Benjamin Mayo

Apple will almost certainly unveil tvOS 11 (along with iOS 11, macOS 10.13 and watchOS 4) at WWDC in June, but not much has been said about what new stuff these software updates will bring.

According to a unverified report from The Verifier published today, the Apple TV is set for a significant update with the addition of Picture-in-Picture and multi-user modes …

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Print to PDF is an easy way to preserve the information and layout of what you are currently viewing, saving a 1:1 digital copy of the documents and websites you use everyday. You don’t actually print anything, but the idea is that an exact replica of what would have appeared on paper, if you had sent a job to a real printer, is instead stored as a PDF file.

A big advantage of Print to PDF, or Save to PDF as it is often known, is that it is available in a lot of apps by default. Apps don’t have to support PDF output, they just have to support the normal printing features. This means Save to PDF is widely available across many iOS apps, and even more Mac apps.

The concept of Print to PDF began on the desktop and macOS exposes the feature relatively prominently. On iOS, the feature is harder to find. There isn’t an obvious button in the interface for it, but the capability is there — if a little hidden. Read on for step-by-step instructions to print to PDF on Mac, iPhone and iPad …

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Update: Tim Cook has tweeted a message saying (in Turkish) ‘We celebrate the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day in Turkey with great photographs taken by young talents.’

Türkiye'de Ulusal Egemenlik ve Çocuk Bayramı’nı genç yeteneklerin çektiği müthiş fotoğraflarla kutluyoruz. #23Nisan #iPhoneileçekildi 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/VUqrUjH92G

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 21, 2017

Apple has posted three new Shot on iPhone ads to its Apple Turkey YouTube channel. The fifteen-second spots are special in that all three videos have been taken by 11-year old children using an iPhone 7. The clips include quirky uses of perspective and slow-mo to create some clever sequences.

Apple is posting the videos to celebrate a national holiday in Turkey that takes place on April 23, called National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. Watch the three ads after the jump …

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Apple has today rebranded its iTunes Podcasts offering as ‘Apple Podcasts’, encapsulating the podcast directory and the client Podcasts app available on iPhone and iPad.

Although today’s announcement is merely a branding change, it may indicate a renewed focus by Apple on podcasting. Full marketing guidelines for podcasters can be found here.

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Via iGeneration, it seems that the Workflow app is in maintenance mode and unlikely to gain any new features in the foreseeable future. According to an email reply a user received from Workflow support, there are no ‘further updates planned’ for the automation app although they will continue to maintain its existing functionality — presumably with occasional bug fix releases.

When Apple acquired Workflow in March, it remained available on the App Store, many fans of the app saw this as a signal it was not going to be abandoned. This does not seem to be the case however.

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In what is the first supposed leak of ‘real’ iPhone 8 technical schematics, an image posted to Weibo today claims to show technical drawings for the next-generation iPhone straight from Foxconn. The drawings depict an iPhone 8 front and back with minimal bezels on the left and right sides of the screen. Compared to an iPhone 7, the top and bottom bezels are also significantly smaller.

On the back, the dual camera system and rear flash is stacked vertically in the top-left corner, with a gap for a Touch ID fingerprint sensor below the Apple logo. The image is labelled with dimensions for the chassis, which are comparable to the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 — despite the significantly larger screen …

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According to one analyst, Apple is facing a significant bottleneck in the production of the bezel-less iPhone 8. As the device’s front is expected to be mostly screen (and almost no bezel), the Touch ID sensor is being re-engineered.

Cowen and Company’s Timothy Arcuri is claiming that yields of a new fingerprint sensor that would be integrated into the iPhone 8 screen are low (via AppleInsider) and that Apple may consider other less-exciting designs if the production problems cannot be solved.

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Apple is believed to be developing its own custom power management chips for iPhone and iPads, at least according to one industry analyst (via Reuters). The report from Bankhaus Lampe said that Apple is looking to replace a PMIC component currently supplied by Dialog with its own custom silicon as soon as 2019.

The analyst notes that Apple has been aggressively hiring engineers from the third-party supplier and already has a significant team of employees working on Apple-designed power management chips. This follows the news that Apple intends to make custom GPUs for its iOS devices within two years.

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Apple is preparing its supply chain for the onslaught of next-generation iPhone sales in the fall, expected to be a bumper year with much anticipation for the radical ‘iPhone 8’ redesign. According to ETNews, via Digitimes, Apple has agreed a two year contract with Samsung Display to supply curved iPhone OLED panels.

Samsung is apparently upping capacity to as much as 92 million units in 2017, as demand from Apple rises. Apple uses OLED in Apple Watch and the MacBook Pro Touch Bar already, but the iPhone 8 represents the first time the company will use the display technology in the iPhone, it’s biggest product.

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The iPhone 8 may debut later than we have been used to, according to a new report. For the last few years, Apple has announced its new iPhone lineup at a September event in the fall with a release date a couple weeks later. For example, the iPhone 7 was announced on September 7th and released on September 16th.

This year, Economic Daily News (via Digitimes) is suggesting that the launch may be pushed back to October or November, as production of the radical new iPhone has faced challenges …

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Up to now, Apple’s custom silicon-on-a-chip (A10 Fusion, A9, A8 etc) have relied heavily on GPU designs from Imagination Technologies for graphics performance tasks. This means Apple pays Imagination a royalty for every iPhone and iPad sold; the company generates about its revenue from Apple.

