iOS 10 brings much-needed design overhauls for the Apple Music and Apple News apps.
The big iOS update, which is currently in beta but should hit iPhones and iPads this fall, brings huge changes to the Apple Music UI as well as minor improvements to navigation in the music app. To see all the changes in action, watch the Cult of Mac video below.
Most Apple fans don’t start drooling at the mention of speech-recognition APIs, Xcode thread sanitizers, Metal tessellation or Pixar USD model support. However, if you’re a developer, those can be huge game-changers that mean you can make your apps better than ever.
While Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2016 keynote revealed loads of fresh features coming in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra — including some amazing stuff that should delight iPhone, iPad and Mac owners when the final versions launch this fall — developers watching Monday’s event saw tons of seemingly minor updates that will let them make apps better than ever.
To find out what the little updates could mean for typical users, Cult of Mac asked some of this year’s Apple Design Award winners what WWDC additions they’re most excited about.
Here’s what they told us.
You don’t need a pressure-sensitive display or fancy sensors to take advantage of the 3D Touch features on the iPhone 6s. Engineers at the University of Michigan have developed a way to bring 3D Touch to any smartphone using incredibly clever software.
Android users will have to wait for Google’s native 3D Touch clone.
Sources familiar with plans for the upcoming Android N upgrade say support for pressure-sensitive displays won’t be available at launch.
After throttling our video quality automatically to ensure we didn’t burn through our data in two episodes of Breaking Bad, Netflix is finally giving users control over the video quality they get when using a data connection.
The latest version of its iOS app adds four playback options — plus handy 3D Touch shortcuts that make it faster to access content from the home screen.
From introducing the mouse to a mass market to getting rid of its buttons by order of Steve Jobs, Apple has always been at the forefront when it comes to driving mouse technology forward.
A new Apple patent published today promises to keep that tradition by describing a future Magic Mouse with integrated Force Touch sensors.
Coming soon, we hope, to a Mac near you!
Siri might be a (halfway) decent digital assistant, but Apple’s AI helper makes for a lousy security guard.
We’ve heard about a bunch of “sneaky” ways that evildoers can use Siri to get access to your photos, contacts or completely unlock your phone without entering a passcode or using Touch ID. Luckily, most of these “security problems” are bogus, but a newly discovered one is for real.
The good news, however, is that this Siri exploit only affects certain iPhone models and is completely preventable.
While some apps haven’t quite figured out best use cases for 3D Touch yet, a handful of apps have gotten it right. One of those apps is Launch Center Pro, which lets you choose what apps you get access to through 3D Touch actions.
I’ve chosen to take advantage of this by using Launch Center Pro to launch my most-used media apps: Rdio (RIP, now replaced), Sonos, Music.app and Pandora. By doing this, I’ve freed up four additional spaces on my first Home screen for other apps.
Apple is expected to unveil a brand new iPhone in a little over a week, only instead of going big, the first new iPhone of 2016 will be perfect for people with tiny hands and those who don’t want to spend a lot on a new smartphone.
The rumor mill has been serving up juicy bits of gossip on Apple’s upcoming handset for over a year, so as the big day approaches we have some pretty solid clues about the next iPhone’s design, hardware, price, name and much more.
Here are the probable answers to all your iPhone SE questions.
A couple of new iPhone 6s ads play up the time-saving powers of 3D Touch and the time-travel abilities of Live Photos.
Apple just posted the videos to its YouTube account, and if you’re a fan of the quantifiable measurement of change, you’ll find a lot to like in the 30-second spots. Check them out below.
3D Touch gets a big boost in iOS 9.3, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system.
On top of the various other “what to expect” features we’ve told you about, the iOS update, which arrived yesterday, also adds a host of new shortcuts you can use from the home screen for all standard pre-installed apps. Check out our list below.
Designer Eric Huismann has an an awesome idea of what the iPhone 7 might be like. It’s one that supports recent rumors. Get ready, because if he concept design ever becomes reality, your next iPhone might be missing one crucial hardware feature: the headphone jack.
