Apple Insider – Page 96

Posted on January 3, 2020 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Tim Cook donates $2M to unnamed charity

By Mikey Campbell
Thursday, January 02, 2020, 04:11 pm PT (07:11 pm ET)

Apple CEO Tim Cook last week donated 6,880 in personally owned company stock to an as-yet-unidentified charity, an amount worth about $2 million as of the trading date.

According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday, Cook conducted the transaction on Dec. 27, when Apple shares were priced at $289.80. No shares were sold and a reporting price was not applied to the transfer, meaning the exact sum Cook donated will likely remain unknown.

Executives of publicly traded companies are not required to reveal the destination of charitable donations, but Cook has in the past made donations to the Human Rights Campaign’s Project One America, a gay rights initiative. The Apple chief in 2014 donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pennsylvania’s Steel Valley School District, a gift that funded the purchase of iPads for students and teachers.

Cook routinely participates in philanthropic activities like auctioning off one-on-one meet-and-greets through CharityBuzz. In 2014, for example, a lunch with Cook at Apple’s headquarters sold for $330,000. Proceeds of the online sales typically go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

Like other tech executives — albeit not a multi-billionaire — Cook has promised to give a bulk of his money away to charity and in 2015 said he plans to take a “systematic approach” to philanthropy.

In addition to today’s reported donation, Cook made similar gifts to unspecified organizations over the past few years. He donated 50,000 Apple shares to an unidentified third party in 2015, 23,215 shares in 2018 and 23,700 shares in 2019.

Following last week’s trade, Cook controls 847,969 shares of beneficially owned Apple stock that, as of today, is worth $256.5 million.

Posted on January 1, 2020 by sick skills — Leave a comment

December 2019 in review: Apple releases the long awaited new Mac Pro

The Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR dominated December, but there was also possibly, just possibly, an end to the year-long issues with China.

Apple’s Mac Pro at WWDC 2019

Buyers had barely got their hands on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro when suddenly it was December and all eyes were on how Apple was bringing out the Mac Pro. Yet before you could dismiss the MacBook Pro as last month’s news, some of those new buyers were finding fault with their machine. Overall the reviews and hands-on pieces that continued into December were overwhelmingly positive, but there was this one issue about sound.

If you were using certain applications such as Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X or just any app that played audio, you might hear a popping noise. It would appear immediately after you’ve stopped playing, but also cropped up for some people as they scrubbed through audio and video files.

Apple’s new 16-inch MacBook Pro

Apple confirmed that this was a software bug and that it was working on fixing it.

As AppleInsider pointed out, though, Apple has some history with this popping or sometimes clicking sound. We could trace back similar issues to even 2007, when Apple had to update the then-current OS X Tiger.

But come December 10, 2019, the superb new 16-inch MacBook Pro was eclipsed somewhat by the superb and costly new Mac Pro.

About that cost

The Mac Pro was the biggest Apple news all month, but it isn’t in any danger of eclipsing other products in the Mac line. It simply isn’t aimed at the majority of users. Surely no one was looking at their Mac mini and planning a tiny upgrade to the Mac Pro.

That’s not in any way to say that Apple was aiming at the wrong market, rather to explicitly say that it was aiming at a particular one. AppleInsider had already talked to potential buyers about their reasons. And as disparate as they all were, they were each desperate for the power that this machine was due to bring.

Then it’s not that anyone is going to casually drop the $5,999 base price for the Mac Pro, it’s that there are users for whom even the cost of the highest-spec model was financially worth it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qza8iibuvPI&w=560&h=315]

We all went to Apple’s Build to Order page, got out PCalc on our iPhones, and totted up that you could spend around $53,000 on a Mac Pro. That was the maximum on launch day, and since then further storage options have been added.

In late-December, the most you can spend on a Mac Pro is $53,948, and there are still more graphics card options to come. Plus the regular base model is at some point going to be joined by one that’s built to be rack-mounted. That will start at $6,499 or a further $500.

Ultimately the price is easily going to crack $55,000 and still we’re going to say that’s worth it. Even if you then have to drop $5,999 for the Pro Display XDR and a grand more for the stand.

From the moment the base price and configuration were announced, there were people who wanted much higher specifications and a much, much, much lower price, please. More reasonably, there were people arguing that the equivalent Windows workstations were cheaper. But, they aren’t.

You could spec out an equivalent Windows PC —and we did —and you could examine the specifications of what we called the “fantastically fast” new Mac Pro.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xiMpN3TKc&w=560&h=315]

Or you could ask buyers. The UK’s Lunar Animation studio, for instance, has had both the Mac Pro and a Pro Display XDR for the weeks when it was working on the film “Jumanji: The Next Level.”

Enthused by how the Mac Pro revolutionized their workflow compared to the iMac Pro machines they had previously been using, still the company zeroes in on the display as the true game-changer.

