Category: Apple

Apple PR:

Next month, a new software update will bring lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio to AirPods Max, delivering the ultimate listening experience and even greater performance for music production. With the included USB-C cable, users can enjoy the highest-quality audio across music, movies, and games, while music creators can experience significant enhancements to songwriting, beat making, production, and mixing.

The update will enable 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio over the included USB-C cable. If the headphone jack is more your jam, Apple has an option for you as well.

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Sue Marek at Ookla, the company behind speedtest.net, among other things:

AT&T and Verizon Speedtest users experienced better median download speeds on the iPhone 16e than iPhone 16. However, the opposite was true for T-Mobile users.

Verizon Speedtest users with the iPhone 16e and the iPhone 16 experienced median download speeds that lagged behind that of both AT&T and T-Mobile.

iPhone 16e Speedtest users on Verizon’s network and AT&T’s network saw higher upload speed performance than those using the iPhone 16. However, T-Mobile users experienced the opposite and had slightly higher upload speeds on the iPhone 16 compared to the iPhone 16e.

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Federico Viticci, bringing the fire:

In working with my iPad Pro over the past few months, I’ve realized something that might have seemed absurd just a few years ago: some of the best apps I’m using – the ones with truly desktop-class layouts and experiences – aren’t native iPad apps.

They’re web apps.

When the iPad starts to feel like a Chromebook, we have a problem.

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John Gruber, bringing the fire:

In the two decades I’ve been in this racket, I’ve never been angrier at myself for missing a story than I am about Apple’s announcement on Friday that the “more personalized Siri” features of Apple Intelligence, scheduled to appear between now and WWDC, would be delayed until “the coming year”.

I should have my head examined.

This announcement dropped as a surprise, and certainly took me by surprise to some extent, but it was all there from the start. I should have been pointing out red flags starting back at WWDC last year, and I am embarrassed and sorry that I didn’t see what should have been very clear to me from the start.

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Juli Clover:

With new iOS software updates, Apple has been automatically turning Apple Intelligence on again even for users who have disabled it, a decision that has become increasingly frustrating for those that don’t want to use Apple Intelligence .

This is gross.

Update: Chance Miller reports that this is happening with today’s macOS release, not iOS. Also gross.

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In a comment to John Gruber, Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy said:

Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.

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Joe Rossignol, writing at MacRumors:

A spokesperson for Apple has told French technology website Numerama that its M4 Max chip lacks an UltraFusion connector, which would have paved the way for the release of a doubled-up M4 Ultra chip in the future.

As we recently covered, Apple told Ars Technica that not every generation of M-series chips for Macs will include an “Ultra” chip. That seems like Apple indirectly confirming that it has no plans to release an M4 Ultra chip, and the M4 Max’s lack of UltraFusion technology makes it even more likely there won’t be an M4 Ultra chip.

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In addition to the new MacBook Air, Apple also updated the Mac Studio today:

Apple today announced the new Mac Studio, the most powerful Mac ever made, featuring M4 Max and the new M3 Ultra chip. The ultimate pro desktop delivers groundbreaking pro performance, extensive connectivity now with Thunderbolt 5, and new capabilities in its compact and quiet design that can live right on a desk. Mac Studio can tackle the most intense workloads with its powerful CPU, Apple’s advanced graphics architecture, higher unified memory capacity, ultrafast SSD storage, and a faster and more efficient Neural Engine. It provides a big boost in performance compared to the previous generation, and a massive leap for users coming from older Macs.

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As foretold, there’s a new MacBook Air out today, powered by the M4. Apple:

Apple today announced the new MacBook Air, featuring the blazing-fast performance of the M4 chip, up to 18 hours of battery life, a new 12MP Center Stage camera, and a lower starting price. It also offers support for up to two external displays in addition to the built-in display, 16GB of starting unified memory, and the incredible capabilities of macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence — all packed into its strikingly thin and light design that’s built to last. The new MacBook Air now comes in an all-new color — sky blue, a metallic light blue that joins midnight, starlight, and silver — giving MacBook Air its most beautiful array of colors ever. It also now starts at just $999 — $100 less than before — and $899 for education, making it an incredible value for students, business professionals, or anyone looking for a phenomenal combination of world-class performance, portability, design, and durability. With two sizes to choose from, the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air are available to pre-order today, with availability beginning Wednesday, March 12.

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Apple Newsroom, a day after Tim Cook posted his “There’s Something in the Air” tweet:

Apple today introduced the faster, more powerful iPad Air with the M3 chip and built for Apple Intelligence. iPad Air with M3 brings Apple’s advanced graphics architecture to iPad Air for the first time — taking its incredible combination of power-efficient performance and portability to a new level. iPad Air with M3 is nearly 2x faster compared to iPad Air with M1, and up to 3.5x faster than iPad Air with A14 Bionic.

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Tim Cook teased a product release coming this week with an old — but perfectly clear — reference to an old Apple event, saying on X — ugh — that “There’s something in the air.”

That tagline was used way back in 2008 when the first MacBook Air was introduced:

Rumor has it that the M4 MacBook Air is ready to go. I’m sure it’ll be a great machine, but I’m not sure it’s worthy of such a great reference. While we wait to see if this is more exciting than a mere spec bump,¹ let’s revisit that old announcement:

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Earlier this month, the UK government demanded access to encrypted data stored on Apple servers. This demand was worldwide in scope, and would have required Apple building a backdoor into its encryption scheme for iCloud and related services.

Today, Apple has responded by announcing it will disable Advanced Data Protection in the UK. ADP is the optional setting that adds end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, device backups, message backups, and more.

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