iOS

Amazon One, a palm-scanning payment system, is set to expand nationwide. The retailer announced this morning that the payment tech will be in all 500+ Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market stores by year-end. Hovering a palm over a reader device activates the biometric payment system. The device then matches the customer’s …

Twitter may never return. Twitter, the preeminent Twitter of its time, offered a lively, often incoherent mix of paradigm-shifting cultural phenomena (Arab Spring, the Me Too movement, Black Twitter), breaking news, corporate existentialist brand building, tweet-addled U.S. presidents, and hardcore porn. Meta’s Twitter clone Threads just launched, giving us options—maybe …

Rest, heart. Do not add another social network, regardless of FOMO. Resisting the latest fad app is harder than expected. Meta (Facebook) is launching Threads, the millionth Twitter clone and Apple’s number-one app, with unusual calm. Instagram is already promoting Threads. Instagram says, “____, ____ and 1 other posted on …

Update :  Zuckerberg said Threads reached 10 million signups in seven hours. Four hours after Meta released Threads, 5 million people signed up. The headline now reflects the milestone. Threads, Meta’s Twitter clone, is attracting users on day one. Threads reached 2 million signups in its first two hours on …

Apple’s App Store is no longer an option for Spotify subscribers. After their billing cycle, those users will get a free account. They must then buy a website plan. Variety reported that the music streaming company recently began emailing App Store payment users. Spotify announced this. “We recently started notifying …

Today, Meta introduced parental controls for Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. This includes a new parental supervision hub in Messenger, pre-emptive blocking of unwanted DMs on Messenger and Instagram, and nudges to remind teens to take a break. The U.S., U.K., and Canada will get Meta’s Family Center’s messenger supervision controls …

Last fall, former Uber research scientist Jerry Liu found “limitations” in OpenAI’s GPT-3 text-generating AI model, the predecessor to GPT-4. LlamaIndex, his open-source project, unlocks the capabilities and use cases of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-3 and GPT-4. “LLMs offer incredible capabilities for knowledge extraction and reasoning—they can perform …

Apple’s Vision Pro headset dominated WWDC on Monday. Apple will release a major iOS update later this year. Personalized call posters, StandBy mode, live voicemail, and improved sticker experience will be added in iOS 17. Due to time constraints, Apple didn’t mention many new iOS features onstage. The keynote omitted …

WWDC 2023 keynote was yesterday. Apple starts its Worldwide Developer Conference with a few hours of straight announcements, usually covering OS, watchOS, and new and updated gadgets. The keynote stream includes a BINGO game. You’ve prepared for our predictions by now. Relax while the team summarizes the biggest news. Mac …

After a 30-minute demo of the major features that are ready to test, I was convinced that Apple has delivered a true leapfrog in capability and execution of XR—or mixed reality—with its new Apple Vision Pro. To clarify, I’m not saying it delivers on all promises, is a truly new …