watchOS 2.2 adds Nearby search to Maps for Apple Watch

by | Jan 16, 2016 |

watchOS 2 Apple Watch Maps

The Maps app for the Apple Watch is set to receive a useful upgrade with new features with the upcoming watchOS 2.2 release. Currently in beta, the upcoming software update adds the Nearby search features in Apple Maps as well as quick navigation buttons for travel directions to home and work addresses.

In the current watchOS version, the Maps application launches to a view of your current location, then pressing the display firmly reveals buttons to access contact addresses, search, and toggling between transit and standard directions.

Starting with watchOS 2.2, Maps on Apple Watch has a whole new layer of actions. Just like Google Maps for Apple Watch, Apple’s Maps app now includes shortcuts to navigating to your home and work address from your current location. Search is also a more accessible button that doesn’t require Force Touch. The old Maps view can still be accessed through the My Location button beneath Search.

Finally, the useful Nearby feature introduced to Maps with iOS 9 in six countries including the US and Canada is now available on the Apple Watch starting with watchOS 2.2.

Maps Nearby Apple Watch

This feature works similarly to Yelp’s Apple Watch app (Yelp is a data provider here) and lets you choose between Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, Services, Fun, Health and Transport categories. Each section includes an additional list of more detailed categories followed by specific local businesses listed by distance with star ratings and business hours, contact information, directions, and location.

iOS 9’s Nearby feature in Maps also appeared in CarPlay with new beta software introduced this week. See our video hands-on for more details.

Aside from a revamped Maps app, watchOS 2.2 also allows iPhones to pair multiple Apple Watches simultaneously. The most recently unlocked and raised Apple Watch automatically becomes active with the paired iPhone.

For more on Apple’s latest software updates for each of its platforms, check out 9to5Mac’s coverage from this week:

The watchOS 2.2 update for Apple Watch is currently only available in beta. Public availability will likely accompany the iOS 9.3 release later this year.

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: Apple watch, watchOS, watchos 2, watchOS 2.2

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Apple acknowledges issue causing battery percentage indicator not to update on iPhone 6s & 6s Plus

by | Jan 16, 2016 |

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After a plethora of complaints, Apple this week has posted a new support document acknowledging an issue with the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus that causes the battery percentage indicator in the status bar not to update as the battery itself drains. This means that the battery percentage icon could display that you have much more battery life left than you actually do.

In the support document, Apple addresses the issue and ensures iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus users that it is working on a fix. Weirdly, the company says the issue is caused by time zone changes, whether done manually or automatically while traveling (via MacRumors).

If you change the time on your iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus manually or change time zones when traveling, you might notice that the battery percentage doesn’t update. Learn what to do.

As far as fixes go, Apple says that restarting your device should temporarily cure the problem, as should going into Settings > General > Date & Time and ensuring that “Set Automatically” is enabled. Obviously, the issue here is that you may not realize the battery percentage number hasn’t changed for awhile, so it would be hard to know that you need to reboot or check your Date & Time settings.

Nevertheless, Apple says it is aware of the issue and is investigating the cause and a solution.

Filed under: iOS Devices

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Review: RHA T20 are some of the finest-made earphones around, but they’re not cheap

by | Jan 16, 2016 |

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For a while, Scotland-based audio company RHA was known primarily for delivering audiophile-grade sound in affordable earphones. With the T20, that’s not exactly how they played it. In fact, this set of headphones is not anywhere near cheap enough to be classed as an affordable pair, but I still feel that in terms of design, audio and versatility, they comfortably give you your money’s worth. That’s despite the fact they’d set you back $240/£180 if you decided to splurge on them…

On the design front, RHA has gone all-out with the T20 to make a headphone that both looks and feels like a high-end product. The 3.5mm jack is encased in a durable stainless steel casing, while a tightly coiled spring protects the cable from fraying or breaking near the end. Further up the cable, another well-made stainless steel cylinder protects the area where the cable splits in two to form the individual earbuds. But the earphones themselves take it to a whole new level.

The drivers are built in to metal injection-moulded stainless steel casing. Which is to say: They look stunning. The surface is so smooth and round, there are no rough edges or corners, and they’re very strong. They’re also really ergonomic, and sit almost flush with your ears. They’re not the lightest earphones around, but they’re not uncomfortable to wear.

