Apple

An early test build of iOS 14 apparently leverages Apple's Neural engine to enable seamless, in-app machine translation in Safari and other core Apple apps. If the implementation is sound, this could be a major boon for iOS 14 users on the iPhone 12 later this year.

Plenty is already seemingly known about the so-called iPhone 12 series. One element that remains unknown, at the least, for the time being, is in what colours Apple will offer its next flagships. A concept designer has sought to answer that by imagining how the iPhone 12 Pro could look if Apple adopted navy blue as a colour option.

Apple is considering a large US$330 million investment in a microLED manufacturing plant in Taiwan. The investment would be a joint venture with Epistar and AU Optronics. This investment could lead to the use of microLED displays in future iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and MacBook Pros.

It now costs twice as much to upgrade the entry-level MacBook Pro 13 from 8 GB to 16 GB of RAM. RAM prices remain unchanged on other Apple products though, and the increase makes the Ice Lake MacBook Pro 13 just US$100 more expensive than a comparably-equipped Coffee Lake model.

Apple has paid a US$100,000 bounty to Bhavuk Jain for a security vulnerability he found within the "Sign in with Apple" ability found on some websites and third-party applications. The bug could allow hackers to take full control of a user's account.

Several iPad Pro 10.5 owners have voiced concerns on the Apple Community forums that their device is stuck in a constant boot loop every 180 seconds after performing an iPad OS update to 13.4 or above. The issue, which does not seem to occur in iPad OS 13.3.1, is not apparently resolved even after a DFU reset. However, squeezing near the battery area seems to have had some degree of success.

The latest IDC report on the wearables market (for the first quarter of 2020 (1Q2020)) shows that its watch sector declined. However, this shortfall was addressed by gains made by the audio and band categories. Apple remained the #1 brand in terms of shipments, although Samsung posted the greatest year-on-year (YoY) growth.

Refurbished Apple iPhone XR models are now available for purchase on Apple's website. The 64GB version costs $499, while the 128GB and 256GB variants retail at $539 and $629, respectively. Apple says that all phones come with a new battery, along with a one-year warranty.

Escobar Inc has announced another scam. Having ditched its attempts to sell skinned foldable smartphones, the company is now claiming to be selling a "24KT Gold Luxury Edition" of the iPhone 11 Pro. Priced at US$499, Escobar Inc claims that it is "the real APPLE KILLER phone."

Apple is finally allowing Indian customers to purchase customized, configure-to-build Mac and MacBook variants. This move gives Indian Mac buyers much-needed flexibility in terms of RAM, storage, and CPU/GPU configurations.

Unfortunately for those who don't want to use cash, the new update only includes premium content for the upcoming Battle Path missions and various (apparently) minor tweaks and fixes, such as performance optimizations, spotting system changes, harsher penalties for deserters, various interface improvements, and so on.

Apple frenemy Samsung has secured the supply of 80 percent of Apple’s iPhone 12 OLED display orders according to Digitimes. The remainder of the OLED panel supplies are said be supplied by both LG and BOE.

ARM has announced its new Cortex-A78 architecture that will power most Android flagship smartphones in 2021. Interestingly, it has also branched out into extra-performance cores with the launch of its new Cortex-X1 borne out of its new Cortex-X Custom Program.

Although its name should be "Regia Marina" due to the introduction of the Italian Fleet tech tree — only for those who buy preorder early access packs at this stage or complete various missions, as usual — War Thunder 1.99 comes as "Starfighters" thanks to the F-104 jets that have been added to the game as well. Obviously, there is much more to it than just the above.

It has been rumored that Apple is busy working on improving the highly controversial butterfly keyboard that the OEM utilized in laptops such as the MacBook Pro, MacBook, and MacBook Air over the last few years. Although more recent models have been fitted with scissor switch keyboards, it could be that the butterfly keyboard will reappear in the future.

Rumour has it that the AirPods Studio may have already entered mass production. Slated to be announced at WWDC 2020 next month, the US$349 over-ear headphones will compete with the likes of the Bose 700, the upcoming Sony WH-1000XM4 and the Surface Headphones 2.

A new iPhone for less than $500? Currently, only the iPhone SE (2020) makes this possible. This sounds like a good deal and while the smartphone offers many contemporary features, it lacks a modern design.

While almost every aspect of the iPhone 12 may have already been revealed, there remains little reliable information about what Apple has planned for the next generation of the Apple Watch. A concept video shows what the Watch Series 6 could look like with a borderless display though, giving the smartwatch a more modern than the Watch Series 5 while while retaining its design language.

@unc0verTeam recently announced that a working, universal iOS 13.5 jailbreak will be arriving soon. The jailbreak is compatible with Windows, meaning iPhone and iPad users won't need to use a Mac to jailbreak their devices, as with Checkra1n.

A report by Ming Chi-Kuo indicates that Apple might not include EarPods with its iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro series devices this year. The move appears to be an effort to nudge consumers towards buying AirPods Pro and the upcoming AirPods Studio headphones.

The Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2020) is the iPad Pro series' current flagship. As its predecessors, the updated XXL tablet aims to fully replace laptops. The Magic Keyboard, which is scheduled to be available beginning at the end of May, will be a big step towards this.

