MacRumors

Starting in February, Apple is hosting its annual company wide fitness challenge for all of its employees, tasking them with closing all three Apple Watch Activity rings every day of the month.

Employees who successfully finish the challenge will be rewarded with a t-shirt that says "2020" in a logo with Apple Watch Activity-style rings, as shared by an Apple employee.

applewatchactivitychallenge2020
The employees who complete the challenge every day will earn a "gold" ranking and will receive a gold pin along with their t-shirt, and there are also silver and bronze rewards accompanied by silver and bronze pins.

Apple in 2018 and 2019 hosted similar challenges offering employees Activity-themed Apple Watch bands as prizes.

Apple's February fitness challenge is internal only and is limited to Apple employees, but Apple also regularly hosts public fitness challenges, though these do not come with physical rewards.

Apple's HomePod speaker can recognize the voices of up to six people and tailor the music selection to an individual user's taste profile, respond to their own Personal Requests, and access their information to help them with everyday tasks.

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Before you can make use of ‌HomePod‌'s multi-user voice support, you have to set up the feature, and there are a few steps involved. This article explains what they are and also offers a few troubleshooting tips if you're experiencing issues.

Check That Your Software is Up-to-Date

The first thing you need to do is ensure that the ‌HomePod‌ and the iPhones or iPads of the people who intend to use it are updated to iOS 16.3 or later or iPadOS 16.3 or later. You can check what software your iOS devices are running by opening the Settings app and selecting General -> Software Update.

To check the software version of your ‌HomePod‌, launch the Home app on your iOS device, tap the home icon in the upper left corner of the display, then scroll down to Software Update. You can pull down from the top of the iPhone or iPad screen to check for an update if you need to.

Turn on Share My Location in Find My

Share My Location must be set to This Device on the ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌ of every user who wishes to be recognized by ‌HomePod‌, including yours.

  1. Launch the Settings app on the ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌.
  2. Tap your name in the banner at the top of the screen.
  3. Tap Find My.
    settings

  4. Tap the toggle next to Share My Location to turn it to the green ON position.
  5. Next, set My Location to This Device.

Add People to Your Home Network

Whoever wants to be recognized by your ‌HomePod‌ must be part of your Home network. Here's how to add them.

  1. Launch the Home app on your ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌.
  2. Tap the ellipsis button (three encircled dots) in the top-right corner of the screen.
  3. Tap Home Settings in the dropdown menu.
  4. Under People, tap Invite....
    home

  5. Enter the person's Apple ID that they use with iCloud.
  6. Tap Send Invite.

Additional Settings to Check/Enable

You'll also need to check the following settings on your ‌HomePod‌ and iOS device to ensure everything works.

  • Make sure Listen for "Hey, Siri" and Personal Requests are enabled on your ‌HomePod‌: In the Home app, long press on your ‌HomePod‌, tap the cog in the bottom-right corner of the screen, then toggle the requisite switches. On the same screen, check also that the Language is set to English. (Siri on ‌HomePod‌ multi-user only supports English at this time.)
  • Make sure Listen for "Hey, Siri" is enabled on the iOS device of every user who wishes to be recognized by ‌HomePod‌, including your own device. The associated toggle can be found in Settings -> Siri & Search. On the same screen, check also that the device is set to the same Language as your ‌HomePod‌.
  • Likewise, location services must be enabled on the device of every user who wishes to be recognized by ‌HomePod‌: Go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services, and make sure the Location Services toggle is green.

Testing HomePod Multi-user and Fixing Issues

When someone that you've set up to be recognized by your ‌HomePod‌ first asks it a personal request, ‌Siri‌ will ask who it is. If the user states their name, ‌Siri‌ should be able to recognize them after that.

Apple does say ‌HomePod‌ can have trouble distinguishing some voices, like those of young children, but rest assured whenever ‌HomePod‌ isn't sure, it will ask who's speaking.

If ‌Siri‌ doesn't recognize you after multi-user setup, try these steps. After each step, see if ‌Siri‌ recognizes you.

  1. In the Home app, tap the home icon, then tap Home Settings. Choose your home, then turn off Recognize My Voice, then turn it on again. Wait a few minutes before trying ‌Siri‌ again.
  2. Restart the iOS device that you use with "Hey ‌Siri‌."
  3. Restart your ‌HomePod‌: Open the Home app on your iOS device, tap and hold ‌HomePod‌, then tap the cog wheel in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Scroll down and select Reset HomePod, then tap Restart HomePod to confirm.

