MacRumors

Apple in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina introduced Project Catalyst, designed to allow iOS developers to port their iPad apps over to the Mac with little effort, making it simpler for developers to design cross-platform apps.

Ars Technica recently spoke with some of the Apple team members responsible for creating and promoting Project Catalyst, and it's worth a read for those who are interested in the feature.

Apple decided to allow developers to port ‌iPad‌ apps instead of iPhone apps because it's a "more natural transition" bringing an app from an ‌iPad‌ to a Mac due to the closer display sizes. From Todd Benjamin, Apple's senior director of marketing for macOS:

Just design-wise, the difference between an iPad app and an iPhone app is that the iPad app has gone through a design iteration to take advantage of more screen space. And as you bring that app over to the Mac... you have something that's designed around that space that you can work with and that you can start from.

Ali Ozer, Apple's cocoa engineering manager, also said that choosing the ‌iPad‌ pre-empts user concerns about mobile ports spilling over to the desktop. "This is one way of making developers aware that an ‌iPhone‌ app in its current form might not be the right design," said Ozer.

Developers who have already used Project Catalyst have been able to port ‌iPad‌ versions of Twitter, TripIt, and Asphalt 9: Legends to the Mac. The developers that have worked with Project Catalyst told Ars that it was, on the whole, simple to use and "able to just work," as one Twitter developer said.

As for quality concerns, Apple's Catalyst team expects public reviews to be a major factor when it comes to ensuring Mac apps offer a rich, Mac-like experience. From Shaan Pruden, Apple's senior director of partner management and developer relations:

"Then we come down to customers' reaction and ratings and all of that kind of stuff. Which hopefully will drive the right behavior for a developer, which is to do the work and do it right and don't be lazy."

The full deep dive into Project Catalyst can be read over on the Ars Technica website, and it goes into detail on just how Project Catalyst functions, what developers think of the feature thus far, and it shares Apple's thoughts on SwiftUI.

As it has done in years past, Apple yesterday marched in the annual San Francisco Pride parade, which is one of the bigger Pride events in the country and sees nearly 100,000 spectators during the event. Apple employees appeared in the parade with a large sign that showcased a rainbow version of the Apple logo.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was in attendance, as seen in a few selfies taken during the parade with fans and fellow Apple employees. A few other Apple executives marked the event as well, including Apple's new retail chief Deirdre O'Brien.

Apple has celebrated Pride in multiple ways this year, including the launch of the new Apple Watch Pride Sport Loop earlier in June. The new watch band is the third iteration of the Pride design for the Apple Watch, following two rainbow-emblazoned Woven Nylon Pride bands that released in 2017 and 2018.

The company also routinely donates to charities that support LGBTQ individuals, and Cook himself is set to receive GLSEN's "Champion Award" for his ongoing commitment to fighting for LGBTQ rights. Cook recently stated, "I am grateful to GLSEN for this honor and for all their work to ensure the LGBTQ community is treated with dignity and respect."

Apple has long voiced support for LGBTQ causes like same sex marriage, as well as having spoken out against some controversial laws that predominantly risked negatively affecting the lives of gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals.

Before he publicly came out as gay in late 2014, Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ fought for equality in speeches and op-eds. Under late CEO Steve Jobs, Apple also opposed many discriminatory laws, including 2008's Proposition 8 that sought to eliminate the right to same sex marriage in California.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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 today announced a new series of live concerts that will be held in retail locations around the world this summer, under a new initiative called "Up Next Live." All of the artists playing concerts are alumni of Apple Music's Up Next program, which highlights up-and-coming musicians.

For Up Next Live, this includes Khalid, Bad Bunny, Jessie Reyez, King Princess, Lewis Capaldi, Daniel Caesar, and Ashley McBryde (via MacGeneration).

The concerts will be held at places including Apple Union Square in San Francisco, Apple Champs-Élysés in Paris, Apple Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C., and Apple Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The event kicks off with Bad Bunny's performance at Apple Piazza Liberty on July 9, and then one concert will be held each week through Khalid's performance in Washington, D.C. on August 23.

This summer, seven of music’s brightest rising stars will play intimate after‑hours concerts at seven marquee Apple Store locations around the world. All of the artists are alumni of Apple Music’s Up Next program; some are on the brink of massive success, while others have already achieved it. Either way, you’ll never see them perform like this again.

