Apple just released the first iOS 10 beta to the public

It’s here. The first public beta of iOS 10 is now available to download. You can download it, even your neighbor can download it. And the good news is that you won’t have to pay $99 a year for a developer account. But remember, this is a beta.

If you can’t wait to see iOS 10 in action, Apple’s public beta program is for you. The company wants you to try out its new operating system before releasing it in the fall. The developer beta lets developers take advantage of all the new APIs, while the public beta is all about ironing out the bugs. As Apple just released the second developer beta a couple of days ago, it’s safe to say that the first public beta is the same one as the second developer beta.

But remember, you shouldn’t install an iOS beta on your primary phone or iPad. Some things won’t work while others might crash your phone altogether. It’s a beta, after all. But if you have an iOS device lying around, backup your device first. Make sure your iCloud backup is up to date by going to the Settings app on your iPhone, or plug your iOS device to your computer to do a manual backup in iTunes (or do both, really).

Then, here’s how to download it. Head over to and enroll your compatible iOS device. Then you have to install a configuration profile and update iOS. In September, your device should automatically update to the final version of iOS 10.

iOS 10 features a massive Siri update with third-party integrations. While it’s going to be hard to see the end result during the beta as third-party developers haven’t released iOS 10 apps yet, it could have a big impact on the way you use your iPhone.

Apple has also unveiled a completely redesigned lock screen with rich notifications that can display tiny live widgets and a huge Photos app update with face recognition, deep learning categorization and intelligent photo albums. Apple Maps, Apple Music, HomeKit and the Phone app are also receiving updates. Finally, the company is overhauling the Messages app with many, many new features — an emojify feature, message effects, Slack-like feedback on messages, rich link previews and third-party extensions.

While you’re downloading the beta, why don’t you head over to our early look of iOS 10. This way, you’ll learn everything you need to know about iOS 10 so you can impress your friends with the new features.

 Source: Techcrunch

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You can now search the Web with your camera with Bing for iOS

Microsoft updates its Bing app for iOS with some very useful functionality: image search using a new photo you take in the app or a photo you hang hanging around on your device.

This feature is not yet available on Android or Windows Phone. It isn’t even available from the Google app for iOS or Android, or from Yahoo’s mobile apps, for that matter.

Once you’ve made a photo or selected a photo from your gallery in Bing on iOS, you can crop the image in order to only get search results that are similar to a specific part of the photo. From there, you can share the image through another app or give feedback. Or you can select any photo in the search results and crop it in order to receive new search results. (Hat tip to MSPoweruser for reporting on the app update.)

Initial tests suggest that the image recognition technology at the heart of the new feature doesn’t work perfectly — for example, I took a photo of a Mitsubushi logo on a nearby television and got other logos on devices in search results — but it does work well enough for many visual search queries, and more importantly, it’s forward-looking.

“In five years, we think 50 percent of queries will be on speech or images,” said Andrew Ng, the head of Baidu Research, in a talk he gave in 2014. (Baidu’s iOS app does offer visual search, but the app is not currently available in English.)

What Google has done in this area is the Google Goggles app, which is still available for Android but hasn’t been updated since May 2014. And it only took a quick guess at identifying an object or a place in an image, rather than offering up full-fledged image search.

Pinterest last year implemented visual search that allow users to crop specific parts of images and then find similar pins.

Bing revamped its iPhone app in November.



Source:Venture Beat

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Microsoft Hub Keyboard Now Available For iOS

A couple of months ago, Microsoft launched the Hub keyboard for Android devices. At that time it was unclear if the app would ever find its way onto iOS especially given that there are some apps for Android that have remained exclusive. However for iOS users who are curious about the keyboard app, you’re in luck.

Microsoft has recently released the Hub keyboard app for iOS devices and for the most part it operates the same way as its Android counterpart. So what so special about the Hub keyboard? For the regular iOS user, it might not mean much, but if you’re someone who relies on Office 365 heavily, then you might appreciate the app more.

Basically the keyboard integrates with Office 365 and will allow users to quickly search for their own contacts and documents within Office 365 to share them whenever the keyboard is present. It also makes copying and pasting a cinch as the most recent clipboard text is shown at the top of the keyboard, so pasting is just a tap away.

So far reviews of the keyboard have been somewhat mixed but your mileage might vary depending on what you use it for. Like we said, it seems to be more catered towards Office 365 users so if you are one of those users, you might get more use out of it. The app is a free download so hit up the iTunes App Store for the download.



