MacRumors

Samsung today announced the launch of a new "Terrace" 4K TV, which is designed to be used outdoors. The Terrace features an IP55 water and dust resistance rating, so it's able to hold up to light water exposure.

Like most newly released Samsung TVs, the Terrace TV includes support for the Apple TV app, which allows users to access ‌Apple TV‌ content like iTunes movies and TV shows, and ‌Apple TV‌+. It also supports AirPlay 2, allowing it to interface with other ‌AirPlay‌ 2 devices, and Apple Music is available.

The Terrace offers a brightness level of 2,000 nits, so it works even when it's bright and sunny outside. Samsung says the TV is ideal for sports fans with a 4K resolution and a high motion rate of MR240. There's an optional Terrace Soundbar that offers dynamic sound, and it supports Bixby, Alexa, and soon, it will work with Google Assistant.

Pricing on the Terrace TV starts at $5,000 for the 65-inch model, with a 75-inch option available for $6,500. There's also supposed to be a 55-inch model, but it is not yet available for purchase. Pre-orders can be made on Samsung's website.

Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is "in contact" with Apple after a former Apple contractor asked the DPC to investigate Apple's practice of allowing employees to listen to Siri recordings, reports Reuters.

The contractor, Thomas Le Bonniec, requested the assistance of the DPC in May and called for greater protection under the EU's privacy laws.

DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said that the DPC "engaged with Apple" when the ‌Siri‌ issue first arose last year, and Apple "made some changes," but now the DPC has additional questions.

"However, we have followed up again with Apple following the release of this public statement and await responses," he said, in reference to the letter. "In addition, it should be noted that the European Data Protection Board is working on the production of guidance in the area of voice assistant technologies."

Last July, contractors working on ‌Siri‌ quality control told The Guardian that they were listening to Siri audio recordings for Apple and regularly heard sensitive information that Apple device owners might not want shared, even with the data anonymized.

Apple came under fire for concealing the quality control practice and not making it clear to customers that some ‌Siri‌ recordings are listened to by employees for quality control purposes.

Apple in August 2019 ultimately suspended its Siri quality control program to overhaul how it works. Later in August, Apple ended all transcription and voice grading work done through contracting companies.

In October, with the release of iOS 13.2, Apple added a toggle that allows users to opt out of sharing voice recordings to improve ‌Siri‌ and Dictation, and it provided a way to delete all ‌Siri‌ and Dictation history.

• How to Delete Your Siri Audio History and Opt Out of Siri Audio Sharing

Apple resumed ‌Siri‌ quality control practices in the fall with the release of the opt-out option. ‌Siri‌ quality control is no longer handled by third-party contractors and is done in-house, and Apple has made changes to minimize the amount of data that reviewers have access to.

Along with further scrutiny from Irish regulators, Apple is facing a class-action lawsuit for allowing contractors to listen to and grade the anonymized ‌Siri‌ conversations for quality control purposes.

Apple has been seeking to add geographic diversity to its supply chain for some time now, with a shift of some production of the AirPods lineup to Vietnam being one significant step for the company.

And just two weeks ago, Nikkei reported that mass production of regular AirPods in Vietnam had started in March.

"The mass production of AirPods in Vietnam started as early as in March," a person familiar with the matter said. "The Vietnamese officials even granted special permits for a key Apple AirPods assembler to help the company bring in engineers to the country for smooth production during lockdowns." Vietnam began easing some lockdown measures in late April.

At the time, Nikkei said that the production shift did "not yet include" the higher-end AirPods Pro, but it now appears that ‌AirPods Pro‌ production has indeed begun in Vietnam as several MacRumors readers including @alixrezax on Twitter and "rhyzome" in our forums have reported this week receiving their ‌AirPods Pro‌ with "Assembled in Vietnam" shown on the charging cases.

Vietnam has long been a hotbed for Apple's audio accessory production, with even older models like wired EarPods having been produced in the country, and it looks like there's no sign of a slowdown. In fact, a report earlier this week claimed that Apple's over-ear "AirPods Studio" headphones will be partly produced in Vietnam from their debut for the first time, with shipments expected to begin in June or July.

