Apple Music has appointed industry veterans Ole Obermann and Rachel Newman as Co-Presidents to steer the streaming service. The dual leadership structure will report to Apple Vice President Oliver Shusser. The structure merges external innovation with internal institutional knowledge as Apple fights for market share against industry behemoth Spotify.
Apple has just launched a new page on its website called ‘Snapshot.’ It’s a discovery tool for following the work of artists, actors, and athletes across three of Apple’s media platforms: Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts.
A new version of Parallels Desktop is rolling out now, and it comes with some key enhancements for Mac users. There are improvements to USB device connectivity, support for OBS virtual cameras, and more.
It’s difficult to overstate just how different the Apple of today is from the Apple of 2015 or 2006. In taking a retrospective look at Apple, we most often find ourselves comparing the enormously successful behemoth that Apple now is to the company’s nadir in the mid-90s, when it was just steps from going out of business. But the truth is that even in just the last decade or two, the company has reached heights that seemed previously unattainable.
And somewhere along the way, I think the relationship of the company to its customers–and vice versa–changed as well. It’s something that I’ve found myself thinking about more and more in recent years. But is it me that’s changed, or is it Apple? I think probably a little of both.
Once upon a time, Mac users were worried that they will have to switch to Windows because Apple went out of business. Then, Mac users were worried that they will have to switch to iPadOS, because Apple decided to merge the two platforms. Today, Mac users are worried they will have to learn a new OS design language as Apple is rumored to redesign everything based on visionOS.
Progress!
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On Tuesday, researchers from the cybersecurity firm Oligo revealed what they’re calling AirBorne, a collection of vulnerabilities affecting AirPlay, Apple’s proprietary radio-based protocol for local wireless communication. Bugs in Apple’s AirPlay software development kit (SDK) for third-party devices would allow hackers to hijack gadgets like speakers, receivers, set-top boxes, or smart TVs if they’re on the same Wi-Fi network as the hacker’s machine. Another set of AirBorne vulnerabilities would have allowed hackers to exploit AirPlay-enabled Apple devices too, Apple told Oligo, though these bugs have been patched in updates over the last several months, and Apple tells WIRED that those bugs could have only been exploited when users changed default AirPlay settings.
[...]
The AirPlay SDK flaws in home media devices [...] may present a more practical vulnerability for hackers seeking to hide on a network, whether to install ransomware or carry out stealthy espionage, all while hiding on devices that are often forgotten by both consumers and corporate or government network defenders. “The amount of devices that were vulnerable to these issues, that's what alarms me,” says Oligo researcher Uri Katz. “When was the last time you updated your speaker?”
Apple’s App Store review yet again let at least one unofficial mobile port of a hot new game slip through – this time, for Blue Prince. But shortly after we published this article, the port that we found disappeared from the App Store.
[...]
Apple has previously allowed copycats of games like Wordle and Palworld to appear on the App Store.
This seems like the sort of thing that could be fixed through automation. Scammers want users to find these games, so they can make a quick buck. As a result, the name of the game is often identical to what you’d find on the Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation stores. It strikes me that a combination of automated searching for the top games on each store, combined with an analysis of how quickly a game is moving up the charts would catch a lot of this sort of thing, flagging it for reviewers who could take a closer look.
On iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, the Voice Memos app includes a recording feature that lets you record a second audio layer – like vocals, narration, or an extra instrument – over an existing memo, all without needing headphones. Keep reading to learn how it's done.
“With Aperture gone, I spent some time trying out alternative apps like Lightroom and Capture One but they’re too focused on photo editing. There wasn’t anything else that put metadata on the forefront like Aperture did. Really, there’s a lot of great photo editing apps out there, but there’s nothing that lets you glue them together with a comfortable workflow,” Sarwat Khan from Brushed Pixel Software tells PetaPixel.
“So we made Musebox to substitute for Aperture. That means that when it comes to managing a library of photos, its closest competitor is Lightroom. But unlike Lightroom, it has a native Mac user interface, one that some passionate photo enthusiasts will find very comfortable.”
Adobe has released Lightroom Classic 14.3, featuring a new landscape selection tool. The AI-powered Select Landscape automatically selects and creates individual masks for various landscape elements, including mountains, water, natural ground, artificial ground, architecture, and more.
The Elgato Stream Deck sits on the desk of your favorite Twitch and YouTube streamers, just off camera. It's there, trust me. I know, because using its customizable LCD buttons is one of the easiest ways to launch and manage apps without disrupting what you're doing. In other words, what makes the Stream Deck useful for streamers also makes it a powerful productivity tool.
Taiwan's Pegatron, an important supplier to Apple and Dell, said on Monday that President Donald Trump's tariffs were confusing U.S. customers and risked leading to shortages of consumer electronics in the United States.
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"Within two months, shelves in the United States ... might resemble those in third-world countries, where people visit department stores and markets only to find empty shelves, all because everyone is waiting and seeing," Tung said.
I look around my house, and I think all my devices that can do AirPlay are all bearing an Apple logo that are still receiving regular OS updates from mothership?
Technically, can a Mac or an iPhone scan all the AirPlay devices on the same network, and warn me whether there are any unpatched AirPlay devices?
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About a decade ago, Apple and Google started updating iOS and Android, respectively, to make them less susceptible to “juice jacking,” a form of attack that could surreptitiously steal data or execute malicious code when users plug their phones into special-purpose charging hardware. Now, researchers are revealing that, for years, the mitigations have suffered from a fundamental defect that has made them trivial to bypass.
[...]
In response to the findings, Apple updated the confirmation dialogs in last month’s release of iOS/iPadOS 18.4 to require a user authentication in the form of a PIN or password.
Apple's Beats brand is launching its Beats Pill speaker in two new colors today: Navy Blue and Blush Pink. The colors join the original Matte Black, Statement Red, and Champagne Gold colors that debuted last June.
Writing code is easy, but programming well is hard, and it's a thinker's game.
On reflection, too, I found the pressure of gamification to be in conflict with the whole idea of self-care: it just made me more stressed.
This, it transpires, isn’t uncommon. Dr Frankie Harrison, a clinical psychologist, says: “There’s a fine line between using these apps as a helpful tool and turning self-care into another task to complete. For some people, especially those dealing with anxiety or trauma, tracking habits or emotions too rigidly can actually add pressure rather than relieve it.”
Pamela Rutledge, the director of the Media Psychology Research Center, says FaceTiming and talking on speakerphone in public are symptoms of broader shifts in social norms over the past two decades. It's common to check your phone at the dinner table or seclude yourself from public interactions with headphones. When people start a video call with someone, even in a crowded area, "our brains create that sense of social presence, which takes us someplace else," she says. We're taken out of the environment and are less likely to be aware of the annoyed people around us. Despite the ire, people continue to take these video calls because the benefits, like reading social cues from the person they're calling, "are greater than the violation of privacy that they apparently are not feeling," she says.
Are we still expecting an iPhone with no ports -- and no any possibilities of juice jacking whatsover?
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The real indicators as to whether any of these new comedies are a threat to win the big award will be whether they can get into the Directing or Writing categories, and The Studio is well positioned here. The writing is insider-y, which could appeal to voters in a town undergoing multiple existential crises. The single-take episode “The Oner” and the noir parody “The Missing Reel” are attention-grabby in the way you need to be in order to get heard above the noise, and the more madcap episodes like “The War” and upcoming episodes set at the Golden Globes and CinemaCon can only draw more attention to the high-level directing at work.
