When Marie Kochsiek started work on an open source app for tracking menstrual cycles four years ago, some people questioned why the world needed another such program given that dozens were already on the market. But the Berlin software developer saw that most had a common flaw: They used private information for targeted ads, so a user who skipped a period might suddenly get a pitch for diapers, strollers, or baby food. While that argument resonated among the privacy-minded, the not-for-profit app—called Drip—barely got any traction against commercial rivals such as Flo, Ovia, and Glow, all of which have millions of users.
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Now, to extend its reach in the US, Kochsiek’s team is introducing a version for iPhones. “Roe v. Wade was a push to say yes, we really want to make it available to as many people as possible,” Kochsiek says.
It’s the first game created by the Oscar-winning actor, producer and director, and the first trivia game coming to Apple Arcade. “Hanx 101 Trivia,” developed by independent game studio BlueLine Studios, lets players test their knowledge across a variety of categories and multiple game modes — to become the ultimate trivia master. The game launches on Friday, Sept. 2.
Captionista is a fantastic tool for anyone who has ever wanted to add a bit of explanatory text to their videos.
Belkin today announced the debut of two new Boost Charge Pro Dual USB-C GaN Wall Chargers, which are available in 45W and 65W variants. The chargers feature PPS technology, which Belkin says is designed to deliver the optimum power to compatible devices, including Apple products.
Most of us cook with recipes on a device. And, if your preferred cooking tablet is an iPad, you probably want gadgets that help you use it better and keep it safe while you simmer consommé and the like. Well, we’ve got some great suggestions in today’s roundup of gadgets and accessories to use in the kitchen.
Apple today announced that developers can purchase subscriptions to Xcode Cloud, a continuous integration and delivery service that’s built into the Xcode app. Apple designed Xcode Cloud to provide cloud-based tools to developers for building apps, running automated tests, providing apps to testers, and managing user feedback.
Jane Horvath, who first joined Apple in 2011, is taking a job at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the move hasn’t been announced publicly. Horvath recently informed Apple’s legal department of her plans in an internal memo.
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Privacy has become central to Apple’s marketing efforts, and Horvath represented the company in its dealings with trade groups and Capitol Hill. She was also responsible for Apple’s compliance with privacy rules globally, such as GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, in the European Union.
Someone more sympathetic than I am might point out that Google will always struggle to understand context because it is operating at a prohibitively massive scale. This is a cop-out or, at least, an incomplete thought. Google, like many other big businesses, has prioritized growth at the expense of caution because the incentives outweigh the risks. Some variation of this is true across industries, from banking to natural resources to food.
Japan may be known for its advanced technologies, but government agencies still require some data to be submitted or saved on floppy disks and CD-ROMs. That is about to end.
"Where can you buy floppy disks these days?" Digital Affairs Minister Taro Kono told reporters on Tuesday. "We will change [these rules] promptly."
I was watching this season's Trying over at Apple TV+, and, for some reason, my brain was telling me that this will be the last season. So, throughout the episodes, I was reassuring myself that by the final episode, surely there will be a happy ending. It is a comedy, after all, and comedies always have happy endings.
Then, this morning, I've gotten news that there will be a fourth season, and I am now worried about my favorite characters in the show.
:-)
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Apple's Mac supply chain has normalized, according to analysts at JPMorgan, who said lead times have moderated to a week or less across geographies.
It means Apple customers now have to wait about five days, on average, for a new Mac, compared with a wait time of about 15 days in June. The wait time is a bit longer in North America, where it takes about eight days to get a new Mac, down from 18 days in June.
Today, Apple has announced its new Education Community hub, created for Apple professional learning resources and created as a collaborative space where educators can connect and share ideas.
The Community expands on all the resources from Apple Teacher. There’s a new Learning Center. It also introduces a Forum, launching in beta, which will serve as the Community’s collaborative space for educators to connect and share with one another.
Boot Camp 6.1.19 includes updates to the Precision Touchpad driver, according to Apple’s release notes, along with other bug fixes.
Fortunately for us, there are some half-a-dozen applications and services that make it possible to easily search across over 100 streaming channels for our favorite TV shows and movies. That said, in my experience, only two of them, JustWatch and Reelgood, are good and mature enough to deserve your TV-watching time.
Before you draw your next masterpiece, we've rounded up the best iPad drawing ups that will let you get creative with any iPad model.
I don't know anything, obviously, but if you want to get the new iPhone early, you probably want to consider ordering early, within the first few minutes when pre-orders open. There were rumors that Apple is getting the same number of iPhones assembled as previous year, but I don't really trust that rumor.
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Trademark filings suggest that Apple Inc. may be staking claim to potential names for its highly anticipated mixed-reality headset, part of the tech giant’s push into its first new product category in years.
Applications were filed in the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and Uruguay for the names “Reality One,” “Reality Pro” and “Reality Processor.”
EU antitrust regulators will not appeal a court ruling scrapping its 997-million-euro ($991 million) fine against U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm because it would be difficult to convince Europe's top court of the merits, people familiar with the matter said.
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The judgment was a major setback for EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager who has handed out billion-euro fines to Alphabet unit Google and opened investigations into Amazon, Apple and Meta as part of her crackdown on Big Tech.
Apple first introduced paid podcast subscriptions to its Apple Podcast app last April, providing another avenue for podcasters to make revenue from their work and giving listeners an option to consume content without ads.
Since June 2021, the number of Apple Podcast subscribers has gone up by more than 300%, a spokesperson said. Over 25% of the top 100 shows in Apple’s “Top Shows” chart now offer a subscription. Apple declined to share exactly how many subscriptions or subscribers it has on Apple Podcasts.
Apple is finally bottling and selling reality distortion fields.
But, seriously, I think Reality is a great name. And it is not a generic and boring name.
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With its next round of software updates coming this fall, including iOS 16 and macOS Ventura, Apple will launch integrated support for the passkeys standard. The passkey standard is described as unique digital keys designed to replace the need for passwords altogether with streamlined sign in across your devices, websites, and apps.
When Passkeys launch as part of iOS 16, macOS Ventura, and iPadOS 16, they will require that users also have two-factor authentication enabled on their Apple account. In preparation for this, Apple has shared details with 9to5Mac on adoption of 2FA among iCloud users for the first time.
The iPhone comes with a variety of accessibility options to offer a more comfortable experience for elders. Other than basic tweaks like raising the font size and calling emergency services, the iPhone can also look out for doorbell and siren sounds to notify people who are hard of hearing and flash the camera LED when someone’s calling. Here’s how to prepare an iPhone for an elderly user.
There are days when I cannot remember why I had unsubscribed from a podcast, look at the list of episodes, re-subscribe, and then remember I unsubscribed previously not because the content is not good, but the advertisement were obnoxious. And, immediately, I unsubscribe.
I apologize for taking up the bandwidth to download that one recent episode in the process.
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Still, the Justice Department has made no decisions whether or when to sue Apple, the world’s most valuable public company, cautioned that person and one other familiar with the probe — and it’s still possible no case will be filed. Both were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential investigation.
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Any case is going to be a hard fight for DOJ, and with a market cap of $2.73 trillion, Apple has near endless resources to defend itself. It has already shown a willingness to litigate to protect its lucrative App Store, going to trial against Fortnite maker Epic Games last year.
Duolingo on Friday announced a new “Math” app during its fourth annual Duocon conference. Duolingo Math, as the name suggests, will help people (especially children) learn and improve their math skills in a fun and intuitive way.
It is sufficiently affordable and portable to be something you can keep as part of your standard tech bag contents, while also providing enough power and longevity to meet everyday needs.
I met Bassett in June, at the headquarters of Mode Designs, a small computer-keyboard company in Somerville, Massachusetts. The occasion was an afternoon meetup organized by the New England Keyboard Group. There were a hundred or so enthusiasts in attendance, virtually all of them young men. Several were identified on their nametags by their Discord or Reddit handles, or by their usernames on the online keyboard forums Deskthority and Geekhack. The ones I spoke with generally referred to what they do as “the hobby”—as in, “He was out of the hobby for a while, but a few months ago he came back.” Some of the keyboards on display were commercial models from as long ago as the nineteen-eighties, but most were recent creations, which their owners had built themselves, using components they’d bought from specialized manufacturers.
The Secret History of Mac Gaming: Expanded Edition is an essential read for any fan of gaming, or those who want to study history as it happened, and not just rely on poorly sourced articles and videos. Some kudos must be given to Richard Moss for writing this 480-page masterpiece and giving a much-needed spotlight on the history of a sadly ignored platform. I would go so far as to say, that this could be used as reference material for those that are teaching computer history.
Dear podcast producers: I think almost every podcast player will do a good job to notify your listeners when you have new episodes dropped. There is really no need to 'stuff' your podcast feed with reruns and 'best-of' episodes. In fact, your reruns may make some of us unsubscribe.
Do have some trust to your subscribers and their software that it is going to be alright.
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If you’re a regular reader of this magazine, you probably don’t need to be convinced of technology’s enormous potential. Popular Mechanics has been covering that for more than a century. But if there’s one thing I want you to take away from these stories, it’s that while the potential of technology is virtually limitless, its impact is ultimately a reflection of the values that guide the people who create and use it.
Tim Cook: [...] We believe in putting groups of people together focused on solving some problem for a user. You pick diverse teams that look at the problem through different lenses.
