Category: Apple Insider

In a deal announced on Friday, global lighting and smart home brand Feit Electric will acquire the Lifx assets, including its patented smart lighting platforms, its custom app, product designs, and more.

“This acquisition is about fueling the LIFX vision of reinventing lighting,” said Feit Electric President Alan Feit.

Lifx is a company known for making HomeKit-enabled smart bulbs that were high-quality, color-changing, and super bright. In recent years, the company, however, the company failed to bring products announced at CES 2020 to market. Since then, Lifx has made no new announcements.

“LIFX focused on the user experience, saying we deserved something better than the boring old light bulb. And then they delivered!” Feit said. “LIFX products offer industry-leading bright vibrant colors, the coolest features that are fun to use, and lots of advanced control options while making it effortless and intuitive,We are excited to keep that momentum going with even more revolutionary products and new app features deserving of the LIFX brand.”

Going forward, Feit Electric will offer a range of Lifx products and will “support and evolve the LIFX app and cloud platform” that will remain separate from its own first-party platforms.

The company now plans to release a Lifx Downlight in 2022 before working on a slate of new smart home products in 2023.

The bank revealed the investigation in a quarterly 10-Q form filed Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the filing, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is probing Goldman Sachs’ credit card account management practices, refunds, and billing error resolutions.

The filing offered no other details about the probe, and did not name the specific credit cards or accounts that are included in the investigation.

However, it’s likely that the investigation is centered on the Apple Card. Other than a co-branded credit card with General Motors, the Apple Card represents Goldman Sachs’ only consumer credit card product.

This is not the first time that Goldman Sachs has been investigated for credit card products. In 2019, the bank was accused of discriminatory behavior on allegations that longer lines of credit were distributed based on gender.

In 2021, the New York State Department of Financial Services cleared Goldman Sachs of those claims after an investigation.

The Apple Card hasn’t been spotless since its debut in 2019. Issues has included erroneous cash back rates and system problems that prevented users from making bill payments or accessing account management features.

According to a new report from fraud protection firm Pixalate, Apple and Google delisted 592,000 apps from the App Store and Google Play, respectively, in Q2 2022. That’s a major increase from the 220,000 apps the two firms delisted in the first quarter.

Apple removed 439,000 apps in the second quarter, an 8,652% increase from Q1 2022. Combined, the Apple App Store apps had nearly 40 million user ratings.

The main reason Apple delisted apps during the second quarter appeared to be a lack of updates for years. Among the apps that Apple delisted, 64% had not received a software update for at least two years or more.

There was also a 100-fold increase in the removal of “Health & Fitness” apps by Apple in the second quarter, including at least 178 family planning apps.

According to Pixalate, 31% of delisted apps on Apple’s App Store had no stated privacy policy. At least 19 apps delisted in the second quarter on the App Store were linked to Sberbank, a Russian-owned business.

Although delisting an app removes its product page from the App Store, users who have already downloaded the app will still have it on their devices. As such, they may still pose a safety or privacy risk.

Equipped with Apple’s powerful M1 Max chip with a 24-core GPU, the Space Gray 14-inch MacBook Pro also has 32GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. And at $2,599 after a $300 coupon discount, it packs a whole lot of punch for its price point, which rings in hundreds of dollars cheaper with this Adorama deal compared to other Apple resellers.

AppleCare can also be tacked on to the system in your Adorama shopping cart, with the APINSIDER coupon discounting the 3-year protection plan to $219 (reg. $279).

To activate the APINSIDER code, simply follow the steps below.

1. Shop through this cost-saving activation link (otherwise the code won’t work).
2. Add the 14-inch MacBook Pro to your cart. Then look for a link to reveal the coupon code field in the Payments section and enter promo code APINSIDER to activate the exclusive discount in the same browsing session. AppleCare is $60 off as well (reg. $279, now $219) with the same discount code.
   

Hundreds of exclusive discounts are at your fingertips in our Mac Price Guide.

