More than 1 billion people who are active iPhone users made a conscious choice to buy into Apple’s closed integrated platform—with its benefits and limitations. Even if customers try to stick to only the original App Store, sweeping changes to the operating system could raise their risk of falling victim to malware, phishing or other social engineering exploits. If the government unilaterally dismantled Apple’s tightly controlled app ecosystem, the result could be unfair for consumers.
Connecting the dots between Apple’s business predicaments and its choices helps us understand why the company does what it does — and by extension how those actions affect everyone, whether we own an Apple device or not. Apple’s strategy bends the world.
Apple has announced the Apple Watch International Collection comprised of 22 Sports Loop bands and downloadable Stripes watch faces that feature the colors of countries around the world.
It's very fast indeed - far faster than it needs to be to run current apps. It has an excellent rear camera setup that most owners will barely use. And it has features like 5G and LiDAR whose real usefulness will only become apparent in the months and years to come.
Satechi originally launched its Aluminum Mac mini Stand and Hub back in 2019 bringing expanded I/O to the front of the desktop Mac and giving it a lift. Now an upgraded Stand and Hub is out today that lets you seamlessly expand your storage with a built-in SSD enclosure along with the extra I/O.
Today’s update with House brings another engaging, handcrafted space to play and get creative.
Apple isn’t backing down from its hybrid work model that will require most employees to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Fully remote positions will be extremely limited.
“We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future,” said Deirdre O’Brien, senior vice president of retail and people, in a video recording viewed by The Verge.
Stay safe, and thanks for reading.
The Mac Mini often gets overlooked in Apple's lineup, but it's actually one of Apple's most-loved computers, and for good reason. It's the perfect computer for those that want an inexpensive desktop Mac, especially for those who like the idea of something compact, and who don't mind using their own keyboard and mouse.
If you live and work in Apple’s ecosystem, and like the convenience of, for example, taking a photo on your phone and inserting it into a document or worksheet on your Mac, then you should use the iWork apps. Only the limited feature set in Pages and the suite's lack of compatibility outside the Appleverse keep it from winning an Editors' Choice award. If you and your work never stray out of Apple’s world, then keep Pages, Numbers, and Keynote handy for creating everything from graphics-rich worksheets or elegant presentations.
The latest major update to Pixelmator Pro adds a number of notable new features, including the ability to improve the composition of photos with machine learning, a new Quick Fill feature, improved painting tools, and more.
The trackpad is a key selling point for the Max Plus. It can’t quite match the Magic Keyboard on pure responsiveness, which is no surprise given Apple’s low-level system access, but it does a good job nonetheless, and Brydge has been making continuous improvements to the firmware. It’s a huge trackpad by any standard, which makes using it for things like photo browsing and text editing a lot more enjoyable.
Entering with a minimal build, the Nomad AirTag Leather Loop fittingly lives up to its name with a design that’s comprised of genuine Horween leather. Differing from other cases on the market, these loops are less of a full-body cover to keep your AirTags safe but rather a simplistic way to attach them onto things. There’s no friction fit or anything of the sorts, as Nomad releases on two 3M adhesive pads to hold the item finders in place.
The arm holds your iPad exactly where you need it and can easily be adjusted without tipping over the entire stand. It feels stable and serves as a perfect companion to your main screen.
Microsoft’s xCloud, the cloud game streaming component of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that doesn’t require a console to use, is rolling out fully to iOS devices, including iPhones and iPads, as well as PCs and macOS computers via the web.
Apple today began notifying developers that they’re able to use the new Xcode Cloud service that was first introduced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
I love my Mac mini.
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The official warning comes after Apple had added more explicit button battery warnings to its packaging in Australia, though the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it wasn’t enough to address its concerns with the product.
In a statement, the ACCC said it was concerned “about the accessibility and security of the button battery inside the product.” The consumer advocate says young children could access the battery compartment and remove the coin battery with ease.
Five taps to an iPhone lock button, or pressing and holding an apple watch side dial combined with a swipe across its face calls emergency services, which in the case of a true emergency, could save a life, but in an accidental situation, it adds to dispatch call volumes.
Pharis stated even if emergency centers suspect an incoming call is accidental, they can’t treat it as such.
Mophie's new battery pack simply offers Qi wireless charging, holding the battery in place on your iPhone 12 with a series of magnets that align with the MagSafe charger. [...] However, if you bring along a USB-C to Lightning cable and recharge that way, it increases the output to 12 watts.
So, when you’re looking directly at someone, their conversation is amplified by up to 15 decibels, while, at the same time, the background noise is reduced, allowing you to hear the speaker more clearly.
As someone else starts to speak and you look toward that speaker, the audio feed follows your head, with a circular graphic on the iPhone’s display pointing in the direction of the person who’s speaking.
The biggest takeaway message may be that nothing can stop a programmer with genuine enthusiasm for their work.
Despite the clear comfort people have for these non-Apple services, in the weeks leading into my device swap several of my friends told me their plans to quit those other services once I moved to iOS.
PDFpen is a suite of PDF productivity applications for Apple Mac, iPhone and iPad devices, including digital signatures, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), PDF editing and cloud storage.
When I made myself a turkey-ham-and-egg noodles for dinner this evening, the picture I've had in my mind was very different from the end-result.
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“I think Apple has really struck a balance here, in terms of: it still reads as a theater,” says Adrian Scott Fine, the L.A. Conservancy’s senior director of advocacy, offering perhaps the highest praise that can be offered for this kind of project. “They’re still telling the story that this was the Tower Theater, but it’s decidedly reinvented and re-imagined as a modern interpretation, taking some of the spaces of the theater and re-imagining those for functionality that Apple typically has with these types of operations. The question is, how do you infuse the Apple brand and everything that everyone knows about Apple and put in a space that is also still its own brand? You see the balance in the attention to detail, both with the modern aesthetic that you find with Apple products, but also the (original) detail of this building.
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The Conservancy’s Scott Fine says that, as happy as he was to think of the theater “all clean and shined up with everything back in its place, the one thing that really seemed to be missing as the topping on the cake, so to speak, was the little pyramid piece on the very top of the clock tower. Initially that wasn’t necessarily in the budget for them to do and put it back. But since the early ’70s, the theater had always sort of looked like it was missing something — and it really was missing something — without that terra cotta piece at the very top. It was certainly something we pressed for, especially when there was some question whether it was in the cards or not. I think Apple heard us and ultimately felt like it was missing its hat, too, and felt they needed to put that back on. I’m really excited to see that back, because it just makes it feel like the exterior is complete again.”
In a support document updated this week, Apple shared a list of products that should be kept a safe distance away from medical devices, such as implanted pacemakers and defibrillators, due to potential magnetic interference.
Technically, Apple Stores in NSW are open, but that you can only pick things up that have been purchased online, rather than the regular playing with Apple’s products and Genius Bar tech support you can normally waltz in for.
Will the millions of users currently on a free trial end up signing up for the $5 per month service or an Apple bundle because they can't go without Apple's shows? Or will they cancel?
In explaining the submission, Richard Hoeg of Hoeg Law said the Supreme Court "put out a whole lot of language saying courts should be very careful about rule of reason findings." The need to be careful "undoubtedly helps Apple," Hoeg continued, with the filing being Apple "making sure that the judge knows that SCOTUS just said all of this on the rule that she is using to evaluate Apple's business practices."
At the heart of the current dispute is the power Apple wields as the gatekeeper over who and what is distributed on the iPhone. Microsoft has been vocal in criticizing limits that it sees as hampering the growth of its own booming videogaming business.
Eastgate Systems has upgraded its Tinderbox note-taking assistant to version 9.0, one of the largest leaps Tinderbox has ever taken according to its developer. With added support for M1-based Macs, the release introduces a new command bar that can quickly open any Tinderbox document you’ve used before, open any inspector pane, and define Tinderbox attributes.
Telestream has released ScreenFlow 10, a major upgrade to the screencast recording and video editing app that can now simultaneously record multiple cameras, microphones, and screens—including iPhone and iPad screens.
Right now, the most common accessory type is a key ring holder. It's an obvious enough choice. The most interesting AirTag accessories, however, will be the unexpected ones. Nomad is producing a holder for sunglasses to keep track of expensive frames, for example.
In a support document, Adobe said users can easily migrate to its Fresco app, which combines many Photoshop Sketch and Illustrator Draw drawing and painting tools. All projects created in Illustrator Draw and Photoshop Sketch will be automatically migrated to Fresco after a user signs into the app with their Adobe ID email address.
A few weeks after the data-loss scandal, I found myself able to ask Bill Gates himself about what had happened. Gates no longer runs Microsoft, and I was interviewing him about vaccines for a BBC programme called How to Vaccinate The World. But the opportunity to have a bit of fun quizzing him about XLS and XLSX was too good to pass up.
I expressed the question in the nerdiest way possible, and Gates’s response was so strait-laced I had to smile: “I guess… they overran the 64,000 limit, which is not there in the new format, so…” Well, indeed. Gates then added, “It’s good to have people double-check things, and I’m sorry that happened.”
You would think I should not be forgetting such things anymore… but I forgot to wear my mask when going out to get dinner today.
I only realized this while I was taking the lift down, put on my AirPods, took out my iPhone to start playing my audiobook, and suddenly realized the iPhone unlocked itself without me having to key in the passcode.
Yep, FaceID was working as advertised. And no, I don't wear an Apple Watch.
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My phone was broken and so was I. My problems had started on either March 13, 2020, because of COVID-19; or June 30, when I lost my job; or maybe eight years prior, when I traded in my desk job at a trade magazine for a work-from-home position at a media behemoth. Without an office, my iPhone had become essential for interpersonal contact; and for nearly a decade, I aggressively kept the device up-to-date to ensure I could always be a functioning member of society. But after a pandemic year, my personal relationships were strained; my eating and drinking habits had taken a turn for the worse; and — not coincidentally — my phone was nearly unusable.
