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- Wednesday June 05
- 18 mins agoApple Watch & AirPods still rule the wearables market, despite losing ground
Apple continues to top the wearables market, but it has lost some ground with Apple Watch and AirPods shipments declining year-on-year.Apple Watch Series 9The Apple Watch and AirPods lines are hugely popular in the wearables category of products. Thanks to continued demand, Apple is still top of the food chain in the market, according to IDC's figures.Released on June 4, wearable device shipment figures have grown for the market as a whole.With 113.1 million shipments in the first quarter of 2024, the market has seen an 8.8% year-on-year growth spurt. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums20 mins agoHave an Apple Card? Earn up to $200 free by adding family members to your account
Apple is running a new promotion for Apple Card users, and it pays pretty well! All you have to do is add family members to your Apple Card account, and Apple will reward you with immediate cash back up to $200 total. more…24 mins agoApple regains $3 trillion valuation, creeps up on Microsoft
With Nvidia hot on its heels, and Microsoft ahead, Apple stock gains in recent weeks has returned the company to a $3 trillion valuation at market open on Wednesday morning.Apple's stock has seen a resurgence since the company revealed its second fiscal quarter results. Following its better than expected quarter, Apple recovered nearly its entire losses for the year.And, since then, it has gone green on the year.On Wednesday morning at opening, it crossed the $195.63 price, which puts it over $3 trillion in valuation for the first time since December 2023, based on late-April filings for outstanding stock shares. The actual valuation is a little hazy, as Apple continuously buys back its stock — and is in the process of another big buy-back. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums28 mins agoThese transparent Bluetooth earbuds cost less than $40
Get psyched for the transparent tech of the '90s with a modern twist with these transparent Bluetooth earbuds with EDR. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)58 mins agoSonos Ace have arrived, here’s how to get them
One of Sonos’ most anticipated products is finally available to order. Sonos has been teasing its new Sonos Ace headphones for the last month or so. We have had the pleasure of having hands-on time to really experience and review these headphones. In short, if you are in the market for a premium and prosumer-level headset, these will be my recommendation for most. Even more so if you are already in the Sonos ecosystem. more…59 mins agoWhat to expect from WWDC 2024's week of updates
Apple is just a week away from revealing iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, tvOS 18, and watchOS 11 at WWDC 2024. Here's what the rumor mill believes is in store.Apple CEO Tim Cook will introduce the WWDC 2024 keynote. The Apple Worldwide Developer Conference is taking place from June 10. The week-long celebration will provide developers and observers a good look at the changes Apple will be introducing to its software in the fall.With the WWDC keynote just a matter of days away, this is what has been teased and raised by rumors and forecasts before the day itself. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums1 hour agoLate-to-the-game Apple largely doesn’t have control of its AI destiny- Gene Munster | Mac Daily NewsLate-to-the-game Apple largely doesn’t have control of its AI destiny- Gene Munster
Gene Munster says that Apple doesn't have control of its AI destiny and that is why the company is resigned to inking partnerships… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.1 hour agoApple promises to finally fix Screen Time bug that lets children visit blocked sites
A bug that lets users circumvent Apple's Screen Time parental controls, and corporate web blacklists, was discovered in 2020, but Apple has refused to fix it — until now.Screen Time's website blocking can be circumventedThis is not the same Screen Time bug that meant children could use their iPhone or iPad for longer than their parents set. Apple acknowledged that problem in 2023, and it's mostly been fixed.What definitely has not been fixed — but reportedly will be in the next update to iOS — is a way to circumvent restrictions on what websites children can access through Safari. According to The Wall Street Journal, researchers spotted in 2020 that it was possible to prefix the address of a blocked site with a certain sequence of characters, and gain access. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums1 hour agoApple still dominates wearables market, despite nose-diving sales
Apple continues to dominate the wearables market, says a new report, despite a steep drop in shipments for both Apple Watch and AirPods. There was movement lower down the charts, with Huawei taking third place from Samsung during the first quarter of the year … more…12:18 pmBlood sugar measurement with Apple Watch no longer needs iPhone, says Dexcom
If you use the Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitoring system, you’ve long been able to view your blood sugar measurement on your Apple Watch – but you can now do so without your iPhone. Previously, the G7 wirelessly transmitted the health data to your iPhone, which then relayed it to your Apple Watch … more…12:00 pmIntel Announces New Tech To Battle AI in Market
