Category: Apple Insider

Developers involved in the beta can grab the latest builds via the Apple Developer Center, and by updating any set-top boxes already running the beta. Public beta versions of milestone releases usually arrive shortly after the developer counterparts, and the public can try them out via the Apple Beta Software Program when they become available.

The sixth beta replaces the fifth, released on August 8. The fourth was seeded on July 25, and the third was provided on July 5.

The new build is number 21J5339b, taking over from 21J5330e.

The main new feature of tvOS 17 is FaceTime, with the use of Continuity Camera on a nearby iPhone“>iPhone bringing the communications app to the Apple TV. The iPhone provides the camera and microphone, while the television offers the display and speakers.

Continuity Camera does more work in tvOS, with it powering the new karaoke experience in Apple Music by displaying a live video feed as a background for the lyrics.

Control Center occupies less space than before, and it’s more information-dense as well. There’s new options for game controllers, accessibility settings, and other controls within the menu system.

Two new Aerial screensavers showing the Monument Valley and California’s coastal redwoods have been added.

Other changes in tvOS 17 include Fitness Plus customizable workout plans, VPN options, and the ability to locate a missing Apple TV remote using an iPhone.

AppleInsider and Apple strongly advise users don’t install beta operating systems, or beta software in general, on to “mission-critical” or primary devices, as there is the chance of issues that could result in the loss of data. Testers should instead use secondary or non-essential hardware and ensure they have sufficient backups of their critical data at all times.

[Netflix]

An app that acted as a game controller for Netflix games was discovered on August 8, sparking rumors of an introduction of its games platform to televisions. In a Monday announcement, Netflix confirmed the rumors were true.

After making mobile games a part of the Netflix experience, the streamer advised it was rolling out a “limited beta test” to a small number of members in Canada and the United Kingdom, on a select number of smart TVs and via PC and Mac through the Netflix website.

Two games will be provided for the trials, with Night School Studio’s “Oxenfree” and “Molehew’s Mining Adventure” available to play by the selected members. Players will also be able to use the controller app when using a smart TV, though they could also use a keyboard and mouse when using the desktop.

Netflix is using the test to shake down its game-streaming technology and controller app before a wider launch. Eventually, it will be available on Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield TV, Roku devices and TVs, LG and Samsung smart TVs, and Walmart ONN, with other additional devices to be added “on an ongoing basis.”

One big name missing from the list is the Apple TV, and the omission may be due to Netflix’s existing troubles running its gaming service on mobile. Due to App Store rules that prevent apps from becoming third-party app storefronts that also affect game-streaming services, Netflix’s mobile games are offered separately to the main Netflix app, rather than as part of it.

It is likely that the same problem could occur for the Apple TV app, with Netflix made to release separate apps for the games rather than using its main Netflix video-streaming app as the hub.

Oleap Pilot

If you make a lot of calls for work or personal matters, then a headset is good to have. They help you hear the people you’re talking to and isolate your voice from background noise while speaking.

However, headsets are not only for calls but also for music and media consumption. With the integrated media controls, you can listen to your favorite music in between calls.

Although the Oleap Pilot excels in audio output within a lightweight build, the price for the headset is heavy.

When it comes to design, the Oleap Pilot differs from most traditional headsets. While those drape over your head, the Pilot goes behind it.

Weighing only 33 grams, the Pilot becomes unnoticeable when worn. It rests comfortably around your ears and stays in place when moving your head.

The Pilot is 7.8 x 5.79 x 2.72 inches and can fit a variety of head sizes. The back has a lot of space, so compatibility is not an issue.

Oleap Pilot mute button

On the right side of the headset is a dedicated red mute button. This allows you to mute or unmute yourself with a single press. Holding it down also invokes Siri.

On the left side is a microphone that can be adjusted to any position within a 180-degree arc.

Further back are media controls to change the volume and current track, play or pause music, and answer or end calls.

Oleap Pilot media controls

A small light behind the controls will also confirm if the headset is on with a blue light, or charging with a red light. The light will blink occasionally but won’t stay on continuously.

A USB-C port can be found under the Pilot for charging.

The Oleap Pilot allows you to connect up to two devices to it via Bluetooth. It will also announce which device it is connected to when turning it on.

To combat any environmental noise around you, the Pilot has ENC (Environmental Noise Cancellation) built in. This eliminates noise up to 50 dB due to a special three-microphone ENC.

Built-in pop-fillers also reduce the noise of surrounding winds when on a call.

Oleap Pilot curved open-ear design

Two 16mm dynamic drivers and an incorporated BassLeap algorithm deliver deep sound and bass. It reinforces bass tones and produces greater sound of up to 105 dB.

Three tuning holes and one sounding hole from the dipole structure minimize noise leakage when the volume is increased. This ensures that your conversation stays private when around other people.

The Pilot can withhold 15 meters of space between it and your device without them disconnecting. This allows you to move around the room and still stay connected to your call.

