MacRumors

Apple maintained its consummate lead in the global wearable products market in the first quarter of this year, based on research conducted by IDC.

According to the report, Apple's lot grew by 13.3 million units, or 59.9 percent year on year, handing it a 23.7 percent share of the market.

Despite difficulties in the supply chain for Apple Watch, the company saw strong results thanks to its Beats and AirPods range (the report treats "hearables" as a subset of wearables).

IDC put the strong demand for AirPods and Beats down to the ongoing health crisis and the increasing number of people working from home who are in need of headphones.

"Consumers were clamouring for these sophisticated earpieces not only for the abilty to playback audio but also to help them increase productivity, as many of them were forced to work from home and sought ways to reduce surrounding noise while staying connected to their smartphones and smart assistants."

Xaiomi came second in place after Apple, with 10.1 million units shipped in the first quater of this year, amounting to 14 percent market share.

Samsung, Huawei, and Fitbit were the other major companies to make up the rest of the wearables market in the report. Global shipments of wearable devices grew 29.7 percent in Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2019, totalling 72.6 million units.

Production of Apple's rumored over-ear wireless headphones is already said to be underway, and Apple's virtual Worldwide Developers Conference in June could be a good opportunity to introduce them.

Apple is also expected to debut Powerbeats Pro in four new Colors soon, so there would appear to be plenty of reasons for Apple to be confident of maintaining its dominance in the wearables market going forward.

Twitter says it has added the ability to schedule tweets using its web interface, suggesting the same option could eventually make it to the platform's iOS app.

Previously, users who wanted to schedule tweets have had to use third-party apps like Buffer and TweetDeck. Now they can do so in Twitter's native web app, via a calendar icon on the bottom of the compose window.

In addition, users can now also save draft tweets in the web app, although currently they won't be synced to drafts in Twitter's mobile app, and vice versa.

Apple today began selling certified refurbished iPhone XR models in select colors and capacities for the first time in the United States. Refurbished iPhone XR models are priced at a roughly 16 percent discount compared to current pricing on brand-new units, knocking $100–120 off of the regular price.

In addition to the 64GB and 128GB capacities matching current brand-new ‌iPhone‌ XR models, refurbished units are also available with 256GB of storage, although currently only in black. The ‌iPhone‌ XR was initially offered in all three capacities at its launch in 2018, but when the ‌iPhone‌ XR moved down the lineup as a lower-priced option in September 2019, the 256GB models were discontinued.

• 64GB: $499, down from current $599 price and $749 launch price
• 128GB: $539, down from current $649 price and $799 launch price
• 256GB: $629, down from former $749 clearance price and $899 launch price

All current refurbished ‌iPhone‌ XR models come carrier unlocked and without a SIM, so they can be activated with any carrier you choose.

Apple says all refurbished ‌iPhone‌ models are thoroughly inspected, tested, cleaned, and repackaged with a new white box and all manuals and accessories. Apple also installs a new battery and replaces the outer shell, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between a refurbished and brand new ‌iPhone‌.

Any refurbished ‌iPhone‌ model comes with Apple's standard one-year warranty effective on the date the device is delivered, which can be extended with AppleCare+ at a flat rate of $149 or for $7.99 per month on the ‌iPhone‌ XR. Upgraded ‌AppleCare‌+ with theft and loss coverage is available for a flat rate of $249 or for $12.99 per month.

(Thanks, Shan!)

Apple sends out Apple Pay promotional emails on a regular basis, and this week's promotion provides a 30 percent discount on custom sunglasses or eyeglasses from Ray-Ban when using ‌Apple Pay‌ and the promo code APPLEPAY at checkout.

The deal applies only to custom orders on the Ray-Ban.com website, and the promotion is valid until June 3, 2020. The Ray-Ban website features a Custom Lab that allows users to choose from 37 styles, 149 lens types, and 290 color options.

Pricing for sunglasses varies based on the style chosen and add-ons, but prices are over $100. Apple's promotional email also highlights other retailers that accept ‌Apple Pay‌, such as Daily Harvest, Old Navy, Pacsun, and Bath & Body Works.

Apple regularly adds new games to its Apple Arcade gaming service, and this week's addition features characters from the popular SpongeBob cartoon. Described as a platform running game, SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit allows players to take on the role of SpongeBob to defeat Plankton's minions and rescue SpongeBob's friends.

Trouble has come to Bikini Bottom! The evil "mastermind" Sheldon J. Plankton has once again hatched a plan to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula. This time he has enlisted his army of cousins to capture all of SpongeBob's friends! Play as SpongeBob on his epic, most side-scrolly quest through Bikini Bottom ever! Explore, collect coins and spatulas, and crush obstacles as SpongeBob races to rescue his friends, defeat Plankton's minions and take back the formula. Keep an eye out for your favorite Bikini Bottom residents...you never know who you might run into!