Source: Ubergizmo

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Chrome Is Now Faster And More Stable On iOS

Google's Chrome browser has a loyal following on iOS, but it's certainly not for the speed or reliability -- it has long used a second-tier iOS web rendering engine (UIWebView) that isn't nearly as polished as what you get in Safari. At last, though, it's catching up.

The latest iOS version of Chrome now uses a newer engine (WKWebView), giving it performance much closer to Apple's own browser -- it's "significantly" faster, particularly when it comes to JavaScript. You'll be glad to hear that it's much more stable, as well, with a crash rate that's a whopping 70 percent lower.

And don't worry, desktop users, you're getting some updates of your own. There's a new Data Saver extension that compresses websites, helping you get that much more web surfing out of a slow connection or a capped data plan. Also, Chrome itself now puts the icons for your extensions right next to the address bar, so it's easy to spot and remove a rogue add-on. Both the iOS and desktop upgrades should be available today, so you won't have to wait long to give the new features a shot.

 Source:  Engadget

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Microsoft Word Flow Keyboard Coming Soon To iOS

While Microsoft has its own mobile operating system to contend with, it seems that the Redmond company is equally eager to get as many of their products onto competing platforms as well. We’ve seen Microsoft launch their Office suite of apps on iOS and Android, and now it looks like they could be launching a keyboard for iOS too.


According to an email that has been sent to several Windows Insider participants, it seems that Microsoft is looking to bring their famed Word Flow keyboard onto the iPhone. For those unfamiliar, the Word Flow keyboard is the one that is used on the Windows Phone platform. It even set the Guinness World Record for facilitating the fastest texting.

So far reviews of the platform have largely praised the keyboard, and now it looks like iOS users can look forward to it as well. Based on the email, it sounds like the keyboard is still very much in beta and Microsoft is looking for beta testers ahead of its release. No word on when an Android version will be launched, but chances are an Android version has been planned as well.

Given that iOS now allows the installation of third-party keyboards, this might be a treat for some iOS users who might have felt that Word Flow would do great on iOS. In any case we’ll be keeping an eye out for its release, so check back with us in the future for more updates.


Source: Ubergizmo

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Twitter for iOS adds 1Password integration for safe and easy log-ins

Logging into Twitter just got a lot easier — and much safer — on iOS.

In an update, Twitter added 1Passwordintegration for signing in. This will be especially helpful for those with multiple accounts, or who are adding Twitter for the fist time on mobile.

The Twitter app is available for free on the App Store. The 1Password integration doesn’t seem to have hit Android yet, but we’re sure it’s “coming soon.”

Source :The Next Web 

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Google app for iOS now supports 3D Touch and multitasking for iPad

If you’ve got a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus in your hand (or pocket), the Google app is now a lot more useful.

Via an update, the mainstay Google app for iOS now supports 3D Touch. A firm press on the icon will let you do cursory text searches, or use your voice. You can also do an image search with 3D Touch.

For those with iPads, Google now supports multitasking. You can use the slide-out view, or use Google in full side-by-side mode.

For all users, the app now tells you about holiday hours, and which times of day are busiest for a given business if you’d rather avoid waiting in line to buy stuff.

Source :The Next Web 

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Apple Releases iOS 9.2

Today Apple released iOS 9.2 to iPads, iPhones, and iPods worldwide. The update is another incremental release, improving on features and removing bugs that are still lingering since the release of iOS 9 earlier this year. This time around, Apple's change log is fairly substantial, and it looks like there's a bit more detail on some of the major bugs and stability fixes being made, which are often not highlighted in the list included with the OTA update.

One notable feature addition in the update is support for Mail Drop in the Mail application, which allows you to send attachments that are several gigabytes in size by storing them in iCloud. It's a bit surprising that Mail Drop has taken so long to make its way over to iOS, but the relatively small size of the files that iOS users would have been attaching in the past may have played a role. With support for recording and editing UHD video on newer devices the feature has become more relevant.

The Music app sees a number of improvements relating to Apple Music as well. You can now download albums or playlists to local storage from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud button next to their listing in the app. There's also an indicator to let you know whether tracks are stored locally or being streamed from the cloud. Apple has also improved the display of metadata for classical music, with listings for works, composers, and performers, along with a few additional UI and functionality changes.

