• The second Apple event everyone has been expecting just became official. Looks like new tablets, laptops, and desktops could be unveiled October 30.
• What makes this unusual is it won’t be at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, but at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
• Keynote is at 10am EASTERN 😩

• Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo thinks the iPhone XR is going to be such a huge hit, he’s increased his esimtate for XR shipments in the fourth quarter by 10 perfect.
• Pre-orders start Friday the 19th at 12:01am, so tonight! Will begin shipping on the 26th
• XR features all the same powerful internals as the XS series.
• The same faster FaceID and Truth depth camera system
• The same A12 Bionic chip
• Same 8-core neural engine
• It features True Tone and a wide color gamut
• It has dual sim
• Same 25% louder speakers
• Same wide angle rear camera with Smart HDR capabilities!
• Computational portrait mode with wide angle lens
• Battery life that is up to 25% longer than the XS.  It even bests or matches the XS Max in battery performance. 1.5 hours longer than iPhone 8 plus.
• Starts at just $749
• 64GB ($749), 128GB ($799), 256GB ($899)

• Roland Borsky has one of the largest and most comprehensive Mac collections in the world, but the costs of storing the collection is forcing him to sell it.
• Borsky began repairing Apple computers back in the 1980s, and collecting them at the same time, to the point where his collection has grown to over thousand items. And there’s also printers, monitors, and more.
• Most of the Macs are in a warehouse where Borsky owes €20,000 to €30,000 ($23,000-35,000) in back rent. He’s hoping someone will take the collection in exchange for paying off what he owes.
• He warns that if he can’t find a buyer all the computers are going to be “shredded".

• How Chinese spy chips may be stealing secret data from Apple’s own servers!
• Another week, another gate-we’ll you about #ChargeGate, the huge iPhone XS problem that ended before it even began.
• Tim Cook reveals why Apple really banned Alex Jones, but can't explain why Siri still sucks
• We’ve got another epic MoviePass update for you, and this is the weirdest one yet!
• And we’ll pitch you a hot new electric skateboard, an uber premium keyboard for your Mac, a super portable keyboard for your iPad, and a an AI-powered bicycle light in an all-new Under Review!
• And, in honor and remembrance of Steve Jobs, we conclude with one of his greatest keynotes.

• What is charge gate?
• • Well, some, but not all, iOS 12 users have complained that their iPhone or iPad won’t begin charging if it’s in sleep mode when a Lightning cable is plugged in.
  • The charging issue doesn’t occur if the device is awake when the cable is plugged in. It only crops up when a phone or tablet’s screen is off.
• Well this blew up this week when Tim Cook’s arch nemesis Lewis Hilsenteger, aka Unbox Therapy popularized the issue with a new video on his Youtube channel, titled: “iPhone XS has a serious problem”
• But it turns out, the problem seems to be not so serious, as Apple has already introduced a new beta of iOS 12.1 that appears to fix the issue.
• So if you’re experiencing the issue and want to solve it right now, install iOS 12.1 beta 2. Otherwise you could be waiting weeks until this 12.1 gets a final release.
• “Gates’ should be limited to hardware issues!

• Appearing on VICE News Tonight on HBO, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked if Apple’s stance on privacy is hurting Siri from becoming more competitive with Alexa. Cook pushed back saying any company that says they need all of your data to make their service better is telling you a “bunch of bunk.”
• About booting Alex Jones
• • “We think that what the user wants is someone that does review these apps, someone that does review the podcasts, someone that on like Apple news, where a human is selecting the top stories. And that’s what we do,” Cook told VICE. “We don’t take a political stand."

• In an email sent to a select group of previous customers, MoviePass said: "Because we really hope you begin enjoying your MoviePass subscription again, we have chosen you to be a part of a select test group, who beginning Friday, October 5th will be restored to unlimited movies.”
• "To be clear, unless you opt out, your unlimited subscription will be restored and you will begin enjoying unlimited movies again ...  at $9.95 per month, and your credit card on file will be charged on a monthly basis beginning Friday, October 5th, 2018,”
• When Business Insider reached out to MoviePass about the bizarre move, MoviePass doubled down!  Saying it was a  "a terrific one-time promotional offer.”  "If [previous users] are interested in returning to their original unlimited subscription, they can. If they are not, they simply click the link below and opt out," the statement read.
• Now I thought MoviePass would be out of business by now, the vultures are circling.  But they just announced about 65 million in new funding!  Someone believe’s they’ve got a future.

• Everything is very fast and responsive. Apps spring right open. Photos scroll without delay. Maps render without a hiccup. Everything is basically instantaneous, and it’s a joy.
• It’s all thanks to the A12 Bionic chip. Apple is so far ahead in mobile chips, it’s head-spinning. One benchmark shows the iPhone XS is faster than the new iMac Pro, a $5,000-plus pro workstation!

• For such big phone, it doesn’t feel too big. Having used an X all last year, and liking it, I thought the Max would be too big. But it doesn’t feel as big as the old Plus iPhones used to
• iPhone XS Max camera

• Especially the new Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control. The Max is less a phone, and more an advanced, near-DSLR camera with a cellular connection.

• The screen is so big and clear, there’s no need to take your laptop or iPad on flights any more. The Max will do nicely.

• Despite dropping my old iPhone X numerous times, it has just a few scuffs and no cracked screen (it was, however, often in a case). But this time, because the Max is so thin, I’m going to try it caseless for a while. I’d like to enjoy Apple’s design for a change, without a bulky wrapping. (I know; I may regret this later.)

• The iPhone XS and its front-facing camera are supposed to help its owners make better self-portraits. However, some think their iPhone selfies look better than they should
• Lewis Helsenteger, aka Unboxing Therapy, is calling it beautygate
• Users are taking to internet forums like Reddit to question whether Apple added an undisclosed beauty filter to the front-facing camera on the iPhone XS and XS Max. Some are even posting side-by-side selfies taken with an XS and older handset to make a case that the newest iPhone has more than deeper pixels and an improved portrait mode going for it.

• Analysis firm TechInsights did a teardown of the an iPhone XS Max with 256GB of storage. That’s reportedly the most popular version of Apple’s best selling handset.
• As part of its teardown, TechInsights estimated the cost for each component. The total? $443
• Compared to the $1249 price tag for the product. So just 35 percent of the purchase price goes to pay for the actual hardware.
• Of course, the remaining $806 isn’t pure profit. The bill of materials (BoM) doesn’t cover Apple’s employee salaries, advertising, and other costs. Also, the BoM doesn’t include software, and iPhone and iPad sales have to cover the cost of developing iOS and its bundled software.

• Early reviews for the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have already come in and while most of the people that have tested the new device are impresssed, this years models aren’t as big a leap as the iPhone X.

• Panzarino for Techrunch: “As far as Face ID goes, there has been no perceivable difference for me in speed or number of positives… There is also supposed to be improvements in off-angle recognition of your face, say when lying down or when your phone is flat on a desk. I tried a lot of different positions here and could never really definitively say that iPhone XS was better in this regardit… it very likely takes training time to get it near the confidence levels that my iPhone X has stored away.”

• Nilay Patel for The Verge: "I got a full 12 hours of battery life out of the XS Max without low power mode, and that’s even under my heavy daily use.   The smaller XS is rated to get 30 minutes more than the X, which has run for about 8 hours for me this past year. It’s solid."

• NYT: "The XS Max screen was so good-looking that I wanted to keep reading articles and looking at photos on Instagram. When I used Apple’s new Screen Time feature to monitor my use of each device, I discovered that I spent an average of roughly five and a half hours a day on the XS Max, two hours more than on the XS.”

• “On the test Verizon account I used, iPhone XS delivers. I got download speeds of 250 Mbps in New Jersey, versus 170 Mbps using the same SIM in the iPhone X.

• In his comprehensive review of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, John Gruber reveals that Apple made the camera sensor 32% larger. After noticing that the wide-angle lens on the iPhone XS is 2mm wider than the one on the iPhone X, Gruber also discovered the lens is longer too.
• A bigger sensor and longer lens don’t sound like a big deal, but it required some crafty design work to pull it off without making the iPhone a bloated
• Another impressive feature on the iPhone XS camera is its ability to adapt to low-light on the fly. If you’re shooting video at 30FPS, there’s an option to enable “Auto Low Light FPS.” The feature will drop the framerate to 24 FPS when it detects that there’s not enough light to get a good exposure

• It’s definitely a nice phone, but if you have an X, it’s not worth upgrading

• The indedpent called the series 4 watch “Astonishingly good”!
• The Verge and the NYT both raved about how great the new larger display looked.  Particularly with the rounded corners, and made it much more apt to looking at photos and using apps.
• The Watch felt snappier than the gen 3, but The Verge noted that the imrpovement wasn’t as drastic as Gen 2 to Gen 3.

• Wired's Rosenfield came away impressed by the accuracy of the watch's new optical heart-rate sensor as well as the automatic workout detection, while noting that "runners will love the new rolling mile measurement, cadence, and target pace notifications.”
• Both The Verge and iMore commented about how much louder the speaker is, saying it was much easier to hear calls.  Callers also noted they couldn’t really tell they were being rung from an Apple Watch.
• No one has been able to test the ECG feature yet since it won’t be enabled until later this year.

• TechCrunch's Heater took particular liking to the watch's new haptic Digital Crown, which "feels like turning a mechanical dial."

• FOMO: anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.
• The new Walkie-Talkie app is being lauded by Apple Watch owners as the best new feature that came out as part of watchOS 5. But for some wearers there’s a serious problem: they can’t find anyone to talk to.  
• Walkie-Talkie gives wearers the ability to turn their wrist into a sort of digital two-way radio transceiver with other Apple Watch wearers. It’s a super-convenient way to have short bursts of conversation when you don’t want to talk on the phone. If you don’t have any friends with an Apple WAtch though then there’s no way to get in on the action.

• Apple released the first beta of iOS 12.1 today. Developer Guilherme Rambo went digging around in the code and turned up a mention of “iPad2018Fall.” Sometimes references to upcoming devices hidden in iOS betas are obscure, but not this time
• He also found a glyph of the iPad that showed it will have FaceId, but will not have a notch.
• While digging into the simulator for iOS 12.1, Steve Troughton-Smith discovered that Apple has added support for virtualized 4K external displays. That’s a big deal for two reasons: 1) It means you’re going to be able to hook up iPads to 4K monitors, 2) It’s not currently possible to do that through the Lightning HDMI adapter

With over a hundred thousand attendees, the Penny Arcade Expo is one of the largest video game conventions in the world, and it all started in Seattle, Washington.

Hot off the heels of PAX 2018, Erfon sits across his good friend, The Amazing Aaron Hughes, to discuss the state of Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, their favorite games and spectacles from the event, and how FORNITE and PUBG have changed the face of gaming.  

• Apple’s marketing team has reportedly been considering losing the Plus suffix that has been used on the largest models since the iPhone 6 Plus came out in 2014
• We’ve already head reports that Apple is going to ditch the “Plus” description for its larger iPhones. Now there’s word that the replacement term could be “Max.”
• If true, this means that the company will announce a week from today the iPhone Xs with a 5.8-inch display and the iPhone Xs Max with a 6.5-inch one.

• With most of the specifications of the 2018 iPhones already known, the largest remaining question is price.
• A report from the German website Macerkoff, who starts by pointing out that the iPhone 8 costs €799, the iPhone 8 Plus sells for €909, and the iPhone X is €1149.
• Citing two different sources, the site says the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone expected to be announced next week will cost €799, the 5.8-inch replacement for the iPhone X will be €909, and the 6.5-inch OLED device sell for €1149.
• If that assumption is correct, the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will be $699,  the speed-bumped 5.8-inch iPhone X will be $799, and the the 6.5-inch OLED model will be $999.

• Apple is developing an always-on display mode for Apple Watch, a new patent application reveals.
• The feature would give users the ability to see the time — and possibly other information — without having to raise their wrist every time. But Apple wants to make sure OLED burn-in doesn’t become a problem.
• There are several reasons for that, such as its impact on battery life and the risk that the feature could ruin Apple Watch’s OLED display.

• When Steve Jobs died in 2011, pundits wondered how the company would continue to make great products without him.
• The question is partly answered by programmer Ken Kocienda’s new book, Creative Selection, which describes his 15 years working at Apple helping to develop the original iPhone, iPad and Safari web browser.

• The "Gather Round" event invites have been sent out.  
• Apple’s big fall event will take place at the Steve Jobs Theater in Apple Park on September 12.
• The keynote will start at 10 a.m. PT, during which we expect to see the new iPhone lineup, an Apple Watch Series 4, major improvements to iPad Pro, and more.

Better late than never!  With Erfon and Buster out, Lewis and Leander take the reigns of their very first CultCast to discuss the week's best Apple stories!  Ladies and gentlemen, this is one for the record books.

This is last week's episode come late.  We'll have another new episode out this week.

• According to Kuo, Apple will launch an Apple Car sometime between 2023 and 2025.  He said this is a recent note to investors:
• "We expect that Apple Car, which will likely be launched in 2023–2025, will be the next star product. The reasons for this are as follows: (1) Potentially huge replacement demands are emerging in the auto sector because it is being redefined by new technologies. (2) Apple’s leading technology advantages (like AR) would redefine cars and differentiate Apple Car from peers’ products (3) Apple’s service will grow significantly by entering the huge car finance market via Apple Car, and (4) Apple can do a better integration of hardware, software, and service than current competitors

• The long-awaited launch of Apple’s AirPower wireless charging pad may coincide with the launch of the 2018 iPhone lineup.
• Based on a new report out of Asia, Apple engineers are in the debugging phase of the AirPower rollout. The product may not launch on the exact same day as the 2018 iPhones, but a Chinese site claims to know the planned price. And it’s not going to be cheap.
• Though a previous rumor claimed the price could hit $200, Apple will reportedly charge $149 for the AirPower charging mat, according to Chongdiantou.
• Overheating issues have allegedly caused delays with the Apple charging pad

• EU regulators are considering whether they need to force a common standard for phone chargers.
• The idea is to cut down on the 51,000 tons of old chargers and cables thrown away each year.
• Way back in 2009, the European Commission pressured Apple and 13 other companies to work toward a common charging standard by 2011. All the other signatories gave up their proprietary plugs and switched to USB.  Apple switched to lightning, their own proprietary port.
• Accordingly to Reuters, that didn't satisfy that EU Commissioner of Competition, and now the commission is launching an impact assessment study to evaluate costs and benefits of different other options, the other option being forcing Apple to adopt USB on the devices.

• Apple has removed the entire back catalog for five InfoWars’ six podcasts on iTunes and its Podcasts app. One of these shows is the daily “War Room” show hosted by owner and radio host Alex Jones.
• Shortly thereafter, Facebook removed InfoWars page, YouTube removed their channel, Pinterest pin boards, Linked In removed the InfoWars page, Mail Chimp refuses to send their emails, and website comment host Disqus has given them the boot.
• "Consistent with our existing policies, we take action against accounts that repeatedly save content that could lead to harm," a Pinterest spokesperson said in an email statement.

• YouTuber Max Yuryev pitted the 2.2Ghz and 2.6Ghz i7 MacBook Pros against the the 2.9GHz i9, and the results aren’t great.  These are the tests I’ve been waiting for.
• in his Cinebench test, he found the i9 beat the i7 by only 2 percent, averaging only 3.15Ghz, while both the 2.2Ghz and 2.6Ghz i7’s both averaged 3.05 Ghz.
• And in test after test, he showed that the i9 rarely performs better than the 2.6Ghz i7.
• Why?  It seems like it comes down to heat.  Even with the patch, the MBP struggles to keep the i9 cool enough to keep it in turbo mode, and sometimes it’s even not cool enough to run at base clock.
• For example: In his Red Raven 4.5K Raw rendering test, he noticed that the 2.2Ghz i7 ran about 500Mhz over base clock speed, the 2.7 ran about 200Mhz over base, and the 2.9 ran about 500Mhz below base clock.
• He noted that the GPU and CPU use the same cooler, so if you’re pushing the GPU, like many rendering apps do, the CPU won’t be cooled as well, so can end up throttling more than you’d want.
• So what does all these mean?  
• • It doesn’t seem to make sense to pay extra for the i9.  It matches or barely beats the 2.6Ghz in many tests, and sometimes can’t even beat the 2.2Ghz i7.
  • A better value, and bigger a bottle neck in the 2018 MBP isn’t the CPU, it’s the GPU.
  • The base MBP comes with a 555X Radeon GPU, whereas the premium 2.7Ghz i7 and 2.9Ghz i9 models come with a Radeon 560X, and that’s what made the biggest difference in his tests.
  • My thoughts, go with the 2.7Ghz i7, the 560X GPU, and use the i9 money you save for extra SSD space.

