News Scanner | MacTech (2024)

Macworld

When the Apple Watch Series 9 launched in September, the biggest change was Apple’s decision to ditch the leather bands in favor of a new FineWoven material. But while they may be friendly on the environment, the reception of the new bands has been quite unpleasant, with a new report claiming Apple has ditched the material altogether.

But while Apple doesn’t sell leather bands anymore, Amazon’s Woot is running a sale on the remaining stock of old ones. Today you can get the...

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Enlarge / The M2 Pro Mac mini. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman thinks that Apple's M4 chips for Macs are coming sooner rather than later—possibly as early as "late this year," per a report from earlier this month. Now Gurman says Apple could completely skip the M3 generation for some Macs, most notably the Mac mini.

To be clear, Gurman doesn't have specific insider information confirming that Apple is planning to skip the M3 mini. But based on Apple's alleged late-2024-into-early-2025 timeline for the M4 mini, he believes that it's "...

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Apple is doubling down on soccer as an integral part of its sports strategy for Apple TV. According to a new report from The New York Times, FIFA is nearing a deal with Apple for the worldwide television rights to a new World Cup-style tournament being played in the United States next year.

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Like the modern MacBook Pro laptops, Apple’s latest MacBook Air models support fast charging which can give up to 50% battery in as little as 30 minutes. However, by default, both sizes of the Air ship with a charger that doesn’t support the feature. Here are the requirements and details for how to fast charge MacBook Air.

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Enlarge / Don't expect to see this on the iOS App Store any time soon. (credit: OatmealDome)

Last week's release of the Delta emulation suite finally gave iOS users easy, no-sideloading-required access to classic Nintendo game emulation up through the Nintendo 64 era. When it comes to emulating Nintendo's subsequent home consoles on iOS, though, some technical restrictions imposed by Apple are making it difficult to get a functional emulator on the App Store.

In a recent blog post,...

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Back in January 2022, Apple discontinued the years-old Beats Pill+ without announcing a replacement of any sort. It looks like that could be about to change, at least based on a teaser this week.

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Monday’s best deals kick off with Apple’s latest Mac mini starting from $499. The perfect companion discounts are also live, dropping Satechi’s Stand and Hub for Mac mini which was just updated with an NVME SSD slot to $90 alongside Samsung’s 27-inch ViewFinity S9 5K Thunderbolt Monitor at $700 off. Hit the jump for all that and more in the latest9to5Toys Lunch Break.

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Video conferencing app receives a new name, new color schemes for the user interface, and more improvements. (Free, 123.3 MB, macOS 10.13+)

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Maintenance update for the Swiss Army knife of graphics programs. ($39.95 new, free update, 261 MB, macOS 10.13+)

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Brings a grab-bag of improvements and bug fixes to the password manager. ($35.88 annual subscription, free update, 4.8 MB, macOS 10.15+)

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Maintenance release for the Open/Save dialog utility. ($39.95 new, free update, 17.4 MB, macOS 10.13+)

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Update focused on new features and improvements for Outlook. ($149.99 new for one-time purchase, $99.99/$69.99 annual subscription options, free update, macOS 10.15+)

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If you organize events that require significant numbers of volunteers, you know how much work it is to track everything manually in a spreadsheet. A better option is a volunteer management system like Helper Helper, which Adam Engst has used for over a year.

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Macworld

Apple’s much-maligned range of FineWoven accessories, made of an imitation-leather material for environmental reasons, has now been completely killed off, according to a new report. The same source indicates that the company intends to replace FineWoven with another leather-replacement material, but hopefully one which suffers from fewer problems.

Twitter/X user Kosutami, a tech leaker who has posted some accurate rumors in the past, posted Sunday that “FineWoven has gone… Since its durability were bad,” and that production of the cases has now ceased.

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Apple has reportedly acquired Datakalab, a Paris, France-based startup specializing in artificial intelligence compression and computer vision technology. According to French business magazine Challenges, the acquisition was finalized in December.

Datakalab described itself as “experts in low power, runtime efficient, and deep learning algorithms” that work on device.

more…

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Rumors that Apple is hoping to switch a future iPhone model from physical to capacitive buttons persist. Now, a new supply chain report suggests that Apple has placed a supply chain order for a new capacitive button system that will replace the physical buttons on the iPhone 16.

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Macworld

Apple doesn’t participate in big industry-wide events such as CES or E3. The most valuable company in the world holds itsown events, thank you very much. Several times a year, Apple invites the press and industry professionals to Apple Park to hear all about its latest products and services. Apple calls these ‘events,’ andstreams them live online to millions of watchers.

