Category: Apple Insider

The program will allow customers to trade in older Mac devices in return for credit toward a new purchase. While in-store trade-ins of products like iPhones and Apple Watches have been available for some time, Mac trade-ins were previously restricted to an online program.

While the program launched in the U.S. and Canada as of June 17, it may not have rolled out in all areas. AppleInsider encourages anyone interested in trading in their Mac in-store to call ahead to make sure your device will be accepted.

As the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing, it may be worth checking whether your Apple Store is fully open, serving customers by appointment only, providing curbside-only support, or closed. Our helpful list has shows which locations have opened and in what capacity.

Apple on Tuesday published a YouTube landing page that will serve as the Worldwide Developers Conference’s livestream hub once festivities kick off next week.

The page invites viewers — expected to include thousands of developers and members of the general public — to set a localized reminder for the upcoming livestream slated to begin on Monday, June 22, at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific.

Apple’s placeholder features imagery that has been used to advertise the all-virtual conference since its announcement in March. Specifically, Memoji avatars are seen sitting behind MacBook screens emblazoned with WWDC 2020 stickers and other paraphernalia.

The tech giant has in the past turned to social media outlets to advertise upcoming events. In 2018, the company issued a promoted tweet that, when “liked,” enrolled users to receive an automated reminder to tune in to what would be the launch of iPhone XR and XS. The same Twitter feature was used earlier that year for WWDC 2018.

Apple first used YouTube’s livestream reminder mechanism when it debuted iPhone 11 in 2019.

This year’s developers conference is expected to bring word of iOS 14, macOS 10.16, watchOS 7 and tvOS 14, with each platform anticipated to gain new features and capabilities. Fresh hardware, like a rumored 2020 iMac redesign, might also see unveiling at the keynote on Monday.

More significant to Apple’s future, recent rumblings claim the company will use WWDC 2020 as a platform to announce a long-rumored shift to ARM-based Macs. An ARM-powered device is not expected to ship until the end of 2020, at the earliest, but the decision to move away from Intel will mark an important step toward owning Mac’s hardware stack.

Alongside the YouTube stream, Apple will air WWDC’s special keynote address on Apple.com, the Apple Developer app, the Apple Developer website and through the Apple TV app, while Tencent, iQIYI, Bilibili and Youku are scheduled to present the event in China. AppleInsider will offer live coverage of the day’s proceedings starting at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.

The 20% bonus discount is valid on full price and in-stock items at NomadGoods.com with coupon code DADSNGRADS. With many premium wireless chargers, leather iPhone 11 cases and even designer Apple Watch bands to choose from, it’s a great time to pick up a last-minute gift for the Dad or Grad on your shopping list.

As mentioned above, the coupon applies to full price and in-stock items only (medical supplies are excluded), but shoppers can enjoy greater savings on a majority of items compared to Nomad products on Amazon, which tend to sell for MSRP.

Great gift ideas

AppleInsider and Apple authorized resellers are also running additional exclusive deals on hardware that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus savings on AppleCare protection plans, business software and more. These offers are as follows:

Maybe you’re like us— you always seem to need a spare wall charger to keep your tech powered up. Stashing spares at your significant other’s apartment, at the office, or in the glove box of your car is usually a good plan, provided the extra chargers are compact and don’t take too much space wherever they are hidden.

That’s where the Aukey Omnia chargers save the day. The small size means it fits perfectly backpacks, messenger bags, and purses— it’s perfect for your daily trek to the office or a weekend getaway.

Both chargers provide 65W of power, making them ideal for powering up a wide range of devices. They’ll work great for USB-C compatible phones, iPad Pros, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 2017, 2019, and 2020 MacBook Air, and more.

Of course, they’ll even charge your MacBook Pro that takes an 85W charger — such as the 15-inch MacBook Pro — albeit a bit slower. However, we advise against using a 65W charger for an i9 MacBook Pro.

