Table of contents for 141 in iPad & iPhone User

You might want turn off FaceTime right this second. There’s a nasty new bug in iOS 12 that lets FaceTime callers hear sound from the recipient’s microphone even if they haven’t picked up. It works by exploiting a bug with Apple’s newish Group FaceTime feature introduced in iOS 12.1, but fortunately Apple says a fix is already in the works. In a media statement quickly after the story began spreading, Apple acknowledged the existence of the bug: “We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week.” About an hour later, Apple disabled Group FaceTime altogether. Word of the bug started spreading on social media late January, but there’s evidence that users may have already informed Apple about…

Apple doesn’t often participate in big industry-wide events such as CES or E3. The most valuable company in the world holds its own events, thank you very much. Several times a year, Apple invites the press and industry professionals out to a theatre to hear all about its latest products and services. Apple calls these ‘Special Events’, and streams them online to its millions of fans. There’s also WWDC, Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, a multi-day event in the middle of the year focused on sessions for developers, helping them make the most out of the latest Apple tools and products. It kicks off with a big keynote that serves to announce new products (typically the latest versions of iOS and macOS, as well as a few hardware products). Apple usually…

Perhaps the most important feature of the modern era of the smartphone is the camera. The operating systems are mature, the processors and data connections are fast, the apps are plentiful, and the high-resolution screens are large and brilliant. Having a camera with us wherever we go has changed how we view the world and share our lives with others, and the thin shell of a smartphone puts some pretty severe limitations on photography. Compared to a decade ago, of course, today’s smartphone cameras offer eye-poppingly good image quality. But if you’re shopping for a new smartphone, the camera matters – and the competition is fierce. For years, Apple has promoted the iPhone as offering a high-quality camera, even if it didn’t always match up to competitors with more raw…

As we saw last issue, Apple’s latest results are in and, despite a downturn in iPhone sales that require reissuing its revenue estimates, Apple still managed to pull in billions of dollars in its latest quarter. Yes, the drop in iPhone sales that we’ve all been talking about did hurt Apple’s bottom line, but the company is certainly not about to pack it all in. However, Apple’s most recent report brought to mind a few of the decisions that the company has made in recent years – decisions that don’t always please the end user, but help Apple’s bottom line. The results in the most recent quarter seem to implicitly reaffirm that those decisions are here to stay, no matter how unpopular they might be among some segments of the…

Let us pity them – the sad, devoted lovers of the iPad mini. In the wake of every Apple iPad event since 2015, you can find them frowning in the crowds or, later, rushing to Reddit to weep in collective misery at the absence of their beloved device’s Fifth Coming. But I say there’s no cause for all that melodrama. I say Apple has already given us the latest iPad mini: it’s just calling it the iPhone XS Max. Extra padding This would have been a weaker argument as recently as a year ago, when Apple’s largest phones remained saddled with chunky bezels. Now, we’re seeing a reversal of the old order. In 2010 it was popular to joke that the iPad was little more than a massive iPhone, but…

It seems that Apple has had it up to here with Facebook. Following a recent report by TechCrunch that the social media giant had circumvented the App Store to distribute a ‘Research’ app to users, Apple has revoked a developer licence from Facebook, effectively shutting down any iOS apps that haven’t already been approved for the App Store. While the move won’t have an effect on your ability to post and message your friends using your iPhone, Facebook employees will certainly feel the repercussions. Without the developer certificate, Facebook’s internal iOS apps, which likely include beta versions of its consumer apps as well as company-specific resources, will no longer work. Apple hasn’t indicated whether this is a temporary ban or how it will monitor Facebook’s activities in the future, but…

Like clockwork, Apple releases a major revision of iOS every year. The company formally unveils the new operating system for iPhone and iPad at WWDC in June, followed by a beta testing period and then a final release in the autumn (typically in September, just before the new iPhones hit the shelves). One never really knows exactly what new features and design changes Apple will bring until the company gets on stage at WWDC, but the rumour mill churns early and often. After all, iOS is one of the widest-used and most influential consumer operating systems in the world. We have our own wish list of iOS 13 features, but we’ve also collected all the rumours about iOS 13 here. Dark Mode Easily the top requested feature among Apple fans…