In 2023 there were three such events: WWDC in June, the Wonderlust iPhone event in September and Apple’s second fall event on October 30 (or October 31 if you weren’t in the U.S.). Similarly, in 2022 Apple held three events: a spring event on March 8, WWDC on June 6, and the iPhone 14 launch on September 7. In other years Apple has held four events though. Will Apple hold four events in 2024?

Read on to find out what events and new Apple product launches the...

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Macworld

Apple’s MacBooks are great, but—as with all laptops—using one isn’t that great for your back or neck.

Continual bowing of the head to see a screen can lead to a stiff neck and what doctors call spinal stenosis, which can compress blood vessels and displace nerves—cutting off blood supply to the brain. That’s not a good thing.

Your screen should be at a comfortable height that doesn’t make you bend your neck down to see it. Try to make sure your eyes are in line with the screen while sitting with a straight back. This also helps when making video calls, so the other people aren’t staring up your nostrils.

Using a laptop stand also makes using a separate keyboard and mouse much easier. See our roundups of the best Mac keyboards and...

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Macworld

At a glanceExpert's Rating
Pros

• Universal use
• Large selection of colors
• Very good workmanship
• Recycled material
• Very light and can be folded flat
• Robust, dirt-resistant base

Cons

• Hook on the lid slips out easily
• No padding in the laptop compartment

Our Verdict

We really liked the High Coast Foldsack 24 as an everyday backpack. Fresh colors, slim, light, and flexible to use. The workmanship is excellent and the price is reasonable.

Best Prices Today: Fjällräven High Coast Foldsack 24

Retailer

Price

Fjällräven High Coast Foldsack 24

€109.99

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Macworld

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Air quality

Interesting developments in the iPad rumorsphere, where the theory emerged last week that the next iPad Air, already expected to get a massive 12.9-inch display, will also enjoy an upgrade from LED to mini-LED screen technology. That’s what you currently get from the iPad Pro, and should deliver excellent power efficiency and improved image quality. Good news, right?

Wrong.

It’s always been understood that the Pro models are where you go to get the very best hardware Apple can offer....

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Macworld

Wireless headphones are essentially the standard now, with Bluetooth being convenient and the sound quality difference to wired not being that noticeable to typical people (we realize audiophiles ‘know’).

The market is huge, but here are the best wireless earbuds we’ve tested for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Macs. If you do want a wired connection some of these do offer it in addition to Bluetooth, but we also have a round-up of the best wired headphones and a comparison of over-ear headphones read our comparison of AirPods Max vs other over-ear headphones.

Updated April 2024 with Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 review.

Best headphones and earbuds for iPhone

1. Bose...

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Sometimes you’ve got to throw in the towel on an accessory. Per a post on X (formerly Twitter), noted leaker “Kosutami” has cited that Apple has stopped production of FineWoven accessories due to its poor durability. The company may move to another non-leather material for its premium accessories in the future. Kosutami has offered accurate […]

Source

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Macworld

Developed by over 100 expert linguists and academics fromYale University and the City University of New York, Babbel focuses on helping userslearn practical conversational skills in a new language. Just select from one of Babbel’s 14 languages to begin, and study your new tongue with lessons ranging from 10 to 15 minutes.

Discover how to ask for directions, order food, hail a cab, and more in your chosen new language. You can develop a precise accent with help from...

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Google's Android team has advised outside security researchers that it will no longer fix security bugs found in Jelly Bean or earlier releases, despite the fact that "pre-KitKat 4.4" software powers the majority of active users' devices currently accessing Google Play. Meanwhile, less than 0.1 percent of Android users have received Android 5.0, and those who have report an "unfinished/unpolished" experience.

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Imagine squeezing your retina iMac screen down onto an iPhone 5. You can do it. It might look a bit silly and initially you might wonder why you'd bother, but it has long been possible to see and remotely control your Macs and PCs on even your iPhone. Now Google has released Chrome Remote Desktop for iOS and you can do it for free. You'll do it, too: try this once and you will forever keep finding other reasons why it's incredibly useful. It's fantastic when you forget a file, for instance, and can now just find and email it to yourself from afar. And it will save your soul, your sanity and yo...

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A new lawsuit filed against gyroscope and accelerometer supplier for Apple, InvenSense, accuses the company of failing to tell investors about the concessions it made to secure a recent deal. InvenSense parts are used in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus; executives should have warned investors, the suit alleges, that Apple was given a "sweetheart deal" that would hurt profits. "Instead of revealing the true condition of the company and its prospects, defendants hid those facts from investors and chose to issue strong guidance and paint a picture of a bright future with a new mega-customer," the complai...

