Peter writes for 9to5Mac. He has a passion for music and technology and has accepted the Bluetooth audio revolution, but will never give up the beauty of vinyl.
Tips to peter@9to5mac.com
The popular iOS email client Polymail has some major updates coming today, according to the company blog. New features include advanced search, semantic date entry, and support for Windows with web access.
Today’s news about Apple putting new features on the back burner for iOS 12 means that the company will finally be focusing on polishing up its mobile operating system. After years of interface inconsistencies and frame rate issues, iOS may be getting some much-needed attention on the finer details.
While frame rate issues have gone unnoticed by many, prominent YouTuber and entrepreneur Chris Pirillo has been documenting his findings over the years with a public list of issues. The most jarring and obvious frame rate issue is when invoking Siri and trying to access Control Center. This is an example of an “unlikely situation, so Apple didn’t check,” which some feel has been Apple’s software mantra with iOS 7 and beyond.
While it’s good to hear about Apple shifting focus to zero in on refinements, I would argue these sort of issues should have never should have shipped to begin with.
After being available for a little less than two years, Nintendo’s Miitomo game, its first to come to iOS, will officially shutdown on May 9th, 2018. Nintendo made the announcement in a statement, explaining that come May 9th, you won’t be able to use any of the app’s features…
While some may argue that HomePod will fail in the market due to Siri’s performance compared to other voice assistants, many seem to discount the value of a smart speaker focused on high end sound quality. From the start, Apple has positioned HomePod as audio fidelity first, everything else second.
Based on a recent Reddit thread from r/audiophile, Apple has delivered on its hi-fi promise. Just like Apple has been praised for its displays on iPhones, iPads and Macs for being best-in-class and tuned to look true-to-life, the HomePod appears to be Apple showing off how it can use its audio engineering expertise to push the best performance out of a small music speaker…
LG may be producing more than just the OLED displays for this years iPhones. According to Korean news outlet The Investor, the South-Korean electronics company will be producing a new generation L-shaped battery for the 2018 iPhones.
Apple has released two new ads that use Animoji to sing Grammy nominated songs, as spotted by Adweek. The exclusive iPhone X feature has been very popular and also controversial as some see it as gimmicky. Apple has just added an additional four Animoji characters in iOS 11.3.
Update: Things appear to be back to normal an hour later
Apple’s System Status page states that several iCloud services are down for a small number of users. Notable services include Find My iPhone, iCloud Backup, and iCloud Mail.
After the last major Clips update, which included support for iPhone X and a handful of new filters, today Apple has pushed a new update for the app. Albeit not as exciting, the update includes a new poster for Chinese New Year and a few other minor changes.
The Un-carrier announced today that it will be offering unlimited talk (to the U.S.), text, and 4G LTE data for this year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. Best of all? It’s free.
On the heels of Apple reportedly securing a comedy series starring Kristen Wiig, the company has signed on director Damien Chazelle for another straight-to-seires drama, according to a report from Variety.
In a new Apple Newsroom report, the company has shared how a group of ten students from Hollywood High School were able to create short films on tight budgets with Apple products. The students worked alongside creative professionals and Apple retail experts in a month-long film-making project. Apple also says that it worked with two other independent movie studios, We Make Movies and Mobile Film Classroom.
Drake’s new single, God’s Plan, has broken single-day streaming music records on both Apple Music and Spotify with 14 million plays and 4.3 million plays respectively. The news was confirmed by Beats 1 host Zane Lowe in a tweet.
HomePod specs are indicating that Apple is serious about the audio quality on the device. Today, we’ve discovered that the smart speaker will support FLAC out of the box.
Apple is changing its focus on the popular network managing app, macOS Server. The company says that a number of services will be baked into the operating system and will be hidden on new macOS Server installations. However, those who are already using these features will be able to continue to use them after the spring 2018 macOS Server update.
Setapp, the service that allows you to download tons of Mac apps for just $9.99 a month, has recently gained some real traction. Founded by MacPaw, the app now has 15,000 subscribers after launching just a year ago, TechCrunch reports.
Apple will begin alerting users of 32-bit applications starting with the latest macOS High Sierra beta, reports The Loop. For now, users will only see the alert, however, future macOS updates may require action from developers.
Today is an unfortunate day for those who were looking to prolong the use of their Pebble smartwatch. The parent company, Fitbit, announced that it will be ending its support for the smartwatch on June 30, 2018.
The search engine DuckDuckGo has today revamped its iOS app to further protect your privacy online. The app is a mobile browser but also provides an extension that offers better tracker blocking, smarter encryption, and private search.
The Financial Times reports that Qualcomm could face up to a $2 billion fine from a European watchdog for having an anticompetitive chip deal with Apple. The watchdog says that it will sue Qualcomm for paying Apple to buy all of its communication chipsets between 2011 and 2016.
A report from China Times (translated) echoes news that we have heard from KGI that Apple is planning to release three new iPhones this year. The new models include 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch variants with OLED displays, and a 6.1-inch with an LCD display. However, this latest report shares new alleged details about the LCD panel for the 6.1-inch model.
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In an odd scenario, a man in China caused an iPhone to explode after trying to get a battery replacement. According to a report from Taiwan News, a man went into a third-party retailer to get his battery replaced but wanted to check the authenticity of the battery by biting into it. This caused the battery to burst into flames.
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Apple has today pushed an update to its TestFlight beta testing application. This brings the app version to 2.0.1 and includes a handful of new features.
This morning OpenSignal has published its annual report on the four major U.S. carriers. In 2017, the two largest U.S carriers, AT&T and Verizon, unleashed their unlimited data plans, which means all four major carriers now offer an unlimited data plan in some form. But the major two networks are seeing some challenges.