MacRumors

OnePlus today unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 7 Pro, which offers an impressive feature set at a price that beats out flagship devices from other smartphone manufacturers, including Apple.

We were able to go hands-on with the OnePlus 7 Pro at the OnePlus event this morning, so we thought we'd give MacRumors readers a look at the bezel-free display and pop-up camera, both of which are great smartphone features.

The OnePlus 7 Pro is all display, with a 6.67-inch OLED screen that takes up the entire front of the device. There are no camera cutouts or notches on the display at all, and that's because OnePlus is using a nifty little front-facing camera that pops out of the back of the phone when you want to use it.

It's a feature that's unique to the OnePlus device, and it allows for an edge-to-edge top-to-bottom bezel-free display without sacrificing the selfie camera. The little pop out camera seems rather durable, though we'll have to see how it holds up over time.

OnePlus uploaded a video demonstrating the camera opening and closing more than 300,000 times (it's 12 hours long!) and another video that demonstrated it lifting up a rock, so it certainly seems to be able to hold up to abuse.

Though it's got a 6.67-inch display, the OnePlus 7 Pro is similar in size to the iPhone XS Max, just because there's no bezels to deal with. The display does curve around the edges of the device, which some may not like, but it looks undeniably good.

OnePlus calls the display a "Fluid AMOLED" display because it has a 90Hz refresh rate, a concept similar to the 120Hz refresh rate on the iPad Pro models. That refresh rate is more noticeable on a smaller device, and scrolling through the OS is super smooth.

Aside from the standout display and the unique pop-up front-facing camera, the OnePlus 7 Pro has some pretty decent specs. There's a triple-lens camera with telephoto, wide-angle, and ultra wide-angle lenses, an under-display fingerprint sensor, a Snapdragon 855 chip, up to 12GB RAM, up to 256GB storage, a 4,000mAh battery, and a fast charging feature.

On the downside, the OnePlus 7 Pro doesn't offer wireless charging like many other smartphones on the market, nor does it have an Ingress Protection rating for water resistance. And of course there's one other major downside for Apple fans -- it runs Android.

OnePlus is charging more for this year's flagship OnePlus smartphone, and the 7 Pro is priced starting at $669. That's still quite a bit cheaper than the ‌iPhone‌ XS and flagship smartphones from other companies like Samsung, even though it's using some pretty high-end hardware.

What do you think of the OnePlus 7 Pro and the pop-up selfie cam? Let us know in the comments. We'll be taking a closer look at the OnePlus 7 Pro and comparing it to the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max in a future video, so keep an eye out for that.

Over the course of the last week or so, multiple Warner Bros movies that were previously available in 4K have reverted to HD, a change that applies to new purchases from iTunes as well as previously purchased movies.

There are complaints about the change both on Twitter and on the Blu-ray forums, as highlighted by 9to5Mac this afternoon. There are quite a few titles that have reverted from 4K to HD, including all of the Harry Potter movies.

A Blu-ray forums user compiled a list of the known titles that have recently been downgraded from 4K to HD.

• 22 Jump Street (2014)
• About Last Night
• Aloha (2015)
• American Sniper
• Annie (2014)
• Batman vs. Superman
• The Brothers Grimsby (2016)
• The Equalizer (2014)
• Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
• Ghostbusters II (1989)
• Goosebumps (2015)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 (2010)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
• Hercules (2014)
• Hitch (2005)
• Hotel Deluxe (2013)
• Matrix Reloaded
• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
• Risen (2016)
• Spaceballs (1987)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• Unforgiven (1993)
• The Walk (2015)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

It's not clear why these movies are no longer available in 4K, but there have been instances where movies are downgraded to HD and then are later made available again in 4K, so we'll need to wait to see if that's the case here.

One Apple support representative said that the downgrade was due to changes implemented by Warner Bros, which could potentially be accurate as that's often a reason why 4K availability shifts, but Apple support representatives don't always have the most up to date information.

Apple has been offering 4K movie titles from a range of different movie studios since the launch of the Apple TV 4K.

Update: This issue may be resolved as it appears many of the movies that were downgraded to HD are once again available in 4K.