Great effort and attention has gone in to how they feel when you wear them. There are ten pairs of ear tips with various designs, in different sizes and made from different materials to suit you. Personally, I like the memory foam ear tips, but there are regular dual-material silicone ones in small, medium and large sizes as well as a couple of double flange models in two different size. All these ear tips are stowed inside the included folding case, held securely in a credit card-sized piece of metal with bespoke cut-outs designed to hold the tips in place.

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Even the ear-hooks that loop out and over your ears are well-conceived. They’re made from a material which is both pliable and strong, to ensure that when you mould it to fit around your ears, they stay in that shape. And they’re not their just hold the earphones in, when well-fitted, they also ensure the earphones’ noise cancellation properties are optimized, helping you block out ambient/exterior noise. Which leads us conveniently on to sound performance.

As with most features of any product, sound quality is very much a subjective thing. Some people like bass, a lot. Others like a more neutral and balanced sound, while others prefer to hear the high-frequency tones and couldn’t care less about bass. Regardless of which describes you best, the T20 has you covered.

RHA has designed a Tuning Filter System, whereby the user can unscrew the very tips of the earphone and replace it with a pair designed to boost bass, or boost treble manually. Personally, I quite like it when bass kicks me in the chest and fills out the background of the music, so I immediately swapped out the neutral filters for the bass ones. I was really impressed by the difference they made. Where I found the ‘reference’ filters to be a little too sterile, the bass tuning filters brought me close to my perfect sound profile. The rest could be achieved by adjusting the EQ on my device.

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Regardless of whether I tried the bass, neutral or treble tuning filters, one thing remained the same: Clarity. I could hear details in many songs I can’t remember hearing before. Not just hearing the bass drum, or snare being hit, but actually being able to pick out the sound of the bass drum pedal or stick strike against the drum’s skin.

Sounds were balanced, and bass notes didn’t muddy over the rest of the frequencies, even with the bass filters installed. That’s thanks mostly to RHA’s DualCoil Dynamic Driver which is engineered to deliver a neutral tone. RHA describes it like this:

The T20’s revolutionary DualCoil dynamic driver is engineered to deliver refined, high resolution audio with a neutral tonal balance. The T20’s DualCoil dynamic driver features an additional voice coil situated within an annular magnet; each coil operates independently to produce part of the frequency range. This unique configuration ensures ultra-efficient performance and true-to-life sound reproduction across all genres of music.

For those of you with Hi-Res Audio equipment, you’ll be pleased to know the T20 is also Hi-Res Audio certified, meaning you can listen to your favorite tunes without losing any quality.

If there’s one issue with the RHA T20 earphones, it’s that there is no in-line microphone or music controls, so if you want to turn the volume up or down on your smartphone, or make/receive a phone call, you’ll need to pick up your phone. Thankfully there is another option: Buy the T20i instead. It’s the same set of earphones, except it has an inline mic/control set. It costs $10/£10 more, but is well worth the extra if you need that extra control.

The next step for me would be for RHA to make a set of wireless T20s. As much as I appreciate the incredible sound and build quality, I’m not a big fan of having wires hanging out all over the place. But that’s a personal thing. Cables can be a good thing. Even with some of the best wireless tech around, nothing quite matches a physical cable for quality and latency.

Overall, it’s tough to fault RHA’s premium earphones. At $240/£180, they’re far from the cheapest earphones around, but even at that price, they still look and sound like they could cost more. Build quality is impeccable, sound quality superb and they’re incredibly attractive. The very fact you can manually change the audio profile to suit your taste just makes them so much better. If you’re looking in to a great pair of in-ear phones to invest in, you should definitely add these to your wish-list.

Filed under: Reviews Tagged: Accessories, audio, earphones, RHA, RHA T20

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Apple announces free ad-supported iTunes Radio stations going away on January 29th, will require Apple Music subscription

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

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In an email circulating to customers, Apple has announced that the ad-supported iTunes Radio stations available in the US and Australia are going away on January 29th. Beats 1 will be the ‘premiere free broadcast’ going forward. All other radio station features, i.e. the algorithmic stations like Charting Now or Pop Workout, will require an active Apple Music subscription.

