Apple’s new 4-inch iPhone and iPad Air 3 are rumored to arrive on March 18th

The Apple rumor mill has been in full swing over the last month or so, with as-yet-unconfirmed March 15th event that’s said to introduce a new 4-inch iPhone and the iPad Air 3. Those rumors are getting a little more concrete today, as 9to5Mac’s Marc Gurman is saying that both of those products will go on sale on March 18th — the Friday after the rumored event. Gurman’s been posting reports about this event and what we might see for weeks now, and this just appears to be further evidence that the company’s March plans are solidified. Of course, nothing’s official yet, but Gurman’s track record suggests these will be the big product introductions Apple has on tap.

The 4-inch iPhone is supposedly dubbed the iPhone 5se (special edition) and will combine the hardware guts of the iPhone 6 (including Apple Pay) with a modified body that is still more reminiscent of the iPhone 5s than the iPhone 6 and 6s. As for the iPad Air 3, it’ll keep the 9.7-inch screen the line is known for but may borrow some tricks from the iPad Pro, including its speaker arrangement and Apple Pencil support.

It sounds like these products will launch without the typical pre-order period that Apple typically offers, which is a little bit unusual for the company. But these products will certainly launch with less hype and fanfare than the flagship iPhones typically do, so perhaps the company doesn’t expect sales to be so overwhelming as to warrant a preorder period. Regardless of those plans, mid-March is coming up fast — Apple should be sending out invites for this event very soon if it’s going to happen.

Source: 9to5Mac

Apple Open Sources Swift Benchmark Suite

Apple today announced that its Swift benchmark suite is open source, just over two months after making its Swift programming language open sourced as promised at the 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apple’s Swift benchmarking suite is designed to track Swift performance with 75 benchmarks that cover multiple important Swift workloads, libraries with commonly needed benchmarking functions, drivers for running benchmarks and displaying performance metrics, and a utility for comparing benchmark metrics across multiple versions of Swift. The Swift benchmark suite is available on GitHub.

Introduced in 2014 and launched alongside iOS 8 and OS X, Swift is Apple’s programming language built for iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS, designed to work with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks along with Objective-C while also being widely accessible. In 2015, Apple debuted Swift 2 with new features like advanced error handling and syntax enhancements.
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Apple Possibly Working With Energous on Extended Range Wireless Charging for Future iPhones

Amid rumors that Apple is working on extended range wireless charging capabilities for future iPhones, there has been some speculation that Apple has partnered with Energous to implement the technology. Energous is the company behind WattUp, an emerging wireless charging technology that uses radio frequencies to charge devices from up to 15 feet away.

Though there’s no concrete proof of a relationship between Energous and Apple, a new research report from Louis Basenese of Disruptive Tech Research highlights a large pool of circumstantial evidence pointing towards a potential partnership, so it’s worth taking a look at Energous’s technology, both in that context and as an example of the wireless charging techniques that are currently being pursued by tech companies.

Basenese posits Apple is working with a partner rather than developing an in-house solution due to the small number of patents the company has filed surrounding wireless charging — just five, with none filed since 2013. As evidence that partner is Energous, he points towards their common manufacturing partners (TSMC and Foxconn), their membership in ANSI working towards standards for wireless power transfer compliance testing, and most notably, the fact that Energous’s RF-based wireless charging system is the only long-distance solution nearly ready to launch.

In early 2015, Energous also inked a deal with an unnamed consumer electronics company, positioned as one of the top five companies in the world. Names weren’t mentioned, but that’s a short list — Apple, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, and Hitachi. Basenese believes Apple is the likeliest partner by process of elimination.

From that list, we can easily eliminate HP and Hitachi, as they don’t make phones. Since Samsung makes its own chips and WATT is working with TSM, we can cross it off the list, leaving only Apple and Microsoft. In reality, though, Microsoft is an also-ran in the mobile phone market and rumored to be exiting it. So we’re left with one company. Of course, the identity will remain a mystery, as AAPL’s notorious about insisting on secrecy with partners and employees.

Wireless charging capabilities have been implemented into several smartphones, including those from Apple’s direct competitors, but Apple executives have downplayed wireless charging in the past due to its dependence on built-in chips, mats, and close proximity. In a 2012 interview, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said it wasn’t clear “how much convenience” magnetic induction and resonance wireless charging systems offered because they still need to be plugged into the wall.

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Nearly One-Third of iPhone Users Still Have 4-Inch Screens

The latest data from Mixpanel shows that approximately 32.22% of active iPhone users still have a 4-inch screen. That is the same screen size as the so-called “iPhone 5se” that Apple is expected to announce at its rumored March 15 event.

Apple has released three iPhone models with 4-inch screens since 2013, including the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s, and some customers still feel these smartphones have the best screen size for pocketability and one-handed usage.

