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Apple releases iOS 10.3 with Find My AirPods and launches Night Shift on the Mac

Apple releases iOS 10.3 with Find My AirPods and launches Night Shift on the Mac

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It’s a busy day for Apple updates

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple is currently in the process of rolling out iOS 10.3, with the biggest new feature reserved for AirPods owners. You can now track the location of Apple’s wireless earbuds in the Find My iPhone app, either by playing a sound from one or both misplaced AirPods, or seeing the location where the earbuds were last connected to your iOS device over Bluetooth.

There’s some other user-facing stuff as well: developers can now publicly respond to reviews in the App Store, and you can label reviews from other people as helpful (or not so helpful). Watching rented movies across your various devices gets much easier as of this update, too.

The other big change in iOS 10.3 is a significant changeover to a new file system: the Apple File System. First introduced at WWDC 2016, Apple describes AFS as “the next generation in storage.” Once you’ve installed the update on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, AFS will replace the existing HFS+ file system. You, the user, probably won’t notice much — except for maybe a slight increase in available storage space. But overall, AFS is better for encryption, scaling across devices, and optimized for SSDs.

Separately, Apple also launched mac OS Sierra 10.12.4. There, the big new thing is Night Shift on the desktop, which reduces blue light in the display to help you sleep better if you’re on your MacBook before bed — and you believe the science on this stuff.

Oh, and the Apple Watch is also being updated with a Theater Mode today. If you’ve got any nerdy tidbits included in any of these updates that you like, please do share.

Today’s Storystream

Feed refreshed 7 minutes ago Yes, it happened again.

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Andrew Webster7 minutes ago
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David Pierce40 minutes ago
Bluetooth speakerphones are an underrated accessory.

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Elizabeth LopattoAn hour ago
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Richard LawlerAn hour ago
Use every (mega) pixel.

Halide is touted as one of the best photography apps on the iPhone, and as usual, it has a new update out to help you get the most out of the best camera available on the platform — that 48-megapixel sensor on the iPhone 14 Pro.

Version 2.9.0 of Halide is live in the App Store, with quick 48MP shooting directly to HEIC or JPG and many other new features.


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Nilay PatelSep 13
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Nilay PatelAn hour ago
Speaking of CarPlay.

Dan posted about CarPlay earlier and it reminded me that wireless CarPlay has actually set Apple back in its quest to somehow take over the car market — problems with it disconnecting are the number one complaint from new car owners, according to JD Power. Something to think about as Apple continues its relentless quest to remove all the ports from our phones.

The most frequent problem reported across the industry regardless of powertrain type or brand cachet related to smartphone connectivity. Dropped connections with Apple CarPlay was the number one problem, as Android Auto complaints leveled off from last year. Further, the number of reported problems with wireless Apple CarPlay increased as well, due to the feature being offered in more cars. 


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Richard LawlerTwo hours ago
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Dan SeifertTwo hours ago
Apple’s CarPlay is still frustratingly basic.

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I’m with him on that, but I’m more annoyed by the second point he highlights: CarPlay still treats every vehicle you connect to as a different thing. Instead of preserving your preferences when you plug in to a different car, it makes you set it all up again for each new vehicle. This is annoying for families with more than one car; it’s downright maddening for frequent users of rental cars. Seems like a simple thing to fix!


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Richard Lawler12:49 PM UTC
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