To get into each concert, you'll have to be 16 years of age or older, and register for tickets on Apple's website. Tickets will be free but are subject to a random draw; those who win will gain one ticket for themselves and one for a guest. All ticket registration closes on July 3, so those interested should check out Apple's ticketing site soon.

Eddy Cue recently spoke with The Times to discuss various topics related to Apple's services, which he helps run, including Apple Music, Apple News+, and the upcoming Apple TV+. Much of the interview focused on ‌Apple TV‌+ and its launch this fall, with Cue stating that Apple's focus will be on quality over quantity.

Apple's plan will be in direct contrast to Netflix, which creates a lot of content every month for its subscribers to watch. Cue said that "there's nothing wrong with that model, but it's not our model." Apple will release new shows and episodes consistently, but not nearly at the same rate as Netflix.

When asked why Apple can be trusted with creating high-quality TV dramas, Cue admitted that the company wasn't up to the task, so it hired people who are. This is referring to Apple's hiring of Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg from Sony, who have "incredible taste" according to Cue.

Yet this talk of quality prompts my next question. Apple knows its music and he knows his sport, but what do they know about TV drama? What's Apple's taste in that?

"That's a great question, one we asked ourselves too. Look, we don't know a lot about television other than we are big consumers of it, but that doesn't quite qualify you as an expert by any means. The thing that we're smart about is when we don't know about something we want to get into, we go and find the best people for it."

Jumping to the topic of ‌Apple News‌+, Cue stated that one of Apple's big goals right now is to convince younger people to subscribe to the service. ‌Apple News‌+ has been struggling since its launch earlier this year, as many publishers are unimpressed with the revenue generated from the service.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is to get people to understand that curated, high-quality news, is worth something. For you and I that’s not a big deal. We’ve known that all our lives. If you’re 20 years old, I’m not sure you think that way.”

Cue also commented on the growing success of ‌Apple Music‌, which recently hit 60 million paid subscribers. According to the Apple executive, ‌Apple Music‌ grew out of the company's "real love for music": "The history of Apple and music goes to the very beginning. It's been a big part of the DNA. It was a big part of Steve Jobs's life. He always knew that music was a big part of making him who he was."

At WWDC in June, Apple said iOS 13 would bring live radio requests to Siri from iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Radio.com, but it looks like that rollout is already underway ahead of the software's release in the fall.

Macerkopf.de this morning reports that some users in Germany are having success asking Siri to play live national radio stations over HomePods running the latest official software and via Apple Music on devices running iOS 12.

It's not clear how far the company has got in laying the groundwork for live radio ‌Siri‌ requests elsewhere, but Apple says that come the official global rollout in the fall, Apple device owners will have around 100,000 radio stations to choose from.

Other new features destined for HomePod this fall include Handoff for music, podcasts, and phone calls, as well as individual voice recognition for up to six users.

Apple says the latter feature will enable a personalized listening experience and personal access to messages, reminders, lists, and calendars, as well as the ability to make phone calls from the user's contacts.

The first alleged leaked CAD renders of Apple's 2019 iPhones appeared on Slashleaks this morning. Smartphone CAD images shared online are usually touted as official designs leaked from production factories and are often used by case makers to predict the design of unreleased devices.

Regardless of the authenticity of these renders, they do line up with rumors regarding the company's upcoming flagship smartphones and serve as a reminder of what to expect from the devices, likely to be launched in September.

Rumors suggest the successors of the ‌iPhone‌ XS, ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, and ‌iPhone‌ XR will again be 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED iPhones along with a 6.1-inch LCD ‌iPhone‌, respectively.

The 5.8 and 6.5-inch ‌iPhone‌ XS and XS Max successors are expected to feature triple-lens cameras, while the LCD ‌iPhone‌ will use a dual-lens camera setup, as depicted in the rear square patches on the top-left of the devices.

The camera bump has proven quite controversial since it was first leaked by OnLeaks in January, with many criticizing the look of both the bump itself and the positioning of the camera lenses within the bump.

Some have also questioned why the successor to the ‌iPhone‌ XR would have a square bump for a dual-lens setup when a pill-shaped bump is used on the ‌iPhone‌ X, ‌iPhone‌ XS, and ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, although Apple may simply be adopting it to draw a distinction with previous models and maintain consistency across the new line-up.

