The Latest on Apple: Page 20

In the case of Apple Watch v. Fitbit, the winner comes down to the judge at hand. Apple currently offers two smartwatches — the Series 5 and the Series 3 — while Fitbit offers three models — the Fitbit Versa 2, Fitbit Ionic, and Fitbit Versa Lite. Whatever your assumptions about these devices are, throw them out the window, as each has something unique to bring to the table.

I love my iPhone 8 Plus, but the allure of modern iPhone gestures is sometimes more tempting than I care to admit. I imagine many of you with a home button iPhone feel the same. What if I told you, however, that your iPhone is capable of iPhone X-like gestures? In fact, you can use a gesture to switch between apps. Welcome to the future.

While some of us thought Apple might pass on a new beta update in favor of an official release, it appears iOS 13.3.1 is here to stay in beta testing. This time, it didn't take four weeks to get here. The third public beta for 13.3.1 is now available, eight days after the release of public beta 2.

Beta testing on iOS is as Wild West as Apple gets. From feature-filled to featureless releases, there's a high level of unpredictability for what to expect. And not everything is found right away. For instance, last week's developer beta 2 added a new feature that was left undiscovered until three days later. So what has Apple hidden in today's iOS 13.3.1 dev beta 3 update?

Are you thinking about upgrading your iPhone this year? Apple sure wants you to. Of course, that's no different than any other year, but Apple really wants you to upgrade this year. How do we know this? The rumors point to not three, not four, but five brand new iPhones in 2020, with two very different release schedules. All this begs the question what the hell is Apple thinking?

We spent four beta updates with iOS 13.3. In that time, we saw fun new features like Communications Limits in Screen Time, an off switch for Memoji stickers in the Emoji keyboard, and new mouse options, among other things. Once Apple made 13.3 available to the public, it was only a matter of time before it began beta testing new software. That software is iOS 13.3.1, and that testing starts today.

I hate folder names, especially the one Apple shoves down our digital throats. On a computer, they make total sense, but on my iPhone, it's just more clutter on the home screen. You can tell what folder is what just by looking at the app icons within it, so why are we forced to label them? Technically, we're not, since there is a workaround in iOS 12 and iOS 13 to make those labels disappear for good.

Apple Pay can be used at retail stores, restaurants, markets, and millions of other locations in the US and abroad. It's used to buy everything from clothing to groceries and vending machine snacks, so it's important to ensure that the cards in your Wallet are always up to date with the correct billing and shipping addresses.

Using Apple Payin stores to make purchases is as easy as holding your iPhone near the NFC reader and authenticating with Face ID or Touch ID. That method uses the primary payment card in Apple Wallet automatically, and your primary card may change from week to week based on your spending, so you'll probably need to change it periodically.

When you export an image from the Photos app in macOS, you may not be getting the whole deal. In the export menu, you need to select either JPEG, TIFF, or PNG, and if you don't make any adjustments to the quality settings, it'll likely be compressed. If you need the original full-resolution file or want to get the video that's attached to a Live Photo, there's a simple way to do it.

Although the Health app mostly focuses on fitness, Apple has slowly added features to help with other aspects of well-being, including hearing. In iOS 13, there's now a headphones volume tracker in Health that monitors audio levels and lets you know when your music, podcast, movie, or whatever else is too loud.

Your iPhone tracks how many steps you take, how far you walk, and how many stairs you climb each day. That may seem a bit frightening, but it's all for a good reason: the Health app stores this data so you can view your progress in one place. But interestingly, opening the Health app isn't the easiest way to view this info.

It happens to almost everyone. You wake up one morning, check your phone, and realize your alarm never went off. Now you're late to start the day, and you spend every night onward paranoid it'll happen again. But if you have an iPhone, there are two things you can check to make sure the alarm always goes off on schedule.

Will the name "slofie" ever catch on? Probably not. But that won't stop the feature from being a hit. Slo-mo selfies aren't new in the smartphone world, but they are new to iPhone, arriving for the first time on iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max. Here's what you need to know before you start shooting your first slofie.

Apple seeded the official version of iOS 13 to compatible iPhones on Sept. 19. Since then, we've seen two major updates — iOS 13.1, which, by our count, introduced 22 new features, and iOS 13.2, which also added 22 new features. Today, Dec. 10, Apple introduced the third major update: iOS 13.3.

While there is a lot to love about Apple's latest suite of iPhone models, the real draw comes down to the cameras. The iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max all have killer rear camera systems, but the front camera was also improved. Apple claims Face ID works at more angles than before in these models, which begs the question: can you unlock your iPhone when it's flat on a table?

In iOS 13, Apple introduced HomeKit Secure Video, which allows smart home devices with cameras to give iPhone users a private and secure way to store recorded videos. Plus, it has benefits such as object detection and activity notifications. Logitech is the first to add support for HomeKit Secure Video with its Circle 2 cameras, and all it takes is a quick firmware update to get started.

It's no secret that iPhones are expensive. Whether or not you believe the price tag is justified, $1,000 is a lot to spend on an iPhone 11 Pro. But if you're in need of a new iPhone, you picked a great time. Black Friday is rapidly approaching, and for Walmart, many of those deals are already available.

All of your partially written, unsent emails live in your "Drafts" folders, in limbo until the day they are sent off or deleted. In Apple's Mail for iPhone, you can access all drafts from all accounts in a combined "All Drafts" folder from the app's main Mailboxes list — but only if you added it manually. But there's an even better way to access all of your drafts in Apple Mail in iOS; it's just not obvious.

Apple seeded public testers the second beta for iOS 13.3 eight days ago. That update mainly added stability patches to iOS as a whole, as did the public releases of iOS 13.2.2 and iOS 13.2.3. Now, following the release of iOS 13.3 developer beta 3 earlier today, Apple seeded the same beta to public testers.