“It essentially meant that we now had a reference monitor in the studio,” continued the firm. “As a smaller studio without 30k to drop on a monitor, it’s allowed us to see exactly what the final deliverable looked like as it was intended to go to the client.”

That’s why this new Mac Pro isn’t overpriced.

Even if you can’t justify dropping the cash that would otherwise get you a high-spec Tesla Model 3 car, though, the work that Apple did on the Mac Pro is significant.

We might not see the new Afterburner card make its way into cheaper Macs, but you can be sure that lessons learned from keeping this machine cool will benefit us all.

The sheer incredible speed that it offers us now will also increase over time as hardware and software engineers exploit the features of the new Mac Pro.

A rack-mounted Mac Pro seen during testing

Apple stuck to its word about making this machine the best Mac ever, and it stuck to its promise of making it modular.

It just didn’t entirely stick to the idea that every Mac Pro would be made in Texas.

If you’re in the US, then then the Mac Pro you order will be assembled at the plant in Texas. But if you’re outside the US, the machine you get is likely to have been assembled in China.

China again

Barely a minute has gone by all year without China being an issue for Apple. Right from January, we had Apple reporting falling profits there, and throughout the months since, the US and China have been in a trade dispute.

What we learned about Apple’s profits in China this month was that nobody knows what’s going on —except that the game continues.

It’s a different situation with trade tensions and tariffs, though. It’s premature to say that all of this was utterly and finally resolved in December, but it was at least eased.

A further round of increased tariffs that would have affected the iPhone, iPad and Mac were dropped in the middle of the month as the two nations struck a trade deal.

The Pro Display XDR

That didn’t stop Tim Cook being continually pressed on the topic. In December, he visited Japan and while there, was asked about the whole issue of why Apple products are made where they are.

“The glass on this iPhone is made by Corning in Kentucky,” he said to the Nikkei Asian Review. “Several of the semiconductors in the iPhone are made in the United States. There’s enormous manufacturing happening in the US, just not the assembly of the final product.”

“The way that we do manufacturing is we look at all countries and look to see what skills are resident in each country, and we pick the best,” he said.

Worldwide

Apple is truly a worldwide company in terms of manufacturing and the supply chain, but it’s also a global sales operation.

In December 2019, we learned that it’s Apple that dominates the entire planet-wide wearable technology market, specifically because of the Apple Watch and AirPods.

You already know that in almost five years since it was announced, the Apple Watch has become an overnight sensation. But this device, which never gets as much mention as the iPhone or now even as much as Apple TV+, is even bigger than you think.

According to industry analysts, the Apple Watch has eclipsed the iPod in terms of sales.

Apple is doomed

That’s still not as much as the iPhone continues to earn. It’s estimated that Apple earned some 66%, or two thirds, of the entire smartphone market’s profits in 2019.

Note that this figure is specifically profits, and it amounts to something in the order of $8 billion. It’s not the number of phones sold, as it’s easily arguable that assorted Android handsets outsell the iPhone.

However, for all the devices it may have sold, or at least shipped, Samsung reportedly only took 17% of the market’s profits. Significantly, that puts Samsung in second place. That’s how far ahead Apple is.

That was then, this is now

The Apple that is now headed into 2020 is a rather different company than the one it was a year ago. In this last year, we’ve had huge services launched —Apple Card, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple News+ —and we’ve seen a revamp of how the company even presents its news.

With all of these services in place, it’s going to be interesting to see if 2020 sees Apple returning to a more familiar pattern of events that are centered on hardware.

We’ll be crossing fingers that hardware updates will include a 13-inch MacBook Pro with that new keyboard. We’ll be counting on September 2020’s “iPhone 12” featuring 5G.

And we’ll brace ourselves for yet more global concerns that are far less technological and much more political. Such as Apple Maps, which should’ve rounded out 2019 in some triumph as the greater detailed updates now cover the entire US. But instead, it got embroiled in a debacle over the Crimea Peninsula, and specifically who that territory belongs to.

Politics, legal issues, and more episodes of “The Morning Show.” Apple never stops.

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

Posted on December 31, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Jimmy Iovine reveals what’s wrong with streaming music, talks Steve Jobs

Former Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine says streaming services are all facing the same problems about differentiation, but notes it’s a great time to be an artist.

Jimmy Iovine launching Apple Music in 2015

Around 14 months after leaving Apple, record producer and Apple Music co-creator Jimmy Iovine talked with The New York Times about the state of streaming music services. He says each faces the same difficulties and describes what he learned from Steve Jobs, Apple and Napster.

“It’s all a response to Napster. I saw how powerful that technology was, and I realized we had to switch gears. The record companies were not going to exist without tech,” he told NYT. “Why I got into the music business originally was to be associated with things that were cool. And I realized that the record business at that moment, the way it was responding to Napster, was not cool.”

