Ultimate Rivals is a sports game franchise that brings athletes from hockey, basketball, football, and soccer into one video game, which Apple says is a first in sports gaming.
The first title in the franchise, “Ultimate Rivals: The Rink,” allows players to choose from more than 50 athletes to compete in two-on-two hockey matches. There are licensed athletes from the NHL, NBA, NFL Players Association (NFLPA), MLB, WNBA and the US Women’s National Soccer Team Players Association (USWNTPA), plus retired legends like Wayne Gretzky.
Different combinations of players will unlock unique ways to play and win against the AI or other gamers in online multiplayer matches. According to Apple, the game features 60 frames-per-second graphics, tight controls, leading-edge visuals, and sound design.
“With Apple Arcade, we are committed to delivering a curated catalog where every title offers players a new, innovative experience that pushes the boundaries of what a game can be. The ‘Ultimate Rivals’ franchise does just that,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “‘Ultimate Rivals: The Rink’ is a great new addition to Apple Arcade and we are excited for everyone to try it out.”
Ultimate Rivals: The Rink is available today on Apple Arcade, and it will be followed by an NBA licensed basketball game “Ultimate Rivals: The Court” in the spring of 2020.
Apple won’t be hit with hefty tariffs on the iPhone, iPad, and MacBooks as U.S. President Donald Trump this afternoon signed off on a trade deal with China.
Speaking in a note to investors shared by Bloomberg, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said that the new tariffs could have added approximately $150 to the price of iPhones during the holiday season.
“Trump delivered an early Christmas present to Apple. If this tariff went through it would have been a major gut punch for semi players/Apple and could have thrown a major wrench into the supply chain and demand for the holiday season.”
If Apple absorbed the cost of the tariffs, the company’s earnings per share would have shrunk by approximately four percent, according to Ive. Raising prices could have caused iPhone demand to shrink by an estimated six to eight percent in 2020.
The tariffs that were avoided today were originally set to be put in place in August, but were delayed until December 15 to give the U.S. and China more time to reach an agreement.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been speaking with Trump about the tariffs, and in August reportedly made a “good case” arguing that tariffs would put Apple at a disadvantage with rivals like Samsung. Apple earlier this year also sent a letter to Apple urging the Trump administration not to proceed with the tariffs.
Cook in late October said that he was confident the United States and China would resolve the trade dispute. “I don’t know every chapter of the book, but I think that will eventually happen,” said Cook.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
Apple in iOS 13 added a Voice Control feature as an Accessibility option designed for those who need to use their iPhones and iPads without their hands. It allows for complete control of the operating system using voice commands.
Voice Control is designed for people who need an alternative to physical control, but it has the potential to be useful even for those can use their devices with their hands. Check out our latest YouTube video below to see Voice Control in action, and read on to see how to enable it and what it can do.
Voice Control can be turned on in the Settings app by following these instructions:
Open up the Settings app.
Scroll down to Accessibility and tap it.
Select the Voice Control option.
Tap on Set Up Voice Control.
The setup screen for Voice Control will walk you through the different things you can do with your voice, which ranges from opening apps and adjusting settings to tapping buttons and dictating and editing text.
After tapping on Set Up and checking out the various options, Voice Control will be toggled on.
What Voice Control Can Do
With Voice Control enabled, there’s a little microphone icon that’s active and visible on the iPhone‘s display. When Voice Control is active, you don’t need to invoke Siri or use any other kind of wake word to navigate the iPhone.
Simple commands like “Open Settings” work to open up an app, and then you can navigate by saying things like “Go Back.” You do need to learn the specific commands for control, which can take some time. Selecting an item in the Settings app, for example, requires saying “Tap Accessibility” rather than “Select” or “Choose.”
Voice Control is a powerful tool and it can do almost anything that you can do with physical access. A sample list is below:
Swipe left, right, up, or down on the screen
Zoom, scroll, rotate, two finger tap, long press, pan up/down, double tap
Tap items on the screen
Open Control Center
Open Notification Center
Open third-party apps like Twitter
Start a new tweet, add text, and send the tweet
Show numbers (to add little numbers to items in a list)
Tap number (to tap one of the numbered items – you can also just say the number without tap)
Show grid (adds a grid to the screen with numbers so you can tap a specific spot on the screen)
You can do specific sequences within apps for things that would normally require hand control. Here’s an example Voice Control sequence in the Messages app:
Open Messages
Tap [person’s name]
Tap iMessage
Speak your text (whenever a keyboard is showing on the screen, whatever you speak will be typed in)
Tap emoji
Show numbers
Tap 25 (heart eyes emoji)
Tap Send
That’s the entire Voice Control sequence to type out a message with an included emoji and send it out to someone. The “Show numbers” command is super useful in situations where there are a lot of options on the screen (such as the emoji list) and you need to choose one.
