All 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 Forums

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Apple 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 Forums

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Spirit 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 Forums

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StarTech.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, MacBook

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Bartender 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 Forums

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TikTok 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…

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Apple 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

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Detroit has high hopes of getting its first Apple Store
Repeated rumors of Apple opening a store in downtown Detroit have taken on new life as construction begins on a prestigious but as yet unnamed retail site.Exterior of what is claimed to be a forthcoming Apple Store in Detroit (Source: Detroit Free Press)Detroit is already home to one of Apple's Developer Academy programs, which was made in partnership with local Gilbert Family Foundation in 2021. Separately, co-founder Dan Gilbert owns the building that is now seeing retail construction work.According to the Detroit Free Press, two unnamed local people say that construction workers have told them they are working on an Apple Store. There is certainly retail construction work underway, behind three covered-up storefronts between 1426 and 1434 Woodward. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Apple releases updated iOS 17.5.1 build, addresses bug associated with 10th-gen iPad
It’s something of a vague update, but if you just bought a 10th-generation iPad, you might want to get this. Apple has issued yet another update for iPadOS 17.5.1. The new build is intended to fix an as-yet-unspecified bug on the new iPad. On May 20, Apple released updates for iOS 17.5.1 and iPadOS 17.5.1 […] Source

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Apple @ Work Podcast: WWDC preview
Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional-grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage & protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple. In this episode of Apple @ Work, I talk with Jason Dettbarn from Addigy about their new compliance tools and a WWDC preview discussion around platform SSO and on-device AI. more…

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Folium Nintendo 3DS emulator launches to the App Store
If you were hankering for game emulators to appear in the App Store, they’ve begun to arrive. Software developer Folium has released the first Nintendo 3DS emulator for the iPhone via the App Store, albeit with some caveats. First, the emulator retails for $4.99, making it the first to arrive with a price tag. Developer […] Source

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For three days only, you can save an additional $50 on Babbel
Macworld Whether you’ve always wanted to master French or have a Positano Coast vacation scheduled this summer, there’s something you can’t forget to bring along with your walking shoes, sunscreen, or chargers: knowledge of the local language. Knowing a few phrases (and at least how to say “hello!”) in your destination’s native tongue could enhance your adventure, and the best way to learn a new language is with Babbel. For $149.97, you can get lifetime access to Babbel, but only until June 7. This platform offers 14 different languages, though you can only study one at a time. Lessons are designed to fit any busy schedule, ranging from 10 to 15 minutes long, and can be accessed on almost any device. Unlike the repetitive, boring language classes you took in high school, Babbel approaches language learning more practically. It provides lessons focused on developing conversational skills so you can ask for directions, call a cab, order food, etc. Thanks to Babbel’s speech recognition technology, you can impress the locals with your pronunciation. This technology ensures your accent is parfait (perfect!). Need to review a few items before getting on your flight? Babbel also offers personalized language review sessions. You only have June 5-7 at 11:59 PM Pacific to get your lifetime subscription to Babbel for $149.97. No coupon needed!   Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription Only $149.97 at Macworld StackSocial prices subject to change. Accessories

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Fly high with $50 off this 4K obstacle-avoiding drone
Macworld Want to fly a drone, but worried that you’re going to crash it? This 4K dual-camera drone is built for novice flyers, complete with automatic obstacle avoidance, at a special low price through June 9th. This 4K drone has a suite of easy-fly features, starting with the one-button start and stop function. A three-way obstacle avoidance system ensures that you keep your drone safe, away from wires, poles, and other crash hazards. It also has optical flow positioning, which has the drone lock onto a subject and hover, so you can record smoother footage without riding the sticks. The front camera has a 90-degree view with a belly camera offering 120 degrees, so you can easily capture anything you’re looking for. Gesture control adds another ease of use feature, or connect your phone to the included controller. The included battery offers 15 minutes of flight time, more than enough to fit in practice sessions, and the unit folds up for easy storage, making it ideal for beginners and pilots in need of a backup. Get in the air with this beginner-friendly dual 4K camera drone for $69.97, $50 off the $119 MSRP now through 11:59PM PST June 9th.   4K Dual-Camera Drone for Beginners with Intelligent Obstacle Avoidance – $69.97 See Deal ccStackSocial prices subject to change. Drones

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Apple wants to bring Apple TV+ to China
Apple and China Mobile were in talks in 2023 to bring Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade to China, but it's unclear if they have finalized a deal. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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Now Qualcomm Went Long
The core genius at the heart of the original “Get a Mac” campaign is that while Long’s Mac character was likable, John Hodgman’s PC — ostensibly the foil — was lovable.

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How to extract audio from video on Mac with built-in tools
Whether you need the soundtrack for a project or want to enjoy music without visuals, extracting audio from video on a Mac is easy with built-in tools.Extracting audio allows for detailed edits, improved sound quality, and integration into multimedia projects. Various people can use extracted audio, such as teachers using audio clips in the classroom or those wanting to add to their music collections.Two built-in Mac apps — QuickTime Player and iMovie — provide efficient methods for extracting audio. QuickTime Player is ideal for quick, straightforward tasks with a simple export function. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

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Popular Mac app ‘Bartender’ acquired by new unknown developer
Bartender is a popular Mac app that lets users customize and add new functions to the macOS Menu Bar. However, the app was recently acquired by new and unknown developers without disclosure, which raised concerns among current Bartender users. more…

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Apple Vision Pro demo coming to Lowe’s home improvement retail locations
Want to try Apple Vision Pro? In-store demos have only been offered at Apple retail locations so far. However, a popular home improvement retailer will let shoppers try Apple Vision Pro starting this weekend. Lowe’s is testing Apple Vision Pro demos for customers in select locations this month. The experience will focus on the Lowe’s Style Studio app on Apple Vision Pro, giving customers hands-on experience with the headset. more…

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How to find your lost Apple TV remote with your iPhone
Need to locate a missing clicker? A handy feature in iOS 17 and tvOS 17 lets you find your lost Apple TV remote with just your iPhone.  (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)

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