Iovine says that 20 years ago, the record industry was “putting up a moat” and suing people to protect its interests.

“So I said, ‘Oh, I’m at the wrong party.’ And I met a bunch of people in tech. I met Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue from Apple. And I said, ‘Oh, this is where the party is. We need to incorporate this thinking into [my record company] Interscope.'”

Iovine also wanted to work on how his music was being listened to, and says that he learned a lot from how Dr Dre was concerned with “cheap, inefficient equipment.” When he decided to form Beats music, he then learned from Apple just how complex hardware is.

“Steve Jobs used to sit with me at this Greek restaurant and draw out what I needed to do to make hardware,” explains Iovine. “He’d say, ‘Here’s distribution, here’s manufacturing,’ and he’d be drawing on this paper with a Sharpie. And I’d go, ‘Oh, [expletive].'”

Iovine says that his going from being a record producer to co-founding Beats, and then joining Apple, was not a case of jumping ship from music to technology. But also that while he sees technology and music as part of the same thing, others do not.

“The two sides don’t speak the same language,” he says. “Content doesn’t know what technology is building. And engineers are just going by the way they see a problem. The streaming business has a problem on the horizon, and so does the music business. That doesn’t mean they can’t figure it out.”

The problem for streaming, he says, is in the profit margins and how music services cannot really differentiate themselves.

“It doesn’t scale,” says Iovine. “At Netflix, the more subscribers you have, the less your costs are. In streaming music, the costs follow you. And the streaming music services are utilities — they’re all the same. Look at what’s working in video. Disney has nothing but original stuff. Netflix has tons of original stuff. But the music streaming services are all the same, and that’s a problem.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p8AsQhaVKI?start=5938&w=560&h=315]

He also sees a problem in how record companies no longer have a direct relationship with music consumers. But equally, this can be tremendous for musicians and performers.

“The artists now have something they’ve never had before, which is a massive, direct communication with their audience — from their house, their bed, their car, whatever,” he says. “And because of that, everybody wants them. Spotify wants them, Apple Music wants them, Coke wants them, Pepsi wants them.”

“So hail to the artists, because in the end they’re winning,” he continues. “It isn’t their problem to figure out how the streaming company and the record company are going to make more money. It’s the streaming company and the record company’s problem to figure out how to become more valuable to that artist.”

Posted on December 30, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

August 2019: Apple Card arrives, Siri listeners, trade wars escalate

In August, 2019, the Apple Card was officially launched. At the same time, the company had to re-evaluate having people listen to Siri recordings, and the US/China trade tensions got complicated.

August 2019: FileMaker revives the old Claris name (left); Apple Card launches (center) and Siri is listening to you (right)

August 2019: FileMaker revives the old Claris name (left); Apple Card launches (center)l and Siri is listening to you (right)

Given that across the whole of 2019, Apple launched at least as many major hardware updates as ever, still this year feels like it’s when the company pivoted to services. By August, we had Apple News+ and we knew we were getting both Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade. But it was this month’s launch of the Apple Card that may end up being the most significant.

Apple Card

Around six months after it was first unveiled, and following series of internal testing, Apple Card finally opened to applications in August 2019.

Initially available only by invitation —which didn’t go flawlessly —Apple Card was formally opened to all eligible applicants on August 20.

It’s conceivable that Apple Card is the company’s fastest success. Shortly before its release, a survey reported that consumer interest was “remarkably high,” for instance.

Apple Card is finally here.

It appeared that Goldman Sachs, the issuing bank, was expecting big things because it was putting its money where its mouth is. Reportedly it was spending $350 for every Apple Card signup, although, separately, it was suggested that it may also be accepting “subprime” applicants.

It’s a credit card, so you do need to know what you’re getting into with it, but there were two more signs of success.

First, Tim Cook was pressed into saying that yes, yes, okay, we’ll be bringing Apple Card to more countries, enough already. And, second, the earliest users were finding that the physical card shows wear.

They may just have repeatedly been taking it out of wallets and purses to show off, mind. Admit it —you’d do the same. It’s the credit card that clangs when you drop it on the table.

Speaking of clangers

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10 but left something out. A headphone jack. After mercilessly mocking Apple for removing the jack, Samsung had done precisely the same.

But there was a difference. In the hope that nobody would notice, Samsung also removed something else —the company took down its anti-Apple video ad on the subject.

It just didn’t do it very well. Search YouTube for it, and it’s true, the US ad is gone. But the Portuguese Samsung account still has it, and it’s in English.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuHJv1_big&w=560&h=315]

Meanwhile, at the Samsung Unpacked, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked up the partnership between the two companies. And Microsoft, semi-accidentally, released a new build of the Microsoft Edge browser for Mac.

