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iPhone 5 hands-on!
At long last, the iPhone 5. We just got our hands on Apple's latest smartphone following its unveiling in San Francisco, and suffice it to say, it's a beautiful thing. Some might say we've been waiting for this moment since October 4th of last year, but another crowd may say that the real next-gen iPhone has been on the burner for much longer. Indeed, this is the first iPhone since June of 2010 to showcase an entirely new design, but it's obvious that Apple's not going to deviate far when it comes to aesthetics. Apple followers will aptly recall Steve Jobs' quote in July of 2010 -- you know, that one about "no one" wanting a big phone, with current CEO Tim Cook seated just feet from Steve as the phrase was uttered. Now, however, Apple's inching ever closer to that very realm, with an elongated 4-inch display that enables new apps to take advantage of more pixels (1,136 x 640), while legacy apps can still operate within a familiar space. The phone itself doesn't feel too much different than the iPhone 4 and 4S; yes, it's a bit taller, but by keeping the width the same, you'll utilize a very familiar grasp to hold it. In typical Apple fashion, even the finest details have been worked over tirelessly. The metal feels downright elegant to the touch, and the same line we've said time and time again applies here: there's no doubting the premium fit and finish when you clutch one of these things. Yeah, the headphone port's now on the bottom, but avid Galaxy Nexus iPod touch users shouldn't have too much trouble adjusting. %Gallery-165125%
iOS 6 to be released on September 19
Phil Schiller just announced that iOS 6 is set to be released on September 19! That's a free download for the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, the new iPad and 4th generation iPod touch. Get your backups ready!
iOS 6 coming to iPhone 4S, 4, 3GS, new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod Touch on September 19th
We know what we're getting from iOS 6 and won't have to wait long for it. Apple's new mobile OS will land on existing phones, tablets and media players on September 19th -- a week from today. As was mentioned when we first saw iOS 6, the cut-off appears to be the iPhone 3GS, while tablets starting from the second iteration will be able to access Apple's new feature set. Check out our liveblog of Apple's event to get the latest news as it happens!
iOS 6 gets official debut on the iPhone 5: Maps, Passbook, iCloud Tabs and more
Now that the iPhone 5 is officially out of the bag, it's time to talk software. Apple hasn't exactly kept its cards close to its chest in regards to iOS 6: Cupertino teased the software at WWDC, letting us in on the direct Facebook integration, the new Maps application, Passbook and "Do Not Disturb" in the process. Today the OS gets official, and Scott Forstall demoed the software on the iPhone 5. Not too much new here, but the software is out of its beta phase and ready to ship. One of the most hyped additions to iOS 6 has been the Maps application, which includes Siri navigation, 3D building view and satellite imagery. In Safari, there's now a full-screen mode and you'll be able to share tabs from your desktop with your phone (dubbed iCloud Tabs). We're also seeing Passbook in action once again, bringing up a plane ticket at the lockscreen when you get to the airport, for example. One new thing here: Delta is confirmed as a partner for this digital ticket service. As we've already known, on the Siri front you can bring up sports ranking and Rotten Tomatoes movie ratings via the voice assistant. And, of course, one of the most welcome new features is FaceTime over cellular -- no mention of whether that will be supported on all carriers, but it certainly looks that way. iOS 6 will be available on September 19th (also when the iPhone 5 will go on sale), and it's coming to the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, new iPad, iPad 2 and iPod touch. Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 2012 event hub!