AppleInsider and Apple Authorized Resellers are also running specials on Mac and iPad hardware that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus savings on accessories, software and more. Here are just a few of the deals going on this week:

The MacBook Air, equipped with M2 and overhauled in many different ways, is a great entryway into Mac ownership. With its compact size and lightweight, as well as high performance, it’s an excellent choice for a notebook to get everyday tasks done or for school.

However, Apple has spent years framing the iPad Pro as a potential alternative to a MacBook. With a touchscreen display and seemingly equal capabilities and performance, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is a compelling option for those in the market for a new computing device.

A tablet with appropriate accessories can handle everyday workloads like a notebook. The thing to work out, though, is if it’s the better option for most people.

A significant change to the design of the MacBook Air is that it is no longer wedge-shaped. Instead of the tilted notebook design that is thin at one edge and wider at the other, it’s now uniformly flat.

This change results in a footprint of 11.97 inches by 846 inches and a thickness of 0.44 inches for the MacBook Air.

The already-flat 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a slightly smaller footprint at 11.04 inches by 8.46 inches but is ultimately much thinner at 0.25 inches.

There’s also a weight difference, with the iPad Pro at 1.5 pounds to 2.7 pounds for the MacBook Air.

A lot of the thickness difference is simply because the MacBook Air is a notebook of two sections containing a screen and a keyboard. The iPad Pro is a screen in an enclosure, with no second element when used on its own.

There is the iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard to consider, but we will discuss that later.

iPad Pro is thicker with the Magic Keyboard

In terms of design aesthetics, there is a lot shared between the two models. Both employ Apple’s signature use of aluminum for the enclosure, with rounded corners and a general feeling they are impossibly thin for what they offer.

They also have gorgeous large screens with reasonably small bezels, albeit slightly more thick on the iPad Pro’s version, so you can more easily grip without triggering the screen.

The two screens are roughly in the same ballpark in size, but there is a lot of difference in what is on offer here.

Display sizes

The MacBook Air’s updated screen consists of a 13.6-inch LED-backlit Liquid Retina IPS display, with a resolution of 2,560 by 1,664. You get the standard support for Wide Color (P3), 1 billion colors, and True Tone.

The new display also has a notch cut out to allow the webcam to exist without being moved. This does eat into the display a bit, but given that it occupies the main menu space and is hidden when apps are fullscreen with strategic black elements, it’s not a massive intrusion.

The Liquid Retina XDR display on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is brighter and better than the MacBook Air’s.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a smaller screen, as the name suggests. However, as a Liquid Retina XDR display, it is a mini-LED backlit screen with 2,596 full-array local dimming zones, enabling a more vibrant image and a sky-high 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

That is something the LED backlighting of the MacBook Air cannot match.

At 2,732 by 2,048, the resolution is higher despite the smaller screen size, giving the iPad Pro a pixel density of 264ppi to the MacBook Air’s 224ppi.

The better display technology also adds in a higher brightness of 600 nits for SDR content against 500 nits for the MacBook Air. The iPad Pro can also go to 1,000 nits of “XDR brightness” and even 1,600 nits at peak for HDR content.

That’s before you get to things like ProMotion support in the iPad Pro and the ability to use the Apple Pencil, which the Air lacks entirely. And obviously, there’s multi-touch support for the display of the iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro uses the M1 chip, a desktop-class addition with an 8-core CPUT, using four performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s joined by an 8-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine.

Memory in the iPad Pro rests at 8GB for the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB models, while the 1TB and 2TB versions have 16GB. You cannot pay to upgrade the memory of the iPad Pro, at least without adding storage capacity.

The M2 in the MacBook Air is similar to the M1, in that it has an eight-core CPU with the same performance-efficiency split, an 8-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine.

However, the newer-generation model runs at a higher clock speed for the CPU, the M2 also has a 10-core GPU option, and the 16-core Neural Engine is also improved to be faster.

Then there’s the inclusion of the Media Engine, elements that the M1 Pro and M1 Max introduced, but the M1 lacks. The Media Engine included dedicated hardware encoding and decoding elements for video, making it extremely handy for those working in videography or video editing.