If you have a USB-C to Lightning cable, you’ll be able to fast charge your fast-charge compatible iPhone — that’s any iPhone from the iPhone 8 to the current lineup — or any other compatible device. A built-in smart chip — called the OmniaChip — prevents overcharging and throttles the current as needed, meaning you can charge older devices as well.

Aukey Omnia Dual USB-C 65W fast charger

The primary difference between the two chargers is the number of USB-C ports they provide — the standard AUKEY Omnia Fast Charger provides a single USB-C port and one USB-A port, while the Dual USB-C Omnia Fast Charger provides two USB-C ports and no USB-A ports.

The Dual USB-C Omnia charger provides 45W of power to the main port and 18W of power to the secondary port when both are in use.

The Standard Omnia Fast Charger provides 45W of power to its USB-C port and 12W of power to its USB-A port when both are in use. The USB-A port does not offer any fast charging, even if it is the only port in use.

Overall, we like these chargers. They didn’t get notably hot, even when powering multiple devices, which is often our main concern. After spending a few weeks with them, we feel as though they’re safe and reliable.

While both are great, if you plan on charging both a MacBook and an iPad Pro at the same time, it’s probably worth springing for the Dual.

You can pick up the Aukey Omnia USB-C and USB-A 65W Fast Charger from Amazon for $39.99. If you’re interested in the Aukey Omnia Dual USB-C 65W Fast Charger, you can grab it from Amazon for $48.99. Aukey is currently running a promotion that allows customers to take an extra $10 off when you click the coupon on the Amazon store listing.

You can declutter your Mac, but sometimes you just want to delete apps. In which case, drag an app to the Trash, then choose Empty Trash, and you’re done.

It would be great if that were all it took to delete an app on an iMac — and it so very nearly is. The majority of the time, it truly is all that you absolutely have to do.

The way Mac applications work means that it’s common for them to be one single file or maybe one single folder in Applications. Simply dragging them to the trash will get rid of them.

Just, not for all apps, and even apps that will go gentle into that good night tend to leave bits behind. Typically it’s just some settings files within your Mac’s Library and they take up little space. If you’re deleting to reclaim all the space you can, though, this adds up — and you need third-party apps to get rid of them.

Before you install an app to help you with deleting apps, though, here are the two main ways to delete anything.

1. Quit the app
2. Find it in the Finder and click once to select it
3. Drag it from Applications to the Trash, or
4. Press Command-Delete, or
5. Choose File, Move to Trash
6. Choose Finder, Empty Trash, or
7. Right click on the Trash and choose Empty Trash
8. If prompted, confirm you’re sure you want to empty the Trash
9. Restart your Mac

You may get error messages when you try to delete a running app, but with certain exceptions detailed below, you can always confirm you want to delete them. Depending on the app, you may be asked for a username and password, or prompted to confirm on your Apple Watch.

You can switch off this warning in the Finder’s Advanced Preferences

1. Quit the app if it’s running
2. Open Launchpad by clicking on it in the Dock, or
3. Open it by clicking on Launchpad in Applications, or
4. Pinch thumb and fingers together on trackpad, or
5. Use Spotlight to open Launchpad
6. Swipe to the application you want
7. Click and hold on any app until they all jiggle, or
8. Hold down the Option key
9. If the app gets an X in a white button, click on that
10. Confirm you want to delete it

This is the much more visual way of deleting apps, and it’s the one that may be immediately familiar if you’re used to using iOS. However, it doesn’t let you delete every app.

You can delete certain apps in Launchpad, but only the ones that are shown with an iOS-like X

In fact, in our testing, it lets you delete very few. The only major applications you can definitely delete this way are those made by Apple, such as Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.

Many smaller utility-style applications can be deleted this way too, but you can’t get rid of Chrome, any Adobe Creative Cloud apps, or Zoom. For those, and the majority of apps, you need to do it manually via moving them to the Trash.

