Apple

LaCie, a subsidiary of Seagate, has released its latest portable SSD with USB type C. The company claims that it can transfer data at up to 540 MB/s and support up to USB 3.0 standards. The LaCie type C portable SSD is also supposedly shock-proof, despite its carefully styled 9mm-thick chassis.

In a deal struck with Apple to begin selling the newest Apple products, Amazon has announced it will ban unauthorized third-party sellers from listing or selling Apple products through Amazon. While sellers can become an authorized Apple reseller, the qualifications are far out of reach for most small businesses. This move will inevitably kill many small businesses and Apple resellers that rely on Amazon as a storefront.

The 2018 Macbook Air comes with a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8210Y processor and 16GB of RAM at best. A suspicious new listing on Geekbench 4 details an Apple laptop with the same motherboard as the Macbook Air, but with a faster i7 chipset. Could this have been an early prototype, or is there a better class of affordable MacBook coming soon?

While TSMC's new 7nm is already quite popular, being the basis for several processors from companies AMD, Apple, and Huawei, even more are announcing that they too will be fabricating their products at TSMC using their new process. Nvidia, Qualcomm, and more will be ordering chips from TSMC in 2019.

The team over at iFixIt has published a complete teardown of the new MacBook Air Retina. While soldered storage and an integrated keyboard count heavily against the device, new pull tabs under the battery and a separate logic board for the dual Thunderbolt 3 ports make some components easy (well, easier) to repair. Overall, the MacBook Air Retina scored a 3 out of 10 for repairability.

The EverythingApplePro YouTube channel's drop and bend test is an increasingly common staple of each new iPad release. This year, its host Filip Koroy found his optimism about the iPad Pro 2018's durability daunted as he put the 11-inch variant of this new tablet through the procedure.

The Fossil Sport smartwatch is now available for order as of today (November 8, 2018). This is the first smartwatch from this brand with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. The Fossil Sport also comes with 6 colors of interchangeable silicone strap.

A new report by Kantar World Panel indicates that the number of iPhones sold in Europe in the third quarter of 2018 fell by 1.6%. This may have been driven by increased competition from Xiaomi and Huawei. These brands are also now contending with more established brands such as Samsung in the region.

Design consultancy Special Projects has unveiled a new user interface approach to multitasking that uses AR technology. Seeking to emulate a physical real world work flow, the interface allows users to switch naturally between applications and move between tasks on a smartphone as though they were working naturally on multiple tasks at a desk.

Apple has instructed its smartphone assemblers Foxconn and Pegatron to halt plans for allocating additional production lines to the new iPhone XR model sensing low product demand. Another iPhone assembler, Wistron, has been ordered to standby for any rush orders. Interestingly, Apple has ordered increased production of the year-old iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus from its suppliers.

Apple has raised the prices for the repair of the iPad Pro 2018. Repairing one of those devices will now cost 40 euros more compared to the previous generation. The prices without Apple Care+ are now so high that for many people it would probably make sense to just buy a new iPad.

Apple’s share price fell below the US$200.00 mark today, reaching a low of US$198.17 at the time of writing. The continued stock plunge has devalued the company from its previous trillion-dollar valuation; market capitalization currently stands at US$950.8 billion. In early October, the share price stood at just over US$230.

Apple's in-house refurbished store has started selling 64 GB iPhone 8 handsets for $499, $100 less than a new phone. Apple's refurbished iPhones are basically used internals that are cleaned and repaired, then placed into a new chassis with a new battery. Higher capacity iPhone 8 models and the iPhone 8 Plus should be available in the refurbished store soon.

Download links for a Spotify app for iOS have appeared on its community website. In addition, a Redditor also claims that there is also a WatchOS variant of the same in beta. However, the app is still in beta and does not much more beside the control of playback using the streaming service.

Qualcomm's answer for the A12 Bionic SoC from Apple allegedly got tested on Geekbench, and it looks like the Android side is still slower overall. However, the Snapdragon 8150 is clearly faster than the Snapdragon 845 and mostly on par with the Kirin 980 from Huawei. Everyone is now waiting for Samsung's Exynos 9820 to bring it home for team Android once again.