Here’s a similar sequence in the Notes app, using voice commands:
Open Notes
Tap new Note
Speak your title
Tap return
Speak your text
Period
For editing in Notes:
Select [phrase]
Copy selection
Show grid
Tap number (where the cursor should be)
Paste that
Tap done
Go Home
There are tons of Voice Control commands to work with, which can all be seen by going to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control > Customize Commands or simply saying “Show Commands” with Voice Control turned on. Apple also has a support document that’s worth checking out if you want to get deeper into using Voice Control.
It will take some time to learn all of the appropriate commands and then to create custom commands that fill in the missing gaps that are needed when it comes to control, but the effort will be well worth it for those who need this functionality.
Voice Control Options
There are several customization options for Voice Control, located in the Voice Control section of the Settings app as outlined above.
You can create custom commands, selecting an activation phrase, an action such as insert text or run a Shortcut, and an app for that custom phrase to work with. Voice Control integrates with Shortcuts, which means it’s highly customizable and extremely powerful for those who need to use it for most iPhone and iPad functions.
For the insert text customization, for example, you can create a “home address” option that enters your home address whenever the phrase is spoken, useful for filling out forms.
There are also options to turn off various functions if something specific needs to be turned off or if you want to enable features not turned on by default such as music controls or making phone calls.
Through the “Vocabulary” section” you can teach Voice Control new words simply by tapping the “+” button and adding a phrase that Voice Control should recognize.
Settings for confirmation, playing sounds when a command is recognized, and showing usage hints can also be toggled on or off, with the latter option being particularly useful for those who are new to Voice Control.
Availability
Voice Control is an iOS 13 feature available on iPhones and iPads, but it’s also available in macOS Catalina for those who want to control their Macs with their voice.
People who are able to control their iPhones with their hands or another physical manner may find Voice Control to be difficult and tedious to use, but it is an incredibly powerful and thorough option for those who have limited dexterity or mobility.
Apple has purchased UK-based photography company Spectral Edge, reports Bloomberg. The Spectral Edge website is now defunct, but the company had developed a mathematical technique for improving photographic imagery in real-time.
Created in 2014 from academic research at the University of East Anglia, Spectral Edge’s algorithm is able to enhance low-light smartphone images, something that could be potentially useful for Night Mode and other photographic capabilities in future iPhones.
Spectral Edge’s technology captures an infrared shot and then blends it with a standard photo to make images crisper and to improve color accuracy. Bloomberg suggests that Apple could use Spectral Edge’s machine learning techniques to further improve the quality of iPhone photos.
In court filings, Apple corporate lawyer Peter Denwood has been named a director of Spectral Edge, with other advisors and board members now terminated. According to Bloomberg, the documents indicate that Apple is now in control of the company.
There is no word on what Apple paid for Spectral Edge, and Apple did not respond to Bloomberg‘s requests for comment.
Apple on Tuesday released iOS 13.3, a new update that includes Communication Limits for Screen Time, designed to allow parents to limit who can contact their children and who children can contact.
As it turns out, though, there’s a bug in the feature that’s allowing children to communicate with anyone who texts them.
As outlined by CNBC, Communication Limits is designed to prevent children from communicating with people not in their Contacts list (it can be set to Everyone or Contacts Only).
When an unknown number texts a child, there’s an option to add that number to the list of Contacts, allowing the child to then text, call, and FaceTime that person even without parental permission.
This particular workaround only works when there is active Screen Time available. In the Downtime mode, when a child is not supposed to be using an iOS device, there is no option to add a number to the Contacts app.
CNBC says that children can also skirt the contact restrictions when there’s available Screen Time by using an Apple Watch paired to an iPhone to call or text a phone number, regardless of whether that number is in the contacts list.
Apple told CNBC that a fix for this workaround is in the works, but parents can take the following steps to prevent children from exploiting the bug:
Forcing contacts to sync with iCloud apparently prevents the bug from occurring on devices that default to syncing contacts with Gmail or other services.
CNBC suggests Apple can address the bug by removing the “Add Contact” option when a child receives a text from a number that’s not already in the address book, or Apple could require a PIN before allowing a contact to be saved.
Apple Pay with Express Transit mode is coming to the Washington Metro in 2020, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority announced today. No specific timeline has been provided yet.
Starting next year, riders in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area will be able to add their reloadable SmarTrip fare card to the Wallet app and simply hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near a contactless payment reader at Metrorail stations or on Metrobus buses to pay their fare.
Express Transit mode allows for tap-and-go payment, eliminating the need to authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode. The device does not need to be waked or unlocked, either.
Apple has renewed “Little America,” a series created by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, for a second season, according to Variety.
“Little America,” described as an immigrant anthology series, has not yet launched and is set to debut on January 17, 2020, so Apple is renewing it before it debuts.