The Samsung Galaxy S10 and the new OnePlus 7 Pro are both flagship smartphones that are designed to compete with the iPhone XS Max, and to see how their LTE chips compare, PCMag teamed up with Cellular Insights to test the signal strength of the new devices.

Apple's ‌iPhone‌ XS Max is equipped with an XMM7560 modem chip from Intel, while the Galaxy S10 and the OnePlus 7 Pro are using Qualcomm's X24 modem, which theoretically offers better performance.

The Intel XMM7560 modem in the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max supports supports 5-carrier aggregation but offers 1Gb/s maximum theoretical data transfer speeds, while the Qualcomm X24 in the Galaxy S10 has max theoretical speeds of 2Gb/s (it uses 7-carrier aggregation) and the OnePlus 7 Pro has max theoretical speeds of 1.2Gb/s (lower because it uses 5-carrier aggregation like the ‌iPhone‌).

In testing on LTE band 4 with good signal, there wasn't a lot of difference in performance between the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, the newer smartphones from Samsung and OnePlus, and the LG V40, which PCMag added in because it was 2018's best performing phone in terms of cellular speed.

All of the smartphones performed similarly, but the Samsung Galaxy S10 did see some of the slowest speeds, and at peak signal, the ‌iPhone‌ XS came in behind the OnePlus 7 Pro and the LG V40.

In a test with poorer LTE signal, the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max saw the slowest speeds and was outperformed by all of the Qualcomm chips. The ‌iPhone‌ XS Max was quite a bit slower than the Galaxy S10 and the OnePlus 7 Pro specifically.

Starting in 2020, Apple is no longer going to use Intel chips and is instead going to transition to Qualcomm's 5G chips. Intel has decided that it's exiting the 5G smartphone modem chip business leaving Apple no choice but to rely on Qualcomm technology and perhaps some chips from Samsung.

Apple and Qualcomm recently settled a vicious legal battle which had seen Apple refusing to use Qualcomm chips. Because of the dispute, Apple used Intel chips in the 2018 iPhones, and is expected to continue to use Intel chips for the 2019 iPhones.

Though the legal battle is over, Apple isn't likely to have time to swap over to Qualcomm modem chips for the 2019 iPhones, and Intel has confirmed that it's going to continue to supply 4G chips to meet its current obligations.

Security researchers have discovered a new set of vulnerabilities that affect Intel chips dating back to 2011, including the chips that have been used in Apple devices.

As outlined by TechCrunch, "ZombieLoad," as it's being called, consists of four bugs that can allow hackers to exploit the design flaws in the chips to steal sensitive information directly from the processor.

These vulnerabilities are as serious as the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that were discovered in early 2018 and take advantage of the same speculative execution process, which is designed to speed up data processing and performance.

A white paper shared by notable security researchers (including some who worked on Spectre and Meltdown) offers details on how ZombieLoad functions. [PDF]

While programs normally only see their own data, a malicious program can exploit the fill buffers to get hold of secrets currently processed by other running programs. These secrets can be user-level secrets, such as browser history, website content, user keys, and passwords, or system-level secrets, such as disk encryption keys.

The attack does not only work on personal computers but can also be exploited in the cloud.

ZombieLoad impacts almost every Intel computer dating back to 2011, but AMD and ARM chips are not affected. A demonstration of ZombieLoad was shared on YouTube, displaying how it works to see what you're doing on your computer. While spying on web browsing is demoed, it can also be used for other purposes like stealing passwords.

There have been no reports of hackers taking advantage of the ZombieLoad vulnerabilities at this time, and Intel has released microcode for vulnerable processors. Apple addressed the vulnerability in the macOS Mojave 10.14.5 update that was released yesterday and in security patches for older versions of macOS that were also released yesterday.

Apple has released security updates in macOS Mojave 10.14.5 to protect against speculative execution vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs.
The issues addressed by these security updates do not affect Apple iOS devices or Apple Watch.
Apple previously released security updates to defend against Spectre—a series of speculative execution vulnerabilities affecting devices with ARM-based and Intel CPUs. Intel has disclosed additional Spectre vulnerabilities, called Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS), that apply to desktop and notebook computers with Intel CPUs, including all modern Mac computers.

An Apple support document on the ZombieLoad vulnerability provides details for "full mitigation" protection that can be enabled for customers with computers at heightened risk or that run untrusted software on their Macs.