We debate about things that we do and do not do, because we know we can only do a few things well. You have to debate and say no to a lot of great ideas so that you can spend your time on the ones that are truly unbelievable.
Apple today introduced its second Impact Accelerator class — a cohort of 16 Black-, Hispanic/Latinx-, and Indigenous-owned businesses working on the cutting edge of environmental services and solutions. Part of the company’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, the Impact Accelerator will provide training and mentorship to help propel the selected businesses toward the next stage of growth while advancing a shared goal of creating a greener world.
I've had my fair share of App Store rejections in the past [...] But I wasn't prepared to be rejected because my app is "not good enough" for the App Store.
Back in 2018, Apple acquired a music industry startup called Platoon, which was co-founded by a former iTunes executive. Four years later, Apple has launched a new “Platoon for Artists” app on the App Store, which it says will help up and coming artists manage their careers with things like social tracking, reporting features, and more.
When the day comes to an end and you finally crawl into bed, it is not always so easy to shed the pressures of the day and find sleep. Noise machines have grown in popularity over the years due to people wanting to precisely control the ambient sounds around them in order to sleep better. However, actual white noise machines can be difficult to travel with due to their size and power needs. As an alternative, there are now white noise apps that offer simple functionality and excellent performance.
Cord-cutting is still the present and the future, but the sum cost of even just a few big streaming sites, let alone all, is about the price of cable. With the messiness of streaming right now, it’s hard not to feel a little nostalgic about the expensive pay-TV-bundle model that once dominated.
“Buy now, pay later” companies say they don’t win when customers fail to pay—they make a much smaller percentage from fees—and as such they’ve built systems that help people succeed financially, avoid long-term debt, and remain reliable customers.
[...]
And yet, stories abound of people who, like Rawls, found themselves buying more than they could afford once they started to use “buy now, pay later.”
I do not use any white noise apps, but when I have difficulties getting to sleep, or problem getting back to sleep, I listen to BBC news. :-)
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It’s an in-person event for some members of the media (including me), so the event is at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino. It appears that just as at WWDC, a negative COVID test before the event will be required. But unlike WWDC, it seems that masks are optional at this event.
But if users turn on Lockdown Mode, they will be easy to fingerprint and identify, according to a developer who created a proof of concept website that detects whether you have Lockdown Mode enabled or not.
[...]
This issue, which is technically not a bug but just a specific drawback of how Lockdown Mode is designed, could paint a massive target on the back of users who are likely Apple's most vulnerable users. There unfortunately may be no way around it.
While gut wrenching, this experience has been a come-to-Jesus moment. After exhausting all options of retrieving my lost notes, including downloading questionable iPhone rescue software, I immediately backed everything up, twice. I severed ties with my family’s iCloud account so I could have sole control over, and sole responsibility for, any repeat event of this nature.
But like finishing a really good book and not wanting to dive straight into a new read, I couldn’t face the blank canvas of the app in the days that followed. Almost a week later, I reflexively opened it to write down a list of things to do on the weekend. I need not keep that one forever, but I might think of something on the bus to work tomorrow that is worth preserving.
In macOS Ventura, users will finally get access to the full complement of AirPods settings, just like in iOS. The AirPods settings will appear in Ventura’s System Settings when the AirPods are connected–when they’re disconnected, the AirPods settings disappear.
There aren’t a lot of good options here. Either Apple ships an embarrassing app, or it rushes back to the old System Preferences app and tries to prop it up for another year, which would require integrating all the new settings added in macOS Ventura.
My guess is that Apple will go ahead and ship whatever it has with 13.0, and users will have to deal with the replacement of an old and outmoded Preferences app with a buggy and frustrating Settings app. That will be bad. What would be worse is if Apple then abandoned the project and walked away.
Apple appears to be preparing for future devices with Bluetooth 5.2 support, according to a filing in the Bluetooth SIG products database earlier this month. Among other possibilities, this could serve as evidence of future AirPods Pro with LE Audio support.
The spelling puzzle app phenomenon Wordle is making its debut on The New York Times Crossword application, The Times announced today. After tons of doppelgangers and wannabes of the infamous app, the NYT Crossword app is now appearing at the top of iOS and Android app store searches.
The crackdown on third-party tracking has given rise to a new breed of “digital attribution” startups—Triple Whale, Northbeam, Hyros, Wicked Reports, and Rockerbox, to name just a few. They promise to track and sync conversions (sales, signups, etc.) across all of your marketing channels, and to accurately credit each touchpoint in the customer journey, all without using cookies or other third-party tracking.
If Apple opens the Sept 7 event with Apple Music, I'll probably be very happy.
Unless this is yet another HomePod that I cannot buy.
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In a comment to TechCrunch, the company notes, “This is an especially big year for iPadOS. As its own platform with features specifically designed for iPad, we have the flexibility to deliver iPadOS on its own schedule. This Fall, iPadOS will ship after iOS, as version 16.1 in a free software update.”
In other words, Apple will be skipping the iPadOS 16.0 release in the fall and going straight to 16.1. This means the first version of iPadOS 16 will ship to non-beta users after the arrival of the first iOS version. It seems likely the two 16.1 releases will arrive at – or around – the same time, though Apple hasn’t confirmed the speculation. The move is unique, but not unprecedented, for Apple software releases.
Apple just expanded its self-service repair program to include M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pros. You can get replacement screens, batteries, and even logic boards, but don’t expect to be able to upgrade your laptop, as you can only purchase the exact same main board that originally came with your device.
Code seen by 9to5Mac makes it clear that the Wallet app has become “deletable” with iOS 16.1. Unsurprisingly, some features like Apple Pay won’t work without the Wallet app. In this case, users will see a message telling them to “Download the Wallet app from the App Store.”
New Mac buyers in Australia, Canada, and Japan can now get AppleCare+ through the same annual plan available to US customers.
A year after it made the option widely available in the US, Apple has now brought its annual AppleCare+ pricing to more countries. Instead of the previous three-year upfront commitment, new Mac users can have all of the benefits of AppleCare+ insurance for an annual fee.
Ahead of iOS 16 launching next month, Apple Music for Android has been updated with the latest features to ensure parity as part of version 4.0, which is currently in beta.
The more important change for longtime individual FileMaker users is that there will be a freemium version of Claris Pro with free access to Claris Studio (and presumably Claris Go). Its only restriction is that databases created with the freemium version are restricted to a single user—but there are no size or time constraints.
Taking on a much more slim approach than we’ve seen from previous releases, the new Anker MagSafe Power Bank packs much of the same specs as before.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will be speaking at Vox Media's Code conference, with former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs also set to appear to talk about Steve Jobs
For Big Sur and Monterey, the OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP for short) is the best way to get new macOS versions running on old Macs. It's an offshoot of the OpenCore Hackintosh bootloader, and it's updated fairly frequently with new features and fixes and compatibility for newer macOS versions. The OCLP developers have admitted that macOS Ventura support will be tough, but they've made progress in some crucial areas that should keep some older Macs kicking for a little bit longer.
The move by Apple, a bellwether of Silicon Valley, has led to growing disquiet across tech workers on whether their company will follow. While Big Tech companies were quick to send their workers home at the onset of the pandemic, the sector has been markedly less decisive in calling everybody back over concerns it could trigger an exodus of top talent.
“There is some palpable anxiety,” said one hardware engineer at the iPhone maker, who asked to remain anonymous. “Apple is working from a place of hubris in believing that it’s a desirable place to work and there’ll always be people who will want to work for Apple regardless of the conditions.”
The more we have to wait for a new thing from Apple, the higher the expectation we will all have. No, I am not talking about Stage Manager. It's the new Apple Classical app that I am probably expecting too much.
As an amateur listener to classical music, I am hoping the new app will make me learn to appreciate better. As a realist, I am not expecting that.
But, about Stage Manager: I will probably try out on my Mac, seeing that Spaces didn't really work for me. But I also don't have high hopes that it will suit my workflow.
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For half a decade, Luca has been playing with the same Sims family—which has expanded through marriage to include the Covingtons and the McDermotts. As someone who has never played with the same Sim for longer than a week (and as someone who has forced more than one Sim to swim themselves to death) I am fascinated by Luca’s gameplay—and the gameplay of 21-year-old substitute teacher Shannon, who is also based in New Jersey.
Shannon (who declined to give her last name for privacy reasons) has been playing with the same Sims family for seven years. While Luca periodically turns off the game’s aging feature so that Jon and Amy Holt do not die, Shannon doesn’t—meaning the first man and woman of her Sims family, John and Laura Jones, have long since passed. “She got electrocuted while fixing the dishwasher, I still remember it,” Shannon says of Laura’s passing, “It was very sad.”
Apple says that when a creator submits a new show, it will be immediately made available in the Apple Podcasts catalog. Creators can then use the URL to “generate promotional assets and begin promoting a show.”
Just like in the past, however, all shows and subscriptions will be reviewed and it could “take up to 24 hours for new shows and episodes to appear in search results and personalized recommendations.”
In February, 9to5Mac reported that the popular Authenticator app was facing iOS copycats. At the time, complaints about the App Store review process were rising. But six months from there, it doesn’t seem much has changed as 2Stable developers are now facing the same issue, raising the fundamental question of Apple’s App Store as a gatekeeper from scammers and “a place you can trust.”