If you put all your eggs in one basket, don’t be surprised when something happens to that basket and you’re left with no eggs. Please reconsider your backup strategy and ensure that your risks are wisely spread.
Apple has never offered support for the TMP 2.0 standard on Intel Macs, which makes them all incompatible with the newest version of Windows. If you run the tool released by Microsoft to check if your PC has the hardware required to run Windows 11, you’ll get a message saying that “this PC can’t run Windows 11.”
At the Windows 11 event yesterday, Microsoft had an opportunity to meet some of these concerns, founded or not. Yet, it chose not to. As more and more of us become aware of how our data is being used and abused, Microsoft's marketing department effectively gave Apple another tool to attack Windows.
The innocuous feature that sets the One Spot apart from AirTags is that it already has a hole, meaning it can go straight on your keyring without a mandatory accessory purchase.
Sporting a faux leather build comprised of 50% recycled materials, it arrives with a slim design that can hold two ID or bank cards.
What’s at stake, essentially, is something even more valuable than profitability: the last unclaimed corner of consumers’ attention during their waking hours.
Apple this month submitted an application to Galway County Council for an extension to its planning permission on the site and, says it aims to have built a data center on the site by the end of the extension period.
Today, I decided to try out Microsoft's Visual Studio Code on my Mac and see how good or bad the code editor deals with my PHP files. After going through the settings, trying out the menu items, and figuring out how things work, I was too tired to actually work on my PHP projects.
Oh well. There's always tomorrow. :-)
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I'm back on Xcode for the rest of my evening, dealing with Swift and SwiftUI.
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To me, this reads as Apple providing a tacit encouragement to all developers that they’d better start thinking about embracing Split View/Slide Over/windowing, because users are going to notice when they don’t.
A newly documented entitlement will allow app developers to request privileged access to RAM on iOS and iPadOS. This system entitlement has existed in prior iOS versions as a private escape hatch, used by some internal processes.
The change from private to public means that third-party app developers will be able to take advantage of it where appropriate. This will be especially useful on the latest-generation iPad Pro with M1 chip, where available system RAM can reach 16 GB but the standard RAM-per-app limit is only 5 GB.
Cook attended the grand opening alongside retail chief Deirdre O'Brien. During the grand opening, he took pictures with both attendees and welcomed the first customers into the store.
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday visited local youth outreach organization Create Now, an arts-focused non-profit that is now receiving support from the tech giant.
The first Time to Walk host for the second season is Gina Rodriguez, American television actress who starred in the television series Jane the Virgin.
Apple announced upcoming Time to Walk celebrities include boxer Anthony Joshua, British presenter Stephen Fry, supermodel Naomi Campbell, actress Marsai Martin and more.
RAW Power, an app for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS from Gentlemen Coders, is adept at taking advantage of the options that RAW brings to photo editing. It’s also one of the few tools that properly handles the ProRAW format in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max, more so than even Apple’s own Photos app.
Maintaining backward compatibility with all the Windows programs through the ages is already making Windows bloated and incoherent, and now Microsoft want to take on the challenge of maintaining backward compatibility with all the Android apps too?
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Apple Tower Theatre stands apart from other stores because “it is such a special building and has such significance in the film industry,” said Deirdre O’Brien, head of retail and personnel for Apple.
“It’s in the heart of a city that is known for creativity and we really want to build upon that,” she said. Apple has 25 stores in the Greater Los Angeles area.
Over the last year, as bedrooms and kitchens became classrooms, teachers and students around the world adjusted their lives to remote learning. Educators met that challenge head-on, using Apple technology to help their students learn, connect, and thrive in new ways. From launching an online high school musical, to exploring history with iMovie and GarageBand, to producing a virtual graduation ceremony, educators in the US and beyond created innovative ways of teaching that will be carried forward for future generations of learners.
What the sideloading arguments ignore are the enormous tradeoffs involved. Yes, there would be benefits — a lot of cool apps that aren’t permitted in the App Store would be installable by as many iOS users who want to install them. But many non-technical users would inevitably wind up installing undesirable apps via work/school requirements or trickery that they could not be required or tricked into installing today. Consider just the example of “proctoring apps” that students are required to install for remote test taking. They’re a surveillance menace, as the EFF reported in August.
“The idea you can only be collaborative face-to-face is a bias,” he said. “And I’d ask, how much creativity and innovation have been driven out of the office because you weren’t in the insider group, you weren’t listened to, you didn’t go to the same places as the people in positions of power were gathering?”
He and others suggested reimagining the office entirely — as somewhere people go to every so often, to meet or socialize, while daily work is done remotely. At Zillow, nearly all employees will be remote or come in only once in a while. Several times a year, teams will go to small offices set up for gathering.
As Apple, and countless other corporations in this country and around the world, resume pre-pandemic activity, it would be wise for everyone to consider what disabled people have known all along. Accessibility matters a lot—in this case, literally so.
Apple has started sending out emails to Apple TV+ users whose free trials will finally expire soon, as the (twice extended) free trials with hardware purchases finally come to an end in July.
Apple is adjusting the period of time it takes for AirTags to play a sound alert after being separated from their owner. With this firmware update, an AirTag will now play a sound after it has been separated from its owner at a random time within an interval of eight hours and 24 hours.
Over the years, ScreenFlow has grown into a powerful video capture, composition, and editing suite, and ScreenFlow 10 continues on this path. The update includes new lower thirds title options, multiple simultaneous recording streams, multi-app recording, automatic background remover, and big performance improvements, among other enhancements.
The Logitech Combo Touch for iPad Air is basically the same one that is already available for the Pro models, but now with a perfect fit for the less expensive iPad. Just like Apple’s Magic Keyboard, Logitech’s case features a full-size keyboard with backlit keys and a built-in trackpad that supports multi-touch gestures, including pinch and swipe.
I think Apple is finally assembling all the pieces of the puzzle that will allow the iPad to become more Mac-like than ever before—all the while retaining its unique position in Apple’s ecosystem.
Achievement of the day: added shortcuts to my iPhone to show a random Unsplash wallpaper every morning and every evening.
Non-achievement of the day: attended three Teams meeting and one Zoom meeting.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I created a whole bunch of shortcuts on my iPhone while attending work meetings.
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As someone who frequently writes about privacy and security, I agree with Apple’s position on the topic. Some who argue that Apple should allow sideloaded apps say that it would provide users with more choice. Yet choice is exactly what Neuenschwander says the company is offering users by providing a platform that does not allow sideloading.
“Sideloading in this case is actually eliminating choice,” he says. “Users who want that direct access to applications without any kind of review have sideloading today on other platforms. The iOS platform is the one where users understand that they can’t be tricked or duped into some dark alley or side road where they’re going to end up with a sideloaded app, even if they didn’t intend to.”
Apple has just published a new user guide that details what life would be like for iOS users if Apple were forced to allow the sideloading of third-party apps. The report, which was published this morning, is called Building a Trusted Ecosystem for Millions of Apps and describes Apple’s view on the importance of having a curated and managed App Store be the only way that iOS devices can download new apps.
In the days after lawmakers introduced legislation that could break the dominance of tech companies, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, called Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to deliver a warning.
The antitrust bills were rushed, he said. They would crimp innovation. And they would hurt consumers by disrupting the services that power Apple’s lucrative iPhone, Mr. Cook cautioned at various points, according to five people with knowledge of the conversations.
The platform’s iOS app has been able to accept payments outside of Apple’s in-app purchase system, which lets the company walk around that 30 percent cut. Conte suggests this may be allowed because users don’t come to Patreon to discover creators and content. “A lot of the actual engagement is happening on other platforms ... So it’s just not the primary behavior that’s happening on Patreon,” Conte said.
The building was once home to the first theater in Los Angeles that was wired for film with sound. Designed in 1927 by theater architect S. Charles Lee, the theater operated until closing its doors in 1988. Apple says it collaborated with preservationists, restoration artists, and the City of Los Angeles on the project to restore the building.
To celebrate the grand opening of Apple Tower Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, Apple is launching Today at Apple Creative Studios, a global program debuting in Los Angeles and Beijing. The program will provide career-building mentorship to underrepresented communities through creative resources. The new flagship store will also host its own free Today at Apple sessions that explore music creation, songwriting, creative inspiration, and more.
On the Apple Pay website, Apple touts that you can now “take a virtual trip with Apple Pay” to “experience” the platform in augmented reality. Tapping the option launches the AR experience directly in Safari. This experience is accessible worldwide, regardless of whether or not you actually live in New York.
This marks only the second update since Apple announced its acquisition of Dark Sky, and it brings Apple Watch improvements, Accessibility updates, and more.
iCloud syncing is a particularly notable enhancement because it lets you sync feeds across your Apple devices without relying on a third-party service of any sort.
The incoming class of 2025 will be able to use iPad Air and Apple Pencil during class sessions. Students can provision their ID into Wallet and use Apple Watch to access facilities, pay for food and more via Core NFC technology. AirPods are expected to help students focus during online classes.
The Tower Theatre store looks great. Apple should use this theatre to exhibit some of its Apple TV+ films.
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At the beginning the Apple Watch team were involved in tracking and training the Watch to do all manner of activities, from dog walking to running long distances. But Lynch revealed that the company now uses robots, put to work running marathons and other repetitive bio-mechanic activities, to keep feeding the algorithm with new data points.
“Internally we actually have robots that we've constructed that do these activities. We have robots running marathons every day, day in and day out, so that we can make sure that the devices are still acting as they should," he said.
As the shift to remote work persists, we have the opportunity to make informed decisions to protect our health. Even something as small as getting an external keyboard for your laptop can have a surprising effect on your well-being.
iCloud Calendar spam has been a problem for many users since 2016 and earlier, and Apple has made a handful of changes and improvements to remedy the situation. Despite Apple’s best efforts, however, the problem continues to affect iCloud users, and it’s once again receiving widespread attention.
