Apple Arcade will launch on the 19th of September at Rs 99 per month
While Apple Arcade may not rival cloud gaming subscription services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Google Stadia, and Microsoft xCloud, there’s more to this gaming platform than meets the eye. Apple’s new gaming service will help users play games across the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac and Apple TV devices.
Apple Arcade features a library of over a hundred games from popular and indie developers, which aren’t available on any other mobile platform or subscription service. Unlike game streaming platforms, Apple Arcade will allow you to download games and play them online or offline.
Apple also demoed gameplay for a couple of games that will be available at lunch – Frogger in Toy by Konami and Shinsekai: Into the Depth by Capcom. While both demos were played with touch controls, iOS 13 also supports Xbox One and PS4 controllers.
The Apple Arcade gaming service will be available on September 19th in over 150 countries. The subscription will cost only Rs 99 per month in India with a one-month free trial. The subscription will give users access to a catalogue of 100 new games at launch. No gaming service has offered that many games at launch.
The App Store will also feature a new Arcade tab. The new tab will be updated with new games every month and provide recommendations for users. Players will also be able to watch game trailers and get access to “expert editorial content” like sneak peeks and game guides.
Considering its Rs 99 per month price tag, the Apple Arcade gaming service seems like a pretty sweet deal.
Apple will oversee new medical studies focusing on women's health, hearing, and mobility
Apple will oversee new medical studies focusing on women's health, hearing, and mobility
Apple revealed on Tuesday that it is going to oversee three new medical studies, in fields ranging from women's health to hearing technology, using data from customers with Apple devices who choose to participate.
The announcements continue Apple's expansion into the health space, with initiatives ranging from medical studies to medical hardware and apps. It has hired dozens of people to its health team in the past five years, including doctors, engineers and scientists, but has also recently seen departures from its top ranks over differences in opinion. The health team's leader is a high-ranking executive the company's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams and CEO Tim Cook has said that Apple's advances in health will be its greatest contribution to humanity.
The company's vice president of health Sumbul Desai made the announcement on stage at Apple's annual fall hardware update, where it also announced a slew of updated products, including a new version of the Apple Watch and three new iPhones. Customers will sign up for the studies using a free Apple Research app that will be available to download later this fall.
Apple's new studies cover the following:
Women's health. The company has been gradually adding new features associated with women's health monitoring in mind ever since 2014, when it got pushback from users when it announced its HealthKit service without reproductive tracking. It recently hired an obstetrician, signaling an interest in the space. According to Apple, the goal of the study is to study whether patients are at risk for common conditions, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, infertility, and osteoporosis. It will be conducted with Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
Hearing. The goal is to study how sound exposure affects hearing over time, which is a relatively novel area of focus for technology companies. Apple said it is working with researchers at the the University of Michigan.
Mobility. It is also looking at how how walking pace and steps climbed relates to heart health, quality of life and other factors. That research will be conducted in partnership with Brigham and Women's Hospital and the American Heart Association.
The studies indicates Apple's interest in these areas, but doesn't necessarily mean that it will release new products that cater to them. That might depend on the outcome of the study, and whether there is a potential to impact patient outcomes with the Apple Watch or devices. The wearables space is still nascent, and studies are underway to measure whether these devices can do more than helping generally healthy people stay fit.
This isn't Apple's first foray into medical studies. Its health team has already commissioned research with collaborators at Stanford University into how its smartwatch technology can monitor the heart. This Apple Heart Study helped spur the company to release an electrocardiogram app and sensor in the Apple Watch to detect signs of heart rhythm irregularities. It has also announced studies on disease areas like autism and Parkinson's Disease. All of these studies involve a research partner at an academic institution.
Apple is far from the only technology company building a team in health care. Alphabet has numerous groups focused on the medical sector, including Verily, its life sciences unit, and Microsoft is building out a team to focus on areas ranging from medical research to artificial intelligence. Apple rival Fitbit has previously worked with academic partners on both women's health and for research into how patients who reach milestones related to steps and activity levels can recover more quickly from common surgical procedures.
Apple Watch Series 5 launched along with iPhone 11, starts at Rs 40,900
Apple on Tuesday, September 10 upgraded its smart watch lineup by launching the Apple Watch Series 5. The Apple Watch Series 5 is powered by the latest version of the company's watch operating system - watchOS 6 and it features some major upgrades over last year's Apple Watch Series 4.