• Apple beat Wall Street’s expectations today with its Q3 2018 earnings report, shooting its stock price just below the $204 price needed to mint it as the world’s first TRILLION dollar company. 
• iPhone sales were up slightly year-over-year. Revenue was up big time. The ASP (average selling price) was also up big time. Even Apple’s EPS (earnings per share) was higher than some of the biggest Apple believers expected.
• When the iPhone X launched last year it was panned as too expensive by far too many critics, but Phone revenue was up 20% YOY.
• Wearable sales are up 60% year-over-year
• AirPods and Beats are also selling well. Combined with Apple Watch they’ve generated more than $10 billion in revenue in just the last year.
• TimCook also commented on Apple’s TV deal with Oprah, saying he “couldn’t be happier” that she’s on board.
• He also said there’d be “dramatic changes speeding up in the content industry,” and went on to say “We’re really happy to be working on something. We’re just not ready to talk about it in-depth today.”
• Apple sold only 3.72 Macs in its third quarter, less than any single quart since it’s Q3 of 2010.  This may be because it’s entire Mac line was ancient until just weeks ago, in Q4, when MBP was updated.
• iPhone and iPad now make up 65% of Apple’s yearly revenue.

• It was a year ago, in august of 2017, that MoviePass dropped their price to $9.95 a month. In the following two days, more than 150,000 new users signed up, crashing their website and app.
• Though AMC said MoviePass’s model could never work, they essentially created their own version of the service to compete. It’s $20 a month and their service includes digital reservations, iMax and 3D, and let’s you see the same movie more than once.
• Sinemia is another competitor that’s popped up.  They offer a 2 movie a month plan for $10 a month that works with any theater, offers advanced ticket options, and works on 3D movies, IMAX, 4DX, and more.  

• Consumer Reports came to the Apple's defense this week. The consumer-testing organization points out that other laptops with top-tier processors are also subject to thermal throttling.
• “Most processors have had this capability built in for years,” says Richard Fisco, an electronics testing program leader at Consumer Reports. “I would rather have the system throttle and take a lot longer to do things than just let itself get fried.”
• They recommend a desktop
• “If you absolutely need bleeding-fast speed — perhaps you’re a programmer who regularly compiles large applications or someone who edits huge amounts of high-resolution video — a high-end desktop may be a better bet than a souped-up laptop,” wrote Consumer Reports.

• Apple saw Dave Lee’s video, and worked with him to figure out what was going on.
• Turns out, a major part of the problem was actually a big in the firmware, which was preventing the fans from coming as often or as high as they should.
• “Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended"
• Apple went on to say this should result in better performance for every version of the new MacBook Pro, even i7 models.

• Dave confirmed that now, MBP fans actually come on, which increased performance on the i9 to the save level achieved with the MBP in the freezer.
• In his tests, the 2018 i9 model is now 30-35% faster than the 2017 i7 model.
• It seems like the patch kicks affects fan activation and speed, but also keeps the chip from throttling itself down all the time.
• But, even patched, this i9 chip still doesn’t hit the clock speed that it COULD hit.
• This is the same i9 that is used in larger gaming laptops, where it can hit 4.5 or 5GHz and stay there comfortably.  In the MBP, its base clock is 2.9Ghz, and it can only boost up to 4.8 in some circumstances.
• In YouTuber Max Yuryyex’s Cinebench encoding tests, his i9 ran at about 3.2Ghz
• MacBook Pro is thin, light, and quiet, but its thermal design inhibits the potential of this high-end high performance chip.  That’s the cost of thin and light.

• French tech blog iGeneration reports that a beta version of the software currently in internal testing enables users to make calls and answer them from the HomePod, ask Siri to Find My iPhone, and set multiple timers on the device.
• The report also mentions that users may also be able to listen to their voicemails, and search their call history over the speaker.  
• Would be cool to allow HomePod to control other devices in your household.
• Add alarms or reminders to your or your family members iPads and iPhones

• The 2018 MacBook Pro is both a beauty AND a beast.  In fact, it's one of the most exciting MBP refreshes in years.  The benchmarks are in and they’re impressive. 
• A popular tech reviewer warns that the i9 processor upgrade in the MBP has a major flaw, and his video proof is compelling.  We’ll fill you in.
• We also bring back Matthew Taylor, creator of the very popular butterfly keyboard recall petition, now with over 32,000 signatures,  to have a frank discussion on the state of the 2018 MBP keyboard.  Has Apple fixed the issues plaguing their butterfly key design?  
• And stay tuned for a strange new HomeKit controller and the best insulated water bottle on the market in an all-new Under Review!

• The 15- and 13-inch MacBook Pro models launching this week boast significantly faster processors. Tests with the Geekbench benchmarking tool show speed increases as high as 86 percent.
• The improvements come from faster Turbo Burst frequencies and more processor cores.
• “For the 15-inch models, single-core performance is up 12-15%, and multi-core performance is up 39-46%
• “For the 13-inch models, single-core performance is up 3%-11%, and multi-core performance is up 81%-86%

• Majorly faster CPU
• Much faster SSDs
• Faster DD4 RAM
• CPU:
• • John Poole from Geekbench: “The 2018 MacBook Pro is the most substantial upgrade (at least regarding performance) since the introduction of the quad-core processors in 2011 MacBook Pro,” 
  • Photography Austin Mann did to covert a 4K Mavic Pro video file to 1080p H.265 (HEVC) using QuickTime Player. 
  • • 2013 MBP with 16GB RAM = 33 minutes
    • Maxed out 2016 MBP = 99 seconds
    • Maxed out 2018 MBP = 24 seconds
• SSD
• • Laptop Mag: “It’s rare that I don’t believe the results coming out of our lab, but in this case I had to do a double take,” explains Mark. It took the system just 2 seconds to duplicate 4.97GB worth of files, which translates to 2,519 megabytes per second
• TrueTone:
• TechCrunch: “I have two 15-inch MacBooks in front of me right now (that’s just how I roll), and it’s like night and day. You’ve got no idea how blue the screen you’ve been staring at is until you see it up against another True Tone-enabled display.”
• The most expensive laps Apple’s ever made.

• Apple made potential buyers of the new MacBook Pro models very nervous when it said no effort had been made to fix the problems plaguing the keyboards in earlier versions.
• They even told the Verge that, though it made the Keyboard quieter, the keyboard was constructed to address the myriad issues they say are affecting only “a tiny" fraction of users.
• But, IFIXIT took apart they keyboard of the new 2018 MacBook Pro, and discovered  “Apple has cocooned their butterfly switches in a thin, silicone barrier”
• And as it turns out, Apple has a patent for just this kind of debris cover...

• No good deed goes unpunished
• Early tests have revealed that the i9 chip in Apple’s new MBP suffers severe thermal throttling under heavy loads, which dramatically reduces its clock speed and performance.
• Dave Lee from Youtube has tests illustrating the issue.
• He did a render in Adobe Premiere that took the MBP 39 minutes to complete.  In that test he monitored the CPU speed temp and saw that the chip was being throttled to BELOW base clock speed just to stay cool.
• In his tests, Lee found that it averaged at around 2.2GHz with a temperature of 90°C.
• So he tried the test again, this time with his MacBook Pro in... the freezer.
• This time, the same test, which took 39 minutes before, took only 27 minutes.  That’s a 44% improvement…
• Not just Apple’s fault
• • There are other laptops on the market that use this chip, and they snuggle to keep the chip cooled as well.  But most of these machines are beefier with better ventilation.

• Unfortunately for existing MacBook and MacBook Pro owners, Apple won’t fit its newer 3rd gen butterfly keyboard into older machines — not even if yours is in need of repair.
• Earlier machines will be repaired with the same keyboard components they originally shipped with. Apple does not offer the option to upgrade for a fee, either. Only the 2018 MacBook Pro will get the new design if a repair is required.

• 13” gets 4 cores
• 15” get six cores with options
• i7s on both machines with faster i9 chip available on 15”
• Apple says that the 15-inch model will have a 70 percent performance increase, and the 13-inch model should double in speed.
• Keyboards have been made quieter, but Apple told The Verge that this 3rd gen keyboard has not been designed to alleviate the issues they say are only affecting a “tiny portion” of buyers
• 32GB RAM and 4TB SSD option now available on 15” model for a mere $6700
• Both models come with True Tone displays, which allows the screen to change its color temperature based on the color temperature of the room.
• Interestingly, the Touch Bar will also support True Tone
• These will also be Apple’s first laptops to support “Hey Siri”

• Ming Chi Kuo has basically just confirmed what I’ve been saying the last couple of weeks: Apple is about to drop an orgasmic amount of updated hardware products on us.
• Yes, according to Kuo’s new report, Apple is getting ready to update almost their entire hardware line.  
• iPhone - There are three iPhones in the works, two OLED models in 5.8 and 6.5-inch sizes and one lower-cost LED model that will be available in a 6.1-inch size. All three will feature Face ID and upgraded A12 processors. While the two OLED models will have dual-lens cameras, the lower-cost model will feature a single-lens camera.
• iPad Pro - Apple is working on two new 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models that are equipped with a full-screen design similar to the iPhone X and no Home button, with Apple to replace Touch ID with Face ID.
• Mac mini - Kuo didn't have a lot of information to share on this one, but he did say a processor upgrade is expected.  He did not say if additional upgrades would be included, like as a redesigned body.
• It’s been over 3 and a half years since the Mac Mini was updated, and they’re still charging full price for it.
• MacBook - Processor upgrades expected.
• New Low-Priced Notebook - Ming Chi believes Apple is designing a new low-priced notebook fo some kind. He originally said it would be part in the MacBook Air family, but now he seems to not be so sure.   We’ll soon know.
• iMac - Kuo says he expect a significant display performance upgrade, and a processor refresh.
• Apple Watch - Apple is working on two new Apple Watch models for 2018 that will have bigger displays and enhanced heart rate detection features. The two Apple Watch models will measure in at 1.57 inches (39.9mm) and 1.78 inches (45.2mm), roughly 15 percent bigger than in the current models. Rumors have not been clear on whether the Apple Watch itself will be larger or if the bigger display will come from a reduction in bezels.

• According to a new report, medical experts are concerned that some drug users, particularly people taking cocaine, are using their Apple Watches and other wearables to monitor their heart rate while imbibing.
• From the users’ perspective, the idea is that doing this could alert them to dangerously high heart rates while taking drugs such as cocaine. However, doctors point out that the technology does not protect people against the dangers of drug use.
• The article details the story of several semi-regular cocaine users. One describes monitoring drug use as the only reason they wear a heart rate-tracking wearable. “I want an early warning system for when my heart’s going to explode,” one person wrote in a thread on Reddit.
• “If someone says, ‘Let’s do a line,’ I’ll look at my watch,” says one of the people interviewed. “If I see I’m at [heart rates of] 150 or 160, I’ll say, ‘I’m good.’

• New evidence just today that Apple has a big Mac refresh right around the corner.
• MacBook Pro is about to get the new feature we’ve all been wanting.
• Apple is rebuilding their maps app from the ground up, and it looks magnificent.
• Erfon visited Apple’s new Seattle flagship store it was STUNNING.
• We pitch a wood-wrapped iPhone case, waterproof camping lights, and a great new reading app an all-new Under Review!

• The butterfly keyboards on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro are officially defective.
• After months of outcry from angry customers, Apple has finally acknowledged that the new keyboards have some serious problems. The company says the issues are limited to a small percentage of MacBooks, but its offering free repairs.

• Bloomberg has a new report out that says we could have some exciting new Apple audio products in 2019.

• First: Ming still expects three new iPhones in 2018: a second-generation iPhone X, a massive 6.5-inch version dubbed the iPhone X Plus, and a 6.1-inch version that will essentially be a budget iPhone X.

• Engineer and popular YouTuber Mark Rober is, accordingly Variety, working for Apple as an engineer in their special projects group.
• More specifically, Rober has been working on Apple's virtual reality projects, including "using VR as on-board entertainment for self-driving cars.”
• His most recent patent addresses an interesting problem:
• • "Many passengers in vehicles may experience motion sickness. Typically, this is not the case for the driver. However, with the arrival of autonomous vehicles, the driver becomes a passenger, and thus may want to occupy themselves while, for example, riding to work. Passengers in conventional or autonomous vehicles may, for example, want to read a book, or work on their notebook computer.

• It’s been over a year since Apple has updated virtually any of their Macs.  Just what in the heck in going on?  
• Why all your online purchases will soon be taxed
• Instagram takes on YouTube with new IGTV app
• MoviePass is about to change for the worse.  AGAIN.
• America’s largest theater chain just put the final nails in the MoviePass coffin
• And things get weird in an all-new what we’re into!

• It’s a sad day for US.  It’s the end of an era.  The end of tax-free shopping online.  
• In 1992 the supreme court that a state couldn’t force an online retailer to collect sales tax for them if the retailer didn’t have a physical presence in that state.  
• Today, they reversed that decision
• What does that mean?
• Well, it means that you state will undoubtedly begin forcing online retailers to charge you sales tax on all your online orders.  
• If you have a big purchase to make, I’d do it this summer.  

• Rogue Amoeba developer Quentin Carnicelli posted this week on the company’s blog about his frustration with Apple’s continued neglect of the Mac.
• "At the time of the writing, with the exception of the $5,000 iMac Pro, no Macintosh has been updated at all in the past year.”

• The photo-sharing social network revealed its new standalone app today called IGTV that’s dedicated to long-form video.
• IGTV was revealed at an event today this morning where the company also shared that it now has 1 billion monthly active users.

• By the end of the summer, you'll see some major changes to your MoviePass subscription — and you're not going to like them all.
• MoviePass told Business Insider that by August members of the service would be able to add a friend when buying tickets through the app and would have the option, at an added price, to order tickets to Imax and Real 3D movies.
• The first change to the service will happen in the coming weeks, when MoviePass will start charging members what CEO Mitch Lowe calls "high demand" pricing.
• CEO Mitch Lowe: "At certain times for certain films — on opening weekend — there could be an additional charge for films"
• The added charge will start at $2 for titles the app deems very popular with MoviePass subscribers

• The largest theater chain in America has announced that it will now offer a subscription service that allows patrons to watch up to three movies a week for $19.95 a month.
• Called AMC Stubs A-List the online and smartphone-based subscription will allow members to watch multiple movies a day and let you see movies more than once.
• There will be no online ticketing fees, and it will offer a discount on food and drinks at the concession stand. Plus Stubs A-List will be redeemable toward formats like IMAX and 3D and will also include special AMC locations such as Dine-Ins.
• The service will allow you to make up to three movie reservations at once in advance without having to physically be at the theater

• Your phone is always available to answer to your input.  No more waiting for animations to finish.  
• You can launch an app and start scrolling within the app even before it fills the screen.
• You can launch an app and then dismiss it even before the app has fully opened.
• You can close and app and instantly open another app from the home screen before the closing animation has finished,

• Police across the country are purchasing a tool called GrayKey. When hooked to an iPhone’s Lightning port, this swiftly enters thousands of passcodes until the correct one is reached.
• But just-released beta of iOS 12 can be set to partially deactivate the Lightning port after an iPhone hasn’t been used for an hour.

• It is always exciting to capture the WWDC keynote in sketchnotes, and this year we filled up four pages with drawings showcasing the biggest new features coming in iOS 12, macOS Mojave and watchOS 5.