Photo editing and management app Darkroom, which added a new Clarity tool last month, has added substantial new Shortcuts actions to the app that allow users to automate a wide variety of its features for the first time. The update is notable because it allows Darkroom to work hand-in-hand with other apps, something which few photography apps do.
Donning Louis Vuitton in a home she opened for LGBTQ people impacted by incarceration, Dominique Morgan has come a long way since her youth spent in jail.
Last year, she took time to become her true self.
Today, I forgot to read the error message, and did a whole bunch of things that didn't help, until I read the error message again.
That's my lesson of the day. Will I remember this lesson tomorrow is a different story.
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I'm sensing a new Pixar movie, featuring the Apple-Watch-testing-robots.
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Body+Soul recently had the opportunity to sit down with Julz Arney, the Director of Fitness and Health Technologies at Apple, about how these new developments on the Apple watch can help us recalibrate and relax, in such a small, approachable space of time.
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“Small moments of mindfulness can be just as impactful, the science says, as doing longer sessions like sitting in a meditation, which is also great,” she says. “If you want to build a habit, you have to start small, you have to start frequent, and it's got to be available to you and it’s got to be approachable.”
Here are my bets on which of Apple’s new features will make the biggest difference for its users.
Since Apple Card Family launched last month, however, it appears many users are unable to access Apple Card rewards, among other quirks.
My first thought: I hope Apple can also build the Breath / Mindfulness Apple Watch app on iPhone, so that I can use it.
My second thought: There's probably an iPhone app somewhere out there that does more-or-less the same thing. I should go do some 'research' on that. But then: I don't want to pay a monthly subscription for this.
My third thought: Would a daily alarm work just as well?
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On trying to connect to the hotspot, Schou discovered the iPhone simply couldn't connect to it at all, and later discovered that it disabled Wi-Fi connectivity completely on the device.
Keeping in mind more MagSafe-loving tech enthusiasts like me, we have curated a list of designs that will help you use the MagSafe functionality to its maximum capability!
Finally, I discovered Rainforest Sounds by Voice Apps, LLC. It's a layered soundscape built on top of a softly rolling stream. You hear birds chirping, the low hoot of an owl, and other soothing sounds in a combination that captures your attention and then does nothing with it.
One fair warning: nothing in this post discusses achievements that should be considered technically impressive or potentially even interesting. This is a tale of a nice and rewarding personal adventure that I embarked upon, nothing more.
Ireland, the European home of tech giants like Apple and Google, is looking to reach a compromise over global taxation that recognizes "the role of legitimate tax competition," the country's finance minister told CNBC on Friday.
Maybe Apple should sell MagSafe magnets so that everyone can make MagSafe products that I can buy on Etsy.
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Of course, Google Docs is a Web app, and by default, it would nestle in among all the other tabs in a Web browser. That’s unacceptable for me since I often have multiple documents open along with way too many tabs for pages that I need to read, refer back to, or act on. (“Hi, my name is Adam, and I’m a tabaholic.”) As a result, I’ve always run Google Docs in a site-specific browser (SSB)—a utility that lets you turn a particular site or set of sites into a standalone app that has its own identity in the Dock, the App Switcher, and so on.
The Social Support iPad isolation project changed the lives of Walla's Bob and Netty Vangelder.
The program, now drawing to a close, gave isolated seniors an iPad and taught them how to use it for 12 months, with the aim of keeping them connected to family, friends and the outside world during the pandemic.
Although its admin interface isn’t the most polished around, Bitwarden’s excellent feature set and well-designed range of cross-platform clients, as well as its low prices, make it our favourite business password management service.
The new $1.99 anagram-based game boasts more than 200 puzzles, broken down into a dozen topics — including animals, sports, pop culture, and more. What better way to dust off your mind after lockdown?
Apple is dragging Microsoft, Google and the entire PC industry into the 21st century.
I am a two-browsers kind of person: I use Safari for personal stuff, and Firefox for work.
That is, until one fine day, Microsoft decided to update Sharepoint on the web, and somehow, Sharepoint stopped working in Firefox.
So, now I am a three-browsers kind of person: Safari for personal stuff, Edge for Office 365 on the web, and Firefox for rest of the work.
I have no idea what should the fourth browser be if it ever come down to that.
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Apple has been dragging the entire PC industry forward since the 1980s. Well, except for one brief period back in the 90s when Apple has gone really different and was pushing Cyberdog and Pippin.
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Cicilline’s spokesperson later wrote on Twitter that the congressman was misquoted and that the bill would not block Apple from pre-installed apps but would instead force the company to let people uninstall or switch Apple’s default apps. Currently, on newer iPhones, you can delete some — but not all — of Apple’s installed apps. You can already switch the default apps for your email and web browser on newer iPhones, although not on older ones.
The back-and-forth over the details of Cicilline’s bill just shows how messy the battle is becoming between Big Tech’s supporters and the politicians trying to regulate the industry — particularly when it involves nuanced discussions about unintended consequences that could result when you regulate popular consumer tech like iPhones.
It’s not that Apple hasn’t been updating older devices when necessary—it has. It’s more that, by making this feature so much more prominent (it’s in the iOS 15 marketing page!), it’s both committing to the practice and highlighting that even devices that aren’t on the latest OS version are still usable. That’s a good flag to plant in the ground, especially if a new round of incompatibility might be in the offing next year.
Since the dawn of the iPhone, many of the smarts in smartphones have come from elsewhere: the corporate computers known as the cloud. Mobile apps sent user data cloudward for useful tasks like transcribing speech or suggesting message replies. Now Apple and Google say smartphones are smart enough to do some crucial and sensitive machine learning tasks like those on their own.
Apple has released updates for iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor, introducing a handful of new features such as enhanced media search and notifications for encoding batches, as well as bug fixes.
Apple today lowered the prices of AppleCare+ plans for MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models equipped with the M1 chip. Coverage offered by the plans, as well as accidental damage fees, appear to remain unchanged.
Popular RSS reader Unread has a new update out, with version 2.6 now available for download from the App Store. The update adds a few new features, a couple of which will make significant changes to the way you use the app.
Apple subsidiary Shazam has crossed the 1 billion Shazams per month milestone, the company announced on Thursday. The song recognition app has also tagged more than 50 billion songs since it first launched in 2022.
Almost every single app that shipped with the iPhone -- with the exception of the App Store and Settings apps -- has competitors competing.
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I spoke with Apple Vice President of Technology Kevin Lynch who actually demonstrated the Apple Watch for the first time on the world stage during Apple’s September 2014 keynote event. Lynch has seen Apple Watch grow considerably during his time at the company, but he’s also been integral to the evolution of the its health initiatives. He explained how it became what it is today and provided some hints as to where it might go in the future.
"As I look at the tech regulations that's being discussed, I think there are good parts of it and then I think there are parts of it that are not in the best interests of the user," he said.
As an example of the latter, he said "the current DMA language that is being discussed would force sideloading on the iPhone."
Apple today launched its seasonal back-to-school sale for the upcoming school year in the United States and Canada, offering students free AirPods alongside purchases of select Macs and iPad models.
Turning computers into appliances can simplify them: You don’t need to know about what’s going on if it just works.
But Apple’s appliance mind-set is also self-serving, because it means we have to keep buying new stuff.
[Tripsy] helps users plan trips by organizing things like flights, places to visit, and even suggested itineraries in some cities around the world. This week, Tripsy was updated with routes within the app and also a macOS version for the first time.
Although you could theoretically use it to charge two Qi-compatible phones, the intended use case appears to be charging an iPhone along with an accessory like a pair of AirPods.
Lighting, being a core aspect of photography, is naturally a focus for many photographers, so Profoto introduced a new technology, AirX, that lets photographers sync flash to their phones directly.
With a new MusicKit API, developers will be able to offer Apple Music trials and receive rewards for new subscribers through a referral program starting with iOS 15.
China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, was leaning on Western companies to strengthen his grip on the country. Mr. Guthrie realized that few companies were bigger targets, or more vulnerable, than Apple. It assembled nearly every Apple device in China and had made the region its No. 2 sales market.
So Mr. Guthrie began touring the company with a slide show and lecture to ring the alarm. Apple, he said, had no Plan B.
I sure hope Apple doesn't abandon the iPhone mini form factor for future phones, but there are rumors that Apple is going to do one more round of iPhone mini this year and that's it for the line.
I especially like the iPhone mini's lighter weight foremost, but the smaller dimension is also a nice bonus. It will be a shame if a company as big as Apple now cannot manufacture different phones for different preferences.
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Apple Jewel Changi Airport temporarily closed on May 13, 2021 due a COVID-19 outbreak at the airport and reopened yesterday. Every Apple Store was finally set to open on June 14, but last minute temporary closures at Apple Lenox Square and Apple Río Shopping pushed the timeline back to today. On June 24, Apple Tower Theatre will officially join the fleet and become store 512.
Apple has bought Shazam as a quite useful feature for its streaming service Apple Music, but has continued to invest in and develop it for its own resources. Hence a gimmick can become a basis for great apps.
Here’s an overview of the major apps and services you should know about, how it uses the data collected, and what Apple does to protect your privacy.
One major question is how Apple users and law enforcement like TSA agents will actually interact with these digital IDs. If your driver's license is on your phone, you could potentially have to present your fully unlocked device to a law enforcement agent in a transaction like a traffic stop or at airport security. That could, in turn, expose you to incidental search of your data, social media accounts, or anything else the agent flicks to.
AirTag easily snaps into the center which slowly tapers to the edges. It can then slide into your wallet and rids you of the small bump for a more tapered fit.
The SurfacePad is a simple two-card wallet case that sticks to the iPhone using an adhesive pad.
Level Lock is an all-in-one lock solution that includes the lock hardware as well as the smart components. It has a smaller footprint than previous models and Level claims that it is the smallest smart lock ever made.
It has significant limits and lacks several advanced tools — debugging and profiling tools, versioning, storyboard integration, support for third-party packages, etc. “Swift Playgrounds is great for experimenting and debugging code, but it is missing many of the features ... required to make fuller-fledged apps,” Haas explains. He says the program is “perfect for developing small utility applications, such as a to-do list, but currently incapable of building the next Angry Birds.”
