And now we get the MacBook Pro with all of those things: an M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max chip, a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, a nano-texture glass option, and Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro and M4 Max models.
It is the most matte display type that Apple makes, and Apple claims that it is useful for high-end, color-managed workflows or demanding ambient lighting environments.
Apple's tech specs page says all of the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models have a peak display brightness of 1,000 nits for standard content in bright outdoor lighting, such as on a sunny day. The previous-generation MacBook Pro models have a peak display brightness of 600 nits for standard content, in any lighting conditions.
Along with upgrades to the chip, display, and camera, Apple claims the new MacBook Pro has the best battery life ever in a Mac. Here’s what that means.
Apple has just announced that 16GB of RAM is now the minimum for the M2 and M3 MacBook Air, giving the laptops the same RAM bump as all of the company’s other new computers this week. The cheapest MacBook Air still starts at $999.
Based on our testing and research, outdoorsmen and women who are headed into the backcountry should not cancel their inReach or Zoleo subscriptions. If you get lost or injured beyond cell service, a satellite messenger on the Iridium network is what you want. It could save your life, or one of your buddy’s lives. However, Apple’s iPhone satellite messenger is better than nothing and it’s worth installing as a backup or for casual outings when you unexpectedly find yourself without cell service.
[...]
That being said, as a non-lifesaving piece of gear, Krebs did appreciate having satellite messenger capabilities on her iPhone. “Overall, I was impressed with the iPhone sat messaging,” she told me. “It gave me a lot of feedback about how to use it and worked as expected most of the time.” (Krebs did note that, because she was also using her iPhone for onX tracking, topo maps, and photos, the battery depleted much more quickly than her inReach Mini 2, which stayed above 50 percent for the entire week.) If you have an iPhone 14 or a newer model, you should absolutely try this tech out.
Parallels Desktop for Mac version 20.1 on macOS Sequoia 15.1 adds Apple Writing Tools to apps in Windows virtual machines, allowing you to "improve your texts in Windows apps," such as Word, Notepad, and more. For those unfamiliar with the matter, Apple Writing Tools can summarize long articles, rewrite or proofread text, change tone, concise, and more.
The iPhone-only app is an exclusive perk for Nintendo Online members. Once you sign into your account, you’re greeted with a deep catalog of classic Nintendo music. You’ll find old favorites from the biggest titles, but there are also many, many more obscure songs.
If that fills you with dread, it’s understandable. Maybe you feel bad participating in the race to build a superintelligent AI nobody asked for. You may feel complicit for using AI models trained on copyrighted material without paying the creators. You probably feel just plain bad about the flood of AI slop that’s ruining the internet even if you did not personally create the slop.
Then there’s the climate consequences of it all. AI, in its many shapes and forms, requires a lot of energy and water to work. A lot. That might make you feel downright guilty about using AI.
This has been a good week for Mac.
I am not in a hurry to replace my Intel Mac mini yet, so I will wait for some real-world tests. I doubt it, but I sure hope Apple didn't paint themselves in another thermal corner. We'll find out soon enough.
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Thanks for reading.
The silver M4 Mac mini is smaller but taller than its predecessor, looking like a cross between the previous Mac mini and an Apple TV. It measures 5 inches (12.7 cm) square and 2.0 inches (5.0 cm) tall; the previous model was 7.7 inches (19.7 cm) square and 1.4 inches (3.6 cm) tall. It also finally moves some ports to the front for easier access—there will be less fumbling around in the back.
[...]
Finally, while most people seldom need to press the power button these days, putting it on the bottom feels weird.
…Wait, there’s an audio jack in the front too? Look, having just extolled the virtues of front-mounted USB-C ports, I feel that I would be a cad to ding the design for putting the headphone jack there too. After all, if you’re plugging in headphones, you don’t want to root around in back of the mini every time.
Except I use my audio port to keep a pair of desktop speakers plugged in, which is a little awkward from a cable management perspective. Sure, I could use a dongle, I guess, but then I’m eating up a valuable Thunderbolt 5 port for speakers. Maybe it’s time to—*gasp*—finally ditch those desktop monitors in favor of the Studio Display’s built-in ones.
There’s an event-style video introduction that goes in-depth on the new device, but Apple has also released a separate, shorter marketing video. In the new video, the M4 Mac mini gets a human-like personality.
Popular AI coding tool Copilot is now available for Xcode as part of a public preview, GitHub announced today. Apple developers can use Copilot for coding assistance directly in Xcode, which GitHub says will help developers boost productivity, speed up development, and enhance their overall coding experience.
The free-to-play game from The Pokémon Company recreates the company’s trading cards as a mobile experience, with a focus on collecting and casual battling.
Final Cut Pro will soon incorporate AI for generating captions for videos without having to use additional software. Current versions of Final Cut Pro allow you to import captions from another app, use a plug-in, or write them yourself, but soon the software will generate them natively.
Ultimately, everything Apple does these days has to be viewed from a position of scale. Given the size of the company, the number of products it’s building, and its global reach, small decisions can quickly become big ones. A battleship turns slowly, as the old saying goes, and that means it’s even more critical for the person steering to be confident that they’re making the right turn—and that doesn’t always mean that each and every one of us gets to go along for the ride.
An avid fan of the book, Park is now watching the second season of the Apple TV+ series, which came out in August. Like other North Texans, she says the show resonates because of the way it explores themes such as survival, belonging, generational trauma and the history of comfort women.
While Park’s family were not zainichi, she said Japan’s annexation of Korea is woven into the history of her family. She learned about how her great-grandmother was forced to take a Japanese name, which was part of a policy designed to assimilate Korean people.
I am happily surprised that, even though Apple is not allowed to sell AirPods Pro 2 as hearing aids where I live, I apparent do have access to the hearing-aid features on my pair of AirPods.
I am even more surprised to learn, from Apple's hearing test, I have 'little or no loss' for both of my ears. And I have lead a life of audiobooks and podcasts frequently in my ears since the early days of iPod mini.
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MacBook Pros coming up?
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Thanks for reading.
The iMac’s design remains largely the same as its predecessor, with a 24-inch 4.5K Retina display, although Apple has now added a nano-texture option, à la the Studio Display and the new iPad Pro, for some models. There’s also now a 12MP Center Stage capable webcam, replacing the previous 1080p option. Apple also notes that this version supports the Desk View feature that allows it to show the user’s desk in addition to their face.
While the colors remain the same—blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow, green, and silver—Apple has tweaked the backs of the computer with more vibrant versions of most of the colors.
Processor aside, the biggest functional upgrade to the base model may be the bump from 8GB to 16GB of RAM, the first time Apple has bumped up the RAM in a base-model Mac since 2012.
For the M4 iMac models with 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, all four of the USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4 transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s.
It is the most matte display type that Apple makes, and Apple claims that it is useful for high-end, color-managed workflows or demanding ambient lighting environments.
Alongside the new iMac, Apple announced updated versions of the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad. The accessories are now equipped with USB-C charging ports, whereas the previous models used Lightning.
Apple seemingly didn’t think that it needed to make a major change to where the charging port is, so you’ll once again have to turn it over to get some more juice.
I know for a fact that Apple designers have considered designs for a mouse with the port exposed at the front, and everything they came up with looked worse. Putting the port on the belly is putting form over function, but in this case Apple’s designers think the better form is worth the trade-off. With this design, the mouse looks better 100 percent of the time it’s in use, and it looks a bit silly every few months when you need to charge it.
It’s unquestionable that Apple is putting its weight behind these efforts, but what’s been less clear is just how effective and useful these tools will be. Perhaps unsurprisingly, for anybody who has used similar generative AI tools, the answer is a definite maybe.
Whatever the reasons behind the release, there’s no escaping the fact that most of the Apple Intelligence features we see today feel unfinished and unpolished, while others remain months away from release.
I've been living with a beta version of Apple Intelligence for over a month, and life hasn't changed much since its features arrived on my iPhone 16 Pro.
But who reads and remembers the release notes? What we all see is a brand-new Siri, and what we hear about is Apple Intelligence. Surely there must be some improvements beyond being able to ask the Apple assistant about the company’s own products, right? Well, if there are, I struggled to find them.
The update will add the first image generation features, including Genmoji, Image Playground, and Image Wand, plus it includes ChatGPT integration with Siri and new, more flexible Writing Tools options. For iPhone 16 users, the iOS 18.2 update adds visual intelligence, which uses Camera Control to identify and provide additional information about objects and places.
Apple's newsroom post confirms that Apple Intelligence features will roll out beginning in April, with users gaining access to Writing Tools, Genmoji, a redesigned version of Siri, and more.
In April and throughout next year, Apple Intelligence will also work in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese and more. Apple says that support for these languages will arrive with a free software update.
Apple’s state-of-the-art Audio Lab in Cupertino, California, supports the innovative work of its acoustic engineers. They use the lab to conduct user studies in various listening rooms and test new features in its anechoic chambers, which completely absorb reflective sounds and isolate external noise.
The Audio Lab is the hub for the design, measurement, tuning, and validation of all of Apple’s products with speakers or microphones. It’s also the center for Apple’s multiyear, cross-team collaboration to build the groundbreaking new hearing health features on AirPods Pro 2.
AirPods Pro 2 users running firmware 7B19, and iOS 18.1 on their iPhone, will gain access to three powerful new hearing health capabilities: Hearing Test, Hearing Aid, and Hearing Protection.
Fortunately, Apple Intelligence isn’t the only highlight of this release. It also includes a series of changes to the system, from Control Center and the Camera app to Shortcuts and the arrival of new health features for AirPods Pro 2 users.
According to Apple's release notes, watchOS 11.1 adds improvements and bug fixes, including a fix for an issue with writing breathing disturbances data to HealthKit for some users.
Up Next, the queue that tracks things you’re watching and have saved to watch later, is getting a name change to Continue Watching.
And more significantly, the app adds a new Watchlist section which contains some items from Continue Watching.
Apple says that visionOS 2.1 includes bug fixes and security improvements and is recommended for everyone to install.
The new supported countries include Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, Romania and Sweden, with new payment partners including Adyen, SumUp, and Viva.
Hazel 6.0 can now perform on-the-fly text recognition, lets you specify a password to read encrypted PDFs, enables you to revert files processed by Hazel via Finder’s contextual menu, introduces Custom List Attributes that enable you to to match and store lists of items and then reassign them to other lists, and adds support for locked files.
One of my favorite iPhone features StandBy, which turns your iPhone into a smart display when it’s in landscape orientation and charging. One of the best ways to take full advantage of StandBy is with an upright wireless charger.
