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iOS 7 iBeacons: An unsung feature with immense promise
While the world is getting up to speed on iOS 7's more visible features like Control Center and the dazzling parallax effects, there's one feature that hasn't gotten a lot of attention -- iBeacons. TidBITS author Michael Cohen wrote a great piece this week that talks about the feature and what it can do for iOS device owners in the future. iBeacons was just a word on a slide at WWDC 2013, but as Cohen points out, it has the potential to provide some amazing functionality. To quote Cohen, "Apps can use iBeacons to answer the question 'Where am I?' not in terms of a location on a map, like GPS does, but in terms of where the device is relative to another device. Specifically, where it is relative to another device acting as an iBeacon." An iBeacon is a radio that can be placed anywhere, and when an iOS device gets near it, it can estimate how far apart the device and iBeacon are. Any iPhone 4S or later, and any third-generation iPad or later, has the ability to be an iBeacon through the use of Bluetooth 4.0 and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). As Cohen explains it, BLE devices are battery-friendly and can run for weeks without recharging. So how could they be used? Well, a store could set up iBeacons in each department or aisle, so you could use a store directory app and get in-store directions to something you're looking for (are you listening, Home Depot?). Museums could offer tour apps, and Cohen even imagines a future version of Find My iPhone that would work inside a house, finding that iPhone that slipped between couch cushions. Third-party standalone iBeacon devices will start at about US$100 each, and Cohen posits that the price may drop quickly and significantly due to the popularity of iOS. Right now, there's really nothing that takes advantage of iBeacons, but this is a capability of iOS 7 that is just waiting for the right app to come along.
New iPhones may be using Multipath TCP for Siri
NetworkWorld is reporting that Apple's iOS 7 may be the first instance of large-scale use of a new type of Internet protocol called multipath TCP, or MPTCP. Just what is MPTCP -- and what does it do -- you may ask? Here's what NetworkWorld's John Cox says: Researchers have been working for years on creating "disruption tolerant" networks, which can automatically work around failures, sometimes multiple failures, and adapt to changing network conditions. Today TCP is a single path protocol: if that path should fail for any reason, the session ends, and the connection has to be re-established. By contrast, MCTCP is a TCP extension that enables the simultaneous use of several IP addresses or interfaces. Existing applications – completely unmodified -- see what appears to be a standard TCP interface. But under the covers, MPTCP is spreading the connection's data across several subflows, sending it over the least congested paths. The benefits of this include improved network utilization, higher throughput, and greater resiliency by letting the network automatically and smoothly react to path failures. Though MPTCP support has not been acknowledged by Apple, professor Olivier Bonaventure with the IP Networking Lab in Belgium found evidence that Apple is indeed using the latest protocol in Siri in iOS 7. Such a use is a no-brainer for Apple's personal digital assistant software. After all, the better connections Siri can make -- and keep -- enable it to work and return results faster, improving every iPhone owner's user experience.
Gold iPhone 5s in short supply as Apple only ships 'tens' of units to stores
Many scoffed at the notion of a gold iPhone, but it seems that metallic champagne is the color everyone's trying to buy. While online orders are being pushed back to next month, sources have told Engadget directly that some of Apple's flagship stores only received "tens" of gold iPhones, which sold out the moment doors opened. In a statement to AllThingsD, the company said that demand for the new hardware has been "incredible," and that supplies are already limited. On the upside, Cupertino is said to have already increased orders for Auric Goldfinger's favorite iPhone by up to a third, but until those devices make it out of the factory, it's probably easier to knock off Fort Knox than to get a gold iPhone.