Other notable changes include support for 3D Touch in iBooks on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, a new Top Stories section in Apple News, and support for Siri in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

As for the bug fixes and improvements, there are a great number of them and I can't list them all here. Some of the ones that stand out to me are a fix for a bug that would disable alarms when updating iOS, which is something that caused a number of people who rely on their phone alarms to not be woken up when iOS 9.1 was released. They've also fixed an issue where the iPad keyboard would randomly trigger the text selection mode, which is something that I've encountered myself. Other fixes include layout changes to the calendar app to fix a bug that prevented all seven days of the week from showing up in the week view, 

On the hardware and software side, the update brings one final change which is support for Apple's new USB Camera Adapter. This product was just released today, and it improves on the older camera adapter by supporting USB 3 transfer speeds on the iPad Pro, and bringing support for iPhones which were previously not supported.

iOS 9.2 is rolling out now, and by the time you read this you should be able to download it to your device by visiting the software update section of the iOS settings application. The size of the OTA update on an iPhone 6s is 271MB, while on an iPad Mini 4 it's 260MB. When updating, you can view the full change log for the update by clicking on the learn more button underneath the update highlights.

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Firefox finally comes to iOS worldwide

While Mozilla wants Firefox to be all things to all people, the browser has been noticeably missing from Apple's App Store. The software company put that down to the iPhone maker's software policy, namely that it'd have to use iOS' default browser engine instead of its own. Mozilla slowly came around to the idea and announced it wouldbring Firefox to iOS at the end of last year and now, after performing some localized testing in New Zealand, the browser is now finally available to iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users.

Like its Android counterpart, which has been on the Play Store for more than three years, Firefox for iOS comes complete with a private browsing mode, Chrome-like predictive searching and support for Firefox accounts, which pulls over bookmarks, browser history, saved tabs and passwords. In my brief test, the browser was quick to load and rendered web pages without issue, but you probably won't notice much of difference between Firefox, Safari or Chrome. Whether you'll make the switch to Mozilla's latest app will likely hinge on what you're currently using on the desktop, but there's certainly nothing we've seen that could stop it from becoming a useful tool in your browsing arsenal.


Source :Engadget 

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Microsoft seeks testers for Cortana beta on iOS

It was a little over a year ago that Microsoft denied any intentions of bringing Cortana, its own voice-activated virtual assistant, to other mobile platforms. Then in May of this year, the company announced what had been rumored for some time:Cortana for iOS and Android was in the works. Now, after months of internal development and testing, Microsoft is ready to start having select users beta test Cortana on the iPhone.

Now, don't get too excited if you've been eagerly awaiting Cortana's debut on Apple hardware. Microsoft says they're only looking for a "limited number of people" to preview an early build of the app. "We want help from our Windows Insiders to make sure she's a great personal assistant on iOS too," the developers say.

Microsoft has posted a survey for those interested in signing up for the beta. As of now it will only be accepting users in the US, as well as China.

Cortana for iOS will have a similar appearance to its counterparts on Windows 10 Mobile and Android, however it won't have all the features that are available on Microsoft's own devices, including the always listening "hey Cortana" voice command. The actions it will be capable of include sending emails, reminders, and scheduling calendar events.

Source: Microsoft Community

Via : Slash Gear 

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Apple issues second betas of iOS 9.2, OS X 10.11.2 to developers

Testing of both iOS 9.2 and OS X 10.11.2 continues, with the second pre-release builds of both platforms issued to registered developers on Tuesday.

The latest build of iOS 9.2 is identified as build 13C5060d. Apple has once again warned developers that devices running iOS 9.2 cannot be restored to earlier versions of iOS.

Its release comes just one week after the first developer beta of iOS 9.2 was issued. The most notable change in iOS 9.2 revealed by Apple is a change to how the Safari Web browser works in third-party apps, enabling user-installed extensions to operate in those conditions.

An initial public beta of iOS 9.2 was also releasedlast week, on Thursday. It's likely that a second iOS 9.2 public beta will debut this week.

As for OS X 10.11.2 beta 2, it is identified as build 15C31f. It also saw its first developer beta launchone week ago, while the first public beta also debuted last Thursday, alongside iOS 9.2.

Finally, iOS 9.2 and OS X 10.11.2 were also accompanied by a new, second beta build of Xcode 7.2. Apple TV developers can also obtain a first beta of tvOS 9.1.