Either way, the third camera on the next ‌iPhone‌ XS and ‌iPhone‌ XS Max is rumored to be an ultra-wide-angle lens that enables a broader range of zoom, while the second lens on the next ‌iPhone‌ XR is expected to enable increased zoom as well.

Otherwise, the 2019 ‌iPhone‌ lineup is expected to look similar to the Apple's current smartphones, but Apple may be planning to use a new frosted glass design for the back of the 5.8 and 6.5-inch devices. The 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌, meanwhile, could come in new lavender and green shades.

The CAD renders also point to Apple sticking with a Lightning port for this year's iPhones, rather than the USB-C port it adopted for its 2018 iPad Pro models, as suggested by Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Other changes mooted include larger batteries, the ability to wirelessly charge other devices, and new technology for indoor positioning and navigation. We don't yet know what Apple will call the new iPhones, but ‌iPhone‌ XI or ‌iPhone‌ 11 are possibilities for the ‌iPhone‌ XS successors.

Shortly after Apple's announcement last week that Jony Ive was leaving the company, Bloomberg published a report that suggested his departure had been viewed internally for some time as an inevitability ever since the Apple Watch was launched in 2015.

This morning, The Wall Street Journal published a report on his last years at Apple, based on conversations over more than a year with people who worked with Ive, as well as people close to Apple's leadership.

The report follows a similar narrative of a design team frustrated with Ive's growing absence, but shines a spotlight on the design chief's own discontent within the company, which he felt was becoming less design-focused and more operations-led.

According to sources who spoke to WSJ, Ive pushed for the Apple Watch to be made despite disagreements from some executives, who questioned if a device so small could have a killer app that would compel people to buy it.

When CEO Tim Cook approved the project in 2013, Ive "threw himself into it" and oversaw the software interface team as well as the industrial design, conducting meetings almost daily and immersing himself in detail.

Ive reportedly wanted to position the watch as a fashion accessory, but some Apple leaders envisioned it as an extension of the iPhone. Eventually a compromise was agreed, and the $349 watch was tethered to the ‌iPhone‌, with Apple creating a $17,000 gold version and partnering with Hermès.

The company sold about 10 million units in the first year, a quarter of what Apple forecast, a person familiar with the matter told WSJ. Thousands of the gold version are said to have gone unsold.

Ive said his work on the Apple Watch in 2014 had been one of his most challenging years at the company, and told Cook he wanted to step back from day-to-day management responsibilities and have "time and space to think."

Ive's promotion to chief design officer was a recognition of his desire to step back, but the change reportedly proved disruptive internally. In one example, Ive is said to have promised to hold a "design week" each month with software designers to discuss their work on the ‌iPhone‌ X, but he rarely showed up. Even when he was involved, Ive's leadership over key decisions seemed weakened.

For the iPhone X model, Mr. Ive and other Apple leaders decided the phone would have no home button. The human interface team was asked to design software features that could return people to the homescreen without it.

For the January 2017 meeting at the Battery, Apple security escorted prototypes up from headquarters in an airtight, Pelican case. The team presented a multitude of features for Mr. Ive's approval, including how to transition from lock screen to home screen.

Pressure was on to finalize features before for the phone's autumn unveiling. Team members were disappointed Mr. Ive failed to give them the guidance they needed. "It was [a] rough development cycle," said one person at the meetings.

After the ‌iPhone‌ X launch in September 2017, a key designer left and others were considering leaving, as Ive's absence strained the cohesion central to product development.

Sensing discontent, Cook asked Ive to resume day-to-day responsibilities later the same year. Ive agreed, which initially encouraged designers, but his absences later resumed as he spent more time in the U.K., where his father has been ill.

Around this time, Ive had reportedly become "dispirited" by Cook, who is said to have "showed little interest in the product development process," according to people in the design studio. Ive also grew frustrated as Apple's board became increasingly populated by directors with backgrounds in finance and operations rather than technology or other areas of the company's core business.

Despite his decision to leave, Ive brought the industrial-design and human-interface teams together in one office thanks to his work on Apple Park, and is said to have created new processes for more quickly prototyping new products and software features.

A colleague who has worked closely with Ive told WSJ: "He built Apple into this ID (industrial design) and HI (human interface) powerhouse. What does that mean going forward? None of us know. It's not the team that he inherited."