iOS 7: Benefits to business and enterprise
Ask IT managers and CIOs serving large organizations "What keeps you up at night?" After they get over their cold sweats from considering public security breaches or datacenter meltdowns, they'll probably come around to the rapid, relentless pace of change in the technology ecosystems they're running. Nowhere is that speedy spin cycle more frenetic than in mobile and portable computing, where the "consumerization of IT" driven by bring-your-own-device policies and the radical popularity of iOS and Android has completely overturned the pecking order (as recently as five years ago, Blackberry above all). Apple's story for iOS in the enterprise has been one of incredibly fast uptake, especially considering the usual cycle for upgrades and new platform rollouts. In many ways, that rapid adoption was in spite of Apple's traditional arm's-length relationship with enterprise customers, compared to the tight ties with vendors like Dell and IBM. Over the iOS lifecycle, however, more and more sophisticated features for management and security have helped to make the challenge of enterprise support easier and easier. Aside from Exchange ActiveSync support, introduced in "iPhone OS 2.0" back in 2008, the single biggest piece of the enterprise puzzle is probably mobile device management (MDM). The inclusion of MDM "hooks" in iOS means that enterprise managers can control device configurations (networking, mail, VPN and more) and keep track of their deployed fleet. Apple offers its own core MDM tool as part of OS X Server, but most organizations of scale find themselves turning to third parties for their MDM solutions. There are several pieces of good news in iOS 7 regarding MDM. First of all, many of the major ISVs have announced day-one support for the new operating system: AirWatch, MobileIron, Maas360 and JAMF's Casper are all compatible right away (you can see the full matrix of supported MDM tools at Enterprise iOS). Second, Apple has added many, many more hooks into the MDM toolkit on iOS 7. Want to manage AirPrint printer destinations, or even AirPlay-enabled Apple TVs? Can do, in iOS 7 MDM. Install apps silently, push app configuration settings, or even preset a fleet of purchased devices to auto-enroll in your MDM when employees take them out of the box? It's in there. What else do enterprise managers of iOS device fleets have to look forward to in iOS 7? Apple's brief rundown of iOS 7's business-facing features hits many of the highlights; let's dive into a few of them here. App Store license management. Ever since the App Store launched in the summer of 2008, the process of buying and assigning iOS apps to corporate users has been fraught with difficulty. Until the Volume Purchasing Program launched three years later (!), the best/only way to manage this process was via gifting, or having employees expense personal purchases. Those apps, and their sunk costs, would also walk out the door if the employee left the company. No more -- now the VPP can deliver licenses rather than download codes, and the apps are company-owned. If an employee leaves, the license and the app can be deactivated and redeployed. (Mac apps and iBooks are also now available for volume purchase.) Enterprise SSO. Single sign-on implementations are common in enterprise, but were tricky to deal with on mobile. Now iOS 7 allows apps to work with the system-level SSO capability, meaning that business users (with the proper back-end and app support) can enter their corporate credentials once and use multiple apps without reauthentication. Multiple levels of in-app data encryption for third party apps. Application data can now be automatically encrypted until the first time a user passcode is successfully entered after a device reboot; optionally, developers can flag apps to re-encrypt the data when the phone locks. Managed Open In. Want your employees to open their email attachments in a specific, managed application rather than willy-nilly in whatever iSharedThis app of the month they choose? The option now exists to limit the range of the share sheets for corporate data. I can see this being a valuable tool in highly secure and regulated enviroments, and a huge annoyance/productivity killer most everywhere else. Per App VPN. Virtual Private Networking is an essential piece of the enterprise ecosystem, but until now it was either all on or all off on iOS -- when on, all network traffic funneled through the corporate concentrator. Now, MDM admins can define which apps should use the VPN connection, and which ones can simply go straight to the Internet. One of the business-friendly features that was rumored for iOS 7, LinkedIn system-level integration, actually is not present in the 7.0 release -- it may make an appearance at a later date. Below, a rather remarkable alt-universe version of Apple's iOS 7/iPhone 5s announcement (courtesy of enterprise iOS and Moovweb) imagines what could have been if all the enterprise features had been front and center. You can read more about the enterprise features of iOS 7 in Craig Johnston's thorough rundown for iMore.
Distro Issue 108: With the arrival of two new Apple handsets, do the i's have it?
