MacRumors

In the latest iOS 12.2 beta, Apple has introduced four new Animoji characters that can be used in the Messages and FaceTime apps. The new Animoji include a giraffe, a shark, an owl, and a boar.

Animoji are designed to work on devices with a TrueDepth camera system, which now includes modern iPhone and iPad Pro models. Animoji are animated, 3D emoji characters that you control with your face.

When you use an Animoji, the TrueDepth camera nalyzes more than 50 muscle movements in different areas of the face, detecting movement of the eyebrows, cheeks, chin, eyes, jaw, lips, eyes, tongue, and mouth.

All of your facial movements are translated to the Animoji characters, making them reflect your expression and emotion. Animoji can be shared with friends in the Messages app as stickers and as videos, they can be used with the Effects camera in Messages, and you can use them instead of your own face when FaceTiming someone.

There are a total of 24 Animoji now, including the four new ones. Existing Animoji include monkey, robot, cat, dog, alien, fox, poop, pig, panda, bunny, rooster, unicorn, lion, dragon, skull, bear, tiger, koala, t-rex, and ghost.

When Animoji launched in 2017 alongside the ‌iPhone‌ X, there were 12, with Apple steadily adding new fun characters to play with.

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming iOS 12.2 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after seeding the first beta of iOS 12.2 and a little over two weeks since the release of iOS 12.1.3.

Registered developers can download the new iOS 12.2 beta from Apple's Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.

iOS 12.2 brings Apple News to Canada for the first time, with Canadian iPhone and iPad users able to read news stories in English, French, or both.

The update introduces support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit on third-party TVs, with a new option for limiting TV access joining the speaker