Category: News

Apple has introduced new specifications for manufacturers in the company’s Made for iPhone (MFi) program that allow them to create headphones that connect to iOS devices via a Lightning cable rather than a regular 3.5mm headphone jack, according to 9to5Mac.

The Lightning headphones will be capable of receiving lossless stereo 48 kHz digital audio output from Apple devices and sending mono 48 kHz digital audio input. The input means that the headphones will also support a microphone for audio input following Apple’s upcoming update. Manufacturers will be able to take advantage of Apple Headphone Remote controls like Volume Up/Down/etc, as well as other buttons for launching specific apps such as iTunes Radio or initiating playback controls on iOS. In addition, the headphones can be made to work specifically with a companion iOS app and launch a specific app when connected to an iOS device.

The specification includes two configurations for headphones. The first is called Standard Lightning Headphones, which uses minimum components when paired to a digital-to-analog converter. The second is called Advanced Lightning Headphones, which allows for more complex features like active noise cancellation.

The Lightning cable-equipped headphones would also allow iOS devices to power or charge headphones that require electricity, and would also allow for headphones to potentially power or charge up iOS devices.

Reports suggest Apple is planning to allow high definition music downloads and playback on iOS devices as well as new in-ear headphones that could take advantage of high-quality audio and take advantage of Lightning Cable MFi specifications. It is also possible Apple uses newly purchased Beats Electronics’ popular headphone line to accelerate adoption for the new standard.

The WWDC keynote can be a stressful time for app developers. You never know quite what is going to be presented when that famous “one more thing” is revealed. Whether it’s a whole new programming language to learn, or Apple suddenly takes the key…

Apple unveiled iOS 8 yesterday, with a bunch of new features for end-users and developers that bring the iPhone in parity to Android when it comes to some advanced features.

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The entire video of yesterday’s 2-hour WWDC keynote is now available on Apple’s YouTube channel. If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch Apple CEO Tim Cook and members of the company’s executive team introduce its next-generation mobile software iOS 8, upcoming Mac OS X release, nicknamed Yosemite, and discuss the future of its development tools, […]

We’ve learned Apple has quietly introduced a new specification for manufacturers in its Made-For-iPhone/iPad/iPod (MFi) program that allows them to create headphones that connect to iOS devices using a Lightning connector instead of the usual 3.5mm headphone jack. Apple has not flipped the switch on the audio input support for Lightning cables and existing iOS devices, but […]

A new feature in Apple’s iOS 8 software might make it easier for users to track down missing or stolen devices. The setting seen above can be found in the Find My iPhone panel of the device’s iCloud settings, and enables the phone to automatically send its last known location to Apple’s iCloud service if […]

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Glympse has been my favorite app for letting people know where I am with a real-time map and estimated time of arrival (ETA) information.

Now, Apple has announced some new features in iOS 8 that that mimic some of the functions of 3rd party…

Available beginning today, users of ESPN’s WatchESPN apps can access content with Google’s Chromecast dongle. Live broadcasts can be streamed directly to users’ televisions with this update, including channel content from ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3, ESP…

During yesterday’s WWDC keynote, Apple launched several new “Continuity” features to improve the cross-platform integration of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. One of the new abilities designed to allow better transitions from iOS devices to Macs is Handoff, w…

When iOS 7 launched, developers discovered that their apps with built-in web browsers were unable to achieve the same level of JavaScript performance as the stock Safari app. This was because Apple restricted use of its improved Nitro JavaScript engine to its own app, leaving third-parties with a slower version. As of iOS 8, however, […]

It’s the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You’ll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what’s happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today’s…

Intel today announced a line of solid-state drives (SSDs) utilizing PCI Express (PCIe) with NVM Express (NVMe) technology for substantial performance gains over SATA SSDs and traditional hard disk drives. The Intel Solid-State Drive Data Center Family …

As of iOS 8, Apple has stopped using Yahoo as the data source for the iOS Weather app, users note. The app now lists The Weather Channel as a source instead. Yahoo was already pulling its own data from TWC, but Apple appears to have cut out Yahoo for b…