Production of Apple products in Vietnam may also be expanding to the iPhone, as DigiTimes reported yesterday that Apple has asked its ‌iPhone‌ manufacturing partners to expand production in India and Vietnam. Key partner Foxconn already has significant assembly facilities in the country.

Note: Due to the political or social 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.

Apple's rumored augmented reality glasses will launch in 2021, with "small-volume" production expected to start in the first half of the year, according to paywalled information shared by DigiTimes.

Apple to roll out AR glasses in 2021

Apple is expected to roll out its augmented reality glasses in 2021, according to sources at related suppliers, which are gearing up to kick off small-volume production for the device in the first half of the year.

The full report will not be published until tomorrow and the brief excerpt offers no further information, but it comes on the heels of an extensive report earlier this week from Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser detailing what he has heard about the glasses.

Prosser says the glasses will be called "Apple Glass" and start at $499, with prescription lenses available for an additional cost. In line with previous rumors, he says Apple Glass will rely on a paired iPhone for most of its functionality, allowing the glasses themselves to be as slim and light as possible.

According to Prosser's sources, Apple's original plans involved unveiling Apple Glass at the annual ‌iPhone‌ event in September or October, but restrictions on in-person gatherings could push the debut back to a March 2021 event. Either way, Apple was said to be targeting a late 2021 or early 2022 launch, which lines up with today's report from DigiTimes.

Apple is bringing some significant updates to several of its education apps, led by a new Schoolwork 2.0 for iPad and Mac, reports CNET.

Schoolwork is Apple's app that allows teachers to distribute class materials known as Handouts to students, assign activities within compatible apps, collaborate with students, and view student progress. CNET says Schoolwork 2.0 will bring new feature like Files integration, speed improvements, and more.

Apple designed Schoolwork 2.0 to include features found in other iPad OS apps, like Files, and to speed up navigation around the software. There's a new Handout library with a source list on the left side that makes it easier to navigate to different classes or the student's library with drafts and favorites. On the right are cards with things like reminders for a field trip or a math assignment.

Other new features include a redesigned Handout detail view and new communication integration to let teachers FaceTime or message students at a tap.

In addition to Schoolwork, Apple is also updating its Classroom app for ‌iPad‌ that functions as a teaching assistant within a classroom to launch apps and websites across all devices in a classroom, share a student's screen to the teacher's ‌iPad‌ or a classroom Apple TV, share documents, and more.

The updated Classroom app includes pinch-to-zoom functionality, automatic syncing of Apple School Manager classes to the teacher's Apple ID, and new temporary sessions for shared iPads.

The updated versions of Schoolwork and Classroom are coming "soon," according to CNET, with no specific launch dates given.

Apple today is marking Global Accessibility Awareness Day with several new features across its sites and services to promote inclusion and access to technology for anyone with a disability.

On the front page of Apple.com, there's a new section today with the tagline "Works the way you do" that links to the company's existing Accessibility page, which highlights a number of personal stories as well as features of Apple's products targeted at accessibility.

Over on the App Store, the Today section features several cards with the theme of "Designed for Accessibility." The cards highlight stories about accessibility in apps including handcycling tracking in Strava, text-to-speech app Voice Dream Reader, a color-blind mode in Tint, hearing loss assistant SonicCloud, and Toca Life World's inclusive character customization options for kids.

Finally, with most of Apple's retail stores still closed, the company is continuing to focus on moving its Today at Apple sessions online with its series of Today at Apple at Home videos, and a new session on transitions and loops in the Clips app by Gus from Apple Carnegie Library is done entirely in American Sign Language. Audio narration and subtitles are also included.

Three of Apple's suppliers will share camera module orders for its forthcoming "iPhone 12" lineup, according to sources from Taiwan's handset supply chain (via DigiTimes).