  4. On your iOS device, go to Settings -> Siri & Search, then turn off Listen for "Hey Siri", then turn it on again, and follow the onscreen instructions to teach ‌Siri‌ your voice.

To test out out the voice recognition further, you can get users to try asking different questions that relate specifically to them, like what their upcoming calendar events are. If everything works, ‌Siri‌ will reply with their respective name and the answer to their query.

The neat thing about ‌HomePod‌ multi-user support is that it doesn't apply to queries and commands that aren't person-specific – so you can ask what time it is or what the weather is like, just as you would do so normally.

Similarly, anyone can ask ‌HomePod‌ to play music, and it will play from the primary user's account without affecting that person's taste profile.

Related Roundups: HomePod, HomePod mini

Tim Cook visited Ireland today to collect an award from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for Apple's 40 years of investment in the country. Apple's CEO also met with Irish musician Hozier and Dublin-based game studio WarDucks.

In 2016, the European Commission found that Apple received illegal state aid from Ireland and forced the company to repay 13 billion euros in back taxes. Apple and Ireland are both appealing the ruling. Apple has previously expressed confidence that the ruling "will be overturned" by European courts.

Tim Cook Ireland 2020
In that regard, Cook today called for global corporate tax reform, telling Reuters and others that Apple "desperately" wants the system to be fair. "It's very complex to know how to tax a multinational," he added.

"I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I'm hopeful and optimistic that they will find something," said Cook, referring to the intergovernmental economic organization OECD.


Update: IDA Ireland has issued a press release about Apple's award that includes a statement from Cook:

Ireland has been a second home for Apple for forty years and this honour is even more special for us because it recognizes the contributions of our incredible team here who work tirelessly to serve our customers around the country, and around the world. I believe deeply that our most important work together is still ahead of us, and I'm grateful to the people of Ireland for their commitment to openness, to innovation and to the cooperation that will make possible the next generation of world-changing ideas.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

A former Apple executive who worked on the chips that power iPhones and iPads has had a request to toss a breach-of-contract lawsuit brought by the company rejected by the court in a tentative ruling.

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Last August, Apple sued its former A-series chip lead, Gerard Williams III, for breach of employment contract. Williams was the lead designer of Apple's custom ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ chips from the A7 to A12X, before he departed the company in March 2019 to start his own chip company, Nuvia Inc, with two other former Apple chip executives.

Apple accuses him of breaching the contract because it barred him from planning or engaging in any business activities that are "competitive or directly related to Apple's business or products." Williams argues that a provision in the contract conflicts with a California law that allows workers to develop new businesses while they're employed elsewhere.

However, Bloomberg today reports that Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Mark Pierce said the law doesn't permit an employee "to plan and prepare to create a competitive enterprise prior to termination if the employee does so on their employer's time and with the employer's resources."

The judge also dismissed a claim by Williams that Apple invaded his privacy by reviewing text messages he wrote to coworkers that were critical of the company. In one of the messages, Williams is said to have claimed that Apple would have "no choice but to purchase" his new company.

Williams sought to have those texts excluded as evidence in the suit. Pierce disagreed. "There are no allegations in the complaint establishing that the text messages were obtained as the result of eavesdropping upon or recording a confidential communication," he wrote.

The judge sided with Williams in dismissing Apple's bid for punitive damages, saying the company has failed to show how Williams intentionally tried to harm Apple by being disloyal.

Bloomberg notes that the tentative ruling regarding the California law doesn't address the merits of Apple’s claims, but it will allow the company to proceed with pretrial information-sharing if the judge decides to make it final.

Claude Stern, Williams' lawyer, said he would contest the judge's findings at a hearing in San Jose on Tuesday. He argues that Williams can't be sued for simply coming up with a new business idea while working at Apple, as opposed to taking inventions he worked on that belong to his previous employer.

Instagram is dropping the IGTV button from the top-right corner of the app's home screen because not enough people are interacting with it.

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First launched in June 2018, IGTV is Instagram's long-form video streaming service that's designed to compete with youtube. IGTV focuses on full-screen vertical video, with the ability to interact with other users while watching videos.

The Facebook-owned company told TechCrunch that it was removing the button because not enough users were tapping it, and that people were discovering IGTV content in other ways.