Nanjiani and Gordon are best known for “The Big Sick,” and the new series is based on true stories pulled from Epic Magazine. Zachary Quinto, known for “Star Trek,” will star in the fourth episode, and other cast members will include Jearnest Corchado, John Ortiz, Angela Lin, Kai To, Sophia Xu, Shaun Toub, Shila Vosough Ommi, Eshan Inamdar, Priyanka Bose, and Conphidance.
Each episode will be a half hour in length, and there will be eight episodes in the first season. Variety has a rundown of each episode that’s coming:
The Manager – At 12 years old, Kabir must learn to run a Utah motel on his own when his parents are deported back to India.
The Jaguar – Marisol, an undocumented teenager from Mexico, navigates the rarefied world of competitive squash with the help of her coach who inspires her to dream big — on and off the court.
The Cowboy – Iwegbuna, an economic grad student from a small village in Nigeria, struggles to adjust to life in Oklahoma ,but he gains confidence and a connection to home by becoming a part of a culture he admired most as a child: cowboys.
The Silence – Sylviane’s ten-day silent meditation retreat takes an unexpected turn when she develops feelings for a man with whom she’s shared everything but words.
The Son – When Rafiq escapes from his home in Syria after his father discovers he is gay, he’s forced to go on the run until he finds his “home” in the unlikeliest of places.
The Baker – Beatrice, the only one of her 22 siblings to be sent from Uganda to college in the US, tries to achieve her own version of the American Dream by selling her chocolate chip cookies from a basket on her head.
The Grand Prize Expo Winners – A Singaporean single mother wins an all-inclusive Alaskan cruise– allowing her and her two children to experience a taste of the good life on an emotionally cathartic trip.
The Rock – Faraz will stop at nothing to build a home for his Iranian family, including attempting to remove a massive rock from an otherwise perfect piece of real estate in Yonkers.
Lee Eisenberg, known for his work on “The Office,” is writing and executive producing the show alongside Nanjiani and Gordon. “Master of None” co-creator Alan Yang is also an executive producer.
The setup includes a Jura Anchor that connects to the AirPods using a “proprietary connector” designed to fit into the Lightning port of the device along with a carabiner made from ether titanium or zinc alloy.
Jura promises that the connector that it’s using to attach to the charging case of the AirPods can hold 15x the weight of the AirPods. The AirPods Pro case weighs 1.61 ounces and the AirPods case weighs 1.34 ounces, so that means the Jura anchor can hold somewhere around 24 ounces at maximum.
It’s easy to envision a situation where the AirPods are attached to the outside of a bag and pop off from force or someone sees the AirPods hanging and just snaps them up, so this doesn’t seem like the greatest solution for keys or the exterior of a bag.
A lot of bags have a little keyring inside designed for keys, though, or other internal loops, which would work well with the Jura Anchor if you just wanted to keep your AirPods locatable within a bag. The Jura Anchor started out as a Kickstarter project, but the company is now taking traditional orders.
The Jura Anchor with a titanium carabiner is priced at $34.99, and the Jura Anchor with a zinc alloy carabiner is priced at $24.99. Orders placed now will ship out “in early December” so be aware that there’s no specific shipping date being provided at this time.
MacStadium’s Brian Stucki ordered a couple of new Mac Pros right when Apple began accepting purchases, and his first Mac Pro is coming in just a few days on December 16, which is earlier than the delivery dates that Apple had listed.
Apple’s initial delivery estimates were at one to two weeks after purchase, but orders placed now will not be delivered until December 31 to January 8 due to demand for the machine.
The 2019 Mac Pro is the first new Mac Pro we’ve had in six years, and it’s the followup to the 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro that ultimately failed due to thermal limitations. Apple listened to the needs of professional users with this iteration and designed the updated machine to be modular and easily upgradeable.
Pricing on the Mac Pro starts at $5,999, but goes up depending on the configuration. It supports workstation-class Xeon processors with up to 28 cores, up to 1.5TB RAM, eight PCIe slots, 4TB SSD storage (soon to be 8TB) and dual Radeon Pro Vega Duo GPUs.
A fully equipped Mac Pro will cost over $52,000, with the price tag even higher for those who add Apple’s $4,999 Pro Display XDR, a 6K display that’s being sold alongside the Mac Pro.
With Mac Pro orders set to be in the hands of users starting next week, we should see additional impressions and opinions of the new machine. MacRumors has a new Mac Pro on the way, so expect to see some hands-on content as soon as our new device arrives.
Google has shared its annual Year in Search lists, revealing that “iPhone 11” was the fifth-most trending search term on a worldwide basis in 2019, behind India vs South Africa, Cameron Boyce, Copa America, and Bangladesh vs India.
In the United States, “Disney Plus” was the most trending search term, while “iPhone 11” ranked ninth. The lists are based on search terms that had the highest spike this year when compared to the previous year, according to Google.
No other smartphones cracked Google’s top 10 trending search terms this year in either the United States or worldwide.
Apple released the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max in September.