No matter what method you use, you can’t delete certain apps from the Mac — and some of them are surprising. Chess, for instance, will just ignore any attempt to delete it. You may not even have realized that your Mac comes with a Chess game, but it’s holding onto it forever.

In previous versions of macOS, when you tried to delete Chess, you would get an error message saying that it was required for the system. That’s no longer the case as macOS Catalina just won’t let you delete it.

There is arguably a way around it if you disabled security features such as System Integrity Protection, but if you do that because you read it here, and it goes wrong, we’ll deny everything.

It’s a good idea to restart your Mac. It’s also, though, a very good idea to have a third-party utility such as Hazel.

Hazel is one of those Mac utilities that do very many things. But one of them is that when you delete an app, it tells you what other files are being left behind — and offers to delete them for you.

When you delete an app, Hazel automatically shows you what other related files you might want to erase

That’s particularly good because you can see what’s going to be deleted. There are disk space-saving apps that may remove this kind of file, but you won’t know they’ve done it.

This isn’t likely to be a problem but one type of file that gets left on your Mac is often a preferences one. If you reinstall the app later, it should pick up that preferences file and be configured the way you want.

If it is that you just need the space now and will want to reinstall the app later, you can save time and effort by dragging that app to another disk. For instance, if you have an external drive connected to your Mac, you can drag an app straight from there to that other SSD.

What’s more, you can run the app from there, too. So if your Applications folder is taking up a lot of space on your Mac, you can split it. It’s still best to have your most-used apps on your Mac’s drive, but most apps will launch from any connected drive.

First teased in May, Little Voice stars Brittany O’Grady and features original music by Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award-nominee Sara Bareilles.

The drama follows Bess King (O’Grady) as she navigates the New York music scene and deals with life issues like love and family. Sean Teale, Colton Ryan, Shalini Bathina, Kevin Valdez, Phillip Johnson Richardson and Chuck Cooper also star.

Today’s sneak peek features Bareilles singing “Little Voice” over snippets of the show. A full trailer has yet to see release.

Little Voice is produced by Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Abrams, Bareilles, Ben Stephenson (“Westworld”) and Jessie Nelson (“I Am Sam,” “Stepmom,”) are listed as executive producers, with the latter writing and directing the first episode.

Little Voice streams on July 10 and joins other Apple TV+ originals including Golden Globe-nominated and Critics Choice and SAG award-winning series The Morning Show, sitcom Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, Beastie Boys Story, The Banker and sci-fi epic See.

The Apple TV+ original film was originally slated for a theatrical release on Father’s Day. Due to the coronavirus, it will now debut in the Apple TV app on Friday, July 10.

Hanks plays Captain George Krause, a naval officer who leads an international armada of ships on a mission to deliver troops and supplies to allied forces during the Battle of the Atlantic. Alongside Hanks, the film will also start Stephen Graham, Rob Morgan and Elisabeth Shue.

Apple purchased the rights to “Greyhound” from Sony in a deal estimated to be worth $70 million. Sony kept the rights to debut the film in China, where it will see a release in theaters.

Currently, Apple’s premium streaming platform only has a handful of films — including “The Banker,” “Hala,” and “The Elephant Queen. Apple TV+ has been acquiring more feature-length movies since its debut in November 2019, however.

“Greyhound” will mark the first time that a Hanks-led film has debuted on streaming services instead of in theaters.

Currently, the Apple News app returns to the top of an article when a user exits the page, even if they were midway through the story. The behavior is particularly vexing for users reading long form content from magazines offered through Apple News+.

As discovered by a MacRumors forum member, iOS 13.6 creates an ephemeral bookmark within previously opened articles, allowing users to pick up where where they left off after navigating away from a story or closing the Apple News app.

It appears an intentional delay of approximately 30 seconds is instituted before a a user’s reading position is recorded, according to early testing. While the mechanism is not detailed in Apple’s release notes, the delay could be an effort to lower system memory overhead.

In addition to new convenience features, Apple is also working on audio versions of Apple News articles.