Apple's upcoming iOS 14 is bringing more augmented reality integration via apps such as Gobi that offer dining and shopping interactions through new circular QR codes. The Find My app will also be updated with audio and haptic cues to make device retrieval even easier.

The next generation of iPhones - thought to be called the 12 series - have been leaked extensively already. A new leak from Ross Young of the DisplaySupplyChain tips site now claims to fill in some of the remaining blanks. They include the resolutions and sources of their respective displays.

The next entry-level iPad may quite the upgrade over its predecessor, MacRumors reports. Following the iPhone SE's product strategy, the iPad will remain affordable by Apple's standards. However, it is set to receive a new chipset and a larger display.

The iPhone 12 series is currently thought to have a total of 4 variants. A new set of 3D images shows what one with a 5.4-inch screen would look like. It has the iPad Pro-esque form factor of previous renders, as well as a standard Apple notch. It is speculated that it will have the same new SoC as its other variants.

Apple's 2020 MacBook Air is the first Air with optional quad-core processors, which should increase the performance significantly, at least in theory. However, the entry-level SKU with the Core i3 CPU for $999 is often the better choice for everyday tasks.

Realme CEO Madhav Sheth recently confirmed the existence of the Realme Watch and Realme TV. The two products are set to launch in India on May 25th, offering an alternative to the Apple Watch and premium Android smart TVs.

Forbes has just released its Global 2000 annual ranking list for the top public companies in the world. Apple is the highest-ranked tech company, residing in a very respectable ninth position. Meanwhile, Xiaomi has celebrated moving upwards through the ranks by 42 places from last year to reach 384th position in 2020.

The Core i5-1038NG7 and Core i7-1068NG7 have started appearing on multiple benchmarking websites following the launch of the MacBook Pro 13, and they seem to be incapable of outperforming processors like the Core i7-1065G7 despite their 28 W TDPs. The cooling system of the MacBook Pro 13 could be at play, with the 28 W Core i5-1038NG7 also falling well short of early examples of Tiger Lake-U processors.

Several iPad users are complaining about accelerated battery drain when the tablet is paired with the keyboard. One user lost nearly 25% battery with just two hours of continuous keyboard use. The problem appears to be software agnostic as it persists on the beta and stable version of iPadOS.

Apple's first keyboard case with trackpad for the iPad Pro is just as expensive as it is heavy. A new X-ray image has shown why it is the latter, and partly explains the former too. Featuring a design more complicated than that of some laptops, the Magic Keyboard case is certainly intricate.

New renders of the next iteration of Apple's iPad Air may bring a massive change to the tablet's design language. According to leaks obtained by Svetapple, the next iPad Air will feature minuscule bezels with an in-display Touch ID fingerprint reader.

Rumoured to be launching for US$349, Apple's first over-ear headphones are also said to be jam-packed with advanced features. Sporting Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Transparency Mode like other AirPods, the AirPods Studio will apparently support custom EQ settings in macOS and iOS too.

The faint glimmer of Core i7-1068G7 laptops arriving this quarter is seemingly no more. Removed from Intel's ARK database, the Core i7-1068G7 has been replaced by the Core i7-1068NG7, the 28 W processor found in the new MacBook Pro 13. The Core i5-1038NG7 has been added too, Intel's other 28 W Ice Lake processor.

Prolific leaker Jon Prosser confirms that there will be four variants in the iPhone 12 series this year. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Max will come with a 60Hz OLED display, 4GB of RAM, and a dual-camera setup. Prices start at $649 and $749, respectively. The iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will come with a 120Hz display, triple-camera+LiDAR setup, 6GB of RAM, and will retail at $999 and $1099, respectively.

Was a smartphone like the iPhone inevitable? Ken Kocienda, one of its designers doesn’t believe so. Rather, Kocienda argues in a tweet over the weekend that it was “an act of creativity” and that, as such, “It wasn’t inevitable”.

Rumour has it that Apple has lent the AirPods brand to its upcoming over-ear headphones. Called the AirPods Studio, the highly-customisable headphones will debut at WWDC 2020 for a competitive US$349, putting them at parity with the Bose 700 and the Sony WH-1000XM4.

Apple’s next-generation iPhone 12 range will include OLED panels across all four Pro and non-Pro models, but there will be key differences. According to @EveryApplePro and @mweinbach, the 120 Hz ProMotion high refresh rate technology will be a key differentiator on the Pro models.

Apple seems to be adapting to the realities of a post-COVID-19 world where fewer people might venture into Apple Stores, even as some start to re-open globally. The company has just launched a new online hub that pulls together all of its bricks and mortar retail services into a one-stop-online-shop.

Canalys has tweeted a graph showing the global top 10 smartphones in Q1 2020 and all of the positions are taken up by devices from just three OEMs: Apple, Xiaomi, and Samsung. The big winner for the quarter was the iPhone 11 with over 18 million units shipped. There were strong figures for the Redmi Note 8 & 8T and the Galaxy A51 too.

Mini-LED production issues may have put paid to Apple releasing a MacBook Pro 14 before 2021. The Q4 2020-bound MacBook Pro 16 refresh is apparently affected too.

The third-party Apple charger blends in well with all your Apple products and it gets the charging job done almost as fast as a cable despite some minor design setbacks.

Geekbench has confirmed the new MacBook Pro is running "N" Ice Lake-U processors, just like the MacBook Air. At least one identifier for the new generation has been detailed, too.