If Apple could prove that its combination of device sensors, software and services could improve people’s health and lower costs, the company could franchise the model to health systems and even other countries, according to the documents.
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The effort continues today, but Apple has struggled to move Casper past a preliminary stage, say people familiar with its operations.
It’s difficult to talk about cameras without also talking about time. Photography is an attempt to outwit the clock and the calendar, an art that, as the film critic André Bazin once put it, “embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption.” Even as the technology grows more sophisticated, cameras maintain some of their ancestral trappings, as though they too are frozen in time. The capture button on your phone’s camera app still makes the mechanical clack of a physical shutter. The filters fade images and alter the color palette, mimicking an aging process to which digital photos are immune.
With that said, I’m doubtful that simple nostalgia led you to download this app. If you’d wanted to entertain the fantasy of living in the past, you could have easily hopped on eBay or headed over to a second-hand shop, those graveyards of analog technologies, and picked up an old SLR. My guess is that the app is satisfying a more specific desire, that the wait itself is the primary draw.
I don't know what tomorrow will bring, or whether some countries are too optimistic, or if some countries are too pessimistic, or what, but let's just do a little celebration dance of having all Apple Stores opened.
(Yes, I am also aware that Apple Stores are really not located a lower-income regions.)
The Singapore government has already hinted that the next phase of the re-opening from the current semi-lockdown will probably be delayed.
Have a nice evening, and we'll meet again tomorrow.
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Apple is now rolling out its new podcast subscription and channels initiative. Apple Podcasts Subscriptions allow creators to host bonus content and ad-free versions of their shows, in exchange for a monthly subscription.
For a while now, Apple has been running a promotion that offers a free one-year trial of Apple TV+ with any iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch purchase. That promotion ends on June 30, and Apple has today updated its website to show that from July 1 the included free trial shrinks to three months with eligible device purchases.
Beats today announced its second pair of true wireless earbuds, the new Beats Studio Buds. Priced at $149.99 and available in red, black, or white, the Studio Buds have a much different, more compact design than the previous Powerbeats Pro. There are no ear hooks on these, nor any stems, and that results in a very lightweight, comfortable fit.
They’re remarkably comfortable and have simple, easy controls. It’s good that the company is shifting to a more even-handed strategy that appeals to both iPhone and Android users. And the sound is enjoyable and detailed, if not earth-shattering for $150. But they settle for mediocre active noise cancellation, lack wireless charging, and come with an incomplete grab bag of Apple ecosystem bells and whistles. It feels like Beats tried to do a little too much all at once.
Of note is that, unlike other Apple headphones, the Studio Buds do not come with one of Apple's W1 or H1 wireless chips, instead opting for a custom solution. As suggested above, this doesn't have a major effect on the device's functionality; most of the major conveniences of AirPods are still here. But it does mean you lose features like iCloud device syncing and audio sharing.
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Regardless of what OS you use, though, you won’t get automatic ear detection, which means the Studio Buds won’t automatically pause when you remove them from your ears. This is a feature found on wireless earbuds around this price, so its omission is a disappointment. Likewise, there’s no multi-point connectivity, so you can’t connect to multiple devices at once and quickly switch between them if needed.
Apple is rolling out iOS 12.5.4 to older iPhone and iPad devices today. This update brings security fixes and is recommended for all users, according to Apple. The update fixes a trio of vulnerabilities affecting memory corruption and WebKit.
Using "Mystery Lady" by Masego and Don Toliver, the ad spot moves from a view of an iPhone showing the Apple Music app to the user being in a large room. They are surrounded by multiple copies of the singer, dressed as they were for the album artwork.
The new colors include sunflower, cloud blue, and electric orange. All three colors are available for each of the four iPhone 12 models.
The NightWatch is combination charging dock, magnifying glass, and acoustic amplifier, bringing together these functions to turn the Apple Watch’s nightstand mode into a bona fide bedside alarm, complete with a tap-to-wake feature to show you the time.
Yes, there are more affordable options out there, but not very many that are quite as gorgeous — this is a true piece of functional art, in my opinion, with a sophisticated look and precision design approach.
Well, that's it. No more extension of the free Apple TV+ trial. Time for me to cough up the money... and get Apple Arcade for free... I guess?
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But the reason tools are important is because they point to the kind of things that Apple thinks are important. That’s not always to say that the company is infallible, but it’s a good indication of where it thinks the future is heading. And, of course, in cases where it’s a future that Apple itself has in mind, that gives it a leg up.
So, by looking at the kind of tools and technologies that Apple has laid out for developers to take advantage of this year, you can get a pretty good idea of at least some things that are coming down the pike for the company, whether in the short term or farther off in the future.
For this year’s model, Apple has tested thinner display borders and a new lamination technique that brings the display closer to the front cover. The new Watch is likely to be slightly thicker overall, but not in a way that’s noticeable to the user.
The model will include updated ultra-wideband functionality, the same underlying technology in the Apple AirTag item finder. At its developer conference in early June, Apple previewed the upcoming watchOS 8 software update that will let the device unlock door and hotel rooms.
The technology giant has begun informing retail employees of the impending change in impacted markets, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be identified discussing policy changes that haven’t been announced. The change will go into effect as early as Tuesday, and employees have been told that they won’t be required to ask customers for verification of vaccination.
But what do you do if you’ve tried all of Apple’s troubleshooting steps, and your device still won’t turn on or connect to your computer — and contains sensitive information that you want to be sure is not recoverable?
Any one of its buttons can be programmed to do a variety of tasks. So you could press one button to launch Microsoft Excel, if you wanted and if you have that app.
Or you could press one button to launch Zoom, plus a specific Keynote presentation and a particular outline in OmniOutliner — and then change all the other buttons into video-conferencing controls.
Pham’s submission involved audiograms and making video-chatting apps such as Zoom and audio-chatting apps such as Clubhouse more accessible.
Even without masks -- please continue to stay safe.
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“I think you’ve got it,” Borchers says when I mention the spatial gymnastics, “but the way that we think about this is that the step forward and multitasking makes it easier discover, easier to use even more powerful. And, while pros I think were the ones who were using multitasking in the past, we really want to take it more broadly because we think there’s applicability to many, many folks. And that’s why the, the discovery and the ease of use I think were critical.”
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Apple’s goal this time around, he says, was to add affordances for the user to understand that multitasking was even an option — like the small series of dots at the top of every app and window that now allows you to explicitly choose an available configuration, rather than the app-and-dock-juggling method of the past. He goes on to say that consistency was a key metric for them on this version of the OS. The appearance of Slide Over apps in the same switcher view as all other apps, for instance. Or the way that you can choose configurations of apps via the button, by drag and drop in the switcher and get the same results.
While typically vocal about security during the Memoji-filled, two-hour-long(!) keynote, the company also quietly introduced several new security and privacy-focused features during its WWDC developer sessions. We’ve rounded up some of the most interesting — and important.
In the ad, which features the main character using an M1 iPad Pro, Magic Keyboard, and Apple Pencil, multiple users can be seen struggling with their old PCs indoors while hoping that they can someday use an iPad Pro instead.
Long working hours kill hundreds of thousands of people a year, a groundbreaking World Health Organization study said last month. More than 55 hours work a week can be risky, it found.
No wonder governments around the world are facing rising pressure to give workers something long considered a suspect novelty — the right to disconnect.
I need to spend more time watching the latest WWDC videos. Easier said than done, as one app icon is Apple TV+ tempting me.
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Without knowing it, Apple said, it had handed over the data of congressional staffers, their families and at least two members of Congress, including Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the House Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat and now its chairman. It turned out the subpoena was part of a wide-ranging investigation by the Trump administration into leaks of classified information.
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The companies regularly comply with the requests because they are legally required to do so. The subpoenas can be vague, so Apple, Google and others are often unclear on the nature or subject of an investigation.
Apple does offer users tips on getting their device ready for service, which shifts the responsibility to the user. Problem is, depending on what's wrong with a device or how it is damaged, this is not always possible. For example, on an iPhone with a dead screen, suffering from water intrusion, or stuck in a boot loop, this isn't going to be possible.
Owners should be confident they can send in their hardware for service without having that data snooped on even if they can't securely erase it.
PWM is one of two ways to dim a display; the other is by changing the voltage of every sub-pixel—the analog method. LG uses this approach to adjust brightness for its OLED TVs. For PWM, dimming involves rapidly turning pixels on and off; for 50 percent brightness, the pixels are on only half of the time. At high enough speeds, most people won’t be aware of any flicker or be affected by subliminal flicker, which may be the bigger issue.
Why not simply use the analog voltage control method? Well, for one, it’s much less power efficient than turning the display sub-pixels off for even the smallest amount of time, and better power efficiency means longer time between charges.
We’re all eagerly awaiting iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12 Monterey, and watchOS 8, but will they run on the devices you have now? Apple continues to do an excellent job of supporting old devices, but many iPhone and iPad features will require at least an A12 Bionic chip. On the Mac side, some of the new features require an M1 processor.
Apple seems to be unhappy with the traditional browser design that includes navigation tools at the top, with websites being forced to live in their own view down below, and with Safari 15, it has blurred the line between browser and web content. This goes far beyond the mere splashes of color that Safari users may be used to seeing behind their navigation controls when scrolling a long webpage.
For people receiving the public link, they only need to enter their names to join the call — there’s no need to have an Apple ID to use FaceTime on the web when you’re invited by someone else. The interface is almost the same as using FaceTime on an Apple device, but there are no extra options available such as filters and other effects.
But honestly, it may not matter whether Apple manually boosted its own apps or not. What matters is the result: for 11 months, Apple’s new Files app owned exact searches for its competitor Dropbox, a company Steve Jobs reportedly swore he would kill off, and it took the CEO of a prominent Apple partner emailing the company before Apple did something about it.
