With macOS Sonoma 14.4, Apple is introducing new emoji characters and adding support for reading Podcast Episode text in full with search support. There are new features for Business Updates in Messages, along with a toggle for showing only icons for websites in the Safari Favorites Bar.
There is also a Setting to disable the Double Tap feature on Apple Watch when using Vision Pro, and an option to double tap to show an expanded notification.
With HomePod Software 17.4, Siri is able to learn what a user's preferred media service is, eliminating the need to set a third-party app as the default or include an app name when asking Siri to play content.
visionOS 1.1 introduces enterprise support for email, contacts, and calendar. This means headsets with mobile device management accounts are able to access work email just like iPhone and Mac.
Apple has also improved Persona, the beta feature that creates a digital version of yourself for use during video calls.
We did not find new features during the tvOS 17.4 beta testing process.
The M3 MacBook Air is the laptop's first "boring" refresh in several years; the M1 Air kicked off the Apple Silicon era, and the M2 Air was a major design overhaul. The M3 version of the Air gets the 13- and 15-inch models on the same update schedule but otherwise doesn't rock the boat.
But that's fine, as it's a pretty good boat that doesn't need to be rocked. Even without active cooling, the M3 is a solid performer, handily beating the passively cooled versions of the M1 and M2 while using a little less power. The chip does throttle pretty quickly under heavy load, but not ridiculously so, and that's to be expected in a passively cooled design. The Air is not designed for heavy-duty workloads, though it is nice to know that it's usable for them in a pinch.
My reaction is pretty much the same as the one I had to the MacBook Pro: Apple hasn’t “cured” fingerprints. It is absolutely possible to put fingerprints all over the midnight MacBook Air. I managed to cover it in streaks in a couple of minutes. It might be a little more resistant than the old model, and it might be easier to wipe the surface clean, but after a day’s use, the M2 and M3 midnight Airs in my house looked more or less the same.
But iMessage isn’t set up well for this casual browsing: when you try to scroll away from a search result, the loading is very slow. And the interface provides no way to jump to a specific date. I’d really like to be able to “flip through” my messages and stop at a random place for a view into that moment in time. Apple doesn’t provide a way to do that, so, I thought, why not enable it myself? I though it’d be great to enable this “flipping through messages” in the most literal way possible: by creating a physical book of my biggest conversation.
Apple is going to make it easier for iPhone users to switch over to another operating system in the European Union. Apple says it is working on a solution that will help mobile operating system providers create "more user-friendly solutions" for transferring data from an iPhone to a non-Apple phone. The solution will be available by fall 2025, after which point companies like Samsung and Google will be able to offer better tools for transferring data from an iPhone.
EU iPhone users will be able to remove Safari from their devices entirely starting at the end of 2024, with an alternate browser able to take the place of Safari. As part of this plan, Apple is developing a browser switching solution for exporting and importing browser data into another browser on the same device. Apple has already began supporting alternative web browser engines, another DMA requirement.
In an update to the support document, Apple now specifically says customers have a grace period of 30 days. So if you leave the EU for less than a month, apps downloaded from outside of the Apple App Store will continue to receive updates. [...]
Additionally, the grace period only applies to app updates already installed on your device. You must always physically be in the European Union to install new apps from outside the App Store or download new app marketplaces.
German MEP Andreas Schwab, who led the negotiations that finalized the DMA on behalf of the EU Parliament, says that makes Apple a likely first target for non-compliance. “[This] gives me a very clear expectation that they want to be the first,” he tells WIRED. “Apple’s approach is a bit weird on all this and therefore it's low hanging fruit.”
In other words, good optics have paid off handsomely for Apple. But live by the optics, die by the optics. If you ask people to buy into the idea that you’re working toward the good, be prepared for the moment when they pull off the mask and are shocked to discover that you were a for-profit company all along.
The Biden administration sent two official letters of protest to Brussels raising concerns, but it stopped short of pushing the issue, people familiar with the matter said. There were differing views within the administration about whether it should be Washington’s role to rally around Big Tech’s business interests.
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What drew outrage from U.S. industry is that five of the six companies subject to DMA regulation are headquartered in the United States: Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google’s parent company Alphabet and Facebook’s parent company Meta. The sixth, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, is headquartered in China.
Apple and Major League Baseball today announced that "Friday Night Baseball" is returning for the 2024 season, which begins later this month.
In addition to releasing the latest macOS Sonoma 14.4 update on Thursday, Apple also released a new version of its Windows Migration Assistant software for PCs to include compatibility with the latest version of macOS.
On its surface, Finding Hannah is a bright and playful hidden-object game — but dig a little deeper and you’ll find something much more.
The Hannah of Finding Hannah is a 38-year-old Berlin resident trying to navigate career, relationships (including with her best friend/ex, Emma), and the nagging feeling that something’s missing in her life. To help find answers, Hannah turns to her nurturing grandmother and free-spirited mother — whose own stories gradually come into focus and shape the game’s message as well.
It offers everything you need to create good habits or break bad ones, features a great design that is very customizable, has some useful widgets, integrates directly with the Apple Health app for automatic tracking, and offers great support for Shortcuts.
PayPal today announced that Tap to Pay on iPhone is now widely available for businesses that use the Venmo and PayPal Zettle apps in the U.S., allowing them to accept contactless payments directly on an iPhone, with no additional hardware required.
The NYT Games app is debuting a new redesign to help users discover games and track their progress more easily. The redesign comes nearly a year after the New York Times renamed its games-focused app from “NYT Crosswords” to “NYT Games” to better represent its growing family of games. The redesign, which features new game card designs and streamlined navigation, is the company’s next step in building out its gaming hub.
A new toy has landed for the fantastic Montessori-inspired iOS app Pok Pok. “Shapes” helps kids with fine motor skills, problem-solving, imagination, confidence, and more.
Through our industry sources, MacRumors has obtained information on some of the key accessibility improvements Apple has in store for its userbase. Apple is working on several new accessibility features along with improvements to existing settings, both of which should be available later this year.
Unlike streaming rival Netflix, Apple sees the value of releasing films theatrically to raise their profile. “Killers” and “Napoleon” both enjoyed a 58% peak U.S. awareness score, according to NRG analytics, while “Argylle” had a 45% score. The company’s brain trust believes that making Apple TV+ the exclusive home for high-awareness theatrical movies brings added value for subscribers.
Yet neither “Killers” nor “Napoleon” moved the needle as much as many industry observers expected. “Argylle,” with its $200 million price tag, is an unmitigated disaster. No studio is better poised to absorb colossal budgets than Apple. But even Wall Street is wondering if the studio’s reported $1 billion annual spend on films would have been better served by pumping up the volume of product rather than taking a few nine-figure swings.
Well, looks like this weekend is upgrade-all-my-devices weekend. Not that I can get all the features that are in these new releases. :-)
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Thanks for reading.