Apple has started selling officially refurbished iPhone XR models in the Apple Online Store. The handsets are available in 64GB, 128GB, and the discontinued 256GB storage options — for about $100 to $120 less than their current selling price.
Apple remains the king of the wearables, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, published Thursday. In total, the analytics firm claims that total device shipments for all wearables hit 72.6 million in the first three months of 2020. Of these, Apple shipped 21.2 million units.
Apple Watch remains the world’s no. 1 smart watch by a wide margin. However, shipments declined as a result of coronavirus-related challenges in the supply chain. Nonetheless, the continuing might of Apple’s AirPods — helped by Apple’s Beats “hearables” — was more than enough to offset the decline.
Days after Twitter labeled a Tweet by President Trump as false, Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that seeks to overturn liability protections for social media services.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the president’s most powerful political opponent, called the move “a desperate distraction” on the day U.S. deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic reached 100,000.
Apple nipped a 8-episode biography of Hedy Lamarr away from Showtime. The drama will star Gal Gadot as the 20th-century actress who was also an inventor who helped lay the groundwork for some of today’s wireless technologies.
The show will appear on Apple TV+, the company’s streaming video service that’s taking on the likes of Netflix and Disney+.
A protester wrote a cryptic message on the window of the Apple Store in Tigard, Oregon, on Wednesday, and left a mysterious package. Police shut down the shopping center and sent in the bomb squad.
Fortunately, the bundle at the center of the furor turned out to be a non-dangerous bag of apples.
Scientists want to know if the health data an Apple Watch collects can be used to diagnose COVID-19. There are multiple research studies currently open to those with Apple’s wearable.
Participants contribute to the goal of detecting the illness before the wearer knows they’re sick.
Apple continues to lag behind when it comes to machine learning — and voice-to-text transcription on the iPhone is just one more example of this.
In a new video posted online by journalist James Chan, the iPhone’s speech transcription skills are put up against Alphabet’s Pixel smartphone. Not only is Apple’s version significantly slower, but it’s a whole lot less accurate, to boot.
Alongside the physical health concerns during COVID-19, there’s been a massive uptick in mental health issues like anxiety. Those worries are highlighted by a big surge in mental wellness mobile app downloads, as noted in a new report from app analytics firm Sensor Tower.
The firm notes that the top 10 mental wellness apps experienced a big increase in downloads in April from the pre-lockdown January 2020. In all, apps like Calm, Headspace and Meditopia racked up a total of 10 million downloads last month.
The Apple Watch Leather Loop strap could be getting a redesign for this year’s Apple Watch Series 6. According to images posted to Reddit on Wednesday, the redesigned bands will come in (at least) black, blue, red and brown color options.
Unlike the existing Leather Loop straps, the new ones appear to have an additional accent color that runs down the edge of certain straps. It’s definitely a nice touch, design-wise — although there’s no guarantee that these are legit.
Want to own the home of a former Apple CEO? Wouldn’t we all? Unfortunately, you’ll need to pony up $37.5 million to do so.
Belonging to Mike Markkula, the angel investor who played a critical role in Apple’s early days, the ranch is the largest single landholding in Central California’s Carmel Valley. Markkula reportedly purchased it in 1982 for $8 million. He’s been trying to sell it since at least 2013 — and has dropped the price substantially during that time.
A video by the listing agency, Hall and Hall, lets you take a look around.
The next game headed for Apple Arcade involves a certain pants-wearing sponge. A short preview video on Wednesday teased the upcoming Apple Arcade release of SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit.
Watch it now:
Apple has seemingly beaten Netflix to fund Martin Scorsese’s next movie Killers of the Flower Moon, Deadline reported late Wednesday.
The forthcoming Apple Original movie will feature Scorsese regulars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro in the lead roles.
A MacBook Pro runs this triathlete’s setup. Brice Van Der Post is always on the go so it makes sense that he uses a laptop to power his rig, instead of being chained down by a desktop.
The highlight of this desk might actually be the desk itself. Since Van Der Post works for a furniture company, his factory custom-built the desk for him. The 70×30-inch unfinished teak top gives him ample space for his work. It is also a great canvas for all of the tech on it.
