As part of its commitment to US economic growth, Apple today confirmed that its newly redesigned Mac Pro will be manufactured in Austin, Texas. This latest generation Mac Pro, which was unveiled at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference in June, will begin production soon at the same Austin facility where Mac Pro has been made since 2013.
The new Mac Pro will include components designed, developed and manufactured by more than a dozen American companies for distribution to US customers. Manufacturers and suppliers across Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Vermont, including Intersil and ON Semiconductor, are providing advanced technology. The US manufacturing of Mac Pro is made possible following a federal product exclusion Apple is receiving for certain necessary components. The value of American-made components in the new Mac Pro is 2.5 times greater than in Apple’s previous generation Mac Pro.
Category: Apple
Recreating Apple’s California Wallpapers⇢
Andrew Levitt has published a pretty cool video about the macOS wallpapers:
My friends and I visited and recreated every default Apple wallpaper on a one week road trip. Starting with MacOS Mojave in Death Valley National Park, we traveled to each of Apple’s California Locations to try and make an identical photo to their wallpapers that come installed with every new Mac computer.
We visited Mojave, Sierra, High Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, and Mavericks. Now we just have to go visit Catalina for the MacOS Catalina launch!
AppleCare+ for Apple Watch and iPhone Go Subscription⇢
It looks like AppleCare+ can now be in place for longer than two years, if you’re willing to pay monthly.
Wonderful Tools: Thoughts on Apple’s 2019 iPhone Event
Apple’s 2019 iPhone event has come and gone, but calling it the “iPhone event” isn’t quite right anymore, as Apple’s handset shared the stage with the company’s growing collection of content services, the Apple Watch and even a new entry-level iPad.
The event started with a video and a quote from Tim Cook that I think sums up how Apple thinks about itself pretty nicely:
Give people wonderful tools and they’ll do wonderful things.
Apple Unveils Reworked 5th Ave Store ... Sorta⇢
One of Apple’s most iconic Apple Stores, the all-glass cube on Fifth Avenue, has been under renovations since 2017. Last week, Apple revealed a new look for the cube that makes it shine with a rainbow iridescence — and we sent our photographer Amelia to capture it for you.
The new look is gorgeous, but also not permanent. Apple told The Verge that the iridescence is caused by a wrap covering the glass that is “temporary,” so see it while you can.
Apple Launches Beta of Apple Music on the Web⇢
Every iPhone Ranked⇢
Speaking of Rene Ritchie, I kind of hate how clever this idea for a video is:
Apple Announces Independent Repair Provider Program⇢
This morning, Apple announced the Independent Repair Provider Program:
Apple today announced a new repair program, offering customers additional options for the most common out-of-warranty iPhone repairs. Apple will provide more independent repair businesses — large or small — with the same genuine parts, tools, training, repair manuals and diagnostics as its Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASPs). The program is launching in the US with plans to expand to other countries.
Older macOS Installers Pulled From Download⇢
Apple Makes Changes to Siri Grading⇢
Earlier this month, Apple suspended its program that used collected audio samples from Siri interactions to improve the service. The service was made public when a story was broken by The Guardian back in July:
Apple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or “grading”, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned.
Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a small proportion of Siri recordings are passed on to contractors working for the company around the world. They are tasked with grading the responses on a variety of factors, including whether the activation of the voice assistant was deliberate or accidental, whether the query was something Siri could be expected to help with and whether Siri’s response was appropriate.
Apple Releases macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Supplemental Update
Apple has released an update to macOS Mojave 10.14.6, with the following fixes:
- Resolves an issue that may cause certain Mac notebooks to shut down during sleep
- Fixes an issue that may degrade performance when working with very large files
- Addresses an issue that may prevent Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, and GarageBand from updating
The update isn’t listed (yet?) in Apple’s Mojave update page, but is available now in System Preferences.
App Store Editorial Now Visible on Web⇢
Apple has changed how its App Store editorial content works on the web, as reported by Benjamin Mayo:
Apple has recently updated its App Store Preview pages for stories to allow users to view the full content of stories from inside their desktop web browser. App Store stories have always been shareable as links, but the web version was just a title and a navigation link to ‘open this story in the App Store’.