The first public update for iOS 9 this year has finally arrived in the form of iOS 9.2.1, which was made available to all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users this morning.
iOS 9.2.1 brings lots of bug fixes
Photo: Apple
The first public update for iOS 9 this year has finally arrived in the form of iOS 9.2.1, which was made available to all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users this morning.
The newest build of OS X El Capitan is now available to the public after undergoing a month of beta testing.
OS X 10.11.3 can now be downloaded and installed by all Mac users with supported hardware. It’s a free update that promises to bring a number of enhancements, including performance improvements and tons of bug fixes.
Magnets. That’s right, magnets.
The Giro Contact goggles use magnets to help you change and secure their almost-frameless, spherical Zeiss lenses.
The next iPhone you get may come with super-fast data speeds that are 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. Based on references found in iOS 9.1’s code, it appears that Apple is testing Li-Fi capabilities on the iPhone that use light pulses instead of radio waves to transmit data.
Hidden inside iOS 9’s system library cache file there’s a specific mention of “LifiCapability.” The reference was first spotted by 19 year-old developer Chase Fromm on Twitter:
The world of programming is wide and wild, bristling with enough different languages, platforms and workflows to leave anyone dizzy. These 10 courses, clocking in at over 178 hours of content, offer a travel guide for the prospective coder. The best part might be that you can get it for whatever you’re willing to pay, and a portion of every dollar you spend goes to support the important work of Save the Children.
Now more than ever, we are able to manage our anxiety over a dead iPhone battery. There are plenty external power banks and battery cases on the market, but even those need to be charged.
The AMPWare Case revives a dead battery much like your great grandfather started his horseless buggy – with a hand crank.
As one of the tech companies sponsoring this year’s Super Bowl, Apple is reportedly doing more than just lending its support to the biggest event on the NFL calendar. According to a new report, Apple will also be providing the host committee with free products and equipment.
Despite this, Apple has chosen not to have its name or logo included in any of the marketing materials for the event.

Apple and Samsung have been locked in a never-ending legal battle seemingly forever, but yesterday a federal court in California agreed to finally ban the U.S. sale of several Samsung smartphones which infringe on patents owned by Apple.
The bad news? The phones are now so old that they’re not really sold any more. But there’s some good news, too.

Amnesty International has accused Apple, Samsung, Sony and other smartphone makers of not making basic checks which would have prevented their using batteries made with minerals mined by children.
In a report focused on cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, children as young as seven were found working in unsafe conditions. Cobalt is an essential part of the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries.
Apple’s U.S. workforce is a bit more diverse than it was a year ago, but still predominantly white and male, suggests the most recent EEO-1 Federal Employer Information report.
According to newly-released figures, roughly 30 percent of Apple’s U.S. employees are female, around 8.6 percent are African-American, and 11.7 percent are hispanic or Latino. That’s marginally up from 29 percent female, 8 percent African-American, and 11.5 percent hispanic and Latino in 2014.
With its allegations of sweatshop conditions and worker suicides, even the masterful spin provided by Steve Jobs wasn’t able to turn negative public opinion about Foxconn, one of the main manufacturers which builds Apple devices.
But Foxconn is hoping to change people’s minds about its facilities — by opening a new “technology tourism factory” in Jiangsu, China, designed to give outsiders a peak into a (carefully managed) version of the Foxconn working experience.
If he really wants the job, presidential hopeful Donald Trump should probably figure out what the office can and can’t do.
Trump showcased his continuing delusion of ultimate executive power to do everything ever at a speech at Liberty University today. And in addition to his lofty goals to construct a huge wall completely sealing off the border between the United States and Mexico (“Someday they’ll call it Trump Wall”) and build a military “so big, so strong, [and] so powerful that nobody is going to mess with us,” he also turned his attention to companies like that have outsourced production overseas to save money on labor and taxes.
“We’re gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries,” Trump said, apropos of nothing.
The Apple Watch is designed with the Digital Crown in the same place as where traditional watches have their own crown to set the time. It’s a design choice that helps us think of this new tiny computer on our wrist as something comfortable and familiar.
But there’s no reason the Digital Crown should remain on the right, as it defaults to if you’re wearing your Apple Watch on your left wrist.
In fact, flipping it around can make things on your Apple Watch even better. Check it out.