The Oleap Pilot has an extensive battery life that offers multiple hours of talk and playback time.

The headset can produce up to ten hours of talk time and 16 hours of playback time on a single charge. You can also get five hours of talk time with just ten minutes of charging.

Turning on the Pilot will tell you its current battery status, which ranges between low, medium, and high.

The Oleap Pilot provides significant sound quality for calls and listening to music — especially for a headset that is not in-ear.

What impressed us the most was how well bass tones were outputted. They were rich and full, didn’t get muffled down, and we could feel the thump in our ears when it occurred during a song.

When using FaceTime or switching between songs, lag was nowhere to be found. However, it did appear when changing the volume from either device.

Oleap Pilot microphone

Due to the adjustable design of the microphone, it can pick up your voice without it being shoved in your face.

When testing this out on multiple FaceTime calls, the recipients were able to hear us clearly with no complaints of distortion or cutting out.

While a charging cable is included with the Oleap Pilot, you can also purchase an optional charging stand with it.

Oleap Pilot charging stand

The charging stand is circular with two indents to place the Pilot on. One side houses the charging port while the other magnetically attaches to the Pilot.

Underneath is an anti-slip material that prevents the charging stand from moving. This eliminates any fear of the stand and headset falling if accidentally bumped.

A protruding USB-C plug is located on the right side that connects to the Pilot. To get it to charge, you have to slightly push down on the Pilot to secure the connection.

USB-C on charging stand

Like the Pilot, the charging stand receives power through a USB-C connection.

There is no status light on the stand to tell you if it is receiving power or the battery status for the Pilot.

The Oleap Pilot benefits both business and personal tasks in a lightweight design. It provides a deep audio experience and hones in on your voice while in noisy environments.

Both earpieces wrap nicely around your ears and stay stationed when moving your head. With the open-ear design, your ears will not get sore from wearing these for an extended period.

Oleap Pilot

Even though the speakers are not in-ear, they still produce fulfilling audio output with impressive bass. Its incorporated technology minimizes distant environmental noises but still allows you to hear the space close to you.

While the Pilot performs well, its major downside is the price; which may be too expensive for most people. Almost $160 is too much for a headset, especially since the charging stand will cost you an additional $50 on top of that.

This headset is great for people — especially those who work from home — who attend many calls and virtual meetings. It ensures great sound quality on either end of the call, and long-lasting comfort.

If you are in the market for a comfortable headset that blocks out surrounding noise, then the Oleap Pilot is a great option to choose. However, if you just need regular headphones, we recommend looking at other options at a lower price point.

You can purchase the Oleap Pilot on Amazon for $158.99. It comes in black.

You can also purchase the Oleap Pilot, with the charging stand, from Amazon for $208.98.

Intel logo

The new threats are called “Downfall” and “Inception,” and both rely on speculative execution in a similar way as the Meltdown and Spectre bugs, respectively. They are both described as being of “medium” severity, with Downfall impacting Intel chips and Inception targeting AMD processors.

Intel and AMD have both issued OS-level microcode software updates as of now, with both companies aiming to address both vulnerabilities. As reported by Ars Technica, the two companies have also confirmed that they have not identified any exploits that exist for either vulnerability.

However, it’s important that manufacturers issue their own updates to address the issues once Intel and AMD make them available. Both Downfall and Inception are risks to consumer products, server CPUs, and workstations, any of which are equipped with years-old Intel or AMD processors.

By all accounts, Downfall is the bigger of the two vulnerabilities. It’s known as “CVE-2022-40982,” and it’s outlined by Google security researcher Daniel Moghimi. He describes it as such:

“The vulnerability is caused by memory optimization features in Intel processors that unintentionally reveal internal hardware registers to software. This allows untrusted software to access data stored by other programs, which should not normally be accessible. I discovered that the Gather instruction, meant to speed up accessing scattered data in memory, leaks the content of the internal vector register file during speculative execution. To exploit this vulnerability, I introduced Gather Data Sampling (GDS) and Gather Value Injection (GVI) techniques. You can read the paper I wrote about this for more detail.”

Moghimi says Downfall is a “successor” to the Meltdown vulnerability, as they both rely on speculative execution to harm affected systems.

Intel says all processors based on Skylake, Kaby Lake, Whiskey Lake, Ice Lake, Comet Lake, Coffee Lake, Rocket Lake, and Tiger Lake are all impacted by Downfall, along with other processor generations as well. That means most chips produced from 2015 and newer are affected.

Intel haunted by Spectre

However, Intel’s newest 12th- and 13th-generation chips based on Alder Lake and Raptor Lake are not affected. Meanwhile, Celeron, Pentium, and Apollo low-end CPUs are not affected, either.

Inception is also known as “CVE-2023-20569,” and it’s a descendent of the Spectre bug, and it’s described as “Information exposure through microarchitectural state after transient execution in certain vector execution units for some Intel(R) Processors may allow an authenticated user to potentially enable information disclosure via local access.”