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With over half a year remaining before Apple is expected to unveil its next-generation iPhone, a fresh rumor out of Taiwan suggests that the company may be considering a new dual-lens camera system and the addition of "Force Touch," the pressure-sensitive touch technology set to be introduced in the Apple Watch.

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A new port of AllCast, a popular Android app, has just been released for iOS. The title lets users stream personal photo, video, and music libraries to a variety of platforms, not just the Apple TV, the only format natively supported by Apple. Some compatible targets include Chrome, Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, WDTV, Xbox One/Xbox 360, and various platforms compatible with DLNA....

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Ten years after giving away its first song, Apple has reportedly wound down the "Single of the Week" program that offered iTunes users a chance to download a free track from up-and-coming artists.

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Taiwan-based supplier Quanta Computer has entered into "volume" production of Apple's upcoming 12-inch MacBook Air, according to supply chain sources. The laptop is reportedly on track to ship in the first quarter of the year, despite other rumors pointing to the second quarter. The new sources say that Quanta has escalated recruitment efforts in order to speed up production....

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Makeover apps tend to be somewhat serious, and are generally geared toward adults. Instead of being a fun game, they tend to be more akin to photo-editing software, which is generally pretty complex and low on the amusem*nt scale. Toca Boca, however, has stepped forth with Toca Hair Salon 2, a makeover game that offers a lot to younger gamers or future beauticians....

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Facebook will start to post into its users News Feed alerts about missing children in the future, in an effort to locate them. A partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will involve the social network showing Amber Alerts to Facebook users located in specific search areas, both on mobile devices and desktops....

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Google has expanded its Chrome Remote Desktop app to include iOS compatibility. Now available for download on iTunes, iOS users can now orchestrate accessing their desktop computer for free by downloading the accompanying Chrome browser app. Chrome Remote Access has been available for Android users since last year....

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Apple appears to have ended its Single of the Week promotion on iTunes, visitors note. No tracks have been offered in the first two weeks of 2015, and a person on Apple's support forums claims to have been told by iTunes Support that the company has officially dropped the initiative. It's missing from iTunes Stores across the globe....

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South Korean electronics giant Samsung has officially unveiled the Galaxy A7, the latest entry in the company's premium all-metal Galaxy A series that brings a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display, 2 gigabytes of RAM and an 8-core application processor.

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The Los Angeles Unified School District's failed iPad deployment was botched early on, according to a review by the US Education Department. The federal agency says that it first of all put too hard an emphasis on using Apple hardware and software, ignoring cheaper options that could have saved money for the District and taxpayers. In July the USD said it was shifting to a strategy involving Chromebooks and Windows devices, such as the Microsoft Surface....

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It's a fact that Spanish is the world's fourth most spoken language, with over 350 million native speakers across 21 countries. It's also a fact that people who are bilingual tend to do better in both academic pursuits as well as their career. If you've ever been curious about learning another language, Learn Spanish by Brainscape offers a solution for those who are trying to learn Spanish on the go....

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It's a different world. You might be the sort who would never take photo from a website and use it in your own book, but today if an image is online, it's as if the world sees it as fair game. Maybe that's a peek into our base immorality and the ultimate cataclysmic self-destruction of humanity, or maybe it's just that cut and paste is easy. Whatever it is, though, it's happening and you cannot stop it – not even with an application like this: but if PhotoWatermark can't prevent the copying of images, it can help photographers and artists considerably by adding identifying text to your image...

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Flickr has updated statistics for 2014 in its "Most Popular Camera" and "Most Popular Mobile Camera" categories, with the combined models of iPhone taking second place in the general "camera" category -- beating out DSLR maker Nikon and popular point-and-shoot maker Sony for second place. While Canon remains the most popular overall camera, the built-in cameras on smartphones from Apple and Samsung have -- despite inherent limitations -- steadily risen in popularity....

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This week, Viawear has launched pre-orders for a gold or rhodium-plated edition of the new Tyia "smart bracelet." The bracelet serves as a fitness tracker, with an RGB LED notification light embedded behind quartz and mother-of-pearl accent. As with fitness bands, the Tyia is marketing as letting users put away smartphones without missing an important call, text, or social-media notification -- and offers some basic fitness tracking compatible with Apple's HealthKit....

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While the idea that Apple probably had another record-breaking holiday quarter (what the company calls fiscal 2015 Q1) is unsurprising to all but selected pundits, a spate of reports released on Monday may be painting a general portrait of not just significant improvement, but more importantly growth in key areas of importance both to investors and analysis as well as to the health of the company. Sales of Macs look to be way up, iOS devices are selling much better in a key foreign market, and Apple's suppliers are flourishing -- all signs that point to better-than-expected quarter....

