Apple releases tvOS 9.1.1 software update with Podcasts app for the new Apple TV

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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There’s a new software update awaiting Apple TV 4 owners as Apple released a small point update for all users today. tvOS 9.1.1 likely includes bug fixes and performance improvements without adding any major feature changes. The update, however, does include the new Podcasts app that first appeared in tvOS 9.2 beta.

The bigger update coming in the future also includes channel folders, Bluetooth keyboard support and more. You can update your Apple TV 4 through the Settings channel from the Home screen.

While tvOS 9.1.1 is available to all users from today, tvOS 9.2 is currently limited to testing by developers and expected to be released later this year.

Take a look at our hands-on video with tvOS 9.2, which includes Apple’s Podcasts app, below:

Filed under: Apple TV

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Sketchy iPad Air 3 drawing shows 4 speakers, camera flash in new design

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

iPad Pro speaker system

Even the source Nowhereelse is unsure about this one, but it’s certainly interesting to imagine. A purported blueprint illustration of the upcoming iPad Air 3 tablet claims to show four speakers, not two, planned for the updated 9.7-inch tablet, as well as a possible camera flash for the first time. Apple focused on the larger iPad Pro and upgraded iPad mini 4 last year, and an upgraded iPad Air 3 is expected sometime this year.

While unconfirmed at this point, the two major claims of the purportedly leaked iPad Air 3 illustration aren’t entirely impossible to believe.

First up is the move from a single stereo speaker setup to a dual stereo speaker setup. Apple introduced this design with the iPad Pro, and the result is an impressive audio system that adjusts to whichever orientation you hold the iPad. The design also has the added benefit of not muffling sound when you cover one particular area of the iPad as additional speakers are available to push out sound.

Next up is the presence of a flash for photography. Apple notably did not include a flash on the iPad Pro, which is admittedly even less ideal for shooting photos and videos than the iPad Air lineup, but it would be curious to see the updated 9.7-inch iPad be technically more capable in this regard than the 12.9-inch tablet. iPads have been gaining upgraded cameras for both still photography and video capture over the years, and flashes double as a flashlight utility in dark situations, although a blank tab in Safari at full brightness has a similar effect.

Claimed iPad Air 3 drawing

At any rate, 9to5Mac reported today that development is indeed underway for the iPad Air 3 although it’s unclear if the refreshed 9.7-inch tablet will be ready in time for Apple’s expected March event where Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5se and new Apple Watch bands or later in the year. Let us know what you think about an upgraded speaker system and a potential camera flash on the upcoming iPad Air 3 in the comments.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Flash, Hardware, iPad, ipad air, iPad Air 3, iPad Pro, speakers, Tablets

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Spotify video coming to iOS next week w/ content from ESPN, BBC, Vice Media, more

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

spotify

According to a report this morning from The Wall Street Journal, Spotify is getting ready to finally launch its video content offerings. The rollout is set to start with the Android app getting video by the end of this week, but the iOS app is following suit by the end of next…

Spotify has been testing video content for some small number of users over the last few months, and now the company is finally pushing the product to the masses. Content that Spotify has lined up—mostly “short clips,” according to the report—is coming from ESPN, Comedy Central, the BBC, Vice Media and Maker Studios, among others.

“We are at the end of a journey of testing,” said Shiva Rajaraman, Spotify’s VP of product in an interview with WSJ. “We are going out effectively as planned. Our goal was largely to get a wide breadth of content and experiment and test.”

Spotify has been taking its sweet time getting this feature out to the public to the chagrin of “some media partners,” but the company learned a lot during the testing period. The company found it was “offering too many ways” for people to find video, for example, leading to the creation of “programming packages”. They seem similar to Spotify’s in-house curated playlists, with names like “Laughs at Lunch” or “News of the Week”, geared at contextually matching your music interests.

It’s an interesting move, but not exactly a surprising one in a world where it seems all services want to give you everything. Messaging apps like Snapchat (even more so lately), WhatsApp, Hangouts and Facebook Messenger want to be the app that does all the things, social networks like Twitter, Google+, and Facebook want to be the social networks that do all the things, and content streaming services apparently aren’t an exception.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Android, iOS, launch, Music, service, Spotify, streaming, video

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9to5Toys Lunch Break: Apple Watch Steel Band $19, 13″ MacBook Air $800, Brother Laser Color Printer w/ AirPrint $150, more

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.

