The notch in this autumn’s iPhone 13 will slim down noticeably, according to pictures that supposedly show the front glass panels of the upcoming handset. None of the components will be removed, just rearranged.
Jon Prosser’s eyebrows are officially toast.
Prosser, the serial Apple leaker with a big personality and a seemingly deep field of sources inside Cupertino, pledged to shave his eyebrows if we didn’t get an Apple event on March 23.
Well that day has come. And the Apple event didn’t. So he took a trimmer to his precious eyebrows in the most Prosser way possible — on YouTube, with a solid sense of humor (and a charity to boot).
An investigation into the alleged “sexist” Apple Card has concluded with New York’s Department of Financial Services saying Tuesday that it has found no evidence of unlawful discrimination.
The investigation was launched in late 2019. Laws stop algorithms from determining treatment based on things like age, creed, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, and more.
As part of its education initiatives, Apple has launched a new “professional learning recognition badge” called Apple Teacher Portfolio that educators can earn using the Apple Teacher Learning Center.
Apple Teacher is a free professional learning program for educators who use Apple products as part of their teaching. The Apple Teacher Portfolio gives teachers 21 templates and lesson ideas and plans. These suggest how teachers can enhance lessons using apps like Keynote, GarageBand, and iMovie.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority is looking into accusations of “collusion at a very senior level” against Apple and Google.
Online campaign group Marketers for an Open Web made the complaint. It says the two tech behemoths are “not competing head to head,” but rather working together when it comes to search.
The group points to documents uncovered in a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit, including a 2018 internal email in which Apple and Google staffers discussed how they “work as if we are one company.”
Apple’s augmented reality/mixed reality headset reportedly will weigh less than 150 grams. That’s about half the weight of current VR headsets, suggesting that Cupertino plans to make its debut AR/MR headset more streamlined than competitors. (What a surprise!)
Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities made this prediction in a new note to clients, seen by Cult of Mac.
Ron Okamoto quietly retired after two decades as Apple’s vice president of Developer Relations. He helped oversee the tools provided to third-party iPhone and Mac application developers, and helped set policies for the App Store.
His retirement comes as governments around the world are investigating whether Apple treats fairly the third-party developers who depend on the iPhone and Mac App Stores.
A Federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit accusing Apple of putting defective keyboards in various MacBook models made between 2015 and 2019. These laptops all use the butterfly keyboard design which uses a key mechanism that is allegedly prone to sticking.
Since the very start of the App Store, some developers have criticized Apple for being opaque with its decision-making. Apple, it seems, doesn’t agree with these claims.
In a response to formal complaints made to Australia’s antitrust watchdog by Epic Games and others, Apple defends its reviews process. Far from being slow and tough to deal with, Apple argues that it works quickly, and provides all the information it needs to in a swift and open manner.
Canadian iOS developer and YouTuber Stewart Lynch got lucky when he broke the USB-C port connector on his brand new 27-inch LG monitor the first day he had it. Huge-upgrade lucky.
Lynch, who hails from North Vancouver, British Columbia, took the stricken display, under warranty, to a repair shop.
“About a week later LG called me and said they did not have any 27-inch monitors in stock so they offered me a 38-inch upgrade at no cost,” Lynch told Cult of Mac. “I took it and sold my dual monitor arm that was holding the 27- and 24-inch monitors and went with the setup I have now.”
The iPhone 13 will boast a maximum storage capacity that’s double that of the iPhone 12, claim Wedbush analysts Strecker Backe and Daniel Ives in a new note to clients, seen by Cult of Mac.
Unlike the iPhone 12, which tops out at 512GB, the iPhone 13 could offer up to 1TB. That’s also 62 times the storage of the original iPhone, which topped out at 16GB.
The HomePod mini has a hidden capability that Apple has yet to put into action: a sensor that measures both temperature and humidity.
According to Bloomberg, the sensor could be used to trigger smart home actions, such as turning a fan on or off depending on the temperature. It’s not clear why Apple has not yet activated the sensor so customers can utilize the feature — or when it might do so.