Apple Inc plans to start making the iPhone 14 in India about two months after its release out of China, in a move that will narrow the gap from the typical six to nine months for previous launches, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
[...]
The U.S. tech giant is looking at options after Beijing's clashes with Washington and lockdowns across the country disrupted production, according to the report.
Matching China’s pace of production is still mostly a distant dream for India.
Massive barriers like the lack of a component ecosystem remain, according to Pathak.
Celebrating 106 years of the US National Park Service, Apple today introduced more ways to learn about and support America’s parks. These offerings include a $10 donation the company will make to the National Park Foundation for every Apple Pay purchase made with Apple through August 28,1 along with special content and collections on Apple Maps, Apple Podcasts, and more.
I’ll definitely be planting AirTags in my bags before my next air trip in a couple months—my first in three years and the first since AirTags were released. But I’ll be aware of some of the ways in which AirTags can provoke annoyances and try to mitigate those. Adam and Tonya Engst recently traveled to visit their son in Vancouver, B.C., and experienced a few even though they didn’t check luggage. Some of their issues revolved not around AirTags but other Apple devices, which react similarly when separated from their owners.
According to the release notes for the update, the software introduces WiFi WPA3 support and it fixes a Bluetooth driver issue that sometimes occurred when resuming from Sleep or Hibernation.
Woebot exists to help you confront whatever mental health challenges you're facing in your life. Maybe it's anxiety, stress, loneliness, grief or even depression. You then check in with the app every day or so — it can be as frequently as your schedule allow or as your needs require — and the AI-powered chatbot offers a guided conversation designed to address your particular concern.
People with enough money to ignore rising costs, it seems, can still get excited about slightly better cameras and screens.
[...]
Analysts suggest that smartphone buyers may eventually get restless with their current models and upgrade, either later this year or next year.
Grubhub, one of the most popular food ordering and delivery platforms in the United States, announced this week a new partnership with Apple. To celebrate National Waffle Day, users can earn a free “perk” with an order placed using a code inspired by the Apple TV+ show Severance.
Of all the sim-something games that I've played, I particularly enjoyed SimTower. And if I remember correctly, I bought the game from one of those discounted clearance aisles in a physical store.
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Apple has long touted a privacy and security advantage for its products over alternatives like Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows. But the simultaneous rollout of Apple's ad expansion and privacy changes has stoked criticism and could draw the attention of antitrust regulators.
Starting tomorrow, users of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models with chips from the M1 family will be able to obtain repair manuals and genuine Apple parts and tools via the Apple Self Service Repair Store. Apple says that Self Service Repair for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will offer more than a dozen different repair types for each model, including the display, top case with battery, and trackpad, with more to come in the future.
Apple engineers wrapped up development of the initial version of iOS 16 last week, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This likely means that Apple has no major new features or changes planned for the remaining iOS 16 betas and will instead focus on bug fixes in the final weeks before the software update is publicly released.
The baseline Mac Studio with the M1 Max chip is estimated to ship in one to three weeks, depending on specific storage and memory options. Customers looking to get their hands on the more powerful M1 Ultra chip will have to wait at least seven weeks for the standard option with a 48-core GPU and up to 10 weeks for the 64-core GPU option.
So thanks to Thorsten and GraphicConverter, and if you still have any QuickTake 150 images lying around, I encourage you to convert them while you’re thinking about it.
“I believe the engineering work is already underway to launch search ads in the Apple Maps app, and we should begin to see it be implemented sometime next year,” wrote Gurman, in the subscriber-only version of his “Power On” newsletter today.
In a memo obtained by MacRumors, Apple is informing authorized service providers that their machines and equipment will need to be updated to support a new, longer 18-digit serial number for repair parts starting October 1. The current serial number for repair parts is 17-digits.
Apple Together counters that a “uniform mandate from senior leadership” fails to respect the “many compelling reasons” why some employees are “happier and more productive” working outside of traditional office arrangements.
The group is demanding that Apple allows employees to work with their “immediate manager” to decide their working arrangements, and that they should not be subject to “high-level approvals” and “complex procedures” or have to provide private information.
I hope Apple will hold itself to a higher standard in terms of user-tracking: data collected from one app, such as the App Store, will not be used for personal ads on another app, such as Maps.
After all, just because I downloaded the McDonald's app when my daughter wanted some french fries one day doesn't mean I want to see directions to all the McDonald's restaurants whenever and wherever I travel.
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Regardless of questionable design decisions and aggressive advertising, Apple retains advantages: an unparalleled ecosystem; consistently premium hardware; unrivalled mobile apps. But the company’s position is precarious if it becomes more like its rivals – especially if rivals then shift towards the position Apple once occupied.
Apple should take stock, before paying a premium for its products looks like a bad deal rather than a justified cost.
As location sharing through apps like Find My has proliferated in recent years, they have become a staple in some friendships — ostensibly for safety but with the side effect of complicating dynamics between friends.
The impact is particularly noticeable among Generation Z and millennials, the first generations to come of age with the possibility of knowing where their peers are at all times. It has changed how friends communicate with one another and blurred lines of privacy. Friends now, sometimes unwittingly yet obsessively, check one another’s locations and bypass whole conversations — about where somebody is, what they are doing or how their days are going — when socializing. All of that information can be gleaned from Find My.
With the risk of losing valuable possessions at stake, more travelers are turning to Apple AirTags for peace of mind. Apple AirTags allow you to track the location of your bag (or any item) whenever you want. You can even find their precise location in the airport, which is a pretty great hack for knowing exactly when you need to head to baggage claim.
The right trip planning app organizes all your information while assisting in the reservation and booking process. The best trip planning apps offer even more if you know where to look.
For one of my hobby projects, I think I've finally found a design that I like. Turns out: I need to throw away all the imagined use cases, and just build it for myself.
:-)
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Apple today announced that popular music identification service Shazam launched 20 years ago today. To celebrate the milestone, Apple shared a playlist featuring the most Shazamed song of each calendar year for the past 20 years.
The program now covers affected iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro devices for up to three years after the first retail sale of the device, compared to up to two years previously, according to Apple. The one-year extension applies worldwide.
Over the course of a few days, I just couldn’t stop collecting coins, dodging missiles, upgrading my gear, and getting as far as I could through each level.
Adobe released Lightroom Classic 11.5 with a few new features and enhancements for the desktop-focused photo cataloging and editing app.
Overtraining is a real risk for athletes! It’s one reason why recovery is important. Plus, like, I’m not a pro athlete! I work out to enjoy myself, not because it’s my job. But the setup of the Apple Watch’s rewards doesn’t acknowledge that.
While Apple employees are not threatening to quit over the RTO mandate with as much ire as they did in the spring, they’re speaking of growing pains and worried about having their attendance tracked. (Apple did not respond to requests for comment.)
“I thought I was all for [a] return to office but God d*mn, is Apple park packed,” an Apple employee said on Blind, adding that the offices are overloaded: ”On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can barely hear myself think when everyone is having a separate conversation, people’s phones are off silent getting a million messages a minute, and don’t even get me started on conference room availability.”
Shazam -- an interesting name for an interesting product. I'm glad that Apple didn't renamed it to something boring.
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Today, August 19, is World Photography Day, and Apple has some photos to share with you.
The company asked photographers to use their iPhones to take photos of their favorite place. As it typically happens, the results made us feel like we're doing something wrong when taking photos with our phones, because these are pretty darn great.
Apple today released Safari version 15.6.1 for the older macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina operating systems. The update includes an important security fix for a WebKit vulnerability that could lead to arbitrary code execution, according to Apple.
Apple Podcasts is introducing a pair of new top 100 charts today that track subscription podcasts and subscription podcast channels. And as of day one, Amazon is at the top.
Amazon’s stable of shows dominates the new charts. Morbid, SmartLess, and Something Was Wrong, which release early for subscribers of Amazon-owned Wondery Plus, nab the top three spots among subscriber shows in the US.
A few days ago, developer Felix Krause shared a detailed report on how mobile apps can use their own in-app web browser to track user data. Now Krause is back with a new tool that lets anyone see JavaScript commands injected through an in-app browser.
Moft has launched its newest Apple accessory today with a dual-purpose MagSafe wallet for iPhone. Along with carrying two cards, the clever design means you’ve also always got a handy stand for both portrait or landscape use.
Most of us are comfortable making this devil’s bargain, even though no one really likes ads (well, almost no one). We already know that young adults are more likely to have a poor diet if exposed to energy-dense, nutrient-poor food advertising. Advertising has a toxic effect on body image. In general, ads make everyone unhappier.
That’s why so many of us are all too happy to pay to avoid them. But that’s getting harder and harder to do. More providers push “ad-supported tiers,” where the service is merely cheaper if you include ads. The harder we work to avoid them, the harder advertisers work to saturate our screens. The relentless creep is exhausting. If you can’t afford to pay, you and your children will be exposed to more and more of them.
This is probably the last year that MagSafe accessories -- wallets, stands, chargers -- are guaranteed to work with iPhone minis, if the rumor of the discontinuation of the mini iPhones this year is true.
I already have the great MagSafe wallet, and the not-so-great MagSafe battery from Apple. Are there anything else I need to stock up for my iPhone mini?
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In response to a pair of security vulnerabilities that are being exploited in the wild, Apple has released three updates: iOS 15.6.1, iPadOS 15.6.1, and macOS 12.5.1 Monterey. One of the vulnerabilities is at the kernel level, whereas the other is related to WebKit. No other changes were mentioned.