At WWDC 2019 earlier this month, Apple announced Sign In with Apple, a new privacy-focused login feature that will allow macOS Catalina and iOS 13 users to sign into third-party apps and websites using their Apple ID.

The feature has been largely welcomed as a more secure alternative to similar sign-in services offered by Facebook, Google, and Twitter, since it authenticates the user with Face ID or Touch ID, and doesn't send personal information to app and website developers.

However the implementation of Sign In with Apple has now been questioned by the OpenID Foundation (OIDF), a non-profit organization whose members include Google, Microsoft, PayPal, and others.

In an open letter to Apple software chief Craig Federighi, the foundation praised Apple's authentication feature for having "largely adopted" OpenID Connect, a standardized protocol used by many existing sign-in platforms that lets developers authenticate users across websites and apps without them having to use separate passwords.

Yet it cautioned that several differences remain between OpenID Connect and Sign In with Apple that could potentially put users' security and privacy in jeopardy.

The current set of differences between OpenID Connect and Sign In with Apple reduces the places where users can use Sign In with Apple and exposes them to greater security and privacy risks. It also places an unnecessary burden on developers of both OpenID Connect and Sign In with Apple. By closing the current gaps, Apple would be interoperable with widely-available OpenID Connect Relying Party software.

To remedy the situation, the foundation asked Apple to address the differences between Sign In with Apple and OpenID Connect, which have been recorded in a document managed by the OIDF certification team.

It also invited the company to use OpenID's suite of certification tests to improve the interoperability of the two platforms, publicly state their compatibility, and join the OpenID Foundation.

Shortly after unveiling Sign In with Apple, the tech giant told developers that if an app lets users log in using their Facebook or Google logins, then it must also provide an alternative Sign In with Apple option.

The company then raised some eyebrows when it emerged that its updated Human Interface Guidelines asked app developers to place its authentication feature above other rival third-party sign-in options wherever they appeared.

(Thanks, Jonathan!)

Apple has identified an undisclosed issue with the logic board in "a very small number" of 2018 MacBook Air units, according to an internal document distributed to Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers on Friday. The document was obtained by MacRumors from a source who has proven reliable.

Apple will replace the main logic board in affected ‌MacBook Air‌ units, free of charge. Apple will also send an email to affected customers to let them know that their notebooks are eligible for a main logic board replacement. Apple did not provide any specific details or symptoms pertaining to the "issue."

2018 ‌MacBook Air‌ owners can visit Apple's support website to schedule an appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. When the serial number of an affected ‌MacBook Air‌ is entered into Apple's internal repair system, a message will direct technicians to replace the logic board.

Apple will authorize coverage within four years of the ‌MacBook Air‌'s original purchase date. If the notebook has accidental damage that the customer does not want repaired, technicians are instructed to proceed with the logic board replacement at no cost as long as the damage does not prevent completion of the repair.

If accidental damage does prevent the logic board replacement from being completed, Apple says the customer must pay for necessary repairs in order to get the logic board replaced at no cost.

Apple has not publicly announced this repair policy, likely due to what it believes is a very small number of affected customers. While we are confident this information is accurate, as it comes from a consistently reliable source, we cannot guarantee that all Apple employees will acknowledge the policy.

This is at least the third repair program that Apple has introduced in the past five weeks, alongside its 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro battery recall and replacement program and 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro display backlight service program.

The Photos app is one of the most important apps on the iPhone and iPad, housing all of the pictures that you've taken and offering up editing tools to make those images even better.

Over the course of the last few years, Apple has been steadily improving the Photos app with machine learning and other technologies to present your pictures in new and unique ways so you can do more than just view your photos - you can relive your memories. iOS 13 is no exception and has a slew of improvements that make the Photos app more useful than ever.

Updated Photos Tab Organization

The main Photos tab in the Photos app has been overhauled in iOS 13, with a new design that's meant to put your best photos front and center. In addition to the iOS 12-style option to view all of your photos, there are new options to view them by day, month, and year.

Each of the time-based viewing options cuts out clutter, like screenshots, photos of receipts, and duplicate images, displaying all of your best memories without the cruft. Photos are displayed in a tiled view, with your best images displayed as large squares surrounded by smaller related photos.

The Days view in the Photos app shows you the photos that you've taken organized by each day, while the Months view presents photos categorized into events so you can see the best parts of the month at a glance.