"As we've continued to work on making it easier for people to create and discover IGTV content, we've learned that most people are finding IGTV content through previews in Feed, the IGTV channel in Explore, creators' profiles and the standalone app. Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon in the top right corner of the home screen in the Instagram app" a Facebook company spokesperson tells TechCrunch. "We always aim to keep Instagram as simple as possible, so we're removing this icon based on these learnings and feedback from our community."

instagram igtv

The IGTV icon previously appeared alongside the DM icon

IGTV hasn't completely gone away in Instagram. Users wanting to access IGTV content within the app can still do so by tapping the IGTV tab inside Instagram Explore (the same screen as the search function). People can also post IGTV videos right from the main Instagram feed post video uploader.

According to TechCrunch, no more than 7 million of Instagram's 1 billion-plus users have downloaded the standalone IGTV app in the 18 months since it launched, so it makes sense that Instagram is folding the service deeper into its app. But with the massive success of rival platforms like TikTok, it's hard to predict where IGTV turns next in order to increase adoption rates.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, an annual federal holiday commemorating the American civil rights movement leader.

apple MLK 2020
Apple today honored the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a full-page tribute on its website. A photo of Dr. King is accompanied by an iconic quote of his: "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

On Monday, Apple CEO Tim Cook commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a follow-up tweet.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Epic Games' latest update to the iOS version of popular battle royale title Fortnite that enables iPad Pro owners to run the game at 120 frames per second.

fortnite ipad pro
‌iPad Pro‌ owners wanting to make the most of the Pro Motion display's high refresh rate for a smoother performance can find the 120fps mode in the Fortnite settings screen.

Enabling the mode does come at the expense of visual quality and automatically drops the resolution and fixes the visual settings at "medium," which falls in line with the game's other limits of "high" at 60fps and "epic" at 30fps.

Despite that limitation, an ‌iPad Pro‌ running Fortnite can now beat the performance of current-generation consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One, which are restricted to 60fps.

Also in latest v11.40.1 update, thumbstick buttons are now supported on iOS 13 and above.

Fortnite on iOS has become a popular mobile alternative to the PC and console game, offering users the chance to play the well-known "Battle Royale" mode while on the go.

Fortnite initially launched as a beta on iOS in March 2018 and then expanded wide in April the same year. The smartphone apps are focused entirely on Fortnite's PvP Battle Royale mode, but the console and desktop versions of the game also include a PvE mode called Save the World.

Fortnite is a free-to-play game available to download on the App Store. [Direct Link]

It has been a big week for Apple TV+ news, with release dates announced for several upcoming series, a multi-year agreement with actress and producer Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and now a major award win.

At the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles tonight, actress Jennifer Aniston won an SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her leading role as morning news anchor Alex Levy in the Apple TV+ series "The Morning Show."

jennifer aniston the morning show
This is the first SAG Award that Aniston has won on an individual basis. Her last SAG Award came in 1996 for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series alongside her "Friends" cast members. She beat out Helena Bonham Carter ("The Crown"), Olivia Colman ("The Crown"), Jodie Comer ("Killing Eve") and Elisabeth Moss ("The Handmaid's Tale").

"The Morning Show" actors Steve Carell and Billy Crudup were also nominated for SAG Awards for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, but the category was won by Peter Dinklage ("Game of Thrones").


Last month, Aniston was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in "The Morning Show," but she did not win.

This is the second major award win for Apple TV+. Last week, actor Billy Crudup won a 2020 Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Cory Ellison in "The Morning Show."

"The Morning Show" was widely panned by critics upon the launch of Apple TV+, but they were only provided with the first three episodes to watch. The series has a strong audience score of 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and as more episodes came out in the series, some critics began to view the show more favorably too.

Apple today shared release dates for several of its upcoming Apple TV+ shows that are set to launch during the spring and summer of 2020, and offered first looks at some of the content.

"Amazing Stories," a sci-fi anthology series executive produced by Steven Spielberg, is set to premiere on Friday, March 6. "Amazing Stories," which is a reimagining of the original 1980s series, was one of the first shows that Apple picked up for ‌Apple TV‌+.

amazingstories
The show will focus on a new topic each episode, similar to "Black Mirror" and "Twilight Zone." Apple says that each episode of the series will "transport the audience to worlds of wonder through the lens of today's most imaginative filmmakers, directors and writers."

Stars in "Amazing Stories" include Dylan O'Brien ("Maze Runner," "Teen Wolf"), Victoria Pedretti ("You"), Josh Holloway ("Lost," "Yellowstone"), Sasha Alexander ("Rizzoli & Isles," "Shameless") and Robert Forster ("Twin Peaks").