TODAY’S CAN’T MISS DEALS:

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Apple Watch Stainless Steel Bands – 42 or 38mm: Space Gray $21 (Reg. $36), Traditional $19 (Reg. $30)

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Apple 13-inch MacBook Air 1.6GHz/4GB/128GB (newest version): $800 shipped (Reg. $999)

Several refurbished 12-inch MacBook w/ Retina display models are now available from Apple

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AirPrint Color Laser Printers: Brother $150 shipped (Reg. $200), Canon 3-in-1 $190 shipped (Reg. $250)

Pay What You Want The 2016 Mac Bundle

Pay What You Want: The 2016 Mac Bundle ~12

Work Faster & Smarter on Your Mac with 12 Apps to Clear Your Hard Drive, Enhance Audio, Track Device Activity & More

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Apple’s Get Productive iOS App Sale 50% or more off: Things, Clear, Duet Displays, Deliveries, much more

App Store Free App of the Week: MarcoPolo Ocean puzzle game (Reg. $3)

1Password for Mac keeps your accounts and information safe, now $25 (Reg. $50)

Use your iPad as an additional screen for your Mac or PC w/ Duet Display, now just $8 (Reg. $16)

Astropad turns your iPad into a professional Mac drawing tablet, download it now for $10 (Reg. $20)

Deliveries package tracker for iOS hits its lowest price yet: $2 (Reg. $5)

MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:

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Media: new Blu-rays $10 – Jurassic World, Minions, more + BOGO offer

MORE DEALS STILL ALIVE:

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB 2.5-inch Internal Solid-State Drive: $290 shipped (Reg. $329+)

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Throw one hell of a Super Bowl party w/ this Samsung 60″ Smart 3D 4K UHDTV: $998 shipped (Orig. $1,800)

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Game pre-orders for Amazon Prime members –Zelda, Far Cry Primal, FFXV: $48 ea (Reg. $60)

NEW PRODUCTS & MORE:

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ComfyLight learns your routine and imitates your lighting patterns while you’re out

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys, AirPrint, Amazon, app deals, Apple Watch bands, Best Buy, Daily Deals, free apps, Gold Box, MacBook Air, video games

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Opinion: What can we expect from the 2016 MacBooks, rumored to be launched by June?

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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With KGI suggesting that we could see new MacBook models as early as the first half of the year, I thought it would be a good time to expand on the suggestions we made in our 2016 roundup and speculate in a little more detail on what we might expect from those machines.

There is rather a lot of speculation involved, for a couple of reasons. First, while we tend to see a number of leaks and rumors for the iPhone – not least from our own Mark Gurman – there are notably fewer for Macs. We’ll likely see some nearer the time, but we could as yet still be six months out.

Second, it’s easier to predict what Apple is likely to do with regard to the MacBook range than when it might do it. I’ve argued before that we can at some point expect Apple to drop the MacBook Air label, leaving two ranges known as the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. But whether that will happen this year or next is, I think, harder to guess.

But let’s start with what we know about the technology available to Apple this time around …

Apple currently uses a mix of Broadwell and Haswell processors in its MacBook Air/Pro range. This year, Intel will have 6th-gen Skylake chips available in time for a June launch.

Skylake will offer a significant speed bump over current chips. We’re likely to see gains in the 10-20% range in the CPU, and rather better from the graphics, where improvements of up to 40% are possible.

Skylake chips are also notably more power efficient than current-generation processors, offering power savings in the 15-30% range. Apple could use this improved efficiency to boost battery life, reduce battery size or a combination of the two. I’ll share my thoughts on this shortly.

The latest kid on the block in terms of ports is of course the USB-C standard which Apple used in the 12-inch MacBook. Since then, Intel gave USB-C a new capability: incorporating Thunderbolt into the chip.

Finally, Skylake incorporates a couple of new wireless communication standards, WiDi – Wireless Display – and WiGig, short-range high-speed wireless data of up to 7Gbps. Future versions of the chip will also support wireless charging, but those won’t be available in time for a June launch. These features may influence Apple’s decisions on future monitors and accessories (wireless Thunderbolt Display and external drives, for example), but won’t have any immediate impact on the machines themselves.

So, that’s the technology Apple has to play with – what do I think it will do with it?

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Across the range

Apple has to adopt Skylake: it would be silly to launch any new Mac without taking advantage of the sixth-generation Intel chips. For me, the only question here is whether the new MacBook Air gets a full-powered Skylake chip, or the much lower-powered Core M version. More on this when we look specifically at the Air.

It’s also a no-brainer that Apple will add USB-C to both MacBook Air and MacBook Pro machines – and given that USB-C now incorporates Thunderbolt, Apple will undoubtedly drop the standalone Thunderbolt port. The only question here is whether Apple will retain any other legacy ports.