The full email is included below …

This marks the end of iTunes Radio as first launched in 2013, which expanded internationally into just one country: Australia. Since Apple Music’s debut, all other countries have required a paid subscription to access these radio stations and will continue to do so. However, from January 29th, there will be no free riders in the United States or Australia either.

Ad-supported stations were subject to other limitations that the paid Apple Music versions don’t have. Namely, you get unlimited skips for the stations (compared to 6 with the obsolete free tier) because you pay for the rights to stream any song in their library with your $9.99/mo plan.

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Removing the ad-supported stations may be part of a wider transition in Apple’s iAd department. Apple can simplify the responsibilities of the floundering iAd group by getting rid of the need for ads to service the legacy stations. Apple is reportedly transitioning iAd towards a fully automated inventory model. Earlier today, Apple announced that it is closing the iAd App Network for developers.

Thanks Mitchell for the tip.

Filed under: Apple Music, General, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple Music, itunes radio

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Apple will discontinue iAd App Network for developers on June 30th

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

iAds

On its developer news blog, Apple has announced that it is closing the iAd App Network as of June 30th. Target at smaller publishers, the iAd App Network let developers pay reduced rates to feature advertisements for their own App Store apps across the iAd publisher network. The news follows a report from Buzzfeed that Apple is closing iAd campaign sales and converting all inventory to automated system. Apple says that if developers want to keep advertising on iAd until that time, they have to make a campaign from scratch using iAd Workbench. New apps will not be accepted into the iAd App Network Program.

Filed under: Apps, Developers, iOS Devices

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9to5Toys Lunch Break: WD 2TB External HDD $69, BRAVEN Bluetooth Speaker $75, Amazon Prime $73 this weekend, more

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

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Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

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WD Elements 2TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive: $69 shipped (Reg. $80+)

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Daily Deals: BRAVEN 770 Weatherproof Bluetooth Speaker $75, PNY 32GB Flash Drive $7, more

amazon-prime-discount

Amazon is discounting its Prime 2-day shipping service down to $73 this weekend (Reg. $99)

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App Store Free App of the Week: Lifeline text-adventure game goes free for the first time (Reg. $3)

A Dark Room for iOS goes free as IGN’s Game of the Month (Reg. $1)

10 PopCap Mac games for $10: Plants Vs. Zombies, Monopoly, Scrabble, more ($80+ value)

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

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Aukey USB Power: 5-Port QuickCharge 2.0 Desktop Charger $18 (Reg. $30), 5-pack microUSB cables $4

MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

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Add Milanese Loop style to your Apple Watch for a fraction of the price: $17 Prime shipped (Reg. $25)

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Bluetooth Audio Deals: Harman Kardon Speaker (refurb) $70, Over-Ear Headphones $17, more

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

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Phāz takes note of iPhone 7 rumors with new Lightning-connected headphones

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys, Amazon, Amazon Prime sale, app deals, Best Buy, Daily Deals, free apps, Gold Box, video games, WD Elements 2TB

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Apple at center stage of Republican presidential debate over encryption & national security

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

Tim Cook Stage

Apple’s strong position on privacy and encryption has been at odds with the United States government’s pressure to step up its national security efforts in the wake of recent terrorist attacks across the globe. In short, iPhones are encrypted to protect customer data from prying eyes, and law enforcement agencies believe that gives criminals a safe haven for communication that can’t be traced.

The Obama administration including the former and current attorney general and FBI director have strongly voiced opposition to Apple’s position, and Tim Cook reportedly pressed the White House to back strong encryption as recently as this week. So it’s no surprise that Tim Cook and Apple came up at the end of last night’s Republican presidential debate hosted by the Fox Business channel where at least one candidate was asked to address his position on the subject.

Specifically, Apple Watch aficionado and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who responded similarly to how the current administration has thus far, was asked how he’d handle Tim Cook and encryption by Fox Business host Neil Cavuto. Let’s take a look at his response with a little help from TIME’s transcript:

CAVUTO: Governor Bush, fears have gripped this country obviously, and you touched on it earlier since the San Bernardino attacks. Since our last debate, the national conversation has changed, according to Facebook data as well.

