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Supply constraints said to plague Apple’s plans to switch to OLED with next year’s iPhone
One long-running rumor for next year’s iPhone is the adoption of OLED screen panels. While the Apple Watch and the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar use OLED technology, the iPhone has stuck with traditional LCD panels. A new report from Bloomberg, however, says that supply constraints may thwart Apple’s plan to switch to OLED panels next year…
Filed under: Apple
Hands-on impressions: 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar [Video]
After going hands-on with the Late-2016 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar, I was finally able to spend some significant hands-on time with the real MacBook Pro for this generation, the Touch Bar-equipped version.
Outside of a few obvious differences, the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar shares the same form factor and design as the version without Apple’s fancy new input method. Therefore, I’m going to avoid rehashing topics that I’ve already covered, such as in-depth impressions of the keyboard, trackpad, display, build quality, etc. If you want a hands-on synopsis of the overall design of the Late-2016 MacBook Pro, then be sure to read our original hands-on post.
These impressions will focus on the areas that differentiate the Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro from the entry-level model. It is here where you’ll find my hands-on impressions of the Touch Bar, Touch ID, faster processors, additional USB-C ports, and more. Have a look at our full video walkthrough for all of the details. more…
Filed under: Apple
Report: Apple working to integrate augmented reality into the iPhone’s camera app
Tim Cook has long expressed his interest in augmented reality, often touting the technology’s capabilities and even suggesting it has more real-world potential than virtual reality. Now, a report from Business Insider offers up some details as to how Apple plans to integrate augmented reality into the iPhone…
Filed under: Apple
Apple reportedly set to reduce its revenue cut of video subscription apps from 30% to 15%
Apple is reportedly planning to change how it handles subscriptions for video streaming services via the App Store. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple will cut the percentage of revenue it takes from streaming video apps in an effort to improve its relationship with those in that industry…
Filed under: Apple
Report: Apple not looking to go all-in with original TV content, Jimmy Iovine leading efforts
A new report out of The Information this evening outlines more details concerning Apple’s efforts when it moves to securing original content rights. The report, which reiterates some of what we already knew concerning Apple’s efforts, focuses on the company’s reserved and “quixotic” attitudes…
Filed under: Apple
Twitter introduces new Snapchat-like QR codes for easier account promotion
As it struggles to keep user growth up to par with services like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, Twitter today is rolling out a new way to discover users. Announced in a tweet from a Twitter designer, users can now create custom QR codes to make it easier to follow and discover accounts…
Filed under: Apple
Microsoft releases first preview build of Visual Studio for macOS developers
As expected, Microsoft today made its Visual Studio developer environment available on macOS. The first preview of Visual Studio for Mac is live now, with Microsoft hoping that the cross-platform availability will push more developers to build for Windows.
Filed under: Apple
Report: iPhone 7 adoption higher than iPhone 6 launch, increased Android switchers as high as 18%
A new report from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners today details Apple’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus launch, showing some numbers that support the company’s continued claims of increasing Android switchers and more.
It also shows that the iPhone 7 adoption managed to outpace that of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during its first month of sales, although falling short of the iPhone 6/6 Plus launch:
more…
Filed under: Apple
How to add or disable Touch ID fingerprints, Apple Pay cards & view transaction history on MacBook Pro
The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is the first of Apple’s Macs to include a Touch ID sensor built-in for Apple Pay, unlocking the Mac with your fingerprint, and authentication purposes in third-party apps.
Other Macs can use Apple Pay, but they need to use a nearby iPhone or Apple Watch to authenticate and complete the purchase.