Just over a week ago, Apple pulled the wraps off of not one but two new smartphone options for the iOS faithful. In this week's edition of our slate magazine, the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c head through the Engadget review gauntlet to test Cupertino's latest against the competition. Eyes-On peeks at Chrome bags, Hands-On visits IDF 2013 and Rec Reading investigates Nintendo's secret weapon. A rather colorful issue is ready for your e-reading device of choice via the repositories down below. Distro Issue 108 PDF Distro in the iTunes App Store Distro in the Google Play Store Distro in the Windows Store Distro APK (for sideloading) Like Distro on Facebook Follow Distro on Twitter
How to block phone numbers in iOS 7
While the iPhone is great for keeping in touch with people, there are some folks who you'd just rather have nothing to do with altogether. Perhaps you're getting unwanted calls from an ex or a persistent telemarketer who needs "... just five minutes of your time." Whatever the case may be, iOS 7 includes a new feature that makes it easy for you to block selected phone numbers from calling or messaging you. Here's how it works. Open up the Phone app and go to your Contacts list. Select the offender in question whereupon you'll be taken to that individual's info page. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and select "Block this Caller." Confirm, and iOS 7 alerts you that "you will not receive phone calls, messages or FaceTime from people on the block list." But what happens if you want to block someone that isn't in your contact list? Let's say, for example, that you're being bothered by someone who would never make it into your contact list. In that case, open up the text message and select "Contact," which should be located in the upper-right portion of the screen. From there, a small drop-down appears whereupon you should select the circled "i" located towards the right. This will take you to the info page for that number. Now, simply scroll to the bottom and select "Block this Caller." Note that any number that has been blocked can just as quickly be unblocked via the same steps.
Google Translate iOS app updated with new UI, handwriting support
International travelers just got one more reason to update to iOS 7: Google's Translate app. Mountain View's machine translation service is already the go-to language conversion tool for many users, but the app's latest iOS update packs in a few killer features. In addition to a modern UI overhaul, the iPhone app no supports seven additional languages (bringing its total up to 70) and touch-based handwriting input. The latter feature hit the service's homepage earlier this summer, and converts the user's woeful imitations of foreign script into translatable characters. It's clean looking, useful and brand new. What more can you ask for?
iOS 7.0.1 available in iTunes, OTA for iPhone 5s and 5c
Given that the newest Apple devices are starting to appear in eager hands Down Under and elsewhere around the globe, should we be surprised that they get a software update? Nope. iOS 7.0.1, a bug fix/patch exclusively for the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, is now available in iTunes and for over-the-air download. [hat tip The Mac Observer]
iOS 7's rebooted Photos app is its unsung gem
The release of iOS 7 has brought many wanted and desperately needed features to the waiting hands of iPhone fans. But the most exciting part of iOS 7 for me wasn't the new Control Center or enhanced iCloud options; it was the redesigned Photos app. The iPhone has a wonderful camera. It's a trusty alternative to having to carry around a point and shoot. Thanks to its remarkable picture quality and the myriad of apps and filters available for use, it's easy to end up with more photos than you know what to do with. Thankfully the Photos app for iOS 7 takes into account that when you're having fun taking photos, your brain isn't focused on organization. The app has been redesigned to naturally group your photos into collections organized by time period. When you select a collection, say the photos taken June 27 - September 19, 2012, your photos are further broken down into smaller collections for easy sharing, bulk deleting, and viewing. If you've got geotagging turned on for your photos, these collections are also titled with the location they were taken. If you'd like to see all the photos you took in New York, simply tap the word "New York" and an image map is drawn up of all your pictures matching that tag. In a wonderful touch there are tiny thumbnail images grouped under each collection for quick scanning. This auto grouping makes finding the exact photo you want quickly easy and fun. Best of all, when you select a given "moment" collection all of the photos in the grouping can be easily deleted or spread across the web thanks to the ability to automatically "select all." As a nice minor final touch, videos and panoramas have been given their own smart folders. When you select a photo you're given the option to either edit or share the image. We've covered the iOS 7 camera's editing capabilities already, so head over here for that information. Sharing from the Photo app is simply a joy. When you select the "Sharing" button you are given a slide show view of your photos. Check the ones you'd like to share and then tap "next." Your sharing options are separated into two groups -- apps you can export pictures to and local options. You can send photos through message, mail, iCloud, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. Below those sharing options you'll find the local features like AirPlay, slideshow, copy, print, assign to contact, and use as wallpaper. If you've selected more images than an app supports, Photos will let you know. Twitter, for example, only allows one photo to be uploaded at a time. If you select more than one photo to share, the Twitter sharing option just wont be available. Photos in iOS 7 is a joy. It features subtle improvements that dramatically enhance the user experience without increasing the learning curve to utilize those features. It makes sharing fun and finding forgotten moments a breeze. While everyone is harping about how nice the new interface looks or how nice it is to quickly be able to adjust the brightness, remember the unspoken hero of iOS 7. Its wonderful Photos app.
