While not yet reflected on Apple’s system status page, a number of Apple services are currently experiencing downtime or slow performance, including the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, and the iTunes Store. Apple’s website is also experiencing some issues, including its developer portal being unavailable right now.

The issues span multiple countries and extend to Apple’s Mail and TV apps. Not every user is affected, so your mileage may vary as Apple works through its server issues. We’ll update as the situation unfolds.

Update – 10:45 a.m. Pacific Time: Apple’s services and developer portal appear to be functional again.

This article, “Apple Music, App Store, iCloud, Apple.com, and Other Services Experiencing Issues [Resolved]” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today released the third betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 13.2 updates to developers, just under a week after seeding the second betas and three weeks after the release of iOS 13.1.

iOS and ‌iPadOS‌ 13.2 can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or over the air after the proper developer profiles have been installed.

iOS 13.2 introduces Deep Fusion for the cameras in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models. Deep Fusion is a new image processing system that uses the A13 Bionic and the Neural Engine. Deep Fusion takes advantage of machine learning techniques to do pixel-by-pixel processing of photos, optimizing for texture, details, and noise in each part of the image.

The feature is aimed at improving indoor photos and photos taken in medium lighting, and it’s a feature that will automatically activate based on the lens being used and the light level in the room.

In the second beta, Apple added support for dozens of new emoji characters on iOS and ‌iPadOS‌. Orangutan, sloth, otter, skunk, and flamingo are the new animals included in the update, while new food items include garlic, onion, waffle, falafel, butter, oyster, maté, and ice cube.

Image via Emojipedia

New faces, gestures, and poses include yawning face, pinching hand, person kneeling, person standing, and new people holding hands options that are both gender and skin tone inclusive, plus accessibility-related emoji like deaf person, person in wheelchair, guide dog, and more. There are also tons of other emoji characters coming, outlined in our iOS 13.2 emoji article.

The update brings a promised privacy option that allows users to opt out of sharing their Siri and dictation audio recording with Apple, and it adds an option to delete ‌Siri‌ and dictation history. These settings provide users with more control over how their ‌Siri‌ recordings are used.

Apple has reintroduced the Announce Messages with ‌Siri‌ feature, which lets ‌Siri‌ read incoming messages without having to unlock the iPhone. The feature works with the second-generation AirPods and the Beats Pro.

The betas include new privacy settings for Apple’s upcoming Research app, a new Transfer to HomePod toggle in the Settings app to turn on ‌HomePod‌ handoff, an updated volume bar in Control Center that displays ‌AirPods‌ and Beats icons, and an option to display multi-function HomeKit products as multiple tiles or a single tile.

Also included is an option to delete apps right from the Home screen, and on the ‌iPhone 11‌ and 11 Pro, an option to change video recording settings right from the Camera app.

Both betas of iOS 13.2 have also included hints of Apple’s third-generation ‌AirPods‌, expected in 2020. The ‌AirPods‌ have a fresh look with a body that resembles the current ‌AirPods‌, but with rubber tips, likely for the rumored noise cancelation feature.

Additional details on what’s new in iOS 13.2 can be found in our iOS 13.2 tidbits articles for beta one and beta two.

Update 1:03 p.m.: Apple has also seeded the new iOS and ‌‌‌iPadOS‌‌‌ 13.2 betas to its public beta testing group.

This article, “Apple Seeds Third Betas of iOS 13.2 and iPadOS 13.2 to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available]” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming watchOS 6.1 beta to developers, just under a week after seeding the third watchOS 6.1 beta and a month after releasing the watchOS 6 update with full App Store, new Apple Watch faces, and more.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS beta can be downloaded through the dedicated ‌Apple Watch‌ app on the iPhone by going to General > Software Update.

To install the update, the ‌Apple Watch‌ needs to have over 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

There were no major changes found in the first three watchOS 6.1 betas, so it’s not entirely clear what’s included in the update, but we’ll update this article should new features be found in the third beta. The update may be focused on bug fixes and under-the-hood performance improvements.

watchOS 6.1 does work with the Series 1 and Series 2 ‌Apple Watch‌ models, which were excluded from the watchOS 6 release.

