Items tagged with (NASDAQ:AAPL)
When Apple first introduced its custom Arm-based M1 processor late last year, the MacBook Air was one of the first devices to take the plunge. Emboldened with excellent performance and stellar battery life in a lightweight/fanless chassis, the refreshed MacBook Air remains a hot seller for Apple. With a starting price of $999, the MacBook Air isn't exactly cheap, but it's Apple's most affordable laptop. However, a new deal from Best Buy is slashing that price by a whopping $250. First, you'll want to make sure that you sign up for a free My Best Buy account. Then, today's offer is available by signing in to the Best Buy Student Hub, which is also free for anyone to join. The MacBook Air is currently...
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Apple is eager to leave Intel behind as the supplier of CPUs for its Mac lineup, but bear in mind that this transition to using Arm-based silicon based on custom home brewed designs in place of Intel's x86 CPUs is not an overnight thing—Apple last year said it would take a couple of years to complete the transition. As such, rumors of a next-gen Mac Pro powered by another Xeon processor are at least plausible. Let's take a step back for a moment. Apple's pending wholesale switch to custom Arm designs is a seismic shift of sorts. The partnership between Apple and Intel dates back to 2006, when the former moved away from PowerPC hardware to the latter's x86 Core processors. But going forward,...
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Apple first brought biometric authentication to its smartphone family with the iPhone 5s in 2013, courtesy of Touch ID. Over the next several years, Apple would refine Touch ID to make it faster and more secure until it launched its successor, Face ID, with the iPhone X in 2017. Today, Apple tablets and smartphones either use Face ID or Touch ID, but not both. However, a new patent shows how Apple could incorporate both biometric authentication technologies into future iPhones, perhaps as early as the iPhone 14 in 2022. Touch ID in the display is probably the least surprising development for the iPhone, as Android phones have long included the ability to scan your fingerprint using this method....
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We're always on the lookout for hot deals on Apple's AirPods Pro, as they are among the best wireless earbuds on the market with active noise cancellation. The main problem with the AirPods Pro is that they launched at a relatively hefty $249. The wireless headsets regularly go on sale for $199, but Staples is taking things even further today with a price tag of just $179, although there's a catch which we'll get to later. At $179, this is the lowest price that we've seen yet for the AirPods Pro. As we mentioned, this price gets you active noise cancellation in addition to 3D spatial audio with supported streaming services. Apple also recently added spatial audio support for its Apple Music service...
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Passengers on a recent United Airlines flight departing from San Francisco, California and bound for Orlando, Florida, had to exit the plane and be re-screened because of an ill-advised iPhone prank. A teenager on board the aircraft had used Apple's AirDrop feature to send an unsolicited photo of an airsoft gun to other passengers on board the plane. In today's climate, that is a big no-no. While some may see the de-boarding and re-screening as an overreaction, an abundance of caution is to be expected when taking to the skies on a commercial airline. The boneheaded teen who sent the photo was likely not born yet during the terrorist events of 9-11, or if they were, they would have been less...
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Apple has already embraced mini LED technology on its 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which touts what the company calls a Liquid Retina XDR display. Portions of the screen can get as bright as 1,600 nits (full-screen brightness checks in at 1,000 nits). Looking ahead, Apple has plans of expanding mini LED displays to more products, including the MacBook Air and iPad mini. Mini LED technology is exactly what it sounds like—it uses much smaller LEDs than a conventional LED display. This in turn allows for many more dimming zones as part of the full array backlight configuration, to ultimately provide brighter images with less of a halo effect (where light spills out from an object or subject), and deeper...
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Sony today announced a new promotion that gives PlayStation 5 owners six months free of the Apple TV+ streaming service. Apple is really pushing its service and expanding its availability to more platforms as it seeks to compete with popular entrenched players like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. If you currently own a PlayStation 5, you have from now until July 22nd, 2022 to redeem the Sony offer. The trial lasts for six months, after which the plan renews at the cost of $4.99 per month (until you decide to cancel it). Unlike typical offers, this "extended trial" is also available for those currently taking part in a free trial for Apple TV+. In that case, this new offer will tack...