Now this first graphic shows the issues that were most talked about right before those attacks and now after: the issues of Islam, homeland security and ISIS now loom very large. The FBI says Islamic radicals are using social media to communicate and that it needs better access to communication. Now the CEO of Apple, Governor, Tim Cook said unless served with a warrant private communication is private, period. Do you agree, or would you try to convince him otherwise?

BUSH: I would try to convince him otherwise, but this last back and forth between two senators — back bench senators, you know, explains why we have the mess in Washington, D.C. We need a president that will fix our immigration laws and stick with it, not bend with the wind.

The simple fact is one of the ways, Maria, to solve the problem you described is narrow the number of people coming by family petitioning to what every other country has so that we have the best and the brightest that come to our country. We need to control the border, we need to do all of this in a comprehensive way, not just going back and forth and talking about stuff —

CAVUTO: Would you answer this question?

BUSH: Oh, I’ll talk about that, too. But you haven’t asked me a question in a while, Neil, so I thought I’d get that off my chest if you don’t mind.

(LAUGHTER)

Governor Bush did add that Apple should have some “liability release” if loosening encryption goes bad, although Tim Cook’s stake on privacy thus far seems more about principle and not lawsuits. (My guess is it might be legally more tricky in the case of law enforcement as we’re seeing play out.)

CAVUTO: Fair enough. So Tim Cook — so Tim Cook says he’s going to keep it private.

BUSH: I got that. And the problem today is there’s no confidence in Washington, D.C. There needs to be more than one meeting, there needs to complete dialogue with the large technology companies. They understand that there’s a national security risk. We ought to give them a little bit of a liability release so that they share data amongst themselves and share data with the federal government, they’re not fearful of a lawsuit.

We need to make sure that we keep the country safe. This is the first priority. The cybersecurity challenges that we face, this administration failed us completely, completely. Not just the hacking of OPM, but that is — that is just shameful. 23 million files in the hands of the Chinese? So it’s not just the government — the private sector companies, it’s also our own government that needs to raise the level of our game.

We should put the NSA in charge of the civilian side of this as well. That expertise needs to spread all across the government and there needs to be much more cooperation with our private sector.

CAVUTO: But if Tim cook is telling you no, Mr. President.

BUSH: You’ve got to keep asking. You’ve got to keep asking because this is a hugely important issue. If you can encrypt messages, ISIS can, over these platforms, and we have no ability to have a cooperative relationship —

Governor Bush then alluded to that idea that even if the US government required Apple to open up its tight encryption and let law enforcement officials peek at data, there’d still be the issue of terrorists using foreign companies as alternative platforms.

CAVUTO: Do you ask or do you order?

BUSH: Well, if the law would change, yeah. But I think there has to be recognition that if we — if we are too punitive, then you’ll go to other — other technology companies outside the United States. And what we want to do is to control this.

We also want to dominate this from a commercial side. So there’s a lot of balanced interests. But the president leads in this regard. That’s what we need. We need leadership, someone who has a backbone and sticks with things, rather than just talks about them as though anything matters when you’re talking about amendments that don’t even actually are part of a bill that ever passed.

CAVUTO: Governor, thank you.

The bottom line seems to be that this debate isn’t going anywhere, a compromise may not be possible by design, and we’ll continue to see this national conversation continue just as it has for months now. My colleague Ben Lovejoy put his stake in the ground a couple of months ago on the whole debate.

Original image source via CNN

Filed under: iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: Apple, Attorney General, Encryption, FBI, governement, iPhone, Jeb Bush, National Security, President Obama, privacy, Tim Cook, US, White House

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2017 Hyundai Elantra latest vehicle with support for Apple’s CarPlay

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

CarPlay-Hyundai-Elantra-2017

Hyundai today officially announced that its 2017 Elantra will be available this month and the next vehicle to receive support for Apple’s CarPlay platform:

Both smartphone integrations will be available on the 2017 Elantra’s seven-inch Display Audio touchscreen system with rearview camera and Hyundai’s eight-inch touchscreen navigation system with voice texting, access to music stored on the phone and third-party audio apps.

Apple earlier this week published a master list for the first time of car makers and the vehicles confirmed to support CarPlay, its in-dash entertainment platform that provides an iPhone-like experience in vehicles. Some of the vehicles on the list, however, have yet to actually update with full support, Hyundai’s Sonata included.