The service is designed to help users manage their travel plans by notifying them when it’s time to leave for a trip, sending reminders 30 minutes, 10 minutes, and 5 minutes before departure. It also features Live Activities on iPhone and Apple Watch that display a countdown to leave.
I’ve spent too much time staring at the back of bottles, scanning through ingredient lists, and Googling the ones that look the most concerning. It’s a minefield that hasn’t produced any results. That’s why I’m indebted to the Think Dirty app that has helped me navigate an increasingly complex world with relative ease.
Ever wanted a cute pets game on your Apple Watch? Pixel Paws is the answer for you. It’s a fun and simple game where you can take care of digital pets on your Apple Watch, with no hidden in app purchases, ads, or tracking.
We often become fixated on our past: mistakes we’ve made, opportunities we’ve missed, harms inflicted upon us (and by us), or wounds we’ve suffered. But what if we truly internalized that the person who experienced those things no longer exists in a physical sense?
But something is going on with the iPhone. It’s simply no longer the case that Android companies can’t compete on hardware or design. If Apple ever wants to dazzle the world with mobile devices again—or at least hardware obsessives like me—the window may be closing.
You wouldn't steal a car, right? So you shouldn't pirate a movie, either.
That was the gist of the infamous "You Wouldn't Steal a Car" anti-piracy campaign from the Motion Picture Association of America during the mid-2000s. But questions are now being asked about just how carefully the MPAA followed its own anti-piracy principles when designing the campaign. Specifically: Did the MPAA rip off a key font?
The answer to that question is, like many matters involving typefaces, fonts, and copyright, somewhat complicated.
I'm definitely not the only person who is saying this, but who the heck decided that The Bear is a comedy?
(I nearly had a heart attack watching one of the episodes.)
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The fifth episode of Apple Immersive Video series, Adventure, is now available on Apple Vision Pro. The latest entry transports you to the passenger seat of a rally car during a record-breaking Pikes Peak International Hill Climb attempt.
Framous takes all the hard work off my hands and allows me to quickly create custom screenshot lineups that I can craft exactly the way I want.
It’s not that I want to go back to the old way — I don’t. I like writing less code. What I’m saying is that both systems have a lot of value, but that treating the SwiftUI approach as inherently better is wrong. Neither approach is better or worse, they’re different.
The previous interface-builder way of making user-interface definitely does not scale with all the operating systems Apple is running nowadays. Unfortunately, the current SwiftUI way still have more room for richness that is sorely absent.
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So despite the slowing market, I am still waiting to see what new features—health or otherwise—will be announced at this year’s WWDC, and later on this year. “I would never count Apple out in terms of what they’re able to do,” said Naranjo. “They’ve proven time and time again that they can create a new category and make that category grow.”
I can be patient and wait in Apple’s sticky ecosystem biding time until blood glucose monitoring shows up. Ten years ago, we all asked if we could even find a use for Jony Ive’s piece of glittery, buzzing jewelry; not even Apple knew the future success that it had on its hands (or its wrists). The Apple Watch is ubiquitous, and we’re still waiting for more.
Ratings and reviews are an invaluable resource for users exploring an app on the App Store, providing insights into how others have experienced the app. With review summaries now available in iOS 18.4, users can quickly get a high-level overview of what other users think about an app, while still having the option to dive into individual reviews for more detail. This feature is powered by a novel, multi-step LLM-based system that periodically summarizes user reviews.
Our goal in producing review summaries is to ensure they are inclusive, balanced, and accurately reflect the user’s voice. To achieve this, we adhere to key principles of summary quality, prioritizing safety, fairness, truthfulness, and helpfulness.
European Publishers Council executive director Angela Mills said: “What’s important for us is not the fine but the changes that Apple will need to make within two months to comply with the DMA. Apple has long frustrated greater competition in app distribution and in payment solutions via a combination of friction and excessive fees.
“The European Commission has rightly used its new powers under the Digital Markets Act to challenge these anti-competitive behaviours that majorly impact publishers’ ability to deliver professional editorial media to Europe’s consumers.”
Apple plans to relocate the robotics team from John Giannandrea’s AI organisation to the hardware division later this month, according to people with knowledge of the move. That will place it under Senior Vice President John Ternus, who oversees hardware engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the change isn’t public.
The pending shift will mark the second major project to be removed from Giannandrea in the past month: The company stripped the flailing Siri voice assistant from his purview in March. The changes are part of a broader effort to catch up in artificial intelligence, a field where Apple has fallen behind tech peers such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and OpenAI.
I wonder how many of the gold Apple Watches are still in use today.
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On a practical level, the answer seemed straightforward. Nobody disputed how swiftly or reliably eucalyptus could grow in the tropics. This knowledge was the product of decades of scientific study and tabulations of biomass for wood or paper. Each tree was roughly 47% carbon, which meant that many tons of it could be stored within every planted hectare. This could be observed taking place in real time, in the trees by the road. Come back and look at these young trees tomorrow, and you’d see it: fresh millimeters of carbon, chains of cellulose set into lignin.
At the same time, Apple and the others were also investing in an industry, and a tree, with a long and controversial history in this part of Brazil and elsewhere. They were exerting their wealth and technological oversight to try to make timber operations more sustainable, more supportive of native flora, and less water intensive. Still, that was a hard sell to some here, where hundreds of thousands of hectares of pasture are already in line for planting; more trees were a bleak prospect in a land increasingly racked by drought and fire. Critics called the entire exercise an excuse to plant even more trees for profit.
Tim Cook has said that Apple's greatest contributions will be through its developments in health -- and nowhere is this more true than through the Apple Watch. Throughout its 10-year run, the tech giant has churned out lifesaving features around a user's wrist.
In celebration of 10 years of the Apple Watch, here are some of the most impactful features that have come out of the device and revolutionized wearable technology.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could link to specific bits of text on a Web page rather than forcing people following your links to scan the page for whatever piece of information you’re trying to convey? With full support from major browser manufacturers appearing late last year, the Web has finally caught up with hypertext theory from the previous century.
Apple’s commercial concern is as much a philosophical one, with the company seeing little reason to back down in what it sees as a defense of the interests of its users.
“They have a degree of insistence that they are the sole orchestrators of their ecosystem and get to decide what level of security risk users get, and too much choice makes it a poor experience for consumers,” said CERRE's Meyers.
Now Apple would have to remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the App Store.
Apple has 60 days to comply with the Commission's decisions or risk periodic penalty payments.
That would likely lead to a cheaper price for apps that consumers can directly download from outside Apple's store.
The EU’s fines mark an “escalation” in the transatlantic trade conflict, said Kay Hazemi-Jebelli, senior director for Europe at tech lobbying group Chamber of Progress, which is funded in part by Apple. He said the new penalties against Apple and Meta “should focus the U.S. administration’s attention on the DMA in particular.”
[...]
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment when asked if the DMA should be a negotiating point in U.S.-EU trade negotiations. The spokesperson called the bloc’s €500 million fine against Apple, and mandated behavioral changes, “bad for the privacy and security of our users” and said they “force us to give away our technology for free.”
Fines this pathetic become simply part of the cost of doing business. They risk failing to deter tech companies from abusing their power in the future, just as they have done in the past.
[...]
It’s not so much that these “tsk-tsk”-level fines will crater Europeans’ confidence in their government as it is a missed opportunity to show voters what it looks like to actually rein in powerful corporations who assume – rightly, I guess – that at the end of the day, they can pay and go on their way.