Global smartphone shipments for the third quarter have fallen by 6% over the last 12 months, according to data from IDC. The shipment volume for 3Q 2018 stood at 355.2 million units, compared to 377.8 million smartphones shipped in 3Q 2017. Samsung remains the overall pack leader, but Huawei has made significant ground on the South Korean manufacturer.

It has been reported that Apple will no longer provide detailed sales figures for its products in future financial reports, starting in Q1 2019. The Cupertino-based tech giant has just released its fourth quarter results; the quarterly revenue amount posted was US$62.9 billion. The company’s stock prices plunged as investors fretted over the surprising announcement.

Latest Geekbench results suggest that the A12X Bionic SoC is closer than ever to Intel's top mobility CPUs. The single-core scores are pretty tight, however, the gap in multi-core mode is more noticeable. Still the A12 only lags behind by around 3,000 points, which means upcoming mobile chips from Apple could finally match Intel's solutions in 1-2 years.

The shares of the company Spotify were down 11% at the start of today (November 1, 2018) due to a forecast that shows relatively poor fourth-quarter performance. In addition, Spotify is now reported to be committed to new investments to boost innovation and future-proofing in its products.

Some Apple Watch Series 4 users have reported that updating their wearable to watchOS 5.1 bricked their device. After rebooting the Watch when installing the update, the device would freeze on the Apple logo and become unresponsive. Apple has since pulled the update and is working on a fix. In the meantime, affected users have been instructed to contact AppleCare for assistance.

Although Apple has previously said that this controversial feature would not be pushed to its post-iPhone 7 handsets, it seems that the Cupertino-based giant has decided to add speed throttling for the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X in the iOS 12.1 update after all.

Apple has launched an all-new dongle alongside the launch of the new iPad Pro models. The latest dongle in Apple’s extensive selection of dongles available through its online and retail stores is a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack.

A curious incident of the iPhones in the hospital: A post in r/sysadmin by a hospital IT admin tells a strange story: devices in his hospital either died completely or lost important functions on the same day. Oddly, all these electronics had only one thing in common: they were all Apple products.

2018 could be considered the year of the successful hybrid smartwatch. The LG Watch W7, which has a physical timepiece in addition to a digital display, was received well, as was the dual-display Ticwatch Pro. Now, a new patent suggests that Samsung is at least considering this design choice as well.

Apple announced the new MacBook Air right at the start of todays special event. Included in the new Apple MacBook Air 2018 is a Retina screen and a new processor. Also, Apple updated the design of this very successful device today for the first time in years.

The newest iPad Pro is a tablet with a much thinner chassis than its predecessor. However, this is because it no longer has a headphone jack. The iPad Pro 2018 also has USB type C, for improved transfer speeds and maybe more. Hopefully, this will be worth living that dongle life.

Among the announcement from the latest Apple event is that the company is making the new Mac mini and MacBook Air from 100 percent recycled aluminum. The company says that its metallurgists have discovered a new method for using the excess aluminum from the production process to create the new alloy it is using to make its new Macs.

As expected, Apple has unveiled a new Mac mini, MacBook Air and new iPad Pro models. However, one device that missed out on getting a chipset refresh was the 12-inch MacBook, leaving it essentially unchanged since June 2017 barring a new gold hue.

Apple is rolling out iOS 12.1 today, and if you have an iPhone Xs, Xs Max, or XR, you can use Apple's new dual-SIM feature... as long as you're not using Verizon on your digital SIM or as your secondary number. Both T-Mobile and Verizon have stated that their networks are not ready to fully support the dual-SIM tech but are working on getting their networks up to scratch "in the near future."

Apple unveiled the new iPad Pro, and many of the rumors from the past year were accurate. The new iPad Pro brings a more powerful A12X bionic SoC, Face ID, and a switch from Lightning to USB-C. The iPad Pro starts at $799 for an 11-inch model and $999 for a 12.9-inch model.

Apple unveiled the new Mac Mini, the first Mac Mini we've seen since 2014. The new desktop boasts some impressive specs, including 8th gen 4- and 6-score CPUs, up to 2 TB of NVMe storage, and up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM. Thunderbolt 3 comes to the Mac Mini, as well as a few other conventional ports. However, the machine is rather expensive, starting at $799 and climbing all the way to $4,199.

