iOS

Apple announced in December 2020 that 81% of iPhones introduced in the last four years were already running iOS 14, which is the latest version of the company’s mobile operating system. Now the analyst company Mixpanel says that iOS 14 adoption among iPhone and iPad users has already surpassed 90%.

Apple today has stopped signing iOS 14.4.1, which means that users who have updated their device to iOS 14.4.2 can no longer downgrade. This follows Apple’s release of iOS 14.4.2 one week ago, which included an important security fix.

As part of today’s release of iOS 14.5 beta 6, Apple is making several notable changes to Siri. The company says that Siri will no longer default to a female voice starting with iOS 14.5, and it’s adding two additional voice options from which to choose. The changes also apply to the HomePod.

Tech companies have been talking more about privacy in recent years, and Apple proudly says that it protects user data more than anyone else. This week, new research by Douglas Leith from Trinity College showed that Google collects up to 20 times more data from Android users compared to the data Apple collects from iOS users.

One of our modern challenges is keeping track of the things we actually want to spend our time on with the massive amount of digital content that’s available. Sofa is a sharp iOS app that looks to solve that problem with a simple, yet customizable hub to organize movies, TV, music, books, podcasts, apps, games, and more to check out in the future. Along with a new Sofa update landing today, we went hands-on with the free iOS app for a closer look.

Custom icon packs for iOS and iPadOS have become super popular with the changes made to Shortcuts in iOS 14. Today, we’ve got a round-up of some beautiful iOS icon packs inspired by the 1984 Macintosh and the original version of macOS.

Among all the new features introduced with iOS 14.5, which had its fourth beta released today to developers, there are also some changes hidden in the operating system’s internal codes. This time, 9to5Mac found references suggesting that Apple is working on a new method for delivering standalone iOS security updates.

Through an app update today, Twitter teased plans to roll out its Spaces voice-chatting feature broadly. Once this feature is available, anyone can create live rooms with up to 10 people speaking and unlimited numbers can join to listen.

As Jeff Benjamin noted in 9to5Mac’s video coverage, iOS 14.5 will use Siri intelligence to select music services based on listening behaviors. While the feature falls short of actually allowing you to set a default music service, it will open Siri to easier music control for more services without having to specify which service to use. Apple has now described in more detail how it intends the new behavior to work.

Apple has announced that it is discontinuing its Music Memos application. As such, it has rolled out an update to the app today to allow users to export their recordings to the Voice Memos app. This is the first update to Music Memos in over a year, and it’s sole purpose to sunset the app altogether.

Update March 2, 2021: Apple has officially discontinued the Music Memos application and removed it from the App Store completely. This was first spotted by The 8-Bit.

Back in May of 2020, Twitter started testing a feature on iOS aimed at helping users rethink a reply before hitting the send button when it might contain offensive language. After pausing the testing, Twitter has announced today that it has relaunched the experiment.

As Apple adds more emoji with each subsequent iOS update, it’s getting harder and harder to sift through all them just to find the emoji you want to use. The “frequently used” emoji panel helps with this to some extent, but it is dynamic and only “remembers” so many. Typing descriptors to search for emoji can be tedious, and what if you don’t know the proper search terms to bring up the emoji you want? Or, if you are like me, you tend to frequently use just a select few emoji? The solution is the implementation of “favorite emoji.”

Twitter has posted about half a dozen new open positions for its in the works subscription service, and this time the new roles include two that are specifically for iOS engineers. Last summer we saw Twitter accidentally publicly revealed its new Gryphon team that’s working on a subscription product in a job listing before quickly redacting the mention of a subscription.

Apple introduced a privacy feature for iPad Pro last year that physically disconnects the microphone when compatible cases are closed. Apple will soon expand this privacy feature to work through software more iPad models that don’t support mic hardware disconnection.

iOS 14.5 beta 2 is rolling out today to developers alongside the second beta of iPadOS 14.5. The update, which includes includes a variety of new features for iPhone users, was first released over two weeks ago on February. Head below for everything you need to know.

In this latest edition of What’s on my iPhone, I take a look at some of the apps that I use on a regular basis. Some of these apps have been around for years, while others are relatively new to the first page of my iPhone’s home screen. Inside you’ll find details on my favorite Reddit client, my go-to app for securing cryptocurrency, an app that helps put the kibosh on annoying robocallers, and more. Watch our hands-on What’s on My iPhone episode, and subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more videos like this.

Nudget is a popular budgeting app for iPhone that launched last July, giving users a way to easily track expenses and insights. The app has received a major update this week, bringing it to version 2.0 with new features such as Face ID and Touch ID support, iCloud syncing, and an iPad app.

Matthew Inman – the developer behind the hit game “Exploding Kittens” – has launched an all-new free game today that’s a mix between Scrabble and Clash Royale. “Kitty Letter” looks like a super fun new twist on the genre of word games, check out all the details below.