The new 6.1.15 update includes support for Windows Precision Touchpad, including single tap to click, lower-right corner to right-click, down motion to scroll up, and three or four finger gestures.
As part of its annual survey given to developers at the end of WWDC, Apple is asking community members whether, following two years of the conference behind held in a digital format, they would be open to attending an in-person conference.
While Google is focused on innovation, Apple isn't concerned with being first. Rather, Apple wants to take innovation to the next level--by making its product features better and able to work seamlessly across multiple devices.
Good news: After taking the gout medication, as well as painkillers, I can type with both of my hands today. Horray!
Not so good news: There are a lot of typos.
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Thanks for reading.
Apple’s new health features will be available for anyone with an iPhone. But two of the tools announced at WWDC 2021, walking steadiness and the ability to share health data with family members, could be particularly useful for older adults.
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There are no major commercial products that track the quality of people’s movement, Sosnoff says. Until now, most movement trackers have focused on how much people moved. “That’s why there’s a lot of excitement about this,” he says. “Having people be aware of their fall risk is important.”
On the one hand, Apple left no doubt that the company views Shortcuts as the future of automation on all of its platforms, the Mac included. Apple’s words were backed up by its actions, such as the fact that the most popular Automator actions have been replicated as Shortcuts actions. On the other hand, though, Apple has made it equally clear that this will be a multi-year transition and that it isn’t abandoning powerful automation tools like AppleScript, shell scripts, and JavaScript, which will provide flexibility and power beyond the actions that will be shipped this fall when macOS Monterey is released.
From the user’s perspective, interacting with a Matter accessory should look pretty much identical to interacting with a HomeKit accessory. When adding a Matter accessory to another app, the workflow will be basically the same: using a QR code, then selecting the correct home, rooms, scenes, and automations. Matter accessories can, at the user’s discretion, appear in the Home app, be accessed using Siri, and show up in Control Center, all right alongside HomeKit accessories.
Apple is looking to add Fitness+ Audio Meditations to the Mindfulness Apple Watch app, according to a now-removed image from WWDC.
On June 1st, the company, for the first time, announced finalists in six categories: Inclusivity, Delight and Fun, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals and Graphics, and Innovation. For each category, Apple picked six finalists for a total of 36 ADA contenders.
Dark Sky's developers initially said the API would shut down at the end of 2021, but this new end-of-2022 target obviously moves things back a bit. This is the first time we've heard about an end date for the iOS app, though.
If you already have one for school, or have the means to treat yourself, here are some of the ways I’ve been using the new iPad Pro to play, make and record music.
And the good news here is that these apps will work on most iPads, so you don’t need the latest model.
On iOS and iPadOS 15, Apple is adding new functionality to WidgetKit, introduced last year, that will allow developers to classify information deemed as sensitive in their widgets, meaning that specific information will only become viewable on the lock screen when the user unlocks their device.
If you’ve ever bought a subscription inside an iOS app and later decided you wanted to cancel, upgrade or downgrade, or ask for a refund, you may have had trouble figuring out how to go about making that request or change. Some people today still believe that they can stop their subscription charges simply by deleting an app from their iPhone. Others may dig around unsuccessfully inside their iPhone’s Settings or on the App Store to try to find out how to ask for a refund. With the updates Apple announced in StoreKit 2 during its Worldwide Developers Conference this week, things may start to get a little easier for app customers.
According to Apple, AirPods Pro firmware betas will allow for the development of certain features on iOS and macOS and will enable features such as Conversation Boost and Ambient Noise Reduction.
I am now typing with my left hand only, because my right hand is not working right. Doctor thinks this is gout; I've had previous episodes with my right leg. Taking medicine now and I hope my doctor is right.
By the way, my left hand can remember where all the left hand keys on the keyboard are. I have to hunt for the keys -- especially the punctuation marks -- on the right side of the keyboard.
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When you sit down to watch a movie or TV show, the included head tracking feature will lock in after it detects you’ve been looking in the same direction for a while. Once you get up to walk around, it will reactivate.
Apple Music subscribers who have massive offline libraries — and who want to enjoy Spatial Audio — will soon be faced with the bothersome task of re-downloading Dolby Atmos tracks.
Problem is, with much of the Dolby Atmos content on Apple Music I’ve sampled so far, it doesn’t seem like everyone is making those right calls. It’s a hit-or-miss game of exploration, and songs that truly showcase the immersive potential of Atmos are more often the exception than the rule. In many cases, spatial audio tracks have an artificial wideness to them, unfamiliar placement of vocals and instrumentation, and just sound… off.
Many of the new functionalities Apple announced this week at the company’s annual WWDC keynote have serious ramifications for accessibility. Study Apple carefully long enough and it’s not hard to understand why; not only is this a reflection of their institutional commitment to the disability community, it also underscores the idea that accessibility, conceptually and pragmatically, is not a domain solely for disabled people. Although accessibility software should (and always will) prioritize people with disabilities first and foremost, you needn’t have a disability to reap benefits from larger text on your iPhone. Accessibility is inclusive of everyone, regardless of ability.
People with smartphones and wearable devices regularly show up to the doctor’s office with readouts from apps detailing everything from their heart rate to sleep patterns. Now, with the new iOS 15 update this fall, some iPhone users will be able to send data directly from their Health app to their doctors’ electronic medical records systems.
Watching WWDC Monday, one announcement that landed with me was the new Focus feature. (If you follow my podcasts, this shouldn't be a surprise.) Regardless, I've spent the last few days playing with this new feature, and I like it. Focus is like Do Not Disturb, except it solves most of the limitations associated with Do Not Disturb.
Because of the use of the asymmetric public key infrastructure, apps and services don’t have to store a copy of your password. Instead, they get a copy of your public key—and because that information really is designed to be public, it doesn’t need to be secured. That’s great for users because it means that they don’t have to worry about their secret information being stolen, and it’s great for companies because it means that they won’t be targeted to steal people’s passwords. It’d be like trying to steal the text of the King James Bible.
Because UWB can provide much more precise position data and longer range than NFC, they’ll be able to work while you keep them in your bag or pocket. UWB-equipped cars will even know which device is entering the car through the driver side-door, to unlock personalized settings like seat and mirror positioning, and won’t allow the car to be started unless someone with a valid key is inside the car.
Apple is clashing with the platform Fanhouse over whether it gets to take a cut of in-app payments to creators. The incident underscores just how little Apple understands about the creator economy, with the likely outcome being less money in creators’ pockets — and more money for one of the world’s most profitable corporations.
While the drafts could still change significantly prior to their introduction, as currently written, they could require business model overhauls for Apple and Amazon by limiting their ability to operate marketplaces for products and apps while selling their own goods and apps on those same stores.
After some major hiccups and a delay, Apple Podcasts says it’s launching in-app subscriptions next week. The global launch of subscriptions and channels, which are groups of shows, will happen on June 15th, the company said today in an email to podcasters, which The Verge has viewed.
Apple has set its next Apple Watch Activity Challenge for International Day of Yoga, which takes place in two weeks on June 21. This challenge requires users to complete a yoga workout of at least 20 minutes to unlock stickers that can be used in the Messages app, FaceTime, and more.
Within the internal files of iOS 15 beta 1, each major feature introduced this year has a unique identifier (also known as a flag) that is associated with a “disclosure requirement.” In other words, this allows Apple to enable only certain new system features in internal builds so that an engineer or designer in one area doesn’t need to see everything that’s new in others.
On Monday, well after being asked for comment on the bounty incident and being sent the article containing the Citizen Slack chats, Apple updated its App Store policies to add that "Apps for reporting alleged criminal activity must involve local law enforcement, and can only be offered in countries where such involvement is active." Apple did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday asking if this change was specifically in response to the Citizen incident.
I know my ears are no good. But here's further confirmation: I can't tell how spactial audio is better. (I'm listening via AirPods Pro. And I've tried switching-spactial-audio-on-and-off in the Control Centre too.)
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One of the first people that told me about Dolby Atmos was Adam Levine. I happen to know him, and we were in the same place, so he was like, "Have you listened to this?" And he sends me this song and he was really excited. He said, "I can't believe what I can do with this." It's going to be really exciting to see how this evolves, and all of what artists are going to be able to do with this, and how exciting it is for fans and listeners to be able to do this.
So we went after the labels and are going to the artists and educating them on it. There's a lot of work to be done because we have, obviously, tens of millions of songs. This is not a simple "take-the-file that you have in stereo, processes through this software application and out comes Dolby Atmos." This requires somebody who's a sound engineer, and the artist to sit back and listen, and really make the right calls and what the right things to do are. It's a process that takes time, but it's worth it.
Over the past 15 anxious and uncertain months, wellness apps have grown flush with new subscribers looking for different experiences. In the past, musicians might align themselves with initiatives connected to Vans, Red Bull or Toyota — powerful brands willing to use their deep pockets to gain credibility with young consumers. Now, mindfulness apps are playing a similar role, offering artistic opportunities at a precarious moment for the music industry.
They’ll still get potentially useful updates like notification summaries and Focus modes to minimize interruptions throughout the day, video and music sharing in FaceTime, and added privacy features like a seven-day app privacy report to keep tabs on how apps are using your information. There’s also the peace of mind that comes with running the latest OS version, and the security patches and bug fixes that come with it throughout the year. Not a bad deal for a six-year-old device.
I don’t think I’m ready to predict that FaceTime is going to storm out of the gates this fall and begin to threaten Zoom and other big players in videoconferencing. But I will say this: With the savvy upgrades Apple announced this week, FaceTime has a much better chance of being a part of the zeitgeist, pandemic or no pandemic.
It seems clear that Apple’s move to cut off granular customer data from email senders will affect the email economy. But after conversations with newsletter writers and media executives today, I’m not sure that people doing email-based journalism have all that much to worry about from the shift.