Apple Inc. is aiming to hold a launch event on Sept. 7 to unveil the iPhone 14 line, according to people with knowledge of the matter, rolling out the latest version of a product that generates more than half its sales.
The new iPhones will kick off a busy fall product season, which will also include multiple new Macs, low-end and high-end iPads, and three Apple Watch models.
You may have heard of a couple of smart home buzzwords lately: Thread and Matter. Each tackle one of the greatest problems with smart home stuff today: interoperability. Since Apple’s in the back of the smart home pack largely because it’s having trouble getting enough devices to support HomeKit, they could each have a big impact on the future of the Apple-compatible smart home.
Here’s a quick primer on Thread and Matter, how they’re different, and how they’re going to benefit Apple’s smart home future.
Any third-party VPN seems to work at first, giving the device a new IP address, DNS servers, and a tunnel for new traffic, Horowitz writes. But sessions and connections established before a VPN is activated do not terminate and, in Horowitz's findings with advanced router logging, can still send data outside the VPN tunnel while it's active.
In other words, you'd expect a VPN to kill existing connections before establishing a connection so they can be re-established inside the tunnel. But iOS VPNs can't seem to do this, Horowitz says, a finding that is backed up by a similar report from May 2020.
Starting today, GarageBand for iOS and iPadOS will include two all-new, in-app Remix Sessions featuring Katy Perry and K-pop supergroup SEVENTEEN. GarageBand Remix Sessions enable anyone to express their inner DJ using tracks from today’s top artists. With in-app inspiration from the artists themselves and step-by-step video instruction from an Apple Creative Pro, the sessions give aspiring musicians the ability to put their own personal spin on the hit songs “Harleys in Hawaii” by Katy Perry and “Darl+ing” by SEVENTEEN.
Among the many roles your phone can take on—portable jukebox, web browser, video caller, document scanner, gaming console, and many more—it can become your personal, portable audio editing studio, too.
The new Multiport Hub with Mount may look like a typical way to extend I/O, but features a novel design that can be attached to the back of your desktop machine and then unclamped for use on-the-go.
The app now costs $4.99 per month or $23.99 per year, with a seven day free trial. A $59.99 lifetime option will also be available. The subscription unlocks access across all your devices, including the upcoming newly-announced Mac version.
Australia’s national swim team, The Dolphins, has been using Apple Watch, iPad, and a combination of apps to improve its performance outcomes, helping propel the team during its most successful period in history. Through harnessing the sensors and activity-tracking features within Apple Watch, Swimming Australia’s coaches can more accurately capture a complete picture of their athletes’ overall health and performance. And when paired with iPad and custom apps, this powerful ecosystem delivers real-time data and analysis, and a portable, powerful visual feedback tool for coaches to use when communicating with athletes in the pool. The native Workout app on Apple Watch tracks both pool and open water disciplines, and it surfaces important swimming metrics the athletes can view during training sessions.
The company supplies small volumes of displays to Apple for its iPhone 13 devices and older models, and could potentially supply displays for the upcoming iPhone 14, according to reports from Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst at research firm TF Securities.
I am looking at my iPhone's lockscreen wallpaper, and saying a soft goodbye. Nice wallpaper, but I will most likely be replacing you with something else soon, come iOS 16.
And then I look at the two little buttons: torchlight and camera. And whispering: I wish I can get rid of you two.
:-)
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Throughout this process, I have been conceptualizing the problem as an issue with the fans of the Mac Studio. However, when rewatching the keynote about the Mac Studio, the mention of the "over 2,000 precisely-machined perforations" was a lightbulb moment. I wondered, what if those were the culprit? What if moving air through all those tiny holes at just the right speed created the high-pitched whine I was hearing? Rather than a whine, what if the Mac Studio was whistling?
Watch Duty aims to distill those often disparate efforts into something more direct and tangible. Open the app and you’ll find a map of California. Across the state, depending on the season, are a smattering of red-and-yellow icons indicating the locations of active fires. Zoom into the map, tap an icon, and relevant information appears: evacuation zones, a map showing the perimeter of where the fire has burned, and a scrollable feed of updates about the fire’s movements. Any new updates from official sources are added by one of Watch Duty's volunteers, so anyone tracking the blaze can see the latest news from both official and unofficial sources all in one place in near real time. Users can follow up to eight California counties for free. Any user who makes a donation (even $1) can track all 58 counties in the state. Whenever the app has new information to pass along about the fires in the counties you're tracking, it sends an alert accompanied by a custom audio notification that mimics the sound of a crackling fire.
A St Albans mum, who underwent solo IVF after fearing she was running out of time to find a partner, has used her experience to start a dating app for those wanting to start families. Performace coach and mental health clinician, Stacy Thomson, 43, founder of Reddi dating app, had Milo, one, in 2021 by herself after failing to find a suitable partner to have a child with on the regular sites she was using.
Apple has set its next Apple Watch Activity Challenge for August 27 to “celebrate the beauty of national parks everywhere.” Apple Watch users can earn the achievement by completing a hike, walk, wheelchair workout, or run at least one mile.
Perhaps the best part about receiving voice memos is the ability to truly hear your friends. It can be hard to always discern the tone of texts. But with voice memos, you get a better sense of the sender’s intentions and emotions. And if it’s been a long time since you truly talked, there’s something nice about feeling like they’re in the same room as you are.
Apple's main video editing program on macOS is iMovie. It's enough for most, but it doesn't satisfy professional and more advanced editors. Here are the best alternatives to iMovie.
But more broadly, Apple does all the little things right. Before it even announces its products, it’s been assembling those devices in factories, building up enough supply to at least somewhat satisfy initial orders. It makes an announcement and tells people when orders will be accepted. It opens the gates and begins accepting orders. And ultimately, it ships the orders out when it promised to.
It does this with all its products, but even if we crank the difficulty all the way up to the iPhone… the principle still holds. Quite frankly, it makes the game console makers look like amateurs. Compared to Apple, they are.
According to Bloomberg Law, Apple has agreed to collect the tax, starting September 15, from customers in Chicago. As part of the settlement, Apple will not need to pay back taxes.
Apple suppliers Luxshare Precision Industry and Foxconn have started test production of the Apple Watch in northern Vietnam with the aim of producing the device outside of China for the very first time, three people with direct knowledge of the matter told Nikkei Asia.
[...]
On the MacBook front, Apple has asked suppliers to set up a test production line in Vietnam, two sources said. However, progress in moving mass production to the country has been slow, partly due to pandemic-related disruptions but also because notebook computer production involves a larger supply chain, multiple sources said. That network is currently centered on China and very cost-competitive, they added.
Will Apple refresh every single Mac (except the MacBook Air, of course) this fall? And with new iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and AirPods too?
The times are getting exciting.
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"As our annual renewals emails went out over the last month, we've been hearing directly from so many members who have improved their own photography practice." Watson reflects. "One member told us something that really sums up the magic that can happen on Glass — "Shooting for yourself, and a community of people who care about photography, versus shooting what an algorithm may like that week has changed my relationship to photography for the better. I feel like I've fallen in love with photography again."
If Apple can’t make professional-looking settings panels with Swift UI, how can anyone be expected to?
Alfred version 5 is the first major update to Alfred since May of 2019. And while on the surface it may not look like there’s a whole lot new, the Workflow editor has been completely rewritten from the ground up. This improves on the flagship feature of Alfred (the custom workflows) in almost every way, making them faster, more efficient, and (most importantly) more user-friendly.
Listy is a free and simple app for making lists of your favorite things. It automatically includes related images, like book or album covers, and you can create shareable visual lists with the free app.
Gentler Streak, the Apple Watch app that brings a more compassionate perspective on your workouts, has just received another big update, this time with new Workout Views, which will be one of the main features that watchOS 9 plans to introduce later this fall.
Das Keyboard is out with its latest high-end mechanical creation for Mac. The all-new MacTigr keyboard features a premium build with a low-profile design, Cherry MX switches, a handy volume knob, USB-C hub, and more.
Meet the new Curve Flex, an adjustable way to prop up your machine a the desk with an aluminum design that can fold open to elevate your device up to 22 inches off the desktop.
About 100 contract workers were let go in a rare move for the world’s most valuable company, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. The recruiters were responsible for hiring new employees for Apple, and the cuts underscore that a slowdown is underway at the company.
All employees in the Bay Area will be expected to come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in addition to a third day every week that’s decided based on individual teams.
An Apple employee says that Apple, a company she has worked at for over six years, is threatening to fire her over a viral TikTok video she made where she provides basic, commonsense, and publicly available tips on what to do if your iPhone is stolen.
Apple claimed that the searches were necessary to make sure employees were not stealing products. Employees, however, said that they would oftentimes have to wait around for as long as 45 minutes after their shift for this search to be completed, and they would not be paid for that time.
I long for an internet where people make web pages, not algorithms add to infinite scrolls.
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But creating a product solely for myself ended up being an advantage. I didn’t get into the trap of trying to answer the unanswerable question “What will sell to others?” This freed me from second-guessing every design and user interface choice of both the hardware and software and allowed me to simplify the product. And SITU is extremely simple: launch the iPad app, put food on the scale, see its nutrition content. Getting to the first working SITU prototype cost over $50,000 and at the end of the day, if it had caught on with no one and all I had to show for my work in creating SITU was one $50,000 kitchen scale I would have been content because it allowed me to lose weight again.