There’s another piece of technology Apple has had for a while now but not yet added to the Mac: Touch ID. With many of us used to logging in to our iPhone and iPad with our fingerprint, it feels rather clunky to have to type a password when we login to our Macs. Apple first patented fingerprint login to Macs way back in 2007, but adding the hardware to MacBooks is not the only approach it could take.

Apple could take a Continuity-style approach and allow us to use Touch ID on our iPhone to login to our Macs. There are already third-party apps that allows us to do this, so there’s no technical barrier to Apple going this route.

But one way or the other – hardware or software – I think 2016 is the year Apple needs to allow us to use Touch ID on our Macs. This would not only allow fingerprint login, but would also be a far more convenient way to access the secure Notes facility introduced in OS X 10.11.4, and to add Apple Pay as a payment option on the apple.com website.

Finally, I’d expect at least the Air – and possibly also the Pro – to mirror the color options of the 12-inch MacBook, offering a choice of silver, space gray and gold. Just my take.

So now let’s talk specifics …

macbook

2016 MacBook Air/MacBook

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this will be the year in which Apple drops the Air suffix, so I’m going to use the label MacBook for the machine currently known as the MacBook Air.

It would be silly to launch a 12-inch machine only to retain an 11-inch one, so I think we can safely say that the 11-inch MacBook Air will not be replaced. We’ve also heard rumors of a 15-inch MacBook Air, which would give us 12-, 13- and 15-inch models. (My only question here would be whether there’s really a need for both 12- and 13-inch machines? Could Apple instead drop the 13-inch model?)

If I’m right about the label, then we can expect the larger machine(s) to adopt the design of the 12-inch MacBook. This will, I suspect, include the single USB-C port (incorporating Thunderbolt).

Which brings us back to the Skylake power efficiency question I posed earlier: will Apple boost the battery-life or reduce the battery size? At least where the MacBook range is concerned, I think it will reduce the size to match the much sleeker proportions of the 12-inch model. And, for good or bad, I think that also means we can expect Apple to use the ultra-low-profile butterfly keyboard on the 13- and 15-inch models.

There is another messiness in the current MacBook/Air range: the 12-inch model has a Retina display, the current 11- and 13-inch machines don’t. That too needs to be tidied-up, and other manufacturers are using high-resolution displays in their ultrabooks, so I strongly suspect that we can expect Apple to use Retina screens across the entire range.

The final question, then, is whether the MacBook range gets the full-fat Skylake processors I expect to see in the MacBook Pro, or the cut-down Core M version whose predecessor was used in the 12-inch machine. This is a very tricky one, as it really depends on how well the 12-inch machine has sold. If it appears to have a niche market only, then the larger machines will probably get the real deal when it comes to their Skylake processors. But if sales of the 12-inch machine have demonstrated that most non-pro buyers are all about the portability, and never mind the power, we could see Core M CPUs across the MacBook range – which would also serve as a strong differentiator between the MacBook and MacBook Pro ranges.

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2016 MacBook Pro

The 13-inch MacBook Pro currently has Intel’s Broadwell chipset, but the 15-inch has the previous-generation Haswell. The blame here may lay with Intel rather than Apple, but either way Apple definitely needs to set things right by ensuring the new machines get the new Skylake chips with beefier Iris Pro graphics to match.

It would be nice to imagine that Apple would also double the entry-level RAM from the present 8/16GB (depending on model) to 16/32GB, but the company has not historically been generous with RAM, so I’m not expecting to see an increase here.

SSDs have been falling dramatically in price, so it would also be pleasant to think Apple might bump standard storage capacity from 128/256/512GB on the 13-inch model to 256/512/1TB, with the 15-inch getting 512GB/1TB. But Apple’s thinking of late seems to be that our data should be in the cloud rather than on our machines, so I’m again not optimistic.

Apple has form when it comes to getting well ahead of the curve where legacy technology is concerned, dropping first the floppy drive and later the optical drive well before any other mainstream manufacturer. It also didn’t hesitate to drop legacy ports from the 12-inch MacBook.

The MacBook Pro is of course aimed at a different market – one where many users do connect a number of peripherals at any one time. For this reason, I definitely don’t expect it to go the same single-port route as the MacBook, but I do expect it to standardize on USB-C.

I’ve already mentioned that there’s no longer any need for a separate Thunderbolt port now that USB-C incorporates it, and I suspect we can also wave goodbye to HDMI when either an adapter or AirPlay to Apple TV will do the job.