Apple rickrolls the world with iOS 7 knowledge base article
Perhaps Apple's getting a sweet bit of revenge for the unjustified criticism of iOS 7 over the last day, or maybe there's just a person in the Apple Support department who has a really good sense of humor. Regardless of the source of the fun, somebody slipped in a humorous screenshot on knowledge base article HT5858, titled "iOS: Understanding Control Center". As you can see in the image above, Rick Astley's "classic" tune "Never Gonna Give You Up" is playing on the iPhone belonging to the wag who wrote the KB piece. And that, my friends, is a classic rickroll.
Daily Roundup: PlayStation Vita hands-on, HP SlateBook x2 review, iOS 7 lockscreen bug, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
How do you update a few dozen iDevices at once?
So, let's say you have a bunch of iOS devices. How do you update them all to iOS 7 at one time? With Configurator and a big honking USB hub, is how. Yesterday while at Tekserve I got to see the beauty pictured above, a 40-port USB hub that costs more than most iPhones. A limitation in the USB spec prevents charging iPads requiring a certain wattage, but otherwise this sucker was able to update a lot of devices all at once thanks to the miracle of technology. Also, if you've ever seen groups of iPads in close proximity all clearly operating from the same image (like, say at the Delta terminal at LGA in New York) you'll probably find one of these guys hiding in the furniture somewhere.
iOS 7 video tip: Making text more readable
One of the biggest complaints I've heard from people who have made the upgrade to iOS 7 is that they can't read Apple's new favorite typeface -- Helvetica Neue Ultra Light. There's a simple way to make almost everything on your iOS device more readable, and that is to use the Accessibility settings to enable bold text. The result? Well, see for yourself. The image at top left is the "normal" text setting, while the one at right has bold text enabled. Enabling this readability trick is quite easy: just use Settings > General > Accessibility and toggle Bold Text on. Your device will restart, and once that's done you'll be able to actually read text without straining your eyes. Here's a video showing how to enable bold text in iOS 7 (note that you can go full-screen for full effect). Enjoy!
GameCase brings a full-size, natively supported gamepad to iOS 7 devices
Apple now offers native gamepad support in iOS 7, and ClamCase is making the most of that opportunity by unveiling the GameCase. The Bluetooth add-on will give iOS players a full-size, Xbox-like controller that should work in any title using the official gamepad API -- developers won't have to include proprietary code in their apps. ClamCase also promises ample play time through a built-in lithium-ion battery. The GameCase isn't expected to ship until late 2013 or early 2014, but there are plans to offer versions for all iPads and iPhones that run iOS 7. If you're interested, you can sign up for notifications from ClamCase at the source link.
Daily Update for September 19, 2013
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
iOS 7 on an iPad 2: First impressions
Shorty after Apple released iOS 7, we began hearing reports that it's buggy on the iPad 2. Everything from crashing apps to general wonkiness seemed to be troubling some users. With that in mind, I updated my own iPad 2 to iOS 7 try it out. Here are my first impressions of Apple's new mobile operating system on an older piece of hardware. Installation Installation was a breeze. After backing up my iPad, the process unfolded as expected. It's noteworthy that iTunes would not execute the installation until a full backup was complete. It failed at first as I had to free up some space on my MacBook Air's drive. Once that was done, it went swimmingly. Issues The only issue I've encountered is with responsiveness. Tapping a folder to open it sometimes takes half a beat. Likewise, scrolling through thumbnails of running apps via multitasking isn't as smooth as it is on my iPhone 4S. Also, the lovely blur effect that's seen when you pull Notification Center down on more contemporary hardware isn't there on the iPad 2. Instead, you simply see a darker version of whatever is behind the sheet. I also found a slight delay when pulling up a keyboard, especially in Mail and Messages, as well as when switching keyboards (alpha vs. symbols, for example). Note that none of this is annoyingly bad, but it is noticeable. There's bad news for One Direction fans: my daughter's beloved 1D app now crashes when you try to play a video. But that's likely an incompatibility bug in the app. Or maybe it's a commentary on One Direction. The good The rest, so far, has been all good. Web surfing on mobile Safari is what I expect. Mail does as well. In fact, I haven't had an app crash or refuse to function. It's also notable that the parallax effect works, as does the "dynamic" wallpaper. A few of you had questions about that on Twitter. I plan on spending more time with it over the weekend, but after a day's use, I can say that, aside from some minor responsiveness issues, iOS 7 seems just fine on the iPad 2. I'll have more after the weekend.
