Twitter testing breaking news alerts in iOS app with Berlin Christmas market attack

Twitter has used the Berlin Christmas market attack to test push notifications of breaking news alerts in its iOS app. Buzzfeed notes that the company appears to be aiming to reinvent itself as a news app as it recently switched category in the App Store from Social Media to News.

After a truck crashed into the Berlin Christmas market […] Twitter pushed a breaking news alert to some of its users that linked to Twitter’s Moments tab, which summarizes the news in tweets. The company did a similar thing when Fidel Castro died last month …

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Filed under: Apple

Apple AirPods still work and practically unscathed after 10ft drop test, washing machine cycle and water submersion

Yesterday, we shared a video of a marathon runner testing the real-world resilience of the AirPods as fitness workout headphones. Apple doesn’t claim that the wireless earbuds are waterproof so there were some fears that they would be ruined by sweat or simply fall out.

These concerns appear unfounded as the AirPods excelled in that test and now another video show the AirPod earbuds and case going through multiple drop tests, water submersion and even a washing machine cycle with detergent. Incredibly, they still work after all of that with only minor scuffs …

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Filed under: Apple

Apple discussing Indian factories, say government officials, but seeking financial incentives

Two senior government officials have said that Apple is ‘discussing with the Indian government the possibility of manufacturing its products in the country,’ reports the WSJ. Apple is said to be seeking financial incentives in order to proceed.

Apple has been trying for some time to open retail stores in India, plans which have been stymied by a government requirement to source 30% of products locally in order to be permitted to open single-brand stores. There have long been contradictory reports that Apple may or may not be granted an exemption.

The Indian market holds massive potential for Apple for two simple reasons …

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Filed under: Apple

Report: After fatal accident, Apple says it is working to add rail crossing data to Maps

As navigation apps such as Apple Maps become a more integral part of society, a variety of effects are starting to become apparent. A new report from The New York Times details how Google Maps played a role in a fatal accident in 2015 on railroad tracks in California:

Following directions from Google Maps on a smartphone last year, Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez turned a Ford truck, hauling a trailer, where he thought the app was telling him to go. But he ended up stuck on the railroad tracks at a poorly marked California crossing.

Soon after Mr. Sanchez-Ramirez abandoned the truck, a commuter train barreled into it, killing the engineer and injuring 32 others.

Following a nearly two-year long investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board is calling on companies such as Apple and Google to add the exact location of 200,000 grade crossings to their mapping data…

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Filed under: Apple

Tim Cook explains reasoning for Trump meeting to employees, says ‘you don’t change things by yelling’

Last week, Tim Cook was part of a roundtable meeting with President-elect Donald Trump and other technology executives, including Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Elon Musk. Given that Cook and Trump have been pretty apparent differences on the surface, many wondered why Cook attended the meeting in the first place.

Cook was asked this very question on Apple’s internal employee info service Apple Web today, and TechCrunch got its hands on the answer.

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Filed under: Apple

How-to: Pair AirPods with Android, Apple TV, PC, older Macs, and more

Apple’s new AirPods are out, and first impressions are rolling in. One of the common misconceptions that arose when the AirPods were originally announced was that they could not pair with other non-Apple devices. Luckily, this just isn’t true. Apple’s W1 chip makes pairing to Apple devices incredibly easy, but it doesn’t stop other systems from pairing. If you want to pair the AirPods to an Android device, Apple TV, PC, or even an older Mac that doesn’t have Handoff support, read below on how to pair your AirPods to other Bluetooth devices.

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Filed under: Apple

Facebook Messenger update brings new interface, group video chat, and live 3D masks

In posts shared today by David Marcus, Facebook Messenger’s team lead, Facebook’s Messenger application will be seeing two new major changes to the chat application. The most noticeable of which is a new interface to the messenger application, and the new ability to begin group video chats. The update brings the app to version 100.0 just before the year’s end.

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Filed under: Apple