Review: Kito+, the iPhone case that doubles as a portable ECG machine and more
Prior to the official announcement of the Apple Watch, there were multiple rumors that the device would be packed with health-related sensors. When it finally launched, however, it got just a heart-rate monitor – albeit a sophisticated one. A teardown revealed that there’s also a pulse oximeter in there, to measure oxygen saturation in your blood, but Apple hasn’t yet activated that functionality.
The apparent turnabout on sensors was explained by Tim Cook, who last year told the Telegraph that Apple wanted to avoid the need for FDA approval as a regulated health product as that would slow innovation. Any additional sensors, he strongly hinted, would be external.
If you don’t want to wait that long, however, health-tech company Azoi has launched the Kito+, a credit-card sized unit that pairs with an iPhone app to measure heart-rate, ECG, blood oxygen, respiration rate and skin temperature. Costing £99 ($145), you can either use it as a standalone unit, or slot it into the supplied iPhone case for the iPhone 6/6s/Plus …
Filed under: Reviews Tagged: ECG, Health, Health tech, heart rate, heart rate monitor, Kito+, Medica, O2 saturation, Pulse oximeter
Streaming of Drake’s new ‘Views’ album exclusive to Apple Music, available for download on iTunes
Streaming of Drake’s latest album Views has hit Apple Music, and will be exclusive to the streaming service for one week, the rapper announced on Beats 1. This confirmed an earlier Buzzfeed report.
Drake told Zach Lowe that the album is a very personal one, based very much on his own feelings about himself and his home city of Toronto.
I’m a very honest person. I can’t write fiction.
The short one-week exclusivity period was perhaps agreed in the light of some high-profile U-turns by artists who had initially promised full exclusivity elsewhere …
Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Apple Music, Beats 1, Drake, iTunes, Views
Report: FBI actually paid less than $1 million for tool to unlock San Bernardino iPhone
In a new report, Reuters this evening is claiming that the FBI paid less than $1 million for the tool it used to unlock the San Bernardino gunman’s iPhone 5c. Apple, of course, denied to create a tool to do so, so the FBI went through a third-party to gain access. The report, citing “several U.S. government sources,” further claims that the technique can be used on any iPhone 5c running iOS 9.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: iPhone 5C, San Bernardino
Apple expands Flyover, Spotlight Suggestions, & traffic data to new locations
Apple today has expanded its popular Apple Maps Flyover feature to a pair of new cities, while it has also rolled out Spotlight Suggestions to new countries and its traffic data to a single new location. For Flyover, the iOS 9 feature is now available in Akron, Ohio and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. This brings the grand total of Flyover locations to over 260 cities as Apple has been expanding the feature at a brisk pace.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Maps, Spotlight
Apple Music for Android updated with family plan & video support
Apple today is rolling out an update to the Apple Music app for Android users. The update continues to bring the app up to speed with its iOS counterpart and adds support for music videos and family memberships. The update follows the addition of widget support last month for the Android Apple Music app.
Filed under: Apple Music Tagged: Android, Apple Music
Apple updates iMovie for Mac with navigation & visual improvements, more
Apple today is rolling out a small update to its iMovie video editing software on the Mac. The update bumps the app to version 10.1.2 and follows an update that fixed YouTube sharing bugs and improved stability. Today’s update includes a couple of changes that improve navigation, as well as your standard bug fixes and stability improvements.
more…
Apple Store in Marseille, France set to open May 14 as construction progresses at new SF store
Apple has officially announced that its new retail store in Marseille, France will open May 14 with the usual announcement on its website (via MacGeneration).
The new retail store, located at the Les Terrasses du Port shopping mall, is Apple’s 20th location in France. That’s if including the shop within Galeries Lafayette that it opened last year as one of several boutique locations for sales of the Apple Watch. Apple is also planning other retail stores for the country including a high-profile flagship location on Champs-Élysées in Paris.
And today we also get a look at how work on Apple’s new flagship San Francisco location is progressing with the shot below sent in by a reader (Thanks David O.):
Apple first received approval for the new two-story Union Square retail store a couple of years back. It plans to replace its current Stockton Street location with the new flagship store when construction wraps up. You can see what the store will look like once complete in these renders.
The new Marseille, France store will open 10am local time on May 14 at the Les Terrasses du Port shopping mall.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Store, France, Marseille, May 14, opening, retail, San Francisco, Union Square
Apple releases official Apple Music API documentation following iOS 9.3
Apple today has officially released more information on the Apple Music API available in iOS 9.3. Entitled Apple Music Best Practices for App Developers, the documentation today solidifies what the Apple Music API can do and sets a precedent that developers of music apps should follow. At the original release of iOS 9.3, there seemed to be some confusion as to what the Apple Music API would entail exactly. We had reached out to Ben Dodson, developer of Music Tracker, to better understand the limitations and new features the API could introduce. Today’s document verifies our original thoughts.
Filed under: Apple Music, Developers, iOS Tagged: Apple Music, Apple Music API, iOS
Billionaire AAPL investor Carl Icahn says he’s totally out of the stock
Despite Apple’s $50 billion quarter with $10 billion in revenue, the January to March period marked Apple’s first quarter in 13 years without growth including year-over-year iPhone sales declines for the first time. Apple set the expectations back in January, but its stock still took a beating after this week’s earnings report. Now activist investor Carl Icahn, who has been very noisy about what he thinks Apple should do in the past, tells CNBC he has sold his massive share of Apple stock. Icahn once owned nearly 1% of Apple’s shares, and publicizing that he’s out of the stock will likely influence other investors to follow.
Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: AAPL
Feature Request: How Apple’s Siri-controlled HomeKit could improve in the future
Like a lot of new technologies from Apple these days, HomeKit isn’t perfect but the parts that work well are really useful. Apple’s home automation framework connects smart accessories from various companies all under the control of Siri and HomeKit apps like Home or Hesperus. But HomeKit is relatively young still and there’s plenty of low hanging fruit in terms of ways the framework could improve with iOS 10 and beyond. Here are a few ideas I hope we see with HomeKit this year:
Filed under: Feature Request, HomeKit Tagged: homekit