iPhone 5 officially announced with 4-inch display, A6 CPU and LTE for $199 on September 21st
Apple may be notoriously secretive and tight lipped, but the company appears to be getting worse and worse at actually keeping things under wraps. The iPhone 5 appears to be the most leaked handset in existence. Thankfully, the suspense is over, the next-gen iPhone is finally here and it does, in fact, go by the numerical title of 5. Just like the parts that have been circulating on the web, this is a glass and aluminum two-tone affair and, at 7.6mm it's a full 18 percent thinner than the 4S (though, contrary to what Tim Cook said on stage, one slide has the iPhone 5 at 8mm even). It's even 20 percent lighter at 112 grams, which is even less than the mostly plastic Galaxy S III. It's all those "magical" things and it packs a larger 4-inch in-cell display. The new version of Apple's Retina panel is 1136 x 640, which clocks in at a more than respectable 326ppi. It also sports better color saturation with full sRGB rendering. That new longer screen allows for an extra set of icons to be displayed on the home screen, and first party apps have already been tweaked to take advantage of the additional real estate. The iWork suite, Garage Band and iMovie have all been updated. Older apps will still work too, though they'll be displayed in a letterbox format until an update is issued. The tweaked ratio puts the iPhone 5 display closer to 16:9, but it's not quite there. Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 2012 event hub!
iPhone 5: the rumor roundup
We're on the cusp of Apple's sixth iPhone launch, and there's very different expectations than there were last year. The 2011 rumor cycle left more than a few people burned: the later-than-usual October launch and repeated claims of a heavily-remade design led some to a disappointment when the iPhone 4S arrived, even though the final product had a slew of camera, speed and voice command upgrades. This year, the rumors have been grounded well before there was an event date in our hands. There have been fewer instances of wild rumors. Instead, it's been based more around pragmatism, using either tangible leaks or sources that have a solid track record. Think of the perennial leaks from the Wall Street Journal or the increasingly well-established sourcing from iMore and The Loop. Whether you're conspiracy-minded or not, it's been hard to ignore the sheer number of claims that have tamped down expectations rather than inflated them. It's as though there's a collective fear we'll see a repeat of the 2011 hysteria and deal with fans (or detractors) complaining about missing features that were never promised in the first place. Where last summer was full of uncertainty, this year there's a mounting consensus as to what we'll see, how we'll get it, and when. Tracking everything that's been mentioned may be a handful, however. With that in mind, we'll dive in and gauge what's likely to emerge from behind Apple's curtain on September 12th -- as well as what we can rule out from the get-go.
YouTube launches standalone iPhone app
Knowing that its days as a native iOS app are numbered, YouTube has released a standalone iPhone app just ahead of Wednesday's media event, where Apple is expected to announce the newest iPhone and a release date for iOS 6. The free app is available in a number of languages, however it doesn't appear to include native support for the iPad. The app does integrate voice search, autocomplete for searches, a new channel guide and a number of sharing options.
Daily Update for September 7, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Airline support of iOS 6 Passbook reportedly ready for takeoff
During the WWDC 2012 presentations of iOS 6 features, one demonstration stood out -- that of Passbook, a new capability to store digital boarding passes, movie tickets and membership cards. With the new iPhone and iOS 6 both about to launch, it appears that some airlines are already beginning to use Passbook as intended, reports Australian Business Traveler. A reader of that business travel blog, Shaun Lorrain, checked in on a Virgin Australia flight using his iPhone. That device was running a developer preview of iOS 6, and when he pulled up the boarding pass, the OS offered to save it into Passbook (screenshot at right). Passbook boarding passes provide updates and notifications to flyers, letting them know when a flight is delayed or a boarding gate has changed. The world's largest airline, United, is committed to using Passbook with mobile boarding passes in the near future, so expect other airlines to join the party soon as well.
PassK.it offers a tool to make iOS 6 Passbook content
One major feature of iOS 6 is Passbook, an app that stores rewards cards, airline tickets, coupons and more. Right now, the app is bare as most companies don't offer passes that are compatible with the app. Individuals and businesses that want to get a jump on the competition by creating their own passes should check out PassK.it, a start-up Passbook pass creation service. PassK.it will soon offer an online tool that'll let you design and distribute your own Passbook passes. You can save the passes in your online Pass Portfolio and access them from any web browser. The service will also include an analytics feature to track common metrics like how many times a pass is opened or deleted. The company hopes to have the service up and running by the end of September. PassK.it isn't the first company to start offering custom-made Passbook passes. PassSource also recently launched a website that will step you through the process of creating and managing a Passbook-compatible pass.