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There are some hot deals brewing for Apple's popular family of tablets. Retailers like Amazon and Best Buy have discounted the iPad Air by $100, and Apple is throwing in an even more compelling offer for students. The 4th generation iPad Air is priced at just $499.99 compared to its $599.99 retail price. Both Amazon and Best Buy offer the iPad Air at this new low price in its whole rainbow of colors: Green, Rose Gold, Space Gray, Silver, and Sky Blue. It should be noted that the new price is $20 lower than the previous deal one month ago. Apple iPad Air 4th Generation 64GB Wi-Fi (2020) $499 @ Amazon Apple iPad Air 4th Generation 64GB Wi-Fi (2020) $499 @ Best Buy Depending on how you feel about...
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Google is making waves when it comes to privacy at a rapid pace. Just last week, the company introduces a new way to quickly delete the last 15 minutes of search history with the push of a button. This week, the company is opening up a new option that will allow you to lock Incognito tabs in Chrome with biometric authentication. For those not familiar with Incognito mode, it allows you to browse the web privately and won't save your site history, cookies, site data, or form data. However, if you don't close out your Incognito tab when switching to your "normal" tabs, the last site that you visited would still be visible when switching back. For example, let's say you use Incognito mode to search...
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Apple's iPhone SE family of devices has long been an attractive way to enter the iOS ecosystem without forking over a lot of money (relatively speaking). The first-generation iPhone SE launched with the body of an iPhone 5s and the A9-based guts of the newer iPhone 6s. Likewise, the second-generation iPhone SE launched last year with the body of the iPhone 8 paired with a newer A13 Bionic SoC. With this in mind, there's no question that Apple is working on a third-generation iPhone SE, and the latest rumors allege that the device could arrive as early as the first half of 2022, according to DigiTimes. The so-called iPhone SE 3 will reportedly launch with an A14 Bionic -- the SoC used in the flagship...
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This quarter, smartphone shipments have been up as we hope to enter the downhill slide of the pandemic. At the head of the pack was Samsung with 19% of shipped smartphones, but sneaking up behind is Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi with a 17% share, knocking Apple down to third place with a 14% share. Xiaomi's impressive overtake in the mobile device market is due in part to a preliminary estimate of the company's annual growth rate at 83%. This is quite impressive when compared to Apple's measly 1% growth and Samsung's 15%. Canalys Research Manager Ben Stanton explained that "Xiaomi is growing its overseas business rapidly," as "its shipments increased more than 300% in Latin America, 150% Africa...
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Earlier this year, a vulnerability within Apple’s WebKit for Safari was discovered by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and then tracked as CVE-2021-1879. Now, it is reported that this vulnerability was likely exploited by a familiar Russian government-backed threat actor: Nobelium. Yesterday, Google TAG researchers Maddie Stone and Clement Lecigne reported that Nobelium, also known as Cozy Bear or APT29, used “LinkedIn Messaging to target government officials from western European countries by sending them malicious links.” If the victim clicked this link on an iOS device, they would be redirected to an attacker-controlled domain that served next-stage payloads. After...
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Apple is widely expected to launch its next-generation MacBook Pros later this year, and recent rumors have suggested that the laptops will feature mini LED displays. Earlier this year, Apple first brought mini LED technology to the forefront with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and has struggled to keep up with demand due to component shortages. Now, a new report from DigiTimes alleges that Apple is already making plans to ensure that it has enough mini LED display panels on hand to keep up with demand for its all-new MacBook Pros. According to the publication, Apple currently uses Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology (TSMT) for 12.9-inch iPad Pro panels and allegedly contracted with the company to produce...
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If you are still relying on Apple's discontinued AirPort Time Capsule to back up you data, you may want to seek out an alternative. Otherwise, you could lose all your files to what a data retrieval company is calling a flaw in the physical design, which in the firm's experience, can actually warp the hard disk drive (HDD) inside. The AirPort Time Capsule is a defunct router line that Apple introduced in January 2008. It combined 802.11n wireless connectivity with a "server grade" HDD, with the promise of delivering automatic wireless backups for every Mac in a person's home. Apple initially offered two variants, one with a 500GB HDD for $299 and a 1TB mode for $499, then a year later it offered...
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Do you know what would be great? If Apple would stop dragging its feet on a weird bug in iOS that makes it possible to disable an iPhone's ability to connect with a Wi-Fi network. Same goes for iPad devices, presumably. The problem lies with SSIDs that contain certain characters—if you connect to one with your iPhone, it could kill your Wi-Fi, possibly requiring a factory restore to get it back. This came to light last month when researcher and reverse engineer specialist Carl Schou found that when joining a network with the SSID set as %p%s%s%s%s%n, it would disable the device's Wi-Fi. In some cases, however, it seems the issue could be resolved by resetting the phone's network settings,...
