“Severance,” one of the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ series, is back for season 2 today after almost a three-year hiatus!

According to early reviews on The Verge, Mashable, The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets, the second season is well worth the wait.

“Somehow, Severance manages to top itself in its second outing, expanding further on its unique sci-fi premise and always, always keeping us on our toes,” Mashable’s Belen Edwards wrote. “Expect the unexpected this season,” he added.

At post time, the second season had a 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Also, a new companion podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts, titled “The Severance Podcast” and featuring director Ben Stiller and star Adam Scott.

“Severance” season 2 now streaming on Apple TV+

The second season of “Severance” comprises ten episodes, with the first episode available today and new ones dropping weekly every Friday, meaning you’ll need to wait to binge “Severance” as season finale premieres on March 21.

• Severance Season 2 Episode 1: January 17, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 2: January 24, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 3: January 31, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 4: February 7, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 5: February 14, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 6: February 21, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 7: February 28, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 8: March 7, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 9: March 14, 2025
• Severance Season 2 Episode 10: March 21, 2025

Think inside the box.#Severance Season 2 — Premieres Friday on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/5hdSFMy7hv

— Apple TV (@AppleTV) January 16, 2025

“Severance” marketing push

To promote the show’s long-awaited return, Apple had “Severance” actors playing themselves, pretending to work on Luman Industries computers in a glass cube at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, seemingly oblivious to passersby.

@briandanuffLiterally one of the coolest marketing stunts I’ve ever seen #severance #nyc #manhattan #grandcentral #fyp @Apple TV♬ Main Titles – Theodore Shapiro

The iPhone maker also had a little fun this morning ahead of the second season with rotating sections on its homepage. The panels, styled as Apple’s sleek product images, depict a room full of balloons (referencing a scene from the new season) and a Lumon terminal used for macrodata refinement.

What’s “Severance” about?

Created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, “Severance” is about the fictional corporation Lumon Industries and its employee Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott, who agrees to a “severance” procedure to surgically separate his work memories from his private memories.

In the second season, Mark and his office buddies learn” the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.”

The show’s retrofuturistic computers, created by prop master Cath Miller and production designer Jeremy Hindle, are actually functional. “When you see us, we really are refining numbers,” Adam Scott, who stars and co-produces the show, told The Verge. “There is actually a way to do it.”

If you don’t care about “Severance,” the hit show “Silo,” based on Hugh Howey’s best-selling book series, is wrapping up its second season today on Apple TV+.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/01/17/apple-t-v-plus-severance-season-2-arrives/

Learn what the Hover Typing feature on an iPhone or iPad is, and how to use it to display typed text in a large, customizable box which aids visibility.

Hover Typing is an accessibility feature in iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 that shows typed text prominently, which can be helpful for folks with vision problems. Typed text is displayed with a much larger font, and you can change its color and background.

Hover Typing is great for tiny text fields that don’t support scrolling. You can even tap inside the Hover Typing box to edit text and position the cursor precisely.

Use or iPad

1. Open the Settings app and navigate to Accessibility.
2. Scroll down and tap Keyboards & Typing.
3. Select Hover Typing.
4. Turn on Hover Typing.
5. Exit the Settings app and open Notes, Messages, WhatsApp, or a similar app where you can type. As you type, the Hover Typing box displays enlarged text.

Hover Typing works systemwide, even when typing Siri requests, entering device passcode, etc.

Hide and show the Hover Typing box

If the Hover Typing box blocks text fields, flick it away by swiping left or right to hide it, similar to how you tuck the Picture in Picture window out of view.

The Hover Typing box will show up automatically when the typing session ends.

Customize Hover Typing

You can customize Hover Typing by adjusting its appearance and more in Settings > Accessibility > Keyboards & Typing > Hover Typing:

• Display Mode: Make the Hover Typing box appear at the top of the screen, inline with the text field, or right above the keyboard.
• Font: Choose the typeface for the Hover Typing box.
• Size: Increase or decrease font size in the Hover Typing box.
• Display colors: Customize the overall look of the Hover Typing box by changing its text color (white by default), background color (black by default), insertion point color, and border color.
• Typing colors: Change how misspelled and autocorrected words are highlighted inside the Hover Typing box.