In terms of performance, the difference is pretty noticeable. Geekbench benchmarks put the M2 MacBook Air at 1,879 for single-core performance and 8,668 for multi-core.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro manages 1,705 for single-core and 7,209 for multi-core.

The iPad Pro was destined to be less powerful due to the older chip and the fact that it’s a tablet.

While neither the MacBook Air nor the iPad Pro have active cooling systems, the iPad Pro has to be more proactive about thermals. Since it’s potentially being carried around in active use, it has to run without generating too much heat, which can impact performance versus a more thermally-managed Mac.

A significant difference in the two is the selection of cameras available at the user’s disposal.

The MacBook Air has one, the FaceTime HD camera. A 1080p imaging sensor hidden in the display notch, it’s the only camera included in the MacBook Air.

It is an upgrade from the 720p of the previous incarnation, and the M2’s image signal processing easily assists it, but it’s a very minimal option.

You get 3 cameras on the iPad Pro, as well as LiDAR, versus one on the MacBook Air.

The iPad Pro, by nature of being a tablet and not a notebook, naturally offers more cameras. The front-facing one is a 12-megapixel TrueDepth camera, which provides depth-sensing capabilities and is used to power Face ID.

Then, around the back, the iPad Pro has a pair of 12-megapixel cameras covering Wide and Ultra Wide angles, complete with a 5x digital zoom in, 2x digital zoom out, a TrueTone flash, and 4K video capabilities.

The bells and whistles of the iPad Pro camera system continue with its various Portrait Mode shots, autofocus with focus pixels, Animoji and Memoji support, and practically all of the shooting features you could use expect from an Apple tablet.

Then there’s the LiDAR sensor, which helps with 3D depth tracking on the back of the iPad Pro, along with other photography-related applications, such as low-light autofocus assistance.

You’re not going to get any of that on the MacBook Air’s single sensor, but there may be some reprieve in the future. As part of macOS Ventura, users will be able to use an updated Continuity Camera, enabling the rear camera of an iPhone to be used as a webcam, complete with Portrait and Stage Light modes and the headline Desk View.

It may not be something to enable iPad-style photography on a MacBook Air, but it’s a start.

The MacBook Air has four ports, consisting of two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a MagSafe 3 connection. The last one is a fresh addition, enabling recharging without occupying one of the scarce physical data connections of the notebook.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a single Thunderbolt/USB 4 port, but it also has a Smart Connector, which can be used with accessories without using the only available port.

You can connect a surprising amount to the iPad Pro’s Thunderbolt port, but the MacBook Air offers more.

While earlier iPad Pro models offered headphone jacks, the latest no longer provides the port. That leaves users to either use an adapter or use Bluetooth earphones instead.

The two devices are fairly even on the wireless side, with Wi-Fi 6 support and Bluetooth 5.0. However, the iPad Pro can be set up with a 5G-enabled cellular connection, which is simply unavailable on the MacBook Air.

Of the two, the MacBook Air has the larger-capacity battery, using a 52.6Wh lithium-polymer version versus the iPad Pro’s 40.22Wh component.

Regarding how long you can use each, Apple says the MacBook Air can last up to 15 hours for web access and up to 18 hours of video playback.

The iPad can go to 10 hours of web access or video playback. This makes sense, considering it has a physically smaller battery.

Despite the difference in capacity, the two can easily survive a working day on a single charge. That does depend on what tasks each have to perform throughout the day, and more demanding workloads will reduce battery quicker.

The MacBook Air has graduated to a four-speaker sound system in the latest iteration, which aligns with the iPad’s quad-speaker arrangement. There’s also parity with Dolby Atmos support for both, complete with Spatial Audio.

On using headphones, the MacBook Air’s headphone jack offers support for high-impedance headphones. There’s no built-in headphone jack on the iPad Pro, so you must acquire an adapter or switch to Bluetooth for that device.

The MacBook Air still offers a headphone jack. The iPad Pro doesn’t.

The iPad Pro offers five “studio quality” microphones for receiving audio, while the MacBook Air has a three-mic array with directional beamforming.

