HBO is joining the wave of companies that are offering free access to their content to placate everyone sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting on April 3, the HBO Now and HBO Go apps will offer freebies to anyone the doesn’t already have a paid subscription. The trove of over 500 hours of free content includes all seasons of The Sopranos, Silicon Valley, The Wire and Ballers. But if you’re hoping to finally catch up Game of Thrones for free, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
The FCC will vote April 23 on a proposal to expand Wi-Fi to the 6GHz band. If approved, the move would add almost five times the bandwidth to the short-range wireless networking standard used by MacBooks, iPads, and virtually every other mobile device. That could bring faster Wi-Fi connections, with less interference from nearby computers.
SXSW 2020, one of the biggest annual conferences covering the convergence of music and film, was canceled last month due to the COVID-19 pandemic last month, but it’s getting a brief second life online.
Amazon Prime Video is partnering with SXSW to offer on-demand streaming of the films that were set to debut at the festival in Austin, Texas. Anyone with an Amazon account will be able to watch the movies for free for 10 days as part of the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection.
The official name of Apple’s Bluetooth tracking tiles leaked online on Thursday and Apple only has itself to blame.
Apple published a new iPhone support video on YouTube the educates customers on how to erase your iPhone that made reference to ‘AirTags’ that have been rumored to be coming down the product pipeline since last year.
The second season of Helpsters debuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 3. A music video starring Ne-Yo with helpful muppets gives a sneak peek of what’s coming to this educational children’s show.
Watch it now:
Zoom might be the best video-conferencing app, but that’s a bit like saying Facebook is the best social network. It might be true 1, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel dirty if you use it. Despite a seemingly never-ending stream of privacy violations, security holes and utter disregard for its customers, Zoom is still being used as the de facto standard video conferencing and broadcasting tool during the COVID-19 crisis.
We’ve already seen the problems with Zoom. And we’ve also shown you how to protect yourself if you choose to use Zoom despite the company’s many privacy missteps. (Zoom pledged to do better this week.) But what about other services you could rely on during the coronavirus shutdown? Read on. We have five great Zoom alternatives you can use.
Apple has been working tirelessly to make the iPhone more and more waterproof over the last four years. Now it appears that the company wants to make it possible to actually use the display underwater too.
Recent patent filings revealed that Apple is putting some serious thought into how to make the iPhone easier to use underwater by creating a simplified UI that lets the user focus less on taps and more on swimming or whatever else you’d be doing underwater.
A company that makes low-cost home security cameras doesn’t sound like an organization you’d call for help in the fight against COVID-19 as it sweeps across the United States.
Wyze didn’t wait for a call.
Located in Kirkland, Washington, close to where the first U.S. cases surfaced, the company used its worldwide connections and ingenuity to help the local medical community fight the coronavirus pandemic. But it also helped consumers stuck at home better use Wyze’s iOS-compatible security cameras as webcams.
Once in a while, an app comes along that changes the way you think of a computer platform. Like Photoshop on the Mac, Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC, or GarageBand on the iPad. We just got another one of these apps Tuesday. It’s called Drambo, from veteran music-app developer BeepStreet, and it redefines music apps on iOS.
Yes, iOS. This amazing, modular, do-almost-anything app works on the iPhone as well as the iPad.
Zoom had over 200 million daily meeting participants in March, about 20x the average, as people isolate themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But this video conferencing service faces criticism for a lack of security. That’s why Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on Thursday stopped all work on adding new features to its software to instead focus on fixing problems with privacy and public trust.
Apple is teaming up with Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs and the Ford Foundation to create a new fundraiser aimed at ensuring all Americans have reliable access to food during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project, called America’s Food Fund, launched this morning on GoFundMe with $12 million in donations and a goal to hit $15 million that will be distributed to the World Central Kitchen and Feeding America.
The all-new Facebook Messenger app for macOS made its official Mac App Store debut on Thursday at a perfect time for those working and interacting more from home.
Messenger for the desktop first appeared in early March, almost a year after Facebook announced it at its F8 conference, but was then on offer in only a handful of countries. It is now open to all — and free to download.
Apple has relaxed a policy that saw it take a 30% cut of payments from competitors who use its platform to sell TV shows and movies through their own video apps, according to a published report.
One of the first companies to seize on the relaxed policy change was Amazon, which started selling and renting Prime Video movies on Apple devices Wednesday.
Spotify’s newest update on iOS, out Thursday, lets users control their music using Siri on Apple Watch. Simply add “on Spotify” to the end of your voice commands to play your favorites artists, albums, playlists, and more.
April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day, and Apple is marking the occasion by promoting a range of apps designed to help “autistic people … share their voices with the world.”
The apps are divided into four sections: “Communication,” “Life skills,” “Games, videos and music,” and “Great tools on Apple Watch.” Apps include the likes of communication tool Proloquo2Go, kids’ scheduling app Todo Visual Schedule, game Avokiddo Emotions, and more.
Gamevice, creator of a number of popular controller add-ons for iPhone and iPad, is suing Nintendo for alleged patent infringement. In a complaint filed on March 27, it calls for a ban on Switch imports into the United States.
AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support is headed to some of LG’s 2018 smart TVs by October, updated support documents read. This includes LCD models with SK and UK in the name, alongside OLED models with B8 through Z8 in their names.
AirPlay 2 means that TV owners can stream content from their iPhone, iPad and Mac straight to their TV sets. This could include movies and TV shows, podcasts, Apple Music, or just collections of photos. Meanwhile, HomeKit integration means that users can add their LG TV to control television functions such as power, volume, and source via voice or app.
Got germs on the mind lately? So do we, which is why this disinfecting ultraviolet light caught our attention. It’s a quick and effective way of keeping your personal electronics germ-free.
Tile, a startup that makes location-aware tracking tags, says that Apple isn’t living up to its promises to avoid anticompetitive behavior. Tile made the complaint in a statement to an investigatory antitrust committee posted online.
Apple’s websites for the U.K. and France were on Thursday updated to display COVID-19 advice from the government.
Large featured sections on their homepages remind visitors of the official advice related to the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.K., this includes the same National Health Service (NHS) video that can be found in the App Store.
Apple engineers have used FaceTime-style video calling to guide Chinese colleagues through iPhone prototype assembly, a recent report by the Wall Street Journal notes.
The report helps answer one key question about how Apple is able to get iPhone prototypes assembled at a time when travel restrictions stop Apple employees from making their usual trips to China. Apple tested out the process in January.
Customer spending on mobile apps could nearly double over the next five years, according to forecasting carried out by leading app analytics platform Sensor Tower Store Intelligence.
In research published Wednesday, the firm suggests spending on the iOS App Store and Google Play store will approach $171 billion by 2024. That’s 2x the amount that was spent in 2019, meaning around 20% year-on-year growth.
MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models that launched in 2013 and 2014 will reportedly be placed on Apple’s list of “vintage and obsolete products” at the end of April.
Despite what the name implies, this doesn’t mean these devices just became useless. Instead, it’s going to be harder to get them serviced.
TikTok, the popular video-sharing app that is especially popular among young people, is going to get some fresh competition from Google later this year.
Google is reportedly planning to create its own version of TikTok with a new Youtube feature called “Shorts” that will live inside the platform’s apps on Android and iOS.
Cloudflare on Wednesday began beta testing a macOS version of Warp, its virtual private network currently offered only on iPhone. The VPN encrypts all internet traffic for the Mac it’s installed on, helping to protect the user’s privacy.
VPNs add security, but are often slow. Cloudflare promises its service is fast. And it’s free.