Apple showcased some major changes and improvements for iOS 14 during its big WWDC 2020 keynote on Monday — and it was just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more that we didn’t get to see.
We’re now discovering what some of those things are, thanks to the first beta release, which is already available to registered developers. Here are our picks for the best hidden features in iOS 14.
Microsoft is pulling the plug on its chain of retail stores, the company announced Friday. All stores are going to be shuttered for good, although four — in New York City, London, Sydney, and its Redmond campus — will be turned into experience centers that don’t sell products.
Amazon is buying Zoox, a self-driving car startup that employs at least 17 people who previously worked on Apple’s Project Titan.
The Information first reported the purchase of Zoox, and Amazon confirmed it Friday in a blog post. The deal could set Amazon back upward of $1 billion.
Videos are a great way to share our thoughts and talents, document experiences and precious memories, and just plain communicate. Too bad they can be so finicky to record.
This hands-free smart gimbal makes it easier to get the best possible video. It uses image-processing technology to make sure you capture the best shot each time.
Apple exec Craig Federighi says the company’s production team “moved mountains” to put together this week’s online-only WWDC keynote. And, while he won’t go so far as to commit to future virtual keynotes, he did say that Apple was very happy with it — and will be looking see what aspects of the presentation it can use in the future.
That’s one of the insights gained from listening to the latest episodes of Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee’s Waveform podcast, which features an interview with Federighi, Apple’s senior VP of software engineering.
Several Apple ads from the past year won awards at the U.K.’s long-running Design and Art Direction awards. D&AD is a British educational charity that promotes excellence in design and advertising. In this year’s virtual-only awards, it gave various Pencils (the name of charity’s awards) to what it thinks are Apple’s best promotional spots of the year.
You can check out the prize-winners — including a 5-hour, 19-minute iPhone commercial — below.
Apple has closed 14 stores in Florida starting Friday as a result of the increased number of coronavirus cases in the state, Apple has confirmed.
This brings the total number of Apple Stores to be reopened and then closed again to 32 in the United States. Earlier this week, Apple shuttered seven stores in the Houston area following a spike in COVID-19 cases. It has also closed select stores in Arizona, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
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Adding Ethernet to your MacBook or iPad Pro is as simple as attaching the Plugable USB-C to Ethernet Adapter. This cuts your dependence on WiFi, instead bringing the security, reliability and speed of a wired connection.
I tested this very affordable and portable accessory, and bring you the results in this hands-on review.
While OtterBox is known for its rugged phone and tablet cases, on Thursday it introduced a line of rugged, fast-charging power banks with wireless charging. There are also wall chargers and car chargers designed to quickly power mobile devices.
Google will pay publishers so it can create “a new news experience launching later this year,” the company said Thursday. While the announcement is vague, Google seems to be putting together a rival for Apple News+, a subscription news-aggregation service for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Beyond a Steel Sky, the long-awaited sequel to 1990s cyberpunk classic Beneath a Steel Sky, launches Friday on Apple Arcade on. Revolution Software promises the game offers “a dramatic, humorous, cyberpunk thriller in which engaging puzzles drive a fast-paced and dynamic narrative.”
Apple just rolled out an AirPods Pro update that makes noise cancellation even better, and soon, its tiny buds will get another upgrade that adds amazing spatial sound. Don’t already have your own? Change that today.
Pick up AirPods Pro on Amazon and enjoy $19.01 off the usual price — one of the biggest discounts yet — or opt for a renewed pair and save $39.05.
Michael Hawley, the man who helped Steve Jobs write his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address, has died as a result of cancer at the age of 58.
Hawley, who shared a house with Jobs at one time and worked with him at NeXT, was a polymath and pioneer in his own right. At NeXT, he created one of the world’s first digital libraries. He also helped conceive of the Internet of Things, worked at MIT’s world-famous Media Lab, was scientific director for one of the first major scientific expeditions on Everest in 1998, and was an accomplished piano player and organist.