There’s a fair amount of similarity between the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro when it comes to storage, as they have almost identical capacity options.

The MacBook Air offers 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacity options. The iPad Pro does the same and has a 128GB variant on the value end.

The cost of increasing the storage capacity is identical, at least for the comparative capacities. Going from 256GB to 512GB costs an extra $200 on both devices, with the 512GB to 1TB jump an extra $400, and $400 again from 1TB to 2TB.

Going from 128GB to 256GB on the iPad Pro is $100.

Both devices offer biometric security, but in different ways. The MacBook Air has a Touch ID sensor on the keyboard, while the iPad Pro provides Face ID using its True Depth camera array.

Then there’s the existence of a keyboard on the MacBook Air, which is preferable for typing over the screen-based software keyboard that doesn’t actuate on the iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro benefits from having a touchscreen, an element that simply isn’t available for the MacBook Air. Instead, there’s a trackpad for notebook users to control the cursor.

Lastly, there’s the Apple Pencil, with the iPad Pro compatible with the second-generation version of the pressure-sensitive stylus.

It’s hard not to point out that massive differences in form factor and ecosystem are at play here. The MacBook Air is a notebook, while the iPad Pro is a tablet that can be held and used completely differently.

But, as hinted not long ago, not everyone is keen to type for long periods by tapping their fingers into an unresponsive glass display. Some sort of keyboard is needed if the iPad Pro is to be considered a valid alternative to a notebook.

The Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro is a great accessory, albeit expensive.

The best example of its kind for this is the Magic Keyboard, Apple’s signature accessory that uses a hinged mechanism to float the iPad Pro above a physical keyboard.

The cost for the privilege of using the accessory is steep, but not just its $349 cost. You could opt for the cheaper Smart Keyboard Folio for $199 to save a bit of money.

As an accessory that acts as a cover for the iPad Pro, the Magic Keyboard is helpful, but it adds weight and thickness. It practically doubles the thickness of the standalone iPad Pro, while at 3.1 pounds, it’s a little heavier than the MacBook Air.

Of course, you can still remove the iPad Pro from the Magic Keyboard when you don’t need it and would rather carry around a digital clipboard. That’s something the MacBook Air cannot offer.

The M2 MacBook Air starts at $1,199, which gets you the M2 with the 8-core GPU, 8GB of Unified Memory, and 256GB of storage. Going to the M2 with a 10-core GPU adds $100 to the cost.

Increasing the memory from 8GB to 16GB is $200 more, and another $200 to get to 24GB.

As mentioned earlier, storage upgrades cost $200 from 256GB to 512GB, $400 from 512GB to 1TB, and $400 from 1TB to 2TB.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,099 (check sale prices) with 128GB of storage. It costs $100 to get to 256GB, then the storage upgrades are the same as the MacBook Air. Cellular is an additional $200, regardless of capacity.

At the top end, the MacBook Air’s 10-core GPU, 24GB of memory, and 2TB of storage brings the total cost to $2,499. A maxed-out iPad Air is $2,399 (currently on sale), with 2TB of storage and cellular.

Then there’s $349 for the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro or $199 for the Smart Keyboard Folio. If you want the second-generation Apple Pencil, that’s another $129.

Adding the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil increases the iPad Pro’s cost by $478, turning the cheapest model $1,577 and the most expensive $2,877.

As an alternative to a notebook, the iPad Pro continues to show it has promise. With the right accessories, it can bridge the gap by offering all of the benefits of a tablet that can also function like a notebook.

However, doing so has one other element you must consider alongside the additional costs of going down that route. You need to think about the tasks it will handle.

For everyday tasks, such as writing long texts, drawing, photo editing, and gaming, the iPad Pro will handle them very well. There is a massive collection of apps for iPadOS that will let you do practically anything.

The problem is mainly about outlier tasks. If you need to use specialist equipment, it may not necessarily connect up to an iPad Pro properly, making it more suitable for a Mac.

A MacBook Air could be the better option for those with more text-heavy needs.

