Apple has publicly criticized the U.K.’s draft Investigatory Powers Bill, a.k.a. the “snooper’s charter,” for fear that forcing companies to create backdoors in encryption services like iMessage could “hurt law-abiding citizens.”
We received a message today on our Cult of Mac Facebook page asking about calls showing up on an iPad when the call originated on an iPhone.
There are a couple of different places to turn this feature off so you’re not juggling all your iPads and MacBooks when you make or receive phone calls.
The next wave of iOS devices could sport some huge improvements to their front-facing camera, according to referrences found in iOS 9 that hints to the upcoming devices.
It’s been rumored for months that the iPhone’s rear camera could be in for a big upgrade, but the new FaceTime camera could get a panoramic capture mode (think of the selfie possibilities), 240p video and more.
Tonight, history is made as Modern Family becomes the first major TV show to ever air an episode shot almost entirely using Apple products — ranging from the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 to MacBook FaceTime cameras.
But while Apple products are famously easy to use, the episode itself contained numerous challenges: taking more than three months to complete, and a variety of nifty filmmaking tricks. To find out more details, BuzzFeed News reached out to the show’s executive producer and co-creator, Steve Levitan, to get some added insight about the challenges of making this unusual show.
The behind-the-scenes video is available to watch online, or download via iTunes.
Apple is making iMessage and FaceTime harder to hack by turning on two-step verification for both services in an effort to tighten security for iOS and Mac users.
The extra security goes into effect today and gives users an extra layer of protection against hackers or anyone else trying to log in to your iMessage account to either impersonate you or steal data.
One of the great things about iMessage and FaceTime is that it encrypts your messages automatically, making it very, very difficult for hackers to spy on the messages you send.
But guess what? If U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron gets his way, iMessage and FaceTime encryption might soon be a thing of the past.
Whether you’re a Mac novice or a seasoned veteran, there are a ton of tips and ticks out there for mastering OS X Yosemite. In Part 2 of our Yosemite tip series, we gather more of the very best.
Tim Cook may be the Apple CEO we picture when we think of the mission to make Apple a “force for good” in the world, including enhanced accessibility for deaf users. But Steve Jobs was the person who first got the ball rolling.
During the Tampa Bay Business 100 awards last night — an event dedicated to honoring the 100 largest private companies in Tampa Bay, Florida — the CEO of a company which makes Internet video communication tools recalled how Jobs helped him use the so-called ZVRS technology with FaceTime.
Continuity and Handoff sound great on paper. They let you transfer certain documents and data between your Mac and your iPhone or iPad, provided both are running the latest Apple system software — iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, which is currently in public beta.
When Continuity and Handoff work, it’s a brilliant display of Apple’s vision for truly interconnected devices. When they don’t, it’s frustrating. Some of the features work flawlessly for me, while others don’t function as advertised (at least on my gear — here’s a compatibility chart that will tell you if your gear is new enough to work with Handoff and Continuity). It’s probably because Yosemite’s in beta — it makes sense that not all features work right now. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
Ready to take the plunge? Here’s how to get set started, plus a brief look at the Handoff and Continuity features I was able to get working (and a few more that I was not).
When you’re a company with the kind of bank that Apple has, it’s no wonder that you’d be a target for patent trolls.
Well, it seems that the trolls are out from under their bridge again, because Secure Web Conference Corporation based out of Melville, New York has filed a new patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, claiming that its FaceTime technology (and the hardware it’s currently running on) infringes on an earlier patent.
Apple’s software testing partners have reportedly received a new iOS 8 beta build that fixes a whole bunch of bugs present in beta 5. It seems the Cupertino company won’t be making this release available to registered developers, but sources say a GM seed is right around the corner.
The upcoming release of iOS 8 brings many new features that will dramatically improve everyday use of iPhones and iPads. While currently contacting your friends can be an annoyingly long process because you must open apps and search through contact after contact, a new feature in iOS 8 eliminates this common hassle.
In today’s video we show how iOS 8’s new quick contacts feature will make contacting your most recent friends much easier. After you update to iOS 8, simply double-click the home button to enjoy this new functionality.
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Could Apple be working on a higher-resolution version of FaceTime for use in enterprise?
A new patent published Tuesday suggests that it’s at least something the company is looking at, as it describes a multi-view video conferencing camera system that uses scalable video encoding. The patented device, which was first applied for back in June 2012, could compete with Microsoft’s 360 degrees Roundtable conferencing technology, as shown below.
Given Apple’s recent deal with IBM to make hardware and software for businesses, and its successful focus on enterprise under Tim Cook, this could certainly be a valuable area for Apple to explore — particularly since it could conceivably work with a range of Apple devices, including Macs, iPads and iPhones.
Apple’s video chat feature FaceTime has bridged the miles for families, sparked a ton of romances and probably shattered a few marriages.
This may be the first time it’s ever shipwrecked someone, though.
John Berg was sailing off the coast of Kona, Hawaii when a FaceTime login request started messing with the navigation app on his iPad. Although sailing apps on smartphones and tablets so popular they’re credited with having sunk the market for Garmin products, imprecise navigation has been a concern.
Remember that old slang phrase from the 90s: “Talk to the hand, because the face ain’t listening?”
Apple seems to be taking a similar tack — except that you can substitute “talk to the hand” to “upgrade to iOS 7,” and “because the face ain’t listening” to “because FaceTime is no longer working on iOS 6.”