Apple SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi and VP of product marketing Greg Joswiak discuss all the news coming out of Monday’s WWDC keynote in an interview with Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber.
Topics include the transition to Apple Silicon, the virtual WWDC, iOS and iPad OS 14, macOS Big Sur, tvOS 14 and watchOS 7. They even touch on issues like the current App Store controversy, which may trigger a Department of Justice investigation into Apple.
Check it out below.
iOS and iPadOS 14 will make gaming on iPhone and iPad better than ever, with huge improvements to game controller support. Players can look forward to button remapping, motion controls and more.
And for the first time, you’ll be able to play games on iPad using a keyboard and mouse!
For some things, computers can feel more like an obstacle than a productivity tool. Taking notes is one such task. Competing tabs, interruptive apps, embarrassing typos and pokey internet connections can make a good old pen and paper feel like the absolute best tools for taking notes.
Not so with this powerful app, which harnesses your Mac’s power to make paperless note-taking a breeze.
A survey of customers in the UK hammers home Apple’s dominance when it comes to wireless in-ear headphones. According to a report by Counterpoint Research, 63% of respondents named Apple as a preferred brand when picking their next wireless in-ear headphones.
Apple trounced the competition that included Bose, Sony, the Apple-owned Beats, Samsung and others. While respondents were able to name multiple brands, the quantity of people who mentioned Apple makes clear just how much of a name Apple has carved out for itself in this market.
Apple has confirmed that Boot Camp, the tool that allows Mac users to boot into Windows, will not be available on upcoming machines powered by custom ARM chips. Users will need to rely on virtualization software instead.
Apple has upgraded its Core ML machine learning framework, adding the ability for developers to update their machine learning models on the fly, the company revealed Wednesday.
The ability to update artificial intelligence models outside of the usual app update cycle means that devs can quickly improve the machine learning smarts of particular apps without having to push out an update. That’s huge news for any app developers who feature AI components within their apps.
Kristen Bell is dropping out of Apple TV+ animated musical comedy series Central Park, the popular Good Place star announced on social media Wednesday. Bell starred as Molly Tillerman in all 13 episodes of the first season of Central Park. The show debuted last month on Apple TV+.
Bell, whose character on the show is mixed race, said that she is stepping back so as to allow the character to be played by an actor whose race matches that of the character.
The “abnormally bad” quality of Intel’s Skylake architecture may have been what pushed Apple to make the jump to its own ARM-based Apple Silicon processors, claims a former Intel principal engineer in a report published by PC Gamer.
The next iPhone and iPad operating systems warn you when the microphone or camera is on, let you share your approximate location, and block apps from tracking you. And these are just some of the ways iOS 14 and the iPad equivalent protect user privacy. Apple is clearly working hard to live up to its promise that it regards privacy as a fundamental human right.
Apple updated AirPods Pro to firmware version 2D27 on Tuesday. Users of these truly wireless headphones have since had a chance to install it, but there’s no consensus about whether it makes active noise cancellation as good as it was when this product first launched.
Monday’s WWDC 2020 keynote was very polished and a little fast-paced for me. This year, the entire Worldwide Developers Conference is virtual due to COVID-19, and the presentations flowed seamlessly from presenter to presenter, leaving little time for someone drawing to catch a breath. I ended up with five pages of drawings in my notebook.
I sketched out the important new features coming in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, macOS Big Sur, watchOS 7 and more. For a quick visual recap of the highlights of the WWDC 2020 keynote, check out my sketchnotes below.
YouTuber Jared Busch is a tech reviewer so when it comes to desk setups, he doesn’t mess around. Most of his gear is for gaming — and for making tech reviews on his YouTube channel.
He runs this setup off a 2016 MacBook Pro. He has a testoserone-filled 35-inch Acer Predator Z35P Curved Monitor, which he calls “one of the best 21:9 gaming monitors available right now!” But he might change it because it has a “bit too much of an aggressive look” to it.