Intel raised the curtain Tuesday on some new tech it's banking will recoup some lost ground to its chip-making rivals. At the annual Computex expo in Taiwan, the company announced a new generation of processors for data centers, pricing on its AI accelerator kits, and the architecture for an AI PC chip. The post appeared first on TechNewsWorld.11:56 amApple to fix Screen Time bug that allowed users to circumvent web browser content restrictions | 9 to 5 MacApple to fix Screen Time bug that allowed users to circumvent web browser content restrictions
Screen Time promises to allow parents to restrict access to various apps, website and content on their children’s devices. However, ever since Screen Time launched with iOS 12, Apple has been playing whack-a-mole as users discovered new workarounds to avoid the enforced restrictions. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Apple will be fixing yet another one of these bugs in the next iOS software update. Security researchers had reported this particular bug to Apple multiple times over the last three years, but Apple had rebuffed or ignored them until now. more…11:48 amApple’s OpenAI partnership likely just temporary, says Siri co-founder
Apple’s OpenAI partnership – which will be used to bring generative AI features to Siri – is likely just an interim one, while the company expands and deepens its own chatbot tech. The prediction was made by Dag Kittlaus, who co-founded Siri before the tech was acquired by Apple … more…11:42 amAll of the iPhone 16 Pro Max measurements have been leaked
A new leak has exactly detailed the size of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and it could have the thinnest borders on a smartphone.A render of the iPhone 16 ProApple's September update to the iPhone line is currently anticipated to include a size increase for the iPhone 16 Pro Max to 6.9 inches. That size increase could potentially be aided by a decrease in borders.According to a Wednesday tweet from serial leaker Ice Universe, the iPhone 16 Pro Max will measure 163.024mm by 77.575mm and 8.26mm thick. The screen size will allegedly be 6.883 inches, which correlates with previous rumors. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:40 amApple will allow users to opt in to ChatGPT services in iOS 18 after deal with OpenAI | AppleInsiderApple will allow users to opt in to ChatGPT services in iOS 18 after deal with OpenAI
Apple has reportedly agreed a deal with OpenAI that means it will integrate ChatGPT into iOS, in what's claimed to be a temporary arrangement until Apple's own Siri can be improved.Apple's 2024 iPhone could feature an AI-improved SiriBacking up previous reports that Apple and OpenAI's Sam Altman have entered into a deal, Bloomberg says that the arrangement will be central to Apple's AI announcements at WWDC on June 10, 2024. It's not believed that Altman will make an appearance, however.It's claimed that the deal to integrate ChatGPT into iOS is specifically because Apple's own Siri is not yet up to scratch. That's despite many recent reports such as one saying that Siri will see a massive AI upgrade via Apple's own Ajax LLM. Rumor Score: 🤯 Likely Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:17 amSpirit Airlines pays off victim after Apple Watch proves her luggage was stolen
A woman in Fort Lauderdale believed her Spirit Airlines luggage was lost forever, until her Apple Watch notified her that the MacBook Pro in it was now in a nearby house.An Apple Watch Find My alert like this one led Garcia to her stolen luggageUsually it's an AirTag that alerts travellers to lost and stolen luggage, and it's possible that's what happened here, too. What's sure is that Spirit Airlines has joined the ranks of aviation firms lying about lost luggage.According to Florida's Local10 News, traveller Paola Garcia originally waited for two hours at Carousel 4 inside Terminal 4 at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Ordinarily, she says, she carries on her pink hard-shell suitcase, but this time had been ordered to check it — and then it vanished. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:15 amStarTech.com Laptop Privacy Screens review: Stop lookie-loos in their tracks
Macworld At a glanceExpert's Rating ProsCuts viewing angle from beyond 30 degrees of centerMagnetic attachment; removableGlossy or matte finishDoesn’t interfere with MacBook closingConsPriceyOur VerdictThe StarTech.com Privacy Laptop Screen (Black Magnetic Filter) does a good job of cutting down the viewing angles while providing clarity as you work. It’s easy to fit on the screen and take it off when you need to, and you can leave it on, and it won’t interfere with closing the MacBook. I usually work at home, but I like to go to a local coffee shop and work there while I grab some lunch. When I do go to the office, it’s an open space. In both of those situations, I feel a little exposed because people can easily see what I’m doing on my MacBook screen. We’ve all had that instance when we’ve caught someone peeking at the screen you’re working on–it’s awkward regardless of how discrete you care to be about what you’re working on. You can maintain some of that privacy on your MacBook by using a screen overlay that cuts down the viewing angle of the MacBook. I’ve been using the StarTech.com Laptop Privacy Screen and it’s helped me feel less exposed and more comfortable in those open situations. With the Privacy Screen on a