News

iOS 15 brings focus, privacy, and more

Coming this fall

Published

on

iOS 15

WWDC 21 showcased plenty of the stuff coming to iOS 15. We already went in detail about what’s new on FaceTime. But here’s quick rundown of every other improvement on the smartphone OS.

Find Focus

Focus helps users filter notifications to reduce distractions, using a custom Focus or a suggested Focus like Work or Sleep. It uses on-device intelligence to suggest which people and apps are allowed to notify them.

Focus suggestions are based on users’ context, like during their work hours or while they’re winding down for bed, and when Focus is set on one Apple device, it automatically applies to their other Apple devices.

When a user’s Focus is blocking incoming notifications, their status is automatically displayed to others in Messages, reflecting that a user is not currently reachable.

New Notifications

Notifications have a new look with larger icons for apps to make them easier to identify. There’s also a new notification summary. It collects non-time-critical notifications for delivery at a more opportune time to reduce distractions.

This also uses on-device intelligence to determine the most relevant notifications based on a user’s interactions with apps. Urgent messages will be delivered immediately, so important communications will not end up in the summary.

It’s also easy to temporarily mute any app or messaging thread for the next hour or for the day.

Google Lens-like image to text capture

Named Live Text, the feature will recognize text in a photo and allow users to take action. You can take quick snap of some notes, phone numbers, and practically anything with a text on it, then Live Text will bring up actions relevant to what you captured.

Phone numbers will bring up an option to call, text will bring the option to copy the text, and Visual Look-Up will bring up information about what your camera is pointing at.

Better Spotlight

Used in conjunction with Live Text, Spotlight can now search photos by location, people, scenes, or objects. It now also offers web image search and all-new rich results for actors, musicians, TV shows, and movies.

Speaking of photos, the Photos app now has a new-look and vastly improved Memories feature. You can now pick which song will play for a particular memory collection from your Apple Music library.

Better Apple Maps

Details for cities for neighborhoods, commercial districts, elevation, and buildings have been enhanced. These include new road colors and labels, custom-designed landmarks, and a new night-time mode with a moonlit glow.

When navigating using iPhone or CarPlay, Maps features a three-dimensional city-driving experience with new road details that help users better see and understand important details like turn lanes, medians, bike lanes, and pedestrian crosswalks.

Transit riders can find nearby stations more easily and pin favorite lines. Maps automatically follows along with a selected transit route, notifying users when it’s nearly time to disembark, and riders can even keep track on Apple Watch.

New Privacy features

Siri requests is now processed entirely on iPhone by default with on-device speech recognition.

Mail Privacy Protection stops senders from learning whether an email has been opened, and hides IP addresses so senders can’t learn a user’s location or use it to build a profile on them.

App Privacy Report offers an overview of how apps use the access that has been granted to location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts in the last seven days, and which other domains are contacted.

More Notes App functions

Notes adds user-created tags that make it easy to quickly categorize notes in line with relevant content. Mentions allow members of shared notes to notify one another of important updates. Additionally, an all-new Activity view shows the recent history of a shared note.

iOS 15 is coming this fall to the following devices:

iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone SE (1st Gen), iPhone SE (2nd Gen), iPod Touch (7th Gen).

Related Topics:

Apps

Canva teams up with SB19 to turn A’TIN’s passion into creativity

Campaign lets fans access assets, editable templates, more

Published

on

August 8, 2026

By

Canva Philippines has joined forces with SB19 and Sony Music Entertainment to launch the “Kaya sa Canva” campaign.

This first-of-its-kind initiative is aimed at transforming the popular Filipino boy band’s fanbase into creators by giving them access to official design assets, exclusive templates, and powerful creative tools.

That’s of course as fans have a way of creating artwork, banners, and more outputs to honor their idols.

As such, the partnership enables the A’TIN (SB19’s fanbase) to access the Canva-exclusive SB19’s Creative Hub.

This dedicated space lets fans access assets, including SB19-inspired sticker packs, custom typography, and editable templates inspired by the group.

Fans around the world will initially have access to templates for photo-booth strips, wallpapers, posters, and videos.

The campaign will then expand with Canva-exclusive assets celebrating the group’s New Era, as well as their latest single, “Lawless”.

Meanwhile, the original song “KAYA” is accompanied with an upbeat music video, doubling as a love letter to A’TIN and a masterclass in Canva’s tools.

Every visual and animation is fan-inspired, a celebration of the creativity, passion, and dedication that’s defined in the community from day one.

Continue Reading

News

The iPhone 18 might sell out for an unexpected reason

The ongoing shortage might play a part in the phone selling out earlier than expected.

Published

on

August 7, 2026

By

An iPhone selling out is not news. Because of how popular the phones are, it’s within the realm of probability that Apple runs out of stock at some point. According to a new report, this year won’t be any different… but it’s for an entirely different reason.

First reported by analyst Tim Culpan, Apple is reportedly struggling to meet its demand for semiconductors for the iPhone 18 and the foldable iPhone. The ongoing memory shortage is cutting off Apple’s ability to deliver the required supply of smartphones in a timely fashion. The report even claims that TSMC, which helps produce the iPhone, is sitting on a shipment of processors, worth US$ 1 billion, that don’t have memory chips.

Now, Apple is still confident that it can weather the launch. However, if the shortage persists, the iPhone 18 generation will likely sell out much more quickly than expected.

It’s an interesting time for Apple to experience such a shortage. It’s been heavily rumored that the company will launch its very first foldable phone next month, creating a new market for the brand. Apple definitely wants this attempt to succeed after the tepid response to its last new product, the Vision Pro.

SEE ALSO: Did Tim Cook just confirm that iPhone prices are going up?

Continue Reading

News

These “smart” glasses just sold out in under a week

DuckDuckGo touts that these glasses have zero AI, zero cameras, and an infinite battery life.

Published

on

August 7, 2026

By

Smart glasses are in a weird place right now. While a chunk of the population views them as cool and innovative, another significant chunk sees them as a privacy nightmare. If you’re in the latter group but want to see what life is like on the former, DuckDuckGo has a new product: a pair of anti-surveillance glasses with no camera or AI, otherwise known as just normal sunglasses.

If it’s not obvious, yes, it’s a troll product. DuckDuckGo is a search engine famously known for pushing privacy as a priority, opposing Google’s penchant for advertising and AI. Now, the search engine is taking on the smart glasses market.

Partnering with Knockaround, DuckDuckGo released the Paso Robles, a pair of sunglasses touted as having zero cameras, an always-offline mode, and a battery life of infinity.

It’s a statement piece. The rims have a logo mark, similar to the Meta’s glasses. The packaging also states that the glasses are “designed to block the sun, not send data to the cloud.”

Now, if you want a pair, they cost only US$ 35, as opposed to Meta’s US$ 299 price tag, but they are already sold out.

Which says quite a bit about today’s sentiment against AI and for privacy. Of course, to be fair, DuckDuckGo’s supply is certainly less than Meta’s stock for their smart glasses. It does, however, prove that the sentiment is there.

As of now, the world is slowly realizing that unimpeded smart glasses aren’t such a good idea, leading to people concerned about their privacy. In fact, some states have already started banning the technology in certain public spaces.

SEE ALSO: New York becomes first state to ban smart glasses

Continue Reading

Trending