Category: Apple Insider

LG has been catering to Mac owners for years, and the company’s UltraWide 5K2K display is a great solution for creative professionals who want a bit more horizontal real estate.

If you’ve got a MacBook Pro on your desk, a big monitor absolutely helps workflow. If you’ve got a more compact Mac mini, it’s a requirement. With certain tasks such as video or audio editing, programming, or other content creation, more real estate is good, and a 34-inch wide display certainly provides that.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px7b3mEmdak&w=560&h=315]

Resolution

As a display —especially at this level —it needs to kill it in the visuals department. The LG UltraWide 5K2K sports a resolution of 5120 x 2160, which at first blush makes this look like a 5K monitor.

Eagle-eyed readers will note, however, the vertical resolution. In short, it has the horizontal resolution of a 5K monitor and the vertical resolution of a 4K display.

A massively wide 21:9 display is going to have a bit of a niche audience but anyone who is coming from a resolution of 4K or below should be happy.

Color representation is accurate and like many high-end monitors, an individually unique color calibration report is included in the box to verify its integrity. It supports DisplayHDR 600 (HDR10) so between the brightness and accuracy, colors pop —even with the matte finish.

As far as other specs go: The refresh rate is 60Hz, it has a max brightness of 450 nits, covers 90 percent of the DCI-P3 wide color gamut, has a contrast ratio of 1200:1, and an exceptionally wide 178-degree viewing angle.

A gamer may find flaws with the slower 60Hz refresh rate, but let’s be real —most hardcore gamers aren’t going to be using a Mac. If you are a steadfast gamer who needs a gaming-focused monitor, we’d suggest looking elsewhere for 120Hz or 240Hz.

Connectivity

Connectivity isn’t an issue, with a bevy of ports available.

Ports include:

• 1 x Thunderbolt 3
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 2 x HDMI
• 1 x 3.5mm Headphone
• 2 x USB Type-A
• 1 x USB Type-B
• 1 x Power input

When you connect a 15-inch MacBook Pro over Thunderbolt 3, you get to take advantage of the audio output on the back of the monitor for headphones and the two USB ports while also drawing 85 watts of power. The 15-inch MacBook Pro can handle 87W so this is just shy of full speed charging.

In our testing so far, the 85W is more than sufficient to keep the MacBook Pro fully charged, even when under load.

The Thunderbolt 3 signal also routes the audio through the monitor’s dual 5W speakers. The speakers themselves aren’t anything to write home about. They beat the MacBook Pros internal speakers but still far cry from dedicated studio speakers.

To control the monitor there is a multi-purpose joystick on the underside of the front panel. It can be moved in four directions, as well as be depressed to make a selection.

Quickly moving it left and right will decrease and increase the volume while moving it forward will toggle mute on and off. If you depress the joystick, LG’s menu is presented where you can access picture mode, settings, power, and input.

It is a simple control scheme that does its best not to bury settings too deep within the menu. The main menu is displayed at the bottom center, but once you go into a settings option it will appear on the right side of the display.

Setup

The display ships in three pieces —the screen, the curved stand, and the pole that holds it all together. Unfortunately, the support post is largely made of plastic and painted to look like the silver metal of the bottom stand. This gives it a bit of a cheap feeling —a sentiment we also had regarding the bezels around the monitor itself.

We really like the minimalist design of the curved stand, it still keeps our desk free for other clutter and the whole setup can stay fairly close to the back of the desk.

Once you take everything out of the box, the stand connects to the support pole with a simple thumb screw. Then the monitor snaps into place at the top.

LG has built in a very small amount of horizontal rotation which seems largely just to make sure the monitor is straight. The display is so big rotating it wouldn’t be feasible on most desks anyway.

It easily adjusts up and down with very little assistance from the user. LG has the resistance balance perfectly which makes adjusting it a breeze. Vertically it can tilt ~5-15 degrees.

Build quality

LG did a bang-up job designing the LG34WK95U. The display itself looks fantastic, the silver and black body look sleek, but there are still areas that could improve.

It is odd that the front and sides are all black, but the hidden back is white. It would have looked a bit better if they went all one way or another in our opinion.