Security researchers at ETH Zrich’s COSMEC group point out that this vulnerability can leak arbitrary data on a range of AMD processors, including Ryzen, EPYC, and Threadripper. The group has also published a proof-of-concept video showing off the vulnerability.

The good news is these vulnerabilities have been addressed by Intel and AMD, and neither appears to be as dangerous as the vulnerabilities they are descended from, Meltdown and Specter.

Still, if nothing else, these widespread vulnerabilities are a gentle reminder that Apple has moved away from Intel in its choice of processors. The company is now all-in with Apple Silicon, meaning it doesn’t need to worry about Intel or AMD vulnerabilities like these.

Apple silicon

It’s worth noting that there are still some vulnerabilities that can pop up, even for Apple silicon. The “PacMan” flaw was an echo of Spectre and Meltdown in 2022, for instance, albeit one that did not seriously harm any computers out in the real world.

TSMC plant

TSMC is one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers on the planet, and works with a variety of different companies for their chip needs. Of course, one of the largest partners is Apple, but TSMC has ambitions beyond the Cupertino-based company’s yearly requirements.

A new chip factory in Germany will cost upwards of $11 billion, with TSMC itself committing 3.5 billion euros, or $3.8 billion towards the effort, according to Reuters. Once the factory is up and running, it will be TSMC’s first in Europe, and just the third for the company outside of Taiwan and China.

Germany sees a path to foster a more domestic approach to semiconductor manufacturing, especially for its automotive future in a bid to stay competitive in that market. This new plant is part of a wider movement by the European Union, which recently approved the European Chips Act that offers a 43 billion euro subsidy plan to propel domestic chip making.

Germany itself will be contributing 5 billion euros to the factory that will ultimately be built in Dresden.

TSMC continues to make deals that sees the chipmaker expand beyond its home territory, a move that Apple is trying to do in its own right. The company has been trying to move beyond its China dependency for years now, with some efforts in the United States.

In that process Apple has turned to India. It has been a slow process so far, and will remain that way for quite some time, but expectations are high that Apple may see India exporting one in every five iPhones by 2025.

Apple’s manufacturing partnership with TSMC has been longstanding one, so much so that it was recently reported Apple has a “sweetheart deal” that saves the company millions of dollars because it only charges Apple for “known good dies.” However, a subsequent report based on details provided by Ming-Chi Kuo says that’s not true at all.

The exclusive price is in the form of a $900 instant rebate stacked with promo code APINSIDER, which knocks another $200 off, bringing the price down to $2,599 at Apple Authorized Reseller Adorama.

This particular configuration features Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro with a high-end M1 Max chip that boasts a 24-core GPU. It also has 64GB of memory, quadruple the amount found in the standard Late 2021 MacBook Pro. Storage is ample at 1TB, further future-proofing the machine, which is housed in Apple’s elegant silver chassis.

Along with the aggressive discount on the laptop itself, the same APINSIDER promo code takes $80 off three years of AppleCare when purchased alongside the system, bringing the cost down to $319 for the extended protection plan, offering added peace of mind.

Activating the APINSIDER coupon can be done in three easy steps.

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From the new MacBook Air 15-inch to the M2 Mac mini, AppleInsider readers can snap up exclusive discounts on even more Apple hardware. Be sure to visit our Apple Price Guide to view the latest sales and special offers at Apple resellers.

Apple expands content warnings in iOS 17

The internet can be a dangerous place, and it’s important to take steps to protect yourself from potentially harmful content. With the Sensitive Content Warning feature in iOS 17, you can safeguard yourself from unwanted messages that could disturb your peace of mind.

It’s part of the Communication Safety feature that Apple added for kids in iOS 15.2. But the content warning feature in iOS 17 can be enabled by users of any age.

When the feature is turned on, iOS can use on-device machine learning to detect nude photos and videos before viewing them. The Messages app will automatically blur them and requires a conscious choice by users to view the material.

All the data processing for the detection feature happens locally on the user’s device. Apple won’t know who sent you the sensitive content or the specifics of the content, only that the on-device algorithms detected content that may be related to nudity.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Scroll down to find Privacy & Security.
3. Tap on Sensitive Content Warning near the bottom and turn the toggle on or off.

After activating the feature, you will have a list of apps that endorse this functionality. Each app will be accompanied by a toggle switch, allowing you to turn the feature on or off on an app-by-app basis.

Over time, as more developers embrace the feature, additional apps will be added.

You can turn these toggles on or off based on your preferences. Further down, there is an option that says Improve Sensitive Content Warning.

You can toggle this option if you want to send anonymous data and analytics to Apple to help improve the feature. The enhanced protection includes content exchanged through AirDrop, the systemwide photo picker, FaceTime messages, Contact Posters in the Phone app, and even third-party apps.

Any photo or video containing nudity will be automatically blurred, and users can unblur it with the “Show” button.