• Side-by-side comparisons between iOS 12 beta 1 and version 11.4 show clear speed improvements.

• If any other company had introduced Screen Time, the new system-wide toolset for limiting phone distractions, then it would (rightly) be dismissed as a gimmick, a sop to the increasing worries about phone addiction. But as is typical of Apple, Screen Time looks like it took a lot of work to get just right.

• The just-released beta of iOS 12 can be set to partially deactivate the Lightning port after an iPhone hasn’t been used for an hour. This is a clear attempt to make useless the unlocking tools employed by law enforcement (or thieves).

• The first iOS 12 developer beta debuted after today’s WWDC keynote. Intrepid souls who’ve already installed this early version on their iPhone X noticed that Face ID can be trained to recognize more than one person.

• “Apple has shaken up its iOS software plans for 2018, delaying some features to next year in an effort to put more focus on addressing performance and quality issues,” reporter Ina Fried writes for Axios.

• Apple will introduce a Beat-branded $250 HomePod smart speaker at WWDC, predicts Apple analyst Gene Munster.
• “The knock on HomePod is its $349 price is about 2-3x the price of a typical smart speaker,” Munster writes. “We believe Apple can advance its digital assistant ambitions with a $250 Beats-branded option that does not compromise HomePod’s $349 price point.”

• iOS 11.4 is finally here, bringing AirPlay 2’s multi-room audio capabilities as well as the long-awaited ability to use two HomePods in stereo.
• Apple also said the HomePod will arrive in Canada, France and Germany by June 18. The speaker is currently available in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.
• Using HomePod as TV speakers

• The iOS 11.4 update finally brings iCloud support for Messages, which means messages will sync across all devices, and can even be deleted from an iPhone or iPad that’s short on space. But they will remain accessible from the cloud
• Why use Messages in iCloud sync?
  • Any messages you send or receive on your iPhone will be almost instantly synced to your Mac and iPad. But it has limits. One is that, if you set up a new device, then you will not see any of your old messages or conversations.
  • Also, each one of your devices currently backs up its entire Message library, which is a waste of space on your iCloud drive.
  • You can also remove old messages from a device, but still have access to them in future, saving a ton of space on your iPhone. Or you could choose to automatically delete old messages from your iPhone, but keep the full history on your Mac.
  • Link to how to turn it on in the show notes. You can also manage and delete the messages you have stored in the cloud.

• The press passes are out, the WWDC keynote is around the corner.  We gotta talk about it and we’ll tell a new way you can watch it live.
• New details out this week show the Apple car has taken yet another sad and disappointing turn.  We’ll you where it’s at now.
• It’s the 12 year anniversary of one of Apple’s best creations—we remember Apple’s incredible Get a Mac ads.
• And thoroughly embarrass our ourselves in an all-new Get To Know Ur Cultist.

• Press invites for the June 4 keynote were sent out today. And guess what?
• Cult of Mac is on this year’s guest list, so we’ll be live blogging all of the action from ground zero at the San Jose convention center.
• For the rest of you shlubs, Apple will give you a front row seat to the keynote on June 4th.
• WWDC 2018 is expected to include the unveiling of iOS 12, macOS 10.14, tvOS 12 and watchOS 5. Other rumors have suggested that Apple may unveil new hardware such as new MacBook Pros, or possibly an iPhone SE 2.

• As always, you’ll be able to watch it using Apple’s Safari browser, the WWDC app or Apple TV. However, for the first time Apple is also supporting Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
• But does this mean you’ll be able to watch the stream on PC?  Unsure.

• Apple originally began its car project — known internally as Titan and T172 — in 2014. At the time, Apple planned to build a single vehicle that would upend society and industry, in what would be the automotive version of the iPhone. The company set to work on an electric driverless car with a lush interior reminiscent of a lounge or living room, where passengers face each other instead of the road, according to two early employees of the project.
• But Apple soon learned that making a car is really hard, so they tried to partner with BMW and Mercedes.  But as Apple always does, they made things difficult by insisting on controlling the car experience and customer relationship, so the
• Now?  Well, they’re making an Apple Park shuttle bus.  with VW.
• Apple has inked a deal with Volkswagen that will allow the iPhone-maker to turn some of its T6 vans into self-driving shuttles for employees.
• Apple’s self-driving shuttle bus is behind schedule, thought, according to The New York Times. Nearly all of Cupertino’s car team is working just on the VW vans project, but the 2018 deadline will be missed.
• And what happens after the shuttle bus? No one knows.

• May 21, 2010: Apple quietly ends its long-running, award-winning “Get a Mac” marketing campaign.
• Debuting in 2006, the ads starred actor Justin Long as the cool, youthful Mac. Comedian John Hodgman portrayed the stuffy, awkward PC. Alongside the “Think Different” and the iPod “Silhouette” campaigns, “Get a Mac” will become one of the most fondly remembered extended ad campaigns in Apple history.
• The U.S. ads ran for the next few years, with 66 television spots in total. The campaign also spread to other markets, with alternate actors playing the Mac and PC roles.
• Apple aired the last “Get a Mac” TV ad in October 2009, marking the beginning of the end for the campaign.
• But the clever marketing continued on Apple’s website. On May 21, 2010, Apple finally replaced its “Get a Mac” page with a “Why You’ll Love a Mac” page.

• The butterfly keyboard in recent MacBooks draws frequent complaints. And these have now escalated to the point where an online petition is requesting that Apple recall every MacBook Pro released since 2016.
• The “butterfly” name comes from the shape of each key’s internal mechanism. In the 2015 MacBook, Apple replaced the old scissor design with one reminiscent of a butterfly.
• It’s supposed to more evenly distribute the pressure from tapping on the keys. As mentioned, it’s also 40 percent thinner.

• “Apple’s relative silence on this issue for existing customers is deafening. If these problems are remotely as common as they seem to be, this is an altogether defective product that should be recalled.”

• “This keyboard has to be one of the biggest design screwups in Apple history. Everyone who buys a MacBook depends upon the keyboard and this keyboard is undependable.”

• “Butterfly keyswitches are a design failure…. they are fatally unreliable.”

• Pic on twitter with caption: what am i supposed to do when the space bar stops working. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WITH THIS FCKING KEYBOARD

• A lawsuit filed in federal court claims that the keyboard used in all the MacBook Pros and MacBooks made for several years is defective. The plaintiffs request that this be made into a class action lawsuit, and that Apple be required to replace all the affected keyboards at no cost to users.
• The lawsuit also requests punitive damages because, as they claim, Apple continued to build and sell laptops with the “butterfly” keyboard even though the company knew it was defective.

• Apple is secretly building a TV empire
• Google’s new AI assistant has a feature you have to see to believe
• Financial filings show MoviePass’s time is running out
• Our favorite lesser-known iOS and Mac apps
• And… why do men have nipples?  We answer your most burning questions in an all-new CultCast QnA 🔥

• An updated version of Google Maps aims to keep you in-the-know about what’s going on around you. There’s a new tab called “For You” that’s designed to tell you about events in neighborhoods you care about.
• You can now hold your phone up to the world in front of you and Maps will overlay walking directions that make finding your way around a new city easier.
• A very human-sounding Google Assistant made a call on behalf of it’s owner to book a haircut, and the result was was magical as it was creepy. The most impressive thing was that the person on the receiving end of the call didn’t seem to suspect they were talking to an AI

• After going on a spending spree in Hollywood the last eight months, Apple appears to be poised to make a huge push into original content.
• Apple has 13 shows in development.

• The future doesn’t look promising for MovePass
• According to a recent financial filing, the company has spent an average of $21.7 million per month for the stretch between October 2017 through April 2018, but as of April 30th, MoviePass has just $15.5 million in cash

• Apple to many seems to have lost its mojo for innovation. But it knows how to build a pile of cash.
• This is the impression of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who told CNBC Wednesday:
• • “I think Apple is a productive cash machine,”  “Is it a font of innovation? Unclear, trending to probably"

• Analysts were wrong—iPhone X is a massive hit
• The death of 3D Touch starts with 2018 iPhone
• The world’s most famous Apple analyst may no longer be reporting on Apple
• Apple’s AirPort router lineup is officially dead
• And we pitch you our favorite shows, movies, and vodka in an all-new Under Review!

• Apple introduced the AirPort lineup back in 2003 when it was starting to ride the high from the original iPod
• Apple decided to finally put the nail in the coffin for its lineup of AirPort routers that haven’t been updated in years.
• Statement: “We’re discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products. They will be available through Apple.com, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last.”

• Apple blew analysts’ expectations out of the water this afternoon with its historic Q2 2018 earnings report that saw the company post the most revenue ever in the March quarter.
• Tim Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri were giddy during Tuesday's call with investors. Everyone expected the iPhone X to be a bust, but even Apple was surprised by its success as it still dominates the iPhone sales charts.

• A very reliable analyst predicts one of the iPhones coming in autumn won’t have this pressure-sensitive technology, and none of the 2019 devices will.
• Ming-Chi Kuo says it’s all because Apple is changing the components of its displays to make them lighter and less likely to break.
• The analyst says sources in Apple’s supply chain told him that the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, expected this fall, will use a CGS (Cover Glass Sensor) process. This means the touch sensor will no longer integrated with the actual display, but will instead be part of the cover that protects the LCD underneath.
• The CGS displays weigh less than the current ones, and are more shock-resistant, according to Kuo. But they also cost more. To save money, Apple is going to leave out the 3D Touch sensor.
• The KGI analyst says all 2019 models will use the CGS process, even the OLED ones, and therefore they won’t have 3D Touch.

• it seems that Kuo is moving on to greener pastures for a job with another firm. Unfortunately for Apple fans, this may mean focusing on non-Apple companies instead.
• According to Kuo’s LinkedIn profile, he joined KGI in January 2012.
• While Kuo is well known, he keeps a low profile and doesn’t do interviews. Very few pictures of him can be found online

• How Steve Jobs saved Pixar, then stole all their stock
• iPhone SE will steal one of iPhone X’s best features
• Told ya!  MoviePass ends its unlimited movie option
• Gal Gadot promotes Huawei on twitter… from her iPhone
• What the heck happened to the AirPower Mat?
• And we wrap with the best iPhone camera lenses, wireless security system, and the most powerful flashlight on EARTH in an all-new under review.

• Gal Gadot, best known for the lead role in the Wonder Woman movie, became a ‘brand ambassador’ for Huawei earlier this year. In that role, she yesterday tweeted a glowing video about her new Huawei Mate 10 – with just one small problem
• Marques Brownlee spotted, the tweet was sent from Twitter for iPhone.
• Gadot’s publicist told CNET there was a perfectly innocent explanation.
• • “Some people have asked about my recent post with my new Huawei smartphone, and think I am using an iPhone,” Gadot said through her publicist. “That’s simply not the case. I love my Huawei P20 and Mate10Pro. They are lifelines wherever I am in the world.”

• iPhone SE is looking to be a real beauty.  
• Reliable leaker Benjamin Geskin claims the new iPhone SE, codenamed Jaguar, will feature wireless charging just like iPhone X. To make that possible, Apple is expected to scrap the handset’s aluminum unibody first introduced with iPhone 5 in favor of a shiny glass back panel.
• Hopefully it’s waterproof and gets Touch ID 2.
• The new iPhone SE, with a faster A10 Fusion processor, will likely make its official debut next month, according to recent reports.

• At its September 2017 event, Apple said AirPower would appear some time in 2018, but since then we've barely heard a peep about about it.
• AirPower will charge multiple devices at the same time, and while other mats out there can do that too, Apple says AirPower can help devices communicate with each other to manage power consumption.
• It’s been 7 months now and we haven’t heard a peep.
• Will the WDDC keynote on June 4th be the day?

• April 25, 1990: Steve Jobs shuts down Pixar’s hardware division (yes, it used to have one!), ending production of the pricey Pixar Image Computers immediately.
• Pixar was Jobs’ “rebound” company after his departure from Apple in 1985. In early 1986, he bought a majority interest in Pixar from  George Lucas for just $5 million bucks.
• When Lucas owned the company, he led the development of the Pixar Image Computer. George found existing computers too weak to handle the graphics needed to produce Pixar’s work (or to meet the demands of Hollywood studios that hired the company).
• However, the computers sold poorly — and to a relatively small number of buyers.
• When Pixar’s five-person Animation Group won an Oscar for its short film Tin Toy in 1989, Jobs’ interests switched to that team, which he previously planned to kill off due to its inability to turn a profit. The hardware division got canned instead.  
• But then the story gets a strange twist.

• Apple threatens employees to quit leaking, or go to jail!
• Apple’s building new tools to help you know just how addicted you are to that iPhone of yours.  We’ll fill you in.
• It looks like a new iPhone SE will be landing real soon.  We’ll tell you what we know.
• And we reveal all the cool stuff we’re currently into in an all-new What We’re Into!

• With Apple planning to move Macs to Arm chips, and the rumored unification of iOS and macOS apps, you might be anxious Apple might just go ahead and combine your iPhone and Mac into some God forsake combo device.
• Tim Cook recently stated that merging the Mac and iPad lines would be bad for both. He told a reporter from The Sydney Morning Herald, “We don’t believe in sort of watering down one for the other. Both are incredible. One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well. And if you begin to merge the two … you begin to make trade offs and compromises.”

• In a leaked memo detailing Apple’s efforts to stop leaks, the company says it caught 29 leakers in 2017. Of those caught, 12 were arrested. Apple told employees they are “getting played” by journalists and bloggers that approach them with flattery in exchange for information.

• Former Apple executive, father of the iPod and current Nest CEO Tony Fadell wants Apple to do more to battle smartphone addiction.
• In a newly published op-ed, Fadell argues that it would be “easy” for Apple to create a deep dashboard that could reveal exactly how much time we spend on different apps.
• Fadell suggests that users could receive a regular itemized list like a credit card bill, complete with detailed information about how long they spent on each app, or even what they were doing inside each app.
• It turns out Apple agrees, and has said that it plans to incorporate smartphone-monitoring features into the next version of iOS.

• Apple is planning to launch its own premium subscription magazine service as part of the Apple News app, a new report claims.
• Earlier this year, the company acquired magazine app Texture. Texture offers more than 200 magazines for a rolling price of $9.99 per month.
• Since acquiring Texture, Apple has reportedly parted ways with 20 of Texture’s 100 employees. The remaining ones are now being integrated into the Apple News team. An app combining Apple News and Texture is expected to launch sometime in the next year.
• When the iPad first launched in 2010, one of the apps Steve Jobs was most excited about was The Daily, a short-lived, iPad-exclusive newspaper that was the first subscription app Apple offered.

• The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) — which has previously leaked the iPhone 7, AirPods, and new MacBooks early — has now spilled the beans on a bunch of new handsets Apple is planning to release this year.
• Given that the iPhone X and iPhone 8 launched just six months ago, they will almost certainly be new versions of iPhone SE.
• Apple’s newest iPhone SE launched last March with increased storage, but the rest of the device has remained unchanged since March 2016. Current models still pack an aging A9 processor that first made its debut inside the iPhone 6 in 2014.
• A new version of the iPhone SE will probably offer the same physical design, again with a 4-inch Retina display, but with more recent internals. Apple could give the device a more powerful A10 chip alongside improved cameras.

• HomePod is already stumbling in sales—is it doomed?  
• Apple Is the richest company on earth, so where are all its billionaires?
• Face ID could replace passwords on your favorite websites
• The death of Touch ID scheduled for this fall
• And stay tuned for Under Review, where we go hands on with an $80 tech-packed coffee cup, a beautiful new HomeKit smart lock, and the all-new Mavic Air drone.

• HomePod is already stumbling in sales—is it doomed?  
• Apple Is the richest company on earth, so where are all its billionaires?
• Face ID could replace passwords on your favorite websites
• The death of Touch ID scheduled for this fall
• And stay tuned for Under Review, where we go hands on with an $80 tech-packed coffee cup, a beautiful new HomeKit smart lock, and the all-new Mavic Air drone.