A few months after Apple birthed Live Photos into existence with the release of the iPhone 6s, Facebook is catching on to the idea. The social network is building the feature right into its iOS app so iPhone 6s and 6s Plus owners can start uploading their animated photos and viewing others. But it’s not all good news, since there are two issues with Facebook’s implementation.
3D Touch was the single biggest selling point of the iPhone 6s, so naturally every other smartphone vendor is tripping over themselves and each other to add their own version of Apple’s pressure-sensitive iPhone feature to their next handset.
Because of this, a new report claims that force sensing module shipments will grow by a whopping 317 percent in 2016 to reach 461 million units. As a result, almost one in four new smartphones shipped will include the technology.
Tired of the same old boring wallpaper on your shiny new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus?
You can now grab a cool app that will let you put one of up to 40 different animated images on your iPhone lock screen that you can animate with 3D Touch.
Here’s how to make it happen.
Microsoft has given its Outlook iOS app an overhaul — offering iPhone 6s owners the chance to use 3D Touch to create new emails and events, or access the calendar directly.
Samsung’s next-generation Galaxy S7 will get its grand unveiling in March, and its big selling point will be an iPhone-like pressure-sensitive display, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing sources familiar with the company’s plans.
Maps is shaping up to be a pretty great navigational tool with its tight integration in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, as well as with much more error-free data.
I use Maps as a sort of mobile, digital yellow pages, finding businesses in town and looking up their phone number, hours of operation, website address, and more. It’s a couple of taps in, which can seem tedious after a while.
Now, though, with an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, you can get this info in a summarized form, using the new 3D Touch. Here’s how.
3D Touch isn’t just for iPhone users anymore!
The same 3D Touch gestures that Instagram integrated into its iOS app following the release of iPhone 6s are now available inside its Android app — and you don’t need a pressure sensitive display to use them.
The developers of the Poison Maps app figured out a new way to implement 3D Touch that goes above and beyond what we’re used to seeing. They use two patent-pending gestures called “context zooming” and “context panning.” The first lets you quickly see the surrounding area of a particular location you’re zoomed in on without leaving that location, while the latter lets you move around in the surroundings and effortlessly focus in on somewhere new.
These gestures work using long presses. Since 3D Touch can sense varying amounts of force, Poison Apps cleverly uses the technology to adjust the zoom based on how hard you press.
You might be sick of the sight of Turkey by now, but you can’t spend enough time being thankful. The big question we have is: Should we be thankful to Apple for the lineup it has delivered in 2015, or was this a year to forget?
Apple certainly hasn’t been slow this year; we’ve had the Apple Watch, Apple Music, iPhone 6s with new technologies like 3D Touch, the new Apple TV, and the giant iPad Pro. But will any of these things stand out as smash-hits in a decade?
Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over these questions and more!
The iPad Pro is the most impressive tablet Apple’s ever created, but it’s missing one killer feature: 3D Touch.
Developer Hamza Sood has found a clever workout around though that brings Peek and Pop features to the iPad Pro, and it’s all made possible thanks to the pressure sensitive features of the Apple Pencil.
Check it out:
Apple Pay and 3D Touch may play a crucial role in Instagram’s quest to develop a more robust marketing platform, based on some new ads the company has started testing.
Instagram has rolled out a number of new ads that let users shop for stuff like clothing, food, skateboards and more by simply using 3D Touch to bring up a menu of options that makes the process of buying goods nearly instantaneous.
Xiaomi’s efforts to follow Apple into adopting pressure-sensitive smartphone displays has hit a roadblock, with the Chinese company struggling to source suitable components at a reasonable price. This almost certainly means that Xiaomi fans will have to wait longer for its first handset with 3D Touch.
Apple has steadily been rolling out its 3D Touch/Force Touch technology across as many of its devices as possible — and the next step may be Mac keyboards.
According to a newly published patent for an “Ultra low travel keyboard,” Apple’s futuristic keyboard would allow different functions or commands to be assigned as per, “different levels of force input” received when you press a key.