Here’s how it works:
Filed under: Apple
9to5Toys Lunch Break: Logitech Harmony Smart Control $70, Deus Ex Go $1, 10-ft. MFi Lightning Cable $6, more
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:
Daily Deals: Logitech Harmony Smart Control $70, Bose SoundLink Mini Bluetooth Speaker (Refurb) $130, more
Games/Apps: Deus Ex Go $1, PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Console $370, iOS freebies, more
You can never have too many Lightning Cables, pick up this ZeroLemon MFi 10-footer for $6 Prime shipped
iTunes Gift Cards 15% off: $50 for $42.50 + up to 20% cards from Barnes & Noble, Cabela’s and many more
Amazon is discounting one-year Prime memberships down to $79 this Friday (Reg. $99)
Black Friday 2016:
Amazon’s month long Black Friday event starts today, get a sneak peek at some of the best upcoming deals
Best Buy Black Friday 2016: Apple Watch Series 1 $219, iPad Air 2 $275, iTunes GC, 49-inch 4K UHDTV w/ Chromecast $200, more
Walmart’s Black Friday 2016 Ad: iPhone 7 + $250 GC, iPad Mini 2 32GB $199, 55-inch 4K UHDTV $298, much more
Target Black Friday 2016: iPad Pro $150 off, iPhone 7 + $250 GC, Xbox One + $40 GC, iTunes, Beats headphones, much more
Amazon launches its Black Friday Store with new deals every five minutes + gift guides to make shopping easier
Dell Cyber Monday 2016: PlayStation 4 Bundle w/ two games + $25 GC $280, VIZIO 50-inch 4K UHDTV $400, more
GameStop Black Friday Ad: PS4 bundle + extra game $250, Deus Ex Mankind $30, more
Staples just posted its Black Friday 2016 Ad: Amazon Echo Dot $40, Chromecast $25, much more
App Store Free App of the Week: Perchang just went free for the very first time (Reg. $2)
Call of Duty iOS sale: Strike Team, Zombies & Black Ops Zombies down to $2 each
The best messenger bags, cases and sleeves for the new MacBook Pro
MORE NEW GEAR FROM TODAY:
Smartphone Accessories: Aukey 54W QC 2.0 5-Port USB Charger + 3-pack USB-C Cables $23 Prime shipped ($12 off), more
- Headphone Deals: V-Moda Crossfade $80 or Harman Kardon SoHo $40
- The newly introduced Nook Tablet 7 is available for pre-order: $50 shipped
- Breaking Bad Complete Series Blu-ray sets: Special Edition $99 + more
- 40% or more off Men’s Casio Pro Trek Watches: Solar Digital Quartz $87, more
- Save $25 off $100 on Dewalt, Bosch and Makita tools: 2-piece Combo Kit $165, more
MORE DEALS STILL LIVE:
Apple Watch users will appreciate this aluminum dock + MFi charging puck for $31 Prime shipped
Supercharge your home’s Wi-Fi & enjoy foolproof Time Machine backups w/ Apple’s 2TB Time Capsule: $199 (Reg. $299)
Extend the life of your MacBook Air/Pro by upgrading its SSD, Transcend 240GB kits now $135
Filed under: Apple
How to create Touch Bar screenshots on the new MacBook Pro + more
Apple’s new flagship MacBook Pro replaces the function key row with a dynamic multi-touch display called Touch Bar. This new screen changes based on which app you’re currently using and enables quick access to additional functionality throughout macOS.
One example of this is how Touch Bar handles screenshots. Whether you’re using the system keyboard shortcuts to create a screenshot or using the optional screenshot button on Touch Bar, you can assign the app or folder where you want the screenshot to save to on-the-fly.
And since Touch Bar is actually a second display, you can create a screenshot of whatever Touch Bar is displaying using a new system keyboard shortcut…
Filed under: Apple
Amazon’s iPhone app now gives you X-Ray vision for incoming holiday packages
Tucked in Amazon’s big Black Friday news this morning was the announcement of a handy Package X-Ray feature for its iPhone shopping app. The app can now leverage your iPhone’s camera to reveal the contents of an Amazon delivery without having to actually open up the package or hunt down tracking numbers.
Filed under: Apple
MacBook Pro Diary: I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s the end of the line for upgradable MacBooks
I’ve always upgraded my MacBooks. Usually, I would spec out my machine with the best processor and GPU, and couple that to the bare-bones RAM and drive, then upgrade those components myself to avoid the Apple premium. Sometimes I’d upgrade more than once during a machine’s lifetime.
My Late 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro, for example, was bought with 8GB RAM and a 750GB hard drive. I immediately upgraded the RAM to 16GB – a ten-minute task – and swapped out both the hard drive and optical drive for two 1TB hard drives. Later on, when SSD prices fell to more sensible levels, I swapped out the spinning metal drives for a couple of 1TB SSDs. In this way, the 17-inch machine I was reluctant to give up has remained remarkably usable even five years on.
That approach is no longer an option. The RAM has long been soldered on in MacBooks, and the past couple of days confirmed what I suspected about the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar when I maxed-out my order: the SSD, too, is soldered on and thus non-upgradable …
Filed under: Apple
Latest AirPods release date hint expects launch next month for Apple’s wireless earphones
Apple’s new AirPods appear to take totally wireless earphones one step further than any competitor so far, but we can’t be too sure just yet because of the delayed release and impending launch. AirPods were originally set to release in late October, then Apple said it needed ‘a little more time’ to ensure they’re ready for customers.