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A good magic trick, even in the 21st century, will still get people to stop and watch and try to figure out how it is done. Over the weekend, Apple retail stores around the US debuted a new window display showcasing the company's iPad line and Smart Cover accessory on a thin tabletop that features a line of the products, with the Smart Cover opening and closing itself to demonstrate the magnetic latch feature that wakes or sleeps the machine automatically....

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New information has been revealed on the specifications Apple has in mind for its planned licensing of the female Lightning port for third-party accessories. Manufacturers have reportedly been briefed on details and objectives, which include spreading Lightning to as many different accessories as possible in place of micro-USB. Possibilities include not just things like docks and headphones, but battery cases, gamepads, and Bluetooth speakers....

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Apple is now seeding a fourth beta of iOS 8.2 via the company's developer portal, and as an over-the-air update for existing beta users. The build is listed as 12D5461b, and follows a little less than a month after beta 3, which was issued December 18. That build was 12D5452a. Accompanying the beta is a new version of WatchKit, the SDK and framework needed to build Apple Watch support into iOS apps....

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Word games are fairly numerous at this point. You've got your Boggle-style games, your Scrabble-style games, your crosswords and word searches. There are a lot of duplicates out there -- so when we find a fresh, new game, we tend to get pretty excited. One such app is Word of the Rings, by James Porter, a game that quite literally puts an interesting twist on the genre....

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Spotify is continuing to enjoy rising user numbers, with the popular music streaming service announcing it has reached a total of 15 million subscribers. At the same time, reports claim that the majority of Spotify streams stem from mobile listeners, with 52 percent of listening taking place on smartphones and tablets rather than desktops....

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Marsh Supermarkets and inMarket have announced a new iBeacon platform, the first to emphasize the Apple Watch. The plan is to use iBeacons at Marsh's 75 locations to push ads, shopping lists, and other content to both Watches and iPhones. Initially, the platform will support the official Marsh app and inMarket's List Ease, but other apps should follow as long as they support inMarket's Proximity SDK. All apps will have to update with Watch support, but the platform itself is Watch-ready....

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The 2016 model of the Chevy Volt will support Apple's CarPlay, at least if an early demonstration version is accurate. The car is on display at this week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and its dash system shows options for both CarPlay and MirrorLink connections. Google's Android Auto is notably absent, but since the 2016 Volt isn't due to go on sale until mid-2015, there may be time to implement it....

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People wanting to control HomeKit-enabled devices remotely through Apple's Siri must have an Apple TV at home to serve as a hub, according to Verge sources, including two launch partners and a person said to be "close to HomeKit's development." Siri controls will always work while an iPhone or iPad is on the same network as a HomeKit device, but until now it wasn't fully clear how remote operation might work. The Apple TV must also be a third-generation model running at least v7.0 firmware or newer. Notably, remote operation without Siri -- using the vendor app for a HomeKit product directly -...

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You could just look out of your window, of course, but Weather Wall aims to set your wallpaper to an image that's right for the weather where you are. But if you ever had views like these from your office window, you would not stay sitting at your desk. These wallpaper shots are simply beautiful....

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Over the weekend, Apple launched a new subsection of the App Store called Games for Kids, following the opening of the dedicated Kids category in September 2013. The Games for Kids section breaks out groups of games for various age groups, mirroring the other actions that offer more educational apps for children divided by age. Interestingly, most of the featured games avoid in-app purchases....

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In order to nullify a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that the carrier was still throttling users on unlimited plans even when there was no network congestion, AT&T is claiming for the purposes of the lawsuit that it qualifies as a Title II "common carrier." This is the opposite of what it has told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with regards to possible actual Title II regulation of broadband....

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Spotify will not include support for Google Cast any time in the near future, the company has revealed. Rather than allow for its apps to connect to the audio streaming technology Google Cast, Spotify will instead reportedly continue to work on its own competing Spotify Connect audio system, one which allows users to stream music to a number of networked speakers and audio equipment....

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Every Sunday at Electronista and MacNN, we offer a one-stop look at a few of the significant events that occurred in the video game industry during the previous week. In this week's look back in the Weekly Game Replay, we discuss a new game in the Baldur's Gate series from Beamdog, the closure of Zombie Studios, Hellblade coming to PC, the lawsuit over EA using retired NFL player likenesses in Madden NFL moving forward, and Sony delaying the release of the PlayStation 4 in China....

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