Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s AirTag item trackers are about to get more useful — with iOS 17, you’ll be able to share them and other Find My objects with up to five other people, the company has quietly revealed. That means you can begin tracking communal property, not just wholly personal items. Where are the household car keys? What about the Apple TV remote we duct-taped an AirTag to because it unfortunately still does not come with a UWB locator of its own? It’s my turn to play Zelda — where’d the Switch go? Frankly, it’s the excuse I needed to buy more than one single AirTag because the only personal property I lose is my wallet…

Apple’s Siri voice assistant will soon be capable of responding to multiple requests at once. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Despite some hints toward a possible Apple smart display with its new StandBy feature for iPhones, Apple’s WWDC was underwhelming for the smart home. But Apple did announce one noteworthy addition, Siri will soon handle “multiple commands” in succession without you having to say its name again. This might seem like a small update, but for anyone who uses voice control in the smart home, saying, “Siri, turn off the dining room lights and lock the front door” will be a huge improvement. However, it’s also another example of how Apple is still playing catch-up in the…

Rumors about Apple's Vision Pro headset have been circulating for years, but something that was never quite clear was how it would be controlled. There were some early rumors of control devices, which eventually faded away as leaks focused more on gesture control, and as it turns out, that's the way Apple went. The Apple Vision Pro uses hand gestures, eye movements, and spoken commands for navigation. You can choose something on the display by looking at it, for example, and then select it by tapping your fingers together. Scrolling is done with a quick flick, and only small movements are required. You can look at the microphone button in a search field and then start speaking in order to…

For years, access to the iOS developer beta and other developer builds has only been available through a $99/year developer account. Shaking things up this year and increasing access in a big way, Apple has just made the iOS 17 developer beta and other betas free for everyone. more… The post Apple makes iOS 17 developer beta free for everyone appeared first on 9to5Mac.

iOS 17 and watchOS 10 introduce a new way to easily swap contact information between iPhones, Apple Watches, or both. NameDrop, the new feature in beta now and debuting for everyone this fall, lets you control what information you share over AirDrop without having to create a separate contact card. NameDrop isn’t the only update to the contact card experience in iOS 17, however. more… The post Apple adds pronoun fields with privacy focus to Contacts app on iOS 17 appeared first on 9to5Mac.

Apple's developer betas have historically been limited to developers who have a paid account that costs $99 per year, but with the launch of the most recent betas, that's changing. Anyone can now enroll in the free version of the Apple Developer program and get access to beta releases. All that's required to download betas is an Apple ID. "OS beta releases" is now listed as an available resource even for those who are not members of the Apple Developer Program. Apple has officially made the developer betas available for free. You only need to sign in with any Apple ID here https://t.co/YEQr1kg3DoImage source: https://t.co/ZPEBwECpxO pic.twitter.com/leJsobfJEt— iSoftware Updates (@iSWUpdates) June 6, 2023 This change means that anyone with an ‌Apple…