Apple denies giving FBI any iOS device UDIDs, raises questions over AntiSec claims
Hacking group AntiSec (connected to Anonymous and LulzSec) made some bold claims Tuesday that it had obtained the unique device identifiers (UDIDs) of 12 million iOS devices from an FBI laptop, setting more than a few people on edge. The FBI has already denied that anything was stolen, but Apple has gone one step further to argue that it had no involvement. Spokeswoman Natalie Kerris tells AllThingsD that Apple hasn't given UDIDs to the FBI "or any organization" -- suggesting that either AntiSec or the FBI isn't telling the whole story of what data emerged and where. Even if there are real UDIDs floating around, Kerris adds that they don't necessarily pose much danger. She notes that programming hooks in iOS 6 will provide an alternative to UDID for device-specific data, and that apps will eventually be forbidden from using the older identifiers altogether. While the truth in the situation is hard to pin down, the technical reality doesn't leave much risk that our iPads and iPhones will be compromised. At least, not after this month.
Daily Update for September 4, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
With iOS 6, your iPhone address book may be invaded by Facebook email addresses
I'm generally a fan of Facebook. I only use it to keep in contact with people I actually know and hang out with in real life. And for my friends that live in other countries, it's the easiest way to share photos, videos, and other life events. That's why I'm pretty excited about the iPhone's Facebook integration in iOS 6. The ability to post to Facebook from almost anywhere in iOS, use single sign-in to log into any number of apps, and 'like' apps and songs is going to be great. However, there's one unpleasant outcome of Facebook integration in iOS 6: it may load up your contacts list with loads of practically useless @facebook.com email addresses. As I'll explain, this is a huge boon to Facebook's underutilized email service, but a bane to iOS users (and within a matter of days, OS X, Windows, and Android users) across the globe. First the good news: In iOS 6 (and OS X 10.8.2) Apple and Facebook have teamed up to sync your Facebook contacts and their info with the contacts in your existing Contacts app. This is actually a win for users, because most people update their mailing addresses, phone numbers, instant messaging names, and emails addresses on Facebook more often than they would manually send out vCard or simple email updates to contact details. The Facebook contacts sync, in the end, automatically updates your friends' info in your Contacts without you (or your friends) lifting a finger. Syncing contact info is an all-or-nothing feature. Now for the bad news: iOS 6's sync options may also be a Trojan Horse for Facebook's underwhelming email address service. Since 2010 Facebook has offered all of its users @facebook.com email addresses based on the Facebook vanity URL name on the account (the words that appear after the www.facebook.com/ in your Facebook profile's URL). And if you haven't chosen a vanity URL, it's a lot worse: you'll be assigned an @facebook.com email with random numbers in front of the @, à la CompuServe in 1994. Any email sent to your Facebook email address will be automatically routed to your Facebook messages folder on Facebook.com. With the rollout of @facebook.com emails in 2010, Facebook aimed to take on Gmail and improve the stickiness of Facebook.com. That way, when you checked your email you'd be going to Facebook instead of Google or Yahoo or AOL. But as Facebook discovered, no one really cared (or knew) about their @facebook.com email addresses. That's why in June of this year, without notifying users or getting permission, Facebook set every single Facebook user's publicly listed profile email to their @facebook.com email address and hid all their other email addresses from view. Facebook's excuse for this was that they were protecting user privacy, but that's pretty much total crap. It got worse in July, as early beta testers of Facebook sync discovered quickly that the @facebook.com addresses were replacing the default addresses for scores of contacts. The sync API was pushing the most-recently-added email address, rather than the primary -- which automatically meant the @facebook address, since that was newest. While this behavior was deemed to be a bug by Facebook affecting "certain devices" and quickly fixed, our tests now show that the @facebook addresses are still being sync'ed over alongside the user's real world, primary email address. Here's the big problem: Most of Facebook's 900 million plus users still don't know @facebook.com emails exist, yet their @facebook.com email is now listed on their profile by default -- unless