I believe it’s because I was free from the constrains of designing SITU for others—and didn’t even care if I made money from it—that the first prototype turned out as well as it did, which, ironically, made it appeal to a large amount of people.
The effort to add search ads to Apple Maps has already been explored internally. Such a feature would probably work similarly to search ads in the App Store. For instance, a Japanese restaurant could pay money to rank at the top of local listings when users searched for “sushi.” If you’ve used Yelp, you already get the idea.
Apple has recently begun running display ads in its News and Stocks apps, and it doesn’t matter if you subscribe to News+ or not. You’ll still see ads In the News app’s Today tab and Stocks’ news feed even if they have the “Subscriber Edition” label. Apple is using its own advertising platform to deliver the ads, which are obvious but not terribly intrusive and marked with a small “Ad” in the lower right corner. We received ads for Motley Fool and Brilliant Earth jewelry while writing this article.
These apps will most surely not pester you with constant notifications. In fact, you’ll need to exercise patience in order to truly enjoy them.
So, slow down, take a deep breath, and remember that good things come to those who wait.
The vulnerability was revealed by Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle at the hacking conference DEF CON in Las Vegas on Friday.
The awards have been celebrating the creativity of iPhone users since 2007. We take a look at a selection of the winners of the 15th annual competition
Anyone can suffer under the isolation of remote work – even for the least social people, spending workdays with only a webcam or messaging platform to contact people they once saw all the time can eventually take a toll. But this isolation can be particularly hard on one type of worker: the ‘overthinker’. These are individuals who tend to over-analyse events around and pertaining to them, and need reassurance that everything is OK.
I don't care about ads in Apple's App Store, because I have almost never use the app to browse and search for stuff anymore. All my discovery of new and noteworthy apps are from my RSS feeds and third-party websites. (Most of which, well, do have ads.)
Gone are the days when I will regularly launch the App Store app just to see what's new and what's recommended by Apple.
I think it will be better if the App Store doesn't have ads. This is probably obviously true. However, I am not sure how much better it can get, with sneaky SEOs and everything-is-a-subscription already infecting the ecosystem. Even without ads, good apps can't really stand out anymore inside the App Store.
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For better or worse, Apple and Samsung have relied on touchscreen navigation on their smartwatches. That’s fine for casual exercise, or for the average person who isn’t traversing all sorts of terrain with extreme temperatures. It’s not going to cut it for the outdoor enthusiast both companies are aiming at with these “Pro” watches.
With a tantalising array of satay chicken, wok-fried mud crab and chilled tiger prawns, the dinner buffet at Singapore’s Grand Hyatt hotel typically sets diners back about US$70. Those on a tighter budget and with an eye on sustainability can fill a box for a 10th of that price.
Across Asia, tech startups are taking food otherwise destined for landfill and providing discounted meals through mobile phone apps.
It has now been over a year since Apple announced plans for three new child safety features, including a system to detect known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) images stored in iCloud Photos, an option to blur sexually explicit photos in the Messages app, and child exploitation resources for Siri. The latter two features are now available, but Apple remains silent about its plans for the CSAM detection feature.
Speaking of buttons, I have mentioned this before, but I still do wish the iPhone has a hardware button to play/pause. Especially since iPhone is a widescreen iPod, after all.
All the non-iPod-touch iPods have this button, with the exception of one particular generation of the iPod nano and iPod shuffle, both of which was quickly corrected in the next version.
The final iteration of the iPod nano has the play/pause button right between the two volume buttons, which to my amateur design eyes, is perfect for the iPhone.
Of course, I am not expecting this button to appear in any future iPhones. We are lucky that Apple hasn't decided to remove any more buttons.
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Every time you shut down your Mac, a pop-up appears: “Are you sure you want to shut down your computer now?” Nestled under the prompt is another option most of us likely overlook: the choice to reopen the apps and windows you have open now when your machine is turned back on. Researchers have now found a way to exploit a vulnerability in this “saved state” feature—and it can be used to break the key layers of Apple’s security protections.
[...]
The researcher says that while Apple fixed the issue for Macs running the Monterey operating system, which was released in October 2021, the previous versions of macOS are still vulnerable to the attack.
A security researcher has found a way that an attacker could leverage the macOS version of Zoom to gain access over the entire operating system.
Details of the exploit were released in a presentation given by Mac security specialist Patrick Wardle at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas on Friday. Some of the bugs involved have already been fixed by Zoom, but the researcher also presented one unpatched vulnerability that still affects systems now.
“After extensive media coverage of my previous post, Apple got back to us with a demand to water down our pending Telegram update by removing Telemoji — higher quality vector-animated versions of the standard emoji,” Durov wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which claims that most of the discussions occurred between 2016 and 2018, one idea that Apple discussed was Facebook creating a subscription-based version of its app without ads. Apple would have collected its standard 15% to 30% commission on Facebook’s in-app subscriptions through the App Store, but Facebook ultimately decided against the idea, the report claims.
If Apple was, indeed, planning a relentless and self-preferencing campaign against Facebook beginning in 2016, as Rodriguez reports, for a feature previewed in 2020, that would be pretty terrible. But 2016 is the time when Apple enabled subscriptions for all types of apps and launched its Search Ads initiative. Apple executives, including Phil Schiller, explained these changes in press briefings, and the company privately discussed them with developers, too.
The quick thirty-second video dubs the Apple One subscription as a way to get "the best of Apple" all in one package. It gives an overview of the included services, ranging from Apple Arcade to Apple News.
Forest is a "gamified timer," meaning you're rewarded for using the timer. Start the timer by planting a digital tree and then, while the timer runs, the tree grows.
What makes this so powerful for focus is that while the tree is growing, your phone is essentially locked. You can still access all of your apps, but doing so will be at the expense of your tree. That's right, if you play on your phone while the timer is running, your tree will die. Each tree that you grow, or don't, is saved into a forest where you can see all of the time you've spent focusing quantified as a cute digital forest.
Serene is not just for those of us who are easily distracted. It’s for anyone who needs to carve out time for deep focus periods at work.
The app has several features that enable a user to harness their “productivity superpowers” using three different techniques.
Tech giant Apple is embedding itself in Australian schools, accrediting “Apple teachers” and awarding its most devoted schools “distinguished” status, in a move one expert says risks distorting established recognition of teaching expertise.
Apple has awarded almost 50 schools in Australia “Apple distinguished school” status for demonstrating the company’s “vision for learning with technology”. Teachers out to gain Apple teacher accreditation must complete online modules that prove their proficiency with Apple products.
Okay, I am done with Swift Playground. Switching back to Xcode for this weekend.
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You might understandably be pining for an iPhone 14, but the iPhone Photography Awards 2022 has just landed to proved you don't really need that rumored 48MP camera to take incredible snaps.
The annual competition, which runs independently from Apple but is now in its 15th year, has just announced its impressive winner's list. And it's by no means dominated by the latest iPhones, with the winners stretching all the way back to the iPhone 6S Plus from 2015.
Almost a month after launch, demand for the new M2 MacBook Air continues to be high, with supply in relatively short supply. For just the baseline configuration, customers are facing up to a three-week wait, according to Apple’s online store.
Lidar is useful whenever you need to know something about the shape of an object or surface. It's used in autonomous vehicles to determine the edge of a road, and to detect people and cars. You can put lidar in an aircraft looking down at the surface of the Earth to get mapping data that is useful for both agriculture and archeology, like to find lost structures. It's also great for surveying a region to get a nice 3D map of buildings.
[...]
Lidar is an acronym that stands for "light detection and ranging." It's basically like a tape measure—except that it uses the speed of light to measure distance, instead of a physical object.
A Hide My Email Ventura feature for third-party apps has been removed from Apple’s website. The disposable email address feature now appears to remain limited to the company’s own Mail and Safari apps.
Network Locations is a feature of macOS that, ever since version 10.0, has allowed users to switch between different sets of network configuration preferences in different environments and situations. It’s not visible in the redesigned System Preferences app of macOS Ventura—and Tyler Loch discovered that the disappearance is not an accident. Loch’s Feedback submission to Apple has been marked as “works as currently designed.”
Weather Strip, the unique weather app for iPhone and iPad is out with an update today that delivers detailed air quality data and forecasts, more detailed views for temperature, and wind, and more.
In short, Kuri is a personalized, climate-friendly cooking app that helps people cook seasonal, low-carbon meals. As part of the onboarding process, it takes you through your dietary preferences, and from there it filters out everything you can’t eat, so you don’t end up with the “vegetarian at a steak house” syndrome that a lot of apps seem to suffer from.
If you need a better bookmarking system and find yourself drowning in web links, these apps are worth a look, and the good news is you’ve got several top-quality options to pick from.
The apps our educators chose are ones that do it all, providing screen time that’s educational, entertaining, and helpful for kids who need a leg up.
Batteries for Mac is a useful app that lets you view battery percentages for an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, Beats, and other Bluetooth devices in the macOS menu bar.
You see, as photographers, we spend far too much time calibrating all of our devices to ensure that our cameras, monitors and printers all see and produce the same colours. And all of this goes to waste the instant you send a print to an AirPrint printer.
Colbert claims to have been an original cast member of "Severance," but for some reason, all of his scenes were cut from the final production. Luckily, "The Late Show" was able to get ahold of some of the alleged deleted scenes.