"Apple Watch has become the most advanced and most loved smart watch in the world," Apple CEO Tim Cook said on the occassion.
The Apple Watch Series 5 is powered by WatchOS 6 and it comes with a new Always on Display feature which displays time and "complications" or in simple words your vitals all the time. It comes with an LTPO display that dynamically switches between a screen refresh rate ranging between 60Hz to 1Hz for saving power. The newly launched smart watch comes with bunch of new sensors and drivers including an ambient light sensor, a power driver and a power management integrated circuit. This new system would allow the Apple Watch Series to deliver 18 hours of battery life.
The Apple Watch Series 4 successor also comes with a compass and a new Compass app that will tell users details such as their latitude, longitude and the direction in which they are heading.
Apple also introduced new safety features for its Apple Watch Series 5. In addition to featuring features like fall detection, medical ID and emergency calling, the newly launched Apple Watch comes with a new international emergency calling feature that is available in 150 countries across the globe.
In terms of colours and variants, the Apple Watch Series 5 is available in gold, space black and black colour variants. This year the company has also introduced new brushed aluminium and brushed space black variants. In addition to that Apple has also introduced new Nike and Hermes models in new colour variants and leather colour options.
The GPS variants of the Apple Watch Series 5 starts at $399 (Rs 28,700 approx). The cellular models of the Apple Watch Series 5 start at $499 (Rs 35,900 approx). In addition to this Apple also announced that the company was keeping its Apple Watch Series 3 which now starts at $199 (Rs 14,300 approx).
In India, the Apple Watch Series 5 (GPS) starts at Rs 40,900. The GPS + Cellular variant of the Apple Watch Series 5 comes at a starting price of Rs 49,900. The GPS, GPS + Cellular and Nike variants of the Apple Watch Series 5 will be available in India soon. Apple hasn't announced the exact date of availability yet.
As far as the Apple Watch Series 3 is concerned, the GPS variant of Apple Watch Series 3 will now cell in India for Rs 20,900. The GPS + Cellular colour variants of the Apple Watch Series 3 will now be available for Rs 29,900. The Apple Watch Series 3 will get watchOS 6 update on september 19 and Apple Watch Series 2 and Watch Series 1 later this year.
Facebook warns about iPhone privacy change that could unsettle Facebook users
Less than two weeks before a likely iOS software update that will give iPhone users regular pop-ups telling them which apps are collecting information location in the background, Facebook has published a blog post about how the Facebook app uses location data.
The blog post appears to be a way to get out in front of software changes made by Apple and Google that could unsettle Facebook users given the company's poor reputation for privacy.
A Facebook engineering director wrote in a blog post, your Android or iOS location settings allow you to control when you share your device's precise location with apps like Facebook. That's why we're letting you know that Android and iOS have released new versions of their operating systems, which include updates to how you can view and manage your location.
iOS 13, the forthcoming version of the iPhone software, will provide a pop-up that informs users about how many times an individual app has used background location over the past few days. Background location can be useful for many apps like maps or for Facebook functions like check-ins, but it can also be abused by app makers to collect data against the wishes of its users.
That means that some Facebook users may soon be confronted with an Apple-created pop-up telling them that Facebook has used their location in the background some number of times over the past few days, and including a map marking where Facebook asked the phone for its coordinates.
According to Facebook, if you are using iOS 13, you will begin to receive notifications about when an app is using your precise location in the background and how many times an app has accessed that information. The notification will also include a map of the location data an app has received and an explanation why the app uses that type of location information.
Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering said at the time, sharing your location with a third-party app can really enable some useful experiences, but we don't expect to have that privilege used to track us. Apple would enable a feature that allows iPhone users to provide location privileges just one time, instead of when the app is in use, never, or always, the previous options. If you do choose to grant an app the ability to continually monitor your location in the background, we will give you reports so you will know what they are up to.
The Facebook blog post also addressed Android, which also has new location features in its latest version, 10.
According to Facebook, if you decide to update to Android 10, you'll have the option to allow individual apps to access your precise location, either while you're using the app or when you're not.
Facebook and Apple representatives didn't immediately return requests for comment. Facebook's blog post also added that it might collect location information through alternative methods even if users turn off location settings on their device.
According to Facebook's blog post, we may still understand your location using things like check-ins, events and information about your internet connection.
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