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News - page 346

Return of Touch ID is the most-anticipated feature for iPhone 13

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Touch ID might be back in the iPhone 13
People sure like their fingerprint sensing.
Concept image: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Apple customers are seemingly always on the lookout for the next big thing when it comes to new products. That may not be quite true for the iPhone 13, though.

According to a survey by SellCell.com, the feature most Apple customers look forward to is actually the return of Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor Apple has been phasing out in favor of Face ID.

Jony Ive touts power of ‘potent ideas’ in commencement address

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Former Apple design chief Jony Ive talks up big ideas in his virtual commencement speech.
Jony Ive has ended his partnership with Apple, ending a very productive 30-year relationship.
Photo: Nick Knight

Former Apple design chief Jony Ive emphasized the power of imagination and innovation in a virtual commencement address to graduating students from the California College of the Arts.

“Without imagination, without profoundly new thinking, and potent ideas, our practice has no purpose,” Ive said in a stylized video against a black background.

Save $379 on 512GB MacBook Pro refurbs before they’re all gone

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Save on 13.3-inch MacBook Pro from 2020
This deal is good for today only — enjoy it while you can!
Photo: Apple

Pick up a 2020 MacBook Pro refurb on Amazon today and save a whopping $379.01. The renewed units, which look and work as good as new, pack Intel Core i5 processors, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.

A limited number of units are available and this deal is good for today only. Enjoy it while you can.

Apple Maps’ Look Around feature expands to Atlanta

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Atlanta, GA
Fancy a trip to Atlanta?
Screenshot: Apple

Apple Maps’ “Look Around” featured now works in Atlanta, Georgia, allowing users everywhere to scope out Centennial Olympic Park or Mercedes Benz Stadium as it looks from ground level.

This marks the 29th location that Apple’s rival to Google’s Street View is available in.

Apple parts ways with employee over past ‘misogynistic statements’

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Apple.logo.paris.store

Photo: Josh Davidson/Cult of Mac

Antonio García Martínez, the author of Chaos Monkeys and an ex-Facebook product manager, has been hired and apparently fired by Apple within a matter of weeks for sentiments expressed in his 2016 Silicon Valley memoir.

The book includes a description of women in the San Francisco Bay Area as “soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of sh*t.”

M1 iMac can’t match fastest Intel iMacs in early benchmarks

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24-inch iMac with M1 processor released in 2021
The M1 processor in the 24-inch iMac is faster than most Intel iMacs. But not all.
Photo: Apple

The first benchmark scores for the upcoming 24-inch M1 iMac are out, and the all-in-one desktop is just as fast as the laptops and desktop released in 2020 running this processor. And no faster.

That makes the new model 24% quicker than the 21-inch iMac it’s replacing. But it’s slower than the 27-inch iMac introduced in 2020 with a top-tier Intel processor.

Denzel Washington will murder his way through The Tragedy of Macbeth on Apple TV+

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‘The Tragedy Of Macbeth’ starring Denzel Washington will appear on Apple TV+ in Q4 2021.
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand will star in the Scottish play on Apple TV+.
Photo: Wikipedia

Apple TV+ clearly hopes to win more awards by picking up the rights to The Tragedy Of Macbeth starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. The film is set to premiere in theaters in the fourth quarter of 2021 before hitting Apple’s streaming service.

Add game to your iPhone with GameSir X2 side-by-side game controller

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GameSir X2 Bluetooth Mobile Gaming Controller works with iPhone and Android
The GameSir X2 Bluetooth Mobile Gaming Controller is compatible with Apple Arcade and cloud-gaming services.
Photo: GameSir

Clip the GameSir X2 Bluetooth Mobile Gaming Controller to an iPhone or Android to add physical controls to the handset. It uses a split design that puts the buttons and joysticks on either side of the screen.

GameSir also launched the F7 Claw Tablet Game Controller for larger devices.

You’ve got to see this iPhone notch ‘fix’ to believe it

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This iPhone M1 concept is by Antonio De Rosa from ADRStudio.
A new concept design thinks outside of the box on removing the iPhone notch.
Screenshot: ADRStudio/ConceptsiPhone

The screen notch isn’t anyone’s favorite iPhone feature, and an iPhone concept makes a radical suggestion for repositioning it: the artist suggests stretching the top of the handset to make room for the front-facing camera and other sensors.

Watch a pretend Apple advertisement from the concept artist demonstrating the innovative new device now:

High school student makes impressive 3D renders of big-time Mac leaks [Setups]

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Ian Zelbo's monitor shows a render of a leaked MacBook Air concept he worked on with Jon Prosser. on.
Ian Zelbo's previous monitor shows a render of a leaked MacBook Air concept he worked on with Jon Prosser.
Photo: Ian Zelbo

It’s not every day you come across a high school student running a successful tech-based business – never mind one whose 3D renderings are routinely seen by thousands of people. But that’s the case with 17-year-old New Yorker Ian Zelbo and his RendersbyIan.

His detailed and realistic renders of leaked tech products, including Macs, get loads of exposure on social media from his clients, the likes of Jon Prosser of @FrontPageTech and Sam Kohl of iupdate.

UK charges repair shop $140,000 for selling fake Apple chargers

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Fake chargers
These turned out to not be legitimate.
Photo: BCP Council

A computer repair shop in Poole, England, has been charged damages amounting to $140,000 for selling unsafe, fraudulent chargers for Apple devices.

Investigators were initially tipped off when a shipment of 220 questionable items was held at East Midlands Airport in 2018. Following this, trading standards officers visited the offices of CK IT Solutions Limited, and recovered more than 1,400 products.

The captured devices — which were found to pose a risk of electric shock — were described as having “little or no distinguishable difference” from official Apple chargers. On the outside, at least.