they've gone in to change settings to hide the (useless) email address. So what's going to happen in 2-3 weeks when iOS 6 comes out? There are 900 million Facebook users. There are going to be close to 400 million iOS 6-capable devices in the wild by the end of this year. If even a quarter of those users enable Facebook contacts sync, we could have scores of @facebook.com email addresses added to 100 million users' contact lists. As an Apple user who likes clean, uncluttered interfaces, this is a huge drawback. Suddenly all of my contacts will now have at least two email addresses (their "real" one and their unused @facebook.com one). That means when I start typing their name in Mail's "To" field I'm now going to have to select from at least two choices for their email address -- or even more if they already have multiple emails. The result? More taps and impaired productivity. Yes, after I select the primary email address enough times, eventually it will default to the top of the list, but most email users aren't as tech savvy as the people reading this and they might not even notice the "@facebook.com" email address they're using to send their friend a message. And it's not like anyone ever goes to Facebook to check emails when someone says "Didn't you get that email I sent you?" so the result could be a lot of misdirected messages. Useless contact detail is never good for an OS that prides itself on simplicity. But this isn't just a complaint about data clutter and user confusion. Yes, the Facebook contacts integration is only on iOS and OS X, but the Contacts apps on both of those systems sync to other email services (like Gmail, Outlook, etc) and Windows PCs, which then connect to Windows Phones and Android phones and all their contact books and Exchange servers and the list goes on and on. (There are already Android phones that sync Facebook contacts, as well as plenty of third-party apps that enable sync.) So it's entirely possible that within 48 hours of iOS 6 launching, Facebook will have successfully spread its @facebook.com email address to many millions of contact books and email clients -- on myriad types of devices -- across the globe. That's something Facebook has never been able to do with the @facebook.com email addresses, until now. It's of a piece with the shady default "public" email change they made for users a few months ago (which I'm sure, "coincidentally" for them, timed nicely with the upcoming iOS Contacts sync). It's sneaky, and in my opinion it's wrong. While no one at Facebook would send me an email saying "Yeah, this is something that's gonna work really well for @facebook.com email adoption," I've spoken to plenty of Facebook employees off the record. They say Facebook isn't exactly unaware of the benefits iOS sync will deliver to Facebook's email rollout. So what can you, the user do? As a symbolic protest, you can hide your @facebook.com email address from your Facebook friends. This won't stop it from being synced with your Contacts on iOS and OS X, but it will keep Facebook friends from picking it up off your profile page. If you want to make sure it doesn't sync out to other people's address books, commenter Chris suggests setting the Privacy flag on the @facebook address to "Only Me" -- that will keep it entirely secret and out of everyone's hair. To make either of these changes, click the Update Info button on your profile page, then scroll down to Contact Info on the right and click Edit. Find your @facebook address and then set both flags to maximum privacy. Once iOS 6 and OS X 10.8.2 arrive, you probably will want to wait a week or two before enabling Facebook contact/calendar sync, to give this whole mess a chance to sort itself out. But what if there turns out to be no way to block the @facebook.com address invasion? That would be a shame because, besides the @facebook.com email mess, the Facebook integration is going to make a lot of things easier for iOS and Mac users. Other than that? Hope Apple adds selective sync to allow you to control which information iOS draws from Facebook to add to your Contacts. As I've said, this is not only something that will affect iOS or Mac users. The @facebook.com emails will use iOS and OS X as a Trojan Horse and ride it into contact books and email servers across devices across the globe. And that wouldn't be a bad thing if people wanted to use their Facebook email addresses as their primary ones or even as a secondary option, but given that @facebook.com email adoption is basically nill after two years, I'm going out on a limb and saying no one really wants it. It's just excess data that we have to sift through and it shouldn't be forced on us in the guise of otherwise excellent new features.
You're the Pundit: What would make the new iPhone a "must buy" for you?