• Is the HomePod toast?
• According to some Apple store workers, inventories are piling up and Apple has cut orders with their manufacturer.
• "At first, it looked like the HomePod might be a hit. Pre-orders were strong, and in the last week of January the device grabbed about a third of the U.S. smart speaker market in unit sales, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Slice Intelligence. But by the time HomePods arrived in stores, sales were tanking, says Slice principal analyst Ken Cassar. “Even when people had the ability to hear these things,” he says, “it still didn’t give Apple another spike.””
• According to Slice Intelligence: During the HomePod’s first 10 weeks of sales, it eked out 10 percent of the smart speaker market, compared with 73 percent for Amazon’s Echo devices and 14 percent for the Google Home
• Why aren’t people buying HomePods?

• Did you know it wasn’t Apple that made Steve Jobs a billionaire? It was Pixar selling to Disney.  
• Well it seems, as the world’s richest company, Apple would have many billionaires in its ranks.  Turns out it doesn’t, and two astute reporters at Bloomberg wondering why.
• Apple Chairman Art Levinson is the only insider billionaire at Apple, and his Apple stock only accounts for $200 of his fortune.
• It’s estimated that Tim Cook is only worth 600 million dollars.
• Steve Jobs sold all but one of his shares when he was ousted from the company.
• One theory is that large stockholders sold off their shares in 1997 when Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy.
• Apple is smart with their executive pay, tying significant parts of compensation to company performance.
• Only corporate insiders or shareholders with stakes exceeding 5 percent are required to report their interests, so it’s possible there are billionaires around.

• Face ID could become even more useful thanks to a newly launched Web Authentication standard, which could replace regular web passcodes with biometric identification. This is via an API created by the FIDO Alliance and W3C. It allows users to access any online service in a browser through password-free FIDO Authentication.
• While Apple already allows Face ID to autofill usernames and passcodes on iOS, this could go one step further by replacing the passcode altogether. This would make it a more secure option.
• The biometric services covered by the API include fingerprint readers, cameras and USB keys.
• At present, the feature can be used in Mozilla’s Firefox browser, with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge integration set to follow in the coming months. Opera integration is in the works, too, although sadly there’s no mention of Apple adopting this for Safari.

• All of the 2018 iPhone models will have Face ID, according to an industry analyst.
• The analyst also indicated that two of the three models coming this fall will have OLED displays. There will be one medium-size and two bigger iPhones, both larger than any before.
• He’s also expecting a price drop on the iPhone X to $899, with the X Plus costing $999.
• Could that mean a move to FaceID on the Mac?

• Whoa!  Apple just stole Google’s head of A.I. to make Siri smarter
• Apple plans to ditch Intel processors on the Mac 
• You won’t believe the massive cash being pay to silicon valley’s A.I. talent
• Future iPhones could boast curved displays and touch-free controls
• iOS 11.4 public beta arrives with AirPlay 2, but it won’t work with your HomePod
• And a Leander gives us the scoop on his new Tim Cook book!

• John Giannandrea used to be in charge of Google’s search and artificial intelligence, but now he works for Apple.  He’s leading the drive to make the company’s Siri voice assistant smarter, a goal many would agree is overdue.
• NYT: Apple said on Tuesday that Mr. Giannandrea will run Apple’s “machine learning and A.I. strategy,” and become one of 16 executives who report directly to Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook.
• This is the most high-profile move yet in a ongoing drive to hire more talent for the Siri team.
• Mr. Giannandrea came to Google in 2010, where he helped make AI and machine learning part of all the company’s products, from search to Gmail. And now he’s doing that for Apple.
• Apple is also looking to hire  to hire 142 more people for Siri-related jobs, almost twice as many as this time last year.

• Fun fact: Engineers with A.I. expertise are some of the most sought-after people in Silicon Valley, with salaries sometimes exceeding eight figures.
• Tech’s biggest companies are placing huge bets on artificial intelligence, banking on things ranging from face-scanning smartphones and conversational coffee-table gadgets to computerized health care and autonomous vehicles.
• Typical A.I. specialists, including both Ph.D.s fresh out of school and people with less education and just a few years of experience, can be paid from $300,000 to $500,000 a year or more in salary and company stock
• In a court filing this year, Google revealed that one of the leaders of its self-driving-car division, Anthony Levandowski, a longtime employee who started with Google in 2007, took home over $120 million in incentives before joining Uber last year
• In the entire world, fewer than 10,000 people have the skills necessary to tackle serious artificial intelligence research, according to Element AI, an independent lab in Montreal.
• Not enough teachers because they all get lured into making their fortunes
• Over the last several years, four of the best-known A.I. researchers in academia have left or taken leave from their professorships at Stanford University. At the University of Washington, six of 20 artificial intelligence professors are now on leave or partial leave and working for outside companies.
• Nonprofits like Fast.ai and companies like Deeplearning.ai, founded by a former Stanford professor who helped create the Google Brain lab, offer online courses.

• According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on touchless gesture controls and curved screens for future iPhones
• The touchless control feature would be a bit like the Air Gestures feature Samsung introduced several years back. This allows users to accept calls and navigate through web pages by waving their hands across the screen.
• The other new technology is for a curved display more noticeable than the slight curve seen on the iPhone X’s OLED screen. Unlike Samsung’s curved handsets, which curve down at the edges, Apple’s approach reportedly curves “inward gradually from top to bottom.”

• Apple is pushing forward with plans to ditch Intel’s processors in favor of its own chips, according to a new report that claims the transition away from Intel CPUs will likely take multiple steps.
• Bloomberg says that Apple executives have already approved the project to make the Mac run on ARM-based processors by 2020.
• Moving to its own chips inside Macs would let Apple release new models on its own timelines, instead of relying on Intel’s processor roadmap.
• Making the move to ARM chips won’t be easy though. All software would basically have to be rewritten for the new processors, which certainly won’t make developers happy.
• Pluses
• •  Intel chips have stalled in major progress, leaving little reason for many to update from older computers.
  • The A11 bionic chip inside the iPhone X beats meets or beats Geekbench scores of the fastest 2017 13” MacBook Pro
  • No more waiting on Intel!  More regular releases of Macs with updated hardware.
  • Even tighter integration of your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and other  devices
• Concerns
• • Machines not capable with doing pro work.  Sure the X beats a 13” MBP, but what about a desktop  4-core or 6-core chip with hyper threading?
  • is this going to mean Macs that are more like phones and iPads? (efficient but not very powerful)
  • Even more of a walled-garden as Apple fine-tunes it’s machines to work best with it’s own software, but 3rd party apps may not follow

• New 9.7inch iPad
• Updates to iWork
• Updated Classroom and new Schoolwork Cloud Apps
• ClassKitAPI
• More iCloud storage for students and teachers

• The iPhone X’s $1,000 price point has been hard to swallow for a lot of customers, which may help explain why sales have supposedly been a bit disappointing.
• According to a new report, Apple has managed to reduce its manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM) for this year’s iPhone X-sized handset to a level much lower than that of its present flagship.
• The report suggests that Apple’s manufacturing cost for the new iPhone could be more than 10 percent lower than the $400+ dollars it pays for each iPhone X model.
• Apple will allegedly launch two new OLED iPhones this year, including a 5.85-inch (the same size as the iPhone X) and 6.45-inch OLED model, as well as a 6.1-inch LCD model. A plan to produce a 5.85-inch LCD iPhone has reportedly been suspended since mid-February, and could be cancelled altogether.
• Theory: Plus-sized phone price will probably be that of iPhone X with 5.85-inch phone being price of today’s 8 Plus.  LCD version of the phone will take on iPhone 8 pricing.

• Apple will kick off its 29th annual Worldwide Developers Conference on MondayJune 4. keynote at 10am?
• The week-long event, which will offer the first previews of Apple’s next big software updates, will again be held in the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

• According to a new Digitimes report and also Apple Analyst Ming Chi Kuo, Apple is prepping a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook that will debut in the second quarter of 2018.  The price?  A mere $999.
• One other interesting tidbit in today’s report is that Apple’s upstream supply chain has supposedly started shipping components for a new iPad Pro upgrade and cheaper 9.7-inch iPad. The 9.7-inch iPad is reportedly set to be released in the second quarter of this year (making WWDC a likely candidate for its debut), while the refreshed iPad Pro will come some time in the second half of 2018.
• I’ve seen a ton of sales on the 9.7", and also the iPad Pro more recently.
• June is the 6th month in the year, so technically all these products could be unveiled at WWDC.
• If you remember the 10.5” iPad was announced at the last WWDC.

• Under the veil of anonymity, some current and former Apple employees are admitting Siri sucks, and Apple knows it.
• Apple’s AI assistant is way behind the competition, and a new report indicates that Cupertino’s coders can’t agree on how to fix Siri — or even if it should be fixed.
• Siri had so much promise… How did we get here?
  • Bugs and infighting
• • Multiple sources told The Information that Apple "rushed Siri into the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully baked,"
  • According to The Information, the problem is so severe that Apple can’t decide “whether to continue patching up a flawed build or to rip it up and start from scratch.”
  • Bugs and other problems reportedly began almost from the time Apple acquired the voice system back in 2010. Part of the problem was Siri’s instant popularity. The backend servers weren’t prepared for the demand coming from millions of iPhone users. The company has struggled ever since to make Siri’s code more efficient.
• Lack of vision
  • Well, like so many things, it’s due to a total lack of vision for what Siri should be.
• • Steve Jobs spearheaded the acquisition of Siri and the integration of the technology into iOS.
  • Siri was unveiled as the signature feature of the iPhone 4s in 2011. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died the very next day
  • “When Steve died the day after Siri launched, they lost the vision,” one of The Information’s sources said. “They didn’t have a big picture.”
  • Since that time, multiple project managers have come and gone, none with Jobs’ vision. There’s allegedly an internal debate over whether Siri should be a system for answering short questions and following simple commands, or a more full-featured digital assistant capable of handling more complex queries.

• A version between $150 and $200 will change that, if a report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News is correct.
• This unconfirmed report doesn’t say what features will change to lower the cost that significantly. However, a separate research note from Rosenblatt analyst Jun Zhang says the upcoming cheaper HomePod will be smaller.
• This isn’t expected to be a replacement for the current HomePod. It would be a lower-priced alternative that’s within the grasp of a far wider potential audience, enabling Apple to better compete with the Amazon Echo and Dot smart speakers.

• Apple could kill off iTunes in the near future, a new report suggests.
• It cites an email that Apple reportedly wrote to people in the music industry recently, announcing the “end of iTunes LPs.” The iTunes LP format was first introduced in 2009 and let publishers add interactive artwork, along with assorted iTunes Extras, with their content.
• The LP format never achieved great popularity. However, the fact that Apple plans to ditch iTunes LPs in 2018 potentially hints at the possibility that Apple may stop selling iTunes music downloads in the near future.
• According to a previous report by The Wall Street Journal, Apple Music is currently growing at a rate of around 5 percent each month.

• A new video posted online by Bennett Sorbo compares an iPhone 6s with depleted battery against one with a fresh battery.
• The two iPhones are then put head to head as they run through a variety of CPU-intensive tasks, including opening apps, using the internet, playing games and videos, and more.

• MoviePass responded late this evening to a number of reports calling into question the company’s privacy policy after CEO Mitch Lowe publicly claimed the theater subscription service tracks its users’ locations.

• "video game consoles; controllers for game consoles; video output games, namely, video output game machines for use with televisions; apparatus for electronic games adapted for use with an external display screen or monitor.”
• This is a significant update that has to be taken seriously. Bringing a whole new level of gaming to Apple TV could be another twist coming to Apple TV in addition to a video content service driven by Apple Worldwide Video.

• One of the best features for Apple’s new HomePod appears to be facing some big delays.
• AirPlay 2.0 promises to give HomePod users the ability to stream the same song to different devices in different rooms from a single iPhone. But with the release of iOS 11.3 beta 3 this morning, Apple has decided to pull the feature from testing.
• The functionality of AirPlay 2.0 was pretty buggy in the first two beta builds of iOS 11.3. Apple removed it in the latest betas of iOS 11.3 and tvOS 11.3 that just came out.
• Until AirPlay 2.0 comes out, you also won’t be able to pair two of Apple’s new smart speakers together so they play stereo sound or multi-room audio.

• Apple has been given the go-ahead for two new iPads, hinting at an imminent refresh.
• The company filed for approval with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), and both devices were granted permission this week. Apple has also been given approval to bring several iPhone and iPad “samples” into the region.
• The filings don’t tell us much about these devices. But it does suggest that an Apple announcement is imminent.
• Apple is dumping 9.7” models.  128GB versions are selling for $280-$350 (regular price $430)
• Apple Files Major Apple TV Logo Trademark Update Focused on All-Things related to Gaming, Including a Video Game Console

• One of the most reputable tech review sites isn’t that impressed with the HomePod’s superb sound.
• While most reviewers have noted the HomePod as the best sounding speaker they’ve ever listened too, Consumer Reports claims Google Home Max and Sonos One sound better.
• “The HomePod will serve many music fans well, but CR testers did hear some flaws. The HomePod’s bass was a bit boomy and overemphasized,” wrote Consumer Reports. “And the midrange tones were somewhat hazy, meaning that some of the nuance in vocals, guitars, and horns was lost

• Reddit user WinterCharm posted exhaustive audio performance testing results for HomePod to the Reddit audiophile community.
• Using specialized equipment and a controlled testing environment, the review features in-depth analysis of the smart speaker's output when compared to a pair of $999 KEF X300Adigital hi-fi monitors, representing a "meticulously set up audiophile grade speaker versus a tiny little HomePod that claims to do room correction on its own”.
  • "I am speechless. The HomePod actually sounds better than the KEF X300A. If you're new to the Audiophile world, KEF is a very well respected and much loved speaker company. I actually deleted my very first measurements and re-checked everything because they were so good, I thought I'd made an error. Apple has managed to extract peak performance from a pint sized speaker, a feat that deserves a standing ovation. The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker."

• Our ol’ pal Genie Munster, in a new test shared today by Loup Ventures, HomePod was put through a bunch of Siri AI tests
• When asked a series of questions, here’s how it performed vs. other smart speakers
• Google Home answered 81 percent correctly, Amazon's Alexa answered 64 percent correctly, and Microsoft's Cortana answered 57 percent correctly.

• HomePods are already making their mark in new homes across the country — but not in a good way.
• Apple customers started noticing that HomePod can damage wood furniture by leaving a white ring after resting on a table for just a few minutes or days.
• Apple confirmed the problem today, saying “the marks can improve over several days after the speaker is removed from the wood surface.” Apple also suggested owners “try cleaning the surface with the [table] manufacturer’s suggested oiling method.”If the white rings don’t disappear, Apple says you can just refinish the furniture.
• Apple also recommends putting the HomePod on a coaster if you’re worried about the speaker damaging your table.

Erfon listens to HomePod for the first time... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lz7dxfNXL8

• Apple will start focusing on the next two years of updates for its iPhone and iPad operating system, according to people familiar with the change. The company will continue to update its software annually, but internally engineers will have more discretion to push back features that aren't as polished to the following year.
• Software chief Craig Federighi laid out the new strategy to his army of engineers last month, according to a person familiar with the discussion. His team will have more time to work on new features and focus on under-the-hood refinements without being tied to a list of new features annually simply so the company can tout a massive year-over-year leap, people familiar with the situation say. The renewed focus on quality is designed to make sure the company can fulfill promises made each the summer at the annual developers conference and that new features work reliably and as advertised.
• The decision to give engineers more time to perfect software is a major cultural shift.
• At Google, teams update apps on their own schedule and aren’t tied to the annual Android release. At Apple, all new features are tied to a big release in the fall, when Apple rolls out its splashiest new software, and a more modest update in the spring

• Apple has been busy hiring a record number of engineers over the last few months. The move comes after the company also went on a designer hiring spree, indicating a major new product or two could be in the works.
• Job openings for engineering jobs at Apple rose 80% from the period starting in September until just last week. The company’s listings went from 665 open hardware engineering positions to 1,198 last week.
  • What exactly Apple is working on is anyone’s best guess right now, but check out these job listings:Analog Layout Designer, Advanced Material Scientist (Electrolyte Development), 3D Perception/Computer Vision Algorithm Engineer, Sensor Design Engineer, Motion Sensing Hardware Engineer: Magnetics, and even a Flexible Display Technologist.
• Leander had an epiphany last show of what all these jobs have in common

• Nintendo just announced that a mobile version of Mario Kart is under development. The company says the game will be released sometime in the next 13 months, but left it at that.
• "The checkered flag has been raised and the finish line is near. A new mobile application is now in development: Mario Kart Tour! #MarioKartTour Releasing in the fiscal year ending in March 2019.”

