Follow Benjamin on Threads to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
Follow @bzamayo on Twitter and follow @bzamayo on Threads.
Apple has been rolling out the Apple TV app to many different platforms, including smart TVs, games consoles, and third-party streaming devices like the Amazon Fire Stick or Roku streaming sticks.
In a slight twist, the company is also launching a ‘Apple TV+’ app for older LG webOS TVs. Update: The TV+ app is also now available on older Samsung smart TV models.
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Earlier today, we reported that new firmware versions are gradually rolling out for Apple’s wireless headphone products. This new software enables Find My support for AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, which Apple first teased back in June at WWDC.
This means that the compatible AirPods models gain new functionality inside of the Find My app, including precise location, a new Nearby Finding UI, Lost Mode, and the ability to get notifications when your earbuds are left behind.
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Apple is today commemorating the tenth anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing with a special homepage takeover on Apple.com. Full bleed imagery of Jobs fills the page and there is a special film that relives some of Jobs’ most memorable quotes.
The website also features a special statement from the Jobs family, which reads “for all of Steve’s gifts, it was his power as a teacher that has endured, he taught us to be open to the beauty of the world, to be curious around new ideas, to see around the next corner, and most of all to stay humble in our own beginner’s mind'”.
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Apple TV+ will premiere a brand new Peanuts holiday special this year, entitled ‘For Auld Lang Syne’, in which the Peanuts gang will try and throw the best New Years party ever.
Thanks to Apple’s exclusive deal with WildBrain, the classic holiday Peanuts specials for Halloween, Christmas and Thanksgiving are available to stream on the service. Like last year, they will also be aired on PBS.
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Ahead of production on season three, the Apple TV+ hit series Ted Lasso has signed a major licensing deal with the Premier League, according to The Athletic.
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Apple has landed yet another big-budget movie package for its Apple TV+ streaming service. Directed and written by Jon Watts, best known for directing the Spider-Man movies, the as-yet-untitled movie will star George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
As reported by Deadline, the film will get a theatrical release before streaming on Apple TV+. The exact price of the package was not disclosed, but it was likely in the hundreds of millions given Apple’s bid faced off against interest from Netflix, Amazon, Sony, Lionsgate and other studios.
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Security researchers today announced findings surrounding a vulnerability with Visa cards, specifically when a Visa card is set as the default card for Express Transit in Apple Pay on the iPhone (this feature is named Express Travel in the UK).
The demo shared by The Telegraph showed that a hacker could trick the contactless system to perform arbitrary transactions and therefore steal money from a locked iPhone, assuming they have physical possession of the device.
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Jon Stewart is back with a new current affairs series streaming on Apple TV+, named The Problem with Jon Stewart. The show will air every other week, and there’s a companion podcast too. Here’s how to watch the new series …
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For the longest time, the App Store did not allow users to rate or review Apple’s built-in iPhone and iPad apps, like Mail, Music, News, Stocks and Calculator. However, seemingly since the release of iOS 15 earlier this month, Apple has now lifted that restriction. It is now open season for App Store feedback on Apple’s stock apps.
As you might expect, customer feedback is already flooding in for Apple’s apps, with the Podcasts app currently faring the worst statistically with a 2.0 rating …
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The M1 MacBook Air debuted almost a year ago at this point, in fall 2020, to much fanfare and a great critical reception. However, it appears customers will have to wait a while for the next big update.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the new MacBook Air with upgraded Apple Silicon (M2?) is not scheduled to arrive until the third quarter of 2022 or, in other words, it’s still about a year away. Mass production will begin in late Q2 or early Q3.
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The iPad mini 6 launched this week to much fanfare, thanks to its radically modern redesign and latest-generation A15 processor.
However, as customers receive their new iPads, a prominent issue is being spotted again and again. Colloquially referred to as ‘jelly scrolling’, it seems that one side of the iPad mini display is refreshing slower than the other side, which appears as a noticeable wobble effect down the middle of the screen when content is moving quickly — like scrolling a web page.
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Following initial testing of iOS 15 that found many third-party apps could not exceed the standard 60Hz refresh rate of the iPhone 13 Pro’s ProMotion screen, Apple has now clarified the situation. The good news is that developers will be able to take full advantage of the 120Hz display soon.