When it comes to evaluating the next big thing, we turn to our secret weapon: the TUAW braintrust. We put the question to you and let you have your go at it. Today's topic is the new iPhone. Last year, I was looking forward to delaying my iPhone 4S purchase (or the "iPhone 5" as we were guessing) until November, when I would have received a huge price break. Then Siri came along, not to mention that amazing camera, and I was hooked. I bought my 4S the first day it was available. I spent hours attempting to place my order, and then went and wrote an entire book about Siri with Steve Sande. Today, I was talking to the TUAW gang in our back channel, discussing what features would make us reach for the "buy immediately" button on our Macs rather than delay our purchase for a better price For me, it's haptics, similar to the ones used on the Wii. If Apple were to introduce a haptic-enabled system, I'd be there like *snap* that. No one at TUAW expects this to happen soon, primarily due to the battery-consuming nature of the beast but a lot of us would love it. Imagine if Apple could push touch feedback into the user experience! Haptics solves a real problem -- the lack of physical response on the otherwise featureless glass interface between the user and the device Other TUAW-ians are hoping for (but again not expecting) NFC, aka near field communications. This tech uses radio communications to communicate with objects within a few inches of each other. There's a lot of cool applications for this from shopping to contact-sharing to public art installations. Speaking of near-object-communication, that Samsung phone tap-to-transfer trick would be really cool to have, especially if it's realized as "AirDrop for iOS". Right now, you can beam your photos from one iOS iPhoto install to another. Why not push that to the next level? We figure it will never happen but light field photography is now out there in the market place. So why not bring it to the new iPhone? Just point-and-shoot and you can focus after the fact. That would be an amazing must-buy feature for many of us. Or, how about stereoscopic photography? Much easier than light field to implement, what if Apple simply added another camera to back of the the phone to enable 3D image capture? Tie that in to some funky software and you'd have a feature that wouldn't cost to much to ship, but add a great fun touch to the new iPhone. We already know that some level of glasses-free 3D is already possible on iOS. Which of these new features would kick you out of your contract-lethargy and into paying the early-upgrade penalty? You tell us. Place your vote in this poll and then join in the comments with all your analysis. %Poll-77325%
TomTom refreshes Navigation app for iOS, adds social features
TomTom has refreshed its Navigation App for iPhone and iPad with a new user interface, Foursquare integration and constantly updated maps. It'll also automatically check into your favorite hangouts to avoid forgetting to oust your frenemies at your local coffee house. The revised application will also help you avoid French speed traps that don't fall foul of new laws on traffic alerts, with the whole thing playing very nice with the recently announced car kit. The app retails for $50 (€70) in the App Store -- although we're not sure how popular it's going to be if those same features will be bundled in iOS 6.
iPhone reportedly vulnerable to text message spoofing flaw
If you're an iPhone owner, you may want to use good judgment before responding to any out-of-the-blue text messages in the near future. French jailbreak developer and security researcher pod2g finds that every iPhone firmware revision, even iOS 6 beta 4, is susceptible to a flaw that theoretically lets a ne'er-do-well spoof the reply address of outbound SMS messages. As Apple is using the reply-to address of a message's User Data Header to identify the origin rather than the raw source, receiving iPhone owners risk being fooled by a phishing attack (or just a dishonest acquaintance) that poses as a contact or a company. A proof of concept messaging tool is coming to the iPhone soon, but pod2g is pushing for an official solution before the next iOS version is out the door. We've asked Apple for commentary and will get back if there's an update. In the meantime, we wouldn't panic -- if the trickery hasn't been a significant issue since 2007, there isn't likely to be a sudden outbreak today.