"Central Park," an animated ‌Apple TV‌+ series from "Bob's Burgers" creator Loren Bouchard, will premiere on ‌Apple TV‌+ this summer. "Central Park" is described as an animated musical comedy that focuses on the Tillermans, a family that lives in and takes care of Central Park.

centralpark
"Defending Jacob," a series starring Chris Evans and Michelle Dockery, will debut on Friday, April 24. The show is a drama series that unfolds around a shocking crime in a small Massachusetts town, following a district attorney who is torn between his love for his son and his duty to uphold justice.

defendingjacob
"Home Before Dark," a series that focuses on the story of child journalist Hilde Lysiak, is set to premiere on Friday, April 3. The show follows a young girl who moves from Brooklyn to a small lakeside town where her father is from. Her pursuit of the truth leads her to unearth a cold case that everyone in town tried to bury. The show stars Brooklynn Prince, Jim Sturgess, Abby Miller, Kylie Rogers, Adrian Hough, and more.

homebeforedark
Documentary series "Home," which focuses on "the world's most innovative homes," will premiere on Friday, April 17. Apple says that each episode "unveils the boundary-pushing imagination of the visionaries who dared to dream and build them."

home
Apple also announced a new series from the UK, "Trying," which will launch on Friday, May 1. The show is described as a look at "growing up, settling down, and finding someone to love." It will feature Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as Jason and Nikki, a couple who want a baby but can't have one.

trying
Recently announced docuseries "Dear..." that profiles famous people through letters written to them is set to debut on Friday, June 5. The show stars Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Yara Shahidi, Stevie Wonder, Aly Raisman, Misty Copeland, Big Bird, and more.

Apple today also announced the renewal of "Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet" for season 2 ahead of its upcoming debut on Friday, February 7.

mythicquest
All of the shows listed above will be available on ‌Apple TV‌+, which is priced at $4.99 per month or free for a year for those who recently purchased an iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod touch, or ‌Apple TV‌.

Apple today shared two new "slofie" videos taken using the slow-motion capture feature of the front-facing camera of the iPhone and ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro.

The two short videos, called "Backflip" and "Whiteout," feature slow motion selfie videos captured by professional snowboarders.


Apple's iPhones have long had a "slo-mo" slow motion video feature for capturing slow motion content with the rear camera, but with the ‌iPhone‌ 11 and 11 Pro, slow motion capabilities were also added to the front-facing camera, enabling "slofies."

Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken to Twitter this weekend to share a behind-the-scenes look at the making of new Apple TV+ show "Little America."

little america
The entire first season of the immigrant anthology series debuted on ‌Apple TV‌+ on Friday. The show was created by Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon, and Lee Eisenberg.

Each episode in the ‌Apple TV‌+ series is based on a real-life tale pulled from Epic Magazine, and in the video "Inside Little America," Nanjiani and Gordon discuss what motivated them to bring the stories to the TV screen.

"Making a show about immigrants in this day and age, it's going to be seen as political, but we really wanted these to be human stories," says Nanjiani. "These are not stories with any kind of agenda."

"A big thing that connects all the episodes is people trying to find a sense of home. Your geographical home is gone, and so you have to find home here. I think that's why people will connect with this. Even if they may not look like these people, they'll feel like these people."

The series has received largely positive reviews from critics, who have called it the best ‌‌Apple TV‌‌+ show yet. "Little America" has already been renewed for season 2.

It was a busy week of rumors as we hit the middle of January, with reports about updates to Face ID in the iPhone 12 lineup later this year, signs of a new Mac notebook coming soon, and word that Apple is working on an iPad Pro with 5G support.

Other big news this week included an analysis of changes to audio performance made in an AirPods Pro firmware update late last month.

New AirPods Pro Firmware: Worse Noise Canceling, Improved Frequency Response and Bass Accuracy

Last month, Apple released a new firmware update for the AirPods Pro bumping the version number from 2B588 to 2C54. After the update, there were several anecdotal reports that the AirPods Pro noise cancelation may have been adversely affected.

AirPods Pro
Impacted users asked tech review site RTINGS.com to reevaluate its previous testing of the AirPods Pro with the new firmware to confirm if there are any changes, and the website did find a fairly significant drop in isolation performance.

The news is not all bad, however. In other areas of testing, the 2C54 firmware appears to improve performance in frequency response and bass accuracy. Nevertheless, Apple pulled the new version only days after its release, so it is presumably working on the issues described.

iPhone 12 Models Said to Have 'Refreshed' Face ID System, Lightning Connector Could Be Dropped in 2021

iPhone 12 models will feature a "refreshed" front-facing TrueDepth system, according to Barclays analysts, hinting at Face ID improvements.

face id scan
The biggest change of all could come next year, as the analysts see potential for Apple to remove the Lightning connector from at least one iPhone model in 2021, echoing a prediction shared by Ming-Chi Kuo last month. This could result in EarPods being removed from the box, they said.

