Follow Benjamin on Threads to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
Follow @bzamayo on Twitter and follow @bzamayo on Threads.
Apple has quietly withdrawn its lawsuit against former executive Gerard Williams III in a filing posted on Friday (via Bloomberg).
Williams was described as critical to the development of the high-performance A-series and M-series Apple Silicon chips. He left Apple to start a server chip start-up Nuvia. Apple accused him of poaching colleagues for the start-up whilst he was still under Apple’s employ. Lawsuit proceedings began in 2019.
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In order to comply with the European Digital Services Act, Apple has been forced to reveal the number of monthly active users for the App Store in Europe, across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
The company said the iOS App Store has 101 million users in Europe, whereas iPadOS has 23 million. The Mac App Store has 6 million, the tvOS App Store has 1 million, and the watchOS App Store has under 1 million. The disclosure was first spotted by iGeneration.
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Having recently moved into a new home, I wanted to set up HomeKit lights in the kitchen that would turn on and off automatically. Ideally. So I got some Philips Hue bulbs, an Eve motion sensor, and did the obvious thing with automations in HomeKit.
The result was unsatisfactory. Here’s why, and how I eventually got my smart home vision to become a reality, with the help of Homebridge …
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As a cheaper option in the smart light bulbs space, Wiz products are relatively popular. However, they have not supported HomeKit (only Siri Shortcuts) and have been a less-than-ideal option for Apple Home ecosystem users. Unofficial support was previously made possible via Homebridge.
However, this week, Wiz is rolling out Matter support for many of its newer bulb models (via The Verge). This brings official support for these accessories to Apple Home for the first time.
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At 3 PM British Summer Time in the United Kingdom, the government has sent out a test text message for the Emergency Alert system. This system sends critical alert notifications to smartphones.
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In the latest edition of Mark Gurman’s Power On Newsletter for Bloomberg, he provides some more details on how the upcoming Apple AR/VR headset — expected to be unveiled at WWDC in June — works.
Gurman says the headset features two ports; a USB-C port for data transfer and a proprietary magnetic port to attach the battery pack. The external battery pack is required for the headset to function, and apparently resembles the MagSafe Battery Pack in size and shape. It will provide about two hours of battery life.
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Apple TV+ today premieres its next original film, Ghosted, starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The rom-com turned action thriller sees de Armas revealed as an undercover secret agent, to an unsuspecting Cole (played by Evans) who just thought he was having a date with an ordinary girl he ran into on the street. Here’s how to watch Ghosted, streaming now.
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Subscribers to Canal+ in France and some other territories can now access Apple TV+ at no extra charge. With a deal announced last week, Apple original TV shows and movies are now available to watch directly in the myCANAL app.
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The promised Sound Recognition feature is launching today on HomePod and HomePod mini. When enabled, your HomePod will listen out for your home’s existing smoke and carbon monoxide detector. When it hears the alarm, the HomePod will send a notification to your iPhone via the Home app.
The feature was first announced as coming soon back in January, alongside the launch of the second-gen HomePod.
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With tvOS 16.5 beta, Apple is testing a new feature for the Apple TV app on the Apple TV 4K set-top box: the ability to watch more than one game at a time.
Multiview allows users to watch up to four simultaneous streams at once. The feature is available for live sports streamed through the TV app, like MLB Friday Night Baseball and MLS Season Pass …
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Via Tom’s Guide, Apple is tonight launching the rumored multiview feature for Apple TV sports streaming in beta. The feature will be available on today’s MLB Friday Night Baseball streams for customers using Apple TV 4K with the tvOS 16.5 beta.
The feature will also be available for the dozen MLS Season Pass games this weekend. Apple hasn’t officially announced when the Multiview feature will be available to everyone, although we can expect tvOS 16.5 to be out of beta within a month or so.
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The Last Thing He Told Me quickly became a bestselling novel in 2021. It is now adapted as a TV show streaming on Apple TV+, starring Jennifer Garner and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Here’s how to watch.
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In a significant announcement, Apple today announced a deal with French subscription TV provider Canal+, which will see Canal+ subscribers gain access to Apple TV+ at no extra charge.
Starting April 20, Canal+ subscribers simply open the Apple TV app on their set-top box to browse the TV+ catalog of original films and movies – no login or separate subscription required. Some Apple original titles will also be broadcast directly on Canal+’s premier channel.
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Pixelmator Photo is getting a rebrand. The new name for the app — currently available on iPhone and iPad with a Mac version coming soon — is Photomator.
Alongside the name change, today’s 2.3 update adds a suite of new features revolving around selective adjustments, including AI selections, brush selections and gradient mask tools.
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Yesterday, display analyst Ross Young said that Apple had scrapped plans for a new 27-inch external display with mini-LED screen technology. This was rumored as either the second-generation Apple Studio Display, or a higher-end model that would slot in between it and the Pro Display XDR.
However, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today disagrees that the project has been scrapped altogether, instead saying that he believes the product is set to arrive – eventually. Kuo says mass production is set to begin in late 2024 or early 2025.
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As announced a fortnight ago, the Steve Jobs Archive today released a free ebook memorializing Jobs’s life and career in his own words, collating emails, speeches and interviews with the Apple founder.
The ebook can be read in Apple Books on your iPhone, iPad or Mac. It can also be read in the browser, or downloadable as an ePub to import into your Kindle, Nook or other e-reader device.
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Mac shipments were down 40% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to analysts at IDC. That’s despite launches of M2 MacBook Pro and M2 Mac mini during the quarter.
The end of the pandemic boom is the primary reason for falling shipments across the industry. Apple experienced the biggest decline among PC makers in Q1, though, down 40% as the overall market shrunk 29%.
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A new documentary on tennis player Boris Becker and his fall from grace is streaming now on Apple TV+. The two-part documentary Boom! Boom: The World vs. Boris Becker follows the upswing and downswing of Becker’s career, featuring interviews with Becker himself, Novak Djokovic, Björn Borg, and more.
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The Apple Weather app has not been having a good week. The Apple Weather app backend has been suffering outages for what feels like every day this week, and today has no different.
Apple officially acknowledged the latest occurrence of problems on its system status page, noting that Weather may be slow or unavailable.
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In March, it was reported that Apple was investing up to $1 billion annually on original movies for wide theatrical release, working in partnership with movie studios to handle the distribution.
Napoleon is the first film to arise out of this arrangement. Today, Apple Original Films announced that its Ridley Scott directed epic Napoleon will be released in cinemas worldwide on November 22. It will then stream on Apple TV+ later (date TBA).
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Apple TV+ today announced that the new limited series The Crowded Room, inspired by the true story told in the novel The Minds of Billy Milligan, will start streaming June 9. The show stars Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried.
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In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the next major version of watchOS – ostensibly watchOS 10 – is set to feature significant changes, including notable updates to the user interface.
watchOS 10 will be officially unveiled at WWDC in June. This week, Apple confirmed the conference will kick off on June 5, where its new operating systems announcements will also coincide with the launch of Apple’s first mixed-reality headset device.
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The official Steve Jobs Archive today announced its first published works, arriving as a free ebook on digital platforms on April 11. ‘Make Something Wonderful’ will collate speeches, correspondence, and interviews from the esteemed Apple founder.
The book will include a foreword introduction from Laurene Powell Jobs. The archive says the book is designed to inspire readers to make their own wonderful things.
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Starting today, the Apple TV app is now available to users on the DirecTV Stream Device, the standalone streaming box from cable provider DirecTV. The app allows users to sign in with their Apple ID and access Apple TV+, MLS Season Pass, Apple TV Channels, and buy and rent from the iTunes Store.
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