iOS 7 lock screen vulnerability reported, and here's how to fix it (Updated)
It took less than 24 hours for someone to find a way to break through iOS 7's passcode feature, and wouldn't you know it: the new Control Center is to blame. By going through a rather simple series of swipes and taps, a user can bypass the lock screen on some iOS 7 devices. You start in the Control Center, switch to the Timer, then double-tap the home button which lets you access the multitasking feature, allowing you to browse apps without having to unlock the device. I say "some" because there's a rather simple tweak you can perform that will prevent someone from using this nasty trick on your own iPhone or iPad: Simply go to Settings -> Control Center and toggle the "Access on Lock Screen" option to "off." Ta-da! You're safe! Update: Apple is working on a fix. Update 2: According to multiple reports, accessing the multitasking menu through the Timer glitch only produces blank screenshots, but using the glitch while in the Camera app gets the job done. [via Forbes]
iOS 7 bug enables user to bypass lockscreen, send emails and status updates (update: Apple response)
The moment operating systems become available to the public is also the moment millions of people have the opportunity to hunt around and find bugs. And, it appears that at least one rather critical bug has already been discovered in iOS 7. A keen-eyed user found a way to bypass the passcode-protected lockscreen and gain access to the device's photos app, giving him the ability to hijack the email or social network account associated with that device. Essentially, you access the alarm clock through Control Center, make your way into the multitasking menu and head into the camera app from there. We've embedded the video evidence below, just in case you're interested in trying it out for yourself; we tested it out using an iPhone 5s running iOS 7.0.1, and were able to duplicate the user's claims. This isn't the first time we've seen an iOS bug capable of bypassing your lockscreen and compromising the security of your device, and Apple typically squashes those bugs with patches; the last one took a month, however, so we'd like to see an update to iOS 7.0.2 a bit sooner than that. While you wait, the easiest way to avoid this concern is to disable the ability to access Control Center from the lockscreen (this can be found in the settings). [Thanks, @vbarraquito!] Update: Apple tells AllThingsD that it's aware of the bug, and that it's working on a fix.
iOS 7 adoption rate after one day is higher than for earlier versions of iOS
If it seemed like everyone on planet Earth was trying to install iOS 7 at the same you were, well, you're probably not wrong in that assumption. Information from Chitika Insights and others who have been following the action of the past 24 hours shows that anywhere from 18.2 percent (Chitika) to 36.10 percent (Mixpanel at 10:30 AM PT, see figure below) of all iOS devices are now running Apple's latest mobile OS. Why the difference in the numbers? Well, it probably has to do with the methodologies used by the two companies. A Mixpanel spokesperson responded to this question as follows: The data in the iOS 7 adoption report on Mixpanel Trends is based on an aggregated set of the more than 15 billion actions analyzed by Mixpanel each month. The report shows the share of total activity on devices running a version of iOS at a given time, not on unique devices. In Mixpanel, an action is defined by our customers and can be anything from logging in to an app to making a purchase or finishing a level in a game. I'm not familiar with their (Ed: Chitika's) methodology, so it's hard for me to speculate on why they are so different. But part of the answer could be the time at which the data was pulled. The data in our iOS 7 adoption report is updating in real time, so that 36 percent is as of 10 AM PT. Our chart shows we saw 18 percent adoption at around 5 PM PT last night. Also, here are some other points you might find interesting: In the first 24 hours activity on devices running iOS 7 skyrocketed, reaching 36 percent at 10 AM on Thursday. People updated during the work day: Just 10 hours after it was released, devices running iOS 7 accounted for 22 percent of total iOS activity. People stayed up late to update: Between 10 