The iPhone 12 is on course to give Apple its best-ever year for iPhone sales, according to Wedbush analysts Strecker Backe and Daniel Ives. In a new note to clients seen by Cult of Mac, they predict Apple could sell between 240 million and 250 million iPhones this year.
That would “easily eclipse” Apple’s previous record, set in fiscal 2015, in which it sold 231 million iPhones. That year’s super-sized lineup — the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus — remain the top-selling models in history. However, it looks like that record could soon fall.
Ted Lasso is the gift that keeps giving when it comes to racking up awards for Apple. On Sunday, the hit Apple TV+ comedy — about a hapless football coach who journeys to England to ply his trade with a soccer team — was honored with a pair of 2021 Writers Guild of America Awards.
Ted Lasso won both the Best New Series and Best Comedy Series prizes, adding a couple more accolades to the impressive collection the popular show has racked up since debuting.
Pour one out for our homie, the HomePod.
Apple recently pulled the plug on its sweet-sounding smart speaker, and the move is definitely not music to our ears. In fact, it calls into question Apple’s strategy of releasing — and then rudely abandoning — expensive, niche products. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel on that.
Find out why we hope that never happens again in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it to enjoy on iPhone or iPad, or get the stories below in your browser.
Podswap takes AirPods nearing the end of their useful life and replaces them with a fresh pair. And the recycling service costs considerably less than Apple charges to replace these wireless earbuds.
Plus, anyone using the service can take comfort knowing that their old AirPods will be recycled, not thrown away.
Two weeks after Apple discontinued the iMac Pro, the company pulled the powerful all-in-one desktop from its website Friday.
The computer hadn’t been updated in three years and there have been no reports of a new version in the works. This may be the last iMac Pro … just as it was the first.
Never again send a text or email you think is fine but enrages a coworker or your spouse. Use the tone detector Grammarly just added to its iPhone keyboard app to learn what impression your messages will make on readers. The app alerts you if something you’ve typed sounds rude or hostile before you hit send.
There are many games about ghostbusting. Cozy Grove is the exact opposite. The latest Apple Arcade title takes players camping on a haunted island where the goal is the help the spirits, not fight them.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reflects on COVID-19 and how it heightened racial injustice in the United States in an op-ed he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
Cook’s opinion piece, published Thursday, is titled “The Urgency of Racial Justice.” It’s just one of several — written by big names like actor Tom Hanks and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson — published in the Journal’s “What I’ve Learned From the Pandemic Year” package.
Alex Goulielmos, based in Piraeus, Greece, works as a software engineer for a maritime shipping company. He keeps it steady as she goes with his WFH setup, figuring, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Or don’t go buying expensive new gear to replace it, anyway.
Good thing his recently acquired and “very snappy” MacBook Air works just fine with a 12-year-old Apple Cinema Display and audio equipment that dates back to the turn of this century. His new M1-powered laptop replaced a 2017 MacBook. But the monitor and audio gear may go on forever.
Thriller fans should brace for an Apple TV+ binge-a-thon this week. They can watch all nine episodes of creepy new show Calls, which debuted on Apple TV+ Friday, or take in the first two full seasons of M. Night Shyamalan’s gripping Servant.
The Servant season finale arrived today alongside a new episode of alt-history space race show For All Mankind.
Apple has insisted that it will be applying its App Tracking Transparency globally following reports that developers in China are trying to find workarounds to the feature. A report this week suggested Apple was turning a blind eye to the efforts.
Apple and Facebook may be on a collision course with one another, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s confident the social media giant “will be able to manage through” upcoming privacy changes made by Apple.
Apple’s upcoming augmented reality head-mounted display will be controlled by eye-tracking technology, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says in a note sent to clients Friday.
Instead of using hand controls, the technology will be able to detect wearers’ eye movements and blinking, then instantly compute the required information so it can be seen on the device’s micro-OLED display.