In the Years view, you can see subsections for each year. In the current year, it will flip through each month automatically so you can get an overview of each month, but Apple did something unique for past years. When you tap into an older year, like 2018 or 2017, you'll see photos taken around the same time of year.

So, for example, if it's June and you tap the 2017 tab in June, you'll see photos that were taken in June 2017. Tapping into a specific year in this view swaps over to the Month view, where you can further tap into a target month, which then swaps to the Day view. You can also swipe a finger over the photos in the Years view to see a glimpse of key images from each month.

In all of the sections, Apple highlights titles like location, concert performances, holidays, and more, so you know where your photos were taken.

The new Photos tab is separate from the "For You" section introduced in iOS 12. For You also shows you curated photos, but the Photos tab organizes them around specific dates while For You focuses on aggregating content from multiple dates like beach days, trips, specific people, pets, and more.

Both the new Photos tab and the For You view are great for surfacing your best memories, making the Photos app a great tool just for browsing through your photo library.

• How to Use the New Photos Tab in iOS 13
• How to Add Several Photos to an Album in the Photos App in iOS 13

Autoplay Live Photos and Videos

In the new Photos tab, Live Photos and videos will autoplay silently so you can see a glimpse of action in the Day view, which brings the Photos tab to life and makes looking through your images a more dynamic, fun experience.

Extended Live Photos

When you have two or more ‌Live Photos‌ taken within 1.5 seconds of one another, there's a new ‌Live Photos‌ option that will play both at once as a short little video rather than just a quick animation in the Day view of the Photos tab.

Birthday Highlights

For your contacts you have photos of in the People album, if you have their birthdays assigned to them in the Contacts app, Apple will show you photos of the person in the "For You" section of the Photos app.

Screen Recordings Album

In iOS 13, if you capture a screen recording, it will be saved to a new Screen Recordings album automatically, much like screenshots go in the Screenshots album.

Overhauled Editing Interface

Apple in iOS 13 updated the editing interface in Photos, which you can get to whenever you tap on the "Edit" button on one of your pictures.

Rather than hiding editing tools down at the bottom of the image in a series of small icons, iOS 13 puts them front and center in a new slider that lets you scroll through each adjustment option. It kicks off with the standard Auto adjust, but if you swipe to the left on the editing tools, you can choose the specific adjustment that you need.

You can tap each edit you apply to see what the photo looks like before and after, so it's clear what each of the adjustments is doing. This new interface more closely mirrors third-party photo editing apps and puts more tools right at ‌iPhone‌ users' fingertips, making photo editing easier for everyone.

The editing tab in the Photos app has been updated to account for the new editing interface. When you open up edits, the adjustment tools are front and center, but if you tap the concentric circles icon on the left you can get to ‌Live Photos‌ adjustments where you can choose a new Key Photo.

On the right of the adjustment tool, there are filter options, and next to that, options for cropping and changing orientation.

Intensity Slider

For each editing tool, there's a slider that lets you tweak the intensity of the adjustment, which allows for more controlled edits than before. So, for example, you can select the "Exposure" adjustment tool to brighten or darken a photo and then use the slider to quickly get the desired effect. Intensity has specific numbers, so it's easy to tell how much of an effect has been applied at a glance.

New Editing Tools

In addition to overhauling the editing interface in Photos, Apple also added new tools for things like adjusting vibrance, white balance, sharpness, and more. Below, there's a list of all of the editing tools available in Photos in iOS 13:

• Auto
• Exposure
• Brilliance
• Highlights
• Shadows
• Contrast
• Brightness
• Black Point
• Saturation
• Vibrance
• Warmth
• Tint
• Sharpness
• Definition
• Noise Reduction
• Vignette

Apple has also improved the auto cropping and auto straightening features designed to make your photos look better with just a tap. When editing, you can use pinch to zoom to see the close-up details of a photo to get a better look at just what edits are doing to a particular area in an image.

• How to Use the Editing Tools in Photos
• How to Crop, Rotate, and Straighten Your Photos in iOS 13

Filter Intensity Adjustments

Though there are new editing tools available, the filters that Apple has long provided are there too. Filters in iOS 13 are more functional because the intensity of the filter can be adjusted using a new slider tool.

• How to Adjust a Filter Applied to Your Images in Photos

High-Key Mono Lighting Effect

iOS 13 adds a new effect to Portrait Lighting, High-Key Mono. High-Key Mono is a black and white effect that's similar to Stage Light Mono, but designed to add a white background rather than a black one.