PM - 8 AM PT, iOS 7 claimed another 10 percent+ of activity. At 9 AM yesterday, iOS 6 accounted for 94 percent of iOS activity. At 9 AM today, it had dropped to account for only 61 percent of activity. If it continues at this rate, there will be more activity on iOS 7 than on iOS 6 in another 24 hours. Compare that to Android where, as of yesterday and 450 days after launch, all versions of Jelly Bean account for 57 percent of activity according to the Android OS Versions report on Mixpanel Trends here. Android's official stats (here) have Jelly Bean adoption at an even lower 45 percent. But the most recent version of Jelly Bean (4.2.X) only accounted for 12 percent of activity according to the Android OS Versions report on Mixpanel Trends here. Android's official stats (here) have Jelly Bean 4.2.X adoption at an even lower 8.5 percent. Compare that to iOS 7 which accounted for 11 percent of activity only two hours after release. Chitika's spokesperson provided the following clarification: While we can't speak to Mixpanel's methodology, here's how we tabulate our statistics for the iOS 7 study: We examine traffic across 300,000 different websites within our ad network ---these range from several sites in the Alexa Top 10 to smaller blogs. Additionally, our network of sites comprises a wide variety of verticals (e.g., automotive, photography, retail, etc.) For this particular study, we examined tens of millions of online ad impressions to tabulate our results. An important distinction is that we examine web browsing activity, rather than in-app activity. In comparison to the Android operating system, where only 45 percent of all devices are currently running Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean" -- an operating system that was released in July 2012 -- the adoption rate for iOS 7 is incredible, even when Chitika's lower numbers are used for comparison.
New and notable apps that launched alongside iOS 7
Apple rolled out iOS 7 yesterday to the public, and app developers were ready with their iOS 7 compatible apps. Yesterday, we looked at notable iOS app updates, and today, it is time to look at the new apps that debuted alongside iOS 7 . Here is a list of new apps that hit App Store just in time for iOS 7. La Luna: The Story Project [iPad; Category: Entertainment; $3.99] Pixar's Academy Award-nominated short film comes to life in a new interactive storybook experience for your iPad. Disney Infinity: Toy Box [iPad; Category: Games; Free] Captain Jack Sparrow in a sports car racing Dash, Sulley climbing mountains to find Cinderella's Castle – create anything your imagination dreams of. Riddick: The Merc Files [iOS Universal; Category: Games; $2.99] Be Riddick - the iconic antihero - and avoid the mercenaries that hunt you across the stars. Diptic PDQ [iOS Universal; Category: Photography & Video; $0.99] Diptic PDQ (short for Pretty Dang Quick) is the fastest way to create photo collages and share them with friends. Morningstar for iPad [iPad; Category: Finance; Free] Research thousands of stocks, funds, and exchange-traded funds; build a library of investment ideas; and drill down using proprietary Morningstar ratings and analysis. Lineal Timeline [iPad; Category: Productivity; $4.99] Beautiful Timelines Made Simple. Begin - Your daily todo list [iPhone; Category: Productivity; $0.99] Begin is a todo list for real people. It works how you'd expect. It's fast, it's simple and it's beautiful. Cook - The World's Cook Book [iPad; Category: Food & Drink; Free] Cook lets you create your very own Cook book for iPad to share the food you love with family and friends. Toca Cars [iOS Universal; Category: Education; $0.99] In Toca Cars you do what feels right. No rules apply to these roads. Cruise through big puddles of ice cream, fly off jumps into a lake or build a huge pile of houses, stop lights, and mailboxes and drive right through. Angry Birds Star Wars II [iOS Universal; Category: Games; $0.99] Based on the Star Wars movie prequels, use the Force for good against the greedy Pork Federation or choose a much darker path. Infinity Blade III [iOS Universal; Category: Games; $6.99] Created by ChAIR Entertainment, the original iOS blockbuster returns with adrenaline-fueled sword-fighting action, gorgeous visuals, and a thrilling story of love, betrayal, and redemption.