Tech Talk

With the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch approaching, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at an interesting bit of Apple Watch history. After the Apple Watch was announced in 2014, and before it became available in 2015, Apple sent out custom Apple Watch iPad demo kiosks to retail stores. The Apple Watch and ‌iPad‌ units used for these devices were specially designed, had custom software, and represent the first and only time that an Apple Watch was able to pair with an ‌iPad‌. AppleDemoYT , known for sourcing rare prototypes, shared images and detailed information about the demo units with MacRumors , offering up detailed insight on the lengths Apple went to for this custom experience. AppleDemoYT was able to acquire one of these now-rare demo units. Jony Ive and his design team came up with the Apple Watch ‌iPad‌ Kiosks as a way for customers to try out an Apple Watch without needing help from an employee. Apple used a modified iPad mini 2 running iOS 8.2 pai

Apple today dropped the price of the MLS Season Pass for the rest of the 2024 Major League Soccer season, which is about a third of the way through. MLS in the U.S. now costs $69, down from $99 when the season began in February. For Apple TV+ subscribers, the pass is now just $59. The MLS Season Pass offers access to every live Major League Soccer match, including Leagues Cup, and All-Star games. Apple offered a similar discount last year, but it came later in the season in September. The 2024 Major League Soccer season will run through October 19, and the MLS Season Pass also includes live coverage of the playoffs that are expected to start in mid-October. The MLS Season Pass is available in the TV app on Apple devices and on Apple TV 4K. Tag: Apple TV Plus This article, " Apple Discounts MLS Season Pass " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums Source: TechRadar

TikTok appears to be quietly showing some users an option to purchase "coins" on the web instead of through in-app purchases, circumventing the commission that Apple receives on digital purchases. As noted by David Tesler (via TechCrunch ) TikTok has been offering a limited number of TikTok app users an option to purchase coins on TikTok.com instead of in the app. "Try recharging on tiktok.com to avoid in-app service fees," reads the text. "You can save the service fee and get access to popular payment methods." TikTok might get banned from the app store next week Why? It looks like they’re circumventing apple fee by directing users to purchase coins via external payment methods pic.twitter.com/VG8ihvsRmv — David Tesler (@getdavenow) April 30, 2024 Following through and opting to purchase from TikTok.com brings up an interface for using payment options such as PayPal or a credit/debit card. "Save around 25% with a lower third-party servic

With iOS 17.5, Apple is adding a "Repair State" feature that is designed to allow an iPhone to be sent in for service without deactivating Find My and Activation Lock. The fourth iOS 17.5 beta that came out today adds a "Remove This Device" option for all devices in ‌Find My‌, and using it with an ‌iPhone‌ puts that ‌iPhone‌ into the new Repair State. Right now, sending an ‌iPhone‌ to Apple to be repaired requires turning off Find My , and Apple says that it "might not" be able to repair devices that have ‌Find My‌ activated. Turning off ‌Find My‌ disables Activation Lock, an important anti-theft security feature that prevents an ‌iPhone‌ from being used with another Apple ID . Apple currently uses ‌Find My‌ and Activation Lock as a way to ensure that a person sending a device in for repair actually owns that device, and that it's not stolen. An ‌iPhone‌ sent in for repair with ‌Find My‌ disabled cannot be tracked, and it is not protected from t

For the upcoming iPhone 16, Apple will adopt the same color-infused back glass that features on the standard iPhone 15 models, claims a new rumor out of China. Last year, Apple debuted a custom dual-ion exchange glass process on the non-premium iPhone 15 models that gives the rear glass layer a frosted effect that contrasts with the main frame color. Apple's description of the effect on the iPhone 15: "For the first time in a smartphone, colour is infused throughout the back glass, creating five beautiful colours. The back glass is strengthened with an optimised dual-ion exchange process before being polished with nanocrystalline particles and etched to create a luxurious, textured matte finish." According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed focus digital," who claims to have seen the iPhone 16 color scheme , Apple will use the same process for the back glass on the new models, which could come in as many as seven colors this year as opposed to five. iPho

Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence experts from Google and created a "secretive European laboratory" in Zurich to house a new team of staff tasked with building new AI models and products, according to a paywalled Financial Times report. Based on an analysis of LinkedIn profiles conducted by FT , Apple has recruited at least 36 specialists from Google since 2018, when it poached John Giannandrea to be its top AI executive. Apple's main AI team works out of California and Seattle, but the company has recently expanded offices dedicated to AI work in Zurich, Switzerland. Apple's acquisition of local AI startups FaceShift (VR) and Fashwell (image recognition) is believed to have influenced its decision to build a secretive research lab known as "Vision Lab" in the city. According to the report, employees based in the lab have been involved in Apple's research into the underlying technology that powers OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot

With Apple soon to be required to bring the same EU changes that it made on the iPhone to the iPad , Epic Games today confirmed that it will release Fortnite for the ‌iPad‌ in the future. ‌Epic Games‌ is already working to release an ‌iPhone‌ version of Fortnite in the EU, with the game set to be available from the forthcoming ‌Epic Games‌ Store, an alternative app marketplace. The ‌iPhone‌ version of Fortnite is coming "soon," and an ‌iPad‌ version will follow "this year." The European Commission said this morning that iPadOS, the operating system designed to run on the ‌iPad‌, is considered a digital gatekeeper under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). As a result, Apple has six months to comply with the requirements set by the DMA, and we've already seen those requirements implemented on ‌iPhone‌. Today, the European Commission said that iPads will also need to comply with the Digital Markets Act 🙌 We’re moving full steam ahead to bring For

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today announced [ PDF ] that it has fined AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint/T-Mobile $196 million collectively for illegally selling access to customer location information without consent. Sprint and T-Mobile (now merged into T-Mobile) have been fined $12 million and $80 million, respectively. Verizon has been fined almost $47 million, and AT&T has been fined more than $57 million. The FCC first began investigating the four major U.S. carriers in 2019 after they were found selling real-time location information from customer devices to third-party data aggregators, which led to that location data being sold a second time to private investigators, bounty hunters, law enforcement agencies, credit card companies, and more. Following the investigation, the FCC confirmed that wireless carriers had violated federal law by sharing consumer location data. Fines were proposed back in 2020 , but carriers were given an opportuni

Game emulator Delta has made a splash on iPhone following Apple's recently announced App Store support for retro game emulators, and now the developer Riley Testut has confirmed that Delta is almost ready for its iPad debut. In a post shared on Threads over the weekend, Testut said the iPad version is "near completion," with just controller skins to finish and some bug fixes to iron out. Testut explained that Delta for iPad had not originally been a development priority because the plan was to limit the emulator's launch to the EU via alternative app marketplace AltStore PAL, which doesn't support iPad. However, in a reversal of a years-old policy, Apple earlier this month announced that it would allow retro game emulators on the ‌App Store‌. Delta was therefore made available on the App Store as a free download in the United States and other countries on April 17, with users supporting the developer via Patreon . Delta has been hugely popular since

Apple does not plan to launch a second-generation version of its Vision Pro headset until the end of 2026, Bloomberg 's Mark Gurman reports. Writing in the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter , Gurman said Apple's latest Vision Pro roadmap "doesn't currently call for a second-generation model until the end of 2026." In February 2024 , he said that the device was "at least 18 months away." According to Gurman's sources, Apple is still trying to figure out a way to bring a cheaper version to market before then, although the company remains "flummoxed" by how exactly to bring down the cost. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in February said he believes new Vision Pro models with significant changes to the specification may not enter mass production until 2027. At the time, Kuo said he did expect a modified Vision Pro to enter mass production in late 2025 to early 2026, with Apple focused on improving costs and production