It wasn’t accidental. It’s not as if Microsoft didn’t know it was doing it. Microsoft Edge uses the engine from Google Chrome and since that’s on Mac, so is Edge.

Whatever the reason we’ve got it, and whatever we can expect Microsoft to support in the future, this latest build introduced a key feature called Collections. It was still a beta and a little flaky, but it added facilities for researchers to gather their work.

Complicated

That Collections research feature is for managing information you collect online and if you wanted to test it on anything, the White House was busy giving you lots and lots of data to track and update and stay on top of.

For all the months in which the US and China have had their current trade dispute, it seemed as if August 2019 was the most complicated.

Starting right on August 1, President Trump threatened a 10% tariff on electronics, which was to begin a month later. He later suggested he was open to discussions with China, but in the meantime had dinner with Tim Cook to discuss it.

Did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak ever imagine Apple having to lobby the government?

After that, the president praised Cook’s communication skills, and said that he’d made a good case for Apple being excused the tariffs.

We’ll never know the full details, but some time after Cook’s dinner, the White House did make some changes.

“Certain products are being removed from the tariff list based on health, safety, national security and other factors and will not face additional tariffs of 10 percent,” reported the United States Trade Representative in a statement on August 13.

However, by August 23, things were changing again.

“Our country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years,” tweeted the President. “We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP.”

Consequently, throughout August, Apple’s share value was, well, interesting to say the least, and the company was being studied to see what it could and would do. Apple was predicted to absorb any potential tariff prices increases rather than pass them on to the consumer, for instance.

Then Apple was seen to have many options to reduce the impact of any tariffs, including exploiting a perceived lowering of production costs on the iPhone.

For us

The direct upshot, for us, of all the political impact on Apple, could be that iPhones became more expensive. Yet that’s only an issue if you’re planning to buy one, and there was reason to suspect that 2019’s iPhones weren’t going to be all that great. Not when it’s 2020’s models that are going to get 5G.

Financial company Nomura Instinet figured would happen, with it saying the 2019 iPhones would fare poorly. It also, for thoroughness, said everyone else is wrong about the demand for 2020’s 5G iPhones.

Apparently just because you and we really want 5G, that doesn’t mean anyone else does.

Apple itself didn’t appear to be expecting a barn-burner with the iPhone 11, reportedly sticking to predictions of selling about the same as last year.

Whatever the predicted sales volumes, though, Apple was now reportedly looking to include the word “Pro” in certain iPhone models. It’s just a name, but it caused a lot of fuss.

But while we’re on the subject of future iPhones, reports of the 2019 range’s demise did not stop any predictions about the next few years of the product. We saw solid reports that the notch could vanish, for instance, and that Touch ID could return in 2021.

Other hardware

It’s not just the iPhone that could get 5G, either. You wouldn’t be surprised to see it in a future iPad Pro, but sources were saying now that we may even get a 5G MacBook Pro in 2020.

The FAA was thinking about MacBook Pro machines this month too. It decided to prohibit the carrying of specific models on flights, the 15-inch ones from September 2015 to February 2017 that were the subject of Apple’s voluntary recall over battery issues.

Software

While we looked forward to what was coming next, both with new hardware and the forthcoming releases of iOS 13 and macOS Catalina, FileMaker Inc was also looking to the past. It looked so far back in its own timeline that it stopped being called FileMaker Inc. In a nod to Apple history —though possibly not a very thorough nod —the company rebranded itself as Claris.

And then it seemed that everybody, just everybody, was looking at Siri.

Amazon, Google and Apple’s voice assistants have long been recording our requests of them and getting human beings to listen later to see how it worked. Not everything is recorded, not everything is listened to, and all of it is anonymized, but people were getting to hear what Siri heard and sent for analysis.

In truth, maybe Apple could have shouted about this more, but it had always told us it would do this. Nonetheless, a self-styled whistleblower contacted the press about how Siri is listening to us.

This followed previous reports saying the same for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

But if they were all at it, at least Apple reacted the most promptly. It said it would suspend the program while investigating and we all thought yeah, sure, of course you will.

It did. Apple suspended that program and it investigated. It didn’t just open some investigation and wait for us to forget about it, either, it released its findings. Before the end of the month, Apple changed how it worked the program and what it would tell us about.

But speaking of telling us things, Apple rounded out the month by doing its usual cryptic message.

By Innovation Only

We knew that there would be new iPhones announced in September, we knew there might not be much to them, but we didn’t know the date. Until now.

Apple revealed that September 10 was the day the new phones would be announced —and it called this year’s event “By Innovation Only.”

Whether that was to tell naysayers that this year’s phones would be good, or it was to fool us into thinking they might be, we’d soon find out.

Posted on December 29, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

June 2019 in review: The Mac Pro arrives at WWDC, and Jony Ive departs

In June, Apple revealed the Mac Pro and announced iPadOS at its annual WWDC, and then admitted that Chief Design Officer Jony Ive was leaving the company.