Apple’s AirPower is a wireless charging pad that’s designed to help clean up the mess of charging cables for your iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Apple unveiled AirPower at its iPhone X Event in 2017, but the company didn’t provide much detail. We hope to fill the void here. Latest news Will the AirPower actually ship this year? If the recent rumours are to believe, it could. On 31 December 2018, developer Steve Troughton-Smith tweeted that he had heard that AirPower has been fixed. On January 11 this year, ChargerLab tweeted that a “credible source” informed the site that Luxshare Precision (which manufactures Apple’s AirPods and USB-C cables) has started manufacturing the AirPower for Apple. Now there’s a report from DigiTimes saying that the device will become available later in…

You just got a new iPhone, you’re done setting it up, and it’s time to hit the App Store. Which apps should you download to really make your iPhone great? Obviously, there are the go-to standards that nearly everyone seems to have on their phone. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, maybe Netflix or Amazon… you don’t need a list of suggestions to tell you about those household names. If you’re new to iPhone, or just looking to find some new favourite apps, you should also consider these must-have suggestions. Shortcuts Price: Free from fave.co/2WL6Ls9 It’s weird that Apple touted the Shortcuts app as one of the key features of iOS 12, but doesn’t install it by default. You have to go to the App Store to grab it. The app lets…

You can now play Fortnite on your iPhone with a MFi (Made for iOS) controller such as the SteelSeries Nimbus or the SteelSeries Stratus XL, and that’s a pretty big deal. The standard touch controls worked well enough when you were playing against other iPhone players, but they made you a walking target when you joined friends who were playing on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, or PC. True controller support, though, gives you a fighting chance. It works so well, in fact, that this could be a landmark moment in mobile gaming. We’ve had MFi controllers for years, of course, but rarely have they been put to such good use and for such a noteworthy property. Now that anyone can play the world’s most popular video game on an…

Apple and gaming might seem like an oxymoron to some (especially to serious gamers), but a new report says the iPhone maker is hoping to change that in a big way. According to Cheddar, Apple is planning to launch a subscription service for games and may partner with third-party developers as a video game publisher. The report Is light on specifics, but a Netflixstyle premium subscription service for games would represent a major move by Apple to expand its gaming cred beyond the App Store. Presumably an Apple-branded gaming service would require an Apple TV, but Apple could also simply charge a flat fee for access to iOS App Store games, cutting out the middle-men for things like in-app purchases and updates. Cheddar also suggests that Apple is exploring the…

What’s in store for the new iPhone in 2019? We won’t officially know until the autumn (most likely in September), but until then, you can bet that the rumour mill will be fully operational. Here we keep track of what’s being rumoured as new features of the 2019 iPhones, and we’ll provide some analysis and whether or not a rumour seems feasible. Three-camera system The rear three-camera 2019 iPhone rumour continues, this time with a report by Bloomberg. It says that Apple is currently testing iPhones with a rear three-camera system that will be found on larger iPhone models. The third camera will allow a larger field of view, a wider range of zoom, and the ability to capture more pixels. Apple is also working on a new version of…

Apple is not a company that’s ever been afraid to kill off its products. At the height of the iPod mini’s popularity, Steve Jobs famously axed it in order to introduce the iPod nano. The underperforming iPod Hi-Fi got the hook, and in recent years we’ve said goodbye to both the AirPort line and most of the iPods. But when a product lies fallow for many years, sitting without an update, it hangs in that liminal space between life and death, leading many to wonder whether it still has a future. Is it ready to shuffle off this mortal coil or could it be rescued from the edge of the abyss? The Mac mini, MacBook Air, and even the Mac Pro have seen this kind of revival in recent months,…

After years and years of prognosticating doom and gloom for Apple, the analysts finally got it right: iPhone sales are slumping. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and there was enough smoke to suggest that Apple’s quarter would be a dumpster fire for iPhone sales. Tim Cook placed much of the blame on China in a letter to investors, and while there may be some truth to that, plenty of other factors contributed to the declining sales. Here are five reasons why the iPhone hit a sales snag and how Apple can fix them all. 1. Simplify the iPhone line-up There was a time when choosing which iPhone to buy was a matter of deciding whether you wanted one in black or white. Those days are long gone,…

Much has been written – a lot of it by me, admittedly – about how Apple’s commitment to let iOS developers bring their apps to macOS in 2019 has the potential to dramatically change the Mac. But adding iOS apps to the Mac might not be where Apple stops. What if the company uses macOS 10.15 to further unify the interfaces of its platforms? For all the discussion about whether iOS apps running on a Mac can possibly live up to the platform’s interface standards, it’s entirely possible that this year, Apple will choose to redefine what it is to be Mac-like in a way that turns iOS and macOS into a continuum of interface decisions that are all, for lack of a better phrase, ‘Apple-like’. Longtime Mac users might…