Earlier this month, Kuo said four 5G-enabled iPhones are on track to launch simultaneously in the fall, including models with sub-6GHz-only and sub-6GHz-plus-mmWave compatibility.

Apple Files Unreleased Mac in Database, Possibly 13-Inch MacBook Pro With Scissor Keyboard

Apple this week filed an unreleased Mac with a model identifier of A2289 in the Eurasian Economic Commission database, as spotted by MacRumors. The computer is described as a portable Mac running macOS Catalina.

16 inch macbook pro scissor switch keyboard
As pure speculation, it is certainly possible that this listing could correspond with the rumored 13-inch MacBook Pro with a scissor keyboard, following in the footsteps of the 16-inch MacBook Pro last October. There is some hope that the 13-inch model will become a 14-inch model, but that remains uncertain.

Eurasian Economic Commission filings like these have foreshadowed the release of new Apple products on numerous occasions. They are legally required for any encrypted devices sold in Russia and a few other countries.

Evidence of a "Pro Mode" that boosts performance and overrides fan speed limits has also been discovered in the macOS Catalina 10.15.3 beta.

Apple Rumored to Be Developing 5G iPad Pro With mmWave Support

A pair of supply chain reports this week claim Apple is developing 5G-enabled iPads with mmWave support for release as early as fall 2020.

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With an iPad Pro refresh already rumored for March 2020, timing is the biggest question mark. Major new features often come to the iPhone before the iPad, but a notable exception was the third-generation iPad receiving LTE support in March 2012, prior to the iPhone 5 in September 2012.

mmWave or millimeter wave is a set of 5G frequencies that promise ultra-fast speeds at short distances, making it best suited for dense urban areas. By comparison, sub-6GHz 5G is generally slower than mmWave, but the signals travel further, better serving suburban and rural areas.

MacRumors Newsletter

Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we've covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.

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Apple has inked a deal for a docuseries called "Dear..." that profiles famous people using an "inventive and cinematic approach" that involves letters written by people whose lives the celebrities have touched, Apple announced today.

dearappletvshow
The 10-episode series, which is set to debut in the spring, will feature Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Yara Shahidi, Stevie Wonder, Aly Raisman, Misty Copeland, Big Bird, and more.

The show was inspired by Apple's "Dear Apple" marketing campaign, which saw Apple Watch users read letters sharing how the device has changed their lives. It was created by R.J. Cutler, known for "If I Stay, "The War Room," "American High," and "The September Issue."

The second beta of iOS 13.3.1, released earlier this month, includes a toggle for disabling the Ultra Wideband chip in the device.

Found by Twitter user Brandon Butch (via 9to5Mac), the toggle can be found by opening up the Settings app, selecting Privacy, choosing Location Services, selecting System Services, and then toggling off the "Networking & Wireless" option.

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Disabling this feature warns that Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Ultra Wideband performance will be affected.

Apple added this toggle in the beta after it was discovered that the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max continue to track user location even when location services toggles are disabled.

Apple said that this was expected behavior due to the Ultra Wideband chip and that the ‌iPhone‌ was operating as designed explaining that location data needed to be used because there are international regulatory requirements that mandate the U1 chip be disabled in certain locations.

Ultra wideband technology is an industry standard technology and is subject to international regulatory requirements that require it to be turned off in certain locations. iOS uses Location Services to help determine if ‌iPhone‌ is in these prohibited locations in order to disable ultra wideband and comply with regulations.

The management of ultra wideband compliance and its use of location data is done entirely on the device and Apple is not collecting user location data.

Apple at the time promised to add a toggle to allow customers to disable the U1 chip entirely, and that toggle will be available to everyone after the release of iOS 13.3.1.

Related Forum: iOS 13

Amazon is no longer selling new versions of the Apple Watch Series 4 and Series 5 models through its online store in the United States, with the listings disappearing earlier today.

There is no word on why Amazon has pulled Apple Watch Series 4 and Series 5 models, but these are the Apple Watches that feature ECG functionality. All models, capacities, and colors are missing from Amazon's storefront.

applewatchseries5
Amazon is continuing to list refurbished Apple Watch Series 4 and Series 5 models from third party sellers, but there are no new models available nor models available direct from Amazon. Attempting to visit a page that previously had a Series 4 or Series 5 Apple Watch listed results in an error message.