June 2019 featured WWDC (left, the departure of Jony Ive (center), and the reveal of the Mac Pro (right)

More than any other month in 2019, it’s hard to know where to start with June. We were expecting WWDC to offer up some surprises, and it was certainly one of the most successful WorldWide Developer Conferences that Apple has done. We just never saw that Jony Ive would choose now to exit stage left, pursued by a freelance contract to keep advising Apple.

In between the surprises of WWDC and Jony Ive, though, there was one related yet rather sad moment. This month, it was revealed that Cupertino’s Flint Center was to close forever.

We all know what happened in that building. It was in the Flint Center that Steve Jobs unveiled the original Mac to shareholders. That was ahead of the grand public unveiling a week later, but he was back at the Flint Center for the public launch of the iMac.

Steve Jobs unveils the iMac at the Flint Center

It was at the Flint Center that Tim Cook stood on stage in 2014 to announce the Apple Watch. And to gift us all a U2 album.

The Flint Center is going to be turned into student accommodation now.

WWDC 2019

AppleInsider took you to Apple Park and behind the scenes for the event

The event itself didn’t have surprises that came entirely out of left field. Just about everything was hinted at or leaked before, but the volume of detail on the day was impressive. There were revelations that seemed good at the event but are likely to be the ones we ultimately look back on as being huge.

As far as leaks go, easily the very last one to squeeze in before Tim Cook stepped out on stage was the news that we might get an iPadOS. We did.

Finally, that acre of space between every icon on the iPad screen is fixed —with the new iPadOS.

“It’s become a truly distinct experience,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said afterward. “It’s not an iPhone experience. It’s not a Mac experience. The name is a recognition of that.”

What Apple didn’t appear to recognize was just how much people would leap on one single facet of iPadOS. It’s only intended, so far, as an accessibility aid, but you can now connect a mouse or trackpad to your iPad.

Sidecar and macOS Catalina

The new macOS Catalina introduced Sidecar, the ability to use your iPad as a second display for your Mac, just as you’d been able to do for years with solutions from third-party developers.

We all had the same thought when Sidecar was revealed. “Sherlocked,” we said aloud. After the event, we talked with many developers who’d seen their apps gain a pretty massive new competitor in Apple’s macOS features.

A Mac (left) extends its screen onto an iPad (right) using Sidecar in macOS Catalina

Apple zoomed through the unveiling of macOS Catalina, packing in feature after feature that sometimes blurred the lines between its different OSes.

That included the way that macOS now followed iOS in having separate apps for Music, Podcasts, and TV. It was true, iTunes was gone —which sparked a lot of incendiary headlines making people think they were going to lose all the music they’d ever bought.

The truth was in here, though, with AppleInsider explaining what was actually happening and what would actually happen to your music.

While some users were off grumbling about what they thought was happening, Apple revealed update after update. CarPlay had its first-ever significant overhaul, for instance. “Sign in With Apple” got applause as the new equivalent to —but significantly safer and more user-friendly than —signing in with either Google or Facebook.

And then there was the continuing story of Project Catalyst. Introduced in 2018 as a multi-year process, 2019’s episode didn’t seem that groundbreaking. Apple’s Catalyst-based apps —Home, News and so on —were pretty much the same as they were last year, for instance.

Nonetheless, Craig Federighi talked up the project both during WWDC and afterward. He admitted to poor design decisions on Apple’s part for how Catalyst was received initially, but now it is a “no brainer” to use it to put iPad apps on the Mac.

Key to this, though, was a seemingly small announcement at WWDC. The whole week-long event is for developers, of course, but Apple does know the world is watching, so it tends to devote the opening keynote to telling that world what it wants them to hear. This is why you get product releases, why Apple talks up its features.

This time, though, Apple devoted a short spot in the keynote to something no user will ever be conscious of, and yet which every developer we spoke to afterward was most excited by.

SwiftUI is big.

SwiftUI lets developers create and test apps in the Swift language, taking away as much of the routine burden of development as possible so that they can concentrate on what makes their app unique.

“It just works,” said Federighi.

About iOS 13 and watchOS 6

During WWDC, iOS 13 sounded like the best thing since, well, iOS 12.

Apple mentioned how HomePod, really part of iOS at the moment, would even gain more music to listen to —over 100,000 live radio stations would be coming.

Where that would give our ears something to listen to, Apple Maps was set on helping our eyes. Alongside greater detail for maps that would be rolling out across the US this year and selected other countries in 2020, there was also Look Around.

Apple can call this what it likes. We just knew right away that it was Google Street View in all but name. Until we saw it in action, and now we know it is what Google’s feature should be. And, in all probability, it will be one day.