Logitech’s excellent MX Creative Console is even better, thanks to a new update that adds native support for popular creative editing apps Adobe Lightroom, Affinity Photo, Apple Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve, and more.
It’s a single-purpose app with many settings and keystrokes you can use to customize how it identifies active windows and for how long.
When a satire of the movie industry takes a big swing, it can succeed only if it connects in a piercingly funny and bold way. It has to offer us an eye-opening new take on how Hollywood works (or, increasingly, doesn’t work). And that’s the bar “The Studio” has set for itself. I think Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s Apple TV+ series about the inner workings of a contemporary movie studio triumphantly clears that bar. “The Studio” isn’t just addictively entertaining — it’s wickedly perceptive. It has a bead on the film business today like nothing you’ve seen.
The truth is, there’s never a good time to redesign anything. There will always be another pressing new feature that takes precedence, and that usually goes on for years as the fixes pile up, creating more and more tech debt and making the existing product that much harder to update and alter. Eventually, it reaches a breaking point–the whole thing needs to be redesigned. If not now, when?
Apple’s operating systems probably reached that breaking point a few years ago. And there’s no better example, in all its details, than three years ago when Apple replaced the macOS System Preferences app with the new Settings app.
Here’s a nice little distraction from your workday: Head to Google, type in any made-up phrase, add the word “meaning,” and search. Behold! Google’s AI Overviews will not only confirm that your gibberish is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived.
I agree, movies can be art, and many are art.
But, of course, Mr Studio Head, please do read the room.
(Yes, please go and watch The Studio on Apple TV+. It's good.)
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Apple has today received a 500 million euro fine (about $570 million) from the EU commission under the Digital Markets Act. The commission said the fine relates to Apple’s App Store anti-steering policies. It is being forced to make changes, or else face further fines.
[...]
The EU announcement does not specify exactly what it finds to be in breach, although it likely relates to Apple’s App Store fee structure. Apple currently charges a commission of more than 17% on purchases made outside of the app. This would be in opposition to the DMA’s requirement that these abilities be offered “free of charge”.
Apple has stopped listing its Apple Intelligence features as “available now” following an inquiry from the National Advertising Division (NAD).
[...]
Additionally, the NAD found that Apple similarly included its AI-supercharged Siri beneath the “available now” heading even though it still hasn’t arrived. In response, Apple said it has updated its promotional materials and disclosures to “adequately communicate their status.” The company also discontinued its “More Personal Siri” video, which showed actor Bella Ramsey using the voice assistant to pull up the name of a person they met months ago.
It’s a hidden gem that helps you do almost anything on your computer—add to your calendar, list tasks, search files, do math, or control apps—without touching your mouse.
If you can only have one birding app on your phone, Merlin is my best recommendation. It hits that sweet spot between ease of use, speed, accuracy, reference images and data, and sheer breadth of species and geographies.
In one of Rockwell’s first moves, he enlisted Ranjit Desai, a longtime top deputy from the development of the Vision Pro. Desai will now be in charge of much of Siri’s engineering, including the underlying platform and systems groups. Rockwell told staffers that the executive’s background in “high-performance, low-latency systems” would help Siri performance reach a “new level”.
Olivier Gutknecht, a senior Vision Pro software executive, is taking over the team in charge of Siri’s user experience. Nate Begeman and Tom Duffy, veteran Apple software engineering managers, are also joining the Siri team to run underlying architecture. Rockwell says that will lead to “world-class” and “scalable” technology.
Today, yet another iPhone app that I am using has introduced a new option to disable the scrubber on the lock screen's Now Playing thing.
There are now many apps that allowed users to disable the scrbueer. Or, in one case that I am aware of, outright disabled it without providing any options for the users.
I sure hope Apple designers are paying attention.
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But the Macalope is one who hopes iPadOS retains its identity as its own thing, not becoming an interface layer, something people just drive through in order to get someplace else, like Delaware. Because where have we seen that before? Oh, right. Windows 8.
[...]
Maybe the Macalope is a dreamer. Maybe he’s just a glutton for punishment. But he wants to see Apple keep trying to crack this nut.
While Apple has delayed some of the most ambitious Apple Intelligence features, the company isn’t shying away from promoting the ones that have shipped to iPhone users. In a new ad that debuted today, Apple promotes the “Clean Up” feature in the Photos app.
PowerPhotos 3 adds a new search indexing engine that enables you to perform complex searches on a wide range of criteria, including several not supported by Photos, such as file size, pixel dimensions, video duration, and more. The new version also upgrades the photo browser to add support for moving photos between albums, deleting photos, and more.
Anyone who keeps a travel diary or has always planned to do so might want to take a look at Geory because with this iPhone app, you can leave your notebook at home.
The app specializes in doing many things automatically - for example meticulously recording the entire itinerary of a trip, including locations, dates and times of arrival and departure.
The Leica LUX app doesn’t try to turn your phone into a Leica—it simply gives you a cleaner, more controlled shooting experience. It slows you down in the right way. You start thinking like a photographer again, not a content creator.
Over the past few months, I have collected and adopted a series of small, whimsical additions to my Mac’s user interface. Most of them are nothing short of pointless – except for the fact that they have made using my Mac an absolute joy, even if only in subtle ways.
From custom icons to unnecessary sound effects, here is a roundup of my favorite additions.
If your solution to having a better iPad is to just slap macONS on it, you have just given up.
iPadOS and macOS gave us two different kinds of computers, and they each make separate kinds of tasks and workflows easier and better.
Mac OS sure didn't get better back in the 1990s when it was emulating what Windows was doing, and that should be a lesson to Apple on how to evolve macOS today.
The success of iPadOS should not, and does not, hinges on making macOS obsolete. They can both exists at the same time, serving different customers. (Or the same customers, working in different contexts.)
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Apple, one of the most valuable companies in the world, with a market capitalization of close to $3 trillion, says it has an unwavering commitment to protecting users’ privacy and data, a stance it has stuck to even in the face of pressure from law enforcement. But some people who have had their iPhones stolen are discovering that Apple’s own security tools — meant to protect them — are sometimes being used against them. When iPhones are stolen, savvy thieves can lock owners out of their Apple accounts, making it difficult to reclaim precious photos and files. Now, a court case in California is giving some of these victims hope for retrieving their digital lives.
Apple has opened a new Apple Music studio in Tokyo, marking the company’s first such facility in Asia and its seventh globally.
[...]
Apple Music says the studios provide a space for artists to showcase their creativity and connect more closely with fans. The move comes as streaming services increasingly look for new ways to offer exclusive content and artist relationships to fans.
So far, the Apple TV+ series has an impressive lineup of creators and stars. [...] This stellar lineup suggests that the show will be a hit for the streamer, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate whether the series will take its subject seriously.
This is where the real joy of Google Maps lies: in the moments when you get to see humans being playful with the otherwise prosaic tools at their disposal.
While the easing of the local content requirement is one step towards reform, there are fears that it could hurt the country’s domestic tech industry.
I enjoy just browsing Google Map, and visits cities and towns, and pop into restaurants and cafes and take a look at the food and the menu, and imagine what I will order if I happen to be dining there.
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iPhone has replaced the traditional point of sale and transformed the shopping experience at R.M.Williams stores. Employees are more mobile and engaged and can better provide customers with a personalized, end-to-end experience in a more open, welcoming environment.
One Year is an iPhone app designed to visually represent the passage of time throughout the year. Each day is marked by a dot, a hand-drawn plant, or an animal. As each day passes, another image appears, counting down what’s left in the year.