Then there are the numerous “pro” apps in macOS that haven’t gone over to iPadOS. Yes, you can use iMovie and GarageBand on iPadOS, but Final Cut Pro and Logic are still Mac-centric software.

If you’re video editing, you’ll lean towards the M2’s Media Engine over the iPad Pro’s extra utility.

Recommending one over the other is highly dependent on your aims and what you want to do with the computing setup.

The MacBook Air will be the better and cheaper option if you need a workhorse for heavy text entry. If it’s less text-heavy existence and more consumption of photos, video, and web surfing, the iPad Pro could be better.

For people who want to get the best of both worlds and could feasibly afford a cheap MacBook Air and an iPad Pro, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend heavier on a better iPad Pro setup with all the accessories.

Just so long as it can do what you need it to do.

You can pick up Apple’s 2022 M2 MacBook Air at the following retailers:

AppleInsider reviewed the original ESR HaloLock car charger in late 2020 not long after launch. Now almost two years later, we have the second-generation device in our hands.

This new second-generation ESR HaloLock car charger looks nearly identical to the original. It’s a slightly rounded square with a circle in the center that houses the magnets that correspond to Apple’s MagSafe.

Checking out the ESR HaloLock car charger

While ESR offers other mounting types, its new model starts with just the vent mount. The back of the charger has a ball joint that you can tighten with an adjustable collar.

There is a large alligator clip that holds onto your vent’s blades. ESR employs a unique additional adjustment arm that helps hold it in place.

The HaloLock clip and stabilizing arm

ESR makes a solid clip that does a reliable job staying put. We’ve never had it come free, and there is plenty of gripping power in the clip.

It is kind of tough to get properly positioned, though.

When we mounted it in our car, we didn’t have much space behind the charger to hold the clip open. If we removed the charger from the clip, we had more space, but it was difficult to tighten the collar to prevent it from moving around.

Clip on our vent

Once we finally got it in place, everything was good though. The stabilization arm prevented much of the bounce we’d drive over train tracks which then helped prevent our phone from coming free.

The only physical difference from the original HaloLock charger is that when charging your phone, an ice-blue light comes out from behind the charging surface. It’s indicative of the cooling effect from the newly-added fan.

Astute Apple fans may have noticed that even though MagSafe debuted with the iPhone 12 nearly two years ago, there’s yet to be an official MagSafe car charger. The only “official” MagSafe product for the car is Belkin’s Car Vent Mount Pro which is only a holder and won’t help you power up.

Placing our iPhone 13 Pro on the ESR car charger

One likely reason may be heat, which MagSafe, like other charging methods, generates a fair amount of during use. Heat is the enemy of power efficiency as your phone often has to slow down its charging speeds to stay safe.

In your car, you can frequently be using your GPS or leaving your phone in the hot sun, which makes your phone hotter. All the more reason no Apple-approved MagSafe chargers have debuted.

Thanks to CryoBoost, we’ve had a much better experience. So far, our phone has not overheated once since the AC from the vent is pushed around the charger, keeping it cool and preventing the charger and phone from getting too hot.

We do wonder how it will fair in the winter, though. During the cold months, we’ll have heat coming out of those vents, which may have an adverse effect if pushed over the charger.

Charging our iPhone

Regardless, we can always close the vent to stop the warm air from circulating and let the cool air in the car work instead.

Before CryoBoost, our phone has overheated many times in the car. Sometimes it just gets too hot to charge while other times it needs to cool down before it is operational.

By adding a fan, Apple can get better performance out of the MacBook Pro, despite the two having the same chip. If you have two Qi chargers, the built-in fan will always ensure faster-charging speeds.

The car charger isn’t the only HaloLock charger to get ESR’s new CryoBoost tech. It’s in its desktop chargers as well. But the car charger is where we see the most benefit.

ESR HaloLock car charger with CryoBoost

Your dash is in the sun where your phone runs power-intensive GPS and it’s far too easy to overheat. CryoBoost is magical, ensuring that the phone can safely charge, even when other chargers fail.