The iPhone camera has reached the point of good-enough-to-make-great-photography many years ago.
I am not a photographer. I can't tell a good photo from a bad photo.
But I will have to remind myself the Intel Mac I am typing on right now is more than good enough for me to have fun with Swift and PHP and Marathon. I don't have to lust for the M2 MacBook Air.
:-)
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When a native app embeds a website via a webview, the native app has control over that page. Yes, even if it’s on a domain that the native app doesn’t control (!). This means the native app can inject whatever JavaScript it likes into any website that’s viewed in the webview.
Today I read an astounding exposé by Felix Krause, in which he discovered the Facebook and Instagram iOS apps inject JavaScript into all web pages that are viewed in their webviews. You should read and process this.
The iOS Instagram and Facebook app render all third party links and ads within their app using a custom in-app browser. This causes various risks for the user, with the host app being able to track every single interaction with external websites, from all form inputs like passwords and addresses, to every single tap.
Live Activities will be available for NBA, MLB, and Premier League games in select countries, according to fine print on the iOS 16 features page.
Jon Hamm has joined the season three cast of Apple’s The Morning Show. The news comes after the Mad Men alum recently poked fun at the streamer for its roster of A-list stars that included everyone, seemingly, but him. The “Everyone but Jon Hamm” ad earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding commercial.
The iPhone maker is looking to add original content to its Podcasts app that it hopes could eventually turn into shows on its Apple TV+ service. The deal — an agreement with Futuro Studios, the maker of the criminal-justice series “Suave” — will fund development and production of podcasts, according to people familiar with the situation. In exchange, Apple will have the first chance to turn any podcast into a film or TV show.
To mark Apple’s 40 years in Australia, the company today announced new initiatives that will help protect the environment and create opportunity in communities across the country. Projects include developing new sources of renewable energy, expanding coding education programs, and forging partnerships with Indigenous-led nonprofits advancing equity and opportunity.
“We’re proud to celebrate Apple’s long history in Australia, and to deepen our shared commitment to protecting the planet and creating opportunity in people’s lives,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re fortunate to have so many great partners, colleagues, and customers across this country, and we’ll continue working together to make the world a more equitable and just place for all.”
While Issey Miyake's black turtlenecks are well known because of their association with former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the impact that the famous Japanese designer had on Apple could have been even larger, with Jobs initially wanting Miyake to create a uniform for all Apple employees.
Miyake died from liver cancer at age 84 on Aug. 5. As the news of his death has spread, many are revisiting the designer's work, including his connection to Jobs.
Instead of following what Steve Jobs did by buying one hundred turtlenecks that are exactly the same, you can also save time by not having to choose what clothes to wear everyday by just not caring what other people think about your fashion sense. :-)
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Maybe the M2 chip, and the sleeker shapes it makes possible, will usher in a bold new era of design from Apple. But the company is also trying to get consumers to rethink what makes a device “new,” with less of a focus on speed and size and more on other features. “Now, with Apple silicon, you have a product that can handle any task you can throw at it, and consumers are looking before performance to what kind of battery life am I getting, what is my experience with my built-in camera, speakers, and microphones,” said Laura Metz, a senior product manager at Apple. “That’s what we’ve started talking about more so than some of the speeds and feeds of the silicon or chip technology itself.”
When an Apple Card user disputes a transaction, Goldman has to seek a resolution within regulatory timelines, and it sometimes failed at that, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation. Customers were sometimes given conflicting information or had long wait times, the people said.
Goldman got more disputes than it counted on, said one source. "You have these queues that you need to clear out within a certain amount of time. The business was getting so big, suddenly we had to create more automation to deal with it."
Apple TV+ last week premiered Luck, its first feature-length animation produced in partnership with Skydance Animation. As the film is now available, well-known software developer Adobe has shared a series of videos about the women behind the Apple Original Film.
Flightradar24 is one of several sites that compile public information about aircraft locations, flight paths, ownership records, altitude and more for display in an interactive map. People can see details about planes and where they’re heading almost anywhere in the world, including Antarctica.
Dibble, a former technology worker for the Environmental Protection Agency, had little knowledge about aviation, but the app satisfied her wanderlust and sparked curiosity about what was happening around her.
But a coastal vacation is also an opportunity for discovery. Maybe you’d like to learn how to tie fishing and boating knots? Or decipher those colorful signal flags you see on ships and in seaside shops? With the right app you can turn a holiday on the water into something deeper: identify the fish you’ve just caught or the ship that’s passing by, find out about the seashell you’ve spotted or the lake you’re diving into, explore nearby shark migrations, and study the rhythms of the moon and tides, all while keeping your toes in the sand.
Beats is expanding the lineup of its popular Beats Fit Pro earbuds with color options. This time, Apple-owned Beats teamed up with Kim Kardashian to design three “neutral” colors for the Beats Fit Pro, as well as a new marketing campaign.
Apple has released a free web app that lets podcasters create artwork and links to promote their shows on Apple Podcasts. The app offers several customization options that should appeal to a wide variety of creators who want to market their shows on Apple’s service. Still, there are a couple of limitations worth keeping in mind.
With a focus on speed, a new home screen, customization options, and more, 1Password 8 is touted as a “brand-new experience” for iPhone and iPad users.
At the center of the Gamevice Flex’s design is the idea of “muscle memory” — more specifically, the ability to play on your mobile device at the same skill level you would with a traditional console controller.
Many small companies that are reliant on online ads to attract new customers told the Financial Times they did not initially notice the full impact of Apple’s restrictions until recent months, when price inflation squeezed consumer demand in major markets worldwide.
That has left companies suddenly shrinking their marketing spend to conserve cash while also finding it prohibitively expensive to target likely consumers as they once did.
Another way to travel the world virtually: Google's Street View. (And, now, Apple's Look Around.)
And in Google's Maps, one can also look at photos of restaurants and their menus: Eat around the world!
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The feature is both not powerful enough and too complicated to use, but it’s a step in the right direction toward giving me actual control over my phone. I’m back at work, but I’m still in Vacation Mode, and my phone is still mostly quiet. And I might keep it that way.
With the fifth beta of iOS 16, Apple has updated the battery icon on iPhones with Face ID to display the specific battery percentage rather than just a visual representation of battery level.
Because the number appears within the battery icon, it has to appear fully charged at all times for readability. So even if you’ve got a paltry 10 percent battery left on your phone, the icon itself still looks full. In the few hours I’ve had this feature on, it’s admittedly caused my brain to short circuit. A full battery icon that reads 55? That just borks the visual cues we’ve all become accustomed to.
This new “Copy and Delete” feature will make it easier to snap a screenshot and quickly save it to your clipboard. You can then paste the image wherever you need to, such as in an email or iMessage. This should also help prevent your Photos library from getting cluttered with random screenshots.
Digital journals are superior to paper ones in so many ways. I'm not saying paper is bad or wrong to use, but there are clear advantages to working electronically.
This Shortcut Automation app—called “one sec” by its innovator, Frederik Riedel—seeks to inject some mindfulness into that mindless habit. To use it, you set up an automation that will trigger one sec to run when you attempt to open whatever social media, gaming, or other app is eating into your day. A simple, soothing bit of animation will interrupt the process, encouraging you to take a deep breath, before you tap a second time to confirm you truly do want to open that app—or not.
South Korea's telecommunications regulator said on Tuesday it plans to launch an investigation into app store operators such as Apple Inc, Alphabet's Google and One Store over suspected violations of in-app payment law.
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The Korea Communications Commissions (KCC) said in a statement it had conducted an inspection since May 17 to determine whether Google, Apple and One Store had violated the rules and had determined that all three might have done so.
As the cost of living skyrockets, consumers are looking to apps for discounts on surplus food. How much can these apps really do for their budgets – or our planet?
While searching for SF Symbols for one of my hobby projects, I discovered there isn't a picture of the good old Floppy Disk.
Well, I guess I don't have to provide a 'Save' function then.
:-)
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A lot of these reports that use screaming headlines about the issue do actually point out that you have to be doing something atypical of a casual user to get the MacBook Air to throttle. But there are also a lot of reports that gloss over the fact that you’re probably not going to render a 60-minute 4K video in Final Cut Pro while you have 20 tabs open in Safari and you’re sorting your FileMaker Pro collection database of 10,000 gemstones. And when they gloss over this, it makes it seem like it’s an issue that affects everyone.
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The fanless MacBook Air is by design–Apple isn’t overlooking anything. Its target user is “the rest of us,” everyday users with productivity tasks to get done. The MacBook Pro is for users who are demanding of processing power. Get the right Mac for what you want to do.
Humans are accustomed to going to a dedicated place to line up and make a purchase, and it’s disorienting and frustrating when a customer doesn’t know where to go or who to see to complete their Apple Store experience so they can be on their way.
Adding a mesh system to your home can be a great way to ensure that all your favorite devices stay connected at all times.
The Linksys Atlas 6 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 Mesh System is user-friendly and promises to cover your home in up to 6,000 square feet of Wi-Fi, eliminating those frustrating random drops.
I haven't experience phantom vibration syndrome from my iPhone for quite a long while already, but I thought I felt my iPhone vibrating in my pocket earlier today. I went through the usual suspects: Messages, Teams, Whatsapp, and didn't find any notifications.