Super is an open source script that helps IT teams enforce macOS minor updates, major upgrades, or even just an enforced restart with minimal user disruption. It installs as a background agent and includes customizable dialogs, notifications, scheduling, and deferral options. Everything can be tailored to fit your environment, and you can deploy it with a single script and optional configuration profiles.
This is an utter mess - but an unsurprising one, given the BBC’s lack of coherence here (two different companies, just one brand).
Twenty-one humanoid robots joined thousands of runners at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday, the first time these machines have raced alongside humans over a 21-km (13-mile) course.
I am confused with all the BBC Sounds drama, and I am wondering whether we will end up with a BBC Sounds app and a BBC Sounds International app.
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I was in the same Ikea store on both days of the weekend, and can now tell you the shortest path to get to the two departments that I were interested in.
The bad news is that we have miscounted on what we need, and will probably going to the same store again the upcoming weekend.
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But in addition to dropping the updated episode, Apple confirmed to The Verge today that it has also removed the original cut of “Heaven and Hell” from its platform entirely.
You can kind of understand why Apple would want to direct viewers towards Mythic Quest’s proper ending. But the move smacks of revisionist history and streamers’ recent habit of completely disappearing their own content.
The Apple Sports app just introduced a new feature called Game Card Sharing. This lets users generate digital game cards that carry information about a specific match. The cards can be generated for upcoming, live and completed games. In the latter two cases, the score will be displayed.
When the path forward seems unclear, I believe we can best contribute by modeling the behavior we want to see in the world. How we conduct business on an everyday basis matters. For TidBITS, that means writing clearly and accurately, prioritizing thoughtfulness and depth over speed, acknowledging our mistakes, and engaging with readers on a personal level. It means practicing kindness, decency, and respect whenever possible.
When people started defining creativity in the ’50s, the threat of computers automating white-collar work was already underway. They were basically saying, okay, rational and analytical thinking is no longer ours alone. What can we do that the computers can never do? And the assumption was that humans alone could be “truly creative.” For a long time, computers didn’t do much to really press the issue on what that actually meant. Now they’re pressing the issue. Can they do art and poetry? Yes. Can they generate novel products that also make sense or work? Sure.
Apple TV+ should have planned better.
And I am also irritated because now I have to go watch the Mythic Quest’s finale again.
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Apple’s interest in advertising isn’t new. From the ill-fated launch of iAd in 2010 to the steady growth of its search business, to its increasingly aggressively dismantling of third-party tracking, Apple has never been indifferent to the ad economy. If anything, it’s history shows a company intrigued by it but cautious about embracing it too directly.
Through it all, Apple positioned itself as a privacy champion. That stance gave it both moral authority and regulator insulation even as it laid the groundwork to shape, and now profit from, the advertising industry on its own terms. To some, the new Apple Ads branding might look like a shift away from that ethos. But it’s more likely a continuation of the strategy that’s always defined the company: monetizing its principles on its own terms.
Apple's Beats brand today shared a new ad in its ongoing Pill People series, this time highlighting the various USB-C cables that Beats debuted earlier this week.
As Strava CEO Mike Martin put it in an interview with TechRadar, alongside Runna CEO Dom Maskell, "The way that I think about it, it's like the world's largest team just got a new coach. I think that's a really exciting way to position it."
[...]
Martin said: "I want to be really clear to both communities and user bases... A key component of Strava is that we are and remain an open platform for the entire connected fitness industry. So we expect to continue to do that, and that is the way that Runna is is integrated in with Strava as well.
I wonder if there is an ad-tech business out there that Apple can just buy to jump-start its new iAds.
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Apple said that one of the bugs affects Apple’s Core Audio, the system-level component that Apple uses across its various products to allow developers to interact with device audio. Apple said the bug could be exploited by processing an audio stream in a maliciously crafted media file, which can allow the execution of malicious code on an affected Apple device.
The other bug, which Apple took sole credit for discovering, allows an attacker to bypass pointer authentication, a security feature that Apple uses in its software to make it more difficult for attackers to corrupt or otherwise inject malicious code into a device’s memory.
There have been complaints about issues with CarPlay and deleted apps being restored, and iOS 18.4.1 includes several bug fixes. According to Apple's release notes, the update includes bug fixes and security updates. It addresses an issue that could cause wireless CarPlay not to work in select vehicles.
According to Apple's release notes, macOS Sequoia 15.4.1 includes important bug fixes and security updates, and is recommended for all users.
According to Apple's release notes, visionOS 2.4.1 includes bug fixes and security updates, and the software is recommended for all users.
Apple has quite a few security features that it's added to iPhones, iPads, and Macs over the years. Now more than ever, it's important to make sure you're taking advantage of the built-in security tools that are available to keep yourself and your data safe, so we've rounded up a list of the most important options.
The Apple Watch is all-purpose, and that, I think, is what attracted me and so many others. The style and fun watch faces, like my favorite, the Snoopy watch Face, are bonuses.
Apple today launched an Earth Day promotion that offers customers 10% off eligible Apple accessories when they recycle eligible devices at participating Apple Stores. The offer is available from today through May 16 in many countries, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, and others.
Apple today shared new MacBook Pro ads, promoting features like the nano-texture display option and the long battery life.
It is a highly capable machine with laptop-level power, long battery life, a quality screen and plenty of accessories to turn it into a drawing tablet, computer replacement or many other tools.
Once you have your background, you can add your own stickers, emojis, genmojis, and text to your wallpaper. You can design your wallpaper to your hearts content, and even make fun little multi-sticker creations.
Apple today announced that the company has surpassed a 60 percent reduction in its global greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2015 levels, as part of its Apple 2030 goal to become carbon neutral across its entire footprint in the next five years. The company achieved several other major environmental milestones, including the use of 99 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets and 99 percent recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries.1 Apple shared this and other progress in its annual Environmental Progress Report, published today.
The global marketing campaign for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro centered around the tagline "Hello, Apple Intelligence." The company now seems to have universally changed this to "Built for Apple Intelligence," often in a smaller font. The alteration seems to be a subtle acknowledgment that Apple Intelligence isn't ready, moving emphasis from Apple Intelligence in the present to support in the future.
It's time to update all the Apple devices, again. And based on Apple's release notes, one might want to update to this latest version as soon as possible.
I do wish we have more controls over when all my Apple devices will update themselves. For me, my preference will be to update as soon as possible on a Friday night or early Saturday morning, after I've gone to bed. Or if the updates were released on Friday, then update on the following Saturday night or early Sunday morning.
WHy? Because if any of the updates mess up my Apple devices, I will want to deal with the clean-up on a weekend. If I wake up with a messed-up device on a workday, I will be grumpy the entire day.
And I don't want to update any of my devices within the first twenty-four hours of release. If the update is buggy, I'd rather other people have the fun experience of discovering the bugs, and that Apple has twenty-four hours to decide to remove the update and not touch my devices.
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“With iPhone, there’s so much power contained in such a compact package that you can bypass the conventions of mainstream filmmaking,” says Sen Sharma, a two-time winner of India’s National Film Awards. “All you need is a great idea, and the guts and determination to follow through with it.”
Alongside fellow Indian film industry icons Vikramaditya Motwane, Lijo Jose Pellissery, and Vetri Maaran, Sen Sharma is mentoring four emerging filmmakers selected by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) to create short films for the 2025 MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone program.