Head below for a closer look at some of my favorite MagSafe stands for iPhone, perfect for StandBy.
So far, Apple Intelligence is showing us how to construct a false impression of ourselves, with no incentive to get better.
And while the majority of premium SVODs’ subscriptions are still sold directly, controlling more of those subscriptions will be increasingly important for tech players Apple, Amazon and Google as the new world of media consumption continues to take shape.
As such, losing those Disney subs hurts Apple on not only a financial level (albeit not one hugely material to its bottom line) but a strategic one — and in the cutthroat streaming business, that’s a painful blow indeed.
In the past, when Apple is doing live events with live demos, the presentation typically doesn't start too early, California time. The presenters probably need some time for their coffee to kick in, and all the helpers also need to get up earlier to get Apple Park ready for all the visitors.
And when Apple switched to live video-watching events, logistically speaking, they can also only start late morning. After all, there are still visitors, and all the helpers still need to get there earlier and prepare everything.
So, I am not complaining that, typically, the live show only starts when I am either getting ready for bed, or has already gone to dreamland, and I will only get to see all the new stuff the following morning.
But, now, this week: an all-press-releases with pre-recorded-videos week of Mac stuff, Apple cannot do them earlier so that I, at UTC+8 land, can get to see the new Mac computers at normal waking hours?
After all, everything can be automated. Even if you just need someone to push a button to deploy all the new stuff… Hey, come to think about it, I hear that Mr Tim Cook, an Apple employee, wakes up very early. Maybe you can ask him to help out in pushing that button?
:-)
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Thanks for reading.
Apple Intelligence is Apple’s suite of artificial intelligence features, first announced at WWDC in June. These features will roll out over the next year, and the first set of Apple Intelligence capabilities is included in iOS 18.1.
[...]
iOS 18.1 also makes changes to the revamped Control Center that was first introduced in iOS 18. Most notably, there are now dedicated toggles for connectivity options such as Wi-Fi and VPN controls.
iFixit shared their teardown for the new iPad mini yesterday, highlighting the fact that Apple did not rotate the display driver in order to fix the “jelly scrolling” problem – which many expected them to do. Instead, the fix lies somewhere else.
When reviewers got their hands on the new iPad mini, many of them noted that jelly scrolling was at least reduced. Some people claimed it disappeared entirely, while others argued it was just an improvement over the mini 6.
Despite the workarounds that scammy and scummy data brokers have found, you can still take three affirmative steps to protect your privacy, even while Apple works on its next generation of privacy lockdowns.
The iPhone 16, launched in September, cannot be marketed domestically as local unit PT Apple Indonesia has not fulfilled the country’s 40% local content requirements for smart phones, the Ministry of Industry said in a statement on Oct. 25.
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The industry ministry earlier said that Apple has only invested 1.5 trillion rupiah ($95 million) in Indonesia, below its commitment of 1.7 trillion rupiah. Apple has been building developer academies in lieu of establishing a local manufacturing facility.
Nintendo on December 3 will release Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, a paid offline version of the iOS game that existing users will be able to play after the original is shut down.
Well, the big week for Mac customers is here. As I am typing this, there are about two hours left in Monday, and I am feeling sleepy. Yet, constant refreshes of Apple's home page yielded no new Macs.
Yet.
(Looks like I am not in the 'correct' time zone.)
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Thanks for reading.
This week, Apple will unveil a 24-inch iMac and two versions of a revamped Mac mini, as well as a new 16-inch MacBook Pro and both low- and high-end configurations of that laptop’s 14-inch model. The iMac will come with an entry-level M4, while the Mac mini will get versions with the base chip and the M4 Pro. The MacBook Pro, meanwhile, will sport higher-end M4 flavors.
[...]
While the high-end processors in the MacBook Pro will be the highlight of the launch, the Mac mini will be getting a rare makeover. The model will be smaller — approaching the size of an Apple TV set-top box — and will include two ports on the front (like the Mac Studio) and, at least on some versions, another three on the back. People familiar with the product believe it’s the most impressive Mac yet to use Apple’s in-house silicon because of the combination of its size and power.
Access is a great companion app to Apple’s new Passwords app, allowing users to securely store sensitive information such as card numbers, gift cards, license keys, and anything else you’d like to keep secure that isn’t necessarily a password.
Keeping tabs on all the news and social media apps downloaded on your phone can be overwhelming. There's only so much time you can spend scrolling, swiping, and posting.
Downloading another app to combat this scourge may seem counterintuitive, but the updated Reeder mobile app offers a way to pull your various feeds into a single, unified timeline.
If you need a cloud plan for a family or small team, and you’re already leaning on Microsoft’s Office apps, then OneDrive is a great option.
I used to hate jigsaw puzzles. I thought they were frustrating, messy, and took way too long to solve. But my wife showed me how those parts of jigsaw puzzles can actually be fun: there’s something satisfying and meditative about working through those frustrations, sorting through the mess, and putting a picture together, one piece at a time, over the course of a few hours. (Or days.)
The makers of Wilmot Works It Out, a new puzzle game, understand this, and everything about the game is designed to make solving puzzles fun instead of annoying.
Over the weekend, I've bought a camera.
The camera is nice. It has three lenses, and can zoom from 0.5x to 10x… and even more if you are okay with blurry photos.
Oh, and the camera came bundled with a wide-screen iPod for all my audio entertainment, as well as an internet communicator for keeping in touch.
It also came bundled with this thing called a 'phone', but I have no idea what that is good for.
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Upgrading from an iPhone 12 mini to an iPhone 16 Pro means that I am still trying to get used to the size and weight. As well as three, four years of iPhone improvements accumulated for a ton of decisions to ponder. How to I make good use of Dynamic Island? What do I want the Action Button to do? Do I want an always-on display? And what photographic style should be my default?
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I chose to pick up my iPhone at Apple Marina Bay Sands -- you know, the one with the dome floating in water? There are three Apple stores in where I am; the one at Orchard Road is too crowded, and the one in the airport is too far, so this is now my default Apple Store.
Oh, and here's a suggestion for Apple. Maybe, as part of the ordering process, put a checkbox (just for me?) that says 'no small talk from Apple retail staff necessary while we wait for another Apple staff to bring out my order'? I am fine with both of us just standing there and looking at all the beautiful Apple devices on display.
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Thanks for reading.
Apple’s bet is that if people use the AirPods Pro 2 hearing aid function during the initial days of hearing aid use, they’ll recognize the power of the device and either keep with using the product or graduate to a more powerful device based on hearing loss progression. “A lot of times when people actually go get over the hump and use a hearing aid, they often take them out because, you know, there's, it's a big adjustment for your brain to now be hearing and processing that sound,” says Desai. “That's the other thought is like if this is even a way to start using hearing where your brain gets used to that augmentation, and then over time, should you need more extensive help, [you can graduate to a different device].”
“We kind of have thought about our photography suite as helping people capture and relive their most cherished memories in powerful ways, and I think our colleague John McCormack said this recently, but we see these as personal reflections of something that truly happened, but we’ve been doing that for a lot longer than spatial photography,” Sorrentino says.
“We’ve been doing it with Live Photos, panoramas, Memory videos and photos, and even in maybe more personal expression — places like widgets on our lock screen wallpapers, but we want our camera and photography ecosystem to celebrate the best moments of our lives. And again, while folks love using the term memories in many aspects of photography, hopefully, you saw earlier today, nothing comes close to reliving a moment or a memory quite like spatial, right?”
Presently, spatial content can only be viewed by looking at the files directly, whether that content natively on the device or sent to it via iMessage, Airdrop, or other sharing methods, in a Vision Pro. However, Apple recognizes that in order for spatial content to become more popular and more widely used, it needs native support inside of a browser.
Apple plans to start expanding that this year. During a conversation with Della Huff, Product Manager at Apple, and Billy Sorrentino, who is on Apple’s Design Team, the two revealed to PetaPixel that Apple will support spatial photos and videos within the Safari web browser.
With the release of iOS 16 in 2022, Apple removed the volume slider from the iPhone Lock Screen except while using AirPlay. In iOS 18.2, however, Apple has decided to bring back that capability with a new “Always Show Volume Control” option in the Settings app.
Apple News+ is once again expanding its collection of puzzles. With the release of iOS 18.2 beta 1, Apple News+ now offers daily sudoku puzzles across easy, moderate, and challenging difficulty levels. You can also track your sudoku performance right in the Apple News app.
I don’t want to see all image editing tools lumped together with one another, or worse, with every other thing that has “AI” in the name. These tools are not all the same thing. These photos aren’t all the same. Use your brain and not some puritanical binary rule to lump all edited photos together. Let people have photos that they like!
A new app called Screenable will help parents introduce their children to technology by turning an iPhone or iPad into a starter phone. The app is designed to grow over time with a child, as it offers different modes for kids of different ages.
The new version brings support for the iPhone 16’s Camera Control, as well as more bitrate options and many other improvements.
A headline like, say, “Vision Pro Sales Are Exactly in Line With Expectations” is not going to hit people as a big story, but “Apple Sharply Scales Back Production of Vision Pro” does. It’s the classic “Man Bites Dog” being a story and “Dog Bites Man” not. Apple is a company that is famous for making spectacularly popular products. Vision Pro is definitely not a spectacularly popular product. But it’s disingenuous, to say the least, for an October 2024 report to suggest that Vision Pro sales are surprisingly weak when they’re almost exactly in line with uncannily accurate expectations set in a May 2023 report by the exact same reporter at the same publication.
U.S. tech giant Apple Inc is welcome to continue deepening its presence in the Chinese market, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao told its Chief Executive Tim Cook during a meeting on Friday, the ministry said in a statement.
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China is willing to help return Sino-U.S. economic and trade ties to a healthy and stable track of development through regular exchanges between government and enterprises, Wang added.
The jury, in Delaware, agreed with Apple that previous iterations of Masimo's W1 and Freedom watches and chargers willfully violated Apple's patent rights in smartwatch designs.
But the jury awarded the tech giant, which is worth about $3.5 trillion, just $250 in damages - the statutory minimum for infringement in the United States.
Apple bringing back the volume slider to the home screen in iOS 18.2? That may well be as big as all the other AI stuff. (Okay, I am partially kidding.)
Yes, I miss the volume slider. But I think I am also used to just swiping down to get to control center and adjusting the volume that way, so maybe this is just nostalgia talking.
So, when iOS 18.2 comes around, maybe I will turn on volume slider, maybe I won't. I'll report back later.
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Thanks for reading.
Apple may not be doing a formal product event this October, but Apple SVP Greg Joswiak is teasing a “week” of Mac announcements starting Monday morning.
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The lineup of M4-equipped computers coming soon could include a low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, high-end 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, a new iMac, and a new Mac Mini. That new Mac Mini might also get a redesign that could make it close in size to an Apple TV.
When it announced Apple Intelligence at WWDC in June, Apple also detailed its new Private Cloud Compute platform. At the time, Apple said it would allow independent experts to verify its claims around security and privacy.
[...]
In a new post on its Security Research Blog, Apple says that it “provided third-party auditors and select security researchers early access” to Private Cloud Compute resources to enable inspection. Now, it’s making those resources available to everyone:
Apple has just released new firmware for AirPods Pro 2 ahead of iOS 18.1’s launch next week. This firmware update brings support for the powerful new health features: Hearing Test, Hearing Aid, and Hearing Protection.
Queen of Christmas Mariah Carey is gearing up for her annual Christmas Time tour with a new Apple Music exclusive Christmas Time Tour set list playlist featuring a mix of her holiday classics and some of the singer’s most beloved non jingle-jangle hits.
To narrow down potential testers, developers can set tester criteria that must be met in order to join a beta. Testers who decide not to join a particular beta can provide feedback to a developer explaining why.
Okay, a week of announcements. And it is all about Mac? This is exciting.
The first question that immediately came into my mind is this: in Apple's universe, how many days are there in a week?
There are currently six Mac products: Mac mini, iMac, Mac Studio, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. So, Apple can very well introduce a new updated Mac from Monday to Saturday, and then do a "One More Thing" on Sunday. (Fortieth Anniversary Mac?)
(No, I don't think Apple will -- or can -- update all their Macs to M4 in a single week… or will it?)
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Thanks for reading.
On Wednesday, Apple rolled out developer betas of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS 15.2, which run Apple Intelligence features previously seen only in Apple’s own marketing materials and product announcements: Three different kinds of image generation, ChatGPT support, Visual Intelligence, expanded English language support, and Writing Tools prompts.
OS 18.2 includes a new "Default Apps" section that can be found in the Settings app, which can be used to manage your default apps for the iPhone. This is a feature that Apple promised would be coming to the European Union, but it is actually available worldwide in the latest beta.
[...]
In the United States, you can use the Default App interface to choose your preferred Email, Call Filtering, Browser, and Passwords, and Keyboards. The sections for Messaging and Calling don't list anything other than Messages, FaceTime, and Phone, respectively, but you can set FaceTime or Phone as the default calling app.
Mail Categories organize your incoming emails into different sections. Important emails are shown in a "Primary" category, with orders, newsletters, social notifications, and deals organized into three other sections.
Apple is introducing a new feature to iMessage in Australia that will allow children to report nude images and video being sent to them directly to the company, which could then report the messages to police.
The change comes as part of Thursday’s beta releases of the new versions of Apple’s operating systems for Australian users. It is an extension of communications safety measures that have been turned on by default since iOS 17 for Apple users under 13 but are available to all users.
Apple is taking the rare step of upgrading its entire line of Mac computers to the same generation of chip – the M4 – which will speed up performance and better handle artificial intelligence (AI) tasks. The refresh will include new MacBook Pros, Mac minis and iMacs coming next week.
The M4 MacBook Air line is scheduled to be released after a December software update, so the new machines are likely to arrive between January and March, the sources said.
You likely have never heard of Babel Street or Location X, but chances are good that they know a lot about you and anyone else you know who keeps a phone nearby around the clock.
Reston, Virginia-located Babel Street is the little-known firm behind Location X, a service with the capability to track the locations of hundreds of millions of phone users over sustained periods of time. Ostensibly, Babel Street limits the use of the service to personnel and contractors of US government law enforcement agencies, including state entities. Despite the restriction, an individual working on behalf of a company that helps people remove their personal information from consumer data broker databases recently was able to obtain a two-week free trial by (truthfully) telling Babel Street he was considering performing contracting work for a government agency in the future.
Apple is steadily adding more states to its list of compatible Apple Wallet digital ID partners. The latest to join is Iowa, joining seven other states that support driver’s licenses via iPhone and Apple Watch.
Adobe is attempting to lure illustrators to join its creative software platform by making its dedicated drawing and painting app entirely free for everyone. Fresco is essentially Adobe’s answer to apps like Procreate and Clip Studio Paint, which all provide a variety of tools for both digital art and simulating real-world materials like sketching pencils and watercolor paints.
Snapchat's update also includes Camera Control support on all iPhone 16 models to quickly access the app's camera view using that button.
The latest bit of tech novelty from Astropad is a case that turns a smartphone into a book — or at least the approximate dimensions of one. It’s a bit of plastic that lets one hold a smartphone the way they would a Kindle.
[...]
There’s also an NFC chip inside, which will trigger a “companion app” on a nearby phone. That doubles as kind of a bookshelf for various reading apps. It can also be used to trigger Do Not Disturb settings on compatible devices.
The video platform has launched an app for Apple's Vision Pro that allows users to view, create and share spatial videos.
What this probably means is that the iPad mini is probably powered by chips that failed to qualify to be used in the iPhone 15 Pro but are being used–with one GPU core disabled–in the new iPad mini, rather than being thrown away. From a cost-savings and waste-prevention point, it’s a savvy move by Apple. But I can understand being a little less enthusiastic about being powered by another Apple product’s rejects, and it also seems to set a definitive cap on how many iPad minis can be made: Once they reach the bottom of the A17 Pro bin, that’s probably the end of this version product.
A new report from The Information cites “multiple people” involved in making parts for Apple’s Vision Pro headset to say that production plans have been scaled back in recent months. This follows a Tim Cook interview published this weekend by WSJ. Magazine, where he said, “Obviously I’d like to sell more,” but acknowledged that “At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product.”
The regulator said Apple failed to send tens of thousands of consumer disputes of Apple Card transactions to Goldman Sachs. When Apple did send the disputes, the bank did not follow numerous federal requirements for investigating the disputes, according to a press release from the regulator.
Goldman will pay $64.8 million. Of that total, $19.8 million will go back to consumers, while the bank will pay the other $45 million in penalties to the regulator. Separately, Apple will pay the CFPB $25 million for its role in marketing and servicing the Apple Card.
It sure looks like Apple Intelligence is coming along quite nicely, for something that everyone thought Apple was way too late than their competitors.
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Thanks for reading.
There are a lot of things I like about the iPad mini. It’s comfortable to hold, making it ideal among Apple’s tablets for reading or browsing the web. Typing on it while holding it in landscape mode feels ideal for me, though your mileage may vary, as hand sizes, of course, vary.
It lacks the power of the otherwise similar iPad Air, and it certainly can’t pack the same punch as the beefy iPad Pro. But it’s enough for most passive consumption use. As we noted in our 2021 iPad Air review, you probably wouldn’t want to try to do heavy work on a screen this small anyway.
iPad Mini owners bemoaned that one side of the screen refreshed slower than the other when scrolling up and down on the display. I didn't experience this with my Mini, but Apple did make it a point to optimize the LCD in the latest model to alleviate this issue. Apple was tight-lipped on exactly what it changed, but for what it's worth, I once again have yet to see any problems on my test unit.
The whole pitch for the new Mini, aside from the fact that it’s the iPad Mini, is that it’s the smallest iPad made for Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence better be a hell of an upgrade because, without it, the new Mini isn’t much of an upgrade at all.
What better way to access your Mac, iPhone and iPad files via the cloud than Apple’s own iCloud platform? Despite some minor inconveniences, it has a lot to offer and is well worth a look.
Apple today released a new firmware update for the original AirPods Pro, the AirPods 2, the AirPods 3, and the Lightning version of the AirPods Max headphones. The new firmware is version 6F21, up from the prior 6A326 firmware that these devices were previously running.
“I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I have been in a real funk these last few days over this news,” writes Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, speaking about the company’s plan to sunset the Foursquare City Guides app later this year in favor of focusing on its check-in app Swarm. The move reverses Foursquare’s ambitious 2014 decision to split up its app into two different properties: one for exploration and discovery and the other, Swarm, for sharing your location to find nearby friends.
The Foursquare app’s closure, scheduled for December 15 of this year, isn’t surprising. It’s been a long time since Foursquare was talked about in the same breath as other social networks. When Foursquare launched, people were competing to become the “mayor” of their favorite venue and were less concerned about the safety issues of sharing their real-time location online.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met on Wednesday with China's Minister for Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong during a visit to Beijing this week, the ministry said in a statement.
During the meeting, Jin told Cook that he hoped Apple would continue to deepen its presence in China, increase investment in innovation, grow with Chinese companies and share the dividends of high-quality development, the statement showed.
In the letter, the groups raise concerns that users could hide websites' consent management platforms — the tech that powers cookie consent pop-ups — which could put site owners at risk of noncompliance with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation.
This could also hamper publisher revenue, they say in the letter. European media companies are increasingly asking users to consent to being served personalized advertising — which is generally more lucrative than non-targeted ads — or else pay to access their content.
It seems to me that this new iPad mini is a good iPad, except that for many people, there's probably a different iPad or iPhone that is more suitable to what they priortise. Even if the smallest iPad is what I want, I will still face the question: maybe I should just get a big iPhone?
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The limitation affects all of the new hearing capabilities, including the hearing test feature, hearing aid functionality, and enhanced hearing protection. These features require the latest AirPods Pro 2 model and a device running iOS 18.1 or iPadOS 18.1.
The regional restriction likely stems from regulatory requirements – Apple has obtained FDA authorization in the United States to market AirPods Pro 2 as "clinical grade" hearing aids. Similar approvals from health regulators in other countries may be necessary before Apple can expand the features' availability.
While some people are surely loving their new iPhone 16, many users have been afflicted since their launch last month by a serious bug causing their phones to freeze, ignore touch inputs, and then randomly restart. But it looks like the end is finally in sight, with the rollout of a major software update which is understood to contain a fix.
While there is no information in iOS 18.1 about what to expect for these devices, we are expecting them to be refreshed with USB-C ports. Apple has been updating all of its devices to replace Lightning with USB-C, and all of those accessories currently use Lightning for recharging purposes.
The Apple chief executive’s latest visit to the mainland reflects his efforts to keep his ear to the ground in one of the company’s largest markets, as analysts see consumer enthusiasm for the iPhone 16 has been tepid because of the delayed local availability of Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence could do for generative AI what the Mac or graphic user interface did for personal computers: help tame it, and make it seem ordinary and acceptable.
Disney is no longer allowing its customers to sign up for and purchase subscriptions to Hulu or Disney+ through Apple's App Store, cutting out any subscription fees that Disney would have needed to pay to Apple for using in-app purchase.
Though it is inevitably true the gear you buy depreciates, my MacBook has only become a better value proposition over the years. I bought a light production device then and now have something capable of running many of the best PC games of all time, such as Baldur's Gate 3 and Disco Elysium, with ease.
This is because it has quietly become a reasonably good gaming device in its own right. However, that's not why people buy Apple devices—and pretty much never has been.
Photographs, even mundane ones, pause and magnify. They let us look, and look, and look at what our roving eyes pass over. And we often pass over everyday things—which is why it can be fascinating to find out what your coffee mug, or your cat, or your own face looks like at just the right time of day.
Yes, so it is confirmed the new hearing aid feature will not be available for me. I do hope Apple can get through the regulators swiftly and get this new feature to as many people as possible.
I am still wondering if Apple can push this feature out to the entire world if it 'just' don't call it an hearing aid. Of course, I definitely don't know much about health device regulations to know if this is a so-so idea or a terrible idea.
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I did a count: between my wife and I, we still have seven devices that we need to charge using lightning cables. (Out of these seven devices, three can be charged by MagSafe.)
Can you guess what are the seven devices? (Obviously, two of them are iPhones.)
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I am surprised that Apple hasn't really said anything about Apple Intelligence in China.
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In addition to Apple Intelligence and the new hearing health features for AirPods Pro 2, iOS 18.1 also brings changes to Control Center, upgrades to iPhone Mirroring, and call recording and transcription features. With iOS 18.1, Apple is also opening up the iPhone’s NFC chip to third-party developers for the first time.
You’ll need a quiet space when taking Apple’s hearing test. Before getting started, your iPhone will do a quick analysis of ear tip fit and environmental noise to ensure you’re good to go. All of these hearing health features are calibrated for Apple’s stock silicone tips, so if you’re using aftermarket third-party tips (including foam), there’s no guarantee you’ll get the optimal experience. Once the test begins, you just tap the screen whenever you hear any of the three-beep tone sequences.
There are a few key things to know about Apple’s hearing test. For one, it’s designed so that you can’t predict or game it. The test can play any frequency at any time, so no two are the same. Apple tests your left ear first, and here’s something I wish I’d known going in: it’s completely normal to hear nothing at all for several seconds at a time. It was in those moments, when five, six, or even 10 seconds would pass by without an obvious tone sequence, where I’d start feeling pretty anxious.
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Being able to use Apple’s $250 earbuds as a hearing aid is a huge deal for those who can benefit from this capability. But they won’t be right for everyone. People with more severe hearing loss will still need to seek other solutions. And the main tradeoff with the AirPods Pro 2 is battery life: they can last for around six hours with the hearing aid engaged, which doesn’t match what you’ll get from many OTC and prescription hearing aids.
I tested the hearing aids in various settings, from one-on-one conversations and bingeing media to standing in the thick of a Chappell Roan concert. Overall, I experienced very good results. Conversation was easy and clear, even at low volumes, and I had less trouble with TV dialog and other often indistinct sounds. My initial settings generated a fair amount of hiss, akin to a distant, droning air conditioner. After updating the tuning with my professional audiogram settings and continuing to tweak settings, that hiss became less pronounced, though it was still noticeable.
A bigger issue I encountered was that the AirPods often boosted the volume on the things I least wanted to hear: a window air conditioner, water running from the faucet, keyboard clacks, or the fan on my PC. Sure, conversations sounded good, but the air purifier behind my desk sounded great.
One of the peculiar things about Apple is how many of its most successful products once appeared to be failures. Maybe you’ve forgotten this, now that it seems crazy anyone thought there wouldn’t be a market for them. Apple’s executives haven’t. They remember when the company was ridiculed for reasons that sound totally ridiculous. The iPhone didn’t have a physical keyboard. The iPod cost $399 when CD players were $39. AirPods looked funny and would fall out of your ears. Who would wear an Apple Watch or use Apple Pay or watch an Apple TV+ show about an American football coach hired by a British soccer team? By now, they’re used to it. “It’s predictable in some ways,” Cook says.
Some devices that are now like bodily appendages were underwhelming at first and improved with time. Others were simply ahead of their time. Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, patience has the approval rating of carrier pigeons. But for every product that began slowly, Cook says he was confident it would eventually catch on. “It’s not that people are wrong and we’re right,” he says. “We have enough faith that if we love the product, there will be enough other people out there that love it too.”
Over the past 19 years, Cook has carved out a role as one of Nike’s closest outside advisers and is the company’s lead independent director. During his tenure, he’s been a sounding board on issues ranging from China to technology operations to appointing key new executives, according to current and former Nike and Apple employees. They declined to be named discussing sensitive corporate matters.
Now Cook, through his director position, is helping steer Nike through its biggest upheaval in decades. Sales fell 10% last quarter and the company withdrew its full-year guidance, hoping to wipe the slate clean for Hill. It pushed back an investor day scheduled for November to give more time for the new CEO to devise a turnaround strategy, which Cook and his board peers will need to approve.
Apple has another advantage as it tries to catch up: the ability to roll out features to a massive base of devices. As showcased with the iPad mini, Apple can quickly equip its current products with the technology needed to run new software. We’ll see this again soon with the M4 Mac rollout, which will further speed up AI tasks.
When Apple announced its AI features in June, the software was only compatible with two iPhone models and a couple of iPads, as well as Macs with its in-house silicon. Now, the four newest iPhones, almost every iPad and all the Macs can support it. By 2026, nearly every Apple device with a screen will run it: The iPhone SE will gain the features in March, and the entry-level iPad will probably get updated later in the year.
I think that with all things considered, a base model iPad refresh while also supporting Apple Intelligence was probably improbable to pull off this year, which is why Apple skipped updating its most popular iPad for the second year in a row.
Here’s hoping that “Apple Intelligence” lives up to its name. The technology should be able to create playlists without breaking a sweat, offer sensible grammar suggestions and perhaps even surprise us with capabilities we haven’t yet imagined.
The world of AI isn’t slowing down for anyone. Come on, Apple. The clock is ticking.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence uncovered a macOS vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to bypass the operating system’s Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology and gain unauthorized access to a user’s protected data. The vulnerability, which we refer to as “HM Surf”, involves removing the TCC protection for the Safari browser directory and modifying a configuration file in the said directory to gain access to the user’s data, including browsed pages, the device’s camera, microphone, and location, without the user’s consent.
After discovering the bypass technique, we shared our findings with Apple through Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) via Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research (MSVR). Apple released a fix for this vulnerability, now identified as CVE-2024-44133, as part of security updates for macOS Sequoia, released on September 16, 2024. At present, only Safari uses the new protections afforded by TCC. Microsoft is currently collaborating with other major browser vendors to investigate the benefits of hardening local configuration files.
By answering a few questions about your trip, PackPoint, can check the weather forecast, consult its databases of common items to pack, and generate a complete list of everything you need. Say goodbye to guesswork!
One of the coolest things about the Go Portable SSD is its size and weight -- it's tiny and lightweight, making it perfect for attaching to your iPhone without messing up the balance of any gimbals you might be using.
Apple's website is different for different countries, and I noticed that the AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Aid web page is not available in the country where I am. Maybe this feature will arrive soon after. Maybe this feature will also be available where I am, but it is not called Hearing Aid.
Or maybe I will be disappointed for quite a while.
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On the other hand, Mr Tim Cook, take your time for Apple Intelligence. It needs to be good, not early.
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Thanks for reading.
“Which way am I supposed to hold this device?” he growls at the vertical Zoom through which he speaks to us from his home in San Diego. “It’s almost impossible to hold it without your finger hitting the screen, and if you touch the screen, you can do something you didn’t mean to.” That something, depending on which apps one has open, might involve calling someone you don’t want to call, sending a sticker to a work chat or taking a beautiful, out-of-focus photo of the wires curled underneath the television, a passer-by’s ankle or whatever else happens to be directly in front of the phone.
“Apple computer used to be famous for the fact that you wouldn’t even need a manual. You could just pick up the telephone or plug in the computer and in seconds, you could use it and learn. It was self-explanatory,” says Norman, with the kind of fluid speech that can only come from decades of university teaching. “But unfortunately, the designers who care only about aesthetics and beauty have taken over. And I also blame the journalists who have said that the iPhone screen should be as big as possible, with no boundary [and that the center button that pre-2017 models featured should disappear]. Because when the telephone rings, I can no longer answer the phone.”
When I switched from Windows to Mac, I was frustrated by the lack of basic features I had gotten used to. But after months of testing, I found these apps that filled those gaps perfectly, and now my Mac works exactly how I want it to.
I was listening to podcasts while working on my hobby project this afternoon, when I heard the guest on the podcast objected to the description of a skill as soft skills because, they argued, this skill is not easy.
Which triggered my someone-on-the-internet-is-wrong sense, and I proceeded to spend the afternoon reading all about hard and soft skills, and how the labeling came about.
I think I need to learn the soft skill of focus-and-not-get-distracted. It's hard.
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Smartphones have enabled us to attend to work from nearly anywhere. But their productivity power also frequently encroaches on our personal lives—making it too easy to reply to business emails or Slack messages when we should be focused on dinner with the fam. Likewise, when we want to get work done, our smartphones can become distraction machines riddled with social media notifications and DMs.
This is why Gen X, boomers, and older millennials often pine for the days when they had separate work and home phones. But what if your smartphone could be both? What if you could still have a dedicated work phone in the office, and a personal phone at home? If you have an iPhone, it’s possible, thanks to an iOS feature called Focus Mode.
Apple at some point in the past week or so discontinued the Powerbeats Pro, around five and a half years after the wireless earbuds launched.
For Formula 1 fans, there's a new app called Lapz that is designed to provide an immersive F1 experience on the Apple Vision Pro headset. Users can watch multiple race feeds from different angles, see stats, and view a 3D version of the track that has icons that show where each driver is located in the race.
I understand this line of thinking, and could see why someone would argue this isn't a "cut and paste" it's more of a "copy and move". What I would say in return is that the actions we are taking are conceptually consistent with "cut and paste" what we're used to, and creating a new concept of "copy and move" is more confusing and less discoverable.
Yesterday, it was reported that the US Department of Commerce is investigating the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) over suspicions that the chipmaker may have been subverting 5G export controls to make "artificial intelligence or smartphone chips for the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies," sources with direct knowledge told The Information.
The Department of Commerce has yet to officially announce the probe and declined Ars' request for comment. But TSMC promptly issued a statement today, defending itself as "a law-abiding company" that's "committed to complying with laws and regulations, including export controls."
I pine for the days when I am doing programming from mornings to evenings, and either the results is working or it is not working, and I don't have think of different ways to make other people happy and myself not sad.
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For me, that persistence fed a habit that I barely knew had been engrained. Decades of convention have made my mind and fingers expect the comforting erasure “C” provided. Destroy that input; make it zero! And zero it became, in an instant, a placeholder for any possibility. When I saw that “C” was gone, I was hanging art in my bedroom and trying to calculate a measurement for the center of the wall. Which is to say, my hands and brain were full: I was holding pencils and measuring tape as I balanced on a ladder and clung to the edge of the art frame. This was not the time for me to readjust my calculator’s input one digit at a time. I needed to zero that thang—but I couldn’t.
In possibly a first since the release of macOS Sequoia, cybersecurity researchers have identified a new attack vector that sidesteps the usual “right-click open” in favor of something rather unusual. In a recent finding shared on social media, this new method involves tricking users into dragging and dropping malicious code (via a .txt file) directly into the Terminal.
Apple has built a new tool for artists wishing to build more engagement among fans on Apple Music. The tool enables turning concert set lists into new artist-published Apple Music playlists.
Affirm payment plans have been available through Apple Pay since last month, and competing service Klarna announced that it is integrating with Apple Pay in the U.S. and the U.K. starting today, and in Canada in the coming months.
It’s a lot like most Qi2 / MagSafe chargers, capable of charging an iPhone at up to 15W, but it skips the usual wire between the outlet and magnetic pad to just plug directly into the wall.
The therapy comedy starring Jason Segel has been renewed for a third season at the streamer. The news comes on the heels of Tuesday’s season two launch.
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The renewal news was announced Thursday at New York Comic Con when Segel and Goldstein — along with castmembers Christa Miller, Jessica Williams, Luke Tennie, Michael Urie, Lukita Maxwell and Ted McGinley — took the Main Stage for a discussion around season two, which is now streaming its first two episodes.
Apple today reminded developers that the EU trader requirement in the European Union is now being enforced. Developers who distribute apps in the EU will now need to share information that includes address, phone number, and email address on the EU App Store.
Apple is set to open its first new store on the island of Ireland since 2008.
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While Apple has a network of 40 retail outlets across the UK, the Belfast store is its only official store on the island of Ireland.
On the one hand, I am inclined to agree that if the calculator app on the iPhone looks like a 'regular' calculator, it should also behave like a 'regular' calculator. Including the 'C' button.
On the other hand, the iPhone is a computer.
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Looking ahead at what’s next for Apple Pay, we are excited to now bring our users more ways to pay, including the option to redeem rewards and access installment loans from Apple Pay-enabled issuers and lenders right at checkout with Apple Pay online and in-app on iPhone and iPad. This gives consumers greater flexibility in how they pay with the easy and trusted Apple Pay experience they already know and love. It also provides Apple Pay-enabled issuers and lenders with new ways to connect with their customers, and make their rewards and installment offerings even more accessible.
Beyond payments, we’re also advancing our broader vision of replacing users’ physical wallets with an easy, secure, and private digital wallet — Apple Wallet. Today, users can seamlessly and securely add and access eligible event tickets, transit cards, keys, government IDs, and more all from Apple Wallet. And we’re always looking for new ways to make using Apple Wallet convenient while delivering unparalleled security and peace of mind.
Apple today announced an extension of the Apple Business Connect program, which allows companies to submit information about their businesses to Apple to be surfaced in Apple Maps, Siri and increasingly more places across the operating system.
In iOS 18.2, the Mail app will be able to show brand logos next to emails from participating businesses. Next year, the Phone app will be able to identify the incoming call from a business with a logo badge and descriptive name. The enhanced caller ID and branding will help users distinguish legitimate communications from spam and phishing attempts.
Despite everything presented in this Hindenburg report and others over the past few years, I believe that it is entirely possible for kids to play Roblox safely. It has decent parental controls that limit or eliminate the extent to which strangers can contact your child – when used correctly. If I had a child playing Roblox I would be checking and double-checking all those settings, making sure that the “friends list” function is set to include only real-life friends. I would also be extremely reluctant to let younger children play this game unsupervised, to minimise the chance of kids coming across – or indeed looking for – the many inappropriate games that regularly seem to escape Roblox’s moderation efforts.
Roadside Assistance via Satellite enables iPhone users to contact breakdown services in areas without cellular or Wi-Fi coverage. UK breakdown rescue service Green Flag has partnered with Apple to provide assistance to stranded motorists via the feature in areas with poor connectivity.
Disappointingly, a large amount of SwiftData code that ran well on iOS 17 encountered various problems in the new version. For a data persistence framework that shoulders heavy responsibilities, these issues are undoubtedly fatal. What’s more worrying is that the complexity of these problems means they may not be thoroughly resolved in the short term. It is foreseeable that throughout the iOS 18 cycle, developers choosing to use SwiftData will have to continuously grapple with these challenges.
Apple Inc.’s chief people officer is leaving the iPhone maker after less than two years, according to people with knowledge of the matter, marking an unusually short tenure for a senior executive at the company.
Carol Surface, who started at Apple in early 2023 and reports to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, is departing, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the move hasn’t been announced. Apple employees were notified of the exit on Wednesday, they said.
Apple Inc. worked with Chinese automaker BYD Co. for years as part of its now-canceled car project, developing long-range batteries that helped lay the groundwork for technology used today, according to people familiar with the situation.
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Spokespeople for Apple and BYD declined to comment on the joint battery work. But BYD said in an emailed statement that “the concept for the Blade battery originated with BYD engineers, who independently developed this LFP Blade battery. BYD holds complete property rights and patent rights for the Blade battery.”
I am so happy that Apple Pay -- and contactless payment -- exists, and that I no longer have to hand over any cards to total strangers anymore.
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Apple today unveiled a new generation of iPad mini, upgraded to be powered by the A17 Pro chip. That’s the same chip as the iPhone 15 Pro. This means the new iPad mini can support the full suite of Apple Intelligence features. It also features support for the Apple Pencil Pro.
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One new design change is a magnetic charging region on the side of the tablet to support the Apple Pencil Pro. That allows the Mini to wirelessly pair and charge the Apple Pencil Pro. iPad mini is also compatible with Apple Pencil (USB-C), by plugging a cable into the USB-C port.
Apple continues to view the iPad mini as an iPad Air-class device in a smaller case, and the high-end features seem likely to remain out of reach for quite some time.
Apple's Beats brand and Kim Kardashian have teamed up for a third time on special-edition colors of a Beats product, this time featuring the recently relaunched Beats Pill speaker in new Light Gray and Dark Gray hues.
Where Apple’s automatic editing irreversibly smooths out the digital grain that you get in dim images, Halide preserves it, yielding images that appear more textured. Eschewing the uncanny perfection that marks so much iPhone photography, Process Zero has made me enjoy taking photos with my phone again, because I don’t feel like I’m constantly fighting against algorithmic editing that I can’t control or predict. Ben Sandofsky, the co-creator of Halide, told me, of the program’s ethos, “We’re going to keep this as dumb as possible.”
Sapling works by rewarding users with credits for tasks completed. Those credits can be used to purchase trees via a fundraiser the teens set up through the National Forest Foundation.
The sixth season will be based on Mick Herron’s novels Joe Country and Slough House, which are the sixth and seventh books in the series.
One of the stranger elements about the streaming service acquiring a reputation for under-marketing its shows is that Apple has long been known as an innovative, practically irresistible, marketing powerhouse. (That recent iPad “crush” ad is the exception, not the rule.) Still, even from the beginning, the company has never applied an Apple level of innovation, let alone funding, toward making its streaming titles into household names.
The US's efforts to produce more semiconductor chips have encountered some challenges over the past few years, but the tide may be turning.
TSMC, the world's leading chipmaker, has begun producing A16 chips for Apple at one of its Phoenix semiconductor chip fabs (or factories), two people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
I guess the new iPad mini continuen to disappoint both people who want an iPad Pro with a smaller screen, and people who want an even cheaper iPad SE.
On the other hand, if you are after an iPad Air-class device, you now have three different sizes to choose from.
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Thanks for reading.
For a while now, companies like OpenAI and Google have been touting advanced "reasoning" capabilities as the next big step in their latest artificial intelligence models. Now, though, a new study from six Apple engineers shows that the mathematical "reasoning" displayed by advanced large language models can be extremely brittle and unreliable in the face of seemingly trivial changes to common benchmark problems.
The fragility highlighted in these new results helps support previous research suggesting that LLMs use of probabilistic pattern matching is missing the formal understanding of underlying concepts needed for truly reliable mathematical reasoning capabilities. "Current LLMs are not capable of genuine logical reasoning," the researchers hypothesize based on these results. "Instead, they attempt to replicate the reasoning steps observed in their training data."
At the FIDO Alliance's Authenticate conference in Carlsbad, California, on Monday, researchers are announcing two projects that will make passkeys easier for organizations to offer—and easier for everyone to use. One is a new technical specification called Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) that will make passkeys portable between digital ecosystems, a feature that users have increasingly demanded. The other is a website, called Passkey Central, where developers and system administrators can find resources like metrics and implementation guides that make it easier to add support for passkeys on existing digital platforms.
Adobe is kicking off its annual Adobe Max conference today with the launch of new AI-powered features across its Creative Cloud apps. New AI features for Photoshop, like automatic background distraction removal and a more powerful Firefly generative AI model, are the biggest announcements, with Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro also getting new features that can help to speed up traditionally labor-intensive design tasks.
Adobe is making the jump into generative AI video. The company’s Firefly Video Model, which has been teased since earlier this year, is launching today across a handful of new tools, including some right inside Premiere Pro that will allow creatives to extend footage and generate video from still images and text prompts.
The update adds the ability to flag and reject photos and apply a one- to five-star rating. Then, with filters based on flags, rejects, and star ratings, it’s easy to navigate among images to determine which to keep. The process is aided by extensive single-key shortcuts, too.
The update, available now on the App Store, adds smarter recipe import from websites, new Control Center widgets, Foodnoms AI enhancements, and more.
Clicks Keyboard for iPhone is back, and they’re pushing all the right buttons—literally. I had the chance to get hands-on with the latest model, and it’s clear that Clicks has done their homework. From ergonomics to extra features, here’s everything that stood out in my first look with their version 2 product.
Rebecca Ferguson‘s Juliette Nichols is out to unravel a web of lies about a toxic and deadly world that threatens the last people living on Earth in the trailer for season two of Apple TV+’s Silo.
A flaw in Safari’s link-sharing feature allows user-added text to look like a real quote or headline from a trusted source.
Apple is preparing to begin supporting digital car keys in the Wallet app for certain Volvo, Polestar, and Audi vehicles, based on code changes discovered by MacRumors in Apple's Wallet app backend.
I still have a whole bunch of CDs -- Mac OS X, Developer, MacAddict -- lying around that I don't know what I want to do with them.
:-)
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“We wanted to tell a story with this medium and see how far we can push it, see what barriers we can break, how much we can make you feel that you’re actually on this submarine,” Berger said. “And I wanted to experience that, I wanted to take myself on the submarine.”
Being able to place himself and his audience inside the story also forced Berger to be hyper-specific about details around the experience, as well action that would facilitate plotting.
It’s the quality of writing. It doesn’t matter what the genre is. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on television or in movies. It’s the writing, it’s the story, it’s the character, it’s the emotional experience for an audience or for myself. It’s people that I have some feeling that I want to work with, or it’s a quality opportunity.
You might think that so insistently reminding fans of their team’s “Win Probability” would be against ESPN’s interests. If your team is down by several runs in the eighth inning, your hopes will already be fading. But to see that sinking feeling represented on the screen, in a crisp and precise-sounding 4 percent, could make an early bedtime more enticing. The producers of reality shows such as The Amazing Race know this, which is why they use quick cuts and split screens to deceive fans into thinking that teams are closer than they really are, and that the outcome is less certain than it really is. But ESPN has a more evolved consumer in mind. We got a clue as to who this person might be in March, when Phil Orlins, a vice president of production at the company, previewed the graphic. Orlins said that Win Probability would speak “to the way people think about sports right now,” especially people “who have a wager on the game.”
Technology makes travel easier by allowing us to research and map out our travel plans. But for the disability community, technology can be the most valuable travel companion. The following apps and sites help people with disabilities make smart and safe choices so they can get out in the world and explore more than ever.
Having researched the sources of work-related unhappiness, and studied thousands of people at various places along the spectrum of fulfilment, I worry that this narrative – that loving your job is a necessary condition for both happiness and efficacy – is not only problematic, it’s dangerous for our mental health.
I hate it when I remove my AirPods Pro from my ears, put them back in the case for charging so that I can continue to listen to my music later, and discover quite a while later that one of the AirPods failed to charge, and I have to wait longer.
Dear Apple: how about putting in one more sensor in the AirPods case so as to be able to notify me on my iPhone that the AirPods in the case is not charging?
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Apple’s Vision Pro is struggling to attract major software-makers to develop apps for the device, a challenge that threatens to slow the progress of the company’s biggest new product in a decade.
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There has been a significant slowdown in new apps coming to the Vision Pro every month. Only 10 apps were introduced to the Vision App Store in September, down from the hundreds released in the first two months of the device’s launch, according to analytics firm Appfigures.
Over the next two years, I expect home hardware to be a top priority for Apple. The push will include developing a new homeOS operating system and smart display, as well as a higher-end robotic tabletop device.
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I expect a lower-end Vision headset to arrive as early as next year, with a second-generation Vision Pro — sporting a faster chip — following in 2026. The lower-end model would cost about $2,000 and probably use an inferior processor and cheaper materials. It also would lack EyeSight, a gee-whiz feature that shows a user’s eyes on the outside of the headset. With the lower price, Apple is expecting unit sales of the device to be at least double the level of the Vision Pro. But that’s not saying much.
In iOS 18.1, there is a new option to set a "Primary" email address in the Settings app, which means it is easier to change the main email address associated with your Apple Account. The Primary email address is the one that is visible to other people when collaborating on and sharing documents, sending calendar invites, and more.
Long Ago is an iPhone and iPad app with a unique design, that aims to help users track habits, medicines, habits, or anything you’d like to do more often. The app aims to help users establish routines, and start doing things more regularly.
The application can accommodate multiple scanning methods and films and offers true-to-emulsion image processing. For instance, people who utilize flatbed, feed, Pakon, and digital camera scanning can all use Chemvert to process their negative.
When you interact with a text file using an editor, what you see doesn’t necessarily reflect the data stored in the file. Sure, the contents of plain text files are byte codes encoded in formats like ASCII, UTF8, or UTF16, and these byte codes are the ultimate source of truth. But in the end, it’s still your text editor that chooses how to interpret and represent that ultimate source of truth - binary codes into something recognizable to you. This means that two different files could look the same, or the same file might appear differently depending on the editor(s) you use.
Remember Stranger Things? No, seriously — do you actually remember much of anything about the last season of one of Netflix’s biggest shows? Or, for that matter, what happened during the last seasons of HBO’s Euphoria or Apple TV+’s Severance? The last time any of those three shows premiered new episodes was during the first half of 2022, when Joe Biden had been president for barely a year and Nate Silver was teeing up Eric Adams as a future presidential nominee. This is where we are a decade into TV’s streaming era: The gap between show seasons can now sometimes be measured in presidential terms.
Apple's latest OS release is the newest member of the Open Group list of officially verified UNIX variants – by quite some margin.
The European Union has a longstanding reputation for strong privacy laws. But a legislative plan to combat child abuse — which the bloc formally presented back in May 2022 — is threatening to downgrade the privacy and security of hundreds of millions of regional messaging app users.
Just when I think I've settled down on my choice of podcast player, I went ahead and paid for yet another podcast player on my iPhone, found that I enjoyed this new player quite a bit, and have moved my main subscriptions over.
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Shaping the world into a better place has been an active mission for Malala Yousafzai. As an activist for girls and human rights globally recognized since age 12, the Nobel Peace Prize winner — the youngest in history to receive the award — is no stranger to cameras in her own life. After her acclaimed 2015 documentary He Named Me Malala, inspired by her bestselling memoir I Am Malala, she produced the Oscar-nominated short doc Stranger at the Gate. At the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, Yousafzai premiered the Apple doc The Last of the Sea Women, from her production company Extracurricular, which premieres on Apple TV+ on Oct. 11. The film examines the world of South Korea’s all female haenyeo divers, whose centuries-long tradition of harvesting sea life in the waters off Jeju Island is endangered.
A few years ago, the idea of running PC games on a Mac, in Linux, or on Arm processors would have been laughable. But the developers behind Asahi Linux—the independent project that is getting Linux working on Apple Silicon Macs—have managed to do all three of these things at once.
A few months ago, the SuperDrive went out of stock on Apple's online store in the U.S., and it is now listed as sold out or unavailable in all countries. Given it has yet to return, it seems likely that Apple has discontinued the 16-year-old accessory.
Adopting mindfulness into our day-to-day lives might feel like a luxury we can't afford, but apps like Napkin make it feel more accessible.
The NLRB complaint, issued on Thursday, accuses the iPhone maker of maintaining unlawful work rules around the acceptable uses of Slack, illegally firing an employee who advocated for workplace changes on Slack, requiring another worker to delete a social media post, and creating the impression that employees were being surveilled via social media.
Exclusivity is incompatible with public service broadcasting, in my view. Leave that to the commercial broadcasters - and then benefit when your content is more available to all of the public who paid for it to be produced in the first place.
I am glad to have Apple TV+. I am not sure if Apple is saying more 'no' than 'yes', or if Apple really has infinite money, but I am enjoying a higher percentage of shows on this service.
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By the time I was done with “Submerged,” I was convinced that Berger is a very talented director who knows how to adapt his skills to a different format. There are no quick takes in “Submerged”—I’d wager the average length of a shot is multiple times longer than your regular 2024 blockbuster—because quick takes are disorienting in the immersive format. Instead, Berger allows shots to linger, occasionally toggling between one shot and its reverse angle, which allows a perspective shift without a complete loss of the understanding of the scene’s geography.
Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you. There’s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There’s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say “Whoa, did you see that, too?” If you were to SharePlay this, you’d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn’t actually there. And then you’d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged is something you have to experience alone.
Apple has a variety of new content captured in Immersive Video that’s releasing throughout the rest of 2024.
Ultimately, it’s not just about staying connected; it’s about being prepared for whatever life might throw your way. Messages via satellite provides essential connectivity that lets you reach out for help or comfort wherever you find yourself, whether you’re hiking in remote areas, traveling through cellular dead zones, or facing a natural disaster that has knocked out local infrastructure. If you’re still on the fence about upgrading to iOS 18, consider this a nudge.
Ticketmaster announced that it will be the first ticketing company to take advantage of new features that arrived in Apple Wallet with iOS 18. According to a blog post from the business, Ticketmaster tickets viewed in the Apple app can show enhanced information such as venue maps, parking directions, local weather forecasts and recommended listening from Apple Music. Teams and event spaces can also choose to add links to their own apps or websites that customers can access from their Wallet tickets.
The question to ask is, “Is this what users want and expect?” Sometimes it really is that simple. I’m not sure it’s ever worth asking “Is this what growth-hacking VC-backed social-media app makers want?”
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple will be making a donation of an undisclosed amount to Hurricane Milton relief efforts.
Apple has opened a new applied research laboratory in Shenzhen, China, marking a significant expansion of its research and development capabilities in the world's largest smartphone market. The facility, which began operations on Thursday, is located in the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong tech cooperation zone.
Now, how will Apple get Submerged out to people who are voting on the Oscars and Emmys? Bribe them with a Vision Pro?
:-)
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There’s a widespread perception that Apple has a combative relationship with law enforcement after the company refused to help the FBI hack into the iPhone of the shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attacks. But since then, it has ramped up collaboration with police through the conference and other meetings with agencies at both Cupertino HQ and its Elk Grove campus, as well as a variety of previously unreported projects helping cops use iPhones, Macs, Apple Vision Pro and CarPlay, the emails show. Most of these projects have not been announced publicly.
That Apple has kept its work with cops largely under wraps indicates the company is aware that providing tech for police surveillance operations is inherently at odds with its pro-privacy marketing, said Electronic Frontier Foundation senior policy analyst Matthew Guariglia. “These companies want to have their cake and eat it,” Guariglia told Forbes. “They want to get the reputation that they protect users' data and they will do so at the expense of their relationship with law enforcement, and at the same time recognizing that creating tech for law enforcement is a multi-billion-dollar industry.” The U.S. spends an estimated $100 billion on policing every year.
Since the 1970s, NHL goalies have used customized masks as a form of expression. This year, creators of hockey masks the top goaltenders in the league have leveraged the power of the iPad to bring their designs to life.
In what is now an annual tradition, filmmaker Joey Helms has created a stunning iPhone 16 Pro cinematic video demo reel, in his home city of Chicago.
