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A couple of neat Apple Watch stories popped up on Reddit recently. One user shared how his Apple Watch Series 4 caught a premature ventricular contraction and was able to quickly share the results with his doctor. Another notes how helpful the Apple Watch is for deaf users. First is another story about Apple Watch’s ECG feature catching a nuanced heartbeat irregularity. Reddit user sean_themighty shared that his Apple Watch recorded a premature ventricular contraction....

Police in Selma, Texas are crediting the Apple Watch with helping them locate a kidnapped woman. As reported by Fox San Antonio, the kidnapped woman used her Apple Watch to call for help, and police were able to use a cellular ping to track her. The report describes the situation: Officers were able to then use an “emergency cellular ping” to track the victim, the report explains. The Apple Watch was able to accurately show the victim’s location, so when the police arrived, they found her in a car in a parking lot, with Longoria having fled on foot....

Those running for public office aren’t the only ones struggling with tech accessibility issues. The number of accessibility-related discrimination lawsuits grew almost 300% from 2017 to 2018, with the majority of complaints suggesting websites were built without support for assistive technologies. In other words, to ignore accessibility issues is to ignore the people who could be your customers or even your employees. To be compliant with accessibility standards, brands need to lead with empathy and proactively seek out a more diverse audience to bring into the conversation....

With the recent release of watchOS 5, users are now able to add information from third-party apps to the Siri Watch face. This means you can add information such as Carrot Weather, or calendar information from Fantastical. Follow along to learn how…. Apple Watch: How to add third-party apps to Siri Watch face On iPhone open the Watch app. Under MY FACES, tap the Siri face if available. If Not, go into the Face Gallery, find the Siri face and add it to your Watch....

Apple will give its employees in the United States up to four hours of paid time off to volunteer or vote in the US election. A new Bloomberg report says the announcement was made to Apple employees this week through an internal memo. The decision applies to retail employees and hourly workers and, as noted in the original report, other companies like Twitter and Uber are doing the same. Apple’s senior vice president of retail and people Deirdre O’Brien mentioned that employees can take up to four hours to vote or work on Election Day....

A well-known Apple supplier, Largan Precision, has announced that it is shipping 3D depth-sensing lenses in the second half of 2017 (via Nikkei). Although it didn’t identify brands by name, industry experts believe that these camera components are for the iPhone 8. The special sensors will enable face recognition functionality, allowing users of the high-end iPhone to unlock their device just by looking at the screen. Largan already supplies most of the rear camera lenses used in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus....

Apple has just announced a significant campaign to support World AIDS Day 2014 as part of its long-running (RED) program. The company will donate to the Global Fund to fight AIDS based on proceeds from its new Apps for (RED) section on the App Store, as well as a portion of online and retail sales made on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Apps for (RED) runs from November 24 through December 7 and consists of 25 apps with exclusive new content, in which all proceeds will go directly to the Global Fund to fight AIDS around the world....

According to iLounge, Apple will be the exclusive distributor for adapters for Apple’s new smaller dock connector. These new adapters would open up support for 30-pin Apple device dock connectors for devices with the new, smaller connector. These new adapters are said to come in both one and three packs: $10 for a one pack, and $29 for a three pack. Additionally, Apple’s new USB cables are said to cost $19....

Apple has refreshed its channel lineup on the Apple TV to include NBC Sports Live Extra. The channel provides “thousands of live sporting events that air on NBC, NBCSN and Golf Channel” for free. Aside from live content, the channel includes loads of highlights and replays of sporting events to view at no charge; NBC Sports Live Extra users can activate the full channel (including content from CNBC, USA, and NBC) by verifying a cable subscription....

A new Apple TV display calibration feature introduced as part of tvOS 14.5 can actually make your TV’s picture quality worse, found tests conducted by a professional television calibrator. Apple demonstrated the feature as part of its presentation on the 6th-gen Apple TV, but also made it available to older models too … Apple said last month that some TVs have poor color calibration out of the box, but the new feature can fix this....