Apple's Beats brand is launching its first-ever set of charging cables today. Available in up to four color options, the new cables include USB-C to USB-C, USB-A to USB-C, and USB-C to Lightning options.
To complete the challenge, Apple Watch owners will be required to complete a workout that lasts for 30 minutes or longer, with the activity recorded through the Workout app or an app that adds information to the Health app.
The idea, Milich says, was to “reinvent the core idea of the inbox. It’s not this never-ending list. It’s a database you can filter, sort, organize, in the Notion building-block model. It’s like an app you can customize.” It’s not a complete reinvention of the whole email system, just a bunch of new ways to interact with and make sense of everything in that system. That idea has worked awfully well for Notion as a whole, and works for my inbox so far too.
Mindmeister creates quick, colorful mind maps and comes preloaded with enough templates to make studying a lot easier and faster.
PingPlace is a free Mac application that will move your notifications to other corners or even the top center of your screen.
Every gaming platform has its own app for managing games, such as Apple’s Game Center, for example. But for those who have multiple consoles, GamePal is a great companion app that helps players keep track of their entire game library.
Featuring more than 25 hand-drawn locations, you’ll be able to see how aliens view our world. All of the colorful scenes are packed with surprises, humor, easy puzzles, and unique objects to find.
Nanoleaf today announced the launch of the Pegboard Desk Dock, a desktop light that's also able to hold accessories and serve as a dock for peripherals like a keyboard and a mouse thanks to added USB-A and USB-C ports.
For years, I multitasked like a circus juggler on a tightrope. I thought I was getting a lot done till a strange mental fog made me rethink my methods. I experimented with monotasking—focusing on one thing at a time—and everything changed.
Apple's main India suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones to the United States in March, an all-time high, as the U.S. company airlifted devices to bypass President Donald Trump's impending tariffs, customs data shows.
[...]
To expedite shipments, Apple lobbied Indian airport authorities to cut the time needed to clear customs at Chennai airport in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, to six hours down from 30 hours.
There are little things inside a lot of apps that annoys me -- and that I think I can fix with just editing a few lines of codes.
For example, a podcast client recently updated with per-podcast notification settings that I wish I can go in and change the default from "true" to "false". Just one line of code, and I will be happier.
No, I don't think open-source will help. Can AI?
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Fears that smartphones, tablets and other devices could drive dementia in later life have been challenged by research that found lower rates of cognitive decline in older people who used the technology.
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It is unclear whether the technology staves off mental decline, or whether people with better cognitive skills simply use them more, but the scientists say the findings question the claim that screen time drives what has been called “digital dementia”.
At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right. And we believe in giving our users a great experience while protecting their privacy. For years, we’ve used techniques like differential privacy as part of our opt-in device analytics program. This lets us gain insights into how our products are used, so we can improve them, while protecting user privacy by preventing Apple from seeing individual-level data from those users.
This same need to understand usage while protecting privacy is also present in Apple Intelligence. One of our principles is that Apple does not use our users' private personal data or user interactions when training our foundation models, and, for content publicly available on the internet, we apply filters to remove personally identifiable information like social security and credit card numbers. In this post, we’ll share how we’re developing new techniques that enable Apple to discover usage trends and aggregated insights to improve features powered by Apple Intelligence, without revealing individual behavior or unique content to Apple.
Over the past 10 years, Activity rings on Apple Watch have offered a simple, engaging, and customizable way for users to stay active throughout the day. To highlight how staying active can lead to a healthier life, on April 24, all Apple Watch users are encouraged to close their Activity rings to earn a special Global Close Your Rings Day limited-edition award, along with animated stickers for Messages.
Taiwan's China Airlines now supports Apple's iPhone feature that makes it easier to share the location of AirTag-equipped baggage at airports, according to local media.
The idea here is to just have a glanceable look at what you’ve spent in the past day, the past week and the past month.
Chipolo has announced a new Bluetooth tracker called the Pop, featuring the same bright color options as its Chipolo One but with support for both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find My Device networks. The Chipolo Pop also has a much larger Bluetooth range than the company’s current lineup of trackers and features improved water and dust resistance, expanding where it can be used.
Apple today announced that it has officially rebranded Search Ads as ‘Apple Ads’, reflecting the expanding scope of Apple’s advertising business.
When Apple first launched ads in the App Store, they were only shown as promoted search results, hence the name ‘Search Ads’. But the company now offers advertising placements in many more places beyond just the Search tab, so the old name had become a bit anachronistic.
I hope that playing daily word puzzles and Backgammon on my iPhone will also decrease chances of dementia too.
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In other words, A.I.-based capitalism, if it is to maintain its political legitimacy, may well have to be accompanied by very high levels of taxation on capital, which would, in effect, socialize the financial returns that the A.I. models generate. Perhaps this was what the A.I. pioneer Geoffrey Hinton was getting at during a recent interview when, on being asked about the economic policies needed to make A.I. work for everybody, he gave a one-word answer: “Socialism.”
Intuitively, you would think the wired route would be the best, but at least in my testing environment, the most consistent perfection was achieved by the iPad running the MConnect Pro app and DLNA. Indeed, this even outperformed a wired connection from the iPad.
Robin Wilton, senior director for internet trust at the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation which advocates for a safe and accessible internet for all, said he did not understand the government’s approach.
[...]
“And I don’t see how you can look at that and think that the fact that I’ve allowed my device to back itself up in an encrypted way to the cloud means that I have a lower expectation of privacy than I do for what’s on the device itself.”
I will be very happy to let AI take over my job, if the AI can also figure out how to re-jiggle the economy and provide me a good healthy pension.
:-)
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Instead of browsing ad-laden recipe websites full of distractions like an animal, Apple News+ Food gives me clear step-by-step instructions with ingredients, images, videos, and more. Best of all, Apple News+ Food uses interactivity to aid your cooking so you're not left clueless at any step of meal preparation.
SelfControl is about as simple as you can get for an app, but it does its job perfectly fine. Launch it, and you'll immediately see the option to start a block timer, with a slider to adjust how long the block to last, from one minute up to a full 24 hours. You can also go to your blocklist, which is empty by default.
US Customs and Border Patrol published a notice late on Friday explaining the goods would be excluded from Trump's 10% global tariff on most countries and the much larger Chinese import tax.
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The US is a major market for iPhones, while Apple accounted for more than half of its smartphones sales last year, according to Counterpoint Research.
Democrats slammed the Trump administration for allegedly favoring sector-specific companies by giving them the ability to bypass the fallout from new trade policy with a Saturday exemption of electronics from “reciprocal” tariffs imposed on countries across the globe, including China.
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“Apple CEO Tim Cook donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Looks like he’s getting a big return on his investment,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a Saturday post after learning of the news.
Alas, Apple News+ is not available at where I am, so I can't try out the new Food section. And no daily puzzles for me either.
Of course, for the latter, I do have a lot of other fine options.
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He was beloved as much as he was because he operated in a world before Big Tech was viewed as a Big Villain. And, unlike many of today’s tech leaders, Jobs chose to—or could afford to—keep his politics private.
And he was beloved because nearly all of the products he helped unleash seemed to bring joy to the majority of their users, like the individual I met two decades ago who was grateful to Jobs for the simple everyday pleasure he derived from using his iPod mini.
Given how the world—and Big Tech’s role in it—has changed since Jobs’s passing, I don’t believe we’ll ever have another tech leader as beloved as he was. And, again, I think that is probably a good thing.