Apple said that ‌watchOS 6‌ would come to the older ‌Apple Watch‌ models at a later date, so it’s possible watchOS 6.1 will be the first version of ‌watchOS 6‌ to work with the Series 1 and Series 2 Apple Watches.

This article, “Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of watchOS 6.1 to Developers” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 13.2 update to developers for testing purposes, just under a week after seeding the second tvOS 13.2 beta and three weeks after releasing the tvOS 13 update.

Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the new tvOS 13.2 developer beta can be downloaded onto the ‌Apple TV‌ via a profile that’s installed using Xcode.

tvOS updates have historically been minor in scale, focusing on under-the-hood bug fixes and improvements rather than major outward-facing changes. Apple provides little to no information on what’s included in tvOS updates, so we may not discover anything new during the beta testing process.

Though we don’t often know what’s been added in tvOS updates, we let MacRumors readers know when new software is available so developers are able to download it upon release.

We didn’t find anything new in the first two tvOS 13.2 betas, but will update this post should we find new features in the third tvOS 13.2 beta.

tvOS 13, released in September, introduced multi-user support, a new Control Center, Apple Arcade and controller support, new screensavers and more.

This article, “Apple Seeds Third Beta of tvOS 13.2 Update to Developers” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple 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 94 includes bug fixes and performance improvements for CSS Shadow Parts, Web Animations, Storage Access API, WebRTC, MediaDevices, JavaScript, CSS Grid, Web API, Web Inspector, WebDriver, and back/forward cache.

The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS Mojave and MacOS Catalina, the newest version of the Mac operating system that was introduced at the June Worldwide Developers Conference.

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.

This article, “Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 94 With Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Quanta Computer will likely stop taking assembly orders for the Apple Watch at some point in 2020 due to profit concerns, and may sell its manufacturing plant in Changshu, China dedicated to assembling the wearable device, according to industry sources cited by Taiwanese publication DigiTimes.

The full DigiTimes story is not yet available, but a paywalled preview reads as follows:

Quanta may stop assembly for ‌Apple Watch‌ in 2020, say sources:

Quanta Computer is likely to stop taking assembly orders for the ‌Apple Watch‌ next year due to profit concerns, and may sell its Changshu plant in China dedicated to assembling the wearable device, according to industry sources.

Quanta has been the primary manufacturer of the ‌Apple Watch‌ since the original model was released in 2015, while Compal Electronics reportedly became a secondary supplier starting with Series 4 models last year.

This article, “Quanta Reportedly Likely to Stop Assembling the Apple Watch in 2020 Due to Profit Concerns” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today informed developers that it will be conducting scheduled maintenance on Sunday, October 20 starting at 6 a.m. Pacific Time for up to eight hours, which will result in App Store Connect and the Developer ID notary service for notarizing Mac apps being unavailable during that time.

Apple says it apologizes for any inconvenience and recommends that developers make critical deliveries or changes on another day. Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles will remain available, according to Apple.

Apple’s notary service for Mac apps experienced slowness last week, but it is unclear if the maintenance is related to that.

Developers are encouraged to monitor Apple’s system status page.

This article, “App Store Connect and Apple’s Mac App Notarization Service Will Be Temporarily Unavailable on October 20” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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AnandTech today published its in-depth review of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, including a detailed overview of the processor and graphics performance gains of Apple’s latest A13 Bionic chip.

Starting with CPU performance, AnandTech found the A13 chip is around 20 percent faster than the A12 chip in last year’s iPhone models, consistent with Apple’s advertised claims. However, to fully achieve that improvement, the site claims Apple had to increase the peak power consumption of the CPU cores:

In virtually all of the SPECint2006 tests, Apple has gone and increased the peak power draw of the A13 SoC; and so in many cases we’re almost 1W above the A12. Here at peak performance it seems the power increase was greater than the performance increase, and that’s why in almost all workloads the A13 ends up as less efficient than the A12.

In terms of efficiency at the A13 chip’s peak performance state, AnandTech believes the higher power draw will likely result in both the chip and the iPhone being more sensitive to temperatures and prone to throttling.

Apple says the A13 chip is up to 30 percent more power efficient than the A12 chip overall, encompassing all levels of performance.