MacBook’s display, the viewing angle is reduced to 30 degrees left or right of center. Go beyond that, and the screen angle that’s farthest away from your view gets distorted. For example, when I’m centered in front of the display, everything on screen is clear, but as I move towards my right, the view of the left side of the display distorts, and the more I move over, the more distortion covers toward the center and the right of the display. I’ve used the Privacy Screen for over 50 hours and from the start I haven’t had issues with it getting in the way of my own viewing experience. If you do need to allow for viewing at wide angles, you can simply take the Privacy Screen off. The version of the Privacy Screen in this review has a magnetic strip at the top to attach to the MacBook, and the overlay lays flat over the screen. It has a notch cutout so it doesn’t interfere with the FaceTime camera and it provides complete coverage of the screen. How the MacBook Pro looks with and without the StarTech.com Privacy Screen from a left angle. How the MacBook Pro looks with and without the StarTech.com Privacy Screen from a right angle. The Privacy Screen is also reversible, with a glossy side and a matte side. The matte side does affect color vibrancy and sharpness, but it also cuts down glare. If you’re doing image or video work, you’ll want to use the glossy side that maintains the integrity of the display. The filter is thin enough to leave on the MacBook and doesn’t interfere when you close it. StarTech does provide an envelope for storing the filter, as well as a couple of adhesive strips and a cloth for wiping off dust. StarTech.com claims that the Privacy Screen cuts down blue light emissions from the display by 51 percent. I don’t have a way of gauging that, and I don’t usually experience eye strain or fatigue after prolonged computer use in the first place. But it seems like a nice secondary benefit of the overlay. StarTech.com makes Privacy Screens for the iPad Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. The Privacy Screen I reviewed is part of the company’s Black Magnetic Filters line. The more affordable Black Standard Filters line uses adhesive strips instead of magnets. The Gold Standard Filters also use adhesives but also have a glossy side that has a mirror-like gold finish for blocking the view. Should you buy the StarTech.com Privacy Laptop Screen? The StarTech.com Privacy Laptop Screen (Black Magnetic Filter) does a good job of cutting down the viewing angles while providing clarity as you work. It’s easy to fit on the screen and take it off when you need to, and you can leave it on and it won’t interfere with closing the MacBook. It’s a little pricey; the one for the 16-inch MacBook Pro in this review is $61.99/£55.19, but you may be able to find it on third-party retailers such as Amazon for a lower price. Considering how well-made it is and how it works, it’s worth the price in exchange for a little bit of privacy. Laptop Accessories, MacBook11:14 amBartender app's new owner has burnt years of good-will with a lack of transparency
Popular app Bartender was quietly bought, and a shady certificate replacement, insertion of invasive telemetry, and a lack of transparent responses by the new owners has shaken confidence in the Mac communityBartender on SetappMenu bar organization tool Bartender has been around for a long time. For most of its life, it had an excellent reputation, and a responsive developer who communicated clearly with users.That appears to have changed, recently. It all started with a quiet pair of app certificate shifts which went mostly unnoticed. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:04 amTikTok hack compromised CNN account; Paris Hilton and others targeted
A TikTok hack allowed attackers to take control of CNN’s account, while other high-profile accounts were also targeted. The nature of the security breach remains a mystery at present. It was said to have involved direct messaging, but was seemingly not a phishing attack … more…10:30 amApple is about the enter the world of AI–and nothing will ever be the same
Macworld WWDC24 is almost here and everyone expects it to be all about AI. As the eyes of the tech world turn back to Apple, there’s a lot of work to do. It’s got to establish that it’s been working on AI features for years, show off new features, catch up with AI features from competitors, and maybe even take the opportunity to show where it’s raising the bar. But this isn’t just Apple’s chance to show it’s doing AI right. It’s also an opportunity to redefine the conversation about AI to make it more substantive and results-oriented–and, of course, to make Apple look better while doing it. Adult in the room Let’s face it–for all its promise, the last few years of AI have also been kind of a disaster. Racism, bias, more bias caused by anti-bias training, recommendations to eat rocks or add glue to pizza–there is a constant drumbeat of stories about all the ways where AI fails spectacularly. This is, to put it bluntly, the fault of a tech industry that’s gotten way over its skis. In a rush to one-up one another, companies roll out features that seem like brilliant science fiction but fall apart into embarrassing and substandard functionality so immediately that the failures are often literally contained in the introduction of the product itself. But behind that wave of unreliable garbage, some amazing features emerge from using AI