Source : Apple insider 

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Hackers have been paid $1 million for breaking into iOS 9

An anonymous team of hackers has been awarded a million-dollar bounty after successfully hacking Apple’s IOS 9.1 mobile operating system. The money has been paid out by Zerodium, a company that pays for security information and exploits, ready to sell them on to the highest bidder. It announced the competition — which it called The Million Dollar iOS 9 Bug Bounty — in late September, and confirmed it had a winner via itsofficial Twitter account at the beginning of November.

According to Zerodium’s founder Chaouki Bekrar, speaking to Wired, there were two teams in the hunt for victory, but only one came up with the real deal. The company was looking for something far beyond the publicly available jailbreak methods, requiring a browser or SMS-based, remotely carried out hack, that would result in the “remote, privileged, and persistent installation of an arbitrary app.”

However, while this sounds innocuous, Zerodium will go on to sell the hack to its customers, whichapparently include technology companies, finance institutions, and defense corporations. Government agencies are also mentioned as Zerodium clients. Bekrar says he expects to sell the new iOS hack to a U.S. customer. While such exploits could be valuable to companies wanting to ensure their own devices are highly secure, they could also be equally valuable to those interested in illicit surveillance.

There’s little chance of the vulnerabilities being fixed by Apple in the very near future, at least off the back of this competition, because Zerodium has no intention of informing Apple of the methods used at this time. It may do so at a later date, but certainly not before its big payday. If you’re wondering, while ethically questionable, Zerodium and its clients aren’t doing anything illegal. The million-dollar bug hunt bounty competition is therefore unlikely to be the last of its type, given the obvious financial benefit to all involved.

Source : wired 

Via : Digital Trends 

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Apple’s iOS 9.1 Shuts Down The Pangu Hacking Team’s Jailbreak

Well, that was fast! Only days after the first public jailbreak for iOS 9 devices hit the web, it appears that Apple has closed two of the exploits used by the Chinese hacking team Pangu, whose untethered jailbreak allowed users to jailbreak nearly all iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices running iOS versions 9.0 through 9.0.2.

In a security document posted on Apple’s website, the Cupertino company credits Pangu with discovering two vulnerabilities in the iOS operating system that have now been patched.

These include one vulnerability that would allow a malicious application to elevate privileges, and another that would allow a malicious application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.

The jailbreaking community already knew that Apple had patched these exploits in iOS 9.1. After all, the jailbreak didn’t work with the beta build of the iOS 9.1 software. That’s likely why the Pangu team pushed their iOS 9 jailbreak out the door just ahead of the iOS 9.1 release – it was the only way to get it into the hands of end users before it was too late.

However, this doesn’t mean that you’ll never be able to jailbreak your device again if you already accidentally upgraded to 9.1. There’s always the chance that the Pangu team or another hacker will find a different vulnerability to exploit in the future.

Source :TechCrunch 

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WeChat on iOS updated with 3D Touch for iPhone 6s, video calling rolled out on Windows

With loyal Apple fans lining up around the world Friday to get their hands on the new iPhone 6s models, Tencent updated its popular iOS messaging app WeChat with some 3D Touch goodness. (The update is live here.)

It also rolled out an update to its Windows app — I bet you didn’t even know WeChat was available on Windows! — to allow for free video calling on desktop between users. (You can download that here.)

The 3D Touch functionality allows iPhone 6s users to launch certain in-app features pre-selected by the developer right from the home screen by pressing down slightly more firmly on an app icon.

In the case of WeChat, a deeper press will now bring up options to mute notifications from the app for an hour, instantly display your personal QR code (this allows other WeChat users to add you as a contact by scanning it with the app’s built-in scanner), snap a picture with the app’s camera, or start a new chat.

WeChat now claims about 600 million users, the bulk of whom are admittedly still in mainland China and using a more powerful version of the app that is only available within the country.

We recently took a closer look at what WeChat is trying to do in terms of its online-to-offline (O2O) services integration, and got to the bottom of some new Evernote-style multimedia clip functionality that it introduced in an iOS update this month.

Unlike last year’s iPhone 6 launch, this year Apple decided to promote China into the first wave of launch markets for the new devices, alongside traditional first-wave markets like the U.S. and U.K.

Apple also showcased WeChat in the 3D Touch live demo at its iPhone 6s unveiling event in a clear nod to Chinese consumers — they represent a rising middle class that Apple increasingly relies on to satiate the demands of Wall Street.