It’s only when you see it live in your hands that you really appreciate how good Look Around is in Apple Maps

We also knew right away, though, that this was a way to demolish your battery life. Except Apple also introduced smart battery optimization in iOS 13 to prevent battery ageing.

There was also a lot new in the watchOS 6 release, too. Alongside smaller features such as new watch faces, an updated calculator, audiobooks, and voice memos, there was also the App Store. As of watchOS 6, you can buy apps directly on the Apple Watch.

Right now, that isn’t quite the giant deal that it was when the App Store first came to iOS. But, the easier Apple makes it to sell your apps to Watch users, surely the more apps will come.

There was much more to say about Apple’s various OSes —including HomeKit getting the ability to store security camera video.

All through the iOS and iPadOS details, such as the new features for Apple Pencil, though, the emphasis was on how this helps pro users. But if you’re talking pro, you’re talking about the biggest hardware release Apple had done on stage all year.

Mac Pro is here, or very nearly

Tim Cook and head of hardware John Ternus showed us the new Mac Pro in detail. There was still much we wouldn’t know until its actual release, such as any pricing beyond the base cost, but there was a lot to say at WWDC.

The new 2019 Mac Pro would come with up to 28 cores and be able to handle up to 1.5TB of RAM. It was also as modular as Apple had previously hinted, and it was to be launched alongside the promised Pro Display XDR.

Tim Cook looking like he’s wondering if anyone will buy the new Mac Pro. They will.

You could also see for yourself. Even if you haven’t got the budget for the base $5,999 Mac Pro or $4,999 Pro Display XDR —and $999 for the stand —you could see how they would look on your desk. Visit the Apple site on an iOS device and you could use AR to see how they looked at life-size and from any angle.

It might be the closest most of us get to owning a Mac Pro, but Apple isn’t exactly aiming this at Mac mini users. Apple was aiming high, and right from the moment of this announcement, there was enough detail about the Mac Pro that AppleInsider was able to report on who would be buying it.

And then there was Jony Ive

At the end of June, we learned of the end of Jony Ive’s era at Apple.

His exit date wasn’t specified beyond being later in 2019, but Apple was also keen to create a blur around the word “leaving.” Ive would reportedly continue work with Apple in some form from his new company, LoveFrom.

“While I will not be an [Apple] employee, I will still be very involved — I hope for many, many years to come,” Ive said in an interview. “This just seems like a natural and gentle time to make this change.”

Jony Ive (left) with Steve Jobs

“After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history,” Ive continued.

“The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.”

It may have been a “natural and gentle time” to leave, but few outside Apple saw it coming. And the moment Ive’s departure was announced, there were two immediate and obvious reactions.

First, there was the inevitable internal email from Tim Cook praising Ive, and then there was the external furor over how this means Apple is doomed.

Not to knock Ive and his astonishing work, but of course Apple isn’t finished.

What was perhaps less predictable was that as soon as Ive’s departure was revealed, we started to get more details of his work at Apple —including some previously secret snippets.

So we finally learned that yes, Apple had actually made a TV set. Not the Apple TV set-top box, not the Apple TV+ service —which did of course get a mention or three at WWDC —but an actual television set.

We’ll never see it on sale. Whatever reasons stopped Apple releasing it before, Ive’s new firm is concentrating on health and wearable technology instead.

That would seem to fit with where Apple is heading these days —and it may well be time the company moves away from hardware releases given all the troubles it’s had with that this month.

Tariffs and China

June’s episode in the up and down story of Apple in China had a good part where we learned that number of users in the country has been increasing. According to Morgan Stanley, China had its fifth consecutive month of year-over-year user growth.

Then Tim Cook told CBS that Apple had not yet been affected by the US/China trade tensions. However, he also made it clear that the disputes and, in particular, tariffs would hit America.

“The truth is, the iPhone is made everywhere. It’s made everywhere,” he said. “And so — a tariff on the iPhone would hurt all of those countries, but the one that would be hurt the most is this one.”

Tim Cook visited the White House to lobby about tariffs.

Cook consequently met with President Trump to discuss the issues. He revealed little then of the meeting, but a week later Apple formally requested that the US not impose tariffs on its imported products.

“Apple’s products are used by American families, students, businesses, government agencies, schools, and hospitals,” Apple’s letter to the administration reads, “to communicate, teach, improve health outcomes, enhance creativity and enterprise.”

“The Chinese producers we compete with in global markets do not have a significant presence in the US market, and so would not be impacted by US tariffs. Neither would our other major non-US competitors,” continued. “A US tariff would, therefore, tilt the playing field in favor of our global competitors.”

Posted on December 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Apple videos encourages iPhone 11 users to make ‘slofies’

By Malcolm Owen
Saturday, December 28, 2019, 01:36 pm PT (04:36 pm ET)

Apple is continuing to highlight the high-speed capabilities of the iPhone 11’s front-facing camera, by releasing four videos showing how a ‘slofie’ could be taken on the smartphone with a wide variety of different results on the same theme.