The Apple Watch Series 3 and other Apple products like iPads and Macs continue to be available from Amazon, so this issue is limited to newer Apple Watch models. Should we learn more about why Amazon has pulled Series 4 and Series 5 Apple Watch listings, we'll update this article.

Update: A few hours after removing all Apple Watch Series 4 and 5 listings, Amazon has returned the products to its online store.

Tag: Amazon

Asphalt 9: Legends, a game that was ported to the Mac using Apple's Mac Catalyst tools, is now available for download from the Mac App Store.

The app was one of the titles that Apple promoted when macOS Catalina and Mac Catalyst technology were introduced at WWDC in June, but the app did not launch as expected when macOS Catalina became available.

asphalt9legends
At the time, Gameloft said that Asphalt 9: Legends had been slightly delayed in order to polish the experience, and after a wait of several months, the game has now launched.

Because this is a Mac Catalyst app, players who already have Asphalt 9: Legends on iPad or iPhone can pick up their game on the Mac and swap between devices when playing thanks to cross-platform saves.

The game supports Sign in with Apple for account creation (required to transfer between devices) and the content is the same as the content in Asphalt 9: Legends for iOS devices.

According to Gameloft, Asphalt 9: Legends will have content parity across devices going forward, so the Mac and iOS apps will be updated simultaneously.

Asphalt 9: Legends can be downloaded from the ‌Mac App Store‌ for free, though there are in-app purchases. [Direct Link]

Apple is expanding its presence in Germany with plans to open a new office building in Munich, Germany, according to German news site Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Located in the "Karl" office building of the former Mahag site on Karlstrasse, the new office space is expected to house around 1,500 employees when it is completed in 2021.

applekarlbuildingmunich

A rendering of the Karl office building, designed by British architect David Chipperfield

Apple has rented the entire 30,000 square meter location, though declined to respond to questions about the upcoming office space.

Apple already operates the Bavarian Design Center in Munich, Germany, with 300 engineers that work on silicon chips and other technologies for Apple devices.

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with ColorWare to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win custom-painted AirPods Pro, available in dozens of colors.

For those unfamiliar with ColorWare, it's a company that's been around for a long time, offering custom paint jobs and unique skins for a range of electronic devices, from consoles to earbuds.

colorwareairpodspronowavailable
AirPods Pro can be ordered from ColorWare in custom colors for a fee of $389 for just the ‌AirPods Pro‌ or $439 for the ‌AirPods Pro‌ and the Wireless Charging Case. It's pricy, but it's the only way to get ‌AirPods Pro‌ in a color other than white.

colorwareairpodsproblack
There are solid and metallic colors, with gloss and matte finishes available. Traditional black, gold, and silver colors are options, but there are also bright shades in every color of the rainbow. If you want ‌AirPods Pro‌ in blue, yellow, orange, green, teal, deep purple, pink, or one of dozens of other colors, ColorWare is the best option. You can even get them painted to match Apple's iPhones.

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The ‌AirPods Pro‌ can be custom painted in the same color as the case, or you can order each AirPod Pro and the case in all different colors, so there are quite a few available color combinations to choose from.

airpodsprocolors3
ColorWare has been offering custom painted devices since 1998 and has perfected the painting process. ColorWare uses a coating process that includes a primer, an application of a proprietary color formula, and an X2 liquid plastic coating that protects the color. All ColorWare work is guaranteed for 12 months, and 24 months with the purchase of an additional warranty.

colorwarerainbowairpodspro
Since ColorWare is using ‌AirPods Pro‌ from Apple and painting them, the full ‌AirPods Pro‌ functionality remains intact. There's an H1 chip for quick and easy pairing, silicone tips for a tight in-ear fit, Adaptive EQ, and Active Noise Cancellation.

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‌AirPods Pro‌ are a bit hard to get right now, so custom ‌AirPods Pro‌ purchases made now will arrive in early March. For those who don't need ‌AirPods Pro‌ and prefer standard AirPods, ColorWare also colorizes AirPods and the AirPods case.

airpodsprocolors2
We have a set of custom painted ‌AirPods Pro‌ and Wireless Charging Case to give away, with the winner to choose the color and finish of their choice.

To enter to win our giveaway, use the Gleam.io widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, following us on Instagram, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.


The contest will run from today (January 17) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on January 24. The winner will be chosen randomly on January 24 and will be contacted by email. The winner will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before a new winner is chosen.