But we’d already seen Apple acknowledge the growing pull of China when it included WeChat’s app for the Apple Watch in a pre-launch demo. The New York Times, meanwhile, tweeted an announcement of its new official international account on WeChat at the end of last week.

In general, the buzz around the new iPhone launch seems to be as big as ever. We took a look at the pros and cons of the devices, and alsocompiled pictures of the “Apple faithful” forming lines outside stores in the run up to the launch today.

Finally, we heard directly from Tencent over the weekend that WeChat had been hacked through a security flaw, but that no user data or money was stolen. That story seemed to be part of a wider hacking attempt of Chinese apps on the App Store, which garnered widespread media coverage.

Source : Venture Beat 

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Apple's iOS 9 software gets its first bug-fixing update

If you were quick to load up iOS 9 when it became available last week, chances are you've been happily getting to grips with Apple's revamped mobile operating system without experiencing any noticeable issues.

However, in the days following its release, some users have been reporting problems, including a “slide to upgrade” prompt that's left some devices frozen, meaning users couldn't even load up the new system. Among those that have installed iOS 9, some have been complaining that alarms are failing to play – not much good if you rely on your phone to wake you up for work.

The good news is that the iPhone maker has just rolled out another update – iOS 9.0.1 – that aims to fix all the currently known issues, hopefully making for an altogether smoother experience when using Apple's refreshed mobile OS.

Source : Digital Trends 

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iOS 9 is already running on more than half of Apple mobile devices

Apple may have taken a long while to get users upgrading to iOS 8, but it isn't having any such trouble with iOS 9. The iPhone maker hasrevealed that more than half of all iOS devices are already running the new software less than a weekafter it launched. That's the fastest adoption rate yet for the platform, if you ask the folks in Cupertino. That's certainly better than on Android, where just 21 percent of users are running Lollipop, but it's not really that surprising when you realize that Apple has bent over backwards to put iOS 9 on as many devices as possible.

Apple has a few upgrade-friendly advantages that you already know, such as a narrower range of devices (bad for variety, good for updates) and direct control over both the operating system and the hardware. However, it also decided to continue supporting 4-year-old iOS devices like the iPhone 4s and iPad 2 instead of cutting them off, as it would have in years past. Moreover, itreduced the size of the update file -- people stuck with 8GB or 16GB devices don't have to purge tons of apps and media just to see what they're missing. The speedy upgrade rate isn't so much a reflection of iOS 9's worthiness (although it is a tangible improvement) as it is the lower barrier to entry.

Source :Engadget 

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Apple just released iOS 9 – download it now!

Just as Apple told us last week during the iPhone 6s keynote, iOS 9 is available for download beginning immediately. The new mobile operating system was first unveiled during WWDC in June, with developers and public beta testers having had access to it since then.

iOS 9 comes preloaded on the new iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPad Pro and iPad mini 4 – along with all other iOS devices still available in Apple’s inventory moving forward – and is compatible with a broad range of iPhones and iPads.

iOS 9 can run on iPhones as old as the iPhone 4S, on iPad 2 or later, and on iPod touch fifth-gen or later. With iOS 9, Apple is focused on performance improvements that should make the OS run even better on older hardware, not to mention the fact that it takes up significantly less storage space than its predecessor.

While you can download the update right away on your device or via iTunes, make sure you read our tips on installing iOS 9 as smoothly as possible.

Regardless of whether you’ve already familiarized yourself with iOS 9 or not, make sure you check out our extended iOS 9 coverage throughout the day by following our iOS 9 hub.

Apple was also expected to release watchOS 2 on Wednesday, but the company announced that the update has been delayed, as there’s a bug that needs to be fixed. Apple Watch users who were getting ready for some exciting new features starting today, will have to keep waiting, but the update is supposed to arrive “shortly.”

Source : Bgr 

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Mozilla is ready to test Firefox on iOS, but only in New Zealand

iPhone and iPads owners looking for a browser alternative are one step closer to seeing Mozilla's option on their devices, but right now a "preview" of the app is only available in New Zealand. In a blog post it says this limitation is so it can gather feedback before taking it to a few more countries ahead of any public launch. Assuming you are a Kiwi, you can try out its Intelligent Search with suggested results across certain sites, and sync your info from the desktop with a Firefox account. Everyone else is invited to sign up for a notification of when the app will arrive in their country.

SOURCE: Mozilla Blog

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