Today, Apple announced that it will stop using Imagination Technologies intellectual property within two years, ending its royalty payments. $IMG stock plummeted in wake of the news, falling by 70% to eight-year lows.

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The latest updates to Apple’s iWork suite included a lot of new features; Keynote’s release notes included a line that was particularly eye-catching. Keynote 7.1 for Mac and Keynote 3.1 for iOS adds the ability to ‘Post interactive presentations on Medium, WordPress and other websites.’

This means you can put a Keynote document on a webpage in just the same way as you can embed a YouTube video. It certainly feels like an advanced feature targeted at iPad Pro as computer users. Unfortunately, the process to actually do this is not so straightforward, with some tricky edge cases about how it works. Read on to find out how to embed Keynote documents on a website or blog …

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Many features of the iPhone 8 have been well documented at this point, with a general consensus on a 5.8-inch OLED screen on a chassis with almost no front bezel, along with wireless charging, 3D-sensing front camera and much more.

However, the ‘bezel-less frame’ has left one rather big open question. What happens to the Touch ID sensor? There have been murmurs of Apple integrating the fingerprint sensor below the display glass. This sounds cutting-edge and modern, but has not been well substantiated. A report coming out today suggests a far less exciting possibility for the Touch ID sensor …

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Facebook is adding its version of ephemeral stories to the main Facebook app on iPhone and iPad from today. Adding another to the list of Snapchat rip-offs, a strip of profile pics from your friends will now appear along the top of the main feed. Tap to view their recent story updates; all photos and videos are automatically deleted after 24 hours.

Posting your own photos rips off more iconic Snapchat features, including animated 3D camera effects and face filters, stickers, the ability to add text or doodles, and more. You can post to all friends or selectively share to just a few people when posting a particular pic. Here’s how to make a story …

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Apple has just released its eleventh annual Supplier Responsibility report, where it publishes details about how the manufacturers that make and assemble components for iPhone, iPad, Mac and all of Apple’s products treat their workers and the environment.

In the 2016 report, Apple says that compliance with 60-hour maximum work week for employees has reached 98%, which is the highest ever. Apple suppliers have also reduced carbon emissions by 150,000 metric tons, the equivalent of taking 31,000 cars off the road for a year.

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Although the iPhone 8 (and iPhone 7s counterparts) are not expected until the fall, Apple suppliers have to ramp production months in advance to secure the millions of parts necessary for the launch. Economic Daily News is today reporting that TSMC will begin mass production of the Apple A11 SoC, which will power the 2017 iPhones, in April.

The chip inside the iPhone 7 is the Apple A10 Fusion, which includes two high-power cores and two lower-power cores. The design of the A11 chip is unknown but the report says it is fabricated using a 10 nanometer process ..

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Update: Red iPhone shipping estimates indicate Tuesday delivery, in-store pickup available as soon as today at some locations. The new iPad delivers March 31st – April 4th; in-store pickup not yet available.

The Apple Store website is back up as scheduled; you can now order the new red iPhone and the cheaper $329 iPad from the Apple Online Store. The red iPhone is available in 128 GB and 256 GB sizes only, which means the (RED) iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are available from $749 and $849 respectively. Apple will donate some money to the PRODUCT(RED) charity for each device sold.

The new entry-level iPad costs $329 for the 32 GB WiFi model, featuring a brighter 9.7-inch display with an A9 SoC — about the same performance as the iPhone 6s. It goes up to $559 for the 128 GB model with cellular.

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Whilst Apple is touting the LG 5K UltraFine as the best choice for pro Mac owners today, Dell is launching a ‘5K’ display of its own … $5K that is. Leapfrogging the market, the UltraSharp UP3218K is the ‘world’s first’ 8K consumer monitor with an insane 7680×4320 resolution.

With a screen size of 31.5 inches, the IPS panel touts a 279 PPI pixel density easily exceeding the Retina bar for desktop computer displays (the 5K iMac has 217 PPI). Available to order now from Dell.com, it’s an amazing monitor (if you can ignore the hefty price tag).

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The Apple Store is down today, although it’s still several hours before the new products go on sale. The teaser message from Apple has actually been tweaked with new fonts and new text.

It notes to look out for the 8.01 AM PDT time, when the PRODUCT(RED) iPhone 7 and the new cheaper iPad go on sale.

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Update: The Verge says the new iPad’s display also lacks anti-reflective coating:

Apple confirmed to me that the new iPad’s display does not have an anti-reflective coating and is not laminated to the cover glass, so it will look just like the first-gen iPad Air. Which means there will be a visible air gap between the display and the glass.

Apple’s new iPad for the spring is a $329 model with an A9 chip; it replaces the $399 iPad Air 2 in the lineup that Apple sold — until today. However, the new iPad is not an upgrade over the iPad Air 2 in every respect; it is cheaper, but it is also significantly thicker and heavier.

The iPad Air 2 was very slender; 6.1mm and 0.96 pounds. The new iPad is relatively bulky, measuring at 7.5mm thin and weighing 1.03 pounds …

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