He has a 34-inch LG UltraWide Curved Monitor, which continues to make frequent appearances in our ‘Setups’ series, and a Logitech MX Master 2S, which is a multitasker’s dream mouse.
Van Der Post also has a pair of KRK studio monitors for audio, while a M-Audio AIR Hub take the speakers to the next level.
Apple purchased Inductiv, a Canadian company that focused on using artificial intelligence to clean up data. They created HoloClean, which was designed to get useful predictions from “noisy, incomplete, and erroneous data.”
The employees of Inductiv joined the team developing Siri, Apple’s voice-driven AI assistant, according to Bloomberg.
Today was supposed to be the day that NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent a manned mission to the International Space Station — the first launch from American soil in nine years, and the first manned rocket launch by a private company.
Instead, due to bad weather, the launch was scrubbed and rescheduled for Saturday afternoon. If it goes off as planned, some striking artwork by Tristan Eaton will accompany astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into space.
The pieces Eaton made are called “Human Kind” and we are highlighting them for Wallpaper Wednesday.
iOS 14 will supposedly include Home screen widgets, and a concept artist dreamed up a design. His short video is sure to excite anyone who’s ready for their iPhone’s main screen to become more dynamic and informative.
Pokémon Go‘s Buddy feature gives you a, well, Poké buddy to go on adventures with, much like Pikachu was to Ash in the animated series.
Now, thanks to a new feature called Reality Blending, the experience is going to get even better — and a lot more glitch-free. If you haven’t seen it, check out the (weirdly tear-jerking) ad for the Buddy Adventure feature below, as well as details about how it’s been improved.
In what may be the most unlikely Apple lawsuit since Carl Sagan sued Apple for calling him a “butt-head,” Pablo Escobar’s brother (yes, that Pablo Escobar) has filed suit against the Cupertino tech giant over a FaceTime bug.
The YouTube Kids app, a special child-friendly version of the YouTube app with additional parental controls, has landed on Apple TV.
The app was launched on iOS and Android in early 2015. However, while users could previously use AirPlay to stream content from their iPhone or iPad to Apple TV, this is the first time YouTube has created a native Apple TV app for the service.
HBO Max, the streaming platform that bundles together new and existing HBO content with a massive WarnerMedia library of TV shows and movies, has officially launched in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
The service launches with some 10,000 hours of programming, making this a serious contender to the likes of Netflix and Disney+ from day one. It costs $15 per month (covered by your existing subscription if you’re already an HBO subscribers), although a special offer makes it just $12 a month for the initial year.
Samsung will once again play a big role in making the next-gen iPhone as it has secured the majority of orders for the OLED displays for the iPhone 12, claims a report published Wednesday.
The iPhone 12 series of phones is expected to be Apple’s biggest upgrade in several years — featuring a new chassis design, OLED screens in every model, and Apple’s first 5G compatibility. And Samsung, Apple’s long-time frenemy, will seemingly get a big, lucrative piece of the pie.
Apple TV+ will be seriously upping its quotient of Fraggle Rock content, the Jim Henson kids’ puppet show which debuted in the 1980s.
Apple has acquired the streaming rights to all 96 episodes of the original show, which ran on HBO from 1983 through 1987, alongside specials. These will debut on Wednesday, May 27, and will be the first time that Apple TV+ has aired rerun content previously shown elsewhere.
A major update debuted Monday for Apple’s free Schoolwork app, which helps students and teachers collaborate on school assignments. Version 2.0 not only got an new tab-based design, there are numerous enhancements to make the Handouts feature more useful.
Apple also updated its companion Classroom app, though only modestly.
Busy medical student Zach Hicks spent years developing this mouth-watering, Mac mini-powered setup. His main screen is actually a 43-inch smart TV, which gives him a bunch of screen real estate so he can open up a lot of PowerPoint presentations at once.
To accompany these big screens, he uses an Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse. A HomePod pumps out the audio, while two Philips Hue Bloom lamps illuminate everything. And, if you are wondering about the Apple boxes above his desk, they serve as a visual reminder of his journey to build this dream setup.
Beta testing is over, and Apple released macOS Catalina 10.15.5 to the general public today. It includes a new Battery Health Management feature intended to reduce wear and extend the useful life of MacBook batteries.