Are you willing to die with your boots on? Do you know the number of the beast? If so, you’ll want to keep an eye on this upcoming mobile game from heavy metal band extraordinaire, Iron Maiden.
In conjunction with Roadhouse Interactive and 50cc Games, the legends of metal are putting together a free-to-play role-playing game, due out this summer, on iOS and Android. It’s called Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast (naturally), and will apparently include characters from the long history of Iron Maiden album art, as well as a soundtrack that has previously unheard live recordings from the monsters of rock.
The iPhone as a tool for filmmaking made us gasp and marvel last year. Are there any other cinematic frontiers left to conquer?
The sketch comedy troupe I Want My Mommy has taken the feature film in a whole new direction – reverse. It shot a feature film with the backup camera on the Toyota Prius.
The internet is a wonderful, wild, and sometimes scary place — with identity thieves, data snoops, and other less than savory characters wandering the web, you should never enter without protection. A great way to add a layer of security is through a virtual private network, but for anyone without an IT degree that can seem out of the question. That’s why there’s proXPN VPN, and right now you can get a lifetime subscription for a whopping 89% off the usual price, only $39.

If you have an iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus that’s not properly showing how much battery you have left, there’s good news and bad news. Bad news first? Apple doesn’t exactly know what’s causing the problem. Good news: They’re looking into it, and there’s a temporary fix.
As per tradition, Apple has changed its homepage to an image of Civil Rights leader and minister Martin Luther King Jr. in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The quote used alongside the photo is one of King’s stating: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” This is similar to Tim Cook’s stated mission for Apple as a company focused on being a “force for good” in the world.
Under new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has been releasing all sorts of software for iOS, including Office and lesser apps like Microsoft Selfie. But the next app you install from Microsoft on your iPhone could be a replacement keyboard, ripped straight out of Windows Phone.
Apple has made a big show of just how seriously it takes your privacy — but it’s not just criminals and government spying agencies whose hands it wants to keep off your devices.
According to a recent news story, Apple insisted that a Canadian widow sought a court order to retrieve her deceased husband’s password so that she could access his iPad — just to play a card game.
Update: Employees are now back to work after the security alert was lifted. Only Apple’s Hollyhill and Levitt’s Quay were affected.
Apple reportedly evacuated 4,000 staffers at several of its premises in Cork, Ireland, this morning after an online bomb threat.
Employees were evacuated from Apple’s facilities in Hollyhill, the nearby Levitt’s Quay, and (possibly) the Model Farm Road site at 10 a.m. local time, with a search now being made of all premises. The Army Bomb Disposal unit has been notified and an explosive ordnance disposal team is on standby.

WhatsApp will ditch the service’s annual subscription fees, after founder Jan Koum admitted that the $1 per year payment concept “doesn’t work that well.”
Analysts may be tripping over one another to proclaim the sky is falling for Apple, but apparently no-one told hedge fund managers because (surprise, surprise!) it turns out they’re not in a hurry to get rid of their AAPL stock at all.
Far from it, in fact.
Steve Jobs may have proved divisive among critics and an epic flop at the box office, but that’s not stopping it from cleaning up on the awards circuit.
The latest prize the Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle movie picked up was a Supporting Actress of the Year award for Kate Winslet at this weekend’s Critics’ Circle Film Awards in London. Winslet, who has already earned a Golden Globe for the role, stars in the movie as legendary PR guru Joanna Hoffman.

Apple has beaten Samsung to claim one of the top three places in the United Arab Emirates’ Annual BrandIndex Buzz Rankings — knocking Samsung from its previous No. 1 position down to No. 4.
That wasn’t Apple’s sole placement on the list either, since the iPhone (placed at No. 7) was the only handset brand named. Other notable tech entries included Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube.