As has become an annual tradition, Apple just reported blockbuster earnings for the company’s most recent holiday quarter. “Today Apple is reporting our best quarter ever, with revenue of $124.3 billion, up four percent from a year ago,” CEO Tim Cook said in a press release. Revenue was up nearly across the board for the company’s Mac, iPad, and services divisions.
But the numbers show a slight dip in year-over-year iPhone revenue, seemingly confirming that Apple Intelligence isn’t doing much to drive iPhone sales. The same goes for that new Camera Control button, I suppose.
Every day, I get deeply moving notes about the many ways our technology is enriching our users’ lives. I recently got a note from a customer who put his watch on his father’s wrist when he feared something was wrong with him. The watch alerted them that the father was in AFib and they were able to get him to the hospital for potentially life-saving treatment. Another user put his new watch on for the first time, and within 15 minutes was notified of a low heart rate that led to a necessary pacemaker. And there are so many touching notes around the profound impact of our new hearing health feature, like a recent user who told me it had changed her life, allowing her to take part in conversations with her children and grandchildren.
These are the kind of stories that remind us of how profoundly important our work is, and it drives us to innovate each and every day. At Apple, the future is full of promise and potential. We’re always searching across a world of possibilities, finding those places where we can do the most good, and putting all of our energy and ingenuity into making something special.
Popular game series PGA Tour is coming to Apple Arcade, with PGA Tour Pro Golf set to launch on the gaming service on February 6. This will be the first PGA Tour game on Apple Arcade, and it will feature true-to-life PGA Tour locations.
In a new support document, Apple provided separate instructions on how to prevent an Apple silicon Mac from turning on when the lid is opened or when it's connected to power. Both processes require the Terminal app.
Of course, Apple Intelligence is free to anyone with a Mac using Apple silicon, but Grammarly also offers a free version with limited features. If you need assistance with your text and find Apple Intelligence too clumsy, consider trying Grammarly’s free version. It might be adequate for your needs, or it could encourage you to subscribe to the comprehensive feature set that I’ve come to depend on.
There are two major technological barriers that I think will hamper broad adoption of Bookshop.org’s ebook sales—and unfortunately, they’re both out of Bookshop’s control. One is due to the current status quo of the publishing industry when it comes to technology, and the other is…drumroll…Apple.
You don’t have to be in the Super Bowl stadium to be exposed to a lot of noise during the game. A new Apple Watch study found that noise levels across America are significantly higher than normal for about nine hours on Super Bowl Sundays.
Back to work today. And now: weekend!
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Thanks for reading.
Major League Soccer returns to Apple TV next month, and starting today, fans in more than 100 countries and regions can sign up for MLS Season Pass to catch all the action throughout the 30th anniversary season.
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“MLS Season Pass delivers fans exactly what they want, connecting them with the game they love across all of their devices, with no blackouts,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “Heading into our third year with MLS, we’re excited to continue elevating the fan experience and can’t wait for the season to begin.”
After a couple of seasons as an Apple exclusive, Major League Soccer and Apple are broadening the reach of MLS Season Pass for this season. [...] These are interesting moves, and suggest that Apple and MLS are not satisfied with the reach of MLS Season Pass solely within the TV app. Both parties are trying to balance Apple’s desire to use MLS as a gateway into Apple’s ecosystem and the need to improve total subscriber numbers.
Mythic Quest’s new fourth season still gets in its fair share of solid digs at gaming culture. But the show feels like even more of a character-driven narrative that’s trying to show you how every member of the MQ crew is evolving as they move deeper into their careers.
If you’re the sort of person who likes to collect a lot of data about your hobbies and track things in your life, Game Tracker is perfect for you. It’s the kind of app that makes dipping in and out of a large collection of games easy because you’ll know which games are active and where you are in each. I love that you can leave yourself notes for the next time you resume a game, and the tagging feature lets me do things like remember which of my many retro handhelds I’m using for a particular game – a very NPC problem, I know. But even if you aren’t playing dozens of games across a pile of hardware, Game Tracker is one of the best ways to natively manage your videogame collection and playtime across multiple devices.
A little polish and easier access to full disk access could go a long way, but otherwise this is a backup utility worth looking into if you want more control over snapshot archives than Apple tends to offer with Time Machine.
Want to take that full season of “Squid Game” to go? Now Netflix customers using iOS apps can download all episodes of a series season with one tap — more than three years after the feature launched on Android.
Mehta said that there would be the direct delay caused by additional testimony; likely additional delays caused by Apple not limiting its testimony to the specific issues raised; and by opening the floodgates to similar requests from other companies like Samsung and AT&T, with whom Google has similar arrangements.
The judge will, however, allow Apple to submit an amicus brief, which he will consider in reaching his final ruling.
So, if you want your installation of macOS 15.0 to pass the UNIX® 03 certification test suites, you need to disable System Integrity Protection, enable the root account, enable core file generation, disable timeout coalescing, mount any APFS partitions with the strictatime option, format your APFS partitions case-sensitive (by default, APFS is case-insensitive, so you’ll need to reinstall), disable Spotlight, copy the binaries uucp, uuname, uustat, and uux from /usr/bin to /usr/local/bin and the binaries uucico and uuxqt from /usr/sbin to /usr/local/bin, set the setuid bit on all of these binaries, add /usr/local/bin to your PATH before /usr/bin and /usr/sbin, enable the uucp service, and handle the mystery issues listed in the four Temporary Waivers.
“MLC cannot plausibly claim that having access to audiobooks is not something of intrinsic and monetary value to many, even if only a fraction of Spotify’s millions of Premium subscribers may take advantage of it,” the judge wrote. “The court can draw only one conclusion: that 15 hours of monthly audiobook streaming is a product or service that has more than token value.”
For whatever reasons, Apple either doesn't want to, or not allowed to sell Major League Soccer to where I am. I still don't know why. (Not that I am motivated to find out why.)
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Happy second day of the year of snake.
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Apple-designed chips powering Macs, iPhones, and iPads contain two newly discovered vulnerabilities that leak credit card information, locations, and other sensitive data from the Chrome and Safari browsers as they visit sites such as iCloud Calendar, Google Maps, and Proton Mail.
The vulnerabilities, affecting the CPUs in later generations of Apple A- and M-series chip sets, open them to side channel attacks, a class of exploit that infers secrets by measuring manifestations such as timing, sound, and power consumption. Both side channels are the result of the chips’ use of speculative execution, a performance optimization that improves speed by predicting the control flow the CPUs should take and following that path, rather than the instruction order in the program.
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The researchers published a list of mitigations they believe will address the vulnerabilities allowing both the FLOP and SLAP attacks. They said that Apple officials have indicated privately to them that they plan to release patches. In an email, an Apple representative declined to say if any such plans exist.
Writing Tools, in particular, can and should be better. I write a little on my iPhone, but I write a lot on my Mac — not just posts here, but also emails, messages, and social media posts. A more advanced spelling and grammar checker that has at least some contextual awareness sounds very appealing to me. This is a letdown, and because of so many basic reasons. I do not need Apple Intelligence to be the apex of current technology. What I do expect, at the very least, is that it is user-friendly and feels at home on Apple’s own platforms. It needs work.
To be more sensitive about the public mood, I think they probably should have kept notification summaries as an opt-in feature, even if Apple Intelligence in general is turned on by default now. That’s the only real critique of this I can field.
Among the numerous security updates, the iOS/iPadOS 18.3, macOS Sequoia 15.3, watchOS 11.3, tvOS 18.3, and visionOS 2.3 updates patch a CoreMedia zero-day flaw. Exploitation of CVE-2025-24085 could allow a malicious application to access privileged parts of the system and was fixed with improved memory management.
CoreMedia is a framework used for time-based audio-visual assets such as podcast apps and other media players.
Video game studio comedy Mythic Quest returns today for season four on Apple TV+. The comedy features Rob McElhenney as Ian, a maverick game producer, and his surrounding team as they struggle to stay relevant in the modern gaming market.
Apple is continuing to promote the Beats Pill speaker, today sharing a new Valentine's Day-themed short ad that uses the cute anthropomorphized "Pill People" characters to highlight battery life.
The app lets me instantly restore all my app windows to my preferred sizes and positions, whether I’m using my MacBook Pro in standalone mode or hooked up to my external monitor.
Folder Preview lets you expand Quick Look's full functionality to folders. You select a folder, press the Spacebar, and Folder Preview will let you see all the files and folders inside of it, without actually opening it.
In the span of two key presses, your app is open, boom. And it's not just limited to apps. You can use it to open URLs (works with any apps that expose URLs to third-party apps) and trigger commands or scripts. It essentially makes everything on your Mac just a few keystrokes away.
Some apps may surprise you. For example, why would a calendar app need access to the health data on your phone? Why would a calculator require your list of contacts? It’s a good idea to ask yourself these questions before downloading any new apps. If the answer doesn’t seem obvious, don’t download the app. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the most invasive apps that may be on your phone right now.
Welcome to the year of the snake.
Snakes!
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Apple has released its third major set of operating system updates, including macOS 15.3 Sequoia, iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, watchOS 11.3, visionOS 2.3, tvOS 18.3, and HomePod Software 18.3. Enhancements to Apple Intelligence dominate the release notes, though Apple also fixed a few bugs and addressed numerous security vulnerabilities.
The company also released iPadOS 17.7.4, macOS 14.7.3 Sonoma, macOS 13.7.3 Ventura, and Safari 18.3 for Sonoma and Ventura, all of which include security updates from the current operating systems. For the second consecutive release, Apple again did not update iOS 17 to align with iPadOS 17, presumably because all iPhones capable of running iOS 17 can also support iOS 18.
This issue only applies to Apple Watch models that are limited to watchOS 10, and it is further only applicable to those not already running watchOS 10.6.1, an update that came out last August. Apple will likely fix this issue in the near future.
Apple today unveiled a new Black Unity Collection to honor Black History Month, and celebrate Black culture and community. Inspired by the rhythm of humanity, the collection includes a special-edition Apple Watch Black Unity Sport Loop, a matching watch face, and iPhone and iPad wallpapers.
As part of the launch, Apple is supporting several global organizations whose work focuses on elements of rhythm, creativity, and community.
One reason Apple stands to get a win from cheaper AI training is because it "rightly focuses on how to integrate AI as a product, rather than building the most cutting-edge models," William Kerwin, tech analyst at Morningstar, said.
It could integrate LLM models and improve Apple Intelligence at a cheaper rate than competitors, and ultimately keep costs down for consumers, Kerwin said.
Apple regularly releases new firmware for the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max, but the company has historically provided limited information on how to initiate an update. That changed today, and Apple updated its AirPods firmware support page with more specific instructions.
Apple has released a new version of its Sports app for iPhone with three new features. These include better navigation with swiping between pages, more soccer event support, and broadcast info for where to watch national games.
Self-described as one of the fastest-growing music licensing platforms worldwide, Audiio provides access to an ever-growing library of music options to brands, agencies, filmmakers, and creators in over 150 countries.
The game was back up and running as of January 20, and on January 24, Second Dinner said that Marvel Snap would return to the App Store as soon as this week. Along with re-adding Marvel Snap to the App Store, Apple removed Marvel Snap from its list of ByteDance apps that are not being distributed in the U.S. at the current time. Second Dinner has not yet provided details on the situation with ByteDance, or if it has secured a new publisher.
A Redditor going by “frk1974” (possibly not their real name) says they were involved in a serious car accident in which their MacBook Pro was severely damaged: an accompanying photo shows a machine that is catastrophically bent and buckled. Worse still, when they went to Apple to ask for this to be covered by AppleCare+, they were told that it could not be replaced because it was “too damaged.”
The verdict reaffirms the high bar in convincing a jury that any alleged similarities between two works constitute copyright infringement. Copyright law doesn’t protect general ideas — or incidents, characters and settings considered standard in the treatment of particular topics (think a priest in a movie about possession) — only the particular expression of those ideas. In this case, jurors found that Shyamalan didn’t steal protectable elements of Gregorini’s film, which allegedly included everything from plot, characters and directing to camera angles, lighting, props and set design, in the Apple TV+ series.
There are things on computers that, with years of experience, I've learnt not to trust. For example: progress bars. We know that the only way a computer can predict the time needed to do a task is to actually do it. And even then, you may not get the same results if you do it twice with the same data. Don't believe a single word when the computer tells you it will take n minutes to migrate your stuff.
Also: AI.
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If a thief ever steals an iPhone out of your bag or even snatches it from your grasp, panic sets in immediately. You also may have a lot more to worry about beyond just the cost of replacing the phone. What if they saw me enter the passcode and now have easy access to all of my messages, photos, and sensitive information? While it definitely sucks to have your smartphone nabbed, turning on Apple’s Stolen Device protection can immediately cut thieves’ access to your smartphone data. This feature is not automatically enabled and needs to be activated before the crime occurs.
I absolutely love the new Camera Control button on iPhone 16, but the default settings aren’t for me. By default, I find it too slow to activate and too accident prone when taking photos. Fortunately, Apple gives you fairly granular control over Camera Control — even if the toggles are scattered around in the Settings app.
We might have just gotten our best look yet at Apple’s next affordable iPhone SE, shown in both video and photographs of what’s either a real phone or a convincing dummy unit. Despite some reports that the next SE would adopt recent iPhones’ Dynamic Island design, this model appears to stick with the older notch.
Gurman believes the home hub will be "Apple's most significant release of the year," as it represents the company's "first step toward a bigger role in the smart home." In his newsletter, he said the device will be like a "smaller and cheaper iPad" that lets users "control appliances, conduct FaceTime chats, and handle other tasks."
So, here’s a nightmare scenario: You open your work Slack on your phone so you can DM with a few colleagues. You talk with this group regularly, but you don’t see the chat in the list of active DMs on your phone, so you select all of the participants individually to pick the conversation back up. Without thinking too much of it, you accept an odd prompt that asks, “Do you want to include the entire chat history?”
Because yes, you think, of course it should include the chat history of the group DM you’ve been chatting in for ages. Who has time for this? There is business to conduct! Essential facts to convey! But the answer here is no, you do not want to do that. Because if you do, you will have ported your entire DM history with the first person you selected for the chat into the group DM.
A pseudonymous coder has created and released an open source “tar pit” to indefinitely trap AI training web crawlers in an infinitely, randomly-generating series of pages to waste their time and computing power. The program, called Nepenthes after the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants which trap and consume their prey, can be deployed by webpage owners to protect their own content from being scraped or can be deployed “offensively” as a honeypot trap to waste AI companies’ resources.
All great stories are realist. I recently discovered this enduring truth by watching a TV show—neither realist nor, it must be confessed, a book. Television has ruined the imaginations of many writers, so it’s nice when the medium does us a favor. Returning with a second season on January 17th, AppleTV’s Severance is a compelling case-study for how the best stories are obsessed with reality, with getting some part of our world into the work in a way that surprises, confronts, offends, or distills our understanding. This is especially true when it comes to what we call genre storytelling.
There are two bugs, on macOS and iOS respectively, that force me to reboot the computers.
On macOS, I do use the accessibility feature Zoom quite a bit. I use it, for example, to zoom in to read comic strips. And when zoomed in, the screen is supposed to follow my mouse pointer and scroll. The bug is that the screen will sometimes refuse to scroll.
On iOS, I have a Shortcuts widget on the Today's View. When the bug hits, this widget became unresponsive, refusing to do anything when I tap on the shortcut buttons.
In both instances, I have no idea what I can do, except to reboot.
Remember when we have to reboot our computers quite frequently before Mac OS X? Of course Apple's operating systems have come a long way since then, and it is definitely more reliable nowadays, but it certainly looks like we still don't have forever uptime yet.
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When you install Inscreen, you can choose which apps you find distracting, set a daily limit for those apps, and you’re all set up. Once configured, the app will begin sending you alerts if you’re spending too much time in one of your distracting apps.
The operator has raised concerns that the rise of virtual “eSims” that replace Sim cards could see smartphone makers tighten their grip on the market.
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Physical Sim cards have long been a critical link between network operators and their customers. But the growth of eSims means BT and its rivals risk losing ground to the likes of Apple and Samsung, who are increasingly selling phones directly to consumers.
M. Night Shyamalan was cleared of copyright infringement in the $81 million lawsuit over the Apple TV+ series Servant, with a jury unanimously ruling in favor of the director Friday.
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The jury — after watching both the three episodes of the supernatural Servant and entirety of the coming-of-age drama The Truth About Emanuel — deliberated Friday and ultimately found Shyamalan and Apple TV+ were not liable in the lawsuit, ruling in favor of the filmmaker and putting an end to the five-year legal ordeal.
The rumors of iPhone Air does excites me. Not because I want a thinner iPhone this year to replace my recently-purchased iPhone Pro.
What excites me is that Apple may be pursuing a new line of smartphones that is the thinnest and lightest. If the history of MacBook Air is of any indications, the first few iterations may not be right for most people. It may be too expensive for the compromises one has to take. But if Apple doesn't lose interest and continue to refine the product line, this may be the iPhone to get.
Just like the MacBook Air fitted in a envelope, the iPhone Air may one day fit in a wallet, and I will start carrying a wallet again, just so I can also carry a few notes and coins for the occasional purchases from vendors that doesn't take Apple Pay.
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Apple Inc. executive Kim Vorrath, a company veteran known for fixing troubled products and bringing major projects to market, has a new job: whipping artificial intelligence and Siri into shape.
Vorrath, a vice president in charge of program management, was moved to Apple’s artificial intelligence and machine learning division this week, according to people with knowledge of the matter. She’ll be a top deputy to AI chief John Giannandrea, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the change hasn’t been announced publicly.
My sense is that it’s less about Siri and Apple Intelligence being more important than VisionOS, and more about Siri being a mess. More about urgency than importance. But perhaps it’s both more urgent and more important long-term. Either way, assigning Vorrath — perhaps Apple’s best fixer, and without question one of Apple’s best fixers — makes sense.
PowerPoint is still a fantastic way to build a presentation, and while there are new rivals to its throne, it remains surprisingly flexible and easy to use thanks to a robust feature set.
Momenta has issued version 20 of Agenda, adding support for collapsing note sections and text filtering of notes. The date-focused note-taking app now allows you to select any heading to fold that section to hide it away (particularly useful with nested sections within a long list).
Daniel Alm has issued Timing 2025.1, a brief maintenance release with helpful improvements for the time and productivity tracking app. The update adds the capability to create rules based on the day of the week (such as filters showing only times spent on weekends).
You might also want to place an AirTag in a location that’s difficult to reach or requires disassembly to get to, and you’d ordinarily avoid with the knowledge you would need to get to it every several months to replace the battery. That could be useful if you want to put an AirTag somewhere that a thief couldn’t remove it without substantial effort, taking minutes or even hours, but where the AirTag’s Bluetooth signal will still penetrate to reach nearby devices.
This particular API appears to be a direct response to challenges faced by apps with unconventional monetization models, such as Patreon, an online platform that enables creators to offer paid memberships to their audiences. In 2022, Apple required Patreon to adopt the App Store's billing system for in-app purchases.
Apple’s newly released Advanced Commerce API tackles two key challenges: managing large catalogs of in-app purchases or subscriptions, and offering bundled subscriptions with add-ons. While most developers won’t need this API, it’s a significant improvement for apps that do.
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For eligible apps, this API could significantly streamline product management and open up new monetization options. For the broader developer community, it signals Apple’s continued investment in improving the App Store’s commerce capabilities.
iOS 18 adoption is on pace with iOS 17 adoption last year, according to iOS 18 adoption statistics provided by Apple. iOS 18 is installed on 76 percent of iPhones introduced in the last four years, while 63 percent of iPads from the last four years are running iPadOS 18.
Immersive Video on the Vision Pro is one of the product’s must-try experiences, and Apple’s first new release of the year—Man Vs. Beast—arrives next week to take you on a bull-riding adventure.
Apple TV+ has signed its first ever agreement with professional bodies representing the French audiovisual sector committing the platform to investment obligations in local and European productions.
The accord, which does not cover cinema, will see the platform adhere to obligations set out in France’s 2021 SMAD decree governing investment quotas and media windows for all subscription-based, pay-per-view and free VOD services operating in the country.
Apple purchased the property at 815 Boylston Street in the Back Bay neighborhood for $88 million, the Boston Business Journal reported. The deal works out to more than $3,500 per square foot and represents one of the priciest commercial deals in the state in recent memory.
If I were in charge of Apple Intelligence, I will concentrate on improving stuff that helps in the creative process. Writing tools, image generation, and such. The idea is to use generative AI as a tool, to help people do better work. And to make sure it is a real human that presses the button labeled "Send" or "Publish" or "Post".
I will drop stuff that is meant for consumption, where there isn't a real human that 'approves' the generated product. Leave the job of headline writing to other humans.
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Following a class action lawsuit that alleges some Apple Watch bands contain toxic "forever chemicals," also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), Apple has ensured that Apple Watch bands are "safe for users to wear."
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Despite saying Apple Watch bands are safe to wear, Apple plans to phase out PFAS.
So, how did Siri do? With the absolute most charitable interpretation, Siri correctly provided the winner of just 20 of the 58 Super Bowls that have been played. That’s an absolutely abysmal 34% completion percentage. If Siri were a quarterback, it would be drummed out of the NFL.
What hadn’t occurred to me until now is that not only is OpenAI getting no money from Apple out of this arrangement, but that the net brand equity they’re getting from it might be negative. These Super Bowl and high school basketball queries are handled perfectly by ChatGPT when using it directly — but Siri’s attribution makes it look like ChatGPT is to blame for these utterly and at times laughably wrong bungled answers. As it stands, Apple is getting a scapegoat more than a partner out of this deal.
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
The elegantly designed PolyCapture, from the German developer Martin Lexow, enables the simultaneous recording of multiple sources: a video feed, a microphone, and actions on the Mac screen. This capability is particularly helpful for those who want their final video to switch fluidly between camera angles, Mac windows, and audio tracks.
Last night, at more than 1,600 restaurants in 325-plus cities around the globe, approximately 20,000 people gathered for dinner with complete strangers. It’s what the creator of Timeleft—a French app that has been arranging impromptu dinner dates among strangers all over the world for the past year and a half—sees as a small but useful contribution to the fight against global loneliness.
Alongside RAW image editing, Luminar Mobile 2.2 introduces a new edit history feature that tracks and saves all user modifications, enabling photographers to return to earlier versions of their edits. This is an essential part of a non-destructive image editing workflow.
Apple today confirmed that "several" car makers still plan to support next-generation CarPlay in future vehicle models. Apple said each car brand will share more details as they near the announcements of these vehicles, but it did not provide a timeframe. Apple previously said next-generation CarPlay would launch in 2024, but that did not happen.
Arguably no company has ever used architecture to define its brand more successfully than Apple has in the 21st-century, and for its HQ the technology company set the lofty intention of creating "the best office building in the world".
I really hate having to do stuff like shaving. And that's all I have to say.
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I use Safari password AutoFill, because it's extremely convenient, but I don't rely on Apple Passwords to store the sole copy of my passwords. When I create a new online account, I generate the (long, random) password separately, save it in my login keychain, and then enter the password in the web form for Safari to save too. This is the only way to ensure my passwords get proper backups.
Software developer Ryan Chenkie spotted the malicious campaign on Google, noting threat actors have been running malicious advertising campaigns on Google’s network promoting a fake version of Homebrew, an open source package manager for macOS and Linux.
“Developers, please be careful when installing Homebrew,” he said. “Google is serving sponsored links to a Homebrew site clone that has a cURL command to malware. The URL for this site is one letter different than the official site.”
Over time, these tools haven’t just helped me complete tasks, but they’ve also actually shifted my habits. I rarely dread sitting down to work anymore because my system of connected tech tools helps remove decision fatigue and distraction.
Designed by Apple's in-house team, Apple Miami Worldcenter occupies a standalone pavilion that continues the aesthetic of previous Apple Stores while nodding to art deco architecture in Miami.
"We were inspired by softer, undulating surfaces and the articulation of mass found in the local art deco architecture to create a lighter, more dynamic result," Apple retail design lead BJ Siegel told Dezeen.
The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the Northern District of California, specifically targets three Apple Watch bands: The Sport Band that comes stock with new basic model Apple Watches, the Ocean Band, and the Nike Sport Band that ships with Nike-branded Apple Watches. Apple describes all three as being made from fluoroelastomer, which the lawsuit alleges conceals the presence of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
On Tuesday, California Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman filed an order that largely denies Apple's motions to strike the class allegations and suspend several class claims. This allows what one lawyer representing women suing, Joseph Sellers, said was "a very important case that impacts thousands of current and former female Apple employees."
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According to workers suing, Apple has three policies that seemingly perpetuate and widen gender pay gaps. Allegedly, Apple relies upon "prior pay and pay expectations to set starting salaries," uses performance evaluations that "reward" men and "penalize" women "for the same behaviors," and uses "talent" reviews to pay men more than women "with similar levels of talent."
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching “strategic market status” (SMS) investigations into the mobile ecosystems of Apple and Google.
The investigations constitute part of the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act that passed last year and came into effect in January. The Act includes new powers for the CMA to designate companies as having strategic market status if they are deemed to be overly dominant, and propose remedies and interventions to improve competition.
The Industry Ministry has revealed that US technology giant Apple plans to invest approximately $200 million in an AirTag device manufacturing plant on Batam Island. This amount is significantly lower than the previously reported $1 billion investment pledge.
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The discrepancy arose because the government’s calculations did not account for export value projections and raw material supplies, which were included in Apple’s proposal, he explained.
Apple and other smartphone makers are being pressed by India to pre-install government-developed apps on devices before sale, echoing a similar 2021 demand from Russia that Apple ultimately complied with.
The request came during a meeting last month where government officials outlined plans for expanding access to state digital services, according to Bloomberg.
I am using a cross-platform password manager, and by cross-platform, I meant platforms other than Apple's. But I do save a few passwords in Apple's password manager too, just as a convenience thing.
Cross platform is very important to me, so I am hoping Apple is busy expanding password management onto iCloud.com.
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Now that I regularly wear the Apple Watch at night, the Health app sometimes warns me that my heart rate has dropped below 40 bpm for more than 10 minutes. I’m unperturbed by occasional warnings, but if they were to become more frequent, another discussion with the cardiologist might be warranted.
I was more intrigued when Apple announced that watchOS 11 would feature a new Vitals app for tracking heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen, and sleep duration. Only respiratory rate and wrist temperature were new, but Apple suggested that combining all five could provide a greater understanding of daily health status.
A key to this entire approach is that I wanted to be able to plug into either desk with a single Thunderbolt cable to supply all data connectivity and power. One cable, one plug, and I’m in or out.
After installing the software, iPhone 16 users will be able to add an event to the Calendar app when using the Camera Control Visual Intelligence option to view a poster or a flyer.
When installing macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3, or iPadOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be turned on automatically on compatible devices, Apple says in the developer release notes for the updates.
A simple, if somewhat basic, first step into the world of passwords managers. Best of all, it costs you nothing to use it. Probably should be avoided if you use some non-Apple devices, but otherwise it’s a nice addition to Apple’s suite of bespoke apps.
The company was able to implement the feature because Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely make a call to their server to get information about the caller.
There is the old saying “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Coming up on the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War there is a new Apple TV+ docuseries Vietnam: The War That Changed America. It premieres January 31, Each of the six episodes, narrated by Ethan Hawke, provides a riveting look at the times as told by those who lived them.
Its global head of music partnerships and business programmes, Bryce McLaughlin, gave a keynote presentation at our Music Ally Connect conference in London to discuss how Apple Music tackles music fraud and stream manipulation.
“This is a really important topic for the industry today. It’s not a new topic for us at Apple Music: it’s something we’ve been focused on for many years… but it’s something we haven’t talked about publicly. We’re going to change that today,” said McLaughlin.
Indonesia is close to a deal with Apple Inc for an investment plan that could lift a ban on iPhone 16 sales in the country, investment minister Rosan Roeslani told Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
"Hopefully within one or two weeks this issue can be resolved", Roeslani told Bloomberg Television in Davos, Switzerland.
I took a long walk this afternoon when I discovered I misjudged my traveling time and had quite some time to spare before my meeting. And even though it was in an industrial estate, I quite enjoyed the walk, peeking in at all those factories and their feng-shui water fountains at their doorsteps.
I will miss my legs if I do get more difficulties in walking when I grow old.
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There will be a lot of things about my body, I suspect, that I will miss when I grow old.
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Thanks for reading.
“I think one of the things I love about Apple Watch, the fitness ecosystem and Apple Fitness+, is that we work really deeply, not only with our software teams to build the features, but with our design teams to make sure that everything we build is easy to use, even if it's your first time trying it. So whether you're starting your first workout or whether you're spending your first week closing your activity rings, we want to make it as simple as possible to get going. And so even though there is a lot there, we feel really strongly that most people who find their way in find it really easy to get going, and then they're able to build on the features that they love.”
Microsoft Word remains king of the word processors, and while it definitely has some stylistic choices that may push some away, it’s combination of affordability and flexibility make it tough to beat.
Disguised inside a thin, credit-card form factor, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder connects to the Find My app on your iPhone, so you can follow its location, and it even houses a speaker so you can make it beep to help you find your wallet when it inevitably gets lost somewhere in your home.
Mohammed posted a video on X Thursday explaining that some of his show dates for the “Show Pony” tour had to be rescheduled. “I know there’ll be a lot of speculation as to why I moved these dates … I’ll be honest, it is for some filming that I’ve not been able to shift.”
While Mohammed teased that listening to fan guesses is “the last thing I want,” he briefly held up a sign that read “BELIEVE” — an irrefutable reference to Season 3 of “Ted Lasso.”
Thinking about forging a multi-million or even billion-dollar deal with Apple? Hey, we’ve all been there. You’re sitting around on a Tuesday afternoon, watching old episodes of Columbo in your underwear while eating string cheese that’s past its best-by date and you think, “I should do a big-time deal with Apple!”
Well, hold on, Fabio (can the Macalope call you “Fabio”?). Before you ink that deal, you might want to take a look at how some of the other partners Apple’s taken on over the years have faired. Because it’s not always great for the other guy.
An investigating magistrate has been appointed in Belgium after Democratic Republic of the Congo in December filed criminal complaints accusing Apple subsidiaries of using so-called conflict minerals in their supply chain, a lawyer for Congo said Monday.
So, I was searching for a photo in the Photos app on my iPhone, and one of the prompts provided is "Singapore in Winter."
There is no such season as 'winter' in Singapore. (We have only two seasons: hot + humid, and hot + humid + raining.)
I don't know whether these search prompts are powered by Apple Intelligence, but I am going to blame it anyway.
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Thanks for reading.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said iPhone SE inventory is "quickly" dwindling at a "large number" of Apple Store locations in the U.S., and he believes this is a "reliable sign" that a new model is on the horizon.
In his witness statement, Parekh said Apple “cannot allocate all indirect costs to specific products or services”. He added: “Any attempt to allocate these types of costs would involve imprecise and subjective judgments.”
The video celebrates Wren’s love for music, pride in Vietnamese creativity and inspires others to follow the creative path too. The end effect is a fresh and honest expression of Vietnam’s culture of creativity.
The deep integration of social networking, online sales and digital reading in China points towards a book world that is led by readers and centred on social media platforms. Could “social reading”, as shaped by China, become a wider trend?
These innovations undoubtedly stem from China’s unique conditions: the domination of super apps and its vibrant mobile reading culture. But they provide a vision of what the future of reading may look like: deeply connected with social networking and digital life. And a book business that is increasingly linked to social media – even becoming an integral part of its ecosystems.
After upgrading my iPhone from 12 mini to 16 Pro, I've find that the battery can comfortably last the entire day for me. For that, I am glad.
My iPhone now joins my MacBook Air as another device that I don't have to worry about charging in the middle of the day.
My Windows 11 laptop at work, though, couldn't even last through a three-hour morning meeting that other day.
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The video features “64 videos on 64 iPhones” and makes use of clever framing, choreography, and edits to tie it all together. Not only were all the videos shot on iPhone, but the iPhones are the star of the video.
Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates. Pursuant to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, apps developed by ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries — including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and others — will no longer be available for download or updates on the App Store for users in the United States starting January 19, 2025.
[...]
If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible.
The card game battler set in the Marvel universe is developed by Second Dinner, which is based in California. But the game is published by Nuverse, a company owned by ByteDance. As a result, it’s subject to the same shutdown order.
PostPocket is a simple tool, aiming to help users keep track of various links, posts, articles, videos, or anything from across the internet. It allows you to save everything in one centralized place.
When I am sad, and if I do want to cheer myself up, one of the thing I do is to watch some music videos from OK Go over at YouTube.
And the latest video, A Stone Only Rolls Downhill, gave me so much joy. Especially so once I realized, as claimed by the band, they are all single-take videos. (This last sentence probably doesn't make sense to you until you have watched the music video.)
(My favorite OK Go video is still White Knuckles.)
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If season one darkly satirised corporate greed and rebellion, season two lays bare disingenuous corporation damage control and co-option, in ways once again sure to spark Reddit theories. Nothing is quite as it seems.
[...]
This new series comes at a time when the balance of power is arguably shifting in favour of employers again, after a total of 100 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021 and 2022 in what Stanford economics professor Nicholas Bloom called the Great Resignation.
(Note: Contains spoilers for the first episode of the new season.)
“Severance” Season 2 premiered Thursday night after a nearly three-year delay from the first season’s release. The anticipation is high, and viewers will likely be following each episode closely to unpack the mystery of Lumon and its Severed workers.
Thousands of people with mild or moderate hearing loss could have their lives changed thanks to a combination of technological innovation and the Government’s Plan for Change. New regulations announced this week will allow innovative devices and software to power patient-driven healthcare specifically around hearing loss.
[...]
Businesses have now been given the green light to sell ground-breaking products, like Apple AirPods, earphones and apps with hearing test and aid functions.
Later this month, a FireAid Benefit Concert is being held in support of the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. Headlined by the likes of Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Dave Matthews, and Katy Perry, the concert aims to raise donations for wildfire relief efforts.
Parallels Desktop 20 is an impressive upgrade, and a strong focus on developers and AI means it is now a powerful tool for developers on all platforms.
It turns out that I was wrong about boredom. Danckert tells me it’s actually “a highly motivated state – but in the moment it’s frustrating because you want to be doing something that matters to you but you can’t find an outlet for that motivation”.
[...]
So I decide this challenge is no longer about wanting to be bored, but learning how to tolerate the sensations of boredom so that I have the space to train my attention on where I am and want to be.
One of the perverse pleasures of a dystopia is that we identify with its truth-seeking inhabitants as they try to find out who ruined their world—and, at the same time, we sense that we probably did. The desolation outside the Silo evokes the everyday terrors of our time: only a few years ago, governments ordered their citizens to shelter in place for fear of a novel virus, and, as I write this, many residents of Los Angeles have fled their homes in the face of wildfires or are staying indoors to avoid the smoke. Post-apocalyptic stories can, paradoxically, be comforting: at least the present day isn’t that bad. On the other hand, we may be drawn to dystopias because we fear we live in one.
Yes, I very much enjoyed the first episode of Severence season 2. Who knows how the rest of the season will go, but this first episode maintained the quality of the first season throughout.
On the other hand, I didn't quite enjoy Silo season 2, as compared to the previous season. The pacing in the first season wasn't that great, and this season, just concluded over at Apple TV+, seemed to have worse pacing to my layperson's eyes.
Spoilers for Silo season 2: This is not a criticism, but if different communities were to be isolated from each other for many hundreds of years, I'm expecting the language used to have diverged from each so much that the people from the different communities will not understand each other's languages all that well. Of course, if the language used is realistic, no one will watch the show. :-)
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Thanks for reading.
"With the latest beta software releases of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable," an Apple spokesperson added.
[...]
Apple had previously promised only a software update that would clarify the role of AI in creating the summaries, which were optional and only available to readers with the latest iPhones.
Turning off summaries for an entire category is a quick fix, though it doesn’t address the larger long-term problem of inaccuracy. Empowering users to turn things off more easily is good, and styling them differently from regular notifications is important.
The 18.3 changes don’t really address the root issue which is not, “how can we use this LLM that summarizes things to reduce notifications?” But rather, “How can we reduce unnecessary and disruptive notifications?” Remember that the software features allegedly exist to solve problems, so we should take a step back and look at the problem before we keep picking apart the solution they shipped.
After adding an eligible Synchrony Mastercard to the Apple Wallet app, iPhone and iPad users running iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 can select from fixed monthly payment options during the Apple Pay checkout process.
Apple launched its dedicated Apple Store app in India on Friday, deepening its retail presence in the world’s most populous country as the iPhone-maker seeks to capitalize on growing consumer demand.
It’s a Mac menu bar app that, as the name suggests, lets you change your Mac’s default browser on demand. Just head to the menu bar, and with a couple of clicks, you can switch between any browsers you have installed.
Vision Pro’s $3,499 launch price reflects its position as a technological pioneer with significant compromises. Like the original Air, it trades practical limitations for breakthrough capabilities. It’s not an easy product to make, and it’s severely limited by what consumers can do with it, but just like the original MacBook Air, it shows what’s possible with time. If anything, Air’s 17th birthday should be a good reminder: The Vision Pro will eventually spawn more accessible variants while maintaining premium options.
Season 2 of the Apple TV+ comedy has been shut down after Noel Fielding pulled out around three-quarters of the way through the shoot.
The Sun newspaper first reported on Dick Turpin’s demise. Deadline understands that Season 2 cannot be salvaged and that producer Big Talk Studios has disbanded the cast and crew.
I believe I have already kept to a minimum the number of apps that can push notifications to my iPhone. So, in a sense, this feature of summarizing notifications is not of much use to me.
I did eventually turn off this feature though, not because of inaccurate summaries or that I don't need to see summaries. Rather, for the remaining apps that can push notifications to me, I wouldn't want any delays. And I was afraid, intentionally or otherwise, turning on this feature may mean some notifications don't arrive on my phone immediately.
(It may be a coincidence that there were notifications that arrived on my iPhone later than usual when I first trying out this feature. I cannot be sure.)
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Apple has not addressed any critiques of Camera Control other than the “we are totally shipping a half-press focus lock” promise from the launch. Anecdotally, most people use it as a Camera app launcher or shutter button that’s easier to reach than the volume-up button. Yay?
There are ways to reverse each of these changes (the force switching and the Off removal), but whole process was a major pain as a user to figure out, it wasn’t simple to reverse even once I knew how to, and there wasn’t any heads up that I remember getting from Apple explaining the changes. This led to me and a lot of people being confused.
Concerns have now been raised with Apple by multiple news organisations over the AI summary feature, which is available on iPhones with Apple Intelligence.
The feature "must be revoked", the National Union of Journalists told Sky News, as the "inaccurate news summaries shared to audiences through Apple Intelligence demonstrate the feature is not fit for purpose".
“The reason we started radio was because we want to be a place where culture happens, where parties are starting, where artists come and get to have a safe space to talk about why they made certain music,” says Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of music and sports. “And that’s more important today than it ever was.”
[...]
Then again, as Lowe himself points out, he doesn’t work for a news operation. “I’m in a streaming service where we’re trying to get more people to listen to music,” says the married father of two teenage sons. “My job is to help a business be healthy.” Darden, who’s known on Hot 97 as an aggressive interviewer, says that “on Apple, I try to create more space for the art and more grace for the artist” than in the more pressurized realm of terrestrial radio.
"We have a contract with Apple to run that partnership until 2030, although there's some possibility that it won't continue until that time frame," Solomon told analysts on an earnings call.
The Apple card dragged down Goldman's return on equity by 75 to 100 basis points last year, but "that will improve in 2025 and 2026," he added.
Apple is in talks with Barclays to replace Goldman Sachs as the tech giant's credit card partner, said two sources familiar with the matter, as the Wall Street giant steps back from its consumer finance ambitions.
[...]
Negotiations between Apple and Barclays have been ongoing for several months, but it may still take months to strike a deal, the first source said.
"Our hearts go out to all impacted by the ongoing devastation in LA," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a social media post today. "In addition to Apple's donation, we're making it easy to support recovery efforts. If you're in the US, just open the App Store or Apple Music & click to donate to help make a difference." He also shared a direct link to the donation flow.
The reference management tool makes Writing Tools available where appropriate throughout the app, and the Compose option can be used on text and even files, including PDFs.
It has the essential editing tools, like exposure, saturation, temperature, tint, hue, and curves. Then it gets more sophisticated with wavelet tools for sharpening and some AI-based tools for noise reduction, star size reduction, gradient removal (for when the moon or city lights mess up your background and make it uneven), and satellite trail removal, an increasing problem for long-exposure photography when a satellite intrudes on your image.
This task manager features to-do lists, time tracking, insights, timesheets, work summaries, integration with services such as Jira, Gitlb, GitHub, Open Project and more; CalDAV integration; focus mode; break reminders; notes; bookmarks; file attachments and more.
Scott says that the functionality of the computers is a big help for his performance, noting that, often, when actors interact with a gadget, there’s nothing really there onscreen. But on Severance, each actor is able to “actually refine these numbers and come up with your own strategies and apply your own meaning to it.”
That meaning is important because, well, nobody knows what’s really going down in Lumon’s basement. They sit there clicking around a computer without understanding the importance of their work (at this point in the story, viewers don’t know the importance, either). So for the actors, actually using the computers and being just as clueless as their characters helps them better inhabit the role.
While not quite on the same scale as what Apple did with Severance at Grand Central, sending a suited Silo character to something random like an NBA game still shows Apple’s marketing team thinking outside the box and having fun.
Cook said he thinks he will always be "thinking about how tomorrow can be better than today."
"I think I'll always be wired in that way and want to work," Cook said. "I mean, I was working when I was 11 or 12."
A lot of Apple’s biggest blunders in the last decade seem tied to old ways of thinking, not adapting themselves to changing times. It has reacted to design failures like the “butterfly” keyboard in laptops slowly and tentatively. The Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses seem to exist very much in a product niche occupied by AirPods, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests that we shouldn’t expect an Apple response until 2026 at the earliest. Apple once was able to create the iPod in a crash program in a matter of months, but today’s Apple is apparently the kind of ocean liner that takes a very long time to course correct.
Yes, I am ready for the new season of Severance. I didn't rewatch the first season, but I did go through all the Wikipedia pages as well as the episodes from the podcast by Ben Stiller and Adam Scott.
I am grateful that, nowadays, movies and television shows are available to me at the same time as everybody else. When I was growing up, we'd be lucky if we even get to watch particular shows, and doubly-lucky if we get to watch it within the same year as everyone else. (Of course, there wasn't the internet back then, so spoilers are typically kept to a minimum.)
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Thanks for reading.
Apple’s Photos app employs multiple features to help you find images in your library and learn more about what’s shown in those images. One of those features is called Enhanced Visual Search. Here’s how it works and how Apple protects your privacy when you use it.
The EU denied the report, stating that “there is no such review taking place” and instead there are simply routine meetings to assess the generate state of its ongoing investigations.
At 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, Severance director Ben Stiller made an appearance at the site, with some of the show's actors visiting as well. Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, and Tramell Tillman were on hand and spent time in the makeshift office space, with the actors in character as their "innies."
Executive producer and director of the series Ben Stiller posted a video of the installation to his social accounts Tuesday, including one video of Scott mopping the office floor.
Apple does not provide release notes.
The feature started rolling out today at select mobile order locations across Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resort, the company said. Where available, the feature allows you to track the status of your mobile order on the iPhone's Lock Screen or in the Dynamic Island, without needing to open the My Disney Experience or Disneyland apps.
Apple has officially gained a board seat on the Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium, a group of more than 65 members developing next generation AI accelerator architecture. Apple’s involvement will allow the company to influence the new standard and push for its adoption. That basically means that Apple will be involved in creating and promoting a standard for connecting a bunch of GPUs together in data centers powering AI tasks.
Director M. Night Shyamalan went on trial on Tuesday over allegations that he copied from an independent film to make the Apple TV+ show “Servant.”
Francesca Gregorini, an Italian-born director, is suing Shyamalan and Apple for $81 million, alleging that the show stole key elements from her 2013 movie, “The Truth About Emanuel.”
Singapore will soon require app stores to implement measures to protect children from inappropriate apps, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced on Wednesday (Jan 15).
[...]
It highlighted two age assurance measures: Age estimation and age verification.
Age estimation relies on systems or processes to establish the likely age or age range of a user. It may use artificial intelligence, machine learning technology or facial age analysis algorithms.
Age verification relies on verified sources of identification, such as a digital ID or credit card, to determine the age or age range of a user.
As more rules are added by regulators around the world, it may be more difficult for upstarts to create new platforms and app stores that can challenge the incumbents.
Apple probably doesn't like all these regulations imposed on them to operate around the world, but, perhaps, so long as the rules are applied fairly and equally to both Apple and its competitors, Apple probably doesn't not like the rules.
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Apple's new fees for app developers have come under fresh scrutiny from the European Union's antitrust regulators on concerns it could inflate costs for software makers, Bloomberg news reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
[...]
Regulators are checking whether the re-jigged levies could be passed on to consumers, or if developers may have to tweak their own business models due to Apple's new fee structure, the report said.
They also asked whether the firm's prediction that the new system will help reduce costs for developers is accurate or not.
The European Commission is reevaluating its probes into tech giants including Apple, Meta and Alphabet's Google, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
[...]
The review could lead to Brussels reducing or changing the range of the probes, and will cover all cases launched since March 2024 under the European Union's landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA), the report said, citing sources.
There are no new iPhone threats to have emerged, as of yet, from this groundbreaking USB-C controller hacking research, so no new mitigations to be employed. However, as far as the broader threat from rogue USB attack methodologies such as the aforementioned juice-jacking, the mitigation advice is straightforward enough: if you are in the least bit concerned about this threat model, then make sure you use your own charging kit wherever you go.
Apple recently addressed a macOS vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass System Integrity Protection (SIP) and install malicious kernel drivers by loading third-party kernel extensions.
Parallels has released version 20.2 of its Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software. The update launches an early technology preview for importing and running x86_64 virtual machines initially created on Intel-based Macs on Apple silicon Macs (be aware of the preview’s significant limitations—Parallels says, “It is slow, really slow.”).
I won’t hold up this one experience as a sign that the web is dying, but it sure seems to be languishing, especially for mobile devices. And the notion that mobile web apps are closing the gap with native apps is laughable. The gulf between them is widening, not narrowing.
In October, Sonos tried to get a handle on the situation, which by then had spiraled into a full-on PR disaster, by outlining a turnaround plan. The company vowed to strengthen product development principles, increase transparency internally, and take other steps that it said would prevent any mistake of this magnitude from ever happening again. I can also report for the first time that Sonos hired a crisis management public relations firm to help navigate the ordeal.
But three months later, Sonos’ board of directors and Spence have concluded that those steps weren’t enough: the app debacle has officially cost Spence his job. No other changes are being made today, however.
Always have plan B, that's what I say. Sonos, it seems, didn't have plan B.
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To protect users from such attacks, Apple iMessage automatically disables links in messages received from unknown senders, whether that be an email address or phone number.
[...]
Over the past couple of months, BleepingComputer has seen a surge in smishing attacks that attempt to trick users into replying to a text so that links are enabled again.
Ultimately this is the quandary Apple finds itself in. When it gets privacy wrong, it’s front-page news; when it gets privacy right, hardly anyone cares. You can see why other companies leave the subject well alone.
If you own a computing device outright, you should be able to make any level of software modification you desire. hardware manufacturers should not be allowed to absolutely restrict distribution of software to their own channels under the guise of safety.
It was these thoughts buzzing through my mind that led me to start using Pixa, an app that lets you log your life in pixels and see an overview of your year. I knew that before I could make any changes, I needed to understand how I was doing and what I was giving myself to. Pixa has helped me do exactly that.
Apple may have settled on iPhone 17 Air as the name for the rumored skinny iPhone that’s expected this fall, reports Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. He writes that the phone will be “a testing ground for future technologies,” including the tech that leads to the company’s first foldables.
Apple will appear in court on Monday accused of overcharging UK customers through its App Store. The claim alleges that the company is abusing its dominant position in the app market and that its 30% commission fee is in breach of European and UK competition laws.
[...]
In a statement, Apple rejected the claim, saying the accusations were “meritless” and the company had not violated any laws.
Apple Inc. sold 5% fewer iPhones globally and lost ground to Chinese rivals in the final quarter of last year, reflecting the absence of Apple Intelligence in its largest market outside the US.
[...]
While it sold fewer units in China, Apple saw an increased proportion coming from its pricier Pro and Pro Max models, which accounted for more than half of all sales in the country.
US technology giant Apple has failed in its bid to block a South Korean security systems company from registering “Wapples” as a trademark in Singapore.
This comes after the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (Ipos) ruled on Dec 18, 2024, that Apple and “Wapples” are conceptually dissimilar and there is no reasonable likelihood of confusion between both trademarks.
Have you done this… where you get up in your comfortable chair in your living room, say, to walk to the bedroom to do something or to get something, but by the time you reach the bedroom, you have already forgotten what you are going to get or do?
Yes, I've done this myself.
And I have also done the digital version too: where I pick up my iPhone, show my face to the camera so that the phone unlocks, see the row of icons in my home screen, and then trying to remember what is it I was going to do on the phone. This latest episode happened to me earlier this evening after dinner.
Is this what getting old means?
(No, I have not done the version where I stand at the doorway, trying to remember if I am intending to go into the bedroom or go out of the bedroom. Yet.)
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Watch Duty is unique in the tech world in that it doesn’t care about user engagement, time spent, or ad sales. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit behind it only cares about the accuracy of the information it provides and the speed with which the service can deliver that information. The app itself has taken off, rocketing to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app stores. Over 1 million people have downloaded it over the last few days alone.
The elegance of the app lies in its simplicity. It doesn’t scrape user data, show ads, require any kind of login, or track your information. Its simple tech stack and UI — most of which is maintained by volunteer engineers and reporters — has likely helped save countless lives. While Watch Duty is free to use, the app accepts tax-deductible donations and offers two tiers of membership that unlock additional features, like a firefighting flight tracker and the ability to set alerts for more than four counties.
Univershuffle is a new music discovery app that shuffles all of the songs on Apple Music, completely at random – no AI or algorithms involved. It offers the ultimate experience for finding new music, so long as you’re willing to sort through a ton of songs.
You never know.
In a previous age when I had to travel around Asia for my job, one of my most enjoyable activity was to go to the airport earlier and have a nice fancy (relatively to my pay cheque) meal at a airport restaurant all by myself. Most of the airports that I ended up with are big places with crowds of people. But being alone and anonymous amid all the chaos, being uncontactable and divorced from work during a work trip, that's one of the pleasure I savored.
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While some developers continue to complain about the cost of distribution on Apple’s platforms, it must be stressed that the cost of cybercrime is expected to surpass $10 trillion this year. That means it is in the public interest for app developers — if they really want to play their part to combat cybercrime — to ensure they create and protect secure software distribution systems that do not confuse consumers.
Apple Arcade is kicking off the new year with an exciting slate of game launches, along with big updates to existing hits. Today, seven new titles are available, all with no ads or in-app purchases, including Skate City: New York, the ultimate skateboarding experience featuring iconic, real-world skate spots; Gears & Goo for Apple Vision Pro, combining elements of tower defense and classic base-building games with the interactive possibilities of spatial computing; and Three Kingdoms HEROES, the latest game in Koei Tecmo’s hit Romance of the Three Kingdoms series.
To celebrate the occasion, Apple has shared a specially-designed, garden-themed wallpaper for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. In addition, the store has an Apple Music playlist featuring some of Miami's most popular Latin music artists.
On any day when I’m supposed to be working, I have developed the habit of looking back at my day and looking for at least one thing which I really accomplished that day (ideally something tangible or visible). I tend to think about this as I’m clearing up my desk, ready to return to home life. It really doesn’t matter how big or small that thing is, but there needs to be something which I can point to.
Investors will vote on four outside proposals at next month’s annual shareholders meeting. Apple is urging shareholders to vote against those proposals, including one that calls on the company to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Various leaks have claimed that the country refused to repeal the iPhone prohibition even after Apple coughed up investment offers worth US$10 million, US$100 million, and most recently: US$1 billion. Officials also reportedly altered the terms of their demands and then called for Apple senior executives to meet with Industry Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. After landing in Jakarta, they were told the minister wasn’t available.
[...]
It lays bare a recurring obstacle for foreign firms identified by the American Chamber of Commerce in Indonesia: The gulf between what the government demands regarding local production and the capabilities and infrastructure it currently has to support high-tech manufacturing.
Started doing my annual clean-up of my shelves and cupboards and boxes and stuff, a ritual before Chinese New Year.
In the past, the question I asked myself mostly is: does this thing still have any potential uses in the future? If so, keep. If not, throw.
This year, the question has shifted: if I die tomorrow, does my family know what the heck this thing does and has uses for it, or are they going to just have to shrug and throw them out.
And that's why all the USB-A and Firewire cables are thrown out.
:-)
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Okay, I kept one 30-pin connector cable next to my old iPod that probably still have some old podcast episodes on it. For my own joy. My family will just have to spend some time to throw these away.
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Thanks for reading.
Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement.
The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games like Candy Crush and dating apps like Tinder to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. Because much of the collection is occurring through the advertising ecosystem—not code developed by the app creators themselves—this data collection is likely happening without users’ or even app developers’ knowledge.
In response to devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles, California area this week, Apple said it will be donating towards recovery efforts on the ground.
Apple and Goldman Sachs are allowing Apple Card customers who have been impacted by the fires in Los Angeles to temporarily postpone their payments if necessary.
[...]
Payment delays are being offered to Apple Card users who live in an area that has been declared a national disaster zone by FEMA, with Apple sending out notices to impacted customers.
In a support guide, Apple says that the AirPods Pro may play a sound every so often while in the case to ensure the microphones and speakers are working as intended.
Apple's annual "Back to School" or "Back to Uni" promotion has returned this week in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and South Korea.
We’ve asked Apple if they’re still looking into this problem, but we have not received a response yet. Personally, I’ve also noticed my iPhone sometimes doesn’t make sounds or vibrate in the morning, but it does drop down a lifeless notification as if it did.
At CES 2025, Satechi has unveiled the SM3 Slim Mechanical Backlit Bluetooth Keyboard, a sleek, low-profile mechanical keyboard built with Mac users in mind. It’s Satechi’s first full-size mechanical keyboard, and it’s designed to balance style, functionality, and comfort — perfect for those who want the mechanical typing experience without the bulk.
In a promotional push to boost interest for the upcoming second season, Apple has added all of Severance season one to the Roku Channel, for users to watch for free. The Roku Channel boasts more than 90 million users, making it one of the largest destinations of free streaming video content.
Maybe Apple want to bring back iAds?
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Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so.
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We believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we will continue our relentless focus on designing our products and services to protect it.
There has never been any indication that Apple shared Siri recordings, and Apple told MacRumors in a statement earlier this week that the lawsuit was settled to avoid additional litigation.
There are other explanations, and attempts to check the rumors out include an investigation in 2018 that didn’t find evidence of microphone spying but did discover that some apps secretly recorded on-screen user activity that they shipped to third parties.
Ad targeting networks also track data from people logged onto the same network or who have spent time in the same locations, so even if one person didn’t type in that search term, maybe someone else did. They can buy data from brokers who collect reams of detailed location tracking and other info from the apps on your phone, and both Google and Facebook pull in data from other companies to build out profiles based on your purchasing habits and other information.
For every Image Playground that has us wondering “who asked for this?” there’s a corollary of “why hasn’t AI solved this yet?”
The SSD has MagSafe compatibility, and it attaches to the back of an iPhone magnetically.
An included USB-C cable then connects the SSD to the iPhone, allowing the setup to be used while on-the-go. SanDisk's SSD is compatible with Apple ProRes recording.
Lacie this week introduced the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5, an SSD that uses the latest Thunderbolt 5 technology for faster transfer speeds. Apple's newest M4 Macs are equipped with Thunderbolt 5 ports that are able to take advantage of the speeds of Thunderbolt 5 accessories.
The Docker team has acknowledged the issue, confirmed that they have identified the root cause, and are actively working on a fix on priority. It assures users not to worry about the malware warnings as they are false. Docker is not harming your Mac in any way.
Mythic Quest’s third season ended on a hopeful note as the Playpen team hunkered down to start developing an all-new expansion, but all that hard work looks like it’s just going to lead to more headaches judging from the show’s latest season 4 trailer.
Judge Douglas de Melo Martins ruled this week that both Apple and Google were responsible for distributing FaceApp, which is accused of “improperly collecting sensitive data” from its users. The judge believes that the photo editor app violates the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, a law that regulates the use of the internet and digital platforms in the country.
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In response, Apple said it has no control over FaceApp’s terms of use and privacy policy as it is “distributed and maintained by a third party.” Apple also argues that the data was collected in accordance with “international standards.”
The account from people familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity discussing private matters, hints at the internal power dynamics playing out within Indonesia’s new government. It also reflects the challenges faced by global companies that want access to the vast pool of consumers in developing economies, but must contend with volatile and growingly nationalistic local politics.
I have no idea how anyone outside of Apple can verify what Apple claimed, that it didn't gave any Siri recording to third-party for advertisment and tracking.
But many of us, I suspect, will decide to believe Apple on this matter, just because of the work the company has done so far to preserve customers' privacy. No, it's not like Apple is perfect here, but the company has earned a lot of our trusts.
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NVIDIA announced at CES 2025 that it is collaborating with Apple to bring GeForce NOW to the Vision Pro using Safari, with updates to the platform expected to roll out later this month. This will enable users to access AAA titles with the power of NVIDIA's RTX technologies that leverage technologies like ray tracing and DLSS.
Cohn emphasized to Vox that Apple’s insistence that it wasn’t intentionally illegally surveilling users was probably true — because, after all, why would it need to?
“That’s a labor-intensive, compute-expensive thing to do to track us when they’ve got this cornucopia of completely legal, easy to do, low-computational ways of surveilling all of us,” she said.
Summarizing summaries isn’t working out for Apple, but more broadly I think there’s something to the idea of presenting AI-written headlines and summaries in order to provide utility to the user. As having an LLM running all the time on our devices becomes commonplace, I would love to see RSS readers (for example) that are capable of rewriting bad headlines and creating solid summaries. The key—as Artifact learned—is to build guardrails and always make it clear that the content is being generated by an LLM, not a human.
Apple should not be putting its name or logo on something it does not stand behind, and it should stand behind everything it ships.
You can hit the equals button over and over to perform new operations to your heart’s content.
On paper, the Mac Pro seems like a bad deal. But for users who need tons of storage, it’s a sleeper pick. Adding PCIe cards is still cheaper per terabyte than adding external Thunderbolt solutions. You’ll appreciate the noise reduction, the practicality, and the fast performance that fits neatly inside a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro is an excellent combination of power and beautiful design.
Apple said it will select 350 winners based on "innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity." 50 of the winners will be invited to spend three days at Apple Park in Cupertino, California this summer. The trip generally coincides with Apple's annual WWDC event, which is often held in June.
The current market is like… enforced weight training (or enforced spinning, if you have the opposite inclinations). It sucks, and it hurts, but it can also be an opportunity to expand your skills at maximizing the current situation rather than the skills to seek out a new one.
Apple is expanding in Seattle, finalizing the largest single lease of office space in the city since the pandemic’s onset.
The iPhone maker is bucking the trend of tech companies choosing Bellevue for new offices by taking more than 190,000 square feet of space in South Lake Union from Meta, according to a report from commercial brokerage Colliers.
Minister Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said Apple had struck a deal to build a facility producing its Airtag tracking device on Indonesia's Batam island, close to Singapore, but that still would not count as a locally-made iPhone part.
"There is no basis for the ministry to issue a local content certification as a way for Apple to have the permission to sell iPhone 16 because (the facility) has no direct relations," he said, adding the ministry would only count phone components.
Nowadays, almost everything that comes to me via an actual phone call or an actual SMS messages are either spams or scams. An iPod Touch with data-only eSIM can definitely make a comeback in this day and age.
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Apple has said it will update, rather than pause, a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.
The company, in its first acknowledgement of the concerns, on Monday said it was working on a software change to "further clarify" when the notifications are summaries that have been generated by the Apple Intelligence system.
Beta software contains an implicit promise that the developer will actively work to squash bugs and make the product better before it goes final. Adding a warning label in the interim is an easy band-aid, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem. Apple needs to do much more work here, and if it can’t, it needs to turn this feature off until it can release a version it can stand behind.
I think it’s correct for Apple to leave this in control of users, not developers. But Apple really does need to make it more clear what is an AI-generated summary and what is a verbatim original notification. And, of course, it really needs to reduce the number of these errors.
In a statement to 9to5Mac today, Apple said it settled the case so it can “move forward from concerns about third-party grading that we already addressed in 2019.”
The company says that Siri data has “never been used to build marketing profiles, and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose.”
The iPhone maker is considering adding new countries to the platform, which reaches about 125mn people every month in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, according to people familiar with the plans.
It was also considering building its locally focused news coverage in the UK, the people said, while adding its puzzles section in the country which is currently only available in the US and Canada.
Apple hopes that scaling up its News app, alongside work it is doing in improving advertising effectiveness, will help cement the tech group’s role as a growing source of revenues for many publishers.
According to Apple's release notes, iOS 18.2.1 addresses important bugs, and it is recommended for all users.
Apple today launched a new Shazam Fast Forward 2025 website that will spotlight 50 music artists who are poised to have a breakthrough year.
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Artists are selected based on Shazam's "uniquely predictive data and algorithms," coupled with the "expertise of Apple Music's global editorial team."
Satechi's redesigned Stand & Hub brings enhanced NVMe SSD storage, faster SD card readers, and extra USB ports to Apple's redesigned Mac mini.
This means device makers won’t have to put their gadgets through a separate testing program for each platform to wear its “Works With” badge. If they get certified as a Matter Device by the CSA, they can show their results to the other ecosystems and get those badges, too, without doing any more testing.
Indonesia's has said Apple's plans to invest $1 billion in a manufacturing plant that produces components for smartphones and other products, details of which were still being ironed out.
As streaming cannibalizes traditional TV once and for all, it’s incorporating nostalgic formats and cobbling together all sorts of experiences to make sure you stay on one chosen app and that app alone—to demonstrate your brand loyalty in addition to your cultural enthusiasm. The future of streaming doesn’t just look like the past; it looks like a future in which you’re plugged in and engaged at all times via ever-increasing offers of exclusives that make one particular platform really stand out among all the others.
The way I see it, there are two related but differnet problems with the whole Apple Intelligence notification summarization things.
Firstly, obviously, the software is not working correctly all the time. We expected this from GenAI. I'm sure Apple is also expecting this, and in the Settings app, in small text, Apple said: "Summary accuracy may vary based on content."
I am skeptical that Apple can ever fix the summarization problems using GenAI. And I am not alone; a lot of people smarter than me also share this skeptism.
There is a different problem, though: Apple is putting misinformation into the mouths of other people. Okay, changing your mother's "That hike almost killed me" to "Attempted suicide but recovered" will cause panic, but you will probably laugh it off when you actually open the text messages and see what silly Apple has done.
But putting misinformation into the mouths of real journalistic organizations is a big no-no. Even though they can make real journalistic mistakes and mis-reports from time-to-time, organizations like BBC, I think, do take pride in getting things right and not misinform their audience. No matter how the software is labeled, "beta" or otherwise, any software that does this should not have been released to the general public.
(Yes, I am aware there is a little glyph next to the summarized notification. No one is going to know what that means, and no one should need to know what that means.)
So what Apple has promised to fix, so far, is to fix this second problem. Depending on how Apple updates the software, it may be enough for BBC to accept. But it will not solve the first problem, in that the software, the GenAI, is not good enough, and will never be good enough.
(Besides, what's the point to summarize a bunch of headlines of probably unrelated stories anyway?)
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Severance, the Apple TV+ show, will be returning with the second season next week. I am now catching up, not by watching the episodes from season one, but by listening to the new podcast with a long title: The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott. The podcast is recapping the first season this week, episode-by-episode. I am still on the first episode, but it has been great so far. If you are a fan of the TV+ show, do take a listen.
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I think that Apple Intelligence is a failure of a product from an implementation standpoint. This is frustrating because the foundation they are building on top of is nearly invincible. All data is processed on device as much as possible. Everything that can't be processed on your device is put into frontier-grade security practices to make sure it's as private and encrypted as possible.
The thing that sucks about it is that they made the holy grail of remotely attested trusted compute and then made the end result so much worse to use than manually making your own integrations with Ollama on the same device.
As with Siri before, Apple heavily markets this set of features as the defining characteristic of this generation of iPhones, yet we are all supposed to approach this as though we are helping Apple make sure its products are ready? Sorry, it does not work like that. Either something is shipping or it is not, and if it does not work properly, users will quickly learn not to trust it.
OWC has released two new super-long active optical USB4 cables, available in lengths of nearly 10 feet (3 meters) and 15 feet (4.5 meters) and offering up to 40Gbps of data throughput.
Lutron today announced the launch of new Caséta Smart Shades that are able to integrate with HomeKit and other smart home platforms. [... T]he Caséta shades can be controlled using schedules, in-wall controls, remotes, the Lutron app, the Home app, or Siri voice commands.
Because HTML looks easy and lacks features like formal conditional logic and Turing-completeness, it’s often dismissed as not a programming language. “That’s not real code; it’s just markup” is a common refrain. Now, I’m no stranger to the austere beauty of the command line, from automating scripts to training machine-learning models. But underestimating HTML is a mistake.
“This is our foundation for the next decade of Macintosh operating systems, and we are thrilled with it,” Jobs said on stage 25 years ago. He undershot a little bit. What he introduced that day is still the foundation of the Mac… and almost everything else Apple does. No matter what comes next, no matter where Apple and the tech industry go from here, there’s no doubt that Mac OS X has exceeded all of the expectations we had for it back on January 5, 2000.
One good thing that has come out of Apple's mad rush into GenAI is the increase in base amount of RAM without, apparently, an increase in selling price.
And even if nothing useful creative or productive-wise ever comes out of Apple Intelligence, the Private Cloud Compute thing may turn out to be deployable in other non-AI scenarios in the future.
This whole GenAI thing may still turn out to be a fad, but I am optmistic that the effort Apple has invested and will continue to invest will not be wasted.
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Sonuby is a different kind of weather app, designed for users who often partake in outdoor activities. For example, if you often snowboard, you can have a weather forecast that places snow conditions front and center. Weather needs can be very individualistic, which is why Sonuby allows you to tailor the app to what you care about.
[Flighty] is, full stop, the best app for tracking flights, and it goes for traveling for leisure or work or if you need to track a family or friend's flight. It has a modern interface that’s gorgeous and easy to navigate, provides way more details on what’s going on with your flight than the airlines, and can even predict delays or alert you about potential issues.
If you owned an Apple Siri-Enabled device between Sept. 17, 2014 and Dec. 31 2024, you could be eligible to claim. You also need to be based in the U.S. However, to get a share of the fee, you’ll need to swear under oath that you experienced Siri activating unintentionally and had private conversations recorded by the voice assistant.
What do I hope to see this year from Apple: continual improvement and customization options, now that Apple Intelligence is out of the door and shareholders are happy and developers can get back to doing real work. :-)
What I know will happen but I am not really interested: all the drama on what Apple and its executives will and will not do.
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The platform has been pumping out workout content ever since (over 6,000 videos at this point just over four years in). But as the larger fitness landscape has evolved, Apple’s fitness platform (and most online fitness platforms, actually) have struggled with a blind spot: Standalone workout sessions simply aren’t the best way to build muscle. As the fitness conversation has refocused itself around strength training and muscle-building for longevity, consumers have increasingly chased long-term workout programs that let them capitalize on progressive overload (more on that later).
Now, Apple wants in. To start the New Year, Fitness+ is introducing a suite of new features aimed at helping you reach your muscle-building goals—and the headliner is right up my alley, the brand’s first progressive strength training program. I visited Fitness+ HQ to learn more about the announcements from Apple vice president of Fitness Technologies Jay Blahnik. I got a behind the scenes look at the process of filming a workout and talked to the team behind the platform about its mission to bring more muscle to the Apple ecosystem.
Apple Fitness Plus is getting a fresh makeover in the Strava app. The two companies just announced they’re collaborating to revamp how Fitness Plus integrates with the popular fitness community, which includes more detailed workout summaries, Strava athletes appearing in Fitness Plus content, and a free three-month trial to the service for Strava subscribers.
A news summary from Apple has falsely claimed darts player Luke Littler won the PDC World Championship - before he has even played in the final.
On Friday morning, an iPhone notification based on a news story of Littler winning the tournament semi-final falsely made it appear that the BBC was reporting he had won the whole event.
Apple's Year of the Snake AirPods 4 are available for purchase in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore at the current time.
Enter Peek, an indie app that adds support for over 600 filetypes to Quick Look while also grafting on new features. It adds color highlighting for code, complete with customizable theming and rendering for Markdown. It also adds features that otherwise aren't offered in Quick Look, including a functional search and the ability to copy text.
I wanted my Mac to feel as intuitive as my iPhone, where gestures make navigation second nature. Swiping, pinching, and tapping on iOS just works. I wanted that same ease of use when managing windows, virtual desktops, and workflows on my Mac. Plus, it only makes sense that there should be some overlap between the two in touch functionality, right? That’s where BetterTouchTool comes in.
The version he showed was quite different to what actually ended up shipping, with square boxes around the icons, and an actual “Dock” folder in your user’s home folder that contained aliases to the items stored.
I should know – I had spent the previous 18 months or so as the main engineer working away on it. At that very moment, I was watching from a cubicle in Apple Cork, in Ireland. For the second time in my short Apple career, I said a quiet prayer to the gods of demos, hoping that things didn’t break. For context, I was in my twenties at this point and scared witless.
Apple, the dominant foreign smartphone maker in China, faces a slowing economy and competition from domestic rivals, such as Huawei.
It makes sense, at least to me, to put the macOS Dock on the left or right of the screen. After all, screens nowadays are wider horizontally than tall vertically, and I need all the vertical space I can get so that I can get to see all the statements of my functions in one single page.
Then, our dear Microsoft came along and dictated that the task bar can only be at the bottom starting from Windows 11. And I really hate to search for all my icons on different sides of the screen on the different computers that I use.
So, now I have 'standardized' my Docks and Taskbars to be on the bottom of the screen. No, I don't hate it. It is fine. But I still blame Microsoft.
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Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then sold to third parties for targeted ads.
In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to "unintentional" Siri activations that occurred after the "Hey, Siri" feature was introduced in 2014, where recordings were apparently prompted without users ever saying the trigger words, "Hey, Siri."
That is so far fetched. Why would Apple do that? Especially given both their brand and reputation as a privacy-first company combined with the large amounts of product design and engineering work they’ve put into preventing apps from doing exactly this kind of thing by enforcing permission-based capabilities and ensuring a “microphone active” icon is available at all times when an app is listening in.
Yet, because Apple settled this lawsuit, it looks like it is not interested in fighting these claims. It creates another piece of pseudo-evidence for people who believe microphone-equipped devices are transforming idle conversations into perfectly targeted ads.
Apple has added warning labels to AirTags and their boxes to comply with a law requiring the labels on products with button cell or coin batteries that could be ingested by children, according to a US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) press release.
“For Wicked, we had a lot of visual effects all around the world,” says Chu. “I could be at my house, and I could have a screen that was bigger than the one we had in the screening room, and I could be talking to all the people in all the different continents, and I would watch the playback.”
He would then zoom in and “draw” on the screen using his finger to point out potential edits. “Like, ‘hey, this ear looks weird on the goat’ … It just adds new dimension to how you see things,” Chu explains.
Maybe the dark-mode age was inevitable. The bright glow of computers was tolerable—even thrilling—when it still felt new, but as lit-up screens suffused our every waking act, their light was doomed to overwhelm us. Given that software developers are the people who develop software, and their software-making software had been in dark mode from the start, the latest trend should come as no surprise. Of course darkness would have spread from their desktops to everyone’s. From day into night, we are all programming computers now.
I don't like dark mode. I still like my windows to be like black-ink-on-white-paper.
I am not sure how much battery life I have 'wasted'.
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Apple is offering rare discounts of up to 500 yuan ($68.50) on its latest iPhone models in China, as the U.S. tech giant moves to defend its market share against rising competition from domestic rivals like Huawei.
The four-day promotion, running from Jan. 4-7, applies to several iPhone models when purchased using specific payment methods, according to its website.
Apple is being thoughtful about doing this in a (theoretically) privacy-preserving way, but I don’t think the company is living up to its ideals here. Not only is it not opt-in, but you can’t effectively opt out if it starts uploading metadata about your photos before you even use the search feature. It does this even if you’ve already opted out of uploading your photos to iCloud. And “privately matches” is kind of a euphemism. There remains no plain English text saying that it uploads information about your photos and specifically what information that is. You might assume that it’s just sharing GPS coordinates, but apparently it’s actually the content of the photos that’s used for searching
What exactly is Notion? It's often nebulously described as a 'productivity app', but it can do so much that it’s hard to pigeonhole it. When you open the app initially, it can feel like a simple note-taking app or document management tool, letting you jot down just about anything. With some time and guidance, however, it can turn into just about anything you need it to.
Hardcore Notion fans have built entire project management suites and task managers within the app, but you don't have to go that far to benefit from its productivity powers.
CCI, which is yet to pronounce its verdict, last week decided to share a confidential version of its investigation report with Apple and Apple Distribution International Ltd to enable them to prepare their defences, these people said. This is the penultimate step before final hearings and adjudication on the case.
The CCI director general’s investigation report has confirmed a violation of India’s competition law provisions that prohibit abuse of dominance, one of the two persons said.
It’s a new year, and that means more works are headed to the public domain. This year, thousands of copyrighted works created in 1929, including the earliest versions of Popeye and the Belgian comic book character Tintin, are now free to reuse and repurpose in the US.
Now that we can place icons anywhere on iPhone's home screens and control center, where else will Apple allow customization next? I am hoping the lock screen.
And I am hoping the Today's View continue to exist. Or at least the lock screen can duplicate the features of the Today's View. The most important feature, to me, is to be able to run (some) Shortcuts without needing to unlock the phone first.
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How much we use our devices isn’t as helpful as thinking about the types of content we’re consuming, the context in which we’re consuming it, and why we’re consuming it. Some researchers suggest we think in terms of a “digital diet." When we consider our diet, we don’t ask “how much food is too much.” Instead, we look at the range of foods; how they interact with each other; when we’re eating; whether we exercise or not; what we need versus what we want. Similarly, different types of screen time can have different potential effects on our well-being. If used in the right way, our digital devices can offer us numerous situational benefits and conveniences, whereas at the wrong time or circumstance, using them isn’t positive.
If you're worried about possible expansions of government surveillance and access to your information, or simply want to do some digital purging so you're not saddled with old data, there are a bunch of concrete steps you can take to protect your digital privacy. Just as archeologists study carefully preserved tombs and ancient trash heaps to gain insight into historic communities, your long-forgotten digital footprint could be more revealing and sensitive than you realize. And while you can't control everything—particularly information stolen in breaches or gathered by data brokers—you probably have a digital attic full of old data that you can delete or download and save offline. First stop? Old message histories.
In Your Face is an indie Mac app that seeks to ensure you'll never miss another meeting. It fills up your entire screen with notifications for any calendar appointments you set it to highlight.
The fourth generation of M-series chips in the Mac was released in November. While on the surface, that doesn’t sound like much, it actually has a deeper meaning. The Mac lineup now feels like it is whole–there aren’t major hangups that could make customers second-guess an investment.
The transition from Intel chips to Apple silicon is finally complete. Here’s why that is: the obstacles that have been overcome and the considerations that users had to make that no longer cast any doubt.
After about two decades of primarily being associated with audio, video has become central to podcasting’s identity. YouTube is now said to be its biggest distribution point. Chat shows, long podcasting’s bread-and-butter format, have reasserted their standing as the face of the medium — a face you can now literally see. The reality of this growing video-centrism is starting to settle in, and the podcast community is still grappling with what it means. “I initially thought video would be a passing trend, but now it seems there’s a real audience preference for this type of podcast,” said one executive at a platform. “I’m blown away by how quickly video has become central to how most listeners think about podcasting.”
I always thought it was obvious from day 1: reducing screen time should not be the one and only goal. Especially since the iPhone is replacing so many of the other stuff in our life.
In fact, I want to increase my screen time -- to read books, to take photos, and to chat with my family. I just need to make sure I am not playing too many games of Backgammon or browsing Podcast apps for new podcasts that I may want to check out.
(I have a problem. I worry that I may run out of podcast episodes to listen, and I also worry about having too many podcast episodes to catch up. But that's probably has nothing to do with too much screen time, isn't it?)
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