Apple says that developers will need to add a new Info.plist key to opt-in, and documentation is coming soon. In addition, a forthcoming software update will resolve a bug where animations driven by Core Animation were not able to reach the maximum 120Hz refresh rates.
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Update: Apple has officially responded that some of the behaviours described below are the result of an OS bug. Full support for 120Hz in third-party apps is coming soon. Original story below.
One of the biggest new features exclusive to the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max this year is the inclusion of high-refresh rate displays, or what Apple calls “ProMotion.”
That means the iPhone 13 Pro models feature new OLED displays that can refresh their screen content at up to 120 times per second, or 120Hz. However, developers receiving their phones today have discovered that, in many circumstances, their animations can only run at 60Hz — the same as the cheaper iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, as well as prior iPhone generations.
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As part of an exclusive deal to become the streaming home for all things Fraggle Rock, Apple TV+ began streaming the four original seasons of the show last year. Today, in celebration of Jim Henson’s posthumous 85th birthday, the service is also now streaming three classic specials.
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The YouTube channel Mrwhosetheboss always runs strenuous battery tests when the new iPhones come out. Of course, they are highly synthetic tests, but relative scores still count for something, and this year, the entire iPhone 13 lineup excels.
In particular, the iPhone 13 Pro Max achieved 9 hours and 52 minutes of continuous usage, setting a record and beating any previous phone the channel has ever put through the tests. That’s ten hours of screen-on time while doing intensive work like playing games and watching YouTube videos …
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Today, the highly-anticipated series Foundation premieres on Apple TV+. The series is based off the genre-defining sci-fi novels by writer Isaac Asimov and features Jared Harris as ‘Hari Seldon’ fighting against the Galactic Empire, led by Lee Pace as ‘Brother Dusk’.
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Is your Apple TV box not responding to your Siri Remote’s button presses? The Apple TV remote connection uses Bluetooth and is usually pretty reliable, however if it does stop working, your first troubleshooting step should be to reset the remote. Here’s how to do it.
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The European Commission has been trying to introduce legislation to standardize ports on mobile devices for almost a decade. Despite many false starts, its latest efforts are seriously making their way through the commission process.
A draft proposal was presented today that would require USB-C to become the standard port across smartphones, tablets, headphones and more devices sold in the EU. This would directly impact Apple’s flagship product, the iPhone, which continues to feature a proprietary Lightning connector.
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tvOS 15 rolled out this week and we finally get to see the new batch of Apple’s stunning Aerial screensavers, rolling out to the Apple TV set-top box. In fact, this update brings an additional sixteen slow-mo landscapes into the screensaver rotation …
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From today, Apple is bundling 6-month free trials of Apple Music with purchases of eligible AirPods and Beats products. The free period is available to new buyers of AirPods and Beats headphones as well as existing owners.
Customers have up to 90 days to redeem the offer, after first pairing the newly-purchased headphones to a device. Existing owners of AirPods or Beats have up to 90 days from the time that they upgraded to the latest iOS version. More info below …
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iOS 15 launches this week and brings with it a lot of new features including Live Text, Focus modes, a new Weather app, FaceTime enhancements as well as more features like FaceTime screen sharing coming later this year. However, one of the more drastic changes is to Safari. Apple has dramatically redesigned the layout of Safari, as well as adding new features like Tab Groups. However, if you don’t like the new UI, you can go back. Here’s how.
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Apple TV+ today released the trailer for its upcoming original feature film ‘Finch’, starring Tom Hanks. Hanks plays the eponymous ‘Finch’, the last man alive in a post-apocalyptic world, with only a dog for company.
Fearing he will soon die, Finch builds a robot to look after the dog rather than leave it on its own. The trio embarks to find a safer place to live. Watch the trailer below …
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Ted Lasso entered the Emmys with 20 nominations, a record for a freshman comedy series. At the Primetime awards ceremony last night, the hit Apple TV+ show won big.
The show took home awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Jason Sudeikis), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Brett Goldstein), and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Hannah Waddingham).
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The second season of Apple’s star-studded drama series The Morning Show has launched on Apple TV+, starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Here’s what it’s all about.
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