Most of the display is also plastic between the bezels, back, and the support column. We don’t expect to see others taking Apple’s approach of creating an all-metal display, but it could be improved.

The bezels around the display look particularly cheap. LG likely would have tried to get away with making the base plastic too if it didn’t need the added heft.

To be fair to LG, almost all other display companies employ similar tactics so it is something that we see time and time again, we just miss Apple’s propensity for design.

Nano IPS technology

LG is touting its new Nano IPS tech in this and other of its newer monitors. Nano IPS is a new, LG-specific version of in-plane switching LCD technology that uses nanometer-sized particles to help absorb excess light wavelengths to produce more intense colors. This is partially what earned it the DisplayHDR 600 compliancy badge on the front for HDR.

Even though HDR displays are often very bright, the LG34WK95U still isn’t quite as bright as Apple’s own displays —such as that in the 5K iMac.

Living with an ultrawide display

The width takes some getting used to. There are some obvious use-cases for the display right off the bat, though.

Jumping into Final Cut Pro X, a much larger view of your timeline with the added horizontal real estate makes working pleasant. Instead of just having a library, preview window, and Inspector open, you can add color wheels on the top which helps streamline that workflow and reduces the need to constantly open and close UI elements.

I spent some time working on my web development projects as well. It was much easier to have multiple windows open at once such as the actual code and the live preview of my work. Instead of having to tab between my IDE and Safari, I can freely see them side by side.

This is a 34-inch monitor, so expectations should be set that it will occupy a large overall footprint. The horizontal span of this monitor will exclude it quickly from any smaller setups. For a long-term solution, we’d rather mount this to an arm so it can move more to the side and keep the space under it open.

Our Mac does a great job powering up such a large display, though your mileage will vary based on your machine. For example, the latest Mac Mini is unable to push this display at full native resolution. When you do run a 4K or 5K display at native resolution though, on-screen objects get insanely small.

It may be easier to be run the display at a scaled 2560 x 1080 instead, which makes user interface elements a comfortable size while still leaving you room to work. But, on the other hand, why pay for 5K2K if you don’t need the resolution? This decision all comes down to workflow.

For the price, the display will be limited to the creative pros who can really benefit from the large horizontal space at a high resolution. It can make a world of a difference to those users’ workflows. The bulk of other users may be better off with one of the flagship LG UltraFine 4K or 5K displays.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Where to buy

LG’s 34-inch 5K monitor (34WK95U-W) is available at both B&H Photo and Amazon.com for $1,496.99. B&H is also throwing in free expedited shipping withing the contiguous U.S. and will not collect sales tax in a number of states.

 

By Roger Fingas
Wednesday, February 06, 2019, 09:11 am PT (12:11 pm ET)

In a twist, Apple this week took preemptive legal action against a firm called Fundamental Innovation Systems International, hoping to deter any patent lawsuits related to USB charging.

The company has filed suit through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking it to declare that it doesn’t infringe on patents FISI acquired from BlackBerry. A formal complaint speculates that it be could be the next target for FISI, which has already used legal pressure to secure licenses from corporations like LG and Samsung.

“Defendants have claimed, through letters, claim charts, telephone calls and in-person meetings with Apple personnel in this District, that certain Apple products infringe the Patents-in-Suit and that Apple requires a license to the Patents-in-Suit,” lawyers for Apple wrote. “However, Apple’s products do not infringe the Patents-in-Suit.”

A key contention in Apple’s defense is that many of its devices and adapters use Lightning connectors, instead of adhering strictly to the USB 2.0 standards cited in FISI’s patents. Lightning cables do tap USB for power and data, but have custom endpoints and authentication technology.

Apple is nominally requesting a jury trial, but if its lawsuit has its intended effect, FISI may be forced to settle before that point.

Apple is regularly targeted by outfits like FISI, which produce no actual product and depend on lawsuits and royalties to make money. Normally they’re defeated or settle out of court, but Apple did take a major hit recently when the federal U.S. Court of Appeals denied an appeal of a 2016 jury verdict in favor of VirnetX, putting it on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Zendure SuperTank is the best battery pack we’ve ever used. Between the feature set, quality, and the choice and speed of outputs, SuperTank is hands down the unquestionable winner of portable batteries.