Graphical assets discovered in an initial beta release of the company’s upcoming iOS update, then labeled iOS 13.5.5, show affordances for “Apple News+ Audio” and related features. The iconography, text and user interface elements were found shortly after a report in May claimed Apple was working with publishers on a deal that would allow the company to convert popular written word articles into short audio snippets.

Apple’s latest iOS 13.6 beta release was issued to developers on Tuesday. The evaluation version includes a handful of new features like an option to automatically download future iOS updates and a new symptoms section in the Health app.

According to a staff memo obtained by Bloomberg, Apple intends to start the so-called “phase one” process on June 15 with a relatively small number of essential employees.

To minimize contact between potential COVID-19 carriers, in-office schedules are staggered and building occupancy will be restricted, the report said.

The company underscored return to work safety procedures that were outlined in a report last week. Returning staff must wear masks at both Apple Park and Infinite Loop headquarters, undergo temperature and daily health checks when they arrive, and practice social distancing while at work.

Apple in its letter “strongly encouraged” employees to take a provided on-site or at-home coronavirus swab test prior to returning to work. Last week’s report noted Apple would offer employees a nasal swab test to screen for the virus.

While phase one of Apple’s return to work initiative officially begins next week, a handful of deemed-essential workers have already begun trickling in to join employees who remained at work through the crisis. Bloomberg said certain staff members, including hardware and software engineers, returned in May. Certain senior executives are also back at work.

For Apple office outside of Silicon Valley, the so-called phase one schedule began in May, the report said.

Apple plans to present employees with more information about the phased return in the coming months.

Relayed by Barron’s, Sacconaghi in the investor note argues that, while Google is the world’s dominant web search engine player, Apple is in a relatively strong position to apply pressure to the Alphabet company.

Currently, Google pays between $7 billion and $8 billion a year to be the default search engine for iOS and Siri, the analyst estimates. That figure equates to approximately 30% of an estimated $25 billion in ad revenue Google generates from Apple devices.

Alphabet is willing to pay the hefty sum in part to fend off attempts by Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo to replace Google as Apple’s default search engine. Google also has the option to pull out of the deal if it can capture 70% of its current iOS search revenue by pushing users to Google.com, Sacconaghi says.

Google’s position, however, might be less advantageous than it appears.

“However, we suspect the company’s fear of rocking the boat’ — which could compromise $15 billion in profits it captures today from iOS — may ultimately limit its freedom of action with Apple,” Sacconaghi writes. “Conversely, Apple may be in a stronger position than at first glance, given it controls the keys to the kingdom on who can monetize iOS search. However, it remains uncomfortably dependent on Bing to act as a counterweight to Google — hence our suggestion that Apple acquire its own search engine.”

To that end, Sacconaghi floats the idea of a DuckDuckGo acquisition for under $1 billion. Along with a fairly small workforce of less than 100 employees, DuckDuckGo would be a good fit considering the firm shares Apple’s views on user privacy and advertising strategies.

“To be certain, we doubt an Apple-owned DuckDuckGo could ever generate profits sufficient to make back the $7 billion to $8 billion a year currently paid by Google,” Sacconaghi writes. “Nevertheless, Apple would still likely be better off than a worst-case scenario where it had no backup, and Google or Microsoft (one or the other) withdrew from the bidding process altogether.”

The analyst notes such an acquisition could invite scrutiny from government antitrust agencies, and would still leave Apple somewhat reliant on Bing (DuckDuckGo uses Microsoft’s web crawler). Overall, however, an Apple-controlled DuckDuckGo would provide the iPhone maker a prime opportunity to further detach itself from Google, a long and drawn-out process years in the making.

Apple first built DuckDuckGo integration into mobile Safari in iOS 8, allowing users to select the search engine, as well as alternatives Yahoo and Bing, in the Settings app. Bing was the default search engine for Siri until 2017, when Apple transitioned to Google for a more “consistent web search experience.”