We’re now moving past the iPhone 7 launch and into the holiday shopping season with no set launch date for AirPods, but there are a few guesses at just when we should expect to buy Apple’s new wireless earbuds …
Filed under: Apple
Amazon Music Unlimited launches $15/month or $150/year family plan, up to 6 users
Following a launch of its new Amazon Music Unlimited plan in the U.S. last month followed by an EU launch earlier this week, today the company announced a family plan option for its unlimited music service.
Filed under: Apple
Official Reddit app finally adds iPad support in today’s update
It seems amazing that the official Reddit app has taken this long to add iPad support following the iPhone-only launch back in April, but it’s finally happened as the company has launched version 2.0. iPad support is the only new feature, alongside bug fixes for Reddit Live …
Filed under: Apple
Suppliers say Trump’s promise of US-made Apple products impractical, as company points to US jobs
A piece in the WSJ outlines why president-elect Trump’s campaign promise to ‘get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China’ is impractical.
Tim Cook has previously said that the vocational skills needed for Apple manufacturing simply don’t exist in the USA, and suppliers have emphasised the sheer scale of the challenge.
When Jabil Circuit, the world’s third-largest contract manufacturer by revenue, needed to quickly ramp up production of its electronics components a few years ago, the company was able to add 35,000 workers in China in less than six weeks.
“In no other country can you scale up so quickly,” said John Dulchinos, vice president of digital manufacturing.”
Even if Apple were to appoint American companies as suppliers, that wouldn’t necessarily create U.S. jobs, argues the piece …
Filed under: Apple
The Ultimate Collection of Free Content Marketing Templates
Does any aspect of your job intimidate you?
For content creators, sometimes the most stressful part of the role can be opening a completely blank document to start a new project.
Whether it’s writing a blog post, designing an infographic, or creating an ebook, it’s challenging to start creating a new piece of content from scratch, especially if you’ve never done it before.
Here in the HubSpot content shop, we want to take the work out of it for you. Instead of trying to master how to create every type of content in existence, cut down on the stress and inefficiency and read about our collection of nearly 400 free, customizable content creation templates.
We’ve broken this list down into types of content marketing, so jump ahead if you specifically want: Content Planning Templates, Written Content Templates, Visual Content Templates, or Email Templates.
Content Planning Templates
A Content Planning/Goal-Setting Template
(Download the content planning template here.)
HubSpot teamed up with Smart Insights to create a content planning template that will help you put together an effective content marketing plan for either your business or those of your clients. These templates will help you complete a SWOT analysis on your content marketing efforts (and develop a plan to improve them), define the right objectives and KPIs for that plan, brainstorm content ideas and map these across your funnel, and create a timeline for your content plans.
A Content Mapping Template
(Download the content mapping template here)
You know you need a content marketing strategy in place to support the success of your inbound marketing and sales organizations. But how do you get started? We’ve created a content mapping template so you can walk through your target audience’s buyer’s journey. The template helps you identify buyer personas, their challenges and needs, and to brainstorm content that provides solutions. You’ll come away from the template with tons of targeted blog post ideas to attract your audience to your site and convert them into leads.
A Buyer Persona Template
(Download the buyer persona template here.)
Marketing with buyer personas means marketing smarter. This buyer persona template will help you easily organize your research to create your very own buyer personas. Use it to create beautiful, well-formatted buyer personas that you can share with your entire company, while learning best practices for persona research along the way.
3 Blog Editorial Calendar Templates
(Download the blog editorial calendar templates here.)
Having an editorial calendar for your marketing content will save you a whole lot of time — not to mention sanity — as you plan your content release timeline. We realize there isn’t a one-size-fits all solution, so we’ve created three editorial calendar templates to use at your leisure: one for Google Calendar, one for Excel, and one for Google Sheets. (Read this blog post for a step-by-step guide for using the Google Calendar template.)
2 Social Media Content Calendar Templates (for 6 Social Networks)
(Download the social media content calendar templates here.)
With so many different social networks to manage, a social media manager’s life becomes a lot easier when they can plan which content to share on each account — and when. This easy-to-use social media content calendar for Microsoft Excel lets you organize your social media activities far in advance. Use it to plan your updates and learn how to properly format your content for the six most popular social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest.
Written Content Templates
5 Blog Post Templates
(Download the blog post templates here.)
Here’s the thing with blogging: There isn’t one, easy template you can fill in to produce a quality content offering. You need to spend some time brainstorming a title, outlining core content, and so on. While our templates are by no means a fill-in-the-blank type of deal, they’ll walk you through the critical steps for creating the following five blog post types:
- How-To Post
- List-Based Post
- Curated Collection Post
- SlideShare Presentation Post
- Newsjacking Post
We’ve seen these formats crush it on our blogs, and we would love for you to use them to hit your own goals.
