Programmers with years of automotive experience can apply now to help create the Apple Car. Apple’s website lists a number of job openings that, reading between the lines, appear to be for the team that’s building Apple’s self-driving vehicle.
Dan Riccio, one of Apple’s top designers, is moving to a mysterious new role in Cupertino.
After joining Apple in 1998, Riccio worked on loads of groundbreaking products, from the first iMac to last year’s AirPods Max and the M1-powered Macs. Now, he’s become Apple’s “vice president of engineering.”
Going forward, Riccio says he will be “focusing all my time and energy at Apple on creating something new and wonderful that I couldn’t be more excited about,” according to a press release Monday.
When Florian Mueller submitted his latest game to the App Store, he didn’t think it would end with him filing a complaint against Apple with the European Union, the U.S. Department of Justice and other antitrust authorities around the world.
But that’s exactly what happened after Apple rejected his Corona Control Game due to its COVID-19 theme. Google, which barred Mueller’s game from the Google Play store, is also named in his complaints.
Germany-based Mueller, who has another career as a blogger on legal issues, is not happy with how Apple and Google handled his game submission.
“When [Apple and Google] rejected the game at the beta-testing stage, I was indeed surprised that they took issue with it in such a fundamental way they wouldn’t even let us distribute it to testers,” Mueller, 51, told Cult of Mac.
The Snoopy Show, coming to Apple TV+ in February, puts the focus on Charlie Brown’s irrepressible beagle. A new trailer for the series dropped Monday, and it demonstrates the show is going to come crammed with lighthearted fun.
Watch the just-released trailer now.
Magnets and implanted medical devices don’t mix. Apple warned users of the iPhone 12 and MagSafe accessories that these devices all have built-in magnets, and therefore should be kept away from pacemakers and defibrillators that have been surgically implanted in someone’s body for safety reasons.
Time to Walk, a new Apple Watch feature for Fitness+ subscribers, promises interesting and encouraging audio stories to liven up walking for exercise.
This year’s Apple Watch upgrade will reportedly add another potentially transformative medical feature: a blood sugar sensor.
That’s according to a new report from ET News, which says both Apple and Samsung will bake the feature into their respective smartwatches — the Apple Watch Series 7 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 — later in 2021.
Italian consumer association Altroconsumo launched a massive class-action lawsuit against Apple on Monday, seeking 60 million euros ($73 million) for the alleged planned obsolescence of iPhones.
Specifically, the suit mentions the iPhone 6 and 6s generation of devices. Apple used a software update to slow down these phones’ performance, resulting in the “Batterygate” controversy.
“Planned obsolescence is a deliberate unfair practice to consumers that causes frustration and financial harm,” Els Bruggerman, head of policy and enforcement for consumer right’s group Euroconsumers, told Cult of Mac. (Altroconsumo is a part of Euroconsumers.) “In November 2020, Apple announced that it will pay $113 million to settle allegations that it slowed down iPhones to mask battery issues. That settlement clearly demonstrates that Apple resorted to planned obsolescence as a deliberate attempt to increase renewal of phone, hide issues and deceive consumers.”
Apple says it slowed down the iPhones to preserve battery life and avoid crashes of older devices. Between 2014 and 2020, Apple sold approximately 1 million of iPhone 6 and 6s models in Italy alone.
There’s something strangely nostalgic about Microsoft taking shots at Apple in a commercial. If you were to add in a post-grunge soundtrack, hair with frosted tips, and a supreme overconfidence in the value of any and every .com business, it could be the ’90s again.
Sadly such vintage touches aren’t present in Microsoft’s latest ad — pitting the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 against the MacBook Pro. Guess which one the folks in Redmond, WA think you’re better off buying?
It looks like the MacBook Pro isn’t the only Apple laptop that’s going back to the future. The next-gen MacBook Air supposedly will get MagSafe, just like the MacBook Pro we learned about last week. Plus it should come in thinner and lighter than ever.
Add in the upcoming iMac and Mac Pro redesigns, and this year is looking pretty fantastic for Mac fans.
Meanwhile, this year’s iPhone might be a bit of a welcome throwback as well. You can luxuriate in all the latest Apple news and rumors in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Grab it now to read on your iOS device. Or scroll down for the links to this week’s top Apple news, reviews and how-tos.
Spire Blast, a physics-based match puzzler that debuted Friday on Apple Arcade, is one of those simple games that so many people find addictive.