To me, the only questions are whether the MBP retains any USB 3 ports and the SDXC card slot. Users with multiple USB 2/3 devices would undoubtedly by annoyed by Apple losing these ports, but I do suspect that after some initial grumbling at the need to buy and carry adapters, most of us would get over it. And with many of today’s cameras offering Wi-Fi connectivity, Apple could make a case for losing the card slot too.

One strong possibility, then, would be to lose all ports bar the headphone socket, replacing them all with four or five USB-C ports and relying on adapters for everything else.

I’d personally love to think that another differentiator between MacBook and MacBook Pro ranges would be battery-life. Use the improved power efficiency of the Skylake processors to deliver a sleeker form-factor in the MacBook via smaller batteries, but retain the battery sizing in the Pro to deliver longer battery-life. But once again, I’m not optimistic.

I’d instead expect Apple to reduce the battery size in the MacBook Pro to deliver a slimmer, sleeker machine – perhaps partially borrowing the wedge shape of the MacBook range.

I’ll end on a wildcard: with Apple having seemingly moved from the 11-inch MacBook Air to a 12-inch MacBook, there is the possibility of a move from 13- and 15-inch machines to 14- and 16-inch, without any increase in the overall dimensions. If Apple did that with the MacBook Pro only, it could further differentiate the ranges.

As ever, please take our polls and share your own thoughts in the comments.

Photos: Slashgear; TechNewsToday; 

Filed under: Mac, Opinion Tagged: 2016 MacBook, 2016 MacBook Air, 2016 MacBook Pro, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro

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Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld releases new diabolical version of Solitaire for iOS

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

Churchill Solitaire by Donald Rumsfeld

While the rest of Washington DC and Silicon Valley are debating corporate taxes and encryption privacy, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has pointed his interests in a different direction. A game. A new variation on the classic solitaire to be precise. Using Medium to post about the app’s development process, and how the original game came to be discovered, Rumsfeld quips about signing off “on something they call UX” and spending countless hours on betas.

Having played solitaire on his iPad, Rumsfeld states that this game is something new on the old classic. Instead of a single deck of 52 cards in seven rows being moved into a single-suited pile, Churchill solitaire has two decks with 10 rows and an additional extra row of six cards.

The game is now available in the App Store for free, with various in-app purchases to help fund the product’s revenue. Normally I’d shy away from apps that rely on in-app purchases, but Rumsfeld notes that, “The Churchill family’s profits from the game, like mine, will go to charity.” Be sure to keep an eye out for the game’s official hashtag #NeverGiveIn, and take a peek at the trailer video below.

Filed under: Apps, iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: #NeverGiveIn, Apps, Churchill, Churchill Solitaire, iOS, iPad, medium, Rumsfeld, Solitaire

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Watch out for this new URL that will crash your iPhone and Mac Safari if you click it

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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Watch out for a new prank circling Twitter and other social media today. Visiting CrashSafari.com on an iPhone, iPad or Mac will cause Safari app to crash … and potentially cause your device to restart. The bug is otherwise harmless, but be warned it will likely cause you to lose your open tabs.

To try this out and watch for the beachball. The current troll is to link to CrashSafari.com on Twitter using a URL shortener, so people are tricked into visiting the site without being able to see the name.

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On the Mac, Safari will freeze (‘Application Not Responding’). You may need to restart your machine to get your browser working again. On some iPhones and iPads, the glitch may cause your iOS device to reboot. So how does this prank work?

The code of the CrashSafari site is very simple. The page includes a header title (which you’ll never actually see because the browser crashes) and a small piece of JavaScript. The JavaScript calls the HTML5 History API thousands of times in a loop, essentially causing Safari to freeze.

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The History API is what allows modern websites to change the URL of the page without causing a refresh: scroll 9to5Mac’s homepage and you’ll see the text in the URL bar change. The person behind this site has found that you can cause a crash by abusing the API and calling it thousands of times in quick succession.

You can activate it by browsing to the URL directly as well as clicking on links in apps, like tapping on a link shared over Facebook and Twitter. Depending on how the website is opened, it will either crash the current app, the Safari browser, or the whole of system.

The ‘hack’ has been seen to work on the latest versions of Apple’s operating systems, iOS 9.2.1 and OS X 10.11.3, as well as some of the beta seeds. Wihle we would expect Apple to fix the problem in a future update, there is no immediate rush as the site does not compromise the system at all and poses no practical security risk. Just a major inconvenience if you’re forced to reboot.

