iOS

Apple is releasing the first public betas of its next round of software updates today. This includes iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 which launched to developer beta testers earlier this week. Head below for details on what’s new.

Apple has released an updated build of iOS 14.5 to developers today. This comes after the release of beta 1 earlier this week. The new build released today is still referred to as beta 1, but it features a new build number.

Apple is releasing the first developer beta of iOS 14.5 today following last week’s release of iOS 14.4 to the public. iOS 14.5 is expected to include the groundwork for Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency privacy feature, among other changes.

Live TV app “Channels” is out with an update today for Apple TV and iOS that brings the highly requested Picture in Picture support. After a good amount of work, the Channels team was able to figure out how to offer PiP without the need for transcoding or a DVR server.

A new upcoming email client called Big Mail is preparing to roll out its beta to early users. Like many email apps before it, Big Mail’s goal is to reimagine email and take away the pain points. While that’s a tall order, from looking at the radically different approach to the UI and how useful and sharp it could be, Big Mail might be onto something.

At Build 2020, Microsoft’s annual developer conference, the company announced a new service called Microsoft Lists. Today, the app has been made available to download from the App Store.

Update January 19, 2021: Apple has reverted this server-side change, and it is once again possible to side-load unsupported iPhone and iPad apps on an M1 Mac. We don’t expect this to last long, so if there are any iPhone or iPad apps you want on your Mac, download them sooner rather than later using iMazing.

Earlier this week, 9to5Mac reported that Apple would soon start blocking users from side loading iPhone and iPad applications to their M1 Macs. Now, Apple has officially flipped the server-side switch to implement this change.

This means that it is no longer possible to use an app such as iMazing to side load unsupported applications from your iPhone or iPad to your M1 Mac.

Two weeks ago, a report from Fast Company highlighted that Google had suspiciously not updated the vast majority of its iOS apps since December 7, a day before Apple required developers to provide a privacy report for every app available on the App Store. Following that report, Google quickly fired back and said it would start updating its iOS apps with the privacy labels as soon as that same week, the week of January 4.

Two weeks later, Google still hasn’t updated the vast majority of its iOS applications with these privacy labels, including its popular apps such as Gmail and YouTube. Even if Google has no mal-intent, this scattershot approach is leaving users puzzled and concerned.

A security researcher at Johns Hopkins University who led an examination into the robustness of smartphone encryption systems says he was shocked by the Android and iOS vulnerabilities they discovered.

He said that iOS in particular has extremely secure encryption capabilities, but these are not in use much of the time …

Widgetsmith continues to add new ways to customize your iOS 14 home screen. A new update to the app today brings a new collection of health-focused widgets designed to help you start 2021 off right, as well as a new photo widget that displays the weather as well.

Minecraft Earth was unveiled back in early 2019 and some of the first gameplay was shown off at WWDC 2019 before launching in November that year. The idea was really neat, bringing Minecraft’s collaborative, creative play to the real world with AR but the reality of 2020 and the pandemic has forced the end of the game.

Last August, Apple filed a lawsuit against virtualization company Corellium, which allows users to virtualize iOS for security research purposes. Now, a judge has thrown out Apple’s claims that Corellium’s virtualization tools violated copyright law.

Apple gift cards are some of the most common gifts every year, especially if you’re a techie who is hard to shop for. Nowadays, Apple gift cards are good not only for apps, but also for Apple Music, Apple TV+, and more. Here are some of the best iOS apps and games to buy with the iTunes gift cards you unwrapped this holiday season.

Earlier this year Apple launched a new program called the Security Research Device Program to help researchers find vulnerabilities in iOS and also in its devices. Researchers can apply to get the special hardware since June, and now the company is finally shipping these “rooted” iPhones to those who have been accepted.

Apple has rolled out its new iOS app privacy labels (the nutrition label equivalent for apps) for both first-party and third-party apps. Read along for how to check iOS app privacy details for apps in the App Store as well as those that come preloaded on iPhone and iPad to fully understand how your information is being used.

With the public release of iOS 14.3 today, Apple has made the experience of using custom home screen icons much better. Now custom icons created through the Shortcuts app launch right into your desired app instead of opening the Shortcuts app first.

Below you can find a roundup of some beautiful and unique custom icon packs to spice up your iOS or iPadOS device. If you don’t already know how to add these icons to your Home Screen, you can check out our how-to guide.

A bug resulting in missing text message notifications is continuing to affect iPhone users with iOS 14. While the issue appeared to at first to be exclusive to the iPhone 12 series, it appears to be affecting nearly any iPhone model running iOS 14 — and the early signs are that iOS 14.3 doesn’t fix the problem either.