Gameplay includes familiar locations like Bikini Bottom, Glove World, and Chum Bucket, along with mechanics like trampolines, zip lines, and transformation machines to morph SpongeBob into a range of silly forms.

SpongeBob universe characters that include Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, and Plankton are present in the game, and there are plenty of enemies to defeat, such as the Jellyfish King.

SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit is available in the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV and in the Mac App Store for Macs. Playing the game requires a subscription to ‌Apple Arcade‌, which is priced at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year.

‌Apple Arcade‌ provides access to more than 100 games on ‌iPhone‌, ‌iPad‌, ‌Apple TV‌, and Mac with no in-app purchases or ads.

Images of a new version of the Leather Loop that Apple appears to have in development surfaced yesterday, and today, Vietnamese site Tinhte.vn has shared additional photos and videos that give us a clearer picture of what to expect from the new band.

While the current version of the Leather Loop fastens with a loop-style closure similar to the Sport Loop, the new model attaches to the wrist magnetically. Tinhte.vn's bands are all 44mm, but the images shared yesterday suggest there may also be a 40mm version in the works. The current Leather Loop is limited to the larger watches.

The bands appear to feature waterproofing properties that make them suitable for a wider range of activities than the current Leather Loop bands, and they also have a sportier, more casual look to them.

There is a possibility that Apple will sell these bands alongside the existing Leather Loop options as a new band type, but given the similarities between the designs, the new bands could also be a full replacement for the current Leather Loop.

There's no word on when these new bands might launch, but given that they appear to be finished, we could perhaps see them as early as WWDC. Apple often refreshes Apple Watch band colors alongside major events, so it would not be unusual to see a summer release of a new band option.

Alternatively, Apple could save these new bands for release alongside the Apple Watch Series 6 models in the fall.

Hulu is testing a new "Watch Party" feature that's designed to allow up to eight people to watch TV shows and movies together through the Hulu website and chat with one another while the content is playing.

Some Hulu users who sign in on the web will see a popup describing the new Watch Party option, which is available for a select number of TV shows and movies. Watch Party is limited to customers who have the Hulu plan with no ads, and it is only on the web at this time

We're testing something new on hulu.com so you can watch together, even when you're apart. Start a Watch Party by clicking the watch party icon on the details page of your favorite shows and movies. Try it and tell us what you think.

Starting a Watch Party with friends can be done by choosing a TV show or movie that supports the feature and clicking on the Watch Party icon. Hulu then provides a link that can be shared with up to seven people, and when everyone has joined, the host can start the show.

Participants need to be logged into Hulu and watchers need to have the no ads Hulu subscription, priced at $12 per month. As the TV show or movie plays, participants can chat with one another through an included chat box, and each person using the service can control their own playback without impacting the rest of the group.

Watch Party is a Hulu-built feature that works in any browser that supports Hulu streaming, with no plug-ins or extensions required.

Plex's feature has no communication option, however, and Plex recommends viewers use a separate chat app such as Zoom. Watch Together works on iOS, tvOS, Android devices, and Android TVs. Plex's Watch Together feature is an early release and more functionality will be coming in the future. Unlike Hulu's Watch Party, Watch Together is free to use.

Music streaming service Tidal is bringing Dolby Atmos Music to Dolby Atmos-enabled devices like TVs, sound bars, speakers, and, notable for Apple users, the 4K Apple TV.

Apple's 4K ‌Apple TV‌, released in 2017, supports Dolby Atmos, a feature that brings more immersive sound for content when the ‌Apple TV‌ is paired with a Dolby Atmos soundbar or receiver and speakers.

According to Dolby, Tidal support for Dolby Atmos is rolling out to compatible television streaming boxes as of today. Support is available for the 4K ‌Apple TV‌, 2nd-generation Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Cube, 3rd-generation Fire TV, Nvidia Shield TV and TV Pro (from 2019), and Dolby Atmos-enabled TVs from Sony and Philips.

To use the feature, ‌Apple TV‌ 4K owners will need a Dolby Atmos enabled sound system along with the updated Tidal app.

Tidal began rolling out Dolby Atmos support back in December for Android smartphones and tablets, and it is available for all Tidal HiFi subscribers. Tidal HiFi is Tidal's streaming tier with lossless High Fidelity sound quality, priced at $19.99 per month.

Music playback will default to Dolby Atmos if a Dolby Atmos mix and compatible device are available. Tidal has been adding Dolby Atmos music to its streaming service on a regular basis, and notable albums and songs with support include Ariana Grande's "7 rings," The Weeknd's "After Hours," and Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello's "Señorita."

Tidal's Dolby Atmos content can be found by selecting the "Available in Dolby Atmos" section from the Home screen or searching for Dolby Atmos. For new subscribers interested in Dolby Atmos Music, Tidal is offering an extended 60-day free trial.

