Category: Apple

Didn’t think this would be a story I’d ever link to, but here we are. Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch reports:

Remember Claris, the 1987 Apple spin-off that made applications like MacWrite, MacPaint and FileMaker? In 1998, Apple brought all of those products in-house again, with the exception of the low-code application platform FileMaker . With that move, Claris changed its name to FileMaker Inc. Today, however, the Claris name rises from the dead, as FileMaker Inc. is changing its name to Claris International. The name of the FileMaker product itself, though, remains the same.

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Benjamin Mayo at 9to5Mac:

Apple is now selling a new generation of the 5K LG UltraFine display. For the first time, the 5K UltraFine is now compatible with the iPad Pro, finally offering a 5K display option for 2018 iPad Pro users.

Previously, the 5K UltraFine display would only work over Thunderbolt. Now, it can output 5K over USB-C DisplayPort, which means it can now work with any of Apple’s current Mac and iPad Pro lineup.

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As usual, Jason Snell has published a wide range of charts and a transcript of the call.

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Quad-core performance has done this machine a lot of good. Update: Jonathan Morrison has a video highlighting the new notebook:

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Matthew Panzarino at TechCrunch:

Apple has disabled the Apple Watch Walkie Talkie app due to an unspecified vulnerability that could allow a person to listen to another customer’s iPhone without consent, the company told TechCrunch this evening.

Apple has apologized for the bug and for the inconvenience of being unable to use the feature while a fix is made.

Here is the company’s statement:

We were just made aware of a vulnerability related to the Walkie-Talkie app on the Apple Watch and have disabled the function as we quickly fix the issue. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and will restore the functionality as soon as possible. Although we are not aware of any use of the vulnerability against a customer and specific conditions and sequences of events are required to exploit it, we take the security and privacy of our customers extremely seriously. We concluded that disabling the app was the right course of action as this bug could allow someone to listen through another customer’s iPhone without consent. We apologize again for this issue and the inconvenience.

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With today’s revisions to the Mac notebook line, choosing between a new MacBook Air and a new MacBook Pro has gotten a little more interesting.

The machines are similar in many ways. They both come with two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Touch ID, 8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD. Both can be stepped up to 16 GB of memory, while the Pro tops out at 2 TB of storage, as opposed to the Air’s new 1 TB cap.

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Mitchel Broussard at MacRumors:

Alongside a refresh of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro this morning, Apple has also dropped the price on high-end storage upgrades across the Mac lineup. This includes the iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and even the soon-to-be-discontinued Mac Pro.

Additionally, the MacBook Air now has a 1 TB option, unlike before where one had to jump from 512 GB to 1.5 TB. When I bought my wife a MacBook Air, I was disappointed by this, and helped her cram her user data into a 512 GB SSD because the 1.5 TB was so expensive at $1,200. Now, the 1 TB SSD is just $400, the same cost as the 512 GB we purchased.

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This morning, Apple has announced an updated MacBook Air. The new machine is the same as the 2018 model, but now includes a True Tone display. The MacBook Air now starts at $1,099, while students can buy one for $999.

I think Apple has finally gotten the starting price right for the MacBook Air.¹

One rung up the product line, the two-port MacBook Pro, previously dubbed the “MacBook Escape” by the Mac faithful, has received a pretty big overhaul. Here’s a bit from Apple’s press release:

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macOS Catalina Developer Beta 3 added a new screen saver named Drift:

Like some of Apple’s other screen savers, including my long-time favorite Flurry, Drift comes with several options for its color scheme:

The options are mostly pretty self-explanatory, except the top two. “Desktop” takes its palette from the current desktop picture, while Spectrum shows a wide range of ever-changing colors:

I’m a fan. Apple certainly doesn’t have to add things like this to macOS, but I’m glad it does

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Benajmin Mayo, on 9to5Mac:

In a report published today, Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple will roll out a new keyboard design based on scissor switches, offering durability and longer key travel, starting with the 2019 MacBook Air. The MacBook Pro is also getting the new scissor switch keyboard, but not until 2020.

The new scissor switch keyboard is a whole new design than anything previously seen in a MacBook, purportedly featuring glass fiber to reinforce the keys. Apple fans who have bemoaned the butterfly keyboard should be optimistic about a return to scissor switches.

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Over at Ars Technica, Samuel Axon has published an in-depth look at Catalyst, including interviews with several people inside Apple:

Apple seeks to funnel some of its success with the iOS App Store over to macOS using Catalyst. We’ll go over how developers use what Apple has built step-by-step, as well as what challenges they faced. And we’ll share Apple’s answers to our questions about how the company plans to maintain a high standard of quality for Mac apps as an influx of mobile-derived apps hits the platform, what Apple’s long-term plans for cross-platform apps across the entire ecosystem look like, and more.

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Apple:

Apple today announced that Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, will depart the company as an employee later this year to form an independent design company which will count Apple among its primary clients. While he pursues personal projects, Ive in his new company will continue to work closely and on a range of projects with Apple.

Of course, this was foretold on Connected earlier this year:

pic.twitter.com/y8rlrR3SJz

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