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.
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Seemingly through a server-side change, Apple is quietly updating some of the international Siri text-to-speech synthesizers. Last month, some readers commented that the British male voice had been upgraded and we can confirm that the British female voice has also been updated as of this week. The change can be heard on iPhone and iPad as well as the HomePod.
The 2018 MacBook Pro appears to avoid the stage light issues that are plaguing some fraction of the 2016-2017 models. What iFixit highlights in its latest blog post is that the display flex cable is actually longer in the 2018 iteration than earlier MacBook Pros.
iFixit measured it as a 2mm size difference. That number is small in absolute terms but when tolerances are this tight across the machine, a couple millimetres can make a big difference.
A report today says that Apple executives are interfering with the production of its original content television shows. Producers reportedly describe that Apple is difficult to work with, “citing a lack of transparency, lack of clarity and intrusive executives”.
Cook has apparently told producers to not be so mean as Apple attempts to balance a demand for gripping dramas and story narratives with its all-inclusive family friendly corporate brand. The interruptions and changes are causing delays. The New York Post says the streaming service will launch with just a few shows at the end of the year.
Apple has been promising the AirPods wireless charging case for 537 days (and counting). Twitter leaker Max Weinbach was featured in EverythingApplePro’s video today with some few tidbits on the AirPods wireless charging situation. However, Weinbach doesn’t really have a track record of accuracy yet with Apple news, so we are treating these reports as sketchy rumors at this time.
Last month, we covered a macOS Keychain exploit that seemingly could expose user credentials and passwords. At the time, the researcher Linus Henze did not disclose the workings of the exploit to Apple as a protest because Apple does not offer a bug bounty reward scheme for macOS. Despite no change on that front from Apple, Henze has now decided to share his findings with the company to protect users.
Throughout March, Apple will be featuring female entrepreneurs, creatives and engineers across its platforms to celebrate International Women’s Day. We have already reported on the upcoming Activity Challenge and special Today at Apple schedule, but Apple is doing even more.
Every day in March, the App of the Day in the App Store will feature apps that are built, led or founded by women. On Fridays, Apple will do richer editorials with female members of the tech industry.
As spotted by MySmartPrice, an Indian database is also surfacing model identifiers for as-yet-unannounced new iPad models as the units have received regional certification. The model identifiers A2124 and A2133 were first discovered in the Eurasian Economic Commission database last month.
Smart shades and blinds are cool, but they are not cheap. The SOMA Smart Shades is an adaptor for existing blinds to make them remotely controllable without having to shell out for all-new blinds. For HomeKit integration, you need at least one Soma Connect hub too.
Apple has today announced the winning photographers, and their photos, of its Shot on iPhone contest that it ran at the end of January. The winning images will be featured on Apple billboards, in Apple retail, and as part of online Shot on iPhone features.
The ten shots were chosen by a panel of judges, including photographer Austin Mann and Apple’s own Phil Schiller. The shots were taken on a variety of models, from iPhone 7 through iPhone XS Max …
Apple is actively developing sleep tracking features for the Apple Watch, as reported by Bloomberg. The report indicates that the sleep tracking features would be tied to new hardware, rather than a watchOS software update.
The publication says that Apple employees have been testing sleep tracking features at its campus for several months with an aim to launch native sleep tracking features for Apple Watch by next year. Apple typically releases new versions of the Watch in the fall.
Warren Buffett, through his company Berkshire Hathaway, is Apple’s second biggest shareholder, having dramatically increased his stake in the last few years. In an interview with CNBC, Buffett says that he is unlikely to sell his AAPL shares, and would buy more if it was cheaper.
About a week ago, we heard reports that the A13 chip destined for this year’s iPhones will continue to be fabricated at the same 7 nanometer feature size as the A12. Digitimes today notes that for the 2020 iPhone, we will again see another miniaturisation leap.
Apple and Goldman Sachs are readying a joint credit card, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new credit card will integrate with the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone to offer special features like the ability to set spending goals and track purchase rewards. The card would purportedly offer rewards like 2% cashback, and maybe more when buying Apple gear.