First spotted in a thread on the Apple Support Communities mini-site, a number of users running iOS 6-powered devices have reported an inability to either make or receive FaceTime calls. According to them, this problem dates back to April 16.
Apple has released an new update for Mavericks that fixes the goto fail SSL vulnerability that was patched up on iOS last week with the iOS 7.0.6 update.
Along with fixing SSL/TLS vulnerability, the update brings in a couple of new features such as FaceTime audio calls, call waiting for FaceTime, the ability to block incoming iMessages, not to mention numerous bug fixes.
The update is available by going to Apple menu () > Software Update to check for the latest Apple software using the Mac App Store.
Here are the release notes:
Time is running out to get some more Mac apps at a price that only you can name.
Cult of Mac Deals has partnered with 11 of the world’s finest Mac app developers to bring you the fourth-ever Pay What You Want Mac Bundle. You pay what you want for Camerabag 2, Chronicle 5, Folx Pro, and Elite Keylogger Pro and if you pay more than the average price, you’ll receive all the apps in the bundle. And you get to support a charity of your choice in the process!
LAS VEGAS, CES 2014 – Chatting on Facetime with friends is great. That is until your double-comes barreling over the screen. We’ve seen people go to some pretty extreme lengths to overcome the unflattering Facetime camera angles, but Brookstone is introducing a new product at CES that finally gives users a Facetime facelift without the need for cosmetic surgery.
iTOi Booth is a case/console that goes over your iPad and uses a patented optical lens system perscription to adjust the camera angle of your iPad so your eyes are level with the screen when Facetiming. The result is direct eye contact with the other person on the screen and a more natural appearance, but will anyone want to lockup their iPad in a gigantic console just to look prettier on Facetime?
Here’s video of iToi Booth in action:
Trent Reznor might have a head like a hole, but not a heart like one. During a recent show in Las Vegas, the Nine Inch Nails frontman pulled out his iPhone 5s mid-concert to FaceTime a dying fan and friend on stage.
Just looking at it, it’s clear that the iPad mini with Retina Display has improved upon its predecessor down to the pixel. But what about the pixels you can’t see? The ones inside the built-in iSight camera?
The bad news is the iSight Camera hasn’t changed from last year from a hardware perspective. It’s still a 5 megapixel, backside-illuminated, five-element, hybrid IR file red camera with a f/2.4 aperture. But the good news is it does a little better with low-light performance anyway.
FaceTime just keeps getting better. The recent addition of audio calls in iOS 7 is great news, right? Well, sort of.
There are plenty of apps in the App Store that let you make calls over your data connection rather than through the carrier’s phone network.
FaceTime audio calls are great — something that Google+ Hangouts have had for a long time. (Hangouts actually lets you add a voice call to a group video Hangout.) They enable free international calls, for starters. The protocols underlying FaceTime enable high-quality audio calls.
More importantly, they give users one more reason to get into the FaceTime habit.
Unfortunately, FaceTime has a fatal flaw. It’s still — inexplicably — an exclusive phone system for Apple customers to call each other. What kind of phone system is that?
The iPhone 5s is undoubtedly the biggest iPhone ‘S’ upgrade Apple has released to date. Not only does it come with the usual improvements you’d expect from an “incremental” upgrade — a faster processor, better graphics, and an improved camera — but it also boasts Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner built into its home button; the M7 coprocessor, and a new dual-LED flash
Touch ID will change the way we manage security on our iPhones. No longer must we remember 4-digit pass codes that have to be entered dozens of times a day; we can simply scan our fingerprint to quickly gain access to our device. It takes the hassle out of securing our data, and there’s no good reason why you wouldn’t use it.
The iPhone 5s is the biggest iPhone ‘S’ upgrade to date.
As for the M7 coprocessor, that’s “like a sidekick to the A7 chip,” Apple says. It’s specifically designed to measure motion data recorded by your iPhone’s built-in accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass — a task which was previously handled by the processor itself. Why? Well, the M7 chip is more efficient and handling this task, and with little input needed from the main processor, there’s less drain on your iPhone’s battery.
While the iPhone 5s make look identical to its predecessor on the outside, then, there are lots of improvements under the hood. But are those improvements worth your hard-earned cash?
Apple has uploaded a new iPhone 5 ad today to its YouTube channel that showcases FaceTime video calling. Entitled “FaceTime Every Day,” the one-minute clip continues the “Every Day” series which began earlier this year, promoting features that are more popular on the iPhone than on any other smartphone.
Google copied pretty much every aspect of iOS when it came up with Android, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the Search Giant is now shamelessly copying Apple’s patents… right down to the drawing.
As noticed by Patently Apple, on the left you have Apple’s already granted patent for a wider MacBook trackpad that would be able to use the Facetime camera to detect whether someone was just resting their hands on the trackpad, or actually using it.
On the right? A new Google patent for a Chromebook that can detect a user’s presence based upon the forward-facing camera. Notice the line drawings used for both are essentially identical. Ballsy, Google!
Source: Patently Apple
Facetime is Apple’s video conferencing solution, offering high-quality video chat across any iOS or Mac device. It simply blows away any other solution I’ve tried in terms of quality and ease of use, but it’s always been a video-only proposition, leaving me sticking with Skype for audio-only voice chats.
With iOS 7 beta, however, Apple has given us the ability to make audio calls with Facetime as well, which may cause me to ditch Skype altogether (though there’s still a cross platform ability Skype wins).
Here’s how to make audio calls to other Apple users via Facetime.