High-Key Mono Lighting is limited to the ‌iPhone‌ XS, XS Max, and XR.

• How to Use Lighting Mode Photo Effects in iOS 13, Including the New High-Key Mono

Portrait Lighting Adjustment Tools

The Portrait Lighting effects added to Portrait Mode photos can be adjusted with a new slider option in iOS 13, which allows you to further tweak the added lighting. It's designed to allow you to adjust the intensity of the lighting, which can drastically change the look of a portrait image.

Portrait Lighting adjustment tools are limited to the ‌iPhone‌ XS, XS Max, and XR.

• How to Use the Portrait Mode Lighting Adjustment Tools on Your iPhone

Video Editing

There have been photo editing tools available in the Photos app for quite some time, but in iOS 13, many of the same tools are available for editing video for the first time.

Apple offers editing tools to adjust parameters like exposure, contrast, saturation, brightness, and more, plus there are built-in filters that you can apply. You can also use the same Auto adjust feature in videos that's long been available for photos to get a quick improvement.

Video editing tools, like photo editing tools, feature sliders to control the intensity of your adjustments so you can make dramatic or subtle changes to the lighting, brightness, and other elements and there continue to be available tools for adjusting video length.

There are also tools for straightening a video, adjusting the vertical alignment, adjusting the horizontal alignment, flipping the video, changing the orientation of the video, and cropping it.

None of these video editing tools were available in iOS 12, and these kinds of video edits have in the past required iMovie or another video editing app, but now video editing is as simple and straightforward as photo editing.

The Photos app isn't going to be suitable for complicated video edits where footage needs to be added or removed, but for simple tweaks, it's a useful tool that's going to be easy for even novice videographers to use.

• How to Edit a Video on iPhone and iPad
• How to Crop, Rotate, and Straighten Videos in iOS 13
• How to Apply a Filter to a Video in iOS 13

Guide Feedback

Have questions about Photos, know of an iOS 13 Photos feature we left out, or want to offer feedback on this guide? Send us an email here.

Apple News+ seems to be floundering just months after its launch, according to new details from participating magazine publishers shared by Business Insider.

Multiple publishers have been unimpressed with the revenue generated from ‌Apple News‌+. One told Business Insider that revenue was one twentieth of what Apple promised, while another said that it was on par with what was earned from Texture, which isn't much.

One publishing exec said Apple projected publishers would get 10 times the revenue they made from Texture at the end of Apple News Plus' first year. "It's one twentieth of what they said," the exec said. "It isn't coming true."

Other publishers said their subscription revenue from Plus was lower than or on a par with what they got on Texture, which was small as a subscription driver to begin with.

According to some of the publishing executives, Apple's News+ team has asked for input during meetings on the service since its launch. Apple reportedly acknowledged during meetings that ‌Apple News‌ users are confused about the difference between free articles and paid news content.

Publishers aren't pleased with the magazine-centric layout for news content, and executives want easier ways to convert magazine content to app content. "I don't think they're putting their full effort behind [‌Apple News‌+]," one publisher told Business Insider. Some of the publishers are still optimistic on the future of ‌Apple News‌+, as the service is still in its infancy and it will take some time to work out the kinks.

Apple has told publishers that it is working on making the ‌Apple News‌+ app more intuitive for users, so hopefully changes and refinements to the interface are in the works to make it easier to navigate through the app and manage magazines. For details on how ‌Apple News‌+ works and some of the issues users have experienced, make sure to check out our guide.

While the current Mac Pro has been manufactured in Texas since it was released in 2013, The Wall Street Journal reports that the new ‌Mac Pro‌ unveiled earlier this month will be assembled by Quanta Computer in China.

Quanta is said to be ramping up production of the new ‌Mac Pro‌ at a factory near Shanghai, and given lower wages and closer proximity to other Apple suppliers in Asia, the Chinese manufacturing is expected to cost Apple less than it would to make the computer in the United States.

The move would allow Apple to avoid many of the issues its U.S. suppliers have faced in assembling the ‌Mac Pro‌ stateside. The current ‌Mac Pro‌ is Apple's only major hardware product manufactured in the United States, with all others assembled by Chinese contractors, such as Quanta for the Apple Watch.