Hyundai’s press release notes that Elantra “provides an available second USB port for charging because of this wired connection.”

And as for owners of other Hyundai vehicles, the company confirms that it will provide more information on how vehicles using its Fourth-generation navigation system or Display Audio system can upgrade.

Check out Apple’s’ master list of CarPlay partners here. For more information on CarPlay, check out our coverage of what’s coming soon with the latest iOS 9.3 software update.

Filed under: CarPlay Tagged: 2017, Apple CarPlay, CarPlay, elantra, Hyundai, support, update

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Feature Request: iCloud Photo Library needs a purge downloads button à la Google Photos

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

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I’ve been all in on iCloud Photo Library since Apple replaced iPhoto with the new Photos app on the Mac last year and I haven’t looked back since. I pay $2.99/month to sync my 13,206 photos and 1,087 videos (plus iOS device backups) with iCloud, and this allows me to take or save photos and videos from any device and have them appear across the others including the web, edits, albums, and all. I even have a system to help ensure to if something in the cloud gets hosed that everything will be fine at home (and if the house burns down hopefully the cloud is still there).

This also enables me to access my 155 GB photos library in the Photos apps on iPhones and iPads that otherwise couldn’t fit that much content. Thumbnail previews are available at all times, and full resolution versions download on the fly as needed. When you’re iPhone, iPad, or Mac needs more local storage, Photos can remove full-res images and downloaded videos to make more space using an optimize storage option. This works pretty well especially on higher capacity devices, but there’s one problem…

Photo and video purging happens automatically as needed with iOS and OS X deciding when the time is right, but it’s not perfect at knowing. Google Photos (which is free but uses its own app) takes a different approach by putting a great big button in the settings section that lets you free up storage on the spot by purging downloads that are already in the cloud.

iOS lets you remove all downloaded songs and movies from the Music and Videos apps, but there’s no similar action for manually removing downloaded photos and videos from the Photos app in a single step.

Here’s a real world scenario where that’s a problem and a button like Google’s would come in handy. My iPhone is 128GB and my iPad has 32GB of storage. The iPhone’s a better video camera with 4K capture, but the iPads a better video editor with a larger display and faster processor.

While I was away from reliable Wi-Fi last week at CES, I tried AirDropping a short 4K video from my iPhone to the iPad to edit it with iMovie, but the file transfer failed with an insufficient storage warning. Photos was the single app taking up the most amount of space even with optimize storage turned on because there were local downloads lingering around, and iOS didn’t know to purge them and make room for the AirDropped video.

iCloud Photo Library iPad

Every single photo and video stored locally on the iPad was already synced to iCloud and saved locally at home on my Mac, so the solution was to fully disable iCloud Photo Library on the iPad to remove those large files. Okay, nothing lost but time. Once I was back home on reliable Wi-Fi, I just had to re-enable iCloud Photo Library on my iPad to continue having access to the photos and videos that I shoot on my iPhone but with a much larger display.

I could switch to alternative solutions that bring me to the same place, but I really like Photos and iCloud Photo Library and just want to see this one tiny feature added to improve the experience. The solution here is a pretty easy fix and one I hope we see with iOS 10 and OS X 10.12 later this year.

If you’re a Photos user or iCloud Photo Library user, are there any simple features you’d like to see added as well? As ever, let us know in the comments!

Filed under: Feature Request, iOS Tagged: Apple, google+ photos, iCloud Photo Library, iPad, iPhone, Mac, photos

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Microsoft has an offer Apple Watch owners most definitely can refuse …

by | Jan 15, 2016 |

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If there’s anything less likely than an Apple Watch owner wanting to trade-in their watch for a Microsoft Band, it’s doing so for a trade-in value as low as $150 …

Microsoft wants to give you $150 for the Sport model with polymer band, $200 for the steel model – or a massive $250 if it comes with the Milanese Loop. An offer that is about as sketchy as the cexchange.com URL Microsoft is using to promote the offer. We think we’ll hold out for an Apple Watch Upgrade Program.

Via CoM

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: Apple watch, cexchange, Microsoft, Microsoft Band 2

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