To revert these settings to factory values, tap the Reset to Default button and confirm. Doing so will remove all your Hover Typing customization.

Use Hover Typing with Accessibility Shortcut

Instead of venturing into Settings every time you want to toggle Hover Typing, you can add it to your Accessibility Shortcut to use on the fly.

1. Open iPhone or iPad Settings and tap Accessibility.
2. Tap Accessibility Shortcut from the bottom.
3. Check Hover Typing.
4. You can now choose Hover Typing from the Accessibly Shortcut menu that appears when you triple-press the iPhone’s side button or the iPad’s top button.

If Hover Typing doesn’t work for you

Here are troubleshooting tips to try if the Hover Typing box won’t show up even though the feature is enabled.

• Turn Hover Typing off and back on in the accessibility settings.
• If that doesn’t help, force quit all apps and reopen the one where you were typing.
• If both tips don’t work for you, restart your iPhone or iPad.

More typing tips:

• How to use your Mac’s Hover Text to aid readability of text
• 17 tips to type quickly and accurately on iPhone

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/01/17/how-to-use-hover-typing-iphone-ipad/

Due to errors, Apple has temporarily disabled notification summaries for news articles, a prominent Apple Intelligence feature, in the third beta of OS 18.3.

Apple now flags summarized notifications as beta when turning them on, showing disclaimers about possible errors. “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines,” Apple notes. “Double check important information.”

”Notification summaries for news content are “temporarily unavailable,” but not gone for good. Notification summaries for news will “automatically appear when available” in a future software update, Apple notes.

iOS 18.3 disables notification summaries for news and entertainment

Notification summaries are still distinguished from regular ones, with a tiny icon at the beginning of the summarized text. The icon is still easy to miss, and many iPhone owners may not even understand what it refers to.

But now, the text of new AI notification summaries is in italics. I’m not sure this will reduce confusion as some people will inevitably wonder why some of their notifications are in normal type, and others are italicized.

How to enable AI notification summaries on iPhone

You can enable notification summaries in Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. Apple says, “summary accuracy may vary based on content.” If you didn’t have the feature enabled before, turning it on will bring up two screens with updated messaging.

The first screen explains what the feature does. “Y “u can use Apple Intelligence to summarize content in notifications you receive, making them easier to scan at a glance.” It’s followed by a disclaimer: This beta feature will occasionally make mistakes that could misrepresent the meaning of the original notification.”

The second screen allows you to pick notification categories to summarize, with three options available: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Selecting the first option shows a message that the feature is temporarily unavailable and will return in a future update.

Like before, you can change summarization settings for individual apps in Settings. But now, there’s also a shortcut to get to the per-app setting by swiping left across a summarized notification on the lockscreen and choosing Options, then selecting View Settings from the menu. To quickly disable this feature for an app, choose Turn Off Summaries in this menu.

You can also send feedback by choosing the Looks Good or Something Isn’t Right options. Doing so will create a new post in the Apple Feedback app that comes preinstalled with the beta.

Unhinged AI summaries

Notification summaries earned Apple bad press when the BBC ran a story. In one example, BBC wrote that an incorrectly summarized notification suggested that alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson killer Luigi Mangione shot himself.

The write-up said the feature “harmed trust not only in the BBC but in news and information more widely.” A follow-up BBC article revealed the most egregious examples of notification summaries going off the rails.

Apple responded with a public statement. “Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” it reads. “A “software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence.”

Powered by Apple Intelligence, Notification summaries require iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 or later. If you want to learn more about AI notification summaries on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, read our step-by-step tutorial.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/01/16/ios-183-disables-apple-intelligence-notification-summaries/