchers at Gartner revealed that worldwide smartphone sales declined for the first time ever during the last quarter of 2017. Both Apple and Samsung saw their market share decline just slightly, but good news could be on the horizon.

MicrosoftMicrosoft is continuing its mission to make Edge a better browser on iOS by adding 3D Touch support. The app’s latest update adds Peek and Pop — plus a bunch of other new features and improvements.

Apple Pay has an estimated 127 million active global users — representing an increase of more than double the 62 million who used it this time last year, a new report claims.

While Apple hasn’t given exact figures for its mobile payments service, the figures are based on conclusion drawn by analyst Gene Munster, based on retailer reports.

Apple just gave us a sneak preview of its first store in Austria, and it’s pretty stunning! Apple Kärntner Straße, which will open this Saturday in Vienna, is designed with “the original heritage building in mind,” Apple says.

The totally Apple-y redesign of the building, which sits on a famous shopping street between St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Vienna State Opera, combines exposed columns outside with large window openings.

Building working apps means more than just knowing how to code. Sure, it takes that knowledge. But it also requires an understanding of design.

Twitter has finally begun its long-awaited crackdown on bots.

The company has made changes to its API that make it significantly harder for services to batch tweet to multiple accounts, retweet, follow users, and more. This puts a stop to the software that powers Twitter bots.

Stainless steel meticulously weaves its way through the Mesh Band for Apple Watch — Casetify’s answer to the significantly more expensive Milanese Loop by Apple. Casetify’s version is just as stylish and functional as the behemoth brand’s band, and now comes in two brand-new finishes: Iridescent and Gold (that matches the Series 3).

For penny-counters, you’ll save from $67 to $117 on Casetify’s silver and black stainless steel mesh bands, respectively, and gain three additional colors not offered by Apple: gold, rose gold and iridescent.

The Stainless Steel Mesh Bands are for both men and women. Check out the latest colors in our Watch Store, and read on to learn more.

Apple is working on upgraded AirPods with a new wireless chip and “Hey Siri” support, according to a new report.

The refresh will arrive “as early as this year,” according to sources familiar with the matter. A future refresh, pegged for early 2019, will also bring a water-resistant design.

Apple’s sponsorship of the 2018 Brit Awards, the musical awards ceremony held last night in London, brings special playlists and an exclusive live performance for Apple Music users.

Despite somewhat mixed reviews, Apple’s HomePod is seemingly winning over the customers who have bought it, with 89 percent of HomePod-owning respondents to a survey claiming that they are either satisfied (59 percent) or very satisfied (30 percent) with the device.

While not quite up there with Apple’s best product satisfaction scores, it nonetheless suggests a bright future for Apple’s debut product in the smart speaker category.

Apple is very proud of its Portrait Lighting feature for the iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus, and it’s willing to let users take a peek behind the Cupertino curtain to show exactly why.

In a new video shared Wednesday evening, Apple gives an overview of the development process which led to Portrait Lighting — including collaborations with photographers to study lighting, state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, and more. Check it out below.

On the Mac, you can type any character available in there Unicode standard, just by opening up the Emoji & Symbols viewer (Control-Command-Space) and picking the one you want. The selection on iOS is much more limited. Even finding an ellipsis is such an odyssey I can never remember whether it’s available or not. But UniChar changes that. It’s a Universal iOS app that brings every single Unicode character to your device.

Late last year, I switched password managers. I traded in trusty old 1Password for relative newcomer Dashlane, and I haven’t looked back.

Dashlane is a well-designed, fully functional and easy-to-use password manager that tops 1Password in one key respect: a Security Dashboard that makes it dead easy to track your online security and update it as necessary.

Theoretically, you shouldn’t have to adjust the sound of the music playing to your HomePod. Between all the fancy music processing, and the HomePod’s ability to tailor its audio to the size and shape of your room, music should come out sounding pretty great already. But that doesn’t account for taste. Maybe you like a whole lot of extra bass? Or maybe a certain frequency is booming in your room, and the HomePod isn’t doing anything about it.