The features are still limited compared to the native iOS, iPad, and Mac apps, but the basics are there: walking and driving directions, business info like photos, ratings, and hours, even the Guides are there. Apple added support for Look Around (it’s analog to Google Maps’ Street View) a few months ago. Options like transit and biking directions seem to be missing, for now.
The Apple TV+ comedy “Mythic Quest” is done after four seasons, Variety has learned exclusively. The series aired its fourth season finale on March 26 following its January debut. It had been renewed for Seasons 3 and 4 back in 2021.
But in true video game style, the show is getting an extra life. An updated finale episode with a new ending will premiere next week on Apple TV+.
The explanation, it turns out, was simply that Apple was working on a more permanent version of the structure that was originally intended to be decoration around a temporary stage.
Earlier today, I moved a single button -- that runs a particular Shortcut -- in my iPhone's Control Center from the second page to the first page.
Firstly, four different buttons in the first page moved and I have to manually rearrange them back.
Secondly, that single button forgets which Shortcut to run, and I have to reset it.
Dear Apple: you can definitely do better.
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All the leaks coming out about the different infighting teams in Apple made me realize that when I encounter a software bug in Appel devices, I can no longer just shake my fist and blame Mr Craig Federighi.
:-)
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The release notes about Photos in macOS 15.4 caught my eye, and when I was trying to see how those new features worked, I realized that Photos had changed more in Sequoia than I had realized. Where did the Days collection come from? Photos now identifies receipts? How does Apple determine what should appear in Featured Photos (and why is it so utterly random)?
So let’s look at the new organizational features in Photos in Sequoia in more detail than Apple provides. Perhaps you’ve already explored these features, but if you’re like me and seldom venture beyond the main Library grid, you appreciate the new organizational features, which you’ll mainly find in the sidebar.
One major theme throughout is that there seems to be much more optimism within Apple that Siri is in good hands now.
Federighi and Rockwell seem to be viewed internally as leaders who get things done, and have strong track records of shipping.
Cook initially approved doubling the team's chip budget, but CFO Luca Maestri reportedly reduced the increase to less than half that amount, and instead encouraged the team to make existing chips more efficient.
The lack of adequate GPU resources meant Apple's AI team had to negotiate for computing power from providers like Google and Amazon.
Apple plans to release its delayed Apple Intelligence Siri features in the fall, according to a new report by The New York Times.
Apple is continuing to add support for carrier-based satellite services, with au customers in Japan and One NZ customers in New Zealand now able to use the satellite connectivity offered by those carriers on compatible iPhone models.
Let's unravel the world of smartphone charging with a quick explanation of charging technology and explore what you need to fast-charge your phone before we dive into the common standards and proprietary protocols for wired and wireless charging.
Apple has finally and officially released the iPhone 16 for customers in Indonesia. Not just the recently introduced iPhone 16e, but the whole lineup that was announced last fall. New iPhones typically don’t take more than 200 days to reach other markets. However, the Indonesian government forced Apple to pay for the opportunity to bring the latest iPhone technology to customers in its country.
There's sure a lot of leaks from Apple's Apple Intelligence team(s), isn't it?
At this point, I don't think many people will believe any Apple's claim on where the intelligent Siri will be released. Until, that is, Apple start showing us.
(Yes, I know Apple has not said anything beyond 'coming year'.)
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AI can be used to make our lives easier. Like any technology, it can be used for good or bad. Being aware of what it’s capable of and developing your visual and media literacies is essential to being an informed member of our digital world.
The MacBook Air is the consumer laptop to beat unless you specifically need Windows. It simply offers a better combination of performance, battery life, speakers, keyboard and trackpad than rivals.
The M4 chip upgrade keeps it ahead of the pack while being fanless and therefore silent at all times. The new Centre Stage webcam is a huge improvement, too, for anyone who lives on video calls for work. The screen is still great, although this is one area where better displays can be found on competitors at higher cost. It only has two USB-C ports but at least it can be charged via the MagSafe port to keep them available for connections.
But before you go on a deleting spree, also remember that these applications are capable of scanning your entire hard drive, including files that are necessary to run your applications or even operating system. The hard and fast rule here is do not delete a file if you don't know what it is.
While Ice has a ton of additional features relating to the Menu Bar, the main feature I use it for is its ability to hide Menu Bar items. You can simply drag items from the Visible section to the Hidden section, and they will be removed from your Menu Bar. If you want to see them again, you can click the Ice icon (a dot by default that's added to your Menu Bar) that will then enable you to see the hidden section.
Some days, I stare at a blank document in BBEdit, and wonder what I can type.
Other days, I stare at the world, and wonder what I can say.
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Ask Jason Toff whether his Apple Design Award winner is a game or an app, and his answer is yes.
“There’s no one-sentence description for Rooms, and that can be a blessing,” laughs Toff, CEO and head designer of Things, Inc. “It’s not entirely a game, and it’s not entirely a tool. It’s more like a toy.”
When 2024 came and went without even a hint of next-gen CarPlay coming to market, we could have realized that Apple has started to engage in that most un-Apple practice of promoting stuff while it is still early in development.
Apple just announced a line-up of five new games coming to Apple Arcade in the coming weeks, including WHAT THE CLASH?, a new party game from the team behind WHAT THE GOLF? and WHAT THE CAR?. Here’s what’s coming.
The company says that beginning today it will offer three months of Apple TV+ to both new and returning customers for $2.99 per month, a discount from the $9.99 standard price, and a substantially better deal than the free seven-day trial it currently offers (Apple does give some buyers of its Macs and iPhones three free months).
iPhone camera app Mood.Camera released last year, promising a point-and-shoot style camera experience and an incredibly convincing filmic look to photos. Mood.Camera version 1.7 launched today, adding an advanced Preset Editor that enables mobile photographers to create their own film emulations easily.
The chief of the European Commission’s competition directorate downplayed expectations over the size of the fines that the EU executive is set to hand down to Apple and Meta for infringing the bloc’s digital antitrust rules.
Enforcing the bloc's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which lays out rules for how tech companies should operate on the European market, is not about fines but about compliance, DG COMP’s Director General Olivier Guersent told an evening event hosted by the Global Competition Law Centre in Brussels on Monday.
The truth is that, assembled in the U.S. or not, the iPhone is a truly international device that is full of components manufactured all over the world and materials mined from dozens of different countries. Apple has what is among the most complex supply chains that has ever been designed in human history, and it is not going to be able to completely change that supply chain anytime soon.
Since some of the biggest industries being hit by tariffs—like automakers—are also big advertisers, the amount those companies spend on ads could slip.
“With streaming platform operators increasingly turning to ad-supported tiers to bolster profitability—rather than just rolling out price increases—this strategy could be put at risk,” says Matthew Bailey, who analyzes advertising for Omdia. “Against this backdrop, I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see some price increases for some streaming services over the coming months.”
I wonder what time Mr Tim Cook wakes up and start work nowadays.
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Employees from different Apple locations across the country said stores filled with customers over the weekend – with the shoppers expressing concerns that prices will climb dramatically after the levies are imposed. Most iPhones, Apple’s best-selling and most important product, are manufactured in China, which is in line for tariffs of 54 per cent.
[...]
The frenzy has translated to more purchases. Apple’s US retail stores saw higher sales over this past weekend than in prior years in at least some major markets, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.
