Luke Dormehl - page 21

macOS Monterey will bring a plethora of nifty new abilities to Mac — and, in the process, help make Macs work even better with iPhones and iPads.

Announced Monday during the Worldwide Developers Conference’s opening keynote, it will be the first new Mac operating system following the arrival of Apple Silicon across the entire product line. This year’s update isn’t close to the giant redesign that was 2020’s macOS 11 Big Sur. But macOS Monterey 12 nonetheless boasts a bevy of exciting new features.

Apple’s “walled garden” approach to the App Store improves quality control — but it doesn’t filter out all of the spammy, scammy content. According to a report by the Washington Post, scam apps represent close to 2% of the App Store’s top-grossing apps.

While that might not sound like all that much, it’s a sizable amount when you consider that the App Store hosts approximately 1.8 million apps. These scam apps reportedly have cost users in the vicinity of $48 million.

Apple has switched out the photos for its leadership team for Memoji versions on its website ahead of today’s WWDC keynote. Apple did this once before in July 2018, when it adopted the cartoon avatars to celebrate World Emoji Day.

This time, it’s likely a preview of one of the things users can expect as part of the WWDC keynote. Apple has utilized Memojis as part of the advertising aesthetic for the virtual, developer-focused event. Apple is expected to show off iOS 15 today. One of the rumored features for iOS 15 is an upgraded Messages app, which will — by the look of things — lean into Memoji.

TikTok has completed yet another victory lap as the most downloaded, non-gaming title in the App Store, this time for the month of May. According to app analytics platform Sensor Tower, TikTok enjoyed more than 80 million monthly installs across both iOS and Android that month. This time, Brazil was the no. 1 market for TikTok, followed by China, where the app is called Douyin.

On iOS, TikTok was followed by YouTube in second place, then Instagram, then video editing app CapCut, then WhatsApp, Facebook, Zoom, Messenger, Google Maps, and Gmail rounding out the rest of the top 10.

Apple has reportedly paid out millions of dollars in compensation to a woman for a traumatic experience in which personal explicit media on her iPhone was uploaded to her Facebook account during a routine device repair, The Telegraph reports.

The incident took place in June 2016 at an authorized Apple repair shop in California, operated by Apple manufacturer Pegatron. In a statement, Apple said that when it “learned of this egregious violation of our policies … [it] took immediate action and [has since continued to strengthen [its] vendor protocols.”

Apple is the world’s most valuable public company, days from unveiling new software and hardware at WWDC, in the middle of its hottest iPhone cycle in years, and having just debuted its biggest iMac redesign in years. So all is good, then?

Well, apparently not. In fact, a report Friday notes that Apple stock is currently on track for its longest weekly losing streak in more than two-and-a-half years. Because the stock market works in mysterious ways.

Update: AAPL closed at $125.89 Friday, up $2.35 (or 1.9%). So much for the losing streak.

Whether it’s the classic Peanuts holidays specials or newer series like Snoopy in Space, Apple TV+ is the home of all things Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang these days.

Debuting later this month will be a great new addition to the collection: A star-studded feature documentary that tells the story of Peanuts and its impact. Check out the trailer below.

Former Apple design boss Jony Ive has hired at least four of his former Cupertino colleagues to work at his LoveFrom design firm, according to The Information.

Since leaving Apple in 2019, Ive reportedly hired Chris Wilson, Patch Kessler, Jeff Tiller and Wan Si. All four worked with Ive in Apple’s design team. Wilson created GUI elements such as icons and menus. Kessler worked in product design and helped create the MacBook Force Touch trackpad. And Tiller is a communications specialist who worked for the Apple design team.

The latest hire is Wan, who designed on app icons, home screens and buttons.

What does Apple’s oft-discussed, never-shipped AirPower charging pad have in common with Baron Samedi, the voodoo priest from the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die? Two things predominantly: 1) People think they’re folklore until they actually appear, and 2) They seemingly can’t die.

That’s right: After dodging death more times than Evel Knievel, a new Bloomberg report claims that AirPower is back on. Again. Or, at the very least, the project still has a heartbeat.

Apple is planning some exciting new additions for its iPad line. According to Bloomberg, Apple plans to bring wireless charging to the iPad Pro, along with the first iPad mini redesign in six years.

The wireless charging iPad will supposedly debut in 2022. The redesigned iPad mini — complete with narrower bezels and possible removed Home button — will meanwhile arrive later this year.

A simple copy-and-paste app called Paste Keyboard shot to the top of the App Store charts this week after languishing in obscurity for years.

Made by 28-year-old South Korean developer Techin Park, the keyboard app hitched a ride on TikTok’s massive success — and then dethroned it as the most popular app in the United States.

“Everyone is curious how such [a] simple idea, copy and paste, has trumped the almighty TikTok in app rank,” Park told Cult of Mac. “Copy and paste is a feature we all use at least once daily. Not many think it’s special. But in reality, increasing efficiency [when it comes to] how we copy and paste can save a lot more of our time than we possibly think.”

And, apparently, score you crazy numbers of downloads, too.

This year’s iPhones will debut in the third week of September, although that date could “push out into early October” due to “continued product model tweaks,” says Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

In a new note to clients, Ives gives his expectations for the debut of the next-gen iPhones — as well as a forecast of Apple’s expectations for the handsets. If he’s accurate, Apple’s expecting some very big things indeed for the iPhone 13.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives thinks overhauled 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros will be among Apple’s announcements at the usually software-focused Worldwide Developers Conference next week.