5 Ebook Templates
(Download the ebook templates here.)
Year after year, marketers cite lead generation as one of their top content marketing goals for the year. If you want to succeed at lead gen, then you need content offers — like ebooks — to help you get there. Our internal creative design team went to work building five, beautiful ebook templates — in both PowerPoint and InDesign — for you to download, customize, and use.
A Press Release Template
(Download the press release template here.)
While public relations has adapted to be more lovable and less spammy, press releases can be effective when used correctly. Our press release template takes this into consideration and provides an inbound-optimized version. This means the template can help you script press releases and do so in a format optimized for sharing on your company blog. It’s built in Microsoft Word, so you can easily adapt and customize as needed for your PR needs.
50 Call-to-Action Templates
(Download the call-to-action templates here.)
Redesigning your call-to-action buttons can improve clickthrough rates by 1,300% or more. That means visitors will spend more time on your website, and it’ll encourage them to become leads. To help you design clickable calls-to-action, we’ve built 50 pre-designed CTAs for you. These CTAs are super easy to customize, so you don’t need to know any fancy design programs — just PowerPoint.
Bonus: There’s also a handy free tool in there that lets you track your CTA clicks in real time so you can see the exact number of clicks that your designs are reeling in.
Visual Content Templates
195+ Visual Marketing Templates
(Download the visual marketing templates here.)
Not a designer? Not a problem. We partnered with graphic design software company Canva to create over 195 visual marketing templates that are easy-to-use, work for any industry (finance, dentistry, agriculture, law — we’ve got ’em all), and are completely free. Best of all, they’re ready to edit in Canva’s online design tool, which is included for free with this set of templates. The templates include…
- Infographics templates
- Facebook ad templates
- Facebook post templates
- Twitter post templates
- Email header templates
- Blog title templates
- Facebook cover photo templates
- Twitter header templates
- LinkedIn cover photos templates
15 Infographic Templates
(Download the infographic templates here.)
We’ve created fifteen, pre-designed infographic templates right in PowerPoint (+ five bonus illustrator templates). That way, marketers can skip the frustrations and start creating the graphics right away. Within each template, we even provide guides to teach you how to use the templates effectively.
100 Social Media Graphics Templates
(Download the social media graphics templates here.)
Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than any other type of content. But we know well that creating visual content takes more time and resources — which why we’ve created these 100 customizable templates for you. These templates are in PowerPoint, so they’re very easy to edit — no Photoshop skills required. Simply customize the text on an image, save it, and post it to social media.
5 Social Media Cover Photo Templates
(Download the social media cover photo templates here.)
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have trouble keeping straight the different size dimension requirements on different social media networks. To take the guesswork out of it and to avoid frustrating re-designs, we’ve created five templates in PowerPoint that are pre-sized for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. You can customize them for your social networks without researching design specifications — don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.
3 PowerPoint Templates
(Download the PowerPoint templates here.)
PowerPoint can be a powerful tool for lead generation, brand building, and thought leadership. Don’t let boring slides stand in the way. You don’t have to be a designer to create beautiful slides. To help you get started, we’ve created three, eye-catching PowerPoint templates so you don’t have to start from scratch or rely on standard, old-school styles.
Bonus: We’ve also included four video tutorials on PowerPoint tricks in there so you can learn how to enhance images, clean up your text, install premium fonts, and so on — right in PowerPoint.
5 SlideShare Templates
(Download the SlideShare templates here.)
Creating a SlideShare presentation in PowerPoint doesn’t have to be daunting. With the right and tools at your disposal, you can easily create an engaging, visual presentation — all without fancy design programs, huge budgets, or hiring contractors.
To help you make a SlideShare of your own, we’ve created some free PowerPoint presentation templates for making awesome SlideShares — so your presentations will look great and be a breeze to put together. (Read this blog post for tip on how you can update and edit the templates to suit your specific needs.)
Email Templates
15 Email Templates for Marketing and Sales
(Download the email templates for marketing and sales here.)
Did you know that workers spend almost one third of their time at work reading and replying to emails? There are many ways you can streamline your inbox to save time, but you ultimately will still have to create and send emails. That’s where these templates come in. We’ve written the copy for 15 emails marketers and sales reps are likely to send over and over again to save you time and get you results.
There you have it, content marketers: over 386 templates to help you start creating content easily and quickly and further your inbound success.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and has been updated and for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.