Table of contents for 143 in iPad & iPhone User

Surprise! Last month Apple announced updated models of the iPad Air and the iPad mini. Some of us gave up on seeing new versions of these models, but suddenly they’re available for purchase. We should have our hands on the new tablets soon, but we wanted to give you a quick rundown on what’s new and what remains the same for both iPads. iPad Air: What’s new Let’s kick off with what’s new with the iPad Air, which we thought was effectively replaced with the 10.5in iPad Pro in 2017. In essence, this is the iPad Air 3, but much as with the iPad mini, Apple’s dropping the numerals. It’s now just the iPad Air. The price sees a welcome change, as Apple now sells it for a starting…

Were you hoping that Apple would surprise us with a release of the AirPower wireless charging mat at some point in the coming days? Dash those hopes away, as TechCrunch reports, Apple has officially cancelled the project. “After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project,” said Apple hardware engineering chief Dan Riccio in a statement. “We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.” For a bit of a recap, AirPower was a multi-device charging mat that Apple announced way back in September 2017. Even recently you could find publicity photos showing how it could charge the Qi-compatible versions…

The focus of Apple’s Show Time event may have been TV entertainment services, but the company made a big splash right out of the gate with the announcement of Apple News+. As the name implies, it’s a premium version of Apple News that offers more content than you’ll get with the free app – all with a focus on magazines. Specifically, for $9.99 a month (£tbc), you and your family get access to more than 300 magazines and other publications ranging from National Geographic to Wired to The Wall Street Journal. We’ll dig deeper once we’ve spent time with Apple News+, but for now, here’s what intrigues us the most. Apple News+ can potentially save you money I’m one of the people who will likely see a real benefit from…

At long last, Apple took the wraps off of its new TV service. It’ll be called Apple TV+ and will include a variety of shows from the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Kevin Durant, and Rupert Grint. Several of the major players were on hand at the event to outline their vision, and Apple basically billed the service as the greatest collection of talent ever assembled on TV. But after the songs, standing ovations, and flowery rhetoric was complete, we didn’t learn much about the new service that we didn’t already know. It may be the first time Apple has confirmed that it is indeed working on its own original content, but that was hardly a secret. It didn’t actually answer any of the questions…

Apple has announced it is resurrecting the iPad Air with a brand-new model for 2019 (pictured). We see how this compares to its predecessor, the iPad Air 2, which made its debut way back in 2014. Price The iPad Air 2019 comes in two storage capacities, either of which is available with Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity. The prices for these are as follows. 64GB Wi-Fi: £479 256GB Wi-Fi: £629 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: £599 256GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: £749 Since the iPad Air 2 was discontinued in March 2017, and replaced with the plainly named iPad (2017) you can’t easily find them, especially if you want a new one. They do sometimes appear in the Refurbished section of the Apple store, and if you’re happy with a second-hand…

Price: £79 from fave.co/2HUTWHn Hook up any latter-day iPhone to the Gamevice and you’ll wind up with a device that looks a lot like a Nintendo Switch. An iPhone XS Max in particular does a good job of masquerading as the Switch’s expansive central touchscreen. The Gamevice controllers themselves hug the phone’s edges like Joy-Cons. So fully does the Gamevice pull off the illusion that I spent the week before its arrival envisioning a future where we wouldn’t even need devices like the Switch. With the help of peripherals like these, I was ready to proclaim, the iPhone alone would suffice. Naturally, the truth is a bit more complicated, which is probably why we haven’t heard about a Gamevice revolution in the six years since it launched. But let’s start…

Apple has announced the sequel to the AirPods, its true wireless earbuds that have proven to be far more popular than anyone ever expected. After more than two years, Apple’s follow-on to the AirPods is...AirPods? Okay, so the new second-generation AirPods aren’t exactly the true sequel we’ve all been hoping for. They still look and act like the AirPods we love, but they are substantially different than the first-generation model. Here are the most important things you should know. They’re not AirPods 2 The new AirPods are just that: new AirPods. They are not named AirPods 2, not billed as such on Apple’s site, and not sold separately from original AirPods. Apple still has only one AirPods page on its site, and it only sells the new model. If you…

Apple’s new gaming service is called Apple Arcade, and what Apple showed us on stage at its Show Time event looks like a cool service. Beginning sometime in the autumn, you’ll be able to pay Apple an unspecified subscription fee that grants access to around 100 ‘new and exclusive’ games. None of the games will have in-app purchases, and they will be playable on iOS devices and Macs only. All of the games will be accessible offline. This is all smart stuff as games have been among the primary drivers of revenue for the App Store for years now. Apple Arcade could be a sign that Apple is finally taking games seriously, and here’s why I’m looking forward to that. You’ll be able to play the same games on iOS…

We might not have seen a new iPhone at the Show Time event, but Apple did unveil a new product. It’s called Apple Card, and it’s sure to shake things up. Building on the success of Apple Pay, which will be available in more than 40 countries by the end of 2019, Apple Card – which consists of both a service and a sleek, thin, titanium card – dispenses with the usual confusion around credit cards to simplify and streamline financial transactions, as well as create an experience unlike any other card on the planet. It just might be the most revolutionary announcement Apple made. The firm said that by the end of the year Apple Pay will have been responsible for more than 10 billion transactions since its inception,…