While your actual web traffic has long been generally secured by encryption using HTTPS connections (that little padlock we all got used to looking for in the address bar), there have remained ways in which your ISP or the website you’re visiting could learn more about your traffic and perhaps even use that information to build a profile of you.
iCloud Private Relay, which will be available to anyone paying for an iCloud storage plan, aims to protect against two of these loopholes.
For example, if a user has an existing Smart Stack which includes the Weather and Reminders widget, iOS 15 may add a Calendar widget to the stack if the user has an upcoming meeting. Then, after the meeting, iOS 15 will remove the widget from the Smart Stack, reverting it to the stack that the user had set up with Weather and Reminders.
Apple addressed this issue in iOS 14 by implementing a small banner that notifies you whenever an app accesses the clipboard, which means apps can no longer see the clipboard without your knowledge. iOS 15 takes it further with the secure paste feature that prevents developers from seeing the clipboard entirely unless you opt to copy something from one app and paste it into the app you're actively using.
Developers of traditional Mac apps — even those built with AppKit — can add Shortcuts support to their projects via Intents, just like support is added in iOS apps.
That might seem surprising, but considering that Apple pitched this as the start of a longer transition, getting traditional Mac apps on board is going to be required if Apple wants to discontinue Automator somewhere down the line.
When you copy files, you'll see "a new pie chart progress window" that Apple claims will give a better sense of how long the files will take to copy. Further, you can stop a large copy action and resume it at a later time.
If you have your Apple Watch unlocked and on your wrist with this option enabled, you can now ask Siri to read your messages or change iOS settings without having to hold your iPhone, unlock with Face ID, or enter your password.
Apple has decided to bring back the time-tested large dial picker from iOS 13 and earlier. You’ll find it across the system in iOS 15 and it’s got an even cleaner design than ever.
When users pick this choice, a notification is sent to their nearby iPhone or iPad. This notification will use your iCloud Keychain information to automatically suggest the correct log-in information.
Apple does not provide details on what's included in new firmware updates, so we don't know what bug fixes or improvements the new firmware might offer.
Guided by Apple’s Creative Pros, you’ll learn how to capture eye-catching photos for your business that stand out on social media and how to quickly edit for impact. The new online session is designed to help showcase small businesses.
Vivaldi has always been one of the more interesting of the Chromium-based browsers, in no small part thanks to its emphasis on building tools for power users in a privacy-centric package, but also because of its pedigree, with Opera’s outspoken former CEO Jon von Tetzchner as its co-founder and CEO. Today, the Vivaldi team is launching version 4.0 of its browser and with that, it’s introducing a slew of new features that, among many other things, include the beta of new built-in mail, calendar and RSS clients, as well as the launch of Vivaldi Translate, a privacy-friendly translation service hosted on the company’s own servers and powered by Lingvanex.
Mophie's newest product drop is designed to take advantage of Apple's new MagSafe charging standard and features vent mounts, phone stands, chargers, and more. Many products in the Snap line also include a Snap adapter, a magnetic ring that can be attached to any Qi phone, enabling it to work with Snap products.
The app once again uses the tvOS native video player which should enable customers using Apple TV with the Siri Remote to be able to successfully pause, fast forward and rewind once more.
This has appeared at the bottom of Xcode’s Text Editing > Editing settings, sure to make many vi users very happy indeeed.
With Apple’s new tools, developers will be able take a series of pictures using just an iPhone (or iPad, DSLR or even a drone, if they prefer) to capture 2D images of an object from all angles, including the bottom.
Then, using the Object Capture API on macOS Monterey, it only takes a few lines of code to generate the 3D model, Apple explained.
There are three parts to the new framework: Shazam catalog recognition, which lets developers add song recognition to their apps; custom catalog recognition, which performs on-device matching against arbitrary audio; and library management.
If I am the FaceTime team, my goal will not be to 'defeat' Zoom. My goal should be to do all the sessions in WWDC 2022 via FaceTime.
Stretch goal: Design Awards via FaceTime.
Really stretch goal: Keynote via FaceTime.
(Yes, one of the feature has then to be able to mute everyone except for applauses, cheers, and an occasional bell.)
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I hope this is the year when I finish watching all the WWDC vidoes that I've bookmarked.
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Thanks for reading.
During the virtual keynote of WWDC, Apple shared the first details about iOS 15, the next major version of iOS that is going to be released later this year. There are four pillars with this year’s release: staying connected, focusing without distraction, using intelligence and exploring the world.
“For many of us, our iPhones have become indispensable,” SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said. “Our new release is iOS 15. It’s packed with features that make the iOS experience adapt to and complement the way you use iPhone, whether it’s staying connected with those who matter to you most, finding the space to focus without distraction, using intelligence to discover the information you need, or exploring the world around you.”
In addition to allowing users to schedule and plan FaceTime calls, the FaceTime links feature will also allow users to join a FaceTime call from a non-Apple device. That includes Android smartphones, computers, or any device that can access a web browser.
Here’s a funny one: iOS 15 lets you place multiple copies of the same app on Springboard. This means you can have the same app duplicated across your home screens, as many times as you want.
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The reason Apple now lets you arrange multiple copies of the same app is because of iOS 15’s new Focus features.
Apple announced more features for Safari during its WWDC keynote. Among them is that it's bringing web extensions to Safari on iPad and iPhone. It'll be easier to manage your tabs and windows thanks to a redesigned tab bar and tab groups.
Now, when a user starts to move the text cursor, a bubble appears above their finger magnifying what is shown below. This makes it really easy to see where the text cursor is being placed, and where text will be inserted.
Apple says that with iOS 15 and other software updates coming this fall, it will give people temporary iCloud storage to help transfer data to new devices. The storage will be available for up to 3 weeks, making it easier to transfer data from iCloud to a new device.
The new UI in many ways resembles the redesigned new-generation Siri Remote, and now includes Back, Mute, Power, and channel buttons, while the iPhone's physical Side/Power button becomes the =Siri button.
In iPadOS 15, multitasking will receive a significant update. And the iPad has finally gained those iOS 14 features, with some iPad-specific tweaks. Also, the Notes app got some new features.
The latest version of the operating system allows these apps to run in landscape mode, so you can easily use them without having to rotate the iPad to portrait orientation. This was a problem for iPad users with a Smart Keyboard or Magic Keyboard since you cannot use these accessories with the iPad in a vertical position.
As for new features, macOS Monterey includes a new tool called "Universal Control," which allows users to share control of Mac and iPad devices with a single mouse and keyboard. Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi demonstrated the ability to set an iPad near a Mac, move the cursor of the latter toward the former, and have the iPad automatically recognize it. This makes it possible to directly drag and drop files between the devices, for instance. Apple demonstrated this feature working across an iMac, MacBook, and iPad in concert.
MacOS Monterey will also make it possible to AirPlay video, audio, documents, and other items from an iPad or iPhone directly to a Mac. Safari will also receive something of a makeover with the update, bringing a visually cleaner toolbar and grouped tabs that now appear next to the URL field.
“The Mac has a long history of automation with command line, shell scripts, Apple scripts and Automator. And on iOS, we've made automation even easier with Shortcuts,” SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said. “And this year we're bringing Shortcuts to the Mac.”
Apple’s watchOS 8, unveiled during the virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, features a grab bag of improvements in health, communication, photos, home automation, and more. Though perhaps overshadowed by other WWDC announcements, these collectively do much to move the Apple Watch forward.
Alongside iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and more today, Apple has announced tvOS 15 with new features and improvements, including SharePlay, a new “Shared with You” section on the TV app, and more.
Apple says the “Conversation Boost” feature will help people who have difficulties hearing other people’s voices when they’re talking. It will try to isolate the voice of the person in front of you, with sliders that let the user control how much ambient noise is let in.
The Health app uses a new metric called Walking Steadiness to give users a risk of falling assessment before a fall actually happens. Apple is also adding a better way of understanding lab results in the Health app.
With permission, someone can share access to their overall heart rate and movement data. They’ll also be able to share access to alerts like a high heart rate or change in mobility. The person they’re sharing the data with can message them directly about any changes.
The apps that use this API will be able to set restrictions like locking accounts in place, preventing password changes, filtering web traffic, and limiting access to applications. These sorts of changes are already available through Apple’s Screen Time system, but developers can now build their own experiences where these features are offered under their own branding and where they can then expand on the functionality provided by Apple’s system.
“I think the analogy with security is apt,” Federighi says of the feline-and-rodent comparison. “The incentives for ‘innovation’ in the exploitation world are high, and so there is a lot of advancement in the art of tracking; a lot of advancement in the arts of security exploits. And so, in both areas, we think there’s going to continue to be a cat and mouse game. We think we bring a lot of tools to that fight, and we can largely stay ahead of it and protect our customers. But it’s something we recognize as a battle we will be fighting for years to come.”
Apple is amping up iCloud with a new set of features called iCloud Plus. The cloud storage service will now come with access to a VPN, burner email addresses, and unlimited storage for HomeKit-enabled home security cameras.
The VPN, called Private Relay, will route your internet traffic through two relays in order to mask who’s browsing and where that data is coming from.
Apple said it also will not offer "private relay" in Belarus, Colombia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines.
Apple is adding a digital legacy service for user accounts, allowing you to assign an administrator who can access your data in the event you die.
Apple’s digital assistant Siri will now process audio on-device by default, meaning you can use the feature without an internet connection. Apple says the upgrade will also make Siri more responsive.
Processing audio on-device will also make using Siri more private, says Apple.
With its focus on privacy, Apple is leaning on one of its core strengths. Increasingly, data is being processed on local devices, like a computer or phone, instead of being sent back to big servers to analyze. This is both more private, because the data doesn't live on a server, and potentially faster from an engineering standpoint.
Because Apple designs both the iPhone and processors that offer heavy-duty processing power at low energy usage, it's best poised to offer an alternative vision to Android developer Google which has essentially built its business around internet services.
Apple says that you can set up verification codes under Passwords in the Settings app, and once set up, verification codes will autofill when you sign into a site, which will make using two-factor authentication on an iPhone or iPad much more streamlined.
