tvOS 13 is a surprising release. For years Apple has been pushing the TV app as the main draw of the Apple TV, then earlier this year it brought the app to Samsung TV sets with the promise of further expansion to Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, along with a smattering of other TV sets. The proliferation of the TV app made the Apple TV seemingly less important to Apple, but in fact with tvOS 13, available now, Apple has launched the biggest tvOS update ever. Before getting too excited, know that the bar for “biggest ever” is extremely low in the case of tvOS, but nevertheless in a year when the Apple TV felt more marginalized than ever, it’s great to see new life breathed into the device.
On the heels of Apple TV Channels debuting earlier this year, and the new Apple TV+ streaming service launching in a matter of weeks, Apple has given the Apple TV an updated Home screen, multi-user functionality, brilliant new underwater screensavers, Picture in Picture, Apple Arcade aided by PS4 and Xbox One controller support, and even more. While it can’t compare to the behemoth release that was iOS 13, tvOS 13 remains a strong update in its own right.
With the help of three boutique distribution companies, Apple will be taking titles including Anthony Mackie’s “The Banker,” Minhal Baig’s “Hala” and the buzzy wildlife doc “The Elephant Queen” into select cities nationwide before the titles upload to Apple TV Plus, Variety can report exclusively.
Arcade’s debut, combined with new support for gaming controllers from Sony and Microsoft, makes the Apple TV something that the comapny’s never had before: a viable game console. No, it may not be competing head to head with the Xbox One or PlayStation 4, much less the upcoming next-generation of consoles, but it might pose a challenge to something like the Nintendo Switch. Yes, the Switch may have more to offer—primarily Nintendo’s legendary first-party game catalog—but it’s also more expensive than the Apple TV and doesn’t offer the same breadth of other functionality, such as a broad assortment of streaming services.
Apple has pushed out iOS 13.1.1 and iPadOS 13.1.1 to address some major issues, like the vulnerability that could give third-party keyboards Internet access without your consent.
Apple has released iOS 12.4.2, which provides a security fix for a remote attacker causing an “unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution,” exactly like Apple’s recent Mac-focused security updates.
Often, when new iOS jailbreaks become public, the event is bitter-sweet. The exploit allowing people to bypass restrictions Apple puts into the mobile operating system allows hobbyists and researchers to customize their devices and gain valuable insights be peeking under the covers. That benefit is countered by the threat that the same jailbreak will give hackers a new way to install malware or unlock iPhones that are lost, stolen, or confiscated by unscrupulous authorities.
On Friday, came the release of Checkm8. Unlike just about every jailbreak exploit released in the past nine years, it targets the iOS bootrom, which contains the very first code that’s executed when an iDevice is turned on. Because the bootrom is contained in read-only memory inside a chip, jailbreak vulnerabilities that reside here can’t be patched.
It’s possible (though not always painless) to live without a wallet — as long as you have a smartphone.
There are a few things going on in this update but without doubt the biggest of the changes is templates. As the team at Day One points out, sometimes a blank page is great for throwing thoughts onto. But sometimes you need a little more structure, too.
Is sleep-tracking worth it? If you’re not getting enough sleep, then yes, it probably is. Just like step-counting apps hack your brain into wanting to walk more, so sleep-tracking apps can help you to get more and better sleep.
That imbalance was on display in its partnership with Apple to launch a credit card, Goldman’s first. The cost of beating out other banks was accepting a number of demands from Apple, which is famously design-obsessed and exacting in its dealings with partners, according to people familiar with the matter.
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When Apple unveiled the credit card on stage in March in Cupertino, Calif., it did so with a zinger: “Designed by Apple, not a bank.” Mr. Solomon and other Goldman executives watched from the audience. The same line was repeated in ads that Apple ran promoting the card.
In a final snub, Marcus executives weren’t allowed into a Tribeca loft that served as Apple’s command center in the days leading up to the card’s launch in August.
The company that most successfully harnessed the ethos of the libertarian counterculture to a new vision of ’80s-style consumer capitalism was Apple. As O’Mara puts it, Apple “bridged the hacker world” of local computer labs with the venture-capital–fueled “Silicon Valley ecosystem”: “While baking countercultural credentials into its corporate positioning from the start, Apple was the first personal-computer company to join the silicon capitalists.” Steve Jobs had been a member of his Homestead High School Computing Club, and his partner Steve Wozniak came out of the Homebrew culture. They took this ethos into the firm they built, which from its earliest days embraced the ideal of the personal computer as a symbol of individuality. Perhaps Apple’s most famous representation of this idea was its 1984 Super Bowl ad, which featured armies of faceless black-and-white clones moving in lockstep, subordinated to the images playing on a giant screen. Suddenly a lone figure broke free to destroy the mainframe, and then the screen went dark except for a glowing rainbow apple: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’”
Apple’s vision of liberation, though, always meant the freedom to become fantastically wealthy. When the company went public in December 1980, its valuation quickly climbed above that of those staples of the old economy, Ford and Bethlehem Steel. By the end of 1984, Apple executives celebrated their triumph over the mainframe with 19 holiday parties, one featuring a Dickensian village peopled by performers in period garb.
If the Oscars continue to insist on giving out awards to movies with theatrical runs, will we see a new award show created for streaming movies, or will we see the dying out of award shows first?
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