It may be only a Qi charger rather than an Apple-certified MagSafe puck but considering the available options, it may be the best way to go. You just have to be ok with a vent-mounted phone.

• CryoBoost fan helps increase charging speeds and prevents overheating
• Stabilizing arm helps prevent bounce when mounted on the vent
• USB-C connectivity
• Adjustable angle fits many cars
• Strong magnetic hold

• Clip can be hard to connect
• Not Apple-certified
• Only vent clip options available

In early July, I purchased my first home, which I’ve been dreaming about for my entire life. But, of course, I didn’t have a crazy-high budget, so I knew I’d have to purchase an older home that needed some work.

The house I eventually bought was built in 1882, making it 140 years old as of this year. It’s had some work done on it recently, but for the most part, it’s still a fixer-upper.

As it is an older home, it didn’t come equipped with central air. With the heat routinely leaping into the 90s, I knew I wouldn’t last long without a window AC.

However, I didn’t want to settle for just any air conditioner. I wanted something that wouldn’t run up my electric bill and would work well for my space.

I did my research and landed on Midea’s line of U-shaped Smart Air Conditioners. Not only are they ultra energy efficient, but they’ve developed a cult following.

So, I bit the bullet, charged my credit card, and brought one home.

Midea’s U-shaped Air Conditioners feature a unique design that allows the window to sit “inside” of the air conditioning unit. This has several advantages over the traditional style, where the window merely rests on top.

First, it means that your unit is incredibly stable. With the air conditioner locked in place by the pane of glass, it feels more secure.

Second, it also makes it extremely quiet. Locking the compressor behind the glass prevents you from hearing the compressor the way you would with a traditional window unit.

Midea says it’s nine times quieter than a traditional window unit running at the same level. According to my ears, it’s significantly quieter than the conventional window unit in my bedroom and even more subdued than the HVAC-based central air I had at my last apartment.

I haven’t had any issues making phone calls or FaceTime calls in the same room as the air conditioner. I appreciated this, as turning off the AC to make an hour-long phone call when it’s 90 degrees outside is hardly ideal.

Lastly, it’s sealed off better. With traditional window units, you’ll wind up fussing with one of those plastic accordions and trying to seal off any cracks with fussy pieces of weather seal.

With Midea’s U-shaped Air Conditioner, you’ll only be left with a small gap on either side at the bottom, which you can easily seal off with a thick piece of foam that Midea includes.

The entire design seems like the logical evolution of where window units should have ended up already.

While it’s a bit of a hard sell to claim that any electrical device can genuinely be “eco-friendly,” the Midea U is currently the best option for electric usage.

When figuring out how energy efficient an air conditioner is, the US government uses a system called CEER, which stands for Combined Energy Efficiency Ratio.

The auto mode can slow fan speeds, saving energy and prevent overcooling of your space

CEER is defined as “The ratio of measured cooling output (in BTU per hour) to measured average electrical energy input (in Watts) and measured standby/off-mode power consumption (in Watts).”

That means the higher the CEER rating, the more energy efficient the device. For an 8,000 BTU air conditioner to be considered “good,” it needs to have a CEER rating of at least 11. Energy Star models will have a CEER rating of 12.1 or higher.

The 8,000 BTU Midea U Air Conditioner has a CEER rating of 15. It won the Energy Star 2020’s Most Efficient award — the first window AC unit ever to do so. It uses 37.61% less energy than the US Federal Standard, too.

The estimated yearly cost of the Midea U is under $50, assuming that you’re using it for 8 hours a day for three months, with the average electricity cost of 13 cents per kWh. But, of course, your mileage may vary.

While the design is fantastic, you must work to enjoy it. Installing this type of air conditioner is not as easy as Midea would have you believe.

I’ve installed window unit air conditioners myself in the past. Sure, it wasn’t fun, but it’s pretty straightforward.

Installing the Midea U was not like that — at all. Not only did it require me to read the manual from front to back, but it also required me to call in additional help from my father.