Passbook is an indie app which allows you to take any ticket or pass with a QR code, manually create a pass, and then export that to Wallet.
The deal will see Apple TV+ join streaming services like Max, Paramount+, AMC+ and Starz as a subscription add-on for Prime Video subscribers. Apple TV+ will cost $9.99 per month, and as with other streaming add-ons for Prime Video, users will be able to watch all their content within the Prime Video app. Apple TV+ will be added later this month.
The veteran executive, a vice president who reports to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, is leaving Apple this month, according to people with knowledge of the move. Employees in Riccio’s Vision Products Group, which includes a couple thousand engineers working on headsets and related technology, were told they would become the responsibility of John Ternus, Apple’s hardware boss.
I am not sure if Apple's heart is still in Apple TV Channels. (Or is it going to be a forever U.S. market only thing?)
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According to a new blog post by Sevco, the core issue lies in how iPhone Mirroring interacts with macOS's file system and metadata. When activated, the feature creates "app stubs" for iOS applications in a specific directory on the Mac.
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For employees, this means that apps they use privately could become visible to their employer's IT department without their knowledge or consent. This could potentially reveal sensitive personal information, such as dating apps, health-related apps, or VPNs used in countries with restricted internet access.
Four out of five parents reportedly want their children to learn a musical instrument. A much smaller number of kids actually do, and even fever stick with it.
“It’s intimidating, it’s expensive, it’s hard,” acknowledges Roland Lamb, whose company ROLI has been trying to reinvent music education, and instruments themselves, for 15 years. Now, Lamb believes that he has found a way to make piano lessons a lot more accessible: ROLI’s new Airwave product uses special infrared cameras for hand tracking, which makes it possible to take lessons on an iPad that monitor a player’s posture—just like a teacher would, but for a fraction of the price.
Google has a new set of policies that require apps that connect to Google Drive to go through expensive, time-consuming annual reviews, and this has made it extremely difficult for us to reasonably maintain Google Drive access.
We all need more control over how Messages notifies us about goings on in our individual chats and group threads. First off, it would be great if I could specify that I wanted to be notified when new messages appeared in a chat, but not when a new tapback reaction arrived. The reaction multiplier in active chats is just too much for me to bear sometimes.
Managing notifications should also be smarter. I’d like to be able to mute notifications for a chat for some time, so I can get back to work and catch up on the chat later. Sure, I can set a Focus mode, but again… that seems like a workaround when there’s a more direct way to solve the problem. Namely, “Stop bugging me about this chat for an hour.”
A basic level of privacy protections should not be a competitive advantage, nor should users be required to navigate either unceasing permissions dialogs or terms of service agreements to understand the myriad ways their personal information is being exploited — because their personal information should not be exploited.
Apple today added the final iPod nano and iPod shuffle models to its obsolete products list worldwide, marking the end of an era.
What I miss about iPods: their smallness. (Said me, while looking at the iPhone's dimension and weight information on Apple's website.)
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Submissions for the 2025 Swift Student Challenge will open in February for three weeks. Students, educators, and their advocates can find out how to prepare for the challenge and sign up to be notified when applications open at developer.apple.com. Apple will recognize a total of 350 Swift Student Challenge winners whose submissions demonstrate excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity. From this esteemed group, 50 Distinguished Winners will receive additional recognition and be invited to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino next summer.
The short film was written and directed by an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. That makes it stand out from other Immersive Video Apple has produced to this point. The filmmaker, Edward Berger, is best known for films like All Quiet on the Western Front and the upcoming Conclave.
The company emphasizes, however, that the changes should mean users see “fewer dialogs” for apps that they regularly use. Notably, the shift in strategy comes after the proliferation of various workarounds to skirt the permission dialogs altogether.
Apple is rolling out a design refresh to iCloud.com today. The update includes support for Dark Mode, more customization options, changes to iCloud Photos, and more.
Today's ad focuses on the 4K 120 frames per second Dolby Vision video recording feature that is exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.
The critically acclaimed Apple original Severance is getting a release on disc, with a Blu-ray edition going on sale this December.
With groups, I get the total flexibility that I’m used to, so I can arrange my files and folders exactly as I like. But with folders, I can use Finder to import and organize my files and folders. The big difference is in source control, especially if you’re working with other people. When every file addition, deletion or move also changes the project file, you have a much greater chance of getting a merge conflict.
The company has long faced criticism from environmental advocates who argue the device maker has made refurbishment processes arbitrarily difficult and expensive in order to sustain new iPhone sales. At the same time, Apple — which has supported some right-to-repair efforts lately and has said it’s investing seriously to reduce its carbon footprint — has had to grapple with all kinds of surprising scams as it considers greener approaches.
Just the other day, I was surprised by the different behavior of Xcode when I accidentally created a folder instead of a group. But it sure looks like it's time for me to migrate all my groups to folders?
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Apple eyes Nov. 1 as date for its next product release, with more devices following in early 2025. Now that the iPhone 16 is shipping, Apple is turning its attention to other hardware products, including a new low-end iPhone, updated iPads and M4 Macs.
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The company has been clear that Apple Intelligence will be arriving in October as part of the iOS 18.1 operating system. But now I can provide a little more detail on when in the month it’s supposed to arrive: Monday, Oct. 28. That means new iPhone buyers will have to wait a few more weeks to get the most hyped component of their devices. I’m told that Apple is taking its time with the rollout to ensure that major bugs are eliminated and it can support all the new traffic on its AI cloud servers.
The Apple Watch app, which analyzes key health metrics measured during sleep over the last seven days, appears to be providing early warnings of impending sickness for at least some Apple Watch wearers ahead of time.
Between feature disparity and opaque capabilities, iPhone consumers are virtually in the dark about what features their phone supports over USB-C without conducting a painstaking amount of research.
I only have one device that can do Apple Intelligence this Oct 28.
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One nice feature of GroceryBot is that you can sort your grocery items by store. When you first open the app, you’ll be able to add your favorite grocery stores that you shop at. If you prefer to buy certain items at one store because they’re cheaper for example, or if you have a particular store you go to for a specialty item, you can easily sort these apart in GroceryBot. There’s a tab for all groceries, and then tabs for each store.
The whole point of UserDefaults is that it’s supposed to reliably store simple, non-sensitive data so it can be accessed whenever. The fact that this has now changed drastically, and at the same time your app can be launched effectively whenever, makes for an incredibly confusing, dangerous, and hard to debug situation.
But it still should serve as a warning for you and everyone else you know who’s depending on these virtual clouds for saving everything. Because they’ve shown us over and over again that they’re not going to bother saving everything forever.
The latest iOS allows me to place app icons anywhere on the home screens' grids. The operating system also allows me to place controls anywhere on the Control Center's grids. Moving stuff around can still surprise me, and not in a good way. I am sure you have already encounter this, but I have tried moving a control in Control Center from position A to position B, and as a result, a different control sitting at position C moved automatically to position D. Mind you, positions A, B, C, and D are all different positions.
But did Apple missed out giving me the flexibility in moving app icons around in home screens' folders? Do we have to wait another year for Apple to come around to that, maybe?
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Pressly trained as a philosopher, and he has a philosopher’s fondness for sniffing out unspoken assumptions. He finds one that he considers fundamental to our networked era: “the idea that information has a natural existence in human affairs, and that there are no aspects of human life which cannot be translated somehow into data.” This belief, which he calls the “ideology of information,” has an obvious instrumental value to companies whose business models depend on the mass production of data, and to government agencies whose machinery of monitoring and repression rely on the same.
But Pressly also sees the ideology of information lurking in a less likely place—among privacy advocates trying to defend us from digital intrusions. This is because the standard view of privacy assumes there is “some information that already exists,” and what matters is keeping it out of the wrong hands. Such an assumption, for Pressly, is fatal. It “misses privacy’s true value and unwittingly aids the forces it takes itself to be resisting,” he writes. To be clear, Pressly is not opposed to reforms that would give us more power over our data—but it is a mistake “to think that this is what privacy is for.” “Privacy is valuable not because it empowers us to exercise control over our information,” he argues, “but because it protects against the creation of such information in the first place.”
Although Apple never says anything along these lines, there are essentially two macro modes. We’ll call the first Auto Macro mode, which is what we’re used to and is limited to 12-megapixel photos, and the second Manual Macro mode, which takes 48-megapixel shots.
I ask Williams how important it is for Apple to continue to exploit the sensors which are in the Watch to address further features. The latest example is the sleep apnoea notifications which use the accelerometer in the Watch to new effect.
In a moment of candour, Williams says, “I have sleep apnoea and when I discovered it, it was a complete game-changer. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I would wake up in the morning exhausted. I went through all kinds of tests. I finally did a sleep test and they said, you have sleep apnoea. And then I got a CPAP machine, and it was like a new lease of life.”
As Alan Dye, Apple’s head of Human Interface Design, says, Apple Watch was launched just as Apple first sat its human interface and industrial design team together in one combined studio. ‘The watch represents so many firsts for us and it's near and dear to our hearts because it was one of the first products born out of this really tight collaboration.
‘We want to create really singular experiences where we deeply integrate hardware and software and where, ideally, you don’t know where one begins and the other one ends. So having one studio is really core to who we are and how we think about design.’
Cybersecurity researchers have reported finding multiple mobile applications used in so-called ‘pig butchering’ schemes, lurking on the official Google and Apple repositories.
‘Pig butchering’ is a type of financial fraud in which the victims - called ‘pigs’ - are first “stuffed”, before being “slaughtered”. In other words, the victims get led on for weeks and months, and their wallets drained and drained, before the fraudsters finally pull the trigger and disappear with the money, completely.
Apple today shared a video ad that highlights the new Camera Control on the latest iPhone 16 models, offering a quick look at the button in action.
Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami team will be playing their first playoff match on Friday, October 25. When that happens, it will be streamed for free to everyone via the Apple TV app. And soccer fans in New York will get a special Times Square treat.
The day I started working on this story about Duolingo it seemed to be everywhere. I heard from a friend who was celebrating her 800-day Spanish practice streak on the app. I read about a journalist from The Guardian who became addicted to learning Italian. A Sri Lankan waitress in Brooklyn switched from English to Spanish when she heard my mother and I speaking, crediting Duolingo for her skills.
But my deep interest in the world's most downloaded language-learning app truly began last year when I saw first-hand its significant impact on new migrants to the US, a country undergoing one of the largest migration waves of the decade. At some point in their long journeys, Duolingo becomes an essential tool for these people on the move.