Strategically use colored balls to knock down towers. It’s a casual game that’s easy to learn but with multiple levels to keep it challenging.
Brie Larson, perhaps best know for her role in Captain Marvel, will reportedly take the lead in Lessons in Chemistry, a series about a frustrated scientist in the 1960s who’s forced to take a job on a cooking show.
The squirrels are out there. And no one knows that they’re doing. It’s your job to find out in Nuts — A Surveillance Mystery, which debuted Friday on Apple Arcade as well as other platforms.
It’s a game for everyone who thinks they’d be a good spy. Just not a creepy one.
People have been using Face ID to unlock their iPhones since 2017, and their iPads since 2018. But don’t expect to unlock your iMac using facial recognition just yet.
According to a Friday report from Bloomberg, Apple has been developing Touch ID for Mac. However, while it was originally planned for the 2021 iMac redesign, it’s now been pushed back to a later update.
With a new president installed, this has been a big week for the United States — and, to paraphrase Billy Madison, news app are reaping all the benefits.
According to a new report by top app analytics platform Sensor Tower, news apps in the App Store received a nice Inauguration Day bump. Three of the big winners were CNN‘s news app, aggregator News Break, and Newsmax. They respectively jumped 530, 13, and 43 spots in the App Store rankings.
Apple’s next-gen MacBook Air will be thinner and lighter than the current version, as well as boasting a MagSafe charger and, possibly, a redesigned display.
According to a Friday report from Bloomberg, Apple is planning to launch these new laptops in the second half of 2021 or in 2022. This would be the second MacBook Air to feature Apple Silicon processors, following the M1 MacBook Air released at the end of last year.
A pair of reports published by Digitimes Friday add more evidence to previous ones claiming that the iPhone 12 Pro series is proving to be the big hits of this year’s iPhone refresh. The iPhone 12 mini? Not so much.
One report claims that Apple manufacturer Foxconn is “expected to see extra momentum in the first quarter of 2021” thanks to Apple increasing orders for the iPhone 12 Pro handsets. A second report, meanwhile, claims that fellow manufacturer Pegatron has seen a slowdown in orders for the iPhone 12 mini. The report blames this on shrinking sales in the US and Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The second season of Servant, Apple TV+’s creepy psychological thriller from Tony Basgallop and M. Night Shyamalan, is apparently off to a strong start.
According to a new report, the first episode of season two, which debuted last week, registered double the audience that watched the show “during the same time frame” during season one. That suggests that Servant has spread through word of mouth, as well as potentially indicating that Apple TV+ has picked up considerably more viewers in the past year.
Apple seeded a macOS Big Sur 11.2 release candidate to developers on Thursday. Among other changes, it promises to improve Bluetooth reliability, which is probably music to the ears of those using the recently released Macs built around Apple’s first-generation M-series processor.
Those dreaming of Mac and iPad someday merging might get a bit of hope from a new video showing an Apple tablet running macOS Catalina. Or maybe not.
Twelve South’s AirSnap is a gorgeous leather case that ensures your beloved AirPods are always within reach. It clips onto any bag or jacket so you’ll never forget where you left it, and it’s nowhere near as expensive as it looks.
Apple seeded to developers the release candidates for iOS 14.4 and the iPad equivalent on Thursday. It’s probably the last step before a public release. Among other changes, these new versions will apparently give iPhone and iPad users the option to block third-party applications from tracking them.
Devs can also install watchOS 7.3 RC and tvOS 14.4 RC, which became available Thursday too. But macOS Big Sur 11.2 is still on Beta 2.
It’s good to be the president. People just give you things, like the first 2019 Mac Pro assembled in Austin, Texas. Tim Cook gave this pricy computer to Trump, probably after the president toured the factory.
Beeper is a new all-in-one chat app that merges 15 different platforms into one. That sounds pretty interesting already, but what makes Beeper really exciting is its promise to put iMessage on Android and Windows.
The app, from Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky and his team, is “using some trickery” to make the impossible possible. But you’ll have to cough up a monthly subscription fee if you want to take advantage of it.
Don’t expect too much from Apple’s first virtual reality headset. A new report warns that Cupertino’s first stab at a wearable VR system, which could come in 2022, will be expensive with a limited set of capabilities.
The device is believed to be designed primarily as a “niche precursor” to more ambitious AR/VR glasses that Apple plans to launch later.