The Midea U must sit on a bracket, unlike many other window units on the market

Unlike any air conditioner we’ve installed before, the Midea U has a non-optional bracket that you’ll need to use. This was a new experience, as it required us to assemble the bracket, attach it to the window, and place the unit on it.

We also had to do some fiddly work in the spot where the window slots into it. It’s a 10+ step process, and even if you watch the included installation video, it may not be abundantly clear how to do certain steps.

Just keep returning to the manual because it will be instrumental in getting you through the installation.

Overall, it took us a full hour and a half from unboxing to switching it on for the first time — about an hour longer than it took us to install the traditional window unit upstairs.

I advise that if you install one yourself, make sure you have at least two people, if possible. Not only did this make it easier to quickly check the manual, but the unit itself is also quite heavy — just over 55 pounds — and cumbersome to move around.

I have been using the Midea’s U for nearly two weeks now, and I’ve been incredibly impressed with how well it’s managed to keep pace during a hot stretch.

I opted to go with the 8,000 BTU unit, despite the warnings that it would be much too small to cool my downstairs.

However, I find that it manages to keep the entire downstairs of my two-story, 2000-square foot home comfortably at 73 degrees and doesn’t need to run 24/7 to do so.

As a bonus, the Midea app is pretty decent. It’s not perfect, and it has a strange issue where it logs me out every 12 hours, but unlike many other smart device apps, it’s actually intuitive.

You can change the settings on your air conditioner directly from the app, including fan speed, temperature settings, which mode you’re in, the direction of the vent, and more.

You can also set up schedules, which can be very beneficial.

I didn’t want to cool the spaces of my house that I wasn’t actively using, as that would be a waste of electricity. At night, the AC turns off two hours before I go to bed, turning back on in the morning just as I wake up.

Something I did not bank on was just how far the safety bracket of the air conditioner sticks out — a full 18.5 inches from the window. While this may not be a problem for some people, it presents a huge problem for others.

I live in a neighborhood where the houses are positioned pretty close together, and I share an alleyway with my neighbors where we store our garbage and access our outdoor spigots.

The bracket sits a full 18.5 inches out from the window

If our houses were placed any closer, the air conditioner will probably obscure the path too much and would need to be moved to another window.

These air conditioners may not be advisable for those living in apartment buildings with fire escapes. After all, it’s not worth it to obstruct your safety and the safety of others, no matter how well the air conditioner works.

The Midea U is one of the best window unit air conditioners I’ve had the pleasure of using. It’s quiet, has fantastic app integration, and hasn’t resulted in a multi-hundred-dollar electric bill.

If central air isn’t an option for you — or if you don’t particularly like central air in the first place — it would be hard to do better than a Midea U.

It can be hard to determine one rating that would work for every user in every use case. Truthfully, it falls somewhere between a 3 and a 4 and depends on several factors.

4 out of 5 if:

• you have standard or near-standard, double-hung windows
• you are somewhat handy or are willing to dedicate time to learning on the fly
• you have at least two people to help install it

3 out of 5 if:

• you have windows that are much more narrow or much wider than average
• you have a unique window situation, such as overhanging a fire escape or into a shared alley
• you plan on installing this by yourself

• Near silent operation, even at higher levels.
• Highly energy efficient
• Great app integration
• Keeps large areas cool

• Difficult, slow installation
• May stick out too far for certain users

Midea’s U-shaped Air Conditioner is available at Amazon in 8,000, 10,000, and 12,000 BTU capacities starting at $399, though the higher capacities tend to sell out faster.

Zuckerberg told employees that Meta would be competing against Apple to determine “what direction the internet should go in,” according to a recording of an internal meeting obtained by The Verge.

Zuckerberg also believes that Apple will likely want to tightly control the experience because “they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience”

The position puts Apple diametrically opposed to Meta, which already allows side loading on its Quest headset. Zuckerberg calls this a “deep, philosophical competition about what direction the internet should go in.”

He also notes that he’s unsure whether an open or closed ecosystem would be better and that Apple’s strategy may prove more beneficial than Meta’s open ecosystem. However, he states that Meta’s goal is to get its hardware into the hands of as many people as possible.