Bic, the company best known for ballpoint pens, razors, and lighters, has just revealed a collaboration that no one could have possibly had on their 2024 bingo cards. Its new Hold the Phone case has a molded cutout on the back to hold one of Bic’s EZ Reach lighters, specifically those designed by Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg as part of a collaboration with the company.
NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition is now available in Apple Arcade on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro, and the latest version of the game offers many new features.
Apple’s AI research team has developed a new model that could significantly advance how machines perceive depth, potentially transforming industries ranging from augmented reality to autonomous vehicles.
The system, called Depth Pro, is able to generate detailed 3D depth maps from single 2D images in a fraction of a second—without relying on the camera data traditionally needed to make such predictions.
It is a spectacular success. But it has also created a problem that could threaten the future prosperity of both the sector and the island. As the age of energy-hungry artificial intelligence dawns, Taiwan is facing a multifaceted energy crisis: It depends heavily on imported fossil fuels, it has ambitious clean energy targets that it is failing to meet, and it can barely keep up with current demand. Addressing this problem, government critics say, is growing increasingly urgent.
I've spend today with SwiftUI. I'm probably not experienced enough with this stuff, but I am still not convinced of write-once run everywhere. Even when everywhere all bears the Apple logo.
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What started as a source of fun, efficiency, and convenience became enmeshed in daily life. Now it seems like every ordinary activity has been turned into an app, while the benefit of those apps has diminished.
Using a password manager is the easiest way to increase the security of your online accounts. When you use a password manager, you only need to remember a single password—the one you use to log in to the app. For all other accounts, the app will create unique, strong passwords for you. This means that if an account gets hacked, the same password isn't in use anywhere else, and as a result, it doesn't compromise all your other online accounts.
In addition to a handful of notable bug fixes and performance improvements, today’s iOS 18.0.1 and iPadOS 18.0.1 updates also include a pair of important security fixes. Apple says that the updates include a fix for microphone access on the iPhone 16 as well as a fix for access to the Passwords app across all supported iPhone and iPad models.
The update includes, most importantly, a fix that brings iPadOS 18 back to M4 iPad Pro users after Apple had previously pulled the update more than two weeks ago.
According to Apple's release notes, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 fixes a bug that could cause the Messages app to crash when a message with a shared Apple Watch face was sent, and it improves third-party software compatibility.
It fixes an issue that could cause the Music app to crash, plus it addresses a bug that could cause the battery to drain faster than expected. There's also a fix for a bug that could cause the touchscreen to be unresponsive on the latest Apple Watch models, and a bug that could cause unexpected restarts.
The visionOS 2 update fixes a bug that could cause YouTube in Safari to freeze, plus it addresses an issue with Safari Web Extension data.
It’s not a viral craze or anything (yet), but bookshelf Home Screens are ticking up in popularity.
The idea: use a bookshelf wallpaper on your iPhone, with app icons scattered around the various shelves.
BetterTouchTool is a powerhouse utility for macOS that supercharges interactions through comprehensive customization of your trackpad, mouse, and keyboard. This tool leverages Apple's robust macOS framework to deliver tweakable functionality that can skyrocket productivity and efficiency.
You can unlock these doors through Aqara’s app or Matter apps like Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, and Google Home, but Aqara also offers a wide range of other entry options, including the built-in fingerprint reader, keypad, or physical keys. Apple Home Key support also means you can just tap your iPhone or Apple Watch to enter, even when they’ve run out of power.
Apple is planning to open four new retail stores in India and has begun manufacturing the iPhone 16 Pro models domestically, the company said as it deepens its presence in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.
It's update-all-your-devices weekend!
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Apple’s position is, therefore, a reasonable one, but it is strange to see no voices from third-party experts favourable to this change. Well-known iOS security researchers Mysk celebrated it; why did Roose not talk to them? I am sure there are others who would happily adjudicate Apple’s claims. The cool thing about a New York Times email address is that people will probably reply, so it seems like a good idea to put that power to use. Instead, all we get is this milquetoast company-versus-growth-hacker narrative, with some antitrust questions thrown in toward the end.
Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 are being tracked across the internet using identifiers known as Advertising IDs. When children turn 13, they age out of the data protections provided by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Then, they become targets for data collection from data brokers that collect their information from social media apps, shopping history, location tracking services, and more. Data brokers then process and sell the data. Deleting Advertising IDs off your teen’s devices can increase their privacy and stop advertisers collecting their data.
Two Harvard students have created an eerie demo of how smart glasses can use facial recognition tech to instantly dox people’s identities, phone numbers, and addresses. The most unsettling part is the demo uses current, widely available technology like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and public databases.
Transcriptions in the additional languages will be rolled out on a gradual basis for all iPhones and iPads running iOS 17.4 or iPadOS 17.4 and later.
Apple Maps has expanded the availability of cycling routes in the southern hemisphere by adding support for New Zealand.
Backblaze defines itself as “backup for peace of mind”, and it’s hard to argue with that. You pay your fee, download the app, and it goes about its business in the background.
Starting today, developers can start buying Apple Search Ads for placement in Turkey, and 20 additional countries.
Season two will see Sugar find himself back in Los Angeles taking on another missing person’s case, as he continues to look for answers surrounding his missing sister.
The two founders thank their supporters over the years who "have enabled us to move the needle in a big way" with regard to access and affordability. But the issues facing the web have changed, they insist, and the foundation believes other advocacy groups can take it from here.
Chief among the more pressing problems, claim Sir Tim and Leith, is the social media business model that commoditized user data and concentrates power with platforms, contrary to Sir Tim's original vision for the web.
I am happy that Apple is paying attention, it seems to me, to podcast listeners. I am not so happy that Apple's podcast ecosystem is not getting more open.
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If you want a quick verdict: the iPhone 16 Pro is a tremendous camera because between Camera Control, Zero Shutter Lag and its advanced Photographic Styles, it will capture more moments than any iPhone ever did by a huge margin — and that in itself makes me recommend it over any previous one.
That being said, there’s a larger feeling I am left with after reviewing this device in my hands.
The impressive and steady efficiency gains of the iPhone line over the least near-decade come in little drips and drops—a few percent here, a fraction of a percent there—until they all add up to a downpour. It’s the compound interest of mobile power efficiency, and we are all the beneficiaries of it.
Still, we can’t help but notice the stark improvement in this year’s iPhones, even relative to just the year before. Not since the iPhone 11 to iPhone 12 generation has overall power efficiency improved this much in one year. But unlike that generational leap, where iPhone battery capacity went down, this year the efficiency leap was paired with larger batteries. No wonder the iPhone 16 line is delivering the longest battery life ever in an iPhone by such a wide margin.
Apple Inc., fresh off the release of the iPhone 16, is preparing to announce a new low-end phone early next year alongside upgraded iPads.
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The new SE phone is expected to support Apple Intelligence, an upcoming suite of AI tools that will also work with the iPhone 16 and the high-end versions of last year’s iPhone 15. The new model will resemble the iPhone 14, including the notch cutout at the top.
Today, Apple Podcasts is elevating series — narrative shows with episodes intended to be listened to in order — that captivate listeners across multiple genres. Apple Podcasts is launching a new Top Series chart that will be updated continuously and features the top 100 series, making it the first chart for series shows ever created. Additionally, a brand-new Series category will help listeners explore and discover shows they will love.
Halide, a popular advanced camera app for iOS by the company Lux, is releasing a new update that adds manual photography “Adjustments” features for the iPhone 16’s Camera Control button. In version 2.17, you can adjust focus and exposure on Camera Control; there’s also a new “Locked” mode to lock down some manual settings so an accidental swipe won’t ruin your current shoot.
The new release includes updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook. These applications come as "locked-in-time" versions, meaning they won't receive ongoing feature updates like their Microsoft 365 counterparts.
Pebblebee has announced new Universal versions of its Bluetooth trackers that support both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find My Device networks. At $34.99 each, they’re more expensive than Apple’s popular $29 AirTags, but they include additional features like rechargeable batteries and a light that can make them easier to locate in the dark.
If you’ve purchased a Sonos speaker within the last year, here’s an important thing to know: the company is extending its manufacturer warranty by an additional year for select products that are still under warranty right now.
Juno, the third-party YouTube app created for the Apple Vision Pro, has been removed from the App Store. In a post on Tuesday, developer Christian Selig said the app was taken down months after Google warned that it violates YouTube’s guidelines.
The National Labor Relations Board in the complaint announced late on Monday claims Apple required employees nationwide to sign illegal confidentiality, non-disclosure, and non-compete agreements and imposed overly broad misconduct and social media policies.
For Apple suppliers in Vietnam, the end of summer is recruitment season. In the months ahead of the busy holiday shopping rush, companies like Luxshare and Foxconn try to fill thousands of permanent and temporary assembly jobs, building products like AirPods and iPads. Competition for these jobs was once fierce. But in the past couple of years, as more manufacturers relocate from China to Vietnam, the benefit of choice has shifted to the workers.
Will I take better photos if I just upgrade my iPhone? No!
(I've got to start learning.)
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In celebration of World Teachers’ Day, Apple today launched all-new free classroom resources to help educators and students embrace creativity in any lesson, and is celebrating educators through special collections and offerings across Apple services. Additionally, the company announced a major expansion of its groundbreaking education grant program into 100 new schools and communities, reaching students and teachers across six continents with free grant-funded STEAM programming.
"We're thinking of all those facing the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Helene," said Cook. "Apple will be making a donation to help with relief efforts on the ground."
Citing the new rulings, Apple said its practices were not unfair and that any injunction should be limited to benefiting only Epic, and not other developers.
So, if you plan on buying AirPods Max, walk-in level-headed about what these are and aren't. They're heavy but stylish, sound great but lack the features of other AirPods and competitive products. Apple has also made the asinine decision to do away with supporting wired playback. So buy with caution, enjoy the hell out of them (I do), and maybe, if we're lucky, one day we'll get the AirPods Max update we deserve.
The best workflows are the hardest to design because they require restraint. It’s easy to throw complexity at a problem to create the illusion of a grand solution, when it’s often the simplest solutions that reflect the most thoughtful approach to a problem. That was my immediate reaction to Forever ✱ Notes, a systematic approach to note-taking that uses Apple Notes as its foundation.
Buy yourself an iPhone 16 case to protect your precious mobile after splashing a ton of cash on it, and add some style to make your new handset more personal.
The marketing and the Max naming of AirPods Max do make it sounds like the headphone should always be the best in everything, discounting form-factor. Yeah, it is never meant to be ultra portable, and the case is a little unfortunate, but I don't think most of us expected it to be updated like an iPhone SE or the Mac mini of yore.
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