Articles about Apple

iOS 14 introduced a lot of useful new features to the iPhone and iPad. You’ll know about the main ones, but there’s a handy new way to quickly perform everyday tasks which you might not know about.

You can get your iPhone to open the App Switcher or Control Center, go to the Home or Lock screen, take a screenshot, mute your phone, open the Notification Center, control the volume, wake Siri, and more, just by drumming on the back of your device. You will need to spend a little time setting this up first.

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The Apple iPad has now been a part of our lives for 10 years -- can you believe it? The revolutionary tablet changed the world, making it much easier to surf the web and consume media from the comfort of your couch or bed -- you no longer had to boot up your PC for everything. Over time, the iPad became an excellent work machine too, thanks to accessories like keyboard cases and the excellent Apple Pencil. In 2020, the iPad can truly replace a laptop -- for some consumers at least.

Earlier today, Apple announced updates to its two non-Pro tablets -- the iPad and iPad Air. While the 10.2-inch 8th generation standard iPad only gets incremental spec bumps, the 4th gen Air gets an all-new design with a bigger screen.

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Earlier today, two new Apple Watch wearables were released, and understandably, some people are very excited for them. Me? I am not a big fan. Apple Watch has terrible battery life and the interface is clunky. Call me crazy, but I much prefer a smartwatch with longer battery life and a lower price tag.

What did excite me from today's Apple's Event isn't even hardware at all. The star of the show, in my humble opinion, is Apple One -- a bundle of subscription services that costs less than buying them individually. In other words, people already subscribing to Apple services have the potential to save a considerable amount of money every month.

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Apple is hosting its big new hardware event today and has kicked things off by revealing the sixth generation of Apple Watch, as well as a more affordable SE variant and some new services.

The focus, as it has been in more recent generations, is on health once again, and the Apple Watch Series 6’s big new addition is the ability to measure your blood oxygen levels from your wrist using red and infrared light. This takes just 15 seconds and can even record background levels while you sleep.

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There are many power banks on the market these days, and for the most part, they are all very similar. These devices are essentially big batteries with USB ports designed to charge up your smartphone multiple times when on the go. When you can't find an outlet, these power banks can be a godsend, but also, they can be a critical tool during a power outage. If you live in an area that gets hit by hurricanes and/or tropical storms, you should absolutely own at least one of them -- a few if you have a family.

Today, Satechi unveils a new such product that is very Apple-focused. Called "Quatro Wireless Power Bank," it has a dedicated Apple Watch charger, Qi wireless charging (perfect for compatible AirPods), and both a USB-A and USB-C port. Not only is it designed with Apple devices in mind, but its overall aesthetics seem inspired by the iPhone-maker too. It features a matte black design, but the outer rim is surrounded by a beautiful shiny metal. It weighs 0.58 lbs and its dimensions are 6.4 x 2.9 x 0.7 inches.

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As of September 1st, all publicly trusted TLS certificates must have a lifespan of 398 days or less -- roughly half the previous life.

According to security experts from Venafi, a provider of machine identity management, this latest change is an indication that machine identity lifetimes will continue to shrink.

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President Theodore Roosevelt is largely responsible for kick-starting the national parks movement in America, and we should all be thankful for his thoughtfulness and focus on conservationism. Sadly, these parks are often under attack, most recently by the Trump Administration. Of course, it shouldn't be surprising that a real estate mogul would be a threat to protected land. Hell, if Trump had his way, the national parks would probably be filled with tacky condominiums!

If you want to help protect these parks, all you have to do is buy an Apple product! You see, starting on 8/24 (today) and running through 8/30, the iPhone-maker will donate $10 to the National Park Foundation for every purchase made using Apple Pay at a physical Apple Store, on Apple.com, or with the official Apple Store app. Yeah, depending on how you look at it, they are essentially donating your money and taking the credit. This is to celebrate the 104th birthday of the USA's national parks, which occurs on 8/25. Money aside, the company is also helping people learn more about these national treasures.

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Apple's Mac Pro (2019) desktop computer is beautiful, elegant, powerful... and very expensive. For the Apple faithful, overpaying for hardware is par for the course. After all, if you love macOS, you don't really have much of a choice beyond building a Hackintosh. But even some of the biggest Mac fans balked at the $700 asking price for the Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit -- a set of four wheels to make the desktop more portable in an office setting. Seriously, folks, the company charges $175 per wheel!

Thankfully, popular Apple-focused third-party seller OWC has decided to roll out (pun intended) a more affordable set of wheels. Called "Rover Pro," it is currently just $199. That is only $50 per wheel, which is much more reasonable. Best of all, unlike the Apple Mac Pro Wheels Kit which requires a special flexible screwdriver (that you must buy separately), OWC's offering utilizes a toolless design.

