News - page 238

Analysts note that new COVID-19 lockdowns in China are hitting Apple’s supply chain hard. And the pain will likely worsen, with production falling behind by up to 10 million iPhones.

And this is not just about iPhones. Authorities have halted production at three key suppliers for iPhone, iPad and Mac assembly. Meanwhile, Apple is negotiating to reopen production lines, though success could be hard to come by, according to one analyst Friday.

This follows recent news of assembly and shipping delays on built-to-order MacBook Pro models.

At a glance, today’s featured computer setup appears simpler than it really is. It showcases a Mac mini, a pair of mounted monitors and some typical-looking input devices. A row of water bottles stands to the right because the owner, who lives in India, is big on hydration as summer hits the subcontinent.

But there’s more to the setup than meets the eye. And some of it escapes the camera’s lens.

Apple’s excellent 24-inch M1 iMac is cheaper than ever on Amazon right now. The base model with 7-core GPU and 256GB storage is available for $1,199 after a $100 discount.

The more powerful model with 8-core GPU sees an even more attractive discount of $150.

TSMC, the company that makes CPUs for iPhone and Mac, will have a 3 nanometer production process up and running in the second half of 2022. But that’s almost certainly too late for Apple’s upcoming A16 and M2 processors.

Still, these chips will benefit from TSMC’s 4nm process.

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WeWork is working on turning your iPhone or Apple Watch into access keys for its buildings. References to the company working on Apple Wallet integration have been found in the latest version of its app.

Apple reportedly has half a dozen Macs with the next-generation M2 processor in testing. These are a mix of MacBooks and desktops.

Some supposedly will arrive later in 2022, but Apple won’t release the rest until 2023.

If you care about environmental causes, Apple just gave you a pretty painless way to give. Starting Thursday and running through Earth Day on April 22, Apple will donate $1 to the World Wildlife Fund for every Apple Pay transaction in Apple stores, on the store app or on Apple.com.

So start buying stuff and join the fight to save the planet’s beleaguered species.

Apple’s excellent M1 MacBook Pro is discounted by as much as $249 on Amazon. The base model with 256GB storage is down to its lowest price of $1,099 in the last 30 days, down from 1,299.

The deal on the 512GB variant is even better — it is available for $1,249 after a $249 discount, with the last $50 off automatically applied at checkout.

A docuseries about an NBA hopeful determined to take control of his journey premieres on Apple TV+ on April 22. The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball tells the story of how Makur Maker, a five-star NBA prospect, ended up at Howard University.

A new trailer for the upcoming series gives an early look at his inspirational story.

Looks like secure chat client WhatsApp just got a little livelier. Its long-promised emoji-based Reactions and newly developed Communities features for organizations rolled out on Thursday.

Users will have six emojis to play with to start. And in addition to new Communities, WhatsApp’s Groups functionality gets a revamp, too.

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It looks like the rumored periscope lens in iPhone 15 just took a step closer to reality. Jahwa Electronics in South Korea said it plans to expand production on new models and invest $155.7 million in new facilities. A new report suggested the company’s new customer is Apple, for whom it will supply periscope lens components.

Jahwa currently supplies such tech — optical image stabilization (OIS) actuators — for Samsung’s Galaxy S22 lineup.

If you make your MacBook Pro or other laptop the center of your office, Satechi rolled out new accessories Thursday that can help increase your efficiency factor.

The company launched its new 8K Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable for fast display connections and Dual Vertical Laptop Stand to keep your gear neatly housed out of the way while you work.

Facebook’s parent company Meta will claim almost half of the money third-party developers earn from sales in Horizon Worlds, the VR platform for Quest headsets. An Apple executive says that “lays bare Meta’s hypocrisy,” considering it has criticized Apple in the past for its 30% App Store fee.

Apple’s suppliers have more than doubled their use of clean power over the last year. There’s over 10 gigawatts operational today.  In 2021, these projects avoided 13.9 million metric tons of carbon emissions.

And the iPhone-maker itself is investing in green energy projects.

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Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has offered $41 billion in cash to take over Twitter. He wants to take the social media company private to ensure it is able to thrive and “be the platform for free speech around the globe.”

The move comes less than two weeks after Musk spent $3 billion to become Twitter’s largest shareholder.

A clever DIY project found a brilliant way to reuse on old MacBook. At first glance, it just seems like an Apple notebook sitting on a desk. Open it up and…

We’re not going to ruin it for you. Just watch the video on Twitter.

A tweak to iOS privacy settings made in 2021 has already cost Facebook $8.1 billion, and the social-networking company’s losses will increase by another $12.8 billion in 2022, according to an industry report.

Forcing applications to ask permission before tracking their users’ online activity hurt other companies, too. But nowhere near as much as Facebook.

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Maybe you thought about snapping up the exceedingly nice-looking Nomad Base One MagSafe charger for iPhone when it came out in March. But what about charging my Apple Watch, too, you asked.

Well, Nomad must’ve been listening, because it launched the Nomad Base One Max on Tuesday. It adds an Apple Watch stand to the Base One’s wireless charging pad.

Order a MacBook Pro with an M1 Max processor and you’ll wait until June for a delivery. Wait times have grown to 7+ weeks because the company that assembles the notebook for Apple is caught in a COVID lockdown.

The same lockdown caught one of the major iPhone assemblers, and also two iPad assemblers. But it’s not affecting handset or tablet deliveries. Not to the same extent, anyway.

A smart scale sitting on the bathroom floor is never going to replace your doctor — or at least, not yet. But devices like the new Eufy Smart Scale P2 Pro do more in the realm of health than just weigh you.

You may not be in a big hurry to find out about things like your bone mass, but at least you can if you want or need to. And you can do it in the comfort of your own home.

Whether you’ve suffered a power outage, decided to go on a camping trip or finally realized you need to ditch civilization once and for all, Anker’s burly new 757 PowerHouse portable power station can help.

With a powerful battery and loads of ports, it’s for anytime you go off-grid.

Mossad hacker-agent Tamar remains undercover in Iran in Tehran season two. But this time she has Glenn Close to help. But is she really there to help?

Watch the trailer for the upcoming season for more hints of what’s to come. And the wait won’t be long — new episodes of the spy-vs-spy thriller premier May 6 on Apple TV+.

Ever show off your painstakingly constructed computer setup only to have everybody race past the gear just to ogle what’s showing on the screen(s)? The desktop wallpaper.

It’s kind of like that with today’s featured setup, the brainchild of a graphic designer.

He put together the dual-monitor setup around a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro with a lineup of nice touches. And he also made the neato race-car wallpaper that got most of the attention.

Apple unveiled its top 10 extreme-close-up photo selections Wednesday from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge, in which photographers from all over the world submitted epic miniatures over several weeks starting January 25.

All the shooters used iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max to take their pics. Photographers hailed from China, Hungary, India, Italy, Spain, Thailand and the U.S. Apple plans to feature their images on apple.com, on Instagram (@apple) and on billboards in select cities.

Check out the stunning shots — captured with iPhone’s most-advanced cameras ever — below.

Apple and Adobe added better support for Apple silicon to a couple of their marquee applications for video professionals.

Apple’s Final Cut Pro has been optimized for the new Mac Studio desktop. And Adobe’s After Effects now offers native support for the Apple M1 chip.