• Apple is changing up its plans for this year’s mobile software
• According to Ina Fried in a report for Axios, “Apple has shaken up its iOS software plans for 2018, delaying some features to next year in an effort to put more focus on addressing performance and quality issues"

• Apple’s primary focus for its software updates this year is on improving performance and stability. But there’s a big new feature that the company is still working to bring to macOS, according to a new report. That’s the ability to run iPad apps.
• Apple has delayed big new features for iOS to focus on ironing out the kinks this year, according to a report from Axios’ Ina Fried. Software chief Craig Federighi is said to have announced the plans to Apple employees at a meeting earlier this month.
• But one key feature remains on the roadmap for 2018: The ability for Macs to run iPad apps,” reads the latest report.

• A growing number of analysts and news outlets have claimed that Apple is cutting production due to weaker-than-expected demand for its flagship device. The Wall Street Journal is the latest to corroborate the claims.
• The Wall Street Journal is the latest to pipe up. It claimed on Monday that Apple has significantly reduced component orders for iPhone X — by as much as 60 percent in some cases. “They always do this when things aren’t selling well,” one source said.

• In a weekend report to investors, reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities reiterates that Apple is planning two OLED iPhones and one LCD model for this year. The two OLED models, he says, be 5.8- and 6.5-inches in size, while the LCD model will be 6.1-inches.

• Apple today Wednesday that it will release its $349 HomePod on February 9.
• Pre-orders start this Friday!
• That technology includes a seven-tweeter array and a 4-inch woofer — plus spatial awareness capabilities. These allow HomePod to “read” its environment and tailor audio output for the best results, though this functionality won’t be available until later this year.
• In large rooms, you can even pair multiple HomePods for bigger sound.

• HomePod, the first new Apple product of 2018, is about to arrive. And as a huge Apple fanboy, I couldn’t care less.
• Thanks to Siri, HomePod is great at the things you want to know, and do, in your home. Set timers. Convert measurements. Get translations. And get live news, sports, weather, and traffic. You can also create lists that anyone can add to.
• Will it replace an iPad or AppleTV as as HomeKit hub?
• It’s too damn expensive
• Siri sucks
• You’re stuck with Apple Music
  • Will Spotify work at all?
• HomePod is not even finished yet!
  • No stereo or multi-room support till alter this year

• Apple gave the public a preview of the new features coming in iOS 11.3 Wednesday.
• iOS 11.3 beta 1 contains a number of notable improvements, including iCloud Messages. Apple also added the ability to view your battery’s health and choose between increased performance or better battery life. The new feature is in response to criticism Apple received from customers after it was discovered that Apple throttles CPU speeds on iPhones with older batteries.

• Messages on iCloud were first previewed at WWDC 2017. Apple pulled it from later beta builds though as it wasn’t ready for wider use
• Well it’s finally entering the beta testing phase among developers.
• Once iMessage on iCloud rolls out to the public you’ll be able to delete iMessage conversations to save space on your device. Conversations will still be accessible on your other Apple devices though and on 

• The most popular consumer drone on the market just got a huge upgrade that gives it even more mass appeal for budding droners and video creators.
• DJI unveiled its new folding drone, the Mavic Air, today. A blend of the company’s two most popular drones, the Mavic Pro and the Spark, it also packs new features you won’t find on DJI’s other drones.

• Tim Cook has revealed that a future iOS 11 update will let users disable the feature that was causing their iPhone to throttle performance.
• He says that this forthcoming update will give users the option to disable performance throttling if they would rather be at risk of unexpected shutdowns but maintain full CPU and GPU performance.

• Apple’s big tax break is about to unleash an big beautiful avalanche of spending from the iPhone-maker.
• In its last earnings report, Apple said it held $252 billion in cash overseas. It appears, given the new corporate tax rate of 15.5  percent, that it is returning a majority of this to the United States.  This low rate is a one-time deal for corporations to repatriate their overseas cash hordes
• Apple revealed its plans to contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years now that the fee for repatriating its mountain of overseas cash has been significantly lowered.
• Even though construction on Apple’s new spaceship campus just finished, the company says its already looking to build a new one. Plans (including the location) for the third Apple HQ will be revealed later this year. The building will initially house new team specializing in technical support for customers.
• The company also says it plans to increase the size of its advanced manufacturing fund from $1 billion to $5 billion. The fund is used to invest in U.S. manufacturing companies and suppliers.
• Apple says it will add over 20,000 new jobs in the next five years by hiring for new jobs at its existing campuses and the new one. $30 billion will be spent on capital expenditures in the US over next 5 years with $10 billion of that going to data centers.
• With the new tax law in effect, Apple expects it will only pay $38 billion to bring its money home. That would still be the largest ever payment to the IRS.

• Apple told employees Wednesday that it plans to give all of them $2,500 worth of restricted stock, thanks to the revised tax law that goes into effect this year.
• Trump applauded Apple’s moves on Twitter, saying “Great to see Apple follow through as a result of TAX CUTS. Huge win for American workers and the USA!”
• Tim also announced a very generous new charity match:
• • I’m happy to announce that starting immediately and running through the end of 2018, Apple will match all employee charitable donations, up to $10,000 annually, at a rate of two to one.

• Apple suppliers have begun shipping the first HomePod units ahead of the smart speaker’s much-anticipated launch. Just 1 million devices are on the way initially. However, Apple is expected to receive as many as 12 million by the end of this year.
• HomePod was supposed to launch ahead of the holidays but Apple delayed it because it wasn’t ready. When it finally goes on sale this year, HomePod will give Apple fans an alternative to Amazon Echo and Google Home.
• Meanwhile, smart speakers were ubiquitous at CES, and Amazon’s Alexa is now being built into everything from thermostats to toilets.
• Apple still hasn’t provided us with a proper HomePod release date yet

• Capturing super-smooth video on your iPhone is about to get a lot easier (AND cheaper) thanks to the folks at DJI.
• DJI unveiled its newest handheld smartphone gimbal today called the Osmo 2. The new gimbal packs simplified controls to allow anyone to record shake-free video from their iPhone, and it’s got some new tricks you won’t find on its predecessor.

• Everything you want to know about Apple’s $29 iPhone battery replacement program, and why you should absolutely use it.
• We’ll tell you about Steve Job’s new fashion line soon to be sweeping the runways of a Costco near you
• We break down just how much money Tim Cook earned each week and each day in 2017. Spoiler: He’a rich yaaa’aaall!.
• A high-tech butt cleaner, a $400 cooler, and a powerhouse network attached storage — Faves N Raves is back baby. We’ll pitch you our favorite tech then vote on which is best.

• In a surprising turn of events, Jony Ive has taken back the reigns of Apple’s design team.
• The new iMac is out, and the reviews are coming in.  We’ll tell you what’s new about this beastly machine with a MONSTER price tag
• By the numbers: how much dough Apple earns every single second will help you realize what plebeians we all are
• And we wrap with how Apple got it right 2017, and what they need to do better in 2018!

• Jony Ive is reportedly returning to hands-on design duties at Apple, two years after being promoted to the role of Chief Design Officer.
• According to an Apple spokesperson, “With the completion of Apple Park, Apple’s design leaders and teams are again reporting directly to Jony Ive, who remains focused purely on design.”
• Why Ive would be returning to his old role isn’t immediately clear — nor what this means for Dye and Howarth. Ironically, at the time that Ive was given his new job in 2015, some pundits suggested it meant Jony was on his way out of Apple, and this was a way of carrying out the transition. Now that he is “demoted” to his old position, no doubt many people will take it as signaling much the same thing.

• Just a heads up: Got my first AT&T bill with my Apple Watch LTE added on. Taxes on the $10 data plan add-on come to $7.69 meaning the cellular plan for the watch is actually $17.69/month or $212.28 for a year of service. That's insane and totally not worth it. Just wanted to make people aware of the fact that AT&T conveniently neglects to mention how expensive the plan will actually be.

• Jailbreaking was once a necessity to millions of iPhone owners, is just about dead, at least according to Cydia store creator Jay Freeman
• Many of the features that made jailbreaking so popular — like video recording, useful settings toggles, custom ringtones, and enhanced multitasking — are now baked into iOS. So jailbreaking is no longer required for many iPhone and iPad users.
• It was the only way to obtain native apps during the handset’s first year on the market. But even after the launch of the App Store, users turned to jailbreaking to get their hands on software Apple wouldn’t allow.
• Two of Cydia’s largest repositories have been shutdown as jailbreaking dies out. ModMy and ZodTTD are no longer available, leaving BigBoss as the only major source still available to those who want apps and tweaks you can’t find in the App Store.

• Apple wants to help you make the most of your iPhone and iPad with a brand new YouTube channel. It offers a collection of how-to videos that teach you how to take screenshots, send attachments in Mail, print on the go, and more.
• The channel, which launched on Monday evening, currently hosts ten how-to videos. They’ll teach you how to do things like change your wallpaper, mute or leave a group conversation in iMessage, delete call logs and photos, and more.
• Each video is under two minutes in length. It provides step-by-step instructions for each how-to, with useful bullet points that make the directions easier to follow. English captions are also available if required.

• Swipe up and over to the right for app switching, or swipe up and to the right
• Swipe up the down for reachability.
• You can then access control center from the top of the lowered screen
• Close apps by swiping them up (instead of using the lame minus icon)
• Volume up. Volume Down.  Power button hold to restart/shutdown

• HomePod’s been delayed, we’ll talk about that, but Bloomberg put out an interesting piece on the history of the HomePod, and it gives previously undisclosed details of the device you may find very interesting.
• We gotta talk about net neutrality
• How Tesla just out Apple’d, Apple
• Is there still a point to Apple TV?  
• Tactics to get the best prices on all the Black Friday stuff you want
• Oh yeah, and 🦃 Gobble gobble yaaa’aaall! 🦃

• FCC is about to kill Net Neutrality, and they’re calling it the Restoring internet freedom order
• They’re currently taking our feedback into account, but the official vote for the order will be on Dec. 14th
• Details of the new plan will were released today.  The plan completely removes restrictions on throttling or prioritizing content, and explicitly allows paid prioritization of content
• Go to Battleforthenet.com.  It will help you take action. If will connect you to your congress person via phone and even provide you a script of what to say.

• Apple’s new Siri-powered smart speaker won’t be one of the hottest gifts of the 2017 holiday season after all.
• The HomePod was set to launch in December 2017, but the company released a statement today saying it needs more time to make the smart speaker ready for customers.
• “We can’t wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple’s breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers. We’ll start shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in early 2018
• When it does launch, HomePod will cost $349, making it a lot more pricey than rival smart speakers from Amazon and Google

• HomePod has been in development since 2012, and it’s not like the Echo.
• The engineers and designers wanted to build a really great speaker that  "sounded better than the ones sold by the likes of Bose, JBL and Harman Kardon”
• Prototypes ranged from a flat panel with a mesh screen to one measuring some three feet tall with dozens of speakers
• In 2014, the project went from prototyping into an official endeavor
• In that same year, Amazon released their Echo, and it reportedly blind-sided Apple’s engineers. They joked with each other that there must be mole working amongst them.

• Two weeks with the X.  We’ll tell you what we like and what still sucks.
• Some very exciting new rumors about the next international of iPhone X
• Two big features coming you to in iOS 11.2 which is now in its 3rd beta
• What we tell you what we like and don’t about our favorite gadgets in a all-new under review 🤜🏼💥🤛🏼

• One of the most reliable Apple analysts in the game is predicting big things for the iPhone X design in 2018.
• According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release an iPhone X Plus next year with the biggest smartphone screen the company has ever made.
• Kuo says Apple will release three iPhones in 2018 with a notch design. There will supposedly be a 5.8-inch (updated X) and a 6.5-inch model, both with OLED displays.
• The third iPhone will supposedly have a 6.1-inch LCD display but come with the same bezel-free design as the iPhone X.
• The 6.5-inch iPhone X Plus will have a display with 480 to 500 pixels per inch, possibly making it more pixel dense than the iPhone X. The 6.1-inch LCD version will only have a display with 320 to 330 PPI.

• According to a Bloomberg, Apple is working on a new rear-mounted “3D sensor” for its 2019 iPhone, which will help further the company’s augmented reality ambitions.
• The new system will work using lasers and measuring the amount of time it takes for them to bounce back to create a depth map. This is reportedly different to the TrueDepth sensor system used on the front of the iPhone X, which uses a pattern of 30,000 laser dots to measure depth information for features like Face ID.

• Apple Pay cash, which will work on the iPad.
• Apple has added support for faster 7.5W wireless charging in its latest iOS 11.2 beta. iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X all support the increased charging speed. You’ll need a compatible wireless charging mat to take advantage of it, however.

• Apple supposedly plans to slap an octa-core processor in next year’s iPad Pro, making them the most powerful tablets Apple’s ever made.
• For the iPhone X and iPhone 8, Apple created the A11 Bionic chip that comes with two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores.
• This is the same chip that is currently faster than the chips in 2012 iMacs and my 2013 MacBook Pro.
• My machine is 33% in multicore tests, but image if they add another 2 high performance cores to the iPad.

• Automatic Setup signs you into iCloud, Keychain, iTunes, the App Store, iMessage and FaceTime using your Apple ID, according to Apple. It also takes care of device settings like language, region, network, keyboard preferences, Siri and Home and health data.
• The setup is reminiscent of setting up a new Apple Watch, but even easier.

• Displaymate:  iPhone X's display resolution provides "significantly higher image sharpness" than can be analyzed by a person with normal 20/20 vision at a 12-inch viewing distance. DisplayMate said this means that it's now "absolutely pointless" to increase the display resolution and pixels per inch of the iPhone any further, since there would be "no visual benefit" for users
• "highest absolute color accuracy of any display we have ever tested," with a display that is "visually indistinguishable from perfect.”

• Stress tests by SquareTrade Labs used a range of scientific robots to drop, bend, tumble, and dunk their new iPhone X to see how it managed to hold up to “everyday” damage.
• They’re calling the X the most breakable, highest priced, most expensive to repair iPhone ever.

• Apple’s new peer-to-peer payments system called Apple Pay Cash is finally rolling out to public beta testers today with the release of the public beta for iOS 11.2 beta 2 and watchOS 4.2 beta 2, giving iPhone and iPad users the ability to send money to each other electronically.
• It lets you send money to each other using iMessage.
• You can send up to $3,000 and the transaction is free if you use a debit card registered in your Apple Wallet.
• Have a credit or debit card registered in your Apple Wallet
• Be in the United States
• Have two-factor authentication activated on your Apple ID
• Use an iPhone 6 or newer
• Both you and the receiver must be running iOS 11.2
• If you meet the above requirements, a new app will show up in the iMessage Dock
• Once you hit $500 in Apple Pay Cash transactions, you must verify your identity. To do so, you need to take a picture of your driver’s license or official state ID card, and provide some personal information (Social Security number and so on).

• Thanks to Face ID, the iPhone X knows when its owner is looking at it, and can hide the content of your notifications until you do so. Now, if somebody else picks up your iPhone X and takes a peek at your incoming alerts, it will only see a list of the apps that have notifications for you.