Filed under: AAPL Company, iOS, iOS Devices, Mac, Tech Industry, Tips and Tricks Tagged: bug, crash, crash safari, , iPhone, link, OS X, reboot

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Daimler CEO was surprised of Apple’s car effort and progress after a visit to Silicon Valley

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

Dieter Zetsche, Mercedes-Benz

Daimler CEO and chairman of the board Dieter Zetsche is returning home from a trip to Silicon Valley where he met directly with several companies, but without naming them specifically. Though he didn’t disclose the companies he met with, Zetsche commented on the car industry effort of some Silicon Valley-based tech firms, namely Apple and Google.

While talking with German weekly Welt am Sonntag (via Auto News), Zetsche admitted being surprised by the companies efforts:

“Our impression was that these companies can do more and know more than we had previously assumed. At the same time they have more respect for our achievements than we thought,”

In contrast, Zetsche was a lot more dismissive of Apple’s foray into the car industry just a year ago, when the CEO compared Apple building a car to Mercedes building a smartphone. He added then that he wasn’t losing any sleep over it.

Daimler is not really an outsider to Silicon Valley. The company’s Mercedes-Benz brand established an important R&D center there back in 1995. Johann Jungwirth was the head of the R&D center until early last year, but he left for Apple, where he only lasted about a year before joining Volkswagen in November 2015.

Apple has yet to confirm its electric vehicle program, but industry insiders are calling it an “open secret” and after hiring hundreds of engineers with automotive experience, it’s hard to argue against the facts.

Filed under: Apple Car Tagged: Apple, Apple Car, Daimler, Dieter Zetsche, Mercedes, Project Titan

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‘iPhone 5se’ likely to have faster A9/M9 chips & always-on Siri, come in 16/64GB capacities

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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Last week we reported that Apple is preparing to announce a new 4-inch iPhone dubbed the “iPhone 5se” as soon as mid-March. Our report noted that the new iPhone is essentially an upgraded iPhone 5s with a faster processor, Apple Pay, new camera features, and curved glass edges instead of sharp chamfers. Now, we have a few additional details about this new iPhone model. First, we are told that there are different prototypes of the device floating around Apple’s campus: some with the A8 and M8 chips that we discussed in our previous report, and some with the iPhone 6s’s A9 and M9 processors. We’ve now learned that the iPhone 5se is more likely to include variants of the A9 and M9 chips instead of the A8 and M8 lines…

Because the iPhone 7 will include a faster chip potentially known as the A10 processor, Apple likely does not want its new 4-inch iPhone to fall two processor generations behind in just six months. Another benefit of the M9 chip from the iPhone 6s is always-on Siri activation. This feature allows a user to say “Hey Siri” and launch Siri on their iPhone without the device being plugged in. Given the large performance leap, we are told that the “5se” will likely replace the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the iPhone lineup this fall when the iPhone 7 is introduced. This means that Apple’s fall 2016 iPhone lineup will likely be the iPhone 5se, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and the future iPhone 7 and 7 Plus (or what Apple ends up calling the next-generation devices).

Lastly, we are told that the 5se will also likely see another boost over the 5s: a higher capacity. While the new device will likely start at a 16GB capacity to match the 5s, the secondary, higher capacity is said to be doubled from 32GB to 64GB. The iPhone 5s from 2013 will be discontinued upon the release of the new 5se and we are told that the price points of the 5s will be assumed by the new model. Apple is currently planning to debut the new device during the week of March 14th either via an event or online announcement. Apple is also preparing new Apple Watch models with new band colors, materials, and partnerships while an iPad Air 3 is also in development, but it is not yet clear if the new iPad is ready for a launch.

Filed under: iOS Devices

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Fire last night at Foxconn’s main iPhone manufacturing plant “spanned several floors of the factory”

by | Jan 25, 2016 |

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A fire broke out last night at Foxconn’s main iPhone manufacturing plant in Zhengzhou, China, with the WSJ noting that it spanned several floors of the factory. Foxconn confirmed reports, but said that there were no casualties and production was not affected.

Local authorities said they are investigating the cause of the fire. The fire began in the central air conditioning fan and ventilation ducts on the roof of one of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plants, according to a statement on the website of the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone.

There have been previous fires and explosions at Foxconn factories, the most serious of which was at an iPad 2 production facility in 2011, when three workers were killed and fifteen injured. That incident also had a major impact on iPad production.

Photos: 163.com and Weibo user chengdu

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple Inc, china, Factory, fire, Foxconn, Foxconn fire, iPad, iPhone

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