Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Apple Asks Developers to Put 'Sign In With Apple' Above Other Sign-in Options

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At its WWDC keynote on Monday, Apple unveiled its new login feature that will allow users to sign into apps and websites using their Apple ID. As part of iOS 13, Apple will require all apps that use third-party sign-in options to include its Sign In With Apple button.


The feature has been largely welcomed as a more secure alternative to similar sign-in services offered by Facebook, Google, and Twitter, since it authenticates the user with Face ID or Touch ID, and doesn't send personal information to app and website developers.

However, one detail in Apple's updated Human Interface Guidelines is raising eyebrows – Apple is asking developers to position its Sign In With Apple button more prominently by putting it above all other rival sign-in options.

The guidelines are regarded as suggestions about how developers should build their apps, rather than mandatory requirements. Even so, many developers believe that following the guidelines give their apps the best chance of passing Apple's approval process. Curiously, Apple is also asking developers to place its Sign In with Apple button above other options on websites, an area over which it wields no review power.

The suggestions come at a time when developers and rivals have claimed some of Apple's business practices, such as taking up to a 30 percent commission on apps sold through its App Store, are unfair and anticompetitive, and amount to operating the platform as a monopoly.

In the EU, antitrust regulators are looking into claims by Spotify that it is using the App Store to deliberately disadvantage other app developers. Meanwhile in the U.S., the Department of Justice was recently given the go ahead by the Federal Trade Commission to launch a probe into Apple's business practices, as part of a broader review of antitrust concerns in relation to large technology companies.

In an interview yesterday with CBSNews, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that scrutiny of Apple's business practices was "fair" and a good thing for large companies, but claimed the company is not a monopoly in any of the markets it operates in.


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iOS 13 Introduces New 'Optimized Battery Charging' Feature

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Apple in iOS 13 introduced a new "Optimized Battery Charging" feature, which is designed to extend the total battery life of your iOS device.

Found in the Battery section of Settings under "Battery Health," the optional toggle learns from your personal habits and waits to finish charging all the way up until you need your iPhone.


For example, if you often charge your phone up at night while you sleep, Apple might charge it to 80 percent right away, but wait until an hour or so before you wake up to charge the remaining 20 percent.

That keeps your iPhone at an optimal capacity for battery health, rather than keeping it close to 100 percent on the charger.

Avoiding topping up the battery continually while it sits on the charger reduces the amount of time that your device spends at maximum capacity, and over time, this could extend the life of your battery.

Battery health has been a hot topic over the course of the last year, after Apple was found throttling the processor speeds of iOS devices with degraded batteries to prolong device life as long as possible.

That issue spurred Apple to be more forthcoming about overall battery health, providing details about capacity and performance in the Battery portion of Settings. Aside from the new toggle to optimize charging, there are no major changes to the Battery Health feature in the first iOS 13 beta.

Related Roundups: iOS 13, iPadOS

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iOS 13 Hidden Features: Silence Unknown Callers, Reading Goals, Better Messages Search and More

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Apple this week debuted iOS 13 with a ton of updates, including a new dark mode option, major performance improvements, faster Face ID, simpler photo editing tools and a new Photos interface, a Sign In With Apple Privacy feature, a swipe-based keyboard, and tons more.

In addition to these features that made it into Apple's keynote event, there are dozens if not hundreds of smaller new changes and tweaks that are included in iOS 13. Below, we've rounded up a comprehensive list of new and notable "hidden" features in iOS 13.

- Wi-Fi Options in Control Center - You can change WiFi networks right from Control Center, but it's a bit annoying to get to. Long press in the middle of the WiFi/Bluetooth widget to bring up the extended options, and then Force Touch the WiFi icon to see a list of networks available.


- Bluetooth Options in Control Center - As with Wifi, you can access your list of available Bluetooth devices from the Control Center. Long press in the middle of the WiFi/Bluetooth widget to bring up the extended options and then Force Touch on the Bluetooth icon to see a list of Bluetooth devices you've connected to before.


- Location Settings - Apple mentioned during the keynote that location access is getting scaled back in iOS 13, and in the Settings app, there's a new option that requires an app to ask each time it wants to access your location.


- Block Senders in Mail - In iOS 13, your list of blocked phone numbers and contacts extends to the Mail app, which lets you block people from sending you mail. The Settings app has a feature for blocking contacts in Mail and ignoring blocked senders.


- Thread Muting in Mail - If you swipe on a message in the Mail app and then choose "More," there's a new option to mute a thread so you won't get notifications when a new email in that thread is received.


- Reading Goals in Books - In the Books app, there's a new Reading Goals feature that keeps track of how long you've read each day. The app encourages you to read every day, see your stats soar, and finish more books.


- Silence Unknown Callers - In the Phone section of the Settings app, there's a new toggle that will let you block all unknown callers, cutting down on spam calls that you're receiving.


- Low Data Mode - In the Settings app under Cellular, there's an option to enable Low Data Mode, which says it helps apps on your iPhone reduce their network data use.


- Improved Messages Search - In the Messages app, when you swipe down to search, you'll see a new interface with suggested contacts and links you've been sent. Searches bring up the most recent results, with an option to see more by tapping "See All."


- Notes Folder Management - In the Notes app in iOS 13, there are new tools for managing your folders. Tap the "..." button to get to options like Add People, Move This Folder, Rename, and View Attachments.


- PS4/Xbox Controller Support - Apple announced PS4/Xbox One S controller support for Apple TV, but these controllers will also be supported on iPhone and iPad.


- New Animoji - There are three new Animoji in iOS 13: a cow, an octopus, and a mouse. As mentioned on stage, there are also tons of new accessories for your Memojis, and there are new Memoji stickers you'll see available in the emoji portion of the iOS keyboard.