models. Apple has the chance to depict itself as the adult in the room, a company committed to using AI for features that make its customers’ lives better–not competing to do the best unreproducible magic trick on stage. In doing so, it risks being seen as dowdy and behind. But if Apple can see beyond the latest tech-industry hype cycle–and it’s generally good at doing that–it can bet on iPhone users being more interested in real features than impractical nonsense. Wrong way around Historically, Apple has been a company with a very strong philosophy about new technologies: they should be applied to solving the problems of real people. Most tech companies have historically had this backward: they take delivery of some whizzy new technology fresh off a manufacturer’s conveyor belt and shove it into a product. The result tends to be products that are solutions desperately searching for problems. The current AI hype gives off the whiff of that particular stink. This is an opportunity for Apple to focus on using AI technology to solve real problems and trump those solutions while, yeah, bragging that they used AI to solve them. Apple’s chips have had Neural Engines for years before other companies started having them. How many people really understand that it’s used for AI functions? Apple’s chips have had Neural Engines for years before other companies started having them. How many people really understand that it’s used for AI functions?Apple Apple’s chips have had Neural Engines for years before other companies started having them. How many people really understand that it’s used for AI functions?Apple Apple The truth is that Apple has been doing this for ages. It has used the phrase “machine learning,” recently discarded because AI is the catchphrase of the day, to analyze and process images in the Photos app for nearly a decade. AI features permeate Apple’s products already, and the company’s been shipping AI-enhanced Apple-designed processors–the Neural Engine, y’know–for years now. Given how long it takes to design and manufacture microprocessors, that means Apple has been planning for this moment for ages now. But now it needs to deliver. Careful to a fault The sign of Apple being “behind” in AI is that it entirely missed the boat on the AI chatbot and content generation craze. According to reliable reports, the company was taken aback by the rise of those tools and has rushed to catch up. That’s not the warning sign I’d point to, though. It’s more like a symptom of a larger problem within Apple, which is that the company can be incredibly conservative when it comes to certain kinds of technologies, including AI features. You may have noticed that Apple has a bit of a control freak streak: it really wants to have complete control over the user experience. The more you give an AI feature free rein, the more unpredictable it can be. This has led some corners of Apple to resist many AI technologies because they’re just not controllable. And I think that’s a good impulse, generally! Tech sites freak out when literally anything Apple ships has a problem, even if it’s a handful of defective iPhones that make weird noises or have green casts on their displays. By being conservative, Apple has saved itself lots of negative headlines about an “AI-gate” here or there. But… that careful approach also probably explains why Siri is generally considered to be lackluster at best and embarrassing at worst. More than five years ago, Apple hired away Google’s AI chief and put him in charge of Apple’s AI efforts. And yet here we are, five years later, and everyone’s clamoring for Apple to explain itself next week. I have to think that some of the reason Apple is in this spot is that it’s been reluctant to flip the switch on some AI features. By all accounts, there was a reckoning a year ago, and we’re about to see the result. Features matter I think Apple probably needed this kick in the pants from the rest of the tech world. The company operates at its best when it’s pressured by competition. It takes great pride in operating around the cutting edge–but with better approaches than its competitors. Siri was introduced 13 years ago and was the harbinger of Apple’s AI efforts. Instead, it symbolizes how lacking Apple’s efforts have been Siri was introduced 13 years ago and was the harbinger of Apple’s AI efforts. Instead, it symbolizes how lacking Apple’s efforts have beenApple Siri was introduced 13 years ago and was the harbinger of Apple’s AI efforts. Instead, it symbolizes how lacking Apple’s efforts have beenApple Apple That’s what Apple’s announcements should be. Instead of chasing ridiculous demos, it should remember that it’s building solutions to real problems. The features it builds matter because its customers don’t actually care about Apple checking the “has AI” box or keeping up with a tech industry leaderboard. They do care that they can remove something annoying from the background of a photo, get a clear summary of their notifications while in Focus mode, or ask Siri for something and get a clear and accurate answer without getting frustrated. As you watch the WWDC keynote and read reactions to the announcements here and around the web, keep this question in mind: Will this make iPhone, Mac, or iPad users happy? Or is it just happening to appease investors, journalists, and other tech-industry insiders? The more times Apple does the former, the better its announcements will be in the long run. Apple Inc