After touting the Apple Watch as the top selling smartwatch in the world, Apple revealed this morning that it will now price the Apple Watch Sport at $299 and $349 for the 38mm and 42mm models, respectively.
In addition to the $50 price drop, Apple introduced new watch bands, including the Space Black Milanese Loop and spring collections of the Leather Loop, Sport, and Classic Buckle. A new category of bands, a Woven Nylon collection, was also shown.
Apple has today released tvOS 9.2 for the fourth-generation Apple TV which was released in late 2015. Like iOS 9.3, tvOS 9.2 is more than just a minor point release with bug fixes – it also comes with a few new features which make notable improvements to the product. The headline new features in tvOS 9.2 include support for Bluetooth keyboards, the ability to use Siri dictation to fill out text fields, folders for apps, and support for Live Photos.
For the past week I’ve been running a developer build of tvOS 9.2, and below I’ve outlined the changes, big and small, that this release brings.
If your Apple TV has not automatically prompted you to upgrade to tvOS 9.2, you can also request an update manually. Simply go to Settings > System > Software Updates > Update Software.
Apple today released watchOS 2.2, which includes notable enhancements in two areas. The first is a substantial update to the Maps app, which now includes a new dedicated screen with five buttons that makes it easy to navigate to your home or work, initiate a search, display your current location, or find nearby places powered by Yelp.
OS X 10.11.4, released today by Apple, fixes a number of bugs, including the inability of Safari to open Twitter short URLs. There are, however, several nice user-facing touches in 10.11.4 as well.
For those who didn’t follow the live stream or announcements as they unfolded on Twitter and blogs, Apple has now posted the video of its March 21 keynote held earlier today at the company campus in Cupertino.
The video can be streamed here, and a higher quality version should be made available in a few hours through iTunes (on the Apple Keynotes podcast). To avoid streaming errors, Safari is recommended for the best viewing experience.
In addition, Apple has also posted new commercials and reveal videos for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, ResearchKit, and Liam robot on its YouTube channel. You can find all the videos below.
Apple CEO Tim Cook walked on stage today and kicked off the company’s March 21 event with his opening remarks on encryption and the FBI, but the keynote was filled with lots of extra facts and statistics.
From adoption rates to apps available on the App Store, these numbers are interesting as they’re typically shared throughout the year in dedicated events or press releases. We’ve compiled the most important numbers from Apple’s March 21 keynote below.
Update: Here’s our in-depth overview of iOS 9.3.
As widely expected, Apple has today confirmed the official release date of iOS 9.3 at a media event held at its campus in Cupertino. iOS 9.3 will be released later today for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Unveiled with a surprise announcement in January and available in beta for developers and public testing since, iOS 9.3 is a major update to iOS 9 that includes notable additions for the visual experience of iOS, changes to Notes and Apple Music, and big improvements to iOS for Education.
The biggest change in iOS 9.3 is Night Shift, a new display mode that reduces the blue light emission of a device’s display to prevent eye strain and help get better sleep. Night Shift is highly reminiscent of f.lux, a popular blue light reduction tool for OS X that was also available for a short period of time on iOS through sideloading before Apple asked the company to pull it.
Also new in iOS 9.3 is the ability to protect notes with a password and grant third-party apps access to your Apple Music library to manage playlists and add songs to the library. The former takes advantage of a unique password and Touch ID to protect notes you don’t want to show by default; the latter is based on a new privacy screen and it allows apps to add songs from the iTunes Store (not arbitrary audio files) to your Apple Music library.
Finally, iOS 9.3 brings some deep improvements to the education framework for iPads in the classroom. As we outlined after its announcement, iOS 9.3 will allow multiple students to use the same iPad with support for multiple profiles, it’ll offer a brand new Classroom app for teachers to manage activity and assignments, and it’ll allow school admins to create Managed Apple IDs for students through Apple School Manager.
iOS 9.3 will be released later today through iTunes and Apple’s over-the-air software update. We’ll have a full overview of the changes in a separate article after its launch.
You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today’s Apple’s keynote through our March 21 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 21 Keynote RSS feed.
As first reported by 9to5Mac, a new ‘Apple Events’ channel is now available on the fourth-generation Apple TV’s App Store. The app will enable you to live stream the upcoming Apple keynote on Monday, March 21 at 10am PDT. In the meantime you can also re-watch Apple’s previous keynotes going back to WWDC 2014.
Unlike the Apple Events channel on older Apple TVs, which automatically appeared on the Apple TV on the day of the event, fourth-generation Apple TV owners will have to manually download the Apple Events app from the App Store.
Apple has previously announced that the keynote will also be live streamed on its website if you use Safari on iOS or OS X, or the Microsoft Edge browser on a PC. Apple has also stated that the second and third generation Apple TV will also be able to stream the keynote. Although the Apple Events channel is not yet available on those older Apple TVs, in previous years it has appeared on the Apple TV a few hours prior to the keynote.
More screenshots of the Apple Events app for the fourth-generation Apple TV are embedded below.
You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of Monday’s Apple keynote through our March 21 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 21 Keynote RSS feed.
[via 9to5Mac]
Apple aired a new iPhone 6s commercial earlier today, featuring Sesame Street’s popular Cookie Monster character.
The ad is focused on the hands-free Siri capabilities of the iPhone 6s. In the video, Cookie Monster unsurprisingly wants to eat cookies and sets a timer for the oven to finish baking them. Cookie Monster asks Siri to set a timer without interacting with the iPhone’s display and then asks Siri to check how much is left in the timer, also without having to press the Home button.
The ad follows various commercials Apple has aired to highlight 3D Touch and Live Photos, two other features available on the iPhone 6s. You can watch the video below.