Full mitigation requires using the Terminal app to enable additional CPU instructions and disable hyper-threading processing technology, which is available for macOS Mojave, High Sierra, and Sierra, but not on certain older machines. Apple says full mitigation could reduce performance by up to 40 percent, so most users will not want to enable it.

According to Intel, its microcode updates will have an impact on processor performance, but for the patch that Apple released in macOS Mojave 10.14.5, there was no measurable performance impact. Apple's fix prevents the exploitation of ZombieLoad vulnerabilities via JavaScript in Safari.

An Intel spokesperson told TechCrunch that most patched consumer devices could take a 3 percent performance hit at worst, and as much as 9 percent in a datacenter environment. But, the spokesperson said, it was unlikely to be noticeable in most scenarios.

As mentioned above, customers who enable Apple's full mitigation option will indeed see processor slowdowns because of the need to disable hyper-threading.

One of the researchers who discovered ZombieLoad, Daniel Gruss, told TechCrunch that ZombieLoad is easier to exploit than Spectre, but more difficult than Meltdown, and that it requires a specific set of skills, which means the average person doesn't need to worry.

Update: This article previously said that Apple would release a patch, but it has been updated to clarify that Apple addressed the issue in security updates made available to Mac owners yesterday. Customers running Mojave should update to macOS 10.14.5, while customers running older versions of macOS should install any available security updates.

Last week, Japanese blog Mac Otakara claimed that the 2019 version of the iPhone XR will be available in new Green and Lavender colors, with the existing Blue and Coral colors to be discontinued. White, Black, Yellow, and (PRODUCT)RED will continue to be offered, according to the report.

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has since tweeted a photo of what appears to be shards of casing glass for the next-generation ‌iPhone‌ XR in a variety of colors, including lavender, green, white, black, and yellow.

Based on this information, we've mocked up what the next ‌iPhone‌ XR lineup could look like, including a comparison with the current colors. Our renders include a dual-lens rear camera in a square bump, as rumored for the next ‌iPhone‌ XR, but otherwise the device looks similar to the current generation.

Apple should unveil the next ‌iPhone‌ XS, ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, and ‌iPhone‌ XR in September as usual. A recent survey found that the iPhone XR remained the best-selling iPhone model last quarter in the United States.

Apple recently lowered direct trade-in values for iPhones, providing customers with a maximum of $349 when trading in an iPhone without purchasing a new one at the same time.

Apple used to offer a maximum of $500 when doing a direct ‌iPhone‌ trade-in through its trade-in website, and just a few weeks ago, we tested trading in an ‌iPhone‌ X and were offered $500 by Apple. Today, Apple's maximum price for the same ‌iPhone‌ X is $349.

Not all iPhones were worth $500, but for newer models in good condition, Apple was indeed providing credit up to $500 in the form of an Apple gift card that could be put towards a new device purchase.

The $349 maximum seems to apply only to direct trade-ins that don't involve a purchase. If you use the trade-in process while purchasing a new ‌iPhone‌, which puts the cost of that trade-in towards the new device, you can get higher prices.

That same ‌iPhone‌ X that's worth $349 when doing a direct trade-in with Apple is worth $450 if you trade it in while buying a new ‌iPhone‌ XR. At $450, Apple is still offering less than the $500 maximum ‌iPhone‌ trade-in value that was available before, but it's still better than the $349 that's available through the trade-in site.

On its trade-in site, Apple heavily promoted a $449 trade-in price for the ‌iPhone‌ XR when trading in an ‌iPhone‌ 8 or ‌iPhone‌ 7 Plus, but now the advertised pricing is $479 instead of $449. Listed ‌iPhone‌ XR and XS pricing with trade-in has gone up across the board as Apple has dropped trade-in values for all iPhones.

With Apple's direct trade-in pricing drops, Apple is no longer offering some of the best ‌iPhone‌ trade-in pricing, and it may not be worth an ‌iPhone‌ trade-in through Apple unless it's done when you're purchasing a new ‌iPhone‌.

If you do a trade-in while purchasing a new device, you can get up to $450 for an ‌iPhone‌ X, up to $350 for an ‌iPhone‌ 8 Plus, up to $270 for an ‌iPhone‌ 8 or 7 Plus, and up to $200 for an ‌iPhone‌ 7 or 6s Plus. Other devices have trade-in values below $200.

