News - page 809

The first ever class action lawsuit filed against Apple in South Korea involves 370,000 individuals — or the equivalent of one out of every 138 people who live in the country.

As with many of the recent lawsuits filed against Apple, this particular class action suit accuses Apple of purposely slowing down the speed of older iPhones with a software update. The group filed its suit with the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday, demanding 2.2 million won ($2,000) per person affected by the iPhone speed throttling.

As part of its efforts to highlight human curation-led discovery in the App Store, Apple is shining a light on different app-based business models and content types.

In the latest illustration of this, it is directing users to subscription-based apps offering free trials. The new section can be found in the “Apps” section of the App Store, and is titled “Try It For Free.”

iDevices’ new HomeKit-compatible smart switch will do much more than just control your lights. With sensors, a speaker and Amazon’s Alexa baked in, the Instinct packs four different functions into a standard light switch.

You can use Alexa voice commands to play music or control your lights. Or, if you’ve got your iPhone or Apple Watch at hand, you trigger HomeKit activities with Siri.

The new iMac Pro packs screaming-fast performance — and an eye-watering price. But if you’re in the market for Apple’s latest, great Mac, you can already snag a discount.

Also in this week’s roundup of the best Apple deals: refurbished iPads and Bose headphones.

The iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera system could soon make capturing Hollywood-quality motion capture as easy as snapping a selfie.

In a demo showing you don’t need millions of dollars in studio equipment, Big Screen VR founder Darshan Shankar tweeted a demo of some motion capture work that is being done using nothing more than an iPhone X and commodity body trackers.

Check it out:

If you’re not getting enough use out of your MacBook in between charges, you need the MagC Boost, the world’s first MacBook battery case. This baby will keep you going for more than 24 hours before you need to plug in again.

It’s just one of the awesome ideas in this week’s Crowdfund Roundup. We also have an amazing graphene battery pack, carbon fiber webcam covers, and more!

It took Apple nearly no time to go from beta 4 to beta 5 on the latest update for iOS 11 that’s currently in development.

Developers were surprised to receive iOS 11.2.5 beta 5 this morning, just two days after Apple released the last beta build full of bug fixes and performance improvements for the iPhone and iPad.

The company behind some of the best AirPlay speakers on the market is ready to give Apple’s AirPods a new challenger.

Libratone revealed its new set of wireless earbuds at CES 2018. And while the Track+ earbuds pack as much good design as the AirPods, they come with a feature Apple’s own wireless headphones can’t match: noise cancellation.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners in need of a battery replacement face a lengthy wait for Apple service.

A shortage of batteries in the United States and other regions means many will have to wait months to take advantage of the $29 replacement program.

Data from the Apple Health app is being used as evidence in a trial concerning the rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman in Germany. The individual accused of the crime is Hussein K., an Afghan refugee, who has been on trial since September.

The trial has been complicated by the fact that aspects of Hussein’s life are not clear, including his real age and a period of time — when the crime was committed — during which his whereabouts are unknown.

Apple “jerks” have been labeled “evil geniuses” by an FBI forensics expert. Stephen Flatley slammed the iPhone-maker this week for making it even more difficult to hack into iOS devices.

Mobile computing accessories company Targus has used CES to debut its new Thunderbolt 3 dock, a model that is aimed at multi-platform users.

Letting you plug in two ultra high-definition computer monitors, the DOCK220USZ dock boasts a whole lot of ports. These include a pair of USB-C outlets, along with a full-sized DisplayPort, twin USB 3.0 type A ports, audio in and out, and one Gigabit Ethernet port.

There appears to be a bit of confusion regarding who is and isn’t going to be affected by Apple’s migration of China-based iCloud accounts to a server operated by a Chinese company next month.

According to a new report, the migration of iCloud accounts is also affecting a number of accounts that were opened in the U.S., are paid for with U.S. dollars, and are connected with U.S.-based App Store accounts.

A possible quirk of the recent U.S. tax law change could net Apple an extra $4.1 billion, claims a new report.

A timing loophole in the tax overhaul that enables repatriation of companies’ overseas cash piles, means businesses whose fiscal years don’t follow the calendar year will get an extra one-off tax break. This includes Apple, whose tax year starts in October, but excludes Alphabet, whose fiscal year begins January 1.

Tim Cook joined more than 100 prominent CEOs who signed an open letter urging Congress to pass legislation to protect young immigrants threatened by the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Branding the situation a “crisis,” the letter asks lawmakers to pass a bill supporting “Dreamers”

Apple’s original content creation machine is starting to churn at full steam, based on a new report that the iPhone-maker has inked a deal for yet another original series.

Apple ordered a straight-to-series TV show this week that will be written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and directed by Francis Lawrence, who helmed the first two movies in The Hunger Games franchise.

Stick a fork in Apple’s router business. It looks dead.

In another sign that Apple is just too damn busy to update its outdated AirPort line of routers, the company is now selling a new mesh router system made by Linksys.

You iPhone is pretty handy for making quick audio recordings. Many musicians use the Voice Memos app, and some have upgraded to Music Memos. Unfortunately, the quality of the recordings from those apps isn’t good enough for actual music making.

For a start, it’s not stereo. Second, the iPhone’s mics are fine, but nowhere near as good as even a cheap external microphone. But using your iPhone to record is so convenient. Roland’s R-07 is a pocket audio recorder that works either alone or in tandem with your iPhone. It gives you the quality of a proper recorder with stereo mics — and the convenience of an iPhone app.

Satechi is doing its part to ease our move to USB-C. The consumer electronics company’s latest device is a 75-watt USB Type-C travel charger smaller than a deck of cards.

The space gray charger, which made an appearance at this week’s CES in Las Vegas, can charge up to four devices at once. It packs four charging ports: one USB-C, two USB-A and one Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0.

The best wired keyboard for Macs not made by Apple just got even better.

Mac accessory maker Matias unveiled its next-generation keyboard at CES this week and it comes with some cool new features you won’t find in its competitiors.

Yet another serious security flaw has been discovered in macOS High Sierra.

The bug, which remains present in Apple’s most recent public release, allows anyone to change the App Store settings in System Preferences by entering anything as your password.

Update: Nvidia reached out to Cult of Mac to explain that “recent press accounts about our latest software patches are incorrect.” We have updated the article below to clarify.

Nvidia has rolled out security updates for its graphics cards following widespread chip flaws. Its most popular products, including GeForce and Quadro, are being updated to combat the Meltdown and Spectre memory vulnerabilities.

Pokémon Go will drop support for aging iOS devices in its next major update, developer Niantic has confirmed. Only iPhones and iPads compatible with iOS 11 will be able to run the game as of February 28.

That’s bad news for players who don’t have an iPhone 6 or later.

At CES, Philips has announced that it will debut a brand new Hue 3.0 app for iOS, along with a Hue Sync app for Mac.

Both apps will arrive in Q2 2018. The redesigned Hue 3.0 app will offer owners of Hue lights the ability to alter the color of their smart lights with a color picker. They will also be able to instantly access their last used scenes, and to group lights and more easily select their desired color temperature or color.

U.S. officials are questioning Apple after the company admitted to throttling the performance of older iPhones.

Apple has already apologized for the practice and set up a battery replacement program in an effort to fix affected units. But that hasn’t saved the company from getting into hot water with authorities in a number of countries.