Then you should try equalization — tweaking the balance of audio frequencies put out by the speaker. The bad news is that the HomePod offers no native EQ. The good news is that it’s easy to adjust on your Mac or iPhone.

Members of Apple’s public beta testing program can already get in on the latest iOS 11.3 beta build that was seeded to developers yesterday.

Apple released iOS 11.3 public beta 3 today that brings a number of new features to the iPhone and iPad as well as a bunch of bug fixes. There’s also a public beta available for macOS 10.13.4 beta 3 available this morning along with the third beta of watchOS 4.3 for developers.

Snapchat has promised to make changes to its app after a Change.org petition attracted more than 1.2 million signatures from disgruntled users.

Snap has endured growing backlash from fans following a controversial redesign, with many calling for the company to revert to its old user interface. Now the company says it is planning adjustments to the Friends and Discover sections.

In order to appreciate one of Apple’s most successful products, the iPhone, you have to respect one of the company’s biggest failures. The QuickTake digital camera was not a threat to the camera market the way today’s iPhone is.

The sensor was 0.3 megapixels. Shaped like a set of binoculars, the QuickTake 100 could only hold eight pictures, most of which were fuzzy, washed out and with funky colors that convinced photographers of the time that film photography was not in danger.

But as the retro-computer YouTube channel, LGR, points out, the QuickTake does not deserve to be bashed as a failure. It should be lauded as a pioneer of digital photography.

Get your flinging fingers ready for a new Angry Birds game that lets you battle it out for real cash.

Angry Birds Champions is an officially-licensed spin-off from WorldWinner. It’s everything you love about Angry Birds, but with the chance to compete against other players and get paid for smashing those pesky pigs.

In a new interview, Tim Cook says that one of the priorities of his job is learning to say “no to a bunch of great ideas” in order to keep Apple focused.

“There is more noise in the world than change,” he said. “One of my roles is to try to block the noise from the people who are really doing the work. That’s tougher and tougher in this environment … We can do more things than we used to do because we’re a bit bigger. But in the scheme of things versus our revenue, we’re doing very few things. I mean, you could put every product we’re making on [a] table, to put it in perspective. I doubt anybody that is anywhere near our revenue could say that.”

If the importance of saying “no” sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a lesson straight out of the Steve Jobs playbook.

Python is one of the most flexible coding languages you can learn. Efficient and easy to understand, it’s the ideal basis for large and small projects alike. So if you’re looking to beef up your resume, Python’s a great place to start.

Apple has been given the go-ahead for two new iPads, hinting at an imminent refresh.

The company filed for approval with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), and both devices were granted permission this week. Apple has also been given approval to bring several iPhone and iPad “samples” into the region.

Intel has completed its Spectre fixes for its latest range of processors.

Patches for Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake chipsets are now available to computer and motherboard manufacturers. Apple has already rolled out macOS and OS X updates to fix the problem.

Instagram Direct is one-upping Snapchat with an improved replay option that gives senders complete control.

When you post a photo or video with Instagram Direct, you can choose whether the recipient can replay it temporarily, see a permanent thumbnail in the chat log, or view it only once.

Alto’s Odyssey, the long-awaited follow up 2015’s brilliant Alto’s Adventure endless snowboarding game has finally arrived in the App Store — one day ahead of schedule.

The new game in the series transports the action to a dessert sandboarding setting, and adds new elements including wall rides, vortexes that will propel you through the air, and aerial obstacles such as hot air balloons that you can propel yourself off. Check out the trailer below.

Everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog (we guess he kind of wins this one by default!) Sonic the Hedgehog makes an unexpected, unlikely cameo on the latest update of Pac-Man for iOS — and it’s kind of awesome.

Taking the form of a special maze, the limited time “Dash Maze” replaces the usual dots Pac-Man has to collect with rings, invisibility power-ups instead of regular ones, and… um… the woodland creatures Sonic usually saves in place of the objects Pac-Man munches. Check out a trailer below.