The goal is to get “a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade,” providing the same revenue as Meta’s current ad business. That number is about what Apple makes per customer on the App Store annually now.

While Apple has not officially announced any augmented or virtual reality hardware Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed interest in augmented reality.

Apple has long been rumored to be developing several different AR and VR devices, including a high-end Apple VR visor that could focus on virtual reality and gaming. Apple is also thought to be working on a smaller and lighter “Apple Glass” wearable that could be a companion to an iPhone.

The mining operations allegedly took place on Brazilian indigenous lands in the Amazon rainforest, which is prohibited in Brazil. Resource extraction is banned because it leads to deforestation and contaminates rivers with mercury.

The companies involved, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, reportedly purchased the gold in 2020 and 2021 from several refiners, including Chimet and Marsam. Both refiners are under investigation in Brazil for illegal sourcing and production.

The gold mined from the illegal sites were utilized for smartphone and computer production by both Apple and Microsoft, according to Reporter Brasil, first spotted by 9to5Mac. Additionally, some of the gold had been utilized in the production of servers for both Google and Amazon.

The original report notes that in addition to pollution and deforestation, the illegal operations also result in increased organized crime. Armed attacks on indigenous people have risen significantly in recent years. An estimated 28% of gold extracted in Brazil is done so illegally.

When approached for comment, Apple first pointed the publication to its environmental statement. It later sent a note stating that they no longer purchase gold from Marsam.

It is unclear what Apple’s current relationship with Chimet is. Also not clear is if Amazon, Google, or Microsoft did anything as it pertains to the suppliers after being informed of the source of the gold.

In recent years, Apple has come under fire for supplier behavior in its supply chain. In 2021, Apple was in hot water when a report exposed potential ties between Apple suppliers and forced labor programs suspected of being part of an alleged Chinese genocide against Uyghurs.

In 2020, the Cupertino tech company severed ties with iPhone camera module supplier O-film after learning the company had been using forced labor.

Dark Sky is one of the most popular weather apps for smartphones and browsers. However, since Apple acquired it, the app has been living on borrowed time.

The iOS version of Dark Sky will continue to function until December 31, 2022, and the API will be available until March 31, 2023. After that, you’ll need to find an alternative.

There’s no harm in starting your search early, though, so we’ve compiled a list of our favorite alternatives to Dark Sky.

Using an intuitive “weather layer” system, Ventusky gives you a plethora of information at a glance. For example, you can quickly look up temperature and temperature anomalies, cloud cover, radar, snow cover, dew point, air quality, and more.

It also includes two different widgets for forecast and radar in multiple sizes.

From the makers of Carrot Fit, Carrot To-Do, and Recur! The Reverse To-Do List, Carrot Weather, is a cheeky weather app that packs a punch.

Carrot Weather offers weather maps, a companion Apple Watch app, multiple forecast modes, and notifications to alert you to precipitation and severe weather.

And unlike many other weather apps, Carrot Weather allows you to switch between multiple sources for your weather data, including AccuWeather and ClimaCell.

Carrot Weather is free, but certain features are locked behind subscriptions, which start at $14.99 and can go up to $29.99 per year.

Popular with thermometer-watchers around the world, Weather Underground is one of the top weather apps in the App Store.

Weather Underground uses its own data from over 250,000 Weather Underground-owned stations and a proprietary forecast model to give accurate hyperlocal forecasts.

Weather Underground is free but is ad supported. Users can remove ads for $1.99 per year, or choose a subscription for premium features for $19.99 per year, or $3.99 per month.

If you like lightweight, minimalist weather apps, Geometric Weather is one of the best. It provides real-time temperature, air quality, a two-week weather forecast, and local alerts for severe weather conditions.

Geometric Weather also gets its data from AccuWeather rather than OpenWeatherMap, which most other free apps tend to use. AccuWeather is allegedly more accurate than apps that use OpenWeatherMap.

Geometric Weather is free and absent of ads, but there’s a caveat to using it — currently, it’s only available as a TestFlight app. Android users, however, can get it at the Play store.