- Separate Emoji and Globe Keys - The emoji key on the iOS keyboard is no longer the same key as the globe key that lets you switch between languages. The emoji key lives next to the number key and the globe is now below. In iOS 12, a long press swapped between functions of the all-in-one key.


- Automatic Safari Tab Closing - In the Safari section of the Settings app, there's a new option to automatically close all of the tabs that you have open in Safari. You can set it to a day, a week, a month, or leave it on manual, which is how it currently works.


- Attachments in Calendar - You can now add attachments like documents to events you have scheduled in the calendar app.


- Installing Apps - When you search for an app using the search interface in iOS 13, if you tap "View," the app opens up in a card interface rather than bringing up the App Store. You can install it right from this search interface without ever visiting the App Store.


- App Updates - To update apps in iOS 13, you need to open up the App Store, tap on your profile and choose apps from the Pending Updates section. There was an updates tab in iOS 12, but it's been removed in favor of an Apple Arcade tab in iOS 13.


- Safari Screenshots - When you take a screenshot in Safari, there's a new option to save it as a full page, which exports the entire webpage as a PDF that you can save or share. You can also use Markup to edit it before sending.


- Updated Mute Switch Interface - When you toggle on the mute switch on the iPhone in iOS 13, there's a new interface that lets you know whether Silent Mode is on or off. It's located at the top of the display, replacing the former notification that popped up in the middle of the display.


Note that almost all of these features are also available in the iPad and are part of Apple's new iPadOS operating system.

We're going to be adding to this list over the course of the coming months, keeping a catalog of the new features and changes added during the entire iOS 13 beta testing process. Know of an iOS 13 feature we don't have in our guide? Send us an email here.

Related Roundups: iOS 13, iPadOS

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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 84 With New Favorites Design, Weak Password Warnings and More

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safaripreviewiconApple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced three years ago in March 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 84 includes new Safari 13 features that will be available in macOS Catalina. These features include a new Favorites page and prompts to change a password when a weak password is detected.
Refreshed Favorites Design. The Favorites page has been visually refreshed, and now includes Show More and Show Less actions.

Switch to Tab from Smart Search Field. The Smart Search Field now offers switching to an already-open tab when a search query matches the title or URL of an open tab.

Warnings for Weak Passwords. When signing into a website with a weak password, Safari will prompt you to visit the website in a new tab to upgrade the password to an Automatic Strong Password. Safari uses the well-known URL for changing passwords (/.well-known/change-password), allowing websites to take users directly to their change password pages. The password list in Safari Preferences has also been updated to flag weak passwords.
The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave, the newest publicly available version of the Mac operating system that was in September 2018.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.


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PSA: 27-Inch iMac Appears to Have a Pricing Mistake

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Apple updated its iMac lineup in March with new processor and graphics options, but the latest 27-inch model appears to have a pricing mistake.


If you start with the $1,999 configuration and upgrade it to have a 3.6GHz eight-core Intel Core i9 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage, the price totals $2,999 with Radeon Pro 575X graphics.

If you start with the $2,299 configuration and upgrade it with those exact same specs, the price also totals $2,999, but with Radeon Pro 580X graphics.

As best as we and the few readers who have tipped us about this issue can tell, there are no other differences between these configurations. As a result, an unknowing customer could end up paying $2,999 for the configuration with Radeon Pro 575X graphics when they could have had 580X graphics for the same price.

While this is a rather specific issue, we wanted to shine some attention to the matter so that others can avoid it, especially given that we have already received a few emails from readers about the matter.

We alerted Apple about this mistake, but they have yet to respond or correct the pricing.

(Thanks, Parker!)

Related Roundup: iMac
Buyer's Guide: iMac (Buy Now)

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Spotify and Other Music and Podcasts Apps Can Choose to Support Siri in iOS 13

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Hey Siri, play Old Town Road on Spotify.

Ask that now and Siri will tell you that it cannot play songs from Spotify, but that could change soon. Apple is opening up its SiriKit framework to third-party music, podcasts, audiobooks, and radio apps in iOS 13 and iPadOS, enabling users to use Siri to control audio playback in supported apps.


It will be up to developers to enable this functionality in their apps. We've reached out to Spotify, Amazon, Google, Pandora, Tidal, Overcast, Castro, and several other popular music and podcasts app developers to see if they have plans to support Siri, and we'll update this story if we hear back.

Spotify recently accused Apple of anticompetitive business practices, and its inability to integrate with Siri was one of its complaints. "Apple won't allow us to be on HomePod and they definitely won't let us connect with Siri to play your jams," said Spotify. Going forward, the latter is no longer the case.

The first betas of iOS 13 and iPadOS were seeded to developers on Monday, with public betas to follow in July. The software updates will be widely released in the fall, likely alongside new iPhones in September as usual.

Related Roundups: iOS 13, iPadOS

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Skype for iOS Now Lets You Share Your iPhone Screen With a Friend

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Skype this week launched a new screen sharing feature on iOS and Android devices, allowing users to share their smartphone screens with any of their Skype friends. Microsoft said that this should be useful for helping family members figure out their new smartphone, shopping online with a friend, and more.


Skype on desktop already supports screen sharing, but this is a brand new addition for the iOS and Android apps and was previously in beta testing earlier this year. To find the feature on your iPhone, start a Skype call, tap the "..." menu at the bottom right of the screen, and choose to start sharing your screen.

The company has also redesigned the app to streamline video calls: users can simply tap to dismiss all call controls so they can see their friend or family member without any obstructions. To remove all UI from the call, they can double tap the screen, and then single tap again to bring everything back.

Skype for iPhone is available to download for free [Direct Link], and the new screen sharing feature is available on devices running iOS 12 and up.

Tag: Skype

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