I’ve seen numerous celebrities in the audience at Apple events over the years, but the event at the Steve Jobs Theater was different. Captain America himself, Chris Evans, was in the audience. (I just missed him, but I think I spotted Tim Robbins talking to Apple’s Eddy Cue.) On stage were plenty of famous entertainment-industry faces, from directors like Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams to actors including Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. Even Oprah was there. This was an Apple event unlike any other, and for many different reasons. There wasn’t any new hardware or software to speak of, for one, and such a concept would’ve seemed impossible for Apple even a couple of years ago. Stranger still, the event was aimed as much at the entertainment industry as at…

Prefer your iPads on the smaller side? You will be happy to learn that Apple has updated the iPad mini, almost four years after the previous model launched in September 2015. If you were hoping for a redesign you’ll be disappointed – the iPad mini (2019) is pretty much identical to the older model. In fact, the design of the iPad mini has hardly changed since it was launched in 2012. Price The iPad mini (2019) is available now. The price is determined by how much storage you require and whether you want to be able to connect to a mobile network. Your choices are as follows: 64GB Wi-Fi: £399 256GB Wi-Fi: £549 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: £519 256GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: £669 In terms of whether you are getting…

Apple Arcade lets users play more than 100 titles as much as they like for a set monthly fee. But which ones make it worth your while signing up for the service? It’s early days, and nobody outside the companies involved has played any of these new games just yet. But we’ve seen gameplay footage and screenshots, and formed some strong hunches about which titles are going to be the standouts. We round up the coolest-looking games on Apple Arcade. Beyond A Steel Sky This sequel to the beloved 1994 classic Beneath A Steel Sky looks very promising. It’s a puzzler that has you fighting against the AI system which was activated at the end of the original game, and exploring issues of privacy and corporate power. As in 1994,…

Apple has revealed that its Worldwide Developers Conference 2019 (WWDC19) will be held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, from 3 to 7 June. The company also launched the WWDC19 website fave.co/2HRzBD0, where developers can get session information and tickets. WWDC19 marks the 30th anniversary of the conference, which showcases the newest features in iOS, macOS, and other Apple products. The keynote presentation is not open to the public, but is usually streamed online on Apple’s website.…

After months of speculation, rumours, and leaks, Apple has finally taken the wraps off its plans for the future of TV, and it comes in two parts: There’s a new subscription service coming this autumn called Apple TV+, and an overhaul of the Apple TV app, coming this spring. We’ve covered Apple TV+ in a separate article (see page 46), but here’s what you need to know about the new TV app. A new design, but not many new features Though the TV app has a newly refreshed design, you’ll recognize many features from the current app. The Up Next section – which shows a list of next episodes for programmes you’ve watched, as well as TV shows or movies you stopped in the middle of – is still there.…

I expected ‘one more thing’ after Apple announced new iPads, AirPods and an updated iMac, and I was annoyed when I didn’t get it. Sure, I was disappointed, but my anticipation for another hardware refresh only proved that Apple’s experiment with dribbling out modest product releases is working. On each of the first three days of the third week of March, Apple dropped updated versions of existing products with little of its typical fanfare or event theatrics. It began with the iPad mini and iPad Air, then on the Tuesday progressed to the iMac, and finally the AirPods on the Wednesday. Nobody would call these earthshaking updates. Certainly none would have made the crowds ooh and ahh during a keynote. You could even argue they were disappointing on some level.…

As it turns out, it’s not time to play the music or light the lights. It’s not time to put on make-up or dress up right. It’s not actually ‘show time’ at all. Apple unveiled several services at its star-studded Show Time event, and they all have one thing on common: they’re not ready yet. The only service that’s available to try out now (if you live in the US) is Apple News+, and a quick scan of the titles available reveals that the majority of them haven’t been formatted to take advantage of the Apple News Format, so you’re basically getting PDFs. As far as the other services Apple announced, you’re going to have to wait: Apple TV Channels: May Apple TV+: Autumn Apple Arcade: Autumn Apple Card: Summer…

Price: £59 from fave.co/2OHXM7l Game controllers have been a part of the extended iPhone experience for years, but Apple’s older certification requirements kept them from fully mimicking the same experience you get from an Xbox One controller or Sony DualShock 4. Even with the best ones, there’s usually a catch. Sometimes you need to mash the buttons before they register. In other cases the latency is awful (particularly when the controllers run on Bluetooth). Worst of all, you usually can’t press down on either of the controller’s thumbsticks, which effectively makes some games all but unplayable. That’s why I’m so happy to see the Rotor Riot Game Controller. It’s the first MFi (Made for iPhone) controller that takes advantage of Apple’s looser restrictions that dropped with iOS 12. It has…

A few years ago, the iPad was in disarray. Sales were collapsing and the line-up of products was a mess. Fixing things takes time, but look at what we’ve got today: with the introduction of the fifth-generation iPad mini and the third-generation iPad Air, iPad is now Apple’s most coherent and complete product line. Cleaning up the mess As iPad sales dropped from their early-decade highs, Apple had a problem: to push the iPad hardware forward and please a user base that clamoured for more power and features, it would need to develop cutting-edge technology. But the rest of the tablet market (and the education market in general) was going in the opposite direction, toward cut-rate tablets so cheap they’re sometimes sold in bulk. The iPad was caught in the…