Rumors have suggested Apple will complete its transition to an all-OLED ‌iPhone‌ lineup in 2020 with one new 5.4-inch device, two 6.1-inch models, and one 6.7-inch handset.

Rumors suggest the 6.7-inch ‌iPhone‌ and one 6.1-inch model will be higher-end OLED devices with triple-lens cameras, while the 5.4 and 6.1-inch models will be lower-end iPhones with dual-lens cameras and a more affordable price tag.

LG has reportedly landed camera module orders for the two high-end 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch devices, with module shipments expected to reach 35-40 million units in 2020. Sharp and O-film are said to have grabbed orders for the two lower-end 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch phones, with camera module shipments expected to hit 50-55 million units this year.

Sharp is thought to account for 60 to 70 percent of those shipments, with the remaining 30-40 percent going to O-film. Production of the camera modules will reportedly begin in July.

Rumors suggest there will be a new TrueDepth camera system that cuts down on the size of the notch on the front. There are also rumors of a 3D triple-lens rear camera system that uses a laser to calculate depth information for objects in the room, improving both photography and AR capabilities.

The new 3D camera, which sounds like the LiDAR Scanner feature that Apple added in the 2020 iPad Pro, is expected to be limited to the high-end ‌iPhone‌ models

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says the 6.1 and 5.4-inch iPhones are expected to go into mass production in September, while mass production on the larger 6.7-inch ‌iPhone‌ will be delayed until October because of its more complicated design. If production is delayed until October, at least some of the iPhones could launch later than originally expected.

According to the latest industry estimates cited by the report, shipments of new iPhones are likely to reach 70 million in 2020, with the 6.1-inch models (both lower-end and high-end ones) to serve as the driving force, accounting for 50 percent of total shipments. The 5.4-inch model meanwhile is expected to make up 30-35 percent and the high-end 6.7-inch one 15-20 percent of shipments.

The team behind the "unc0ver" jailbreaking tool for iOS has announced an upcoming version of its software that can patch "every signed iOS version on every device" using a zero-day kernel vulnerability by Pwn20wnd, a renowned iOS hacker.

If the claims are true, that would mean Apple's latest flagship devices like the iPhone 11, ‌iPhone‌ SE, and 2020 iPad Pro can be jailbroken, even if they're running iOS 13.5, which was released only yesterday.

This would be a significant development in the jailbreaking community, second only to last year's surprise announcement of "checkm8," an exploit found on nearly every chip made by Apple, which paved the way for a permanent, non-patchable jailbreak on hundreds of millions of affected iOS devices.

"Checkm8" was the first publicly available boot room exploit for iOS devices since the ‌iPhone‌ 4 in 2010.

"Checkra1n," another jailbreaking tool made by the same security researcher responsible for the "checkm8" exploit, is presently the only way to unlock devices up to the ‌iPhone‌ 8 and ‌iPhone‌ X, which use Apple's A11 Bionic chip.

Back in October, Microsoft decided to get into the wire-free earbuds market with the debut of the Surface Earbuds, designed to compete with Apple's AirPods, Google's Pixel Buds, and Samsung's Galaxy Buds.

Priced at $199, the Surface Earbuds have a design that's rather... unique. There's an AirPods-style earpiece that fits into the ear, along with a circular exterior portion that's rather large and noticeable, designed primarily for touch gestures. The Surface Earbuds are not low-key, hard to see headphones -- it's obvious when you're wearing them.

When it comes to fit, the Surface Earbuds are relatively comfortable. The AirPods kind of rest on the outside of the ears, while the Surface Earbuds are designed to fit a bit deeper in the ear canal, though not as deep as the AirPods Pro.

Surface Earbuds come with small, medium, and large tips, so most people should be able to get a decent fit. We found them to be uncomfortable to wear at first, but after they settled in for a few hours, the Surface Earbuds were more comfortable to wear.

The design of the Surface Earbuds definitely looks a bit funky, but it's functional because of the simple and effective gesture set, which uses the large surface area of each earbud.