Apple has updated its iWork apps to version 14.4, with Numbers getting the biggest boost. The spreadsheet app adds over 30 new advanced functions (including LET, LAMBDA, FILTER, SORT, and UNIQUE), allows you to see results from a single formula across multiple cells using spilling arrays, and improves compatibility when importing or exporting Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
The new Apple Immersive Video Utility app allows you to import, organize, package, and review Apple Immersive Video files on a Mac. Then, you can connect one or more Vision Pro devices and review the immersive videos. For larger groups, Apple says there is a synchronized playback option for multi-device viewing sessions.
Magnetic cases not only restore MagSafe-like charging (if only at 7.5W) but enable the use of accessories such as stands, wallets, and grips that have their own magnets. I especially like Ohsnap’s Snap Grip Wallet, a metal wallet that holds 8 cards, incorporates a pop-out grip for holding the phone with the index and middle fingers, and features all-over magnetism for slapping the phone onto a metal surface without removing the wallet.
Dig deeper into YouTube and you’ll find plenty of useful tricks and tools, but you can get even more from the platform by adding some well-chosen third-party apps—apps that extend YouTube’s functions and features in smart and helpful ways.
One such app is Play, which is available for just about every Apple device out there: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro (okay, the Apple Watch misses out). It helps you organize your YouTube viewing and queue, but can also improve search and recommendations.
The BBC has filed a formal complaint with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), claiming that tech giants Apple and Google are eroding its brand visibility by downplaying its role as the source of news content distributed through their platforms.
[...]
In its complaint, the BBC argues that the aggregated news experience minimises the presence of original sources, weakening the visibility of the BBC's brand and the public's understanding of where the information originates.
I am always amused to read documentations where a boolean value can be either true, false, and some other value such as null.
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Seth Rogen’s first exposure to Hollywood executives was at the age of seventeen, when he was starring on “Freaks and Geeks.” His mentor, Judd Apatow, had invited him to listen in on a notes call with the network. “Judd was, like, ‘These people are going to sound crazy, but just know that they could be fired at any second, and they’re operating from a place of sheer panic,’ ” Rogen recalled the other day. Over the years, he got to know this strange L.A. species. Three days into Apatow’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” a Universal executive halted production because she thought that Steve Carell looked like a serial killer. Around that time, while Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg, were working on a screenplay, one suit confided, “I got into this because I love movies, and now it’s my job to ruin them.”
As much as I love the design, it was clearly not made to stand the test of time.
The government argued it would damage national security if the nature of the legal action - and the parties to it - were made public, what are known as the "bare details of the case".
In a ruling published on Monday morning, the tribunal judges rejected that request - pointing to the extensive media reporting of the row and highlighting the legal principle of open justice.
However, to make the most of Apple’s pivot, analysts said India still needs to invest billions of dollars to create an ecosystem of companies that can make and supply parts locally.
India’s bid to attract Apple could also further complicate ties between Delhi and Beijing, said experts.
“If (India) is to rival China in any way, ironically, it needs Chinese equipment, technology and imports, and Chinese technicians to help it do that,” noted Sanjay Kathuria, visiting senior fellow at New Delhi-based public policy think tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress.
If you give it to me for free, I will take the AirPods Max. But this is one Apple product that I will not buy, and is one Apple product that I do not think anyone will have good and valid reasons to purchase.
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Over the past couple of years, I have carried iPads in all shapes and sizes. From the tiny iPad mini and the entry-level iPad to the 13-inch iPad Pro. I have used them extensively for video editing, photo touch-ups, gaming, and reading comics. But the best utility that I’ve got from Apple’s tablet is pushing it as an external monitor.
Sofa is an easy-to-use app that helps keep you organized when you don’t have something to do. Everyone has some level of downtime, but often don’t plan things out. Social media doomscrolling is often an option, but Sofa helps you plan out other leisure activities. In its new update, it also added a built-in podcast player.
Just as being in different locations can inspire or challenge new ideas, moving work through different writing environments can be that shift for your text. What I’m about to detail is less about the specific pieces of software, and more how one might change their approach depending on what the work needs.
At least, that’s how it is for me. Maybe it might be for you, too.
Three good things on a fine Sunday:
Listening to an audiobook while having banmian for breakfast…
Listening to an audiobook while having a nice cup of kopi…
Listening to an audiobook while sitting on a bench in a bus interchange while waiting for my wife…
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Currently listening: The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio. Which, I later found out after I am halfway through the novel, is going to be on Apple TV+ soon. I'll definitely recommend the book, and we shall see about the TV show.
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We are still within the sequence of energies described in Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” In this case, Apple, already badly bruised by Trump’s tariffs and their impact on its business, will now take another kicking as nations react to those oddly calculated trade taxes. Europe is gunning for Apple’s services, while China is about to stick some of the world’s rarest components behind its own trade wall.
[...]
Don’t expect to hear much from Apple’s leadership quite yet. Execs recognize that the sensible approach is to stay under water until others throw their own responding stones into the pool as the rocks of Trump’s tariff troubles ripple across an angry world trade pond.
They may have gamed out a whole range of potential scenarios, but must now wait to see what’s left after the storm. It’s only after both action and reaction have had time to play out that defensive plans can be put into effect.
Apple has steadily added new capabilities to Control Center via software updates, and iOS 18.4 continues that trend in a big way thanks to several nice upgrades.
These are ultimately just UI enhancements, but in my time using iOS 18.4 they’ve very much led to a better experience overall.
These changes to Guest User in visionOS give the device’s owner greater control and access throughout the process, which can be especially necessary when a guest is using the Vision Pro for the first time and might need some extra help. The new Guest Mode in visionOS 2.4 shows clear consideration for feedback that users have offered in the 14 months since the device’s release, and it’s great to see such impactful quality-of-life improvements in a mid-cycle point update.
I recently did a few small projects in Swift, and I wanted to run each of them on my home server running Gentoo Linux. I decided to do each of them in Swift, not because I thought it'd be easiest, but because I was curious about the challenge of compiling Swift from my Mac to my Linux machine.
This time round, after updating iOS on my iPhone, another different random button appeared on Control Centre. (It's the QR code scanner.)
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In the latest version of each app, you can now make text edits using Writing Tools directly in a presentation, spreadsheet, or document.
Apple Arcade gained six more games today as promised, including RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic, Katamari Damacy Rolling LIVE, The Game of Life 2, Sesame Street Mecha Builders, Space Invaders Infinity Gene Evolve, and puffies.
Dolby Amos music playback is now supported in Apple Music for Windows, bringing true immersive audio to PCs with compatible hardware via Apple's music streaming service for the first time.
The latest version of the space-saving Mac app introduces support for reclaiming storage without deleting files from cloud services like Apple’s iCloud Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, and more.
Whether you want to quickly check where a particular city is or grab an address to share with a friend, opening a full-blown maps app sometimes feels like overkill. Mappa Mini is a free Mac app by developer Lucas Raggers that lets you do a quick search without taking up all of your attention.
The update includes Nanomesh for iPad, allowing artist to seamlessly populate mesh polygons with multiple models, making it easier to generate intricate game and VFX assets.
Apple accepted applications for attendance until yesterday, and the company is now sending out notices to those who have been selected to go via its lottery process.
Apple has made moves to diversify its supply chain beyond China to places like India and Vietnam, but tariffs announced by the White House are set to hit those countries too.
If Apple didn't have plans for an iPhone 17e this fall, I am guessing the calculations have now changed.