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When all of your devices are Apple, you can live quite happily knowing that everything works well together. When I owned a MacBook Pro, for instance, it was wonderful to get my text messages and phone calls on my laptop -- I didn't need to run and find my iPhone. The same goes for iPad -- I can get my iPhone calls and texts on the Apple tablet too. When my friends and family are nearby, and they use iPhone, I can easily share things with them using AirDrop.

If you aren't familiar, AirDrop uses a mixture of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to allow you to wirelessly share things like files, photos, URLs, and more with other nearby Apple devices -- no need for an internet connection. This isn't just helpful for sharing with others, but with yourself too. When you want to transfer photos from your iPhone to your Mac, for example, you can use AirDrop instead of a USB to lightning cable. Many have wanted Google to copy AirDrop, and now, the search giant has thankfully done exactly that. Called "Nearby Share," it is coming to both Android devices and Chromebooks.

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The future of computing is ARM, not x86. Apple is once again a trailblazer, as it is eventually transitioning all of its Mac computers to its own ARM-based "Apple Silicon," ditching Intel entirely. True, Microsoft is also using ARM a bit with Windows, but that company's indecisive behaviors and previous failure with Windows RT has left consumers a bit nervous. Apple was correct to just pull off the band-aid and dive right into the ARM waters.

Well, mostly. Apple has a two-year plan to move Mac to ARM entirely, but in the interim, it will still sell Intel-based machines. In fact, today, Apple updates its popular 27-inch iMac, but it still uses old-school x86_64 Intel processors and not the new Apple Silicon. With that said, the 27-inch iMac can now be configured with a 10-core processor for the first time, and solid state drives are now standard -- you can even opt for an 8TB SSD. The webcam has been bumped up to 1080p, which is great for those working from home. It even gets the T2 Security Chip and improved speakers.

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Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were dubious that new Apple smartphones would hit stores this September like they often do. Then, more recently, there were several rumors that new iPhone 12 devices (which should have 5G compatibility) wouldn't hit stores until October.

Earlier today on a conference call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri confirmed these reports, saying "As you know, last year we started selling new iPhones in late September. This year, we project supply to be available a few weeks later." Many technology news websites were quick to say that Apple iPhone 12 was "delayed." Actually, that isn't true at all.

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Apple pays more attention to privacy protection issues than its competitors. Well-defined privacy policies and rather severe restrictions on what user information an app or extension can get make Apple products more secure for users.

However, from the perspective of transparency, everything was not so obvious for Apple. The latest announcement shows that the corporation is ready to take a few more steps towards increasing transparency in the field of privacy protection.

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Only once in my life did I own a Mac, and the damn thing broke. In 2016, I purchased a MacBook Pro (which I have since sold) and the display started having lines go across the bottom. Long story short, I brought the laptop to a local Apple Store for service and it was fixed. When I got there, they checked me in and walked me to a wooden box and told me to have a seat. Wait, what? I spent $2,000 on a laptop from one of the richest companies on Earth, and I couldn't get a proper chair? I chose to stand instead.

Fast forward to today, and Apple announces the opening of a new physical store in China. This new store replaces the company's original Apple Sanlitun and is twice the size. Apple boasts about how great the store is, but strangely, it shared the above photo of people once again sitting on wooden boxes. What the hell is going on here? Why does Apple hate chairs?

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Having reduced the performance of some iPhones with a new version of iOS, Apple agreed to pay compensation to those affected by the "batterygate" fiasco -- although the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing by the company.

There is a pot of up to $500,000,000 set aside for owners of qualifying devices affected by the throttling issue, and you'll have to file a claim if you want to get your hands on your share. Before you get too excited, individual payments are unlikely to be large, but here's how to claim what you're entitled to.

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We are in the middle of a pandemic, and lots of us are working from home these days. It is because of technological advances, such as the computer and internet, that so many can work remotely. Let us not forget the mighty webcam which allows our coworkers, friends, and family members to video chat with us. Hell, even doctors are seeing patients using video chat nowadays.

You know who else loves webcams? Hackers! Yes, it is possible for nefarious people to hack into your computer and access your webcam. Any hardware connected to the net can be hacked. And no, you cannot trust an activity light -- hackers can turn them off too. Look, no one wants to be watched by a stranger -- especially when naked or in some other embarrassing situation. Thankfully, something as simple as placing a piece of tape or a privacy shutter (such as this) over the webcam can thwart the bad guys in this regard (the microphone is another story). Unfortunately for those that own Apple laptops, the company is warning users against covering their webcam.

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