Just as previously rumored, the new update for Apple's mobile operating system — iOS 12.1 — comes with Group FaceTime and a set of new emojis. In addition to these changes that target all compatible iPhones and iPads, the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max receive depth control in camera preview and dual-SIM support.

Hardware tinkerers ETA Prime and Novaspirit Tech have managed to load macOS 10.14 Mojave on the LattePanda Alpha, a powerful single-board computer. While there are several bugs ranging from non-working audio to broken WiFi, this is currently one of, if not the, smallest Hackintosh-capable system currently available.

Apart from the thin bezels and the redesigned corners, the 2018 iPad Pro tablets are said to come with IPS LCD touchscreens plus the second-gen Apple Pencils, slimmer profiles (not including the rear camera), a USB-C port and a smart connector, True Depth camera setups with Face ID support, and, of course the latest 7 nm A12 Bionic SoC.

The iPhone XR scored about 25% better than Android's best in Geekbench 4's multi-core benchmark. While this is impressive on paper (considering that the $750 iPhone XR is cheaper than most Android flagships), there is much more to consider when buying a phone than synthetic benchmarks and raw specs.

Apple and Qualcomm don’t look to be nearing any kind of truce in their ongoing patent battle. In a federal court in San Diego, Qualcomm has accused Apple of being US$7 billion in arrears with patent royalty payments it believes it is owed.

The next upcoming update for iOS is now rumored to add Group FaceTime and dual SIM support to some phones. For some other, older models, however, only restricted forms of Group FaceTime are coming. Some others are not getting this feature at all.

Less than a month after the release of the 2.0 major update, Vivaldi 2.1 arrives with noticeable improvements to the popular Quick Commands feature. Notes can be created directly in Quick Commands, Page and UI Zoom can both be adjusted via Quick Commands, the browser now supports the AV1 standard, and more.

A list of proposed rules put out by the U.S. Copyright Office would make jailbreaking devices like smartphones and smart speakers completely legal, if adopted. Jailbreaking, or circumventing DRM, is currently in a legally grey area. If these rules are implemented, then people could create their own tools to jailbreak a device for repair purposes. However, jailbreaking tools could not be distributed under these rules.

Buried in the latest iOS 12.1 beta code are instructions for users to hold their iPad in portrait orientation so that Face ID can be set up. If legitimate, this code would confirm rumors that Face ID is indeed coming to the next iPad Pro, widely rumored to be announced at Apple's event next week.

A leak on Weibo claims that the Galaxy S10 lineup will consist of 4 versions of the phone rather than the usual 2. One of these will be a 5G variant - with 12GB RAM. The Weibo poster also believes that the Huawei P30 Pro will have this spec.

The latest Apple flagship smartphones are facing yet another issue that means they do not work out of the box as described. This time, it seems that one of their dual speakers does not fire while playing audio. The bug has been reported numerous times on several different types of forum by now.

Rockstar Games has announced the Companion App for its upcoming release, Red Dead Redemption 2. This app connects an Android or iOS device to the console in question, and allows the player to view maps, stats and progress on their phone or tablet while gaming.

A renowned supply chain analyst has predicted that Apple will soon update the iPad Mini series, with a fifth generation of the popular tablet possibly coming out in 2019. The iPad Mini 4 was released in 2015 and featured the now dated A8 SoC. It is expected an Apple iPad Mini 5 will come with “an upgraded processor and a lower-cost panel.”

OnePlus had announced some time ago that its next product launch would take place in New York on October 30th. However, Apple has just taken that same date to release the new Macs and iPad Pro. The Chinese company has responded by moving its own event up by one day.

The iPhone XR may be the be-notched version of the SE line of old. It offers many new Apple features in a slightly cheaper chassis. This alternative to the XS and XS Max may be attractive for those who like different colors, don't care that much about screen quality and don't want to spend all of US$1000 on a new iPhone.

The latest Google Chrome browser comes with a new setting that allows its users to have a better control over the sign-in and sync features, the AV1 video streaming codec, as well as a rather large number of minor tweaks, fixes, and improvements. Chrome 70 is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.