• How to get the best deal on your iPhone X, save yourself some serious buckets
• Why Woz says the iPhone X will be the first iPhone he won’t buy day one
• Would you let your delivery man enter your house when you’re not home? We discuss Amazon key!
• Plus we’ll tell what we like and don’t about the gadgets we’re reviewing in an all-new Under Review

• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says the iPhone X is the first iPhone he doesn’t plan to buy on “day one.”
• “I’d rather wait and watch that one,” Wozniak said during an interview at the Money 20/20 conference. “I’m happy with my iPhone 8 — which is the same as the iPhone 7, which is the same as the iPhone 6, to me. " will, so I’ll be close enough to see it.”

• $500 off with Xfinity Triple Play
• $350 off at Sprint
• Up to $300 off on Verizon
• T-Mobile gives $300 off
• Nothing yet at 

• Apple has promised that iPhone X will be available to walk-in customers on launch day.
• You will also be able to purchase iPhone X from Apple Stores beginning Friday, November 3 at 8 a.m. local time. “Stores will have iPhone X available for walk-in customers, who are encouraged to arrive early,” Apple says.

• Would you be cool with your delivery person opening your front door when you’re away to drop off your package?
• Amazon Key, uses a smart lock and connected camera. When a delivery is made the courier scans the package's barcode which sends an access request to Amazon's cloud. When it grants permission, the camera starts recording, the courier swipes a prompt on their app and then your door unlocks. They leave the package by the door and relock it on their way out. You'll get a notification that the delivery has been made, along with a video of the drop-off to reassure you everything was done above board.
• Amazon has designed the service with deliveries in mind, but Key has a bunch of other uses, too. For example, you can use it to give permanent access to people you trust or temporary access to visitors such as dog-walkers, cleaners or guests (this could be especially helpful for Airbnbhosts).

• Did you know iOS 11 had a one-handed keyboard built right in?
• Anytime the keyboard is on screen, you can just long-press the little globe icon to bring up the keyboard selection popover. This is the same globe icon you use to select the emoji keyboard, to cycle between any keyboards you have active on your iPhone
• The keyboard-switching globe icon only appears if you have more than one keyboard active on your iPhone.
• Long-pressing the globe icon brings up the familiar popover, only in iOS 11 it now has an extra row of keyboard glyphs at the bottom.
• Just select the one-handed keyboard you want, and poof, a keyboard you can type on with just one hand

Leander's $10,000 BatBike!
https://twitter.com/erfon/status/923628109999489024

• According to a new report, Foxconn has sent out 46,500 units from its facilities in Zhengzhou and Shanghai, headed for the Netherlands and United Arab Emirates
• After running into multiple problems building its next-gen iPhone X, Apple’s suppliers have reportedly achieved more stable yield rates for troublesome components.
• Foxconn has managed to ramp up its output of the iPhone X from 100,000 to 400,000 units a week
• Digitimes says "shipments of the device have increased gradually and will meet Apple’s demand ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the sources indicated.”
• But even though production has ramped up, no one is quite sure how big demand will be. Will this be the most popular iPhone ever?
• KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, iPhone X preorders could exceed 40 million, and may even hit 50 million. However, Kuo has also noted right from the start that supply of the new device is likely to be constrained through the first half of 2018

• Mac and iPhone accessory maker TwelveSouth is bringing back its Mac-scented candle that flew off store shelves last year. The all-new Inspire candle still smells like a new Mac but comes with some big updates to its design that are sure to delight Apple fans.
• TwelveSouth updated the Inspire candle this year with a new fragrance formula that’s supposed to remind you of opening up a new Mac. The scent is created by blending bergamot and armoise with hints of lemon, tarragon, amber and musk.

• Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who changed the world alongside Steve Jobs, has today announced the launch of Woz U.
• Woz U will start as an online learning platform focused on both students and companies that will eventually hire those students. Woz U is based out of Arizona, and hopes to launch physical locations for learning in more than 30 cities across the globe.
• At launch, the curriculum will center around computer support specialists and software developers, with courses on data science, mobile applications and cybersecurity coming in the future.
• Alongside the education platform, Woz U will also offer platforms for tech companies to recruit, train and retain their workforce through on-site customized programs and subscription-based curricula
• No work on pricing yet

• Apple is set to make its biggest push into original content yet by inking a deal with one of the biggest directors in Hollywood history.
• Steven Spielberg and Apple reportedly will create new episodes of Amazing Stories. The science fiction anthology series originally ran in the 1980s on NBC, but will be relaunched with all-new episodes.
• A reported 10 episodes of the new show have been ordered by Apple to start. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the budget for Amazing Stories will be more than $5 million an episode.

• A savvy developer named Felix Krause has discovered it is shockingly easy for an iOS app developer to phish your Apple ID and password with a  fake authentication prompt that looks exactly the a real one.
• He posted pictures of a real and fake prompt this week and they look identical.
• Worse, developers can add this code after their app has been approved by Apple.
• How to tell the difference:
  • The app will close and the popup will disappear with it. This means it was a phishing attempt.
• • The app and popup remain on screen. This means it is a genuine system dialog and can be trusted.

• Apple has updated its online Apple store to start offering refurbished 15-inch MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar, marking the first time this year’s Touch Bar-equipped models have been available to buy refurbished.
• Apple typically sells refurbished models for around 15 percent off the full retail price

• Apple CEO Tim Cook recently sat down for a wide ranging interview with The Independent
• When questioned about the topic, he said the technology to create a pair of augmented reality smart glasses "in a quality way" does not exist today.
• "But today I can tell you the technology itself doesn't exist to do that in a quality way. The display technology required, as well as putting enough stuff around your face - there's huge challenges with that.
• "The field of view, the quality of the display itself, it's not there yet.”
• "We want to be the best and give people a great experience," he said. "But now anything you would see on the market any time soon would not be something any of us would be satisfied with. Nor do I think the vast majority of people would be satisfied.”

• Apple unleashed hundreds of new emoji on developers today with the release of iOS 11.1 beta 2.
• The new emoji also have new faces, clothes, sports, food, dinosaurs and other mystical characters.
• Monocle face
• Mind blow face
• Mer-people
• Wizards
• Draculas
• Chinese food takeout container
• Elves, fairies, genie
• Dinosaurs

• HomeKit and the Home app will boggle your gourd.  They’re WAY more powerful now that in iOS 10.
• Multi-person geofencing.  Actions can be triggered when one person comes or goes, or when a group of people in the same HomeKit group does.
  • Turn on lights when first person gets home
  • Turn off heat when last person leaves
• Support for conditional triggers
  • Lighting will come on with someone comes home, but only after sunset
  • AC will turn on when someone comes home, but only if the temperature is above a threshold that you set.
• Airplay 2 speakers are now supported, so you could set your speakers to start playing music in the morning or when you get home.
• Time-based event triggers (i.e. turn the lights off at 5:30, or turn them on 30 minutes after sunrise)
• Day of the week reoccurrence, so you can set things differently for different days of the way, or on the weekends
• Home occupancy gate (i.e. only run something if you’re at home)
• Timers (auto off after 1-60 minutes)

• security devices
• garage doors
• fans
• lights
• outlets
• air purifiers
• locks
• humidifiers
• doorbells
• cameras
• air conditioners
• window shades
• and thermostats
• Finally, Apple is really pushing for better adoption of HomeKit; manufacturers can now add HomeKit compatibility to their non-HomeKit accessories due to Apple’s relaxed licensing terms.  Vendors are no longer required to use a dedicated encryption chip—all HomeKit authorization can go through software, which means Nest could add HomeKit compatibility with a software update.

• Google announced all sorts of stuff yesterday
• Pixel 2, a smart speaker called the Max to compete with the HomePod
• But at the very end of their key, Google introduced the Pixel Buds, wireless headphones designed for use with the company's new Pixel 2 handset.  Once paired, you can tap the right earphone then issue a command.
• If you say, "Help me speak Japanese" and then start speaking in English, the Pixel’s speakers will output your translated words as you speak them. The other party's reply into the phone will then play into your ear through the Pixel Buds in English.
• 40 languages are currently supported, and the translation works in real time with virtually no lag.

• Apple’s newest set-top box pulls out all the stops to be the best on the field. It’s packing incredibly powerful new hardware that leaves competitors in the dust, and a much-improved tvOS platform that is years ahead of its rivals.
• Remote. Not much has changed for the Siri Remote, either, which is a shame — it’s still wretched. It looks almost identical this year, except there’s now a white ridge around the Menu button.
• Speed. Thanks to an A10X Fusion processor — the same one you’ll find in the latest iPad Pro — Apple TV 4K is pretty fast. It’s by far the most powerful set-top box on the market, and that’s not just for 4K video.
• 4K HDR video is sharp, colorful and full of contrast and detail. The screensavers especially are spectacular and detailed. Shot in 4K, the screensavers were downgraded for the old AppleTV. On the 4K box they appear in all their trippy, hypnotic detail.
• One thing you won’t be able to enjoy in 4K HDR, however, is YouTube. That’s because Apple doesn’t support the VP9 video format that YouTube serves up — it doesn’t work on macOS or iOS, either — so the best you’ll get is 1080p.

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• • iPhone 8 Plus/7Plus
  • iPhone 8/7

• Bill Gates just got himself a brand new smartphone, and it isn’t an iPhone 8.
• The Microsoft co-founder has ditched Windows Mobile for Android. Despite getting closer to Steve Jobs before he died in 2011, Gates still has no interest in using iOS.
• further pressed about the possibility of using iOS instead, Gates responded, “Nope. No iPhone.”

• Getting your hands on the new Apple TV 4K though Amazon won’t be easy though. The page for Apple’s newest set-top box shows that there are no units in stock. It appears that Amazon is only offering the 64GB model priced at $199.
• Putting Apple TV back on its digital shelves is a bit unexpected but is likely related to Apple TV finally gaining an Amazon Prime Video app. The service still hasn’t launched on Apple TV yet but is expected to debut at some point this fall.

• Data scientist Abdul Dremali is leading research & development in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data at the AndPlus Innovation Lab, and he’s very impressed with Face ID.

• Apple unleashed its huge update for the Mac this morning bringing a host of new features and UI changes to desktops after months of beta testing. Most of the update contains under-the-hood changes the makes machines faster and more stable, but there are plenty of new additions to love.
• macOS High Sierra brings support for the new Apple File System to the Mac. Apple added it to iOS devices last year. AFS’ 64-bit architecture is more secure, with built-in encryption, crash protection and simplified data backups.
• Safari is one of the biggest benefactors from the macOS High Sierra update. Apple claims its now the world’s fastest browser, with an 80% speed advantage over Google Chrome
• Mail received some improved search functions tied to the update to Spotlight. You can also use a new Split View mode too that lets you write emails while keeping tabs on your inbox.
• The Photos app also got some big updates. There’s now better facial recognition and some new editing tools that make it a more capable photo editor. Notes got a new pin feature to keep your most important notes to the top of the list where you’ll be able to find them easier. The app also has support for tables now.
• Last Thursday, six ad industry groups penned an open letter criticizing Apple's upcoming Safari feature, saying the decision to incorporate such technology into a web browser is heavy-handed and "bad for consumer choice and bad for the ad-supported online content and services." 
• Today, Apple responded to the missive in a statement to The Loop.
• "Apple believes that people have a right to privacy - Safari was the first browser to block third party cookies by default and Intelligent Tracking Prevention is a more advanced method for protecting user privacy," Apple said. "Ad tracking technology has become so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to recreate the majority of a person's web browsing history. This information is collected without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the Internet. The new Intelligent Tracking Prevention feature detects and eliminates cookies and other data used for this cross-site tracking, which means it helps keep a person's browsing private. The feature does not block ads or interfere with legitimate tracking on the sites that people actually click on and visit. Cookies for sites that you interact with function as designed, and ads placed by web publishers will appear normally.”

• Tom Bihn’s Hero’s Journey Backpack for $480
• Outdoor Research Dry Payload Pack for $150
• Fender Mustang GT200 for $600
• Fender Mustang GT40 for $250
• Otterbox Strada Folio case 
• • Phone 7 Plus or 8 Plus for $25
  • iPhone 7 and 8 for $23

• On Tuesday, September 12th, according to Bloomberg, will unveil not only its latest batch of products, but also give us all a first glimpse of its brand new campus
• The Steve Jobs Theater is as obsessively perfect as you’d expect a building named after Apple’s co-founder and former CEO should be.
• The entrance to the venue sits underneath a silver disc, which which sits 20 feet in the air, supported by gigantic glass panels.
• The auditorium itself occupies four underground stories, and to get there, journalists will descend a staircase spiraling down alongside the walls.
• In order to gain access to the subterranean theater, attendees can either descend via a spiral staircase or using two custom elevators. These elevators rotate as they descend, so that passengers enter and exit through the same door, even though they do so from different directions.
• The theater also sports a retracting wall, which opens to reveal a hidden product testing area.
• Given the theater's 1,000-person capacity, one engineer said back in March that the building's budget meant each leather seat had cost Apple the equivalent of $14,000 apiece.
• It’s a touching eponym, isn’t it?  Steve Jobs theater?  It will be a beautiful spectacle of technology and architecture, a true and fitting monument.  A metaphor for Steve Jobs, and a physical representation of the Apple ethos.
• Steve Jobs was man that literally started with nothing, not even his biological parents, and went on to build one of the world’s most coveted companies.
• It’s a uniquely American success story.

• In his latest research note, KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi-Kuo explains to investors that Samsung currently holds a practical monopoly on the supply of OLED displays. They’re the only ones capable of reliably mass producing the screens Apple needs, and thus seems to be inflating the price.
• Apple previously paid between $45 and $55 for the screens on Plus-size iPhones. But Ming Chi Kuo claims Samsung is probably charging about $75 more for OLED displays. The final price for the displays likely costs Apple $120 to $130 per unit. That could explain why rumors predict the iPhone 8 (or iPhone Edition)

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• Shubu Raven

• Even more juicy details leak on iPhone 8, plus a report says the keynote reveal is right around the corner.
• Leander shares the strange twist in Apple’s autonomous car project
• Why the 13” MacBook Pro might soon become your favorite Mac
• Story time with L Kahney - he’s going to share the highlights from his whirlwind tour of Japan and other defenseless Asian lands.
• Plus Erfon recalls what it’s like in the darkness of a total solar eclipse.

• Hot on the heels of Samsung’s grand unveiling of the Galaxy Note 8 today, carrier sources have supposedly informed Mac4Ever that Apple plans to unleash its device in just a few weeks.
• Apple’s keynote is allegedly slated for September 12 where the company will reveal three new iPhones. While we haven’t been able to verify the accuracy of the report ourselves, Apple usually hosts its iPhone keynote in the middle of September so the date could make sense.
• The French Apple blog claims that carriers have been informed by Apple to expect the device announcement on the second Tuesday of next month. Carriers usually receive a heads up so they can start planning marketing and to organize pre-orders to ensure inventory.
• And get this, the minimum storage capacity for Apple's OLED iPhone is said to be 64GB, with a 256GB option offered as the mid-tier capacity and a 512GB option at the highest tier, while 3GB of RAM is claimed to be included across the board.

• The iPhone 8’s facial recognition feature will work in a millionth of a second, and be more secure than the existing Touch ID sensor, and even work in the dark, a pair of new reports claim.
• In addition to the regular iPhone sensors you’d expect to find, the upcoming handset will reportedly boast a new “structured light” sensor, which uses bounced infrared light to work out the depth of different points on the face.
• That information is then used to build a 3D mesh of objects, which is compared to the one recorded when setting up the new iPhone. Calculating the timing between when infrared light is sent out and recorded coming back will let the iPhone work out accurate depth measurements. This, in turn, means you won’t be able to trick the handset using a 2D photo.
• The facial recognition is reportedly powered by tech Apple acquired when it bought Kinect motion sensor maker PrimeSense several years ago.
• The speed that the iPhone 8 facial recognition sensor will reportedly work is particularly impressive. The new handset will allegedly be able to do all of this within “a few hundred milliseconds,” which would make it a faster means of unlocking your iPhone than the current-generation Touch ID, Apple has been using Touch ID since 2013’s iPhone 5s.