Apple’s newest 4-inch smartphone, the iPhone 5s, represented just under 20 percent of current iPhones in use, trailed by the iPhone 5 at 7.53 percent and the plastic-backed iPhone 5c at 5.66 percent. The numbers fluctuate slightly in real time.

In the company’s latest earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that 60 percent of older-generation iPhone users have yet to upgrade to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, or iPhone 6s Plus.

Right now, customers that want a 4-inch iPhone have to settle for the over two-year-old iPhone 5s’s outdated tech specs, and the smartphone also lacks many new features such as Apple Pay, 3D Touch, and Live Photos.

For that reason, the “iPhone 5se” with a rumored 4-inch screen, Apple’s newest A9 chip, Live Photos, and purported price of around $500 may prove to be a more popular option among prospective iPhone buyers.
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Instagram Testing Multiple Account Support on iOS

Instagram has begun testing multiple account support on iOS, suggesting the feature could be coming to all Instagram iOS users in the near future. Starting today, some Instagram users began noticing an option to log into more than one account in the Instagram app, but multi-account support is limited to a small number of users at this time.

Instagram users who have access to the multiple accounts feature will see the option to add additional accounts in the Settings menu through a new “Add Account” heading. Once a second or third account is added, switching between them can be done with just a couple of taps. With multiple accounts logged in, notifications for Likes and Comments will also have a header to let you know which account is receiving the alert.

Multi-user support has been a highly desired feature on Instagram for several years. The first hint of support came in late 2015, when Instagram began testing the feature on Android. It is not clear when multiple account support will see a wider release for iOS users as Instagram has not yet made an official announcement.
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Apple Adds 20 New Flyover Locations Around the World, New Maps Info in Taiwan and Finland

Apple today added 20 new Flyover locations to Apple Maps on Mac and iOS, highlighting landmarks and features across several countries including France, Italy, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the UK, South Africa, and the United States.

For those unfamiliar with the Flyover feature in Apple Maps, it lets users see photo-realistic 3D videos of select locations, with tools for zooming, panning, and rotating to get a closer look at notable landmarks and points of interest. Some of the locations listed may have previously been available as Flyover destinations, but were just added to Apple’s list of Flyover locations.

The full list of new Flyover locations is available below:

• Adelaide, Australia
• Amiens, France
• La Rochelle, France
• Nantes, France
• Toulouse, France
• Berne, Switzerland
• Bremen, Germany
• Columbus, Ohio
• Louisville, Kentucky
• South Bend, Indiana
• Springfield, Missouri
• Tucson, Arizona
• Dresden, Germany
• Eindhoven, Netherlands
• Johannesburg, South Africa
• Middlesbrough, UK
• Salzburg, Austria
• Taormina, Italy
• Toyoma, Japan
• Virgin Islands

Flyover was first introduced in 2012, but over the last four years, Apple has steadily added new Flyover locations to the Maps app. In 2015, Apple updated some major Flyover locations with real-time animated landmarks, making the Flyover experience even more immersive. Many Flyover locations have an additional City Tour feature that walks users through different landmarks in each city.

Along with new Flyover locations, the Maps app has been updated in Taiwan and Finland. In Taiwan, iOS users now have access to traffic information, and in Finland, the Nearby feature introduced in iOS 9 is now active, allowing users to get information on local businesses located near them.
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iOS Keyboard Maker SwiftKey Acquired by Microsoft for $250M

SwiftKey, the company behind the popular third-party SwiftKey Keyboard for iOS and Android devices, is being acquired by Microsoft, reports Financial Times. Microsoft is said to be purchasing SwiftKey for $250 million in a deal that will be announced imminently.

The SwiftKey keyboard has been available on Android devices since 2010, expanding to iOS in January of 2014 through the SwiftKey notes app. When Apple included support for third-party keyboards in iOS 8, SwiftKey was one of the first companies to produce a keyboard replacement app.

SwiftKey’s keyboard is notable for its word prediction tools, incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning to make custom word predictions based on what a user has previously written. Microsoft will likely use SwiftKey’s technology to bolster its own AI-based products, including its Word Flow keyboard and virtual assistant Cortana.
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Apple’s smaller iPhone and new iPad tipped for March 15th event

The iPhone 5se and iPad Air 3 rumors are piling up, and it looks like we won’t have to wait long to get the official details. Both BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski and 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman, both of whom have solid track records when it comes to rumors, report that Apple’s next event will take place on March 15th. The agenda for the soiree is said to include that long-rumored 4-inch iPhone and the new iPad Air that we got a look at yesterday. What’s more, an Apple Watch software update should be discussed at the event alongside a collection of new bands. We’ll know soon if the date is solid, as the official invites should be out sometime this month.

Source: BuzzFeed News, 9to5Mac