Recent rumors provide a pretty decent picture of what the new MacBook Pro might look like. The updated laptops supposedly will be a pretty major rethink of the pro-grade, M1-powered notebook Apple introduced last November. Among the changes will be a redesigned chassis, built-in SD card reader and HDMI port, a MagSafe charger and a faster M2 chip. However, the next-gen MacBook Pro supposedly will not come with an LED Touch Bar.

As CEOs of Apple, both Tim Cook and his predecessor Steve Jobs pride or, in Jobs’ case, prided themselves on the ability to say “no” to ideas. For obvious reasons, most of the time the world never gets to hear what those shot-down ideas actually were.

However, emails disclosed as part of the discovery for the Epic vs. Apple trial, now adjourned, shows one of the ideas that was talked about internally — but ultimately abandoned. That ideas was for a 15-inch MacBook Air, discussed as far back as 2007, the year before Apple debuted its ultra-thin notebook.

There’s macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and tvOS. How about homeOS, signaling a ramping up of Apple’s smart home ambitions?

That is one take-home from a new Apple Music job posting spotted online. It references a hitherto-unannounced mobile operating system called “homeOS.” While Apple rolled out its HomeKit smart home platform in 2014, it has — to date — been a part of iOS/iPadOS, rather than its own fully fledged operating system. That could change soon.

The bumpy, pothole-filled road to Apple Car continues, with Bloomberg claiming Wednesday that Apple has “lost multiple top managers of its self-driving car team” in recent months.

The company reportedly has hundreds of engineers working on self-driving software, along with multiple groups of employees working on a physical vehicle. However, multiple managers on the project have thrown in the towel this year alone. That’s never a great look.

Tim Cook is “afraid of [the] shareholder blowback” that might come with buying a Hollywood studio, claims one executive, quoted in a new story from the Hollywood Reporter.

The article, published Wednesday, suggests that Apple missed out on buying MGM Studios because it wasn’t bold enough to do so. Amazon recently snapped up MGM, home of the James Bond movies, for a massive $8.45 billion. Apple was supposedly in the bidding at some point, but didn’t wind up going through with it.

Because Tim Cook’s chicken. Or something.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will speak at VivaTech, described as Europe’s biggest startup and tech event, later this month. The multiday conference runs from June 16 through June 19. It has yet to be confirmed which day Cook will appear, and we still don’t know whether his talk will be given live or (as is more likely) virtually.

In a tweet, VivaTech’s organizers said: “Newsflash! Apple CEO Tim Cook will speak at #VivaTech for the first time!”

A bribery allegation against Apple’s head of global security has been dropped due to lack of evidence. Thomas Moyer, who has worked at Apple since 2006, was accused of donating 200 iPads to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office in exchange for concealed firearms licenses.

Two officials at the sheriff’s office also faced indictments as part of the investigation.

Apple has stopped signing iOS 14.5.1 following the release of iOS 14.6 a couple of weeks ago. That means that, if you’ve already upgraded to the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, there’s no going back again. (Although, to be fair, why would you want to?)

Apple stops signing firmware quickly after introducing newer, more up-to-date versions. “Signing” is the process of confirming that code is legitimate and has not been altered or corrupted. This allows downloaders to know their software updates are coming through official Apple channels.

Tim Cook is one of the highest-profile CEOs in the world, currently in his tenth year running what’s currently the most valuable public company in the United States. But Cook is far from the biggest earner when it comes to executive compensation.

According to a ranking by the Wall Street Journal, Cook ranked 171st among S&P 500 CEOs in 2020s, taking into account both pay and compensation packages. While Cook’s take-home was a more-than-adequate $14,769,259 for the year, that’s still considerably under the $211 million raked in by Chad Richison of Paycom, the no. 1 entry on the list.

Ahead of next week’s WWDC 2021, Apple is highlighting the young developers who have won its Swift Student Challenge. The annual contest exists to reward up-and-coming coders who are on Apple’s radar. They typically win some great Apple swag for their troubles.

This year, for its second virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple handed out prizes to 350 next generation Swift coders from 35 countries and regions. They had to submit an original Swift playground in order to win a spot. Apple seizes upon this year’s competition to show off the diversity of the people who entered.

The European Union is reportedly working on a mobile digital wallet that could support far more types of identification documents than Apple’s Wallet app. While Wallet can store your credit and debit cards, along with passes and tickets, the EU’s digital wallet will allow EU members to store their driver’s license, access various private and public services, and more.

As first noted by the Financial Times, the app will centralize access to a whole lot of information using a single online ID. Up until now, EU member states have had their own digital IDs. However, these have not all been compatible with one another and adoption has been low. Now the EU is looking at creating one unified solution.

What do you do when you drop your iPhone 12 Pro in a canal and can’t find it? Simple: You take advantage of one of its neat new features to fish it out of the murky depths.

That’s what Twitter user and developer Frederik Riedel recently did — crafting a fishing rod with magnet that allowed him to latch on to the MagSafe charging magnets on the back of the device. Impressively, it worked. As did the iPhone continue to do.

A new eBay listing from a seller in China, known for selling genuine Apple prototypes in the past, is selling what appear to be unreleased-but-authentic AirTag accessories. These include pink and surf blue versions of the AirTag Loop, joining the electric orange, sunflower, deep navy, and white color options Apple already sells.

It also sells the California poppy leather loop, another accessory that appeared in promotional images, but has yet to be released by Apple. At time of writing, the surf blue and California poppy options are out of stock. However, the pink is still available. It’s not clear whether the others will be restocked.