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Late last year, newly formed NUVIA Inc. aimed to take on Intel and AMD in the data center with a massive $240 million funding round. Now, the company recently acquired by Qualcomm, is retargeting its sights on the mobile space and could take a shot at Apple in hopes of gaining better penetration in the laptop market as soon as next year. As it stands, Apple’s M1 chip is an incredibly power-efficient and performant mobile processor architecture that is tough to beat. However, on Thursday, Qualcomm Inc’s newly appointed CEO, Cristiano Amon spoke with Reuters explaining that, with the acquisition of Nuvia and the expertise acquired therein, Qualcomm could end up with the...
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Right to repair is a testy topic that garners a strong response from people on both sides of the argument. Despite this, a British right to repair law is coming into effect today, requiring manufacturers to make spare parts available to consumers and third-party repair companies. However, not all that glitters is gold, it seems, as there are some major caveats to this law. As reported by the BBC, the goal of the rules is to “extend the lifespan of products by up to 10 years and benefit the environment.” While Adam French of Which? believes that this will help reduce e-waste, the law is not quite perfect. For example, only parts for “simple and safe” repairs will be available...
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Apple has already embraced mini LED backlighting technology with its latest 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which features what the company calls a "Liquid Retina XDR" display (hey, it's better than calling it a "Magical" display, right?). Having been sufficiently pleased with the result, Apple is said to also be using mini LED backlighting on a pair of upcoming MacBook systems. It is expected that Apple will announce redesigned 16-inch and 14-inch MacBook Pro models this fall. We can anticipate they will both arrive with a new and faster Apple Silicon system-on-chip (SoC), and that in and of itself is interesting. However, that is far from the only upgrade headed to the next crop of Apple's MacBooks. Apple...
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As we inch closer to an expected September launch for the Apple Watch Series 7, additional leaks have given us insight into what Apple is cooking up. Credible leakers claim that the Series 7 will finally adopt a brand new design language, ditching the rounded design in favor of flat surfaces and hard edges. A new report alleges that Apple may hold the line on adding more sensors to the Series 7, pushing that move out until 2022. The Series 6 already includes a bevy of sensors, including an altimeter, optical heart rate sensor, electrical heart sensor (ECG), and more. However, instead of devoting internal space to more sensors, Apple will reportedly work to increase the battery capacity of the...
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In just a matter of months, Apple will unveil its next generation iPhone lineup, presumably called the iPhone 13 series. Leaks and rumors abound and will be even more plentiful as an inevitable launch comes closer into view. Looking beyond the iPhone 13, however, a prominent Apple analyst had some interesting predictions about the iPhone 14 that will emerge in the second half of next year. One of the predictions is that there will be a 6.7-inch handset that will rank as the least expensive iPhone to date with that size display. We'll get to that in a moment, but first let's quickly cover the current generation line, to give us points of reference. Here they are... iPhone 12 Pro Max: 6.7-inch...
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When Apple launched the iPhone 12 family last year, it brought a new design language with harder edges and flat surfaces. Apple's iPhone 13 family should arrive in few months, but it won't bring any significant design changes to the table -- only minor tweaks. Rumors have suggested that the iPhone 13 will have a smaller notch this year. Because of the need for Face ID hardware, ambient light sensor, FaceTime HD camera, and earpiece speaker, the notch won't completely disappear. This is an interesting turn of events as Android manufacturers were quick to copy the iPhone X display notch after it was released. But these same OEMs just as quickly pivoted to hole punch cutouts for the selfie camera...
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Perhaps it is good to have a normal WiFi name or SSID, as one researcher found. Earlier this week, a new iPhone bug appeared that bricks any iPhone’s WiFi, if connected to a specifically named access point. While something like this could be used maliciously in theory, it would be hard to miss a hotspot named %p%s%s%s%s%n. On June 18th, researcher and reverse engineer Carl Schou found that when he joined his personal WiFi with the SSID set to %p%s%s%s%s%n, it “permanently disabled its WiFi functionality.” Even a reboot or changing the SSID to something else would fix the problem, he tweeted. After some testing, it was eventually found that the only way to fix this would be to...
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