Or did I configure Focus mode wrongly again?
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So if you just want to play the odd game to relax, enjoy casual fare or streaming, or aren’t too picky regarding AAA games, the Air will serve. And if you’re into classic games, OpenEmu remains the most polished and user-friendly emulation system around on the desktop.
Digital content comes and goes, servers go offline, and users lose content if they migrate to different apps, but that shelf of movies in your living room isn’t going anywhere. And as long as you have the right equipment, you can enjoy it forever, whenever you want, without having to subscribe to a new service, download an app, or fuss over your wireless connection.
The shift away from Apple has given Ive and Newson more time to focus on other big-name clients, including Airbnb and Terra Carta, on undisclosed projects. Most recently he was recruited by the Agnelli family to work with Ferrari and Ferrari’s holding company Exor. Details on exactly what Ive will be doing with the brand are slim—but certain car and design industry folk believe the collaboration could be to do with Ferrari’s first electric vehicle which is slated for release in 2025.
Someone in my storage boxes, I still have many CDs (and DVDs? I cann't remember…) from magazines such as MacAddict and Inside Mac Games. It is probably nostalgia talking here, but I seem to remember being more delighted browsing the CDs than browsing Apple Arcade today.
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We have a couple of meager tools at our hands, but the onus is on us to find our way out. Until I figure out my notification settings, I know I’m here for the long haul.
Notifications have changed from being a targeted line of app-to-user communication into a free-for-all of trivial one-sided chatter. And there seems to be no way of switching it all off.
The App Store should discourage SEO nonsense like keyword spamming, not reward it.
It will be the sixteenth expansion of the updated Apple Maps design since the update first rolled out in September 2018. Apple in 2020 completed its U.S. rollout, and has since expanded to Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and more.
If emoji delight you and are part of your language, stop exercising the tedium of using macOS’s Character View to find them. Install at least the free flavor of Rocket, and extend the ease of expression.
If you’re looking for a way to track your expenses and stay on top of your budget, you’ll need to choose the right spend tracking app. There are a lot of them to choose from, though, so your choice might vary depending on what’s important to you—things like ease, whether you share expenses, whether you’re self-employed, and how much you travel.
The USB-C Slim Dock is designed to add functionality to your iMac without cluttering your desk space. Crafted from aluminum, its slim design looks at home on your desk.
It also features a cutout that allows it to lay flush against the foot of your 24-inch Apple Silicon iMac, which prevents it from being bumped or jostled.
The SwitchBot Plug Mini is great for converting a “dumb lamp” to one that works with HomeKit. One aspect I appreciate about this device that others often forget – a manual button on the side if you need to turn it off/on without your iPhone or the use of Siri.
When Apple introduced passkeys, its implementation of FIDO Alliance’s password-less secure authentication technology, the company did it in the most Apple way possible. It made an icon and printed a very on Apple brand-looking “Passkeys” next to it, complete in the San Francisco font. And if you’ve watched only part of the WWDC presentation on Apple’s passkeys, it’s possible to assume passkeys are an exclusive feature of Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Just a reminder: it’s not.
For decades, union membership has been on the decline. Yet in the last few months, workers have been organizing at a pace this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression.
What if we have to wear masks indoors forever and ever? What if everyone will get infected with Covid once every one or two years? What if we need to get on wait-lists to buy phones and computers from now on?
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There was a time when Apple was serious about gaming before it quit the arms race with Microsoft, but if Apple wanted to stage a comeback, it has a far more open field than many realize.
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And while we might be a ways away from Apple M-series chips reaching their full potential as a rival to more traditional consoles like the PS5, the fact that Apple has zeroed in and is positioning itself for this trend shows it recognizes that the future of gaming is going to continue to move away from high-end gaming rigs and meet the gaming public where it actually is.
Apple's release notes for the update confirm that it addresses an issue with the Studio Display speakers. Since the launch of the Studio Display, there have been complaints about the speaker quality. Apple last week sent out a memo to authorized service providers, acknowledging that some customers have had issues with the Studio Display speakers cutting out or offering distorted playback.
Apple today announced that its weekly MLB doubleheader “Friday Night Baseball” is now available to users in Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Germany, and Italy. The games remain free to watch on Apple TV+ without a subscription for a limited time.
A new app for iPhone users can help you browse the web without being constantly bothered by pop-up panels that beg you to use the company’s app instead. The app, called Banish, is a Safari extension that helps remove the “open in app” banners from various websites and other popups that block content across a number of sites, like Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, Medium, Yelp and some Google sites, to name a few.
The latest update to Noir takes the app’s original concept a step further with new theming options, theme sharing, and extensive keyboard shortcut support. It’s an excellent update that anyone who likes to tweak the colors used in their apps will appreciate.
If you need a little help getting your thoughts into sleep mode, here are some apps that use guided meditation and other soundscapes in order to lull you into a good night’s rest.
Apple told suppliers on Friday that China has started strictly enforcing a long-standing rule that Taiwanese-made parts and components must be labeled as being made either in "Taiwan, China" or "Chinese Taipei," sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia, language that indicates the island is part of China.
So much online activity is less public now as companies strive to capture the value we create being online with each other — the value I’m creating right now by writing this and linking to other things, things not on Discord or Slack or Confluence but on other peoples’ websites.
Other people’s websites are the OG social network, and the optimist in me is going to riff on MLK’s quote: the social arc of the internet is long, but it bends towards individual websites.
Gaming on Mac? I'll believe it when I see it.
Speaking of games, Apple should commission someone to get some remakes of old Mac games. Nevermind these games will not work on iPhone and iPad; after all, if Apple Arcade can have iOS-only games, it should also have Mac-only games.
Not sure what games to remake? Go read the Secret History of Mac Gaming.
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In interviews with 15 female Apple employees, both current and former, the Financial Times has found that Mohr’s frustrating experience with the People group has echoes across at least seven Apple departments spanning six US states.
The women shared allegations of Apple’s apathy in the face of misconduct claims. Eight of them say they were retaliated against, while seven found HR to be disappointing or counterproductive.
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The accounts collected by the FT paint a portrait of a People team that acts less like a safe place for employees to go with complaints and more like a risk mitigation unit that protects bad managers. In six cases, women said speaking up had cast them as bad team members and resulted in their departure. In three instances, Apple offered multiple months of salary in exchange for not disparaging the company or being held liable.
“The temperature for considering a union has gone cold, much to my disappointment,” says a worker in Texas, who asked to be anonymous for fear of retaliation. “From my perspective, Apple has appeased people here, but the underlying issues persist.”
But experts say it’s far too early to write off the union campaign. “That’s actually a lot of organizing activity for six months — most campaigns take several years,” says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “Don’t measure it against the Starbucks Corporation — the Starbucks campaign is the exception.”
In one of the aforementioned conversations, I was told there were concerns among producers about Apple’s commitment to marketing its shows—to the point that at least one explored hiring outside marketing gurus on their own personal dime to ensure the show got proper support.
Now, I’m not sure if Black Bird received insufficient marketing—especially since marketing feels more targeted than ever—but concerns from producers line up with previous reports about Apple TV+. One executive told Insider earlier this year that Apple TV+ suffered from “disruptive, last-minute marketing planning for projects that have been in the works for months; sloppy press rollouts; landing pages for series that weren’t ready in time.” As a former studio executive and I spoke more about their frustrations, they noted the obvious irony. Apple, worth a staggering $2.6 trillion, is the world’s most innovative product and marketing company. It seemed strange that this competency had yet to make it to the content group.
The seven apps were discovered in various sections of the Mac App Store, and found by Kleber to be "abusive" un a number of ways. Kleber says they all use "command-and-control exploits in order to bypass Apple's review team and scrutiny. For example, an app could determine whether it was in Apple's review process, changing its UI so as not to fall foul of any App Store guidelines before unleashing popups asking for money on unsuspecting users.
When a customer with an iPhone 11 or newer indicates their device is unexpectedly restarting, Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers can run a new “System Stability” diagnostic tool, which will evaluate the device’s analytics logs to determine if multiple unexpected restarts have taken place over the previous 14 days.
Earlier this year Nomad launched two beautiful, high-end MagSafe chargers for iPhone and Apple Watch with the Base One and Base One Max in two finishes. Now Nomad has launched a limited edition Gold Base One and Base One Max as the latest variant of the collection.
You need to think about how somebody will be feeling when something goes wrong. What seems fun and light-hearted in your office may read very differently when you’ve just ruined somebody’s day.
I am very passionate about Eclipse Collections, but it’s not because I was ever particularly interested in collection frameworks. It’s because by using Eclipse Collections I can teach a Java developer how to have real fun while programming in the Java programming language. I have met so many Java developers over the years who either became managers or quit programming altogether because the language seemed to beat the love of programming out of them.
Apple Inc. expects to delay its next major iPad software update by about a month, taking the unusual step of not releasing it at the same time as the new iPhone software, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
In Greek mythology, Zeus punished Sisyphus for cheating death by forcing him to roll a huge boulder uphill for eternity. I suspect Apple’s operations teams feels similarly cursed. Not only have they had to adapt to the pandemic, but they had to mitigate the effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and must now do what they can to salvage affairs as the situation in Taiwan decays, which could be an existential threat to the company and its business.