Introduced at the launch of the iPhone 11, a “Slofie” is the same as a self-portrait “selfie,” except that instead of bring a single shot, it’s actually a slo-mo video of the subject. Combining “slow” and “selfie” in a portmanteau, it takes advantage of updates to the front-facing camera, which allows it to record at 4K resolution at up to 60fps, and in slo-mo at up to 120fps.

The four videos published to the official YouTube account on Saturday show how the concept can be explored in different ways, while also pointing out how making the videos can be funny. The first has a man with loose skin move his face from side to side, with the slofie capturing the wobbling jowls.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpOZ9oxNwMY&w=560&h=315]

The second has a man dancing under a sprinkler, simultaneously advertising the iPhone 11’s water resistance.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EE68bvpaIM&w=560&h=315]

A third is a group slofie where three girls move around a smoke-filled and neon-colored room, which turns out to be a walk-in freezer at a store.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEc3aGjN228&w=560&h=315]

The fourth is not new, as it is the same video Apple itself played to the audience at the launch of the iPhone 11. In it, a girl in front of a foil backdrop has air from a hairdryer blasted at her face as she moves around.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r6XE7ODVDg&w=560&h=315]

Posted on December 28, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Apple to donate to Australian brush fire relief efforts

By AppleInsider Staff
Friday, December 27, 2019, 04:29 pm PT (07:29 pm ET)

Apple will donate funds to ongoing relief efforts in Australia, where a dangerous combination of record temperatures, high winds and drought over the past two months set the stage for dozens of devastating brush fires.

Source: AP via NPR

Apple CEO Tim Cook in a tweet on Thursday extended sympathy to Australians impacted by the more than 100 fires that pock mark the landscape in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

“Our hearts are with those impacted by the Australian bushfires and with the courageous volunteer force fighting the unprecedented blazes across the country—please stay safe,” Cook said in a tweet. “Apple will be donating to support relief efforts.”

Cook did not specify how Apple will contribute, though the company has in the past donated funds to local non-profits and emergency service organizations during similar situations.

Australian firefighting agencies are currently battling a series of blazes across multiple states, a collective conflagration thought to be among the worst on record. The fires, sparked by extreme seasonal weather conditions, have destroyed towns, millions of acres of land and claimed the lives of at least nine people.

Australia’s brush fires are taking a toll on local fauna, with recent reports estimating the decimation of some 30% of NSW’s koala population.

The country declared a national emergency last week. Federal and state firefighters from the U.S. were sent to Australia to assist in quelling the wild fires this week.

Apple commonly responds to catastrophes and natural disasters with financial aid. In 2018 the company provided $1 million contributions for victims of the Kerala floods in India, relief efforts following the Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, and Red Cross activity after the California wild fires and Hurricane Florence. Apple last donated to an emergency relief effort during this year’s bout of California wild fires in October.

Posted on December 26, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New price drops: 16-inch MacBook Pro falls to $2,175; high-end Core i9 model $2,525

Exclusive

By Christine McKee
Thursday, December 26, 2019, 01:40 pm PT (04:40 pm ET)

Just in, Apple Authorized Reseller Adorama has issued fresh price drops on Apple’s new 16-inch MacBook Pro, with the standard model falling to $2,175 ($225 off) with coupon. Those looking for the robust Core i9 model with additional storage and upgraded graphics can snap up the 8-core configuration for just $2,525. These exclusive Apple deals deliver the lowest prices, in addition to financing perks and discounts on AppleCare.

New 16-inch MacBook Pro savings

The new price drops are in the form of instant rebates stacked with exclusive promo code APINSIDER, delivering the lowest prices on the retail configurations from Apple’s brand-new 16-inch MacBook Pro line. In addition to the cash savings, AppleCare protection plans are $30 off, and shoppers can take advantage of no interest when paid in full within 12 months using the Adorama Credit Card.

Each of the models listed below is in stock and ready to ship, so you won’t be waiting long for your new laptop. Those needing different specs, such as additional RAM or top-of-the-line Radeon 5500M 8GB graphics, can also save on every other config using this special pricing link and the APINSIDER coupon. Step-by-step instructions for redeeming the code can be found near the bottom of this page. Need help? Send us a note at [email protected] and we will do our best to assist.

New 16″ MacBook Pro deals

16″ MacBook Pro 6C (2.6GHz, 16GB, 512GB, 5300M) Gray: $2,175* ($225 off)
16″ MacBook Pro 6C (2.6GHz, 16GB, 512GB, 5300M) Silver: $2,175* ($225 off)
16″ MacBook Pro 8C (2.3GHz, 16GB, 1TB, 5500M 4GB) Gray: $2,525* ($275 off)
16″ MacBook Pro 8C (2.3GHz, 16GB, 1TB, 5500M 4GB) Silver: $2,525* ($275 off)
*Price with coupon code APINSIDER using the special pricing links above or in our 16-inch MacBook Pro Price Guide. Prices above are the final, total prices for most shoppers. Plus, save $30 on AppleCare at time of purchase. [Need help?]