• According to a new report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple competitor Qualcomm is working on its own 3D sensing tech, but it’s at least two years behind. And handset-makers aren’t in a rush to embrace it quite yet.
• "While Qualcomm is the most engaged company in the R&D of 3D sensing for the Android camp, a number of issues plague Qualcomm that prevent its tech from being ready for mass-market products. Immature algorithms, and thermal problems"

• According to the New York Times, Apple’s secretive “Project Titan” self-driving car project has switched gears, transforming into an effort to build a self-driving shuttle bus. Called Palo Alto Infinite Loop, or PAIL, the shuttle would carry Apple employees between buildings.
• The project may serve as a test bed for Apple’s autonomous car research. But a customer-focused vehicle built by Apple is for now reportedly out of the question. Instead, Apple’s self-driving technology will likely be used by other carmakers eventually.
• The newspaper claims a leadership clash hampered project. Steve Zadesky, an Apple executive initially in charge of Titan, wanted to build semiautonomous technology. Meanwhile, Apple design chief Jony Ive “believed that a fully driverless car would allow the company to reimagine the automobile experience.”
• Apple reportedly investigated several innovative ideas for the project. Those included motorized doors that opened and closed silently, augmented reality displays for the interior of the car, new ways of incorporating the light sensor essential to driverless cars, and a total lack of steering wheel and gas pedals. Apple also researched the possibility of using globelike wheels for the vehicle, “because spherical wheels could allow the car better lateral movement.”

• The first four eighth-generation processors launching today are U-series chips suitable for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini. They're all 15W chips with four cores and eight threads, paving the way for a quad-core 13-inch MacBook Pro should Apple choose to release one.
• The eighth-generation Core i5 and Core i7 chips are up to 40 percent faster than the equivalent seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors
• First MacBook Pro with Touch Bar uses a 6th gen Skylake processor.
• Intel also boasted that its eighth-generation Core processors are up to twice as fast as its equivalent five-year-old Ivy Bridge chips. It said users can output a 106-second 4K video in as little as three minutes with a new PC, for example, versus up to 45 minutes on an equivalent five-year-old PC.

• Blurry images that popped up online supposedly show the testing of an Apple OLED television set of around 60 inches in size. The photos were shared on Chinese social media before being circulated by mobile leaker Benjamin Geskin on Twitter.
• images depict what looks like an Apple-branded standalone display in some kind of lab testing environment. They show a metal frame design, while accompanying notes on Weibo suggest that the set also includes a camera.
• And, just like that, longstanding rumors of an Apple TV set reignite!
• The rumors gained momentum with the publishing of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography in 2011. “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” Jobs was quoted as saying. “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine.”

• According to the WSJ, Apple is reportedly preparing a $1 billion “war chest” which it will spend on acquiring or producing original content over the next year.
• That sum is around half of what HBO spent on production last year.
• Apple SVP Eddy Cue is reportedly aiming for Apple to offer up to ten new shows, which could rival Game of Thrones in scope.
• Apple has been ramping up its hirings to try and establish itself as a force to be reckoned with. The company’s recent hirings include a pair of former Sony execs, who previously helped bring to the screen shows including AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and Netflix’s The Crown
• WSJ: "Mr. Van Amburg and Mr. Erlicht have begun meeting with Hollywood agents and holding discussions about shows Apple could acquire, the people familiar said. Mr. Matt Cherniss has movie experience, having worked as a production executive at Warner Bros."

• According to trusted KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. There will be no “obvious change” to the design of the device, which will leave LTE connectivity as its main selling point.
• Apple will offer non-LTE versions at more affordable prices, however. It’s unclear whether those models will be Series 3 devices, or whether Apple will continue to offer Series 2 alongside its successor for those who do not require LTE.
• Watch will also likely be waterproof, like series 2, and faster.

• What would we like to see in the next Apple Watch
• • Round version or a new shape/style
  • Way better battery life
  • always on screen
  • Thinner
  • No LTE fees!

• An apparent iPhone 8 photo straight out of Foxconn has confirmed one of our biggest fears for Touch ID: It will be relocated to the back of the device.
• Apple has been working to embed its fingerprint scanner into the iPhone’s display, but according to numerous reports, the technology won’t be ready in time for this year’s big refresh.
• Mark Gurman at Bloomberg: Apple’s pitch come September will be that Face ID is quicker, more secure, and more accurate than Touch ID. People inside Apple say it is.
• Security implications

• The new iPhone 8 will be capable of unlocking with its face recognition even when it’s lying flat on your desk, a new report from The Information suggests.
• This information appears to back up a report published in Bloomberg earlier this year. That report noted that:
• • [The facial recognition sensor’s] speed and accuracy are focal points of the feature. It can scan a user’s face and unlock the iPhone within a few hundred milliseconds, the person said. It is designed to work even if the device is laying flat on a table, rather than just close up to the face.”

• Over the last few weeks the HomePod’s software has revealed a number of upcoming features on unannounced products. Sleuthing developers unearthed info on the iPhone 8’s facial scanning and SmartCamera features. Now there appears to be some details of the new Apple TV inside too.
• iOS developer Guilherme Rambo discovered references to both Dolby Vision and HDR10 color formats for 4K video in the HomePod’s software.

• Ever wonder what it would be like to live inside an ’80s music video? Thanks to Apple’s new ARKit software, you can live that dream with a new app that draws inspiration from the popular music video for A-ha’s “Take On Me.”

• Apple clearly didn’t realize that the firmware it made available on Friday was a goldmine of secret information. Not only did it reveal the final design of the iPhone 8 and its new facial recognition technology, but it tells us stuff we didn’t know about HomePod, too.
• First of all, buried in the firmware are GLYPHS of the actual phone itself. WHOOPSIE!
• We now know the device will have a split status bar designed to fit its edge-to-edge display
• Things like cellular signal and time might be displayed on one side of the bar, while indicators for Bluetooth, location, and battery level could appear on the other. “The new status bar seems a lot more complex and powerful in design, maybe even interactive,” Troughton-Smith says.
• The software has also revealed that iPhone 8 will boast tap to wake functionality. This is a feature found on many Android and Windows Phone devices, which lets you wake the device simply by tapping its screen. It’s handy when there is no physical Home button.
• It appears, however, that iPhone 8 will have a “Home Indicator.” It’s believed to be similar to the virtual Home button that appears at the bottom of the display on Android devices, and it looks like Apple will allow developers to hide it in certain contexts.
• Interestingly, Troughton-Smith tweeted “I’ve seen nothing to suggest an ultrasound under-the-display Touch ID here,” meaning either no touchID or one on the back
• Rumors have said that facial recognition is even more accurate than touch id and will even work with Apple Pay.

• "I can confirm reports that HomePod’s firmware reveals the existence of upcoming iPhone’s infra-red face unlock in BiometricKit and elsewhere” Steve Stoughton Smith
• Unlocking will be call FaceID
• Will use an inferred camera to should work in dark situations
• Will reportedly not support Apple pay to start, indicating we’re getting a touchID sensor somewhere on the phone

• we can look forward to a display with a 2436×1125 resolution
• This resolution is 812x 375 points rendered @ 3x – exactly the same logical width as the iPhone 7, but 22% taller,” explains Allen Pike, a developer who previously worked at Apple

• Apple’s HomePod might have revealed another huge new iPhone feature
• HomePod software appears to reference an unannounced “SmartCamera” feature built into iOS 11 or the yet-to-be-released 2017 iPhone
• iOS developer Guilherme Rambo unearthed references to the new feature. He posted a screenshot of a section of the code to Twitter
• It looks like the SmartCamera feature will be able to tune your camera settings based on the scene it detects. DSLRs possess similar features
• The HomePod code contains references to Fireworks, Foliage, Pet, BrightStage, Sport, Sky, Snow and Sunset/Sunrise scenarios.

• Notorious iOS sleuth Steve Troughton Smith has done some serious research into HomePod and discovered that it’s basically like another iOS device only it doesn’t have a big screen. That could open HomePod up to some exciting capabilities in the future.
• will come with a number of accessibility features.
• Third-party apps aren’t likely to arrive on HomePod anytime soon. Smith says there aren’t any provisions in the HomePod OS shell there doesn’t seem to be any kind of provision in the HomePod OS shell for installing apps or extensions.
• The top LED area of the HomePod could have more advanced functionality than previously thought. Rather than just using big LEDs, it appears that the top surface is an LED Matrix. Temperature and weather icons could be displayed on the 32×32 pixel matrix.

• Apple’s early software for the HomePod continues to reveal new features of the smart speaker, as developers dive deeper into files. After details on the speaker’s screen got discovered, another developer unearthed the UI sounds that will be used on HomePod.

• Parts shortages force Apple to start handing out free MacBook Pros, and everyone on the internet wants a piece of the action.
• You knew Jony Ive designed some of Apple’s most iconic products, but did you know he also helped craft one of Star Wars most nefarious light sabers?  
• Apple discontinues two of their most iconic products.
• And stay tuned for all our favorite new stuff in another episode of What We’re Into!  

• Apple has been forced to swap old MacBook Pros in need of repair with new models due to severe component shortages. It means some lucky customers are getting a free upgrade to the latest machines when in need of service under warranty.
• A common fault with any laptop after regular use is that its battery loses its ability to charge. The cells can only withstand so many cycles before they no longer perform as intended. Fortunately, Apple will replace them for free under warranty.
• MacRumors reports that the company is currently facing “a severe constraint of top case assemblies with integrated batteries” for 15-inch MacBook Pros released in mid 2012 and early 2013 — and this is expected to last until September.
• As a result, Apple is said to have instructed its Genius Bar employees and Authorized Service Providers that they can temporarily swap affected notebooks for a newer, “functionally equivalent” model.
• If your MacBook Pro is still covered by the one-year manufacturer warranty, or an extended AppleCare plan, the cost of a battery replacement (or upgrade were eligible) is completely free. If your warranty has expired, the fee is $199.
• However, Apple has been waiving this fee for customers who are willing to wait for new batteries to arrive, rather than taking an upgrade for $199.

• Apple's memo says, effective July 26, service inventory of top case assemblies with batteries is now available for new repairs.
• For all new repair requests, Apple advises Genius Bar employees and Apple Authorized Service Providers to order the necessary inventory. Apple advises its service providers to inform customers that the inventory should arrive within 15 business days of the part order, corresponding with early August. 
• Apple employee on reddit: "From what I can tell, Apple are FURIOUS about the MacRumors article yesterday setting customer expectations. I've never seen them react to a situation internally like this"

• Jony Ive has revealed that the company’s iconic white earbuds were inspired by Star Wars stormtroopers.
• Ive told The Wall Street Journal that he the “look of the original Stormtroopers in mind” when he created their look. Years later, the stormtroopers would be inspired by Apple.
• In a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, Star Wars: The Force Awakens costume designer Mark Kaplan revealed that he was inspired by Ive’s designs when creating the new stormtroopers of the First Order.
• “With the Stormtroopers it was more of a simplification, almost like, ‘What would Apple do?’” he said.
• Jony Ive also suggested the light saber hilt that ended up becoming a reality on Kylo Ren’s sword
• Jony Ive once sat next to J. J. Abrams at a boozy dinner party in New York, and made what Abrams recalled as "very specific" suggestions about the design of lightsabres. Abrams told me that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" would reflect those thoughts, but he wouldn’t say how.
• Ive argued that the lightsaber should look uneven. "I thought it would be interesting if it were less precise, and just a little bit more spitty," said Ive, adding that the new weapon could be "more analog and more primitive, and I think, in that way, somehow more ominous.”

• In a statement to The Verge, Apple confirmed both devices have been discontinued:
• “Today, we are simplifying our iPod lineup with two models of iPod touch now with double the capacity starting at just $199 and we are discontinuing the iPod shuffle and iPod nano. The iPod touch is now available in 32GB and 128GB storage options, with the latter priced at $299.”
• Aside from the capacity increases, both devices are identical to those that were on sale yesterday.

• Why Apple’s making an iPhone Pro, a tech-packed cutting-edge phone that will showcase what Cupertino is capable of.  
• Genius Bar jackpot!  Aka, why the Genius Bar sometimes replaces your old broken tech for a brand new model.  
• Stick around for a super-powerful electric long board, a HomeKit-enabled ceiling fan, and pro-level keyboard case for your iPad Pro in an all-new Under Review 🤖

• Have you or a friend ever taken an old product into the Genius Bar, and had them replace that product with a brand new version?  Isn’t it great when that happens??
• Well it turns out it’s likely not cause Apple’s so nice.
• When Apple develops a new product, they can’t test for everything.
• When a problem surfaces, Apple may initiate what they call a "Field capture period”
• During this time, if Apple is investigating a problem with a product, and you bring in a product that exhibits the symptoms of that problem, they’ll give you a new piece of hardware, then send your device back to Cupertino to dissasemble and investigate.
• Certain kinds of sunscreens dissolving glue in Apple watch backs, causing the back to come off.

• the magic of HomePod!  We’ll tell you about the built-in audio tech that's getting even the most ardent audiophiles hyped about Apple’s new smart speaker.  
• Plus: why iPhone 8’s biggest features may be disabled at launch
• Why you can grab free Beats in Apple's new back to school promo without being in college
• The fascinating story behind Steve Jobs' iconic turtleneck
• More of iOS 11’s best unknown features
• And we wrap with the heart warming story of why Steve Jobs insisted on always buying Scott Forstall's lunch.

• Some of the iPhone 8’s biggest new features could be disabled when the handset makes its debut this September.
• According to Fast Company, there is “a sense of panic in the air” at Apple as engineers scramble to iron out software bugs that are affecting wireless charging and 3D facial recognition.
• For both features, the hardware is ready — but the software that controls the features is “not ready for prime time.”
• If Apple cannot fix the issues, wireless charging could be disabled when the iPhone 8 goes on sale this September. Users would then have to wait for a future iOS update for it to be enabled — just like Portrait Mode on iPhone 7 Plus, which wasn’t ready for launch last fall.
• Same goes for facial recognition, but this report says Apple will indeed include a touch ID sensor under the screen, so at least you’ll have that.

• Those who purchase a new iPad Pro — either the 10.5- or 12.9-inch models — will receive a free set of BeatsX wireless earphones worth $149.95. If you don’t want those, you can upgrade to the Powerbeats3 earphones for $50, or to the Solo3 headphones for $150.
• Those ballers purchasing a qualifying Mac will receive a free pair of Solo3 wireless headphones worth $299.95. Eligible machines include the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro — but not the more affordable Mac mini, which hasn’t been updated in 1001 days.

• As was revealed in Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography of Jobs, the Apple CEO was first inspired to wear his mock turtleneck uniform following an early 1980s trip to Japan. While there, he asked Sony chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company’s factories wore uniforms. Jobs learned that this was a way of creating camaraderie between co-workers.
• Miyake created Sony’s uniforms, which Jobs loved. However, the Jobs could not persuade his colleagues that an Apple uniform was a good idea.
• As Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would be great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”
• However, the process led to Jobs becoming good friends with Miyake. When the Apple chief asked the designer to create a one-off uniform he could wear, Miyake created 100 black mock turtlenecks for him. Jobs adopted the unofficial uniform when he returned to Apple in the late 1990s, and was rarely spotted without it from that point on.
• Fashion designer Issey Miyake, creator of Steve Jobs’ iconic mock turtleneck, is launching a very similar shirt that will go on sale next month for $270.
• Although not exactly the same, the new creation — referred to as the Semi-Dull T — looks close enough to the now-discontinued original design

• According to Apple, its upcoming HomePod smart speaker will “reinvent the way we enjoy music” thanks to its seven-tweeter array, 4-inch woofer, and smart “spatial awareness” technology that lets it “read” its environment.
• HomePod  sets out to solve the problem of sound variability caused by a speaker’s physical location in a room. For instance, placing a speaker in the corner can cause a significant increase in radiated acoustic power at low frequencies. That results in muddy, bass-heavy sound.
• It utilizes a variety of microphones both inside and outside a sealed speaker enclosure. Onboard processing establishes the correct equalization filter, based on internal pressure levels, speaker displacement, external pressure and other data gathered by the microphone array.
• Comparing readings from its internal and external microphones allows the speaker Apple describes to dynamically alter its own calibration according to match the environment.
• Apple says its smart speaker will boast an impressive A8 processor and six external microphones

• Rather than painstakingly dragging individual app icons across the pages of your Home screen, iOS 11 lets you move multiple icons simultaneously
• You can also touch an app icon, then use your other hand to swipe to a different page to move the app

• If you wanted to capture iOS gameplay, or make a funny or informative GIF of on-screen action, you needed to download a third-party app or connect your device to a computer.
• With iOS 11, Apple baked in sweet functionality that lets you record your iPhone screen effortlessly.