Judge signals possible solution for Epic Games v. Apple court battle

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App Store faces barrage of antitrust charges
The judge may have dropped a hint about how she might end the court fight between Epic Games and Apple.
Photo: Sora Shimazaki/Pexels CC

If the judge in the Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit decides to rule against the iPhone-maker, she may have already signaled the significant App Store change she would order to satisfy the game developer’s complaints.

The judge asked a question that shows she’s considering allowing developers to point customers to their own websites to make in-app purchases. Currently, these purchases must go through Apple’s payment system.

Apple opens up Developer Academy applications for new Detroit center

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Developer Academy
Training up tomorrow's coders.
Photo: Apple

Apple is expanding its Apple Developer Academy, a free training program in app development and entrepreneurship, to two new markets: Korea and Detroit, Michigan.

The Detroit expansion marks the first time the Developer Academy, launched in 2013, has been available to people in the United States. That’s in stark contrast to Apple’s normal rollout trajectory — whereby things launch in the U.S., then gradually become available elsewhere.

Was 1971 the best year for music? Apple TV+ trailer argues so

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1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything
Coming to Apple TV+ later this month.
Photo: Apple TV+

Apple offers a compelling sneak peek at its upcoming 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything documentary series in a new trailer. Set to debut on Apple TV+ on Friday, May 21, the documentary argues 1971 — a.k.a. 50 years ago — was a crucial juncture for music and society.

As one of the interviewees quoted in the trailer notes, “I don’t think the music was a reflection of the times, as much as the music also caused the times.”

Full-body Animoji? Smart tech uses iPhone camera to track body motion

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Animoji
The future of Animoji?
Photo: Carnegie Mellon

Forget only animated avatar faces: a team at Carnegie Mellon University wants to bring the world full-body Animojis. As the director of the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Chris Harrison‘s job is to help create the computer features of tomorrow.

In a newly published demo, shown off this week, Harrison’s team has come up with a way to let regular iPhones do full body tracking using only the front-facing camera — by estimating what the rest of your body is doing.

It works surprisingly well.

Apple TV+ Lisey’s Story trailer hints at spooky things to come from Stephen King

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Lisey's Story review: We're in for a wild ride in this Stephen King adaptation.
We're in for a wild ride in this Stephen King adaptation.
Photo: Apple TV+

Master storyteller Stephen King (everything from It and The Shining to Misery and The Stand) is coming to Apple TV+ on June 4.

More specifically, Lisey’s Story — one of the author’s most personal stories, and a rare adaptation he’s written the script for himself — is coming. And, from the look of the trailer, hopes should be pretty darn high.

Check out the trailer below.

New home automation alliance should deliver more HomeKit-compatible devices

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Matter is a new interoperable homer automation standard back by Apple, Amazon, Google and m ore.
Matter is going to… matter to fans of home automation.
Photo: Connectivity Standards Alliance

Apple is a leading member of a new organization creating a standard for home automation devices. A primary goal is interoperability, allowing accessories to connect to HomeKit, Alexa, Google Home, etc.

Previously, it was up to the makers of smart home products to make devices that worked with more than one voice control system. Many chose to support just one.

2021 iPad Pro beats every Intel MacBook in early benchmark tests

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2021 iPad Pro with M1 processor
The M1 processor in the 2021 iPad Pro has the tablet running faster than any Intel-based MacBook ever.
Photo: Apple

The first iPad Pro with an M-series processor is apparently going to be as fast as many had hoped. Benchmark tests for the upcoming tablet show that it’s almost as speedy as the Macs released in late 2020. And faster than any Intel-based MacBook ever.

The 2021 model is more than 50% faster than the iPad Pro Apple introduced in 2020.

App Store blocks billions in attempted fraud

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App Store blocks billions in attempted fraud
Apple cracks down on App Store fraud wherever it can find it.
Graphic: Apple

The App Store protected customers from more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020, Apple said Tuesday. And the company’s App Review team rejected thousands of fraudulent applications.

The timing for this statement from the iPhone-maker isn’t accidental. In the ongoing Epic Games v. Apple lawsuit, the game developer argues that the App Store is a hinderance to innovation. Cupertino wants customers to hear its side of the story, too.

Brydge’s latest keyboard case for iPad Air and iPad Pro includes multi-touch trackpad

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The Brydge Air Max+ can be preordered now. Shipping starts in June.
The Brydge Air Max+ is both an iPad Air/Pro case and a clip-on keyboard and trackpad.

The new Brydge Air Max+ wraps the iPad Air 4 or 11-inch iPad Pro in a protective case, and adds a removable keyboard and trackpad.

It’s a larger version of a keyboard case Brydge recently introduced for the basic iPad. And there’s a similar model for the largest iPad Pro.

Art Gensler, architect who helped create Apple Store, dies at 85

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Apple Store
One of the many iconic Apple Stores Gensler had a hand in.
Photo: Apple

Art Gensler, the pioneering American architect who founded the world’s largest architectural firm and played a key role in the iconic look of Apple Stores, died Monday at the age of 85.

To try and distill Gensler’s career into “he helped create the Apple Store” is doing him a big disservice. His firm, founded in 1965, operates in 50 countries and produces an annual revenue of $1.5 billion. Nonetheless, for Apple fans, his work on Apple Stores is one of his many indelible contributions.

And he once got fired by Steve Jobs for it.

Epic Games makes solid arguments that Apple is a monopoly

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Monopoly board game
Maybe Apple really is a monopoly.
Photo: Kathy Marsh/Unsplash CC

At the core of Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple is the assertion that the iPhone-maker has a monopoly. With testimony from an expert witness, the game developer has begun laying out its arguments to convince the judge why she should agree.

Essentially, it claims that switching from iPhone to another device is so difficult that Apple can treat its users as if they had no other options.