A double tap plays/pauses music, a swipe on the left earbud skips tracks, and a swipe on the right earbud controls the volume. AirPods don't have gesture controls for volume, which is one of the major negatives when it comes to AirPods gestures.

There are also controls for accessing voice-based help and answering/ending phone calls, plus several Microsoft apps can take advantage of Surface Earbuds gestures. On an Android phone, for example, a triple tap on either earbud opens up the Spotify app. On iOS, you can listen to, delete, and reply to emails with touch and voice using the Outlook app, and in PowerPoint, you can swipe to advance slides, enable live captions and subtitles, and have what you're saying be translated into one of 60 languages.

Sound quality on the Surface Earbuds was somewhat unimpressive. The low end was disappointing and on the whole, music playback had a tinny quality. There is an app that accompanies the Surface Earbuds for EQ adjustments, which helps improve the sound somewhat. There's no Active Noise Cancellation, so the only sound isolating comes from the fit of the Surface Earbuds in the ear.

The Surface Earbuds have a six to eight hour battery life, which is extended to 24 hours with the included USB-C charging case, which has a rectangular design reminiscent of a little coffin. The case charges over USB-C, and there's no wireless charging included.

When paired with a Surface device or a Windows PC running Windows 10, which is what the Surface Earbuds are designed to work with, there's a Swift Pair feature for fast pairing, but on iOS devices, the connection will need to be done through Bluetooth settings.

Surface Earbuds are fine if you plan to use them with a PC or a Surface device, but there's no reason to pick these up if you're planning to use them with a Mac or an iPhone because the full feature set is restricted to Windows. Given the $199 price point, these are best for those who are in Microsoft's ecosystem rather than Apple's.

Apple is adding a 192-room hotel to the campus that it is developing in Austin, Texas, according to revised construction plans shared by Culturemap.

The hotel will span 75,500 feet and will have six stories, but there's no information on branding. The updated plans were approved in late April, with the hotel as a new addition. The original plans, filed in December 2018, did not include a hotel.

None of Apple's other campuses have hotels on site, but the addition of a hotel will give employees traveling to the Austin campus for training and other purposes a place to stay.

The $1 billion Austin campus will span three million square feet, with two million square feet dedicated to office space. Apple started construction on the campus in November 2019, and is set to finish it up in 2022.

When the campus opens, it will have space for 5,000 employees, but eventually, it will be able to accommodate 15,000 employees.

Hulu today announced the launch of an updated interface that offers up content in a tiled view, similar to Netflix and other streaming services.

Hulu in 2017 unveiled a simplified user interface that eliminated the horizontal tiled view for TV shows and movies, instead adopting a vertically oriented design that focused on a single TV show or movie at a time with full-screen artwork.

On the Apple TV, Hulu's current design displays just three or four show listings at a time, making it difficult to browse through content to find something to watch, and it's an interface that many Hulu customers have not been satisfied with.

The updated interface that Hulu is rolling out as of today is designed to make it easier to navigate and discover new content. Navigating through collections is done vertically, but there's now an option to explore within a collection through horizontal tiles.

Hulu says that this design is something that viewers are accustomed to and that matches the navigation pattern in Disney+ and ESPN+, so it will make navigation easier for customers who have the bundle that includes all three services.

Categories of content like TV, Movies, and Sports will be moved to the master navigation menu, and Hulu says that navigating through content will take fewer clicks than before.

Hulu plans to use tile size to highlight new shows and movies, while "Keep Watching" tiles might be smaller so viewers can see more of their content at a glance and return to favorites more quickly.

There have also been some changes to improve how recommendations work, with fine tuning to make curated collections more personalized for each viewer.

With this change, a viewer who may be a fan of medical dramas will see those titles first in a curated drama collection. In that same collection, a fan of romantic dramas may see those prioritized instead.

Hulu's redesigned interface will come first to some viewers on Roku and ‌Apple TV‌ devices before rolling out more broadly over the course of the next few months.