The report says the new card will be tested with employees in the next month or so with a launch later in the year. The Wallet app has undergone a significant design change in the iOS 12.2 beta, so it makes sense that Apple has bigger plans in the offing.
In a statement to Macerkopf, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content announces that App Store payments to European developers have just exceeded $25 billion.
Apple has released a cool new ad today called Flight that highlights the cellular capabilities of the Apple Watch. In the ad created by film director Jonathan Glazer, renowned skydiver Inka Tiitto runs through the forest with her watch and then is catapulted into the sky where she dances amongst the clouds, to then plummet back into the ocean.
The ad shows off the Watch’s Maps turn-by-turn navigation features, and the ability to answer the phone from anywhere thanks to the cellular radios …
Apple is planning a multi-year roadmap for its cross-platform app project. First previewed at last year’s WWDC with the launch of the News, Stocks, Home and Voice Memos app, Marzipan makes it near-automatic for developers to port iPad apps to macOS.
A third-party SDK for Marzipan will launch at this year’s WWDC for iPad and Mac universal apps. According to Bloomberg, Apple plans to add Marzipan-esque conversion of iPhone to Mac apps in 2020. The publication also says that Apple has ‘weighed previewing’ a new version of the Mac Pro at the conference.
iOS 12.2 beta 3 just dropped and contains a few user-facing tweaks as we reported here. For developers, there are new discount options for auto-renewing subscriptions.
Apple has also released a set of design resources for Siri Shortcuts, for iOS and watchOS. The company also released the SF Compact Rounded font to developers, which is used in several places inside watchOS.
Now available in the US and Canada, the Eve Flare is a HomeKit-compatible multicolor light from Eve Systems. The Flare launched in Europe last year.
The Flare is an orb moodlight that you can leave on the charging inductive base, or pick it up and move it around your house for up to six hours at a time. You can turn the light on or off with Siri or the Home app through HomeKit, as well as change the hue and brightness. The Flare can of course participate in your HomeKit scenes and automations too. It is rated at IP65 water resistance so you can take it outside and not worry too much about precipitation from the weather.
The iPad mini 5 is not going to be the most exciting of updates according to recent reports. Macotakara says informed accessory manufacturers indicate the new iPad mini will look almost identical to the iPad mini 4 design. Update: More corroboration from multiple sources …
In a new report from The Information, the site details a few purported anecdotes of Huawei trying to steal Apple trade secrets. The tactics involved Huawei engineers appealing to Apple’s manufacturers and suppliers with promises of big orders, but instead using the opportunity to pry on processes specific to Apple’s component production.
In one example, Huawei engineers working on a smartwatch met with a supplier last fall. According to the report, the engineers tried to eke out specs about the Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor by making promises of big orders.
Continuing its string of iPhone promotions recently, Apple has a new offer for its Australian customers. As of this week, you can order Apple products in Australia with 0% financing for 2 years. And, if you buy an iPhone on financing, you get $50 (Australian dollars obviously) in cashback.
Chinese media outlet Economic Daily News is reporting that Inventec is already producing a new version of AirPods with a different exterior material for the earbuds and charging case, as well as a black color option.
The report indicates that they will go on sale in the spring alongside the AirPower wireless charging mat. EDN says the new AirPods are expected to boost Inventec’s first quarter earnings, as the publication has a supply chain focus.
Just like we saw happen last month, Apple has extended the final date of its iPhone trade-in promotion. We can tell this from the small print on the Apple.com/cn homepage. Yesterday, it said that the deadline for iPhone XS/XR boosted trade-in was February 17. Now, it says the offer continues until March 25.
This likely signals yet another extension to the ‘limited time’ promotion worldwide. Still, outside of the US, customers can only benefit from the additional trade-in value at an Apple retail store.
A Chinese media report on the social media site Weibo, via iGeneration, claims that Apple will expand the iPhone XS lineup to include a new red color option later this month. Presumably branded as PRODUCT(RED), it would join the red iPhone XR that Apple has sold since launch.