(*) How to apply the Apple promo code at Adorama

Make sure you’re using a browser with cookies enabled that isn’t in private mode.
Click on the price link to the desired configuration from this article or the Adorama price links in our Price Guides. You MUST click through our links in the same shopping session that you use our coupon. If you try to save a link for late, the coupon WON’T WORK. Once you click through a price link, you’ll see a price that’s higher than advertised (we’ll fix that in a moment).
Add the MacBook Pro 16 inch to your cart anyway, and when you’re done shopping, begin the checkout process.
Look for a link that says “Do you have a gift card or promo code?” next to the gift icon. Click that to bring up a coupon code field.
Enter the coupon code APINSIDER in the field and click apply. The discount should appear under “Promo Savings” above the order total.
That’s it.
As always, if you have any issues, you can reach out to us at [email protected] and we’ll try and help.

Additional Apple deals

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

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.

Posted on December 25, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Amazon launches year-end sale with deals on AirPods, MacBooks, iMacs, Apple Watch bands

By Christine McKee
Wednesday, December 25, 2019, 10:07 am PT (01:07 pm ET)

With only a week left until the New Year, Amazon is knocking up to $310 off belated gifts and year-end business purchases. Save on Apple AirPods, MacBook Airs, iMacs, Apple Watch bands and more.

Year-end savings

Whether you received a holiday gift card or are still looking for the perfect present for that special someone, Amazon has a variety of deals on Apple products, from AirPods to Apple Watch bands. Shoppers can save up to $310 instantly with many items ready to ship out asap. Here’s a small sampling of the top Apple deals, with many more options available in the AI Apple Price Guide and via Amazon’s dedicated Year-End Deals page.

Apple AirPods savings

Powerbeats deals

Up to $300 off MacBook Airs

Up to $310 off iMacs

Apple Pencil on sale

Apple Pencil: $94.08 ($5 off)
Apple Pencil 2: $114* ($15 off)
*Look for green bonus savings message on product page. May not be available for all accounts. YMMV.

Magic accessories

Apple Watch bands

Additional Apple deals

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.

Posted on December 24, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

It’s not too late to grab these last-minute gifts for the holidays

Those on the hunt for a fun last-minute gift can pick up one of these digital gift ideas just in time for Christmas.

Disney Plus

Star Wars and Disney fans can enjoy new and original content with a Disney Plus subscription, with more titles added weekly. Friends will delight in seeing baby Yoda in The Mandalorian, or re-watch favorites like Avengers: Endgame and the original Star Wars trilogy.

Subscriptions start at $6.99 per month, with a bundle available for $12.99 per month that includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.

Amazon Prime

A useful gift that can save recipients money year-round thanks to exclusive deals and free shipping upgrades, an Amazon Prime membership is an excellent choice for everyone from co-workers to close relatives.

Along with exclusive access to Prime Day deals and the shipping upgrades referenced above, Prime members can access a variety of movies and shows through Prime Video, as well as unlimited access to 2 million songs through Amazon Music. Annual plans run $119, offering recipients benefits for an entire year.

Adobe Creative Cloud

With apps for photographers, videographers and business professionals alike, an Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps plan is great for a variety of content creators. Enjoy access to over 20 creative desktop and mobile apps with the All Apps plan, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign.

Annual plans can be prepaid for the entire year or broken down into monthly payments, allowing for easy gift giving.

B&H SmartGift

B&H Photo offers a neat SmartGift feature that gives gift recipients the ability to review, customize or exchange the gift you choose.

Once the gift has been accepted, you’ll be prompted to pay for it and B&H will ship it out for a quick and easy way to get friends and family the items they really want. And with deals going on now on everything from iPads to Apple Watches, saving on the perfect gift is a snap. Just look for the SmartGift button on corresponding product pages to get started.

Amazon gift card

From household essentials to accessories for your home or office setup, Amazon has something for just about everyone. And an Amazon gift card is great to use after the holidays for cables, chargers and stands to enhance other gifts received for the holidays.

Available for email, text or print-at-home delivery, Amazon gift cards are available from $1 to $2,000.

Sling TV subscription

Gift recipients will love not having to pay for a TV subscription each month when given a Sling subscription. Select from Sling Blue, Orange, or Blue + Orange plans depending on the desired channels, with popular favorites, such as HGTV, Food Network and A&E available with any plan. Monthly rates start at $20, with the combo plan running $35 per month.

Sling works on a variety of platforms, from Apple TV to iOS.