The dawning of the age of Pass Kit: virtual ID on the iPhone
As iOS 6 gets ready for its Autumn debut, many users look forward to Passbook, Apple's "new way to organize boarding passes, tickets, gift cards, and loyalty cards." It promises to help empty your wallet of a multitude of small items, replacing them with a single iPhone interface. Just flash your phone at your favorite retailers, and you're ready to go. Or are you? A bunch of us were chatting this morning in the TUAW back channel about electronic ID and how it works in the real world-- or, more typically, doesn't work. Among us, we use a variety of loyalty and payment solutions including CardStar, Key Ring, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, etc. One theme holds true: we inevitably end up spending more time rather than less at the check out, as employees laboriously type in our numbers manually into the register. "They need a special barcode scanner to accept the iPhone payment -- and none of them in my neighborhood have it. They always get annoyed when I show up with my iPhone," one blogger explained. "I keep asking, 'When are you guys getting the scanner?' and they reply 'Sometime next year.' Great." This blogger's experience isn't true of everyone, of course. Those in big cities often find more retailers that are already equipped to accept electronic payments. "More", here, does not mean "all"; I write from the major metropolitan area of Denver with its inconsistent scattering of scanners. Those in rural areas are often left wanting, especially in name-brand retailers like the afore-mentioned Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. My loyalty e-cards have caused no end of annoyance at King Soopers (Colorado grocery store chain), at Qdoba, at Panera, and so forth. I pull out my phone, and the cashier inevitably responds, "Why don't you just tell me your telephone number instead?" You'd think it'd be easy to add a scanner, but it apparently represents a major infrastructure change, one that's coming later rather than sooner. And that's just taking the major retailers into account. "But they promised that everyone at the Farmer's Market will have a reader!" a wiseacre TUAW editor pointed out. "But Square readers don't fit on stoneware jugs with 'XXX' across the front," replied another. All of us here deeply want Passbook to work. We're already invested in the idea of e-dentity. But somehow we can't help but feel that we're waiting for a feature that will offer a whole host of electronic identity and payment options we might not actually be able to use in the real world.
iOS 6's "Wi-Fi + Cellular" option will solve some network conundrums
iDownloadBlog's Jeff Benjamin has taken a look at the new "Wi-Fi + Cellular" option that will be in iOS 6. On the surface, the concept is brilliant. If you encounter issues with your Wi-Fi connection, iOS 6 automatically will tap your data plan as a back-up until you're back on the Wi-Fi successfully. This scenario can occur you've made a Wi-Fi connection and it turns out to be pretty bad. The connection to the router is solid, but the Internet itself is pretty horrid -- case in point, most hotel rooms I've stayed in the past couple of years. Benjamin cites cases where you're making the transition between a place with Wi-Fi, such as your home or a coffee shop, and places without. There's a middle ground where you're barely hanging onto a Wi-Fi connection. There are restrictions to this, for the frugally minded. You can't be downloading an app that's bigger than 50 MB, be using a third-party browser or an app that streams audio or video content. Benjamin managed to get FaceTime working using Wi-Fi + Cellular, but receiving a call forced the app to hang. Most people will not notice any sort of change to data consumption, but you can toggle the option off if you're worried about hitting a data cap. While we don't know if Apple will have this option on by default, it won't hurt to make sure once iOS 6 is live.
Facebook SDK 3.0 for iOS arrives in finished form, mobile ads tag along in beta
Rapid turnaround just may be the name of Facebook's game. Just a few weeks after its SDK 3.0 for iOS reached beta, the new developer tool has surfaced in a polished version. As it's shipping, the SDK continues to emphasize a more iOS-native experience, better API support and slicker session management. Any iOS 6 integration will still have to wait until Apple finishes its software update; Facebook is keeping a separate beta track active to serve forward-thinking developers. The social network's regular members aren't quite getting the same reward, however. The expanded app support is being followed just as quickly by a mobile ad beta. While Facebook is still sparing us from a full-bore marketing assault, it's letting developers pitch their Android and iOS apps from Facebook's mobile portals, with a quick hop to the relevant app store if the title isn't already loaded. While there's no estimated completion date, we have a feeling that this is one Facebook beta where most customers won't mind a delay or two... or ten.
Spotify's latest update brings iOS 6 support, fixes Facebook login woes
Whether it's for Android or iOS, there's no doubt Spotify's devs are always hard at work. Today, the famed music streaming service has pushed out yet another update to its application on iDevices, bringing support for Cupertino's sixth major release of that popular OS, otherwise more commonly known as iOS 6. Additionally, Spotify's also bundled in a slight tweak that allows iPad users to view more stations within the app, while other unknown stability improvements and a fix for issues with Facebook login are also in tow. As usual, the refresh (version 0.5.4) is up for download at no cost, and you can snag it straight from the App Store on your Apple slab or the link down below.
