iPhone Upgrade Program members who felt jilted last Friday when pre-orders began and they couldn’t score a new iPhone 7 may have a chance to get in on this week’s launch day action. Apple made more inventory available for Upgrade Program members, but that may be at the expense of walk-in buyers.
TMO Daily Observations 2016-09-14: iOS 10 Messages and Stickers, Wireless Earbuds
With iOS 10 out and on people’s iPhones and iPads it’s time to dive into some features. Kelly Guimont joins Jeff Gamet to look at Messages and Sticker Packs, and to talk about why Jeff decided to make his own. They also talk about wireless earbuds and Apple dropping the headphone jack from the iPhone 7.
Understanding 'Press Home to Open' and 'Press Home to Unlock' in iOS 10
iOS 10 kills the famous “slide to unlock” and introduces a whole new way of accessing your iPhone. Here’s how Raise to Wake, TouchID, and the lock screen all now work, and how you can (mostly) change it back to the old unlock method if you want.
FRESHeBUDS Pro Magnetic Bluetooth Earbuds: $39
With the iPhone 7 shipping this Friday without a 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth earbuds suddenly look a lot more compelling. If you’re in the market, check out today’s TMO deal: FRESHeBUDS Pro Magnetic Bluetooth Earbuds. They turn off automatically when you click the built-in magnets together and turn on when you pull them apart, are water and sweat resistant, run for 10 hours on a charge and recharge in 90 minutes, and include a built-in microphone for answering calls on the go. The FRESHeBUDS Pro normally cost US$119.95, but are 66% off right now, so you’ll pay only $39.95.
Cool Stuff Found
Single Sign-on Missing from tvOS 10 Update
When Apple released tvOS 10 on Tuesday along side iOS 10 and watchOS 3, our fourth generation Apple TVs got some cool new features like a dark mode interface and more powerful Siri search support. What we aren’t getting is single sign-on support—a feature promised earlier this year at Apple’s annual developer conference.
Jet Black Apple AirPods? Yes, Please
Apple gave many iPhone fans what they wanted when they introduced “black” and “jet black” color options for the new iPhone 7, but the company’s intriguing AirPods are only available in traditional “Apple white.” As a taste of what could have been, and what may be soon, designer Martin Hajek created some renderings of jet black AirPods, which happen to look fantastic paired with their corresponding iPhone 7. Check out Martin’s site for a full set of renderings.
Disable 'Reduce Motion' to See New iOS 10 Message Effects
Having trouble creating or seeing the new Bubble and Screen Effects in the iOS 10 Messages app? The culprit may be an iOS Accessibility setting. Check out our quick tip for a possible solution as to why your iMessages suddenly seem so dull compared to everyone else.
Apple's Swift Playgrounds for iPad Hits the App Store
Apple released Swift Playgrounds for iPad along side iOS 10 on Tuesday, giving us the tablet-based developer learning tool first shown off earlier this year at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference. The app teaches coding skills without needing any prior experience.
How I Turned a Bunch of Drawings into iOS 10 Sticker Packs
What happens when you tell artists they can make sticker packs for iOS 10 Messages easily? They do, and I took that as an invitation, so I went through the process of creating two sticker packs to learn how the process works. It’s a win-win scenario, because I know a lot more about what developers experience, and you get two sticker packs.
Cool Stuff Found
PDF Expert 2 for Mac: $29
Readdle’s PDF Expert 2 is a great PDF reader and editor that goes far beyond OS X’s Preview app at a price that doesn’t put the squeeze on your pocketbook. The app lets you edit text, images and links in PDF files, annotate documents, merge files into a single PDF, complet PDF forms, add document passwords, and more. PDF Expert is regularly US$59.99, but with TMO’s deal you can pick up a copy for half off at $29.99.