Apple has a prominent section on all iPhone purchase pages that asks "Do you have an ‌iPhone‌ to trade in?" and if you select yes, you can go through the steps to get the upgraded pricing.

Trade-in pricing on other devices has also dropped. Apple now offers a maximum of $367 for tablet trade-ins, up to $965 when trading in a computer, and up to $173 when trading in an Apple Watch. That's down from $405 for tablets, $1100 for computers, and $191 for an Apple Watch. Trade-in values do not differ on non-iPhone products between the trade-in site and a trade-in with purchase.

The new trade-in pricing system is confusing and could potentially lead to some customers getting lower value for their iPhones if they're not aware of the disparity in pricing between doing a direct trade-in through Apple's trade-in page and doing a trade-in when purchasing a new ‌iPhone‌.

Apple's new direct trade-in pricing is comparative to trade-in pricing from other sites like Gazelle, but you're always going to get the best price selling direct on a site like eBay or Swappa.

Apple Pay is now an accepted payment method for iTunes, App Store, and Apple Books purchases, as well as Apple Music and iCloud storage subscriptions, as reflected in a recently updated Apple support document.

To link any credit or debit cards set up in the Wallet app with your Apple ID account, navigate to Settings > iTunes & ‌App Store‌. Next, select your ‌Apple ID‌ email and then tap View ‌Apple ID‌ > Manage Payments > Add Payment Method. The cards should be listed under a new "Found in Wallet" section.

This functionality is rolling out as a server-side change in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Arab Emirates, so it is not available for all users yet.

In the United States, users can also link an ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash card to an ‌Apple ID‌ account.

There are a handful of benefits to ‌Apple Pay‌ billing for ‌Apple ID‌ account-tied purchases, including the ability to conveniently add multiple credit or debit cards, the improved security of ‌Apple Pay‌, and the ability to better manage ‌Apple Music‌ and ‌iCloud‌ storage subscriptions from the Wallet app.

This functionality arrives ahead of the launch of the Apple Card credit card in the United States this summer.

(Thanks, Dean Lubaki!)

As part of the iOS 12.3 release yesterday, Apple Music updated with a brand-new "For You" section. This refreshed tab now updates multiple times per day with new music suggestions based on genres you love, artists you might enjoy, and moods that match certain themes. Overall, the tab also now falls in line with the layout changes previously seen in ‌Apple Music‌'s Browse tab that hit earlier this year.

The top of For You still highlights your various personal "Mixes" that ‌Apple Music‌ curates throughout the week, including Favorites, Friends, Chill, and New Music. Below this is where the changes appear, beginning with "Recently Played" playlists and albums appearing above "Friends Are Listening To," whereas before it was the reverse order.

Below that, For You is divided into various themed sections based on your listening habits, which will be different for every user. These include areas like "Teen Pop," "Rise and Smile," "It's Only Tuesday?," recently updated playlists, genres like country and electronic, and more.

‌Apple Music‌ can now even curate song and artist recommendations based on your own personal playlists. Sections like this are called "Based on [Playlist Name]" and they present you with albums that you might be interested in, based on the songs that you have in the designated playlist.

Finally, at the very bottom of For You there is a category for recommended friends and "New Releases." Updates to ‌Apple Music‌'s user profiles or any other tabs in the app have not appeared, but you can see the new For You tab in iTunes on Mac as well.

The ‌Apple Music‌ updates in iOS 12.3 appeared alongside a lengthy list of features, including AirPlay 2 for smart TVs, a redesigned TV app for the Apple TV, and various other bug fixes and improvements.

While U.S. tariffs on Apple's chargers and cases are already at 25 percent, the company's main products like the iPhone have so far escaped the extra taxes. That may soon change, however, as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has begun the approval process to subject an additional $300 billion in Chinese-made products, including iPhones, to tariffs that could go into effect in late June.

The proposed tariffs are largely a bargaining chip and could end up being avoided if deals can be struck between the Trump administration and the Chinese government, but if the tariffs were to take effect, their impact on Apple's business would be substantial. Analysts cited by CNBC outline Apple's options, with J.P. Morgan estimating that the tariffs would be equivalent an estimated 14 percent increase in the retail price of an ‌iPhone‌ XS, pushing the cost from $999 to $1,142.