"In short, I suspect they were prohibited from using any iCloud service because iCloud isn’t FedRAMP certified for security, and when they wiped the device to set them up with the new MDM service, they could not restore even a local on-disk backup, because those backups would’ve stored the supervision identity and the MDM enrollment from the previous MDM service."
Apple neet to put in a good amount of manpower effort into maintaining and evolving the Mac App Store: not just reviewers but also evangelist that have real power to make decisions and make meaningful changes to the platform.
Not that the iPhone and iPad App Stores are perfect, but the Mac App Store is really bad.
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Apple’s not picky about what it buys because it’s a cheapskate. In part, it’s picky because of what I just described–the fact that it’s got money to buy companies also means it has money to build stuff itself. Sometimes, buying a company is a really good shortcut–the purchase of Beats, for example, allowed Apple to get a subscription music service up and running much faster than they’d probably have managed on their own. And sometimes the shortcut isn’t worth it.
But there’s another big reason Apple is wary about acquisitions, and it has to do with the company’s very specific culture. If you didn’t notice, Apple’s a weird beast. It’s not like most other companies out there. It’s one thing to absorb a small team of people who bring expertise in an area Apple lacks–and even then, it’s probably quite a culture shock, and talent probably walks out the door rather than adapting to Apple’s culture! But it’s another to try to integrate a large company with its own brands and culture and get it to follow Apple’s rules. And make no mistake, if you’re owned by Apple you will follow Apple’s rules.
Building a social network on top of a calendar makes a lot of sense, and apps like IRL have found some success doing it. But Daybridge is trying to do an awful lot in a single app, from helping you schedule your time and make the most of it to helping you stay aware of all the time-sensitive things happening around you. It’s also going to have to convince a lot of people to ultimately pay for another calendar app and — maybe most important — start to rewrite some of our shared norms and unofficial rules about how calendars work and how we use them. Getting you to send your date a calendar invite is a big hurdle to clear.
Several of the high-end Apple Watch Series 7 models with titanium casings are listed as “currently unavailable” on Apple’s online store in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and select other countries. In the United States, availability of 41mm models is most depleted at this time, but a few 45mm models are out of stock too.
AppleCare+ with theft and loss coverage is available in three additional countries starting today, including France, Italy, and Spain.
A new app-based augmented reality experience called Concrete Jungle has just debuted, literally transforming the public plazas into a playground for animals.
“It’s been exciting to see the product resonate with people, but going forward, we have an even bigger opportunity to become the best way for people to stay in contact with those 10 to 15 people that matter the most,” Moss said. “The main impetus behind the funding is really just to accelerate; it’s just going to let us hire more people and continue to ship new features and become the product that is the best way to stay in contact with your close friends and family.”
The difference between Apple’s business plan and so many others in Silicon Valley is that while others offer compromised products for free to turn you into the product, Apple makes you pay for the products that you use. Though, as the data shows, its solutions remain every bit as addictive. You’re still the product, but that blend of privacy and agency is the unique Apple twist.
Analyzing Apple’s earnings can, on occasion, feel like looking at a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.
It's August. It's getting closer to me having complications on my iPhone lock screen. I'm excited.
But, as for new iPhones, I will not be upgrading my iPhone 12 mini. It's still working fine, and, if rumors are accurate, there will not be a small and light iPhone this year.
(Just for fun, I took out my iPhone X from my cupboard the other day. Boy, was that thing heavy.)
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In a memo to authorized service providers, obtained by MacRumors, Apple acknowledges that customers may find themselves facing speaker issues with the company’s $1599 display. Apple says that customers facing issues should unplug the Studio Display from power, unplug any accessories or devices connected to the display, wait ten seconds, then reconnect the Studio Display to power. Apple explicitly notes this is not a hardware problem and implies that a future iOS update may address the issues.
As noted by iOS developer @rhogelleim, the SwiftUI preview (which lets developers interact with their app projects in real time) now has a new behavior that is potentially related to the always-on display. Once the developer simulates the action of turning off the screen, the new lock screen widgets become semi-transparent while the clock remains there too.
The company talks about seven important points when switching to the iPhone.
Apple today removed 15 games from Apple Arcade, just over two weeks after it listed the first batch of titles set to leave the subscription service due to developer contract expirations.
Vintage products are typically ineligible for repairs at Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers, unless spare parts remain available.
The app is designed to help you be more productive with so-called Focus Sessions, timers, and more. Focused Work 3 enhances the app with a new design, gestures, a new picture-in-picture feature, and more.
Lumen, the pocket-sized device that measures your metabolism to help you achieve health and fitness goals has launched its latest update. After the iOS app got a built-in food log and macro tracker earlier this year, Lumen has launched a new widget on iPhone to more easily track your nutrition and see the impact it has on your metabolism in real-time.
Apple is dropping its mask mandates for corporate employees at “most locations,” according to an internal email from the COVID-19 response team, obtained by The Verge.
“Don’t hesitate to continue wearing a face mask if you feel more comfortable doing so,” the email reads. “Also, please respect every individual’s decision to wear a mask or not.”
Does anyone remember phone numbers anymore? Or have all these little bits of information you used to memorize moved onto digital devices such as smartphones? Some have argued this outsourcing of our memory is damaging our ability to remember anything properly, but a new study suggests that is not the case. Using a digital device to remember some things may actually be freeing up our brains to remember more things overall. Unless of course, we lose our smartphones …
Yes, I know that the Studio Display is not just a monitor. But seriously, a monitor that needs to be rebooted from time to time does not boost confidence in Apple's upcoming Car Play and iCar.
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Apple’s business model “is evolving from maximising unit growth to maximising installed-base monetisation”, believes Erik Woodring of Morgan Stanley. He argues that pushing further into services could add another $1trn to the company’s $2.6trn market capitalisation. The average Apple user spends about $10 a month on Apple services (including app-store purchases), much less than they might spend on subscriptions to services like LinkedIn or Peloton, points out Mr Woodring, suggesting plenty of “runway” for growth.
I am a little bit more concerned about the iPad and Apple’s several-quarter-long struggle to produce enough supply of its tablets. Anecdotally, it appears many consumers have failed to find the iPad they’re looking for over the past year at retail stores. I also think Apple has made the iPad Air and iPad Pro a bit too similar, which may flummox some shoppers.
Moser found that Apple Pay is available in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome as of iOS 16 developer beta 4, and other users have noticed Apple Pay support in Mozilla Firefox.
Moser noted that Apple Pay support continues to be unavailable on the macOS versions of Edge and Chrome, presumably since they do not use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine that is mandatory for third-party browsers on iOS and iPadOS.
This time, the promotion is also available in other countries. In the UK, customers can get a £40 gift card with Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD purchase at the Apple Store. The deal is also available in European countries; customers in France, Spain and other markets can get a 50 euro gift card.
Although definitely not limited to just amateur photographers, the iPhone SE is perfect for simple and light photography because there are adequate and helpful features that automatically adjust your final images for you, if necessary. There’s no Night Mode but the iPhone SE’s camera does work well with most light. Moreover, it doesn’t hurt that you can toggle between photography functions rather smoothly too.
It’s always tempting to go for the cheapest configuration of a new Apple product in order to enjoy the new design and processor at the lowest possible outlay. As far as the M2 MacBook Air is concerned, however, we would advise against this, since testing suggests you’ll be getting a machine that in certain respects performs no better than a cheaper model from 2020, and in a few is actually worse. Admittedly, you’re getting a bigger and better display, MagSafe, and a new design, but the M2 performance boost just isn’t there.
The Pebblebee Card performs a trick I didn’t think possible: it packs a rechargeable battery into a wallet-sized wireless tracker that works on Apple’s Find My network.
OtterBox is coming to market with a unique design as well as all the requisite certifications to make it an extremely tempting option.
The store’s curved timber ceiling reflects the existing geometry of the building’s historic façade. The ceiling’s integrated fixtures merge seamlessly with the timber panels, having been designed to match their color and finish. A warm palette of materials has been carefully selected to create a calming and coherent environment for visitors and staff.
Apple leaves no stone unturned in its efforts to get Ericsson's Colombian iPhone/iPad injunction over a 5G standard-essential patent (SEP) lifted, and is now accusing Ericsson, its lawyers, and the court that ordered the injunction to violate basic human rights, invoking even Art. 8 of the famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“The pushback was from a relatively small number of privacy groups,” Farid said, speaking to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on the child safety group’s latest podcast. “I contend that the vast majority of people would have said ‘sure, this seems perfectly reasonable’, but yet a relatively small but vocal group put a huge amount of pressure on Apple and I think Apple, somewhat cowardly, succumbed to that pressure.
“I think they should have stuck their ground and said: ‘This is the right thing to do and we are going to do it.’ And I am a strong advocate of not just Apple doing this, but Snap doing this, and Google doing this – all the online services doing this.”
If I remember correctly, I started paying for Apple's services since the .Mac days, and have continued with MobileMe, iCloud, and now Apple One. Except for iCloud+, Apple services have pivoted to content-based offerings such as music and television. (I still remember iCards fondly.)
There were rumors last year that Apple will introduce another service offering this year. So far, we haven't seen anything out of Cupertino. (And, no, I don't think it's Classical music either.) I'm hoping Apple geting into all-your-can-read e-books business, but I am doubtful Apple will get into another reading business. News+ isn't exactly bringing in anything for Apple, I don't think.
Oh, I know. The timing is just right for a pre-Facebook Instagram-like service. :-)
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