With the release of macOS Catalina 10.15.5 and related security updates for macOS Mojave and High Sierra earlier this week, Apple is making it more difficult for users to ignore available software updates and remain on their current operating system versions.

Included in the release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.5 is the following:

- Major new releases of macOS are no longer hidden when using the softwareupdate(8) command with the --ignore flag

This change also affects macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra after installing Security Update 2020-003.

For users still running an earlier major macOS version like Mojave or High Sierra, the Software Update pane in System Preferences typically displays a prominent upgrade button for Catalina and a notification badge on the System Preferences icon in the Dock, but until now knowledgeable users have been able to hide those items by using the softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina" command in the Terminal app.

After updating to macOS 10.15.5 or Security Update 2020-003, this command no longer works, with Terminal displaying the following message:

Ignoring software updates is deprecated.
The ability to ignore individual updates will be removed in a future release of macOS.

As documented in a discussion thread in our forums, there are some additional commands that can be used to temporarily remove the notifications, but it's clear Apple wants as many users as possible to upgrade their Macs with all of the most recent operating system updates.

French accessory maker Netatmo has announced an Apple HomeKit compatible Smart Outdoor Camera with Siren.

The new camera is an updated version of Netatmo's Presence Camera, which came with a large floodlight. The built-in 105 db siren this time around provides even more reason to discourage intruders onto property.

The camera also features infrared night vision, which can trigger the floodlight if it detects movement.

According to Netatmo, the camera analyzes the camera's field of view in real time, and can gauge when a person approaches the house, when a car pulls into the driveway, or if a dog is roaming around the garden.

Any of these cues will trigger an alert for the user, providing them with a "precise notification and video when an event unfolds outside their home."

The camera comes with a 4MP video sensor, 100º FoV, and 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, while the LED floodlight is dimmable and uses 12W of power. The camera requires a power supply of between 100V to 240V depending on region. The camera uses 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and comes with a Class 10 32GB micro SD card.

The Netatmo Smart Outdoor Camera without Siren is available now on Netatmo's website, and can be pre-ordered in Europe, with availablilty coming to the U.S. later in 2020 for $349.99.

An Apple File System bug has been discovered in macOS 10.15.5 Catalina that can prevent users from making a bootable clone of their system drive, according to the creator of Carbon Copy Cloner.

In a blog post on Wednesday, software developer Mike Bombich explained that the CCC team had uncovered the issue in the Apple File System, or APFS, when attempting to create a bootable backup in a beta version of macOS 10.15.5.

According to Bombich, the bug prevents CCC from using its own file copier to establish an initial bootable backup of a macOS Catalina System volume. In technical terms:

The chflags() system call can no longer set the SF_FIRMLINK flag on a folder on an APFS volume. Rather than fail with an error code that we would have detected, it fails silently – it exits with a success exit status, but silently fails to set the special flag. That's a bug in the APFS filesystem implementation of chflags – if a system call doesn't do what you ask it to do, it's supposed to return an error code, not success.

We don't need to set many of these flags, nor set them frequently – just on the first backup of the macOS system volume. It happens to be essential to the functionality of an APFS volume group, though, so the failure to set these flags means that new full-system backups created on 10.15.5 and later won't be bootable, and it will appear as if none of your data is on the destination (to be clear, though, all of the data is backed up). Kind of the opposite of what we're trying to do here. It's hard to find kind words to express my feelings towards Apple right now.

Suffice it to say, though, I'm extremely disappointed that Apple would introduce this kind of bug in a dot-release OS update. We've seen 5 major updates to Catalina now, we should expect to see higher quality than this from an operating system.

On a positive note, existing backups created in macOS 10.15.4 and earlier are unaffected, the bug has no effect on CCC's ability to preserve data, nor does it affect the integrity of the filesystems on a startup disk or a backup disk. In short, the impact of this bug is limited to the initial creation of a bootable backup.

Any CCC users who established their backup on a previous version of Catalina already has functional firmlinks on their bootable volume and CCC will continue to update that volume just fine. Meanwhile, users wanting to create a new backup of a 10.15.5 volume to an empty disk should replace their copy of CCC with the CCC 5.1.18 beta, then follow these steps on launching the app.

1. Click the X button in the Destination selector box to clear the destination selection.
2. Click on the Destination selector and reselect the destination volume.

CCC will then guide users through the procedure of creating a bootable backup, or a Data-only backup instead. The new functionality uses Apple's Software Restore (ASR) utility.

Bombich has notified Apple of the bug, but he ends his blog post by entertaining the possibility that it is a security fix to prevent third-parties from creating firmlinks. If so, he argues, "this is far worse than a bug," since the system currently reports a success when it should report a failure, not to mention that Apple's lack of documentation on the change is hostile to third-party developers who rely on documented functionality.