Zendure has just announced a litany of new products, all designed to complement one another. That includes the powerful SuperTank battery pack, the SuperPort 4 multi-charger, and of the course the SuperCord to connect it all together.

Specs, inputs, and outputs

There are two separate products to look at. While the SuperTank is the most headline-grabbing item, SuperPort 4 should not be overlooked and can easily stand on its own.

If we focus on SuperTank, it is a massive 27,000mAh battery pack with four USB outputs. The capacity is the maximum allowed by TSA without requiring pre-authorization to bring on a flight, which already makes it a great travel companion.

Of the outputs, there are two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports for a total of four simultaneous outputs. One of the USB-A ports is 15W, the other USB-A is 18W. Of the USB-C, one is 60W with Power Delivery and the other is 100W with Power Delivery. When used at the same time, it is capable of 138W of power output between all four ports.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0-ZPRztBPE&w=560&h=315]

When it comes to input, the 100W USB-C PD port also acts as the input. That means while charging the battery, you can only connect three other accessories. This has its perks and drawback, which we will get into.

Compact design

Instead of going for an elongated design like other big names in the industry, Zendure prefers a more compact shape. This makes it easy for the battery to stand up on nearly any side for easy access to the ports.

Depending on which finish you choose, it has a silver or black exterior that is very similar to popular luggage designs that holds up extremely well over time. We know that because this isn’t Zendure’s first giant battery, it is simply the latest.

The A8PD has been on the market for a while and has a 30W USB-C output with a similar design.

Just like that model, the SuperTank offers a display which gives you easy gauging of the battery’s remaining capacity. On the top is also a small button used to turn on the battery, as well as changing the modes.

Power your biggest gear

With 27,000mAh capacity, that is easily enough to power almost any gear you’ve got —and fast.

A 15-inch MacBook Pro can handle 87W of input power, and the SuperTank battery pack can output that and then some. You can charge a 15-inch MacBook Pro and a 13-inch MacBook Pro simultaneously, at 9W shy of full speed. Incredibly impressive to see from a battery pack.

In a single person workflow, this battery is able to power our MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, Nikon Z 7, and iPhone all exceptionally quick.

The usual problem with batteries of this size is the several hours it takes to charge them up. SuperTank, with its 100W input, is actually able to completely recharge in only an hour. This ability can’t be overstated.

Since the 100W USB-C port acts as the input and the output, attention has to be paid when connected to something like a MacBook Pro. Sometimes, you want the battery to charge your Mac. Other times, you want the Mac to charge the battery. A simple press and hold of the button allows the battery to reverse course, whichever way you choose.

Powering small gear

A commonality among batteries, especially large ones, is the inability to power up small pieces of gear. Think headphones or watches.

It isn’t every battery, but if you have ever plugged in a pair of earbuds into a battery pack only to have it continuously stop charging, you understand the issue. Those large batteries have a minimum current requirement that these devices just don’t meet.

Zendure solves this by way of X-Charge low power mode. Double press the button and an “X” will show on the display, letting you know you’ve entered low power mode. Now low-consumption devices, especially wearables can charge without issue.

SuperPort 4

We mentioned earlier that this battery, thanks to the 100W input, can completely recharge in only an hour. To make that happen, you need a power supply fast enough. If you’ve got an 87W MacBook Pro power adapter lying around, that will do well enough. However, if you want to charge as quickly as possible, you need a 100W power brick.

The SuperPort 4 is a four-port multi-charger with two USB-C PD ports and two USB-A ports. Its total combined power output is 136W, which means you can charge SuperTank at full speed and still have enough left over for a 12-inch MacBook.

It employs a similar look and feel to the SuperTank, with the same color schemes and textures.

When you look at other multi-chargers, like the Satechi model we recently raved about, it looks a bit weak in comparison. It was limited to 75W of power, and it is stacked vertically. SuperPort is horizontal which is a much more natural position for accessing ports.