Here's a video of how the current ‌Mac Pro‌ is made in the United States:

In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said "final assembly is only one part of the manufacturing process," adding that the new ‌Mac Pro‌ is designed and engineered in the United States and includes some U.S.-made components.

As a high-end, expensive workstation for professionals, the ‌Mac Pro‌ is not a high volume product for Apple, but where it is manufactured is notable given the ongoing trade war between the United States and China. President Donald Trump has urged U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically.

Trump's administration has increased tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion of Chinese imports and has threatened to impose tariffs on $300 billion more goods, including many Apple products. Apple has warned that these tariffs would reduce its economic contributions and threaten its global competitiveness.

The all-new ‌Mac Pro‌ is an absolute powerhouse with up to 28-core Intel Xeon processors, up to 1.5TB of ECC RAM, up to 4TB of SSD storage, up to AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Duo graphics with 64GB of HBM2 memory, and eight PCIe expansion slots for maximum performance, expansion, and configurability.

The new design includes a stainless steel frame with smooth handles and an aluminum housing that lifts off for 360-degree access to the entire system. The housing features a unique lattice pattern to maximize airflow.

Apple says the new ‌Mac Pro‌ will be released in the fall, starting at $5,999.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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.

Following the big news that Jony Ive will be resigning from Apple later this year after nearly 30 years at the company, new details continue to emerge about the iconic designer and his work over the years.

One of many secretive projects that Ive worked on was the so-called Apple Car, according to The Information. The report claims that Ive came up with multiple early prototypes of the autonomous vehicle, including one made out of wood and leather that lacked a steering wheel at Ive's insistence.

Ive instead wanted the vehicle to be controlled by Siri, and to demonstrate the concept to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the report claims a nearby actress pretended to be ‌Siri‌ by responding to voice commands from Apple's executives. It is unclear exactly how this would have worked or how serious Apple was about the idea.

The report adds that Ive also worked on a much-rumored but never-released Apple television set and early prototypes of the Apple Watch.

In an internal memo to Apple employees obtained by BuzzFeed News, Cook noted that Ive has collaborated closely with Apple's COO Jeff Williams for many years. Williams, who has led development of the Apple Watch since its inception, will spend more of his time working with Apple's design team in their studio.

Cook's full memo:

Team,

I'm writing to let you know about some changes to the ET involving two people who embody Apple's values and whose work will help define Apple's future.

I'm happy to announce that Sabih Khan has been named to the executive team as senior vice president of Operations reporting to Jeff Williams. Sabih has worked on every Apple product since the late 90s, always committed to delighting our customers while advancing quality, sustainability and responsibility in manufacturing. His team makes possible some of the most beloved — and most complex — products in the world, and Sabih leads them with heart. I am thrilled to have him overseeing our supply chain.

Today, we also mark another important evolution for our company. After nearly 30 years at Apple, Jony Ive is starting an independent design firm which will count Apple among its primary clients and will depart the company as an employee later this year. Jony's contributions are legendary, from the central role he played in Apple's revival beginning in the late 90s, through the iPhone and perhaps his most ambitious project, Apple Park, where he has put so much of his energy and care in the past few years. I am proud to call Jony a friend, and those who know him know his ideas and curiosities are boundless. We will all benefit — as individuals who value great design, and as a company — as he pursues his passions and continues his dedicated work with Apple.

Of all his accomplishments, Jony cites the team he helped to build as one of his proudest. His longtime collaborators, Evans Hankey and Alan Dye, are strong stewards of Apple's design ethic and creative culture. Collaboration and teamwork are defining features of Apple's success across the company.

Evans and Alan will report to Jeff Williams. As many of you know, Jony and Jeff have been close collaborators and partners for many years. In particular, Jeff's leadership in developing Apple Watch brought together a cross-organizational team, unprecedented in scope, to produce Apple's most personal device ever. This is what Apple does at its best: elevating a category beyond its imagined limits, and revealing how a single device can be so much more than the sum of its parts. I'm incredibly excited about the design team's work, both underway and yet to come.

Tim

In line with a Bloomberg report, The Information claims that Ive's day-to-day involvement at Apple has already been declining since the Apple Watch launched in 2015. Ive's recent focus has been on the company's Apple Park headquarters, which had a formal grand opening in May.

Apple announced that Ive will be forming an independent design studio named LoveFrom that will count Apple among its "primary clients," suggesting that he will continue to have some influence on the company's products.