In terms of overall performance, AnandTech emphasized Apple’s lead in the mobile chip space, noting that the A13 posts almost double the performance of the next best non-Apple chip. The site also found the A13 “essentially matched” the “best that AMD and Intel have to offer” for desktop CPUs, at least based on SPECint2006, a suite of CPU-intensive cross-platform integer benchmarks.

AnandTech was even more impressed with GPU performance, noting that while peak performance has improved by roughly 20 percent as advertised, the iPhone 11 Pro had 50 to 60 percent higher sustained performance scores than the iPhone XS based on the high-end GFXBench graphics benchmark:

Where the new chip really shines and exceeds Apple’s own marketing claims is in the sustained performance and efficiency of the new GPU. Particularly the ‌iPhone 11 Pro‌ models were able to showcase much improved long-term performance results, all while keeping thermals in check. The short version of it is that Apple has been able to knock it out of the park, delivering performance increases that we hadn’t expected in what’s essentially a mid-generation refresh on the chip manufacturing side of matters.

AnandTech is widely known for its coverage of components like CPUs and GPUs, so its iPhone reviews are highly regarded. AnandTech founder Anand Shimpi joined Apple’s chipmaking team in 2014 and recently spoke about the A13 chip in an interview alongside Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller.

Full Review: The Apple iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max Review: Performance, Battery, & Camera Elevated by Andrei Frumusanu

This article, “AnandTech Finds iPhone 11 Pro Has 50-60% Higher Sustained Graphics Performance Than iPhone XS” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple has set up its second partnership with film studio A24, this time for an adaptation of the young adult novel “The Sky is Everywhere” (via The Hollywood Reporter).

“The Sky is Everywhere” will be directed by Josephine Decker and the film will be written by the novel’s author, Jandy Nelson. The book was published in 2010 and tells the story of a high schooler named Lennie Walker who is coping with the sudden death of her older sister.

Apple and A24 first announced a plan to produce the film “On the Rocks” with director Sofia Coppola earlier this year. “The Sky is Everywhere” will be the second project to come out of the agreement.

Apple and A24 have a multiyear agreement, and the two plan to produce a series of films for Apple TV+, so there will be more coming beyond “The Sky is Everywhere” and “On the Rocks.”

A24 is an indie entertainment studio, most recently known for releasing films like “The Lighthouse,” “Midsommar,” “Mid90s,” and “Eighth Grade.”

‌Apple TV‌+ is set to launch in a few weeks on November 1, and the company has already begun premiering its shows at press events, starting with “For All Mankind.”

This article, “Apple and A24 Partnering for Film Adaptation of Jandy Nelson’s Young Adult Novel ‘The Sky is Everywhere’” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Riot Games has revealed that League of Legends: Wild Rift will launch on iOS in 2020. Riot says this is a new version of the original wildly popular MOBA title, which launched on PC 10 years ago, and it’s built from scratch to take advantage of the mobile platform.

Rumors that League of Legends would be making its way to smartphones first appeared in May, but the official confirmation arrived on Tuesday during a series of Riot announcements posted to YouTube to celebrate the game’s 10th anniversary.

Wild Rift will feature the same five-on-five gameplay that made its PC counterpart a success, but individual matches are shorter at around 15 to 20 minutes long. There’s also a twin-stick control scheme that Riot says will allow for quicker responses and faster battles.

Otherwise, players can expect the familiar LoL elements, like 5v5 maps and lots of playable characters from the existing roster of champions.

League of Legends is still one of the most popular PC games in the world, but sources suggest that revenue dipped last year, down 21 percent from 2017.

Given the drop off, a brief survey of the MOBA mobile landscape is enough to realize that the game’s arrival on iPhone and Android was the logical next step. Titles like Fortnite and PUBG have shown that if a game’s mechanics can be translated successfully to touchscreen devices, then expanding to mobile can prove hugely successful.

Riot plans to launch the mobile version “everywhere in the world by the end of 2020,” followed by the game’s debut on console. Alpha and beta versions of the game will be released in the next few months, rolling out in China first.

This article, “‘League of Legends: Wild Rift’ Coming to iOS Next Year” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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