• Developers coding for iOS 11 will be able to create apps that can read NFC tags!
• The NFC chip in the iPhone is currently only used to handle contactless Apple Pay transactions and Passbook check-ins, but a new framework called Core NFC allows developers to build apps that can read and write NFC tags (in iPhone 7 and 7 Plus).

• Will Apple manage to successfully embed Touch ID into the OLED display of the iPhone 8, or will it have to follow in the footsteps of Android device makers and opt for a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor?
• None of the above, claims well-respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a list of predictions he’s made for the next iPhone, Kuo claims Apple will skip Touch ID altogether for its next-gen handset.
• “We predict the OLED model [iPhone 8] won’t support fingerprint recognition,” Kuo writes. The reasons? The full-screen design doesn’t work with existing capacitive fingerprint recognition, and under-the-display fingerprint recognition tech still isn’t ready.

• The iPhone 8 might ditch Touch ID for 3-D facial scanning that could prove faster, easier and more secure than the fingerprint reader currently used for logins and payments.
• Apple is currently testing the 3-D face-scanning technology in iPhone prototypes that utilize a new 3-D sensor, according to Bloomberg. The new security system could be augmented by eye-scanning technology with the intent of replacing Touch ID, the report adds, citing anonymous “people familiar with the product.”
• One major production problem Apple faces with the OLED screen iPhone 8 is getting an under-screen fingerprint sensor to work. The technology just isn’t viable yet, according to various rumors, including a recent note from reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities.
• The reported 3-D facial scanning tech in the iPhone 8 would analyze more data points than the current fingerprint sensor that powers Touch ID, according to Bloomberg, which offered more details on the tech being tested by Apple:
• • The sensor’s speed and accuracy are focal points of the feature. It can scan a user’s face and unlock the iPhone within a few hundred milliseconds, the person said. It is designed to work even if the device is laying flat on a table, rather than just close up to the face. The feature is still being tested and may not appear with the new device. However, the intent is for it to replace the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, according to the person. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

• In a new interview, Apple vice-president of product marketing Greg “Joz” Joswiak says the response to its augmented reality ARKit toolset from the developer community has been “unbelievable.”
• While he wouldn’t share details about a rumored standalone AR headset Apple has hundreds of engineers working on, Joswiak stressed how the widespread usage of Apple mobile devices has the opportunity to make augmented reality into a mainstream technology overnight
• Example of cool ARKit
• • Zeph McLearan put an Apple I in his office
  • Mixed reality Minecraft
  • The AR measuring tape
  • AR Kit reality portal

• Who is Bas Ording?
• One of the key design decisions that Apple’s Human Interface Team made early on while developing the iPhone was to go all in on big, simple gestures. They wanted to make a single, simple swipe accomplish as much as possible.
• It’s a bit ironic. After investing so much in multitouch technology, which relies on multiple touch inputs, one of Apple’s key edicts was to make as many gestures as possible work with a single finger.
• • “We worked super-hard on multitouch, but then we tried to make everything just work with one finger,” he said laughing.

• Steve Jobs on why product people should run IT companies
• Leander’s Jony Ive book
• Leander’s To Pixar and Beyond book review
• How this money man helped Steve Jobs turn Pixar into a powerhouse 

• Leander - Lofree Keyboard
• Erfon - Polar Pro Vivid and Shutter Phantom 4 filter collection
• Lewis - 10.5” iPad Pro

• iPod was ruling the world, it was 50% of Apple’s revenue.
• Apple had the wherewithal to realize it was only a matter of time before phones would do it all, and they realized they needed to build one.
• Well the iPod used a click wheel, so why not build a phone function into that?  It worked great, until they realized it wouldn’t work for dialing numbers.
• Steve Jobs realized their multitouch technology, which existed as rough demo, could be the key to controlling the iPhone.  But they’d had to shrink it.  The technology at the time consisted of  a ping-pong table-sized display with a projector shooting down onto it.  They had found their solution.

• Around 2005, Steve Jobs conveyed to Forstall and team that he hated the replacement iPhone proposals he was seeing, and that’s when he threatened to take the project away from them.  He gave the team two weeks to come up with a good design.
• The team went into overdrive. Working tirelessly.  Non stop.  They had to come up with an entire multitouch design language, touch interactions, like pinch to zoom and the rubber banding scroll.
• When the two weeks was up, they convened with Steve to show him their new work.
• He watched silently, stoic.
• And when the demo was over, Steve said, "let me see it again.”
• So once more they dived into their vision of the iPhone.
• And after they were through, Steve simply said: Good job guys.  He was blown away.

• One of the biggest challenges was the software keyboard.  They knew it’d be compared to what Blackberry had, so it had to be good.
• Unfortunately, in it’s current version, it was total crap.  Worse, the launch date was looming.
• Scott Forstall knew they were in the danger zone.  He pulled out all the stops.  He froze development on other apps and brought in all their UI developers, and told everyone: make a keyboard.
• Well three weeks later they all convened, and one by one they showed off their work.  Some of the examples were decent, some really complicated or strange.
• But one guy came up, and presented what looked like normal keyboard, but as he typed, they realized it was extremely accurate.  They were shocked.
• How could this be.  How was this working.
• The UI developer had built AI techniques into the keyboard to learn how you type, and as you did so, it could predict which letter you’d type next.
• And even though the key sizes on the keyboard didn’t change, but the hit region of your next likely key choice would grow, so even if you didn’t hit it on the head, the right key would still be input.

• Leander - Silicon Valley
• Buster - Vince Staples new album
• Erfon - Going Clear

• More of the powerful new iOS 11 features you’ve never heard of. 
• The talented app which will harnesses the power of Apple’s  new augmented reality features  
• Scott Forstall is back, and he’s sharing the bizarre story of how the original iPhone really came to be. 
• Everything you need to know about HEIF, the JPEG-killing format Apple is adopting
• Cliff jumping in our loin cloths

• Former iOS chief Scott Forstall is back from the dead.  In a rare appearance, he appeared an event Tuesday night at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where he discussed the birth of the iPhone and his relationship with Steve Jobs.
• It’s  the first time he's spoken publicly since he was ousted from Apple in October 2012
• Forstall also spoke about the concept of skeuomorphic design, claiming he had "never heard of skeuomorphism" when he was working on iOS and that it sounded "unnatural”.
• • "When I look at design - when I look at good design - it's approachable, friendly, you can use it without a manual. It's fun. We talked a lot about photo-illustrative design. It was infused into the design sense of Apple by Steve Jobs since the original Mac. We used these design philosophies. It doesn't mean we loved it, or loved every single part of it. We know it worked. How do we know it worked? You just have to watch people use it.”
• Where things got really interesting is when Scott spoke about the origins of the iPhone.  The TRUE origins.
• Forstall claimed that before the iPhone was conceived, Jobs had initially wanted a tablet with capacitative touch and multitouch in order to get one over on someone he "hated" who worked at Microsoft.
• • "It began because Steve hated this guy at Microsoft. That is the actual origin," Forstall said, before adding that it wasn't Bill Gates. After hearing the person boast about Microsoft's tablet and stylus development, said Forstall, "Steve came in on a Monday, there was a set of expletives and then he said, 'Let's show them how it's really done'."

• Apple may have left a big clue in iOS 11 that points to huge design changes coming later this year to the iPhone 8.
• While doing some testing with the new Do Not Disturb When Driving feature, eagle-eyed Apple observers have spotted a new icon for Siri in iOS 11 that appears to be a perfect replacement for the Home button Apple is supposedly planning to ditch.
• The pseudo-Home button, first noticed by AppleInsider, can be found at the bottom of iPhones and iPads. It’s about the same size as the physical Home button, but doesn’t have a Touch ID ring around it.

• Ikea has revealed a few new details about its augmented reality collaboration with Apple that lets customers test out virtual pieces of furniture in their homes before they buy them.
• The app is scheduled to launch this fall alongside the official release of iOS 11. At launch, the app will boast 500-600 products that customers will be able to try out in their homes. This ultra-precise technology will allow them to be positioned on real backdrops in 3D with millimeter-accurate positioning.
• In a recent interview, Michael Valdsgaard, digital transformation manager at Ikea
• Ikea will aim to debut new products in the app before they arrive in store. He also said that Apple’s augmented reality platform was of interest to Ikea because of its guaranteed reach. “It will be the largest AR platform in the world overnight,” he said. “That’s super interesting to us.”

• JPEG was born in 1992
• As of iOS 11, most iPhones will be switching from JPEG to HEIF.
• HEIF is the new photo format that Apple is using to replace JPEG. And it probably will replace JPEGs, because the iPhone is the most popular, most-used camera in the world
• HEIF — or High Efficiency Image File Format — is the still-image version of the HVEC — or H.265 — video format. Its main advantage for you and me is that photos saved in HEIF are roughly half the size of JPEGs, and of better quality
• HEIF offers other advantages over JPEG. While a JPEG is a single image,  HEIF can be a single image or a sequence of images.

• When setting up a new iOS device, there's now an option to hold it near an existing device to automatically copy over settings, preferences, and iCloud Keychain.

• To use Automatic Setup in iOS 11, you need two devices running iOS 11To start the process, you aim the camera at the moving sphere on your old device’s screen.  Just like Apple Watch.

• After choosing your WiFI network, the iPhone user is greeted with the traditional password screen, but on iOS 11 when the iPhone is brought near your iOS 11 device, a card your device notifies you that the iPhone wants to join you network.
•  You can then tap and send your password to your guest, which recognizes the password, fills out the information, and connect to the Wi-Fi.

• After selecting a WiFi network to join, iOS 10 users must enter a password for secured networks, but on iOS 11 and High Sierra, you can bring your close to a device which has access to that WiFi network and that device can transfer all required credentials directly to your connecting device!

• Reviews for the new iPad Pro and HomePod are bonkers
• Someone in the Apple supply chain just accidentally leaked some of iPhone 8’s marquee features
• Speed tests show a big improvement in the new MacBook Pro
• Apple finally offers us iCloud Storage sharing
• Our favorite unannounced iOS 11 features
• And we’ll tell you what we like (and don’t) about the apps and gadgets we’re currently testing in an all-new Under Review!

• Apple supplier Largan has confirmed it will be shipping its new 3D sensors in time for iPhone 8, while another has confirmed waterproofing and wireless charging technology.
• Largan’s sensors are capable of carrying out facial and iris recognition and provide an alternative to fingerprint scanning. They could be the solution Apple turns to if it is unable to embed a Touch ID scanner beneath the iPhone 8’s display.
• iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models are already splash- and water-resistant with an IP67 rating, but Apple's fine print warns that "splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear." iPhone water damage is not covered by Apple's warranties. 
• But in Wednesday's shareholders meeting, [Robert] Hwang, [Wistron CEO] told reporters that the Assembly process for the previous generations of [iPhones] have not changed much, though new features like waterproof and wireless charging now require some different testing, and waterproof function will alter the assembly process a bit,” 
• A report earlier this year said Apple's next iPhone models will feature improved IP68-rated water resistance (30 minutes in up to 3 feet of water)

• Apple this week refreshed its MacBook Pro lineup with Intel's seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors, and early benchmarks for the notebooks suggest the 2017 models are up to 20 percent faster than the equivalent 2016 models equipped with Intel's sixth-generation Skylake processors. 
• Only about a 30% improvement over 2012/2013 MacBook Pros...

• One of the big improvements of the new iPad Pro is its new variable refresh rate display, which Apple calls ProMotion, and means that it can run at 120Hz, or twice as fast as previous displays. It can also cycle down to 24Hz on still images.
• ARS has praised the new ProMotion by saying that it makes it easier to read text and scroll simultaneously, with the “ghosting” effect you get at 60Hz greatly reduced
• What everyone agrees on is that the new A10x processor is blazingly fast
• Smart keyboard is getting mixed reviews. Some saying it feels flimsy and unsatisfying to type on.
• Uses the newest Touch ID.
• Dramatically better antireflection coating.
• About 30% faster than 9.7inch iPad Pro, even more on multicore Geekbench tests I saw. Export times in Garage Band almost halved in some cases.
• Way better front (7MPX) and back cameras (12MPX), especially from the previous 12inch which had a 1.2 MPX camera.
• Fuller, better sounding external speakers
• iPad finally feels "pro"

• A few websites have now gotten the chance to hear how HomePod sounds in a quiet environment, and they're sharing their opinions online. 
• Mashable: The audio wasn't just loud — filling a room with sound, good or bad, is easy — it was rich.
• • Mashable noted that Apple had in-room comparisons with its competitors, including Sonos Play:3 and Amazon Echo, and that the HomePod easily beat the two other speakers in pure music playback quality.
• CNET: HomePod came off as bolder and more vivid than Sonos Play:3 in the [listening] experience, and a lot better than Amazon Echo. I'd also say the music sounded consistently vivid and crisp in a quiet space
• What HiFi: We also heard a pair of HomePods playing a live recording of Hotel California by The Eagles. The attention to detail was striking, with different instruments sounding discretely realised.
• Engadget called HomePod's audio "incredible,”
• if listening to the HomePod was like listening to a CD, then audio through the Echo sounded like AM radio.

• Following the WWDC keynote, Apple updated and simplified its iCloud storage tiers
• • 50GB: $0.99
  • 200GB: $2.99
  • 2TB: $9.99 (updated from 1TB)
• Apple is offering an option to share a 200GB or 2TB iCloud storage plan with family members, which is perhaps the reason behind the price drop. 
• Google Photos offers free backup for photos and videos.  Or you can back up via Plex premium.

• Automatically offload unused apps if you’re low on storage.

• AirPods will soon be able to skip forwards and backwards between tracks with a double tap of either earpiece, thanks to a new additional setting in iOS 11. 
• It’ll be possible to customize the AirPods so that a double tap on one earpiece skips, while double tapping on on the other earpiece goes to the previous track. 

• Yuneec Typhoon H 
• Lake Coloring App for iPhone and iPad 
• Espin Bikes 
• Espin bike deal Leander mentioned on Gilt 

• More powerful Kaby Lake processors
• 32GB of desktop-class RAM for 15-inch MacBook Pro
• Price slash for 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar which hasn’t been selling well per Ming Chi Kuo

• Shipping times for the 15-inch model have slipped on the Apple online store
• It seems strange that shipping times would suddenly slip for a product that’s been on sale since October.
• “A spot check shows 15-inch MacBook Pro delivery estimates are similarly as long in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, and several other countries,” reports MacRumors.

• It’s been over a year since Apple has updated its the portable 12-inch MacBook.  Now would be a good time.

• Bloomberg reported earlier in May that Apple is “considering” updating the MacBook Pro with a newer processor because sales of the machine have continued to be “surprisingly strong.” Who knows what processor it’ll get or what (if any ) other upgrades (like as USB-C or a new display) might be included.

• Apple announced earlier this year that they are hard at work on new pro-level desktop machines, but don’t expect to see anything at WWDC. The company made it clear that the new Mac Pro is in the works, but they also gave a spec bump to the current line.
• It is possible we may see an announcement about the pro-level iMacs they talked about, especially considering it hasn’t been updated since Oct. 2015!  Maybe we’ll get some Kaby lake chips.