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Not that there haven’t been a plethora of efforts over the years to claw back that focus and attention. Both Android and iOS have a swath of digital wellbeing tools that can limit app permissions and restrict the amount of time you spend in places you’d rather not. Older “dumb” phones have passionate adherents, as does the rise of efforts to deliberately hobble your smartphone. There are even whole devices, like the Light Phone, which offer only the bare necessities (i.e. no internet browsing capabilities) as a way to keep you from getting sucked into a device.
Some of these efforts work better than others, but an art studio in London thinks it has found an even better way to help keep you from staring into your rectangular glass abyss: Just cover the damn thing.
You might not be able to go completely MIA after the daily 9 to 5. But you can insist that anyone who wants to reach you after-hours make a telephone call. Let your supervisor ring you at 7:45 p.m. and hear your frazzled tone as you balance your phone on your shoulder while trying to give your unruly kids a bath. Let your boss hear the clanking of silverware on dishes when he interrupts dinner with your roommates. Employers should stop pretending that doing business at all hours isn’t an imposition on employees, even if it is sometimes a necessary one. Let the person delivering the message bear some of the cost, too.
Apple today released new 7E101 firmware for the AirPods Max with USB-C, addressing an issue that made the previously released firmware unable to be downloaded.
Before now, the only way to pause a download was to stop it entirely, thus forcing you to restart from scratch when you’re ready to continue.
But in iOS 18.4, there’s a new pause button to temporarily halt an app or update’s download, then resume it without losing your original progress.
Text Lens lets you select any part of your Mac's screen and automatically copy all of the text from that part. This makes it easy to copy text from images, videos, scanned pages, settings menus, and other types of text that are otherwise impossible to grab.
Rumors of the ongoing death of software development — that it’s being slain by AI — are greatly exaggerated. In reality, software development is at a fork in the road: embracing the (currently) far-off notion of fully automated software development or acknowledging the work of a software developer is much more than just writing lines of code.
The decision the industry makes could have significant long-term consequences. Increasing complacency around AI-generated code and a shift to what has been termed “vibe coding” — where code is generated through natural language prompts until the results seem to work — will lead to code that’s more error-strewn, more expensive to run and harder to change in the future. And, if the devaluation of software development skills continues, we may even lack a workforce with the skills and knowledge to fix things down the line.
Apple’s chief security executive was acquitted Wednesday of charges alleging he tried to broker a large iPad donation with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office to speed up his employees’ concealed-carry weapons licensing, ending the latest trial borne from a corruption scandal that upended the previous sheriff’s administration.
[...]
Moyer and his attorneys had long argued that no bribery motive existed because the permits eventually issued to four Apple security employees in early 2019 had already been approved by the sheriff’s office by the time he proposed donating 200 iPads to the agency’s training division.
Speculations on Apple's first foldable device seem to always pair iOS, when folded, with iPadOS, when unfolded.
I propose the second foldable device should pair watchOS with iOS. Small is also beautiful.
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With watchOS 11.4, Apple has added an option for a Sleep Wake Up alarm to break through Silent Mode, so you can have your Apple Watch make a sound in addition to haptic tapping when a morning alarm goes off. There's also support for Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners in the Home app.
The company released iOS 18.4 this week, and hiding amid the control center tweaks and priority notifications is support for RCS on Google Fi and other T-Mobile MVNOs.
AirPods Max users have been left unable to download Apple's new firmware update bringing lossless and low-latency audio support to the headphones, owing to a software bug with iOS 18.4, MacRumors can confirm.
Apple's latest iOS 18.4 software update appears to be causing long-deleted apps to reappear on some users' iPhones, based on corroborating reports on forums and social media.
But one of the things that makes Ridge’s Magnetic Power Bank really unique is that it has an integrated charging puck for your Apple Watch. There’s no need for an extra charging cable — you just place your Apple Watch directly on the power bank’s designated puck and it’ll charge.
Apple has introduced swiftly 1.0, a version manager for the Swift programming language that is intended to ease the process of installing, managing, and updating the user’s Swift tool chain.
Visa has offered Apple roughly $100 million to take over the tech giant's credit card partnership from Mastercard (MA.N), the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Visa has made a bold push to secure the Apple Card, offering an upfront payment typically reserved for the largest card programs, WSJ reported.
The US labour watchdog froze two cases against Apple days after Donald Trump nominated an attorney who represents the tech group to be the agency’s top legal official.
The National Labor Relations Board filed multiple complaints against the iPhone maker last year alleging it intervened against employee attempts to organise, but abruptly pulled back from two of the cases late last week, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.
I will continue to sing the praise of The Studio, the latest comedy from Apple TV+. The third episode is laugh-out-loud funny. (It helps to have some mini-plot-twists in the show.)
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With macOS 15.4, Apple is bringing Mail Categorization to the Mac. The Mail app features dedicated categories like transactions, updates, and promotions, with important emails organized into a primary section.
iOS 18.4 adds Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence-capable devices, showing you your most notification first.
The visionOS 2.4 update brings Apple Intelligence to the Vision Pro for the first time, putting it on par with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The Vision Pro has an M2 Apple silicon chip inside, and is capable of running the full suite of Apple Intelligence features.
The ability to assign a mood playlist button to your iPhone’s Lock Screen, Action button, or Control Center removes friction from the music playback experience.
It also helps reduce my own analysis paralysis when opening the Music app and confronting far too many options to choose from. Now I can have a simple toggle fit for these select occasions.
Apple News+ Food offers tens of thousands of recipes, that users can browse through. There are built-in filter and search tools for finding specific recipes, and new content is added daily. Favorite recipes can be saved for access later, and Apple has designed a special format for recipes.
When paired with the iOS 18.4 update, the new AirPods Max firmware brings lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio to the USB-C version of the headphones. The USB-C AirPods Max support 24-bit 48 kHz lossless audio, which is designed to allow listeners to experience music the way the artist created it in the studio. Apple says lossless audio and Personalized Spatial Audio offer a “more sonically accurate, uncompressed, and immersive experience.”
Apple's iPhone Mirroring was incredibly complex to get right in the first place. Apple used their expertise in designing secure systems to introduce a number of safeguards, including cryptographic measures and a User Experience that is meant to make misuse as difficult as possible.
Despite that, especially initial beta releases had critical bugs and even the final release version of the feature enables attack vectors that previously didn't exist.
Apple today announced 'Find My' network availability in South Korea. The launch brings the full range of Apple's location-based Find My services to South Korean customers for the first time, enabling them to keep track of devices, belongings, and loved ones.
The new app comes with an updated navigation system that should make it easier to access different parts of the app and find content to watch, along with a dedicated tab for centralized media libraries.
Developing for Apple used to be a thrilling challenge. Now, it feels more like an endurance test with constantly shifting rules.
While iOS and macOS remain incredible platforms from a technical perspective, the business side of things makes it harder and harder to justify the investment.
App Tracking Transparency actually accomplished, in practice, via user-focused plain-language consent, what the EU’s privacy laws were intended to do but do not. This fine boils down to France declaring that Apple shouldn’t have actually done what the EU was pretending to do. They’re acting at the behest of the very developers and advertising companies who were (and still are trying) to conduct cross-app tracking that App Tracking Transparency successfully gave users some control over.
Our research shows young people aren’t just passive users of technology. They’re active problem solvers. They want to be part of the conversation – and part of the solution.
This would involve replacing top-down bans with meaningful conversations involving young people and adults to build fair and practical digital guidelines, where everyone benefits.
The good news, with the latest iOS reelase, is that I can finally switch the language settings back to where I really am to use Apple Intelligence.
The not-so-good news: I am not sure when was the last time I used Apple Intelligence.
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