Users will have the choice to stay on iOS 14 and receive important security updates, or upgrade to iOS 15 to take advantage of all the new features.
Apple has announced that Siri is coming to third-party devices for the first time. This means you’ll be able to make voice requests to things like smart-home devices from other brands.
Apple said "thousands" of songs will use the feature at launch, and name-checked Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, and The Weeknd as musical acts offering tracks with Dolby Atmos support.
While Apple’s keynote focuses largely on the company’s consumer audience, the Platforms State of the Union is where things start to get technical, really targeting the core WWDC audience: developers on Apple’s platform.
Apple made a ton of big announcements at WWDC this year, and the State of the Union delved into just a few big categories of those. But in doing so, it gives a look at what Apple’s emphasizing for developers over the next few months leading up to the official release of its next major operating systems.
Apple says that “Hookup apps” containing pornographic content or that facilitate prostitution will be rejected by the company. For apps that let users report criminal activities, Apple will only approve them if there is a local law enforcement institution behind it.
For the first time, you can code, iterate and build apps on the iPad itself. Using Swift Playgrounds on iPadOS 15, customers will be able to create iPhone and iPad apps from scratch and then deploy them to the App Store.
Apple today announced its own continuous integration system called ‘Xcode Cloud’. Xcode Cloud allows developers to commit code which is then built on Apple’s servers. Test suites can then be performed in parallel whilst the local developer continues to do other things.
The WWDC 2021 Keynote on Monday showed that Apple, after years of work, is moving its platforms forward in lockstep. Nearly every feature Apple announced was followed by the statement that it was available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac alike. Yes, each operating system is still different—iPadOS continues to show signs of being positioned right between the Mac and the iPhone, similar to both but not quite either—but the most important stuff rolls out to all of the devices at once.
I was all excited about AirPlay to Mac until I read the fine print and discovered that my Mac is not supported.
There are other stuff that I am excited of. Focus sounds like a great addition to iPhone, iPad, and Mac: It can be powerful, yet it seems like it is relatively simple to set up. I think I have to try out the new multitasking stuff in iPadOS before I can say whether I like it, but the part I'm excited about is the relatively minimal use of difficult-to-execute gestures.
One thing I worry: the new match-color-of-website Safari feature.
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Update: HomePod mini is still not available in Singapore.
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Thanks for reading.
In recent years, companies have been investing in sound to make their software and stand out. Combine that trend with increased computer usage during the pandemic, and suddenly a lot of us are noticing the sounds we used to ignore.
[...]
"I do think the general public doesn't have knowledge of how unhealthy constant notifications are," said Dallas Taylor, host of Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories of distinctive sounds. "Our technology should work for us and not make us feel like we're slaves to technology."
Chittiappa and her co-founder at the time, Sarah Chandy, would spend the next two years meeting and interviewing mothers from around the world, trying to understand their problems and matching them with theirs and look for ways to solve them. They would also talk to mothers in their fifties and sixties, who seemed “sorted”, had fabulous careers while making time for all the relationships that mattered to them, to understand what they were doing to show up “so fully” in life.
It was all about bringing mindfulness and intention and setting certain goals and planning your life better — all this would eventually become the North Star for Mamma-Miya, an iOS app designed “to support busy mothers to declutter their mind, stay organised and make room for what matters to them,” Chittiappa tells Financial Express Online.
Apple leadership profiles on the official company page and on social media transformed to Memoji ahead of the WWDC conference, where Apple is expected to unveil iOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15.
Given the opportunity again, I have no doubt that the carriers would find ways to exert control, feed the Angry God of ARPU, and thereby stifle innovation. But Apple effectively took that power away from them — but then kept it for itself. The question now is what Apple intends to do with that power.
The iMac focuses on keeping things as simple as possible. When you buy one, you're paying a premium for that simplicity―fewer moving parts, fewer configuration choices, fewer choices in general. You plug it in and turn it on. That's it. There's no step three, as the ad says.
Optyx is imperfect — but it’s that imperfection that allows for an excellent blend between the speed of A.I. and the emotion of, well, an actual human. The app didn’t do the entire cull for me. But, by grouping similar shots and finding the sharpest one, Optyx allowed me to speed up the culling process and still find the shots that speak to me.
The keys’ travel is pretty good; it’s not too shallow but not too deep either. It’s slightly deeper than my Apple Magic Keyboard but not as deep as something like a ThinkPad. I think Brydge did a good job of keeping a nice middle-ground, which should keep most users happy.
If the country’s corporate tax rate remains below global levels, with the only impact being a top-up payment to the U.S., there may not be a lot of benefit for companies in switching billing addresses back home. It’s possible that the Irish tax dance will continue.
I am building my first iOS app, just for me to use. It's really a weekend project to help me de-stress and relax: it's a me-only project for me-only, that I don't have to talk to anyone. I decide what features the app has, I decide how the app looks like, and I decide how the app behaves.
Except that: quite a bit of decisions are made by Swift and SwiftUI.
:-)
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Enjoy the WWDC keynote. I'll be asleep, like so many on the UTC+8 time-zone. See you tomorrow, and don't install beta software without knowing what you are getting into.
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Thanks for reading.
Apple will hold its kick-off WWDC keynote on Monday, June 7 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, but it turns out that this won’t be the only Apple event that morning. Apple Music has now announced a special event, seemingly focused on Spatial Audio, for June 7 at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET.
If nothing else, it's closure on my AirTag. Sorry lil buddy, I didn't mean to lose you.
The incident, which occurred in 2016 at a centre in California run by Pegatron, an Apple contractor, is one of the most significant privacy violations to be revealed at an iPhone repair facility.
Apple has often argued that its control over how its devices can be fixed helps to protect customers’ privacy, lobbying against legislation that would make it easier for third parties to fix its electronics.
One major new addition will be a control panel that provides in-depth detail on what data are being collected by each third-party app installed on a user’s device.
[...]
On the iPhone and iPad software updates, users will now be able to set a status -- such as whether you are driving, sleeping, working or don’t want to be disturbed -- and have that dictate how incoming notifications are handled. The update will also include a larger focus on auto-replying to messages and a new design for incoming notification banners at the top of the screen.
The App Store manifest has been updated to include references to several new app bundle identifiers. ‘com.apple.NanoTips’ and ‘com.apple.NanoContacts’ likely refer to new Apple Watch apps (as ‘Nano’ is often used as the internal codename for watch apps). The other new entry is ‘com.apple.Mind’, perhaps some kind of new mental health or mental wellness application from Apple.
Discussing ideas openly is how the best ideas rise to the surface, and I would hope that Apple’s remote work pilot program is very much open to feedback from the workforce that makes Apple the trillion dollar company it is today. A healthy dialogue between leadership and the workforce is hardly turning Apple into a democratically ran company. It’s how healthy workplaces thrive.
You can dispute whether or not a hybrid workforce is the best arrangement, or whether students should be allowed to work entirely remotely. That isn't the point. Apple's leadership believes there is value in having its teams together in person, at least part of the time. As a result, the company is creating expectations that reflect that value.
Whether you want to rediscover lost Apple Music songs or create Magic DJs and playlists, now you can on a bigger screen.
Privacy is now a priority among browser-makers, but they may not go as far as you want in fighting pervasive ad industry trackers on the web. Here's a look at how you can crank up your privacy settings to outsmart that online tracking.
Instead of playing with Lego, he messed with what’s called block programming. “This was my first introduction to coding. It was so visual that I had a lot of fun.”
Remember when Apple introduced Apple Music at a WWDC keynote? Looks like either Apple has decided to never do another Apple Music event in a WWDC keynote, or that this year's keynote is so jam-packed with new stuff that there is no room for Apple Music.
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I didn't find ScreenTime useful for me. I also didn't use the bedtime alarm. So, I am not terribly excited about this potential Minds app. But, if Apple is serious in tackling mental health, I will definitely give it a try.
Or maybe I should figure out how to adjust myself to use ScreenTime and bedtime alarm better?
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Thanks for reading.
“What an extraordinary 12 months this has been,” one of Calm’s founders, Michael Acton Smith, told me, a somewhat awed tone to his voice, as his co-founder, Alex Tew, nodded. We met via Zoom in February, with me in San Francisco, Tew in the Cotswolds, and Acton Smith on the western Irish coast. “When the pandemic hit, interest went completely through the roof,” Acton Smith said. “We’ve had our work cut out for us,” Tew added.
I don't know the exact second I stopped caring about app folders, but I think it was during the pandemic. I just couldn't bring myself to spend half an iota of energy on organizing my apps.
Some streaming apps available on Apple TV use their own players, while others use the tvOS media player. The jogging gesture works with streaming apps that use Apple’s native media player, but it is not yet supported for third-party developers that use a custom media player, and that includes Disney’s streaming titan.
Despite a form factor and hardware that’s more or less the same as any Android tablet (and many Chrome OS tablets, now), Apple’s unrivaled focus on why and how people actually use its hardware makes it an experience that’s years ahead of anything Google or Samsung can manage.
If Apple and its $2 trillion market capitalization keep snatching up ideas and turning them into their own products (see AirTags vs. Tile), what happens to the little guys?
For some Apple workers, the current policy doesn’t go far enough, and shows a clear divide between how Apple executives and employees view remote work.
And who are these people who took jobs at Apple not knowing the company’s on-site culture? Do they think Apple built a new $4 billion campus on a lark? Three days a week on site and two days remote is a huge change for Apple.
I’ve been trying out a variety of such MagSafe products, with an emphasis on those that solve particular problems. Here are seven that I think stand out.
Through the Home app, the Sensibo unit will be able to report air quality, as well as integrate with your other HomeKit scenes and automations.
Apple’s Bengaluru app accelerator, established in 2017, has been helping developers improve their apps and learn news skills as well as soft skills that help them market their products and themselves better. Among the many success stories out of India have been apps like Calzy which won Apple Design Award in 2018, Froggipedia which was the iPad app of the year in 2018 and many others like Lumy, Look-up, Cone and Bonfire which have been featured on the App Store.
