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YouTube Adds Support for Split View, Slide Over

After causing many fans to lose hope, YouTube today released Version 11.10 with support for Slide Over and Split View.

By selecting YouTube from the slide over menu, YouTube will now play videos in a small window in Slide Over, while increasing in size when used in Split View.

All in all, it works about as expected – you can browse, visit channels, and watch videos from either option. Although it may have taken too long to get here, YouTube’s latest update is finally updated to support iOS 9’s features.

Court Grants the Justice Department’s Request for iPhone Hearing to Be Postponed

A hearing scheduled for Tuesday, 22 March 2016, between Apple and the Justice Department was unexpectedly cancelled on Monday after a request from the Justice Department. In its application requesting Tuesday’s hearing to be postponed, the Justice Department stated that a third party approached the FBI on Sunday with a possible method that could unlock the iPhone, without requiring assistance from Apple.

On Sunday, March 20, 2016, an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method for unlocking Farook’s iPhone. Testing is required to determine whether it is a viable method that will not compromise data on Farook’s iPhone. If the method is viable, it should eliminate the need for the assistance from Apple Inc. (“Apple”) set forth in the All Writs Act Order in this case.

Judge Sheri Pym granted the request after Apple did not object, and the Justice Department will now have to file a status report by 5 April 2016. The court order compelling Apple to assist the FBI has also been stayed by Judge Pym “pending further submissions” because Monday’s submissions from the Justice Department have resulted in “uncertainty surrounding the government’s need for Apple’s assistance”.

It is not clear who contacted the FBI with the possible method, and on a call with BuzzFeed and other reporters, a law enforcement official refused to name them, other than saying that it came “from outside the U.S. government”. Apple’s attorney told reporters that it did not know what the supposed vulnerability is, but that fixing it will be “an urgent priority for the company” and that they will insist that the government share details of the exploit if the case moves forward.

As The New York Times points out, it is unlikely that this is the last we will hear about this case, particularly if the FBI concludes that the new method will not work. In any case, we will learn more when the Justice Department files their status report in the coming weeks before the court imposed deadline of 5 April 2016.

“This will only delay an inevitable fight over whether the government can force Apple to break the security of its devices,” said Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, an advocacy group.

For the Justice Department, cracking the iPhone would be a mixed blessing. While it would give investigators access to data that they see as crucial to a terrorism investigation, it would cut short the encryption debate that the F.B.I. had been trying to start for years before the Apple case came along.

Courtesy of BuzzFeed, you can read the Justice Department’s motion to vacate here, and the Court’s order here.

[via BuzzFeed and The New York Times]

Some Post-Event iPhone Extras

After today’s Apple Event, we’ve compiled some interesting hands-on coverage and links that you may find interesting:

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Apple Announces CareKit and Advancements to ResearchKit

During Apple’s spring event last year, the Cupertino company announced a new health initiative with ReasearchKit. The feature was to connect medical researchers with iPhone users to gather data at unprecedented scale and speed. The goal: accelerate research on treatment and cures for illnesses.

ResearchKit Update and Advancements

One year later, and Apple reports that ResearchKit has been a great success. ResearchKit studies are among the largest in history, and researchers have already been making new discoveries and gaining new insights into illnesses. Apple exemplified this with an Autism ResearchKit study which is working to identify Autism mere months after children are born, rather than years after. Another ResearchKit study has reportedly all but confirmed the existence of subclasses of Type 2 Diabetes.

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Apple Releases Classroom App for iPad→

One of the core changes of iOS 9.3 is Education, and a big part of the updated framework is the Classroom app. Apple has now released Classroom on the App Store, and it’s a free download for iPads running iOS 9.3.

Classroom is a powerful new iPad app that helps you guide learning, share work, and manage student devices. It supports both shared and one-to- one environments. You can launch a specific app, website, or textbook page on any device in the class, or share student work on a TV, monitor, or projector using Apple TV. You can even reset a student’s password, see which apps students are working in, and assign a specific Shared iPad for each class.

Apple also published a PDF document detailing the features of Classroom, including Shared iPad and Screen View. You can read it here.

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The 9.7-inch iPad Pro: Our Complete Overview

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

At a media event held earlier today at its campus in Cupertino, Apple took the wraps off the highly anticipated smaller iPad Pro. With a 9.7-inch display (same size of the iPad Air 2) and carrying (mostly) the same features of its 12.9-inch counterpart, the smaller iPad Pro brings all the power of the bigger iPad Pro in a more compact package with some new additions as well.

“iPad Pro is a new generation of iPad that is indispensable and immersive, enabling people to be more productive and more creative. It’s incredibly fast, extremely portable, and completely natural to use with your fingers, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. And now it comes in two sizes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

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Meet Liam, Apple’s Recycling Robot

Today, Apple introduced a new hardware recycling program called Apple Renew with an iPhone disassembly robot named Liam.

Liam takes apart iPhones detecting and removing parts, and separating materials so each can be repurposed. Examples of materials that Liam can recover from the video below include:

  • cobalt and lithium from the iPhone’s battery,
  • gold and copper from the camera, and
  • silver and platinum from the main logic board.

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Apple Announces New 4-Inch iPhone SE

Today at Apple’s “In the Loop” event in Cupertino, vice president of iOS, iPad, and iPhone product marketing Greg Joswiak took the stage to announce the long awaited update to Apple’s 4-inch iPhone line. Clearly the descendant of the iPhone 5s, the new iPhone SE comes in a very similar form factor, but now packs nearly the same power and feature set as Apple’s flagship iPhone 6s.

Specs

The iPhone SE runs the same 64-bit Apple A9 processor and M9 motion co-processor as the 6s. According to Apple, the SE runs twice as fast as the iPhone 5s and has three times higher GPU performance. The updated processors mean the SE has the hands-free “Hey Siri” feature enabled even when the device is not connected to a charger. Notably, the device now comes in Apple’s Rose Gold color finish, and I’d say it’s the nicest looking Rose Gold device they’ve made yet.

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Apple Discounts Apple Watch Sport, Introduces 26 New Watch Bands

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.

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