Apple has just updated its Keynote app for iPhone and iPad today with a number of new features including new builds and transition effects. Version 2.0.1 of the Keynote app includes new transitions including: Blinds, Color Planes, Confetti, Fall, Perspective, Pivot, and Swoosh. The new builds include: Blinds, Fly in, Fly out, Orbital, Pivot, Scale Big, and Swoosh. Apple’s other iWork iOS apps, Pages and Numbers, also hit version 2.0.1 today with stability improvements and bug fixes....

Apple today released another firmware update for its Pro Display XDR, which improves the stability of the external display and also adds some new features. This time, Display Firmware 4.2.30 adds in-field recalibration options to Macs with Pro Display XDR. According to Apple, in-field recalibration lets users calibrate the Pro Display XDR for specific color workflows that require custom calibration by an in-house spectroradiometer. Pro Display XDR comes with several industry-standard color calibration profiles, including sRGB, BT....

The Apple Watch Series 6 has officially arrived, bringing new health-monitoring features, new colors, and more to the Apple Watch lineup. I’m a die-hard Apple Watch user, but unlike my iPhone, it’s not something I upgrade every year. Last year, I made the decision to skip the Series 5 and stick with my trusty Series 4 for another year. This time around, the addition of the blood oxygen sensor, an aging battery in my Series 4, and a desire to finally have the always-on display prompted me to make the jump to the Series 6....

Update: Apple has confirmed the promo, and according to the T&C online orders are also eligible. According to our sources, Apple retail employees were informed this morning that beginning today, anyone who purchases an Apple TV from Apple will receive a free $25 iTunes gift card. As of right now this promotion seems to only be available at brick and mortar locations, but we will update this post if it pops up at the Apple online store....

Apple does have a bit of cash laying around ($16 Billion) and Steve Jobs did pay the Yahoo! VPs a visit last year. According to Kara Swisher, it was quite the motivational speech. Steve Jobs also knows how to bring a company back from the brink of collapse (see Apple 1997). After Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer made the offer in a letter on Thursday, it emerged that Yahoo had rejected a similar takeover attempt by Ballmer’s organization a year before....

The American Customer Satisfaction Index is out today with its September report for appliances, computers, televisions and video players/recorders. Not surprisingly, Apple is able to maintain its lead among personal computers despite a drop of 1-point to 86 over previous reports. While the report noted Apple continued to lead the category by a margin of 5- to- 9 points, Apple’s lead is slightly smaller than previously, according to the report, “due to an across-the-board customer satisfaction increase for Windows-based computers....

Apple has rolled out a nice enhancement to the Radio tab in the Music app, further promoting Beats 1 as a live always-on service. As pictured above, rather than displaying the same static image of the Beats 1 logo with a Listen Now subtitle, the Radio tab now updates along with the live schedule … displaying live show titles, host names, description and artwork for the current show. This change allows users to quickly find out what’s on right now and could convert more people into actively listening to the free Beats 1 radio station....

Touch ID fingerprint recognition is replacing passwords on new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, but what if your Mac doesn’t have a fingerprint reader? The good news is that you don’t need to spend a thousand dollars on a new computer. You can replace your password on macOS Catalina without Touch ID if you wear an Apple Watch. How it works Strong and unique passwords are critical to securing the data on your Mac....

watchOS 7 was released to the general public last week, bringing new watch face features, sleep tracking support, and more to Apple Watch models dating back to the Apple Watch Series 3. Some Apple Watch Series 3 users, however, are reporting a variety of issues since installing watchOS 7, including random reboots, poor performance, and more. On Apple’s support forums, there’s a thread dedicated to Apple Watch Series 3 owners expressing frustration with device performance since installing watchOS 7....

A judiciary committee in July asked questions surrounding antitrust and competition concerns of big tech. The documentation from those hearings has now been released. Apple addressed its policies on the App Store, competition in markets where Apple offers first-party apps, disallowing alternative browser engines, among other topics. On the subject of Apple’s role in the repair industry, the company said that the ‘cost of providing repair services has exceeded the revenue generated by repairs’, implying it does not tightly control repairs for financial gain....