“We estimate a price increase of around 14% is required to absorb the impact of a 25% tariff, keeping margin dollars for all players in the supply chain constant,” J.P. Morgan said in a note to clients Tuesday.

There are a variety of ways that impact could be handled, including price increases for consumers, Apple absorbing the tariffs, suppliers helping absorb the tariffs by cutting the prices they charge Apple, or some combination of those possibilities.

Looking further down the road, some have suggested Apple could move ‌iPhone‌ production out of China in order to avoid tariffs, either to other countries in the region or to the United States. Such a move would require massive investment and take a substantial amount of time, however, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates that ‌iPhone‌ prices would have to increase by around 20 percent if production was moved to the U.S.

“We estimate the incremental cost of manufacturing iPhones in the U.S. could be 15-25%, and, if passed on to consumers could lead to demand destruction, in our view,” the Bank of America said in a note.

Apple's stock is down about 10 percent over the past two weeks as concerns over the Chinese trade dispute have roiled the markets in general and Apple in particular. Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that allowed a lawsuit claiming Apple has monopolized the retail app market with the App Store to proceed also appears to have contributed to the recent drop in Apple's stock price.

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.

HP today unveiled its first dual-screen gaming laptop, the OMEN X 2S. The notebook's primary 15-inch 1080p display is complemented by a secondary six-inch 1080p touchscreen integrated above the keyboard.

Like the Touch Bar on recent MacBook Pro models, the second screen on the OMEN X 2S is designed for multitasking. For instance, while gaming, players could use the screen to message teammates in Discord, browse music on Spotify, or stream Twitch or YouTube, complete with support for dedicated hotkeys.

One compromise of the second screen is that the trackpad is positioned to the right of the keyboard, rather than in a center position, but HP believes that most gamers would prefer using their own mice, according to Engadget.

As far as specs go, the OMEN X 2S is equipped with up to a ninth-generation Intel Core i9 processor, up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics, up to 2TB of SSD storage, and up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM. The notebook uses an advanced thermal solution with three-sided venting to enable five-way airflow.

The notebook is 20mm thick with a full metal chassis, but weight and battery life have yet to be disclosed. HP expects the OMEN X 2S to be available by June, with a starting price of $2,100 in the United States.

Vodafone on Tuesday said it will switch on its 5G network in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2019, making it the first carrier to announce a firm date for the launch of the next-generation cellular technology in the country.

Seven cities will get 5G coverage at launch, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and London. The rollout will extend by the end of the year to Birkenhead, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Guildford, Newbury, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Reading, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Warrington and Wolverhampton.

In a press release on its site, Vodafone said it will price 5G the same as 4G for both consumers and business customers, while a choice of 5G smartphones will be available to buy online or in Vodafone stores over the summer. They will include the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 5G, the Samsung S10 5G and Huawei Mate 20 X (5G), and the Huawei Mate X (5G).

The company will also offer a 5G router for use in the home and office to give customers without a fixed line connection high-speed broadband access. Vodafone said it will also offer 5G roaming in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain over the summer.

Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffery said: "We started our 5G journey more than three years ago. We led the way in setting 5G standards to ensure phones and networks work well together. We upgraded our masts to be able to take 5G without disruption. And we were the first UK company to test 5G over our all-fibre core fixed and mobile network.

"This is important. It means we can today announce the largest launch of 5G in the UK and be the first to announce 5G roaming. It means that UK businesses can lead the world in adopting 5G to boost productivity and attract investment. It means consumers can get the fastest mobile speeds ever, and it means that our public sector will be able to adopt new services to improve healthcare, social services and housing."

Multiple rumors dating back months have suggested Apple is going to launch a 5G iPhone in 2020, which means the 2019 iPhones will continue to use 4G.

There were questions about whether Apple would be able to acquire 5G chips for its 2020 devices following its dispute with Qualcomm, however that litigation has been cleared up, making a 5G iPhone in 2020 a real prospect.

Apple won't be prepared to launch 5G iPhones in 2019 and can't afford to wait until 2021, with competitors already launching 5G smartphones, therefore 2020 is almost certainly the year 5G will come to iPhone.