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Apple Posts New ‘Photos & Videos’ iPhone Ad

Apple aired a new commercial as part of their “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone” campaign, this time focusing on the device’s camera for photos and videos.

The entire ad showcases full-screen photos and videos taken on the iPhone 6, noting that “every day, millions of amazing photos” are shot with iPhone. Unlike other ads in the campaign, there’s no mention of third-party apps – just the iPhone’s camera and animations generated by photos and videos. Previously, Apple had featured iPhone photography with the “Shot on iPhone 6” initiative, which was later expanded to ads, films, and billboards across the world.

You can watch Apple’s latest iPhone commercial below.

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Microsoft Outlook App Now Available on the Apple Watch→

As noted by The Verge, Microsoft Outlook is now available for the Apple Watch after Microsoft updated the Outlook iPhone app today. The Outlook Watch app enables users to reply to emails directly on the Watch through various quick reply options or via dictation.

Besides replying to emails on the Watch, there’s an Outlook glance which enables users to review their inbox or see what’s next on their calendar. Finally, Outlook’s custom notifications on the Apple Watch add support for archiving and scheduling emails as they arrive.

Tom Warren from The Verge tried the new Outlook Apple Watch app wrote:

By default, Outlook notifications on the Apple Watch now show a lot more of the email body instead of cutting it short after a couple of sentences. While you still can’t reply instantly from a notification, you can now tap on the Outlook icon in the notification to launch a dedicated Outlook Apple Watch app that lets you see an overview of email and reply to any messages using quick replies or dictation.

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Apple Updates TestFlight with Support for iOS 9 and watchOS 2 Betas, App Thinning

Apple has updated its official TestFlight app for iOS today, bringing support for iOS 9 and watchOS 2 betas, plus a new App Thinning feature that will allow developers to deliver slimmer apps in iOS 9.

Version 1.2 of TestFlight supports, according to Apple, “upcoming iOS 9 features”. The first beta of iOS 9 was first released in June, and, following the launch of the fourth developer beta, several members of the developer community were wondering when Apple would start allowing developers to distribute iOS 9 app betas to external testers. The release notes of the update don’t mention external testers, so it’s still fair to wonder when Apple will actually let developers expand their beta pools beyond internal testers.

Update: As confirmed in an email by Apple, TestFlight’s iOS 9 features are currently limited to watchOS 2 apps and App Thinning for internal testers only.

In addition to iOS 9 and watchOS 2 support, the TestFlight app has been updated with new notification settings. You can now turn off email and notification updates on a per-app basis – a welcome addition for those testing dozens of different apps.

TestFlight 1.2 is available on the App Store.

Listen to Full Beats 1 Shows Again with Beats 1 Replays

I’m not sure when Apple rolled out this change, exactly (though it appears to have gone live over the past three days), but you can now listen to several Beats 1 shows (including those by Zane, Julie, and Ebro) in full through Beats 1 Replays.

Previously, unless you listened to a show live or during its rerun twelve hours later, you were out of luck. Some of the shows on Beats 1 offered the ability to follow them on Connect and listen to the playlists of songs played during the show, but that didn’t include the complete show with DJ and guests.

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Apple Pay Now Available for UK HSBC and First Direct Customers

HSBC and First Direct customers in the UK can now use Apple Pay, two weeks after Apple Pay launched in the UK. Both banks had been expected to support Apple Pay when it launched in the UK (HSBC even accidentally leaked the launch date), and both were listed as a participating bank right up until the Apple Pay launch date, when HSBC revealed that it had to delay Apple Pay support due to “some issues”.

HSBC and First Direct join several other financial institutions including Royal Bank of Scotland, American Express, Nationwide, Natwest, Santander, and Ulster Bank in supporting Apple Pay in the UK. Out of the four big banks in the UK, two now support Apple Pay (HSBC & Royal Bank of Scotland), with the other two (Lloyds Bank and Barclays) committed to support it in the future.

Apple Pay support from HSBC seems to be limited at launch to those who have a personal bank account with a Visa Debit Card. For more information on setting up and using Apple Pay, see this Apple Support article.

‘Apps at a Tap’: Apple Posts Three New Apple Watch Ads Focusing on Travel, Fitness and Music Apps

Apple tonight debuted three new ads for the Apple Watch, each featuring the new tagline of ‘Apps at a tap’. Unlike Apple’s most recent Apple Watch ads from earlier this month which showed the Apple Watch in use by people in real world situations, today’s ads (which are brief 15 second clips) simply feature quick demos of various Apple Watch apps.

The three ads each have a different theme, with one focused on travel apps, another on fitness apps and a third on music apps. Some of the apps featured include Uber, Expedia, WaterMinder, Shazam and StubHub.

You can view the new ads below the break or on YouTube: Travel Apps, Fitness Apps, Music Apps.

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Our thanks to VideoBlocks for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Apple Prevents App Store Reviews From Users on iOS 9 Betas

Within the last 12 hours Apple has modified the App Store to prevent users running “prerelease” software from leaving app reviews on the App Store. Now when a user running a beta version of iOS 9 tries to leave an app review, they will get the following error message:

This feature isn’t available.
You can’t write reviews while using a pre-release version of iOS.

However it appears that the change only applies to iOS 9, because users running OS X El Capitan can still post reviews on the Mac App Store.

The change should help end the annual frustration experienced by app developers when users running beta versions of iOS discovered a third party app wasn’t compatible with the beta software and then left a 1-star rating on the App Store. Poor reviews on the App Store can hurt sales, and developers often can’t do anything to fix the problem because they can’t submit software built for the new versions of iOS whilst it remains in beta, and the bug could be one for Apple to fix, not the developer.

As Federico wrote earlier this month:

In this day and age of high competition and over 1.5 million apps available, having negative reviews displayed on the app’s product page is a problem for developers. But it gets worse when those negative reviews cite problems that developers can’t fix yet. At that point, developers feel that it’s not fair to receive a negative review for something that’s completely out of their control. And when the livelihood of independent app markers is at stake, it’s hard to argue aganst their sentiment of frustration and disappointment. There’s nothing they can do to fix their app issues on betas of iOS and OS X and they can’t respond directly to reviews on the App Store – and yet they’re taking all the blame. This, every year, repeatedly for every beta of iOS and OS X, and it’s possibly becoming more of a problem now that Apple has two public betas.

The problem of permitting app reviews from users on beta software was always a problem, but it risked being a much bigger issue this year because it is the first year that Apple has begun offering public betas of a major iOS release.

Apple Q3 2015 Results: $49.6 Billion Revenue, 47.5 Million iPhones, 10.9 Million iPads Sold

Apple has published their Q3 2015 financial results for the quarter that spanned from April to June 2015. The company posted revenue of $49.6 billion. The company sold 10.9 million iPads, 47.5 million iPhones, and 4.8 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $10.7 billion.

“We had an amazing quarter, with iPhone revenue up 59 percent over last year, strong sales of Mac, all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The excitement for Apple Music has been incredible, and we’re looking forward to releasing iOS 9, OS X El Capitan and watchOS 2 to customers in the fall.”

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