The teams behind the Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers have banded together to improve extensions, the add-ons you can download to customize the software. That should mean your extensions will work better and come with a better security foundation to protect you from malware.
Apple Inc. and its location in the Triangle could have ripple effects in Southeastern North Carolina, said Ted Abernathy, managing partner of Economic Leadership LLC.
There are several areas in which Apple and its announcement of a company location in Wake County could impact the Cape Fear region, including its supply chains and overall workforce, he said.
Finance ministers meeting in London agreed to battle tax avoidance through measures to make companies pay in the countries where they do business.
They also agreed in principle to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% to avoid countries undercutting each other.
It has been 14 days since my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, and I am feeling fine.
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Thanks for reading.
The tech giant said Thursday it's begun sending out updates to its AirTags, changing the window of time they'll make noises when potentially being used to track another person. Initially, the Apple device would play in three days. Now it'll begin to play at a random time inside a window that lasts between 8 and 24 hours.
To further reassure people about its AirTags, Apple said it's developing an app for Android devices that will help people "detect" an AirTag or Find My network-enabled device that may also be unsuspectedly "traveling" with them. Apple iPhones already have a similar alert system built into their devices. The Android app will be released later this year.
Crisp, lean communication that does not coddle or equivocate, coupled with a leader that is confident in their own ability and the ability of those that they hired means that there is no need to bog down the process in order to establish a record of involvement.
At the time, an AppleInsider source within Apple, not authorized to speak on behalf the company, told us that it was a data reporting error within the tools used to report SSD wear. [...]
Now that same source has told AppleInsider that the issue has been fixed in the latest beta of macOS.
If the filing is accurate, the next 16-inch MacBook Pro would have a slightly lower battery capacity than the existing model, potentially due to the notebook's rumored flatter design. However, any potential impact on battery life would likely be mitigated by the 16-inch MacBook Pro transitioning from Intel processors to more power-efficient Apple silicon.
The Cupertino, California-based company is planning to release the new iPad Pro in 2022 and the iPad mini later this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The main design change in testing for the iPad Pro is a switch to a glass back from the current aluminum enclosure. The updated iPad mini is planned to have narrower screen borders while the removal of its home button has also been tested.
Big Sur resists the ideas of a bootable external backup, though more particularly it resists easily updating an external copy of your startup volume’s system files.
Weather Strip uses a week-long hourly timeline view to show everything going on with the weather in a single horizontal graph. That means you can see the chance of sun, clouds, and rain, temperature, extreme weather warnings, UV, and even the likelihood of rainbows in a single view.
Designed for checking Web pages and other kinds of online services for changes or failures, the server monitoring tool requires you to enable data syncing, after which each test can be checked on a specific computer but edited from any synced Mac.
I’ve come to love the fact that when it’s time to actually head out the door, I can just snap on the magnetic leather wallet shell, but at home I don’t have to use the typical bulk that comes with folio designs. Twelve South effectively offers the best of both worlds here, with the ability to dock my iPhone 12 Pro on a MagSafe dock, just adding even more convenience into the mix.
They fit much better into living spaces by looking like stylish wood panels when not in use, and when in use, they emit cool to warm lighting — or various scenes that animate those lights with motion.
Whether the case is used for everyday use as an alternative to the Smart Case, or occasionally for peace of mind when traveling, the BlackBrook AirPods Max cases present functional and premium options for any potential buyer.
I'm excited to see where Apple is going to move iPadOS to. I'm worried that Apple is going to split iPadOS between pre-M1 and post-M1 iPads, with the latter getting more new stuff.
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People with irregular heartbeats who use wearable devices like Apple Watches and Fitbits aren’t overwhelming doctors with worried calls about their hearts, a new study shows. But they are more likely to be treated with a heart procedure called an ablation, the analysis found.
The Journal of the American Heart Association has concurred with a previous report by the Heart Rhythm Journal which said close contact with an iPhone 12 affected certain implantable cardiac devices. As with that report, the American Heart Association says the effect are solely when the iPhone is on or very near the implant.
You want the confirmation button to be built into a keyboard, and that keyboard needs to have its own Secure Enclave to have a physical connection to the button. Bluetooth and USB are out — they both go through the OS, so they’re not secure enough. And if you need a Magic Keyboard or Apple Watch for secure intent confirmation, would it really be that convenient to have Face ID on iMacs just for unlocking the screen on wake?
To date, Apple has barely begun to enforce ATT. As a result, a gray zone has emerged wherein several mobile measurement providers (MMPs) continue to obliquely enable fingerprinting as a backup mechanism when the IDFA isn’t available.
The new Wallet webpage, details the types of cards and passes that can be stored on an iPhone or Apple Watch. It also offers information on the privacy and security features of the Wallet app.
Version 1.2 also packs in a long list of new keyboard shortcuts and settings for all users, making this one of the biggest updates since the app was launched.
The maps tab is seeing a visual refresh and segments and routes are now in a single place. The maps tab also has a new segments recommendations function to help you plan a workout.
As the latest in its continued partnership with photography brand Moment, the new MagSafe Rugged cases pair the usual leather stylings with support for a variety of interchangeable lens attachments to elevate your iPhoneography setup.
Apple employees are being asked to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Tim Cook sent out an email Wednesday informing staff of the change.
“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” he said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate.”
With the upcoming release of Apple Music Lossless with Spatial Audio, the redesigned webpage also features more details about songs in Dolby Atmos and how artists can take full advantage of this technology.
Apple seems to be more optimistic than me.
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Thanks for reading.
Apple writes in the release notes for today’s update that the Apple Developer app now supports signing up for WWDC 2021 labs directly within the app, as well as exploring other digital offerings for the conference. There are also new stickers for WWDC 21.
Apple opened registration for the Digital Lounges today with four categories: accessibility, developer tools, machine learning, and SwiftUI.
For the first time, Apple has announced the finalists in the running for its annual Apple Design Awards. The awards ceremony revealing the winners will be held during WWDC at 2:00 pm Pacific on June 10th.
For a whole week, Apple releases dozens of sessions on different topics, and we all scramble to watch them as soon as possible to make sure we're all up to date with whatever the latest and greatest is. As a newcomer, or a person with a regular sleeping schedule, this can be quite intimidating.
So that's why I figured I'd put together a little guide to making the most out of WWDC without being completely overwhelmed and intimidated by the sheer volume of content that Apple is about to unleash on us all.
Spotted by developer Javier Lacort, the Apple job listing for an Senior iOS Engineer in Apple Music explicitly mentions "homeOS" on two occasions, alongside Apple's other operating systems including iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
The updates bring new integration with Apple’s Schoolwork application, new shared spreadsheet features in Numbers, and more.
Apple Music is celebrating Pride this year with a new space that's designed to highlight the LGBTQ+ community both in June and year-round. For Pride month, Apple plans to release new content each Sunday that focuses on Equality, Resilience and Community.
The Music Legacy Series recognizes Black Music Month, celebrated in June, as a time to explore the rich history of music, story, and culture. From June 8–15, you can attend virtual sessions with top songwriters and producers.
Apple has announced that its Apple TV app is now available for Android TV OS, bringing Apple TV+ content to more devices.
Money Shot is a new photography app available for iOS that is designed to help photographers land the perfect photo of specific places: Just set a notification based on a location and the app will monitor the weather and alert you when conditions are prime.
With version 2, which is available for the iPhone and iPad and is out today, HomeRun adds all-new ways to access HomeKit scenes with in-app grids and Home Screen widgets, along with an updated Apple Watch complication editor. Although the initial setup process can be a bit laborious, investing some time in a setup on multiple devices pays off, allowing you to trigger scenes in many more ways than is possible with the Home app.
Geffon said prosecutors erred in alleging that Moyer had any corrupt intent in offering to donate the iPads.
Hmmmm... homeOS? Isn't that what's inside HomePod and HomePod mini, and whatever HomePod stuff that everyone 'knows' Apple is secretly perfecting in its lab?
(Is this a new fork, though?)
(Sweet Siri solution, or new App Store?)
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WWDC topics I am interested in: MediaPlayer, MusicKit, SwiftUI.
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Thanks for reading.
“Every year, we are inspired by the talent and ingenuity that we see from our Swift Student Challenge applicants,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations and Enterprise and Education Marketing. “This year, we are incredibly proud that more young women applied and won than ever before, and we are committed to doing everything we can to nurture this progress and reach true gender parity.”
Among this group are three young women who are not only using technology to solve real-world problems, but are actively involved in teaching the next generation to do the same. They’re simultaneously blazing their own trail while making sure others have the tools to follow in their footsteps — all before they’ve graduated high school.
For a long time, I used Evernote as my reference file and OmniFocus as my task list. When COVID-19 happened and I reworked my system, I found a lot of value in having everything in one place. So now, I keep reference material and tasks in the same bucket as the ideas I want to develop. This has a lot of benefits, but I’ve also discovered I can’t treat all my notes the same. I have a separate, more active system for developing my ideas. It’s quite a bit more involved, but I believe it’s worth it.
Many iPhone owners have iMessages from years ago that they can’t access. For example, my wife and I simply want to read the first few messages that we exchanged in 2017, but we can’t.
Yet we pay for the right to read these messages in two ways: precious space our 64GB iPhones (and Macs) and iCloud storage, which Apple charges us for each month.
It’s incredibly rare that internal development apps from Apple ever see the light of day, let alone get a full-fledged release.
It will be of little solace to Apple’s investors if it wins in court but misses whatever tech revolution comes next.
I wish there is a single button where I can press and export conversations in my iMessages to go into iCloud Drive as a text file.
I also wish there is a single button where I can press and have all the photos in my iMessages go into my photo library.
Yes, I agree there should be a way for customers to retrieve their own messages, and no, I don't think we need to wait until the Message app is improved upon. Just plain old 'export' buttons will do, Apple.
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Thanks for reading.