There is a 100W USB-C port, an 18W USB-C port, and two USB-A ports. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the second 60W port we saw with the SuperTank. For most people at home or work, they won’t necessarily need that from a power adapter though.

The little touches

There are a lot of little things we love about the SuperTank and the SuperPort.

For instance, UPS mode. PowerTank allows for seamless passthrough power which first charges your gear before the battery, but if the power is ever removed from the battery, your equipment will move to the battery’s power without missing a beat. Essentially, like a universal power supply.

We also are thrilled to see so much work going into the safety aspect of both the SuperPort and SuperTank.

On SuperTank, there are nine layers of protection. Overcharge protection, over discharge protection, dual temperature protection, short-circuit protection, output overpower protection, output overcurrent protection, input overcurrent protection, input overvoltage protection, and MCU reset. This covers pretty much any concern one could have about a battery.

That includes dual-temperature sensors so if one would ever fail, a backup is ready to take over.

SuperPort has a plethora of safety features of its own. Automatic current matching, output overvoltage protection, output short-circuit protection, output overcurrent protection, input short-circuit protection, input overvoltage protection, input overcurrent protection, and temperature protection are all baked in.

Zendure is also not using off-the-shelf lithium-ion batteries that are most common. Instead, they are using power cells usually reserved for electric vehicles. They are a bit more compact and have a longer life than Li-ion. They also hold their charge incredibly well. Once charged, it will retain 95-percent of its power after six months idle. That helps make sure the battery is always ready to go when you need it.

If you have SuperPort and SuperTank, they can charge one another. You need to use the appropriate cable though. Even the one included with your Mac won’t handle the full 100W of power. Nomad has an excellent rugged 100W USB-C cable, but Zendure is including a free SuperCord as part of a stretch goal on its preorder campaign.

Improvements

One thing we’d like to see is the addition of more USB-C ports. If we want to go all in on USB-C —and we do —we need to replace USB-A ports with USB-C.

When AppleInsider reached out to Zendure about this, they were on board and have since made a four-USB type-C version of the SuperTank a stretch goal. That way your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch can all charge over USB-C.

Another, albeit minor, pain point for us was the lengthy cable of the SuperPort 4. No cable tie was included, which made traveling with it difficult. We opted to attach our own Twelve South CableSnap to keep the cord in place, but we’ve preferred one included out of the gate.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Where to buy

Zendure —a Kickstarter veteran —has turned once more to crowdfunding for preorders of the SuperTank and SuperPort 4. Early birds can grab the SuperPort 4 for only $59 or the SuperTank for $89 before the prices start to increase.

Both products are slated to enter production soon and start shipping to backers by May. If you don’t need the speed or versatility of the dual USB-C ports, the existing A8PD is currently on Amazon (and $20 off) as well as many other Zendure chargers and batteries which you don’t have to wait till May to get your hands on.

Even though Zendure is a Kickstarter pro and has used the platform to successfully bring products to market in the past, crowdfunding projects are never guaranteed. Zendure has history, and completed products exist —as evidenced by this review.

Roger Stone is a big Apple user —and that may be a problem for him, given that Apple has handed over data from his iCloud account in accordance with a warrant. That and more, in the latest Apple-related crime roundup.

The latest in an occasional series at AppleInsider: A round-up of Apple-related crime.

Mueller has evidence from Roger Stone’s iCloud account

Following former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone’s arrest last week, the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller said Thursday that it has obtained numerous electronic devices belonging to Stone, as well as access to his iCloud account. The evidence collected, per CNN, includes “multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information consisting of, among other things, FBI case reports, search warrant applications and results (e.g., Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts).” Also included in the evidence are bank accounts and the hard drives of the devices themselves.

Another former Trump adviser, Paul Manafort also had evidence from his iCloud account lead to major legal trouble in connection with the Mueller investigation. Stone and Manafort were business partners for a time in the ’80s.

Teenager used Siri to threaten school shooting

A 13-year-old boy in Valparaiso, Ind., was arrested and charged with intimidation after he allegedly told Siri on his iPhone that he planned to carry out a school shooting. According to the Associated Press, the student also posted an iPhone screenshot of the reaction to the threat.

The boy had told Siri “I am going to shoot up a school,” at which point the digital assistant produced a list of nearby schools, which he then posted.

Find My iPhone Used To Locate Abducted Woman

After a woman in Boston was abducted from a bar last month, her sister was able to locate her by using Find My iPhone. According to Radar Online, when Olivia Ambrose went missing, her sister tracked her iPhone, eventually helping police track down the missing woman.

Beekeeper offers a year’s supply of honey as reward for stolen iPad

A beekeeper, known as “Beeman,” who lives on the West Indies island of Nevis is offering a year’s supply of honey for the safe return of his stolen iPad. According to the St. Kitts Nevis Observer, the man’s iPad was stolen from his home in December.

Beeman, whose real name is Quentin Henderson, lost countless family photos as a result of the theft, as well as the ability to communicate with friends and family in his native England. In addition to the honey, Henderson is offering $200 in cash.

Apple subpoena leads to theft charge

Police in College Station, Tex., successfully subpoenaed Apple to obtain the name of the owner of a stolen iPhone. According to KBTX, police had arrested a 19-year-old man for selling stolen iPhones, and then subpoenaed Apple in order to obtain the name.

Apple complied with the subpoena, which led to an additional charge against the accused thief.

Dad live-tweets six-day search for stolen iPad

A man in England spent six days last week tracking the movements of his stolen iPad via Find My iPhone. According to The Sun, the man followed the device through churches, bars, and other locations in London over the course of nearly a week.

Throughout, he live-tweeted maps of where the phone was, until he and a friend finally confronted the alleged thief —a homeless man who appeared confused about the situation.

New York man arrested in iPhone scam

A man has been arrested in Central Pennsylvania, after which he admitted that he carried out a scam in which he purchased multiple iPhones by giving fraudulent information to UPS drivers. According to Centre Daily, the New York resident opened false Sprint accounts and bought iPhones in their name.

The thefts cost Sprint $200,000, the newspaper said.

Two charged with stealing iPads from school

A pair of teenagers have been charged with stealing 19 iPads and a MacBook from an elementary school in New Jersey. According to The Vineland Daily Journal the two suspects, who are 16 and 19 years old, were charged with burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, while the 19-year-old was also charged with employing a juvenile in the commission of a crime.

The stolen equipment has not been recovered.

Women accused of drugging men in Miami clubs to steal iPhones

Two women were arrested in late January and charged with carrying out a scheme in which they met men in Miami Beach nightspots, took them back to hotel rooms, drugged them, and then stole their iPhones and expensive watches. According to NBC Miami, the women were arrested together in a car with the drug GHB in their possession, and have been hit with grand theft, burglary and drug charges.

One of the women, the TV station said, was “involved in a similar case from last year.”

Have a crime story for us? Email AppleInsider and tell us about it.

 

By Roger Fingas
Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 08:46 am PT (11:46 am ET)

Sonnet on Wednesday rolled out two adapter cards, the Allegro USB-C 4-Port PCIe and the Allegro Pro USB 3.1 PCIe, both of which can add powered USB ports to any computer with a PCIe slot, or even Thunderbolt Macs when used in a Thunderbolt-to-PCIe enclosure.

Each USB port on the cards can supply up to 7.5 watts of power and operate at Gen 2 speeds, enabling file transfers up to 10 gigabits per second. An attached SSD for instance can transfer files at 800 megabytes per second, or up to 1.2 gigabytes in conjunction with three other drives.

To use the cards most Mac owners will need an enclosure, but they should work directly with pre-2013 Mac Pro models, which some people have kept alive through upgrades. Neither card requires a power lead supplied from inside the unit, which many inexpensive cards demand.

Apple is working on a modular Mac Pro for launch sometime year, which could potentially support PCIe 5.0 for faster speeds while maintaining backwards compatibility.

Sonnet is selling both cards for $149. At Amazon the USB-C card is the same price, but the USB 3.1 (Type A) version is slightly cheaper at $137.57.