I think most folks have basically forgotten all about the notch, but if this story is to be believed, phones from the iPhone X to the 13 line are all going to look pretty dated this fall:
An image alleged to be the display schematic for the iPhone 14 Pro series has emerged online, offering us a look at the true size of the pill-shaped and circular cutout design expected to debut on the high-end 2022 iPhones in replacement of the notch.
Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers will soon be able to repair Face ID on the iPhone XS and newer without having to replace the whole device, according to an internal memo obtained by MacRumors from a reliable source.
Apple said authorized technicians will soon have access to a new TrueDepth Camera service part containing all Face ID and front camera modules, allowing for same-unit repairs. Apple said the move will help to reduce the number of whole-unit repairs completed, as part of the company’s commitment to reduce the carbon footprint of its products.
Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors, has outlined what he wants to see out of the forthcoming larger Apple silicon’d iMac:
My last two primary Macs have been 27-inch iMacs. First the original 5K model, then the iMac Pro. As much as I have loved using this iMac Pro for the past four years, I’m over it now. I’m ready to enter the Apple silicon era. And Apple has, thus far, failed to oblige.
Steve Troughton-Smith has far more experience with Mac Catalyst than most people outside of Apple, so when he talks about this stuff, it’s good to pay attention:
I wanted to take some time to lay out the areas of the framework that I’ve found just don’t do enough to enable great Mac apps, and perhaps provide a checklist of things for Apple to solve in future versions of the OS. This is my curated list, and there will definitely be things I didn’t touch upon below as they haven’t directly impacted what I’m working on or hoping to build. Onwards!
Mark Gurman, writing at Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. is bumping the pay of many U.S. retail employees in the face of a tightening tightening labor market, inflation woes and complaints from some staffers about working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The raises, which have ranged from 2% to 10% depending on store location and role, are going to salespeople, Genius Bar technical support staff and some senior hourly workers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The increases don’t apply to all employees, and not all stores have been notified of the changes yet.
Apple’s AirTags have been at the center of numerous stories of unwanted tracking over the last year, making a statement like this feel inevitable:
We’ve become aware that individuals can receive unwanted tracking alerts for benign reasons, such as when borrowing someone’s keys with an AirTag attached, or when traveling in a car with a family member’s AirPods left inside. We also have seen reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes.
It’s always fun to part in this, and to read what others in the field think about Apple’s previous year.
Update: Don’t miss the follow-up post with charts!
As pointed out by MacRumors among other sites, Apple has updated its developer website to include details concerning payments outside of the App Store, which are now available for dating apps in the Netherlands, via a court order.
I didn’t think Apple would make this process easy for developers. It wants to keep as many of these apps in the App Store as possible, but some of the details here are just ridiculous.
Apple’s latest quarterly results are out. And they’re big. It was an all-time revenue record, at $123.9 billion. The company made a record $34.6 billion in profit.
Mac revenue also reached a new all-time high at $10.9 billion, and iPhone revenue also peaked at $71.6 billion. The iPad’s revenue was $7.2 billion, down sequentially and year-over-year, but still among the five best iPad quarters in recent years.
A few years ago, I wrote about the now-dead Dashboard, which was was in macOS for a long, long time:
While not as flashy or important as Tiger’s keystone feature, Spotlight, Dashboard still enjoyed a big push from Jobs on stage.
A user could tap a keyboard shortcut or visit a hot corner and Dashboard would activate, dimming the screen and flying in widgets. Adding new ones could be done with a click of the mouse.
My buddy (and Connected co-host) Federico has been featured in the Mac App Store:
Federico Viticci became a master of Shortcuts by playing the long game.
In 2009 he cofounded MacStories, one of the most popular and trusted sources of Apple news and reviews on the web. Along the way, his obsession with efficiency led the Rome-based writer and journalist to become an expert at using Shortcuts on iOS. “It’s all about removing friction from everyday tasks,” he says.
Matthew Bischoff has written something that really encapsulates what I loved about my time in Apple Retail. They worked in Retail a few years after my stint from 2006-2008 was over, but this really grabbed me:
My training for the job involved being clapped at a lot while donning the signature blue T-shirt in a room full of folks learning how to sell iPhones and iPads and create Apple “customers for life”. Our teacher was a blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer-turned-computer salesman named JB who wore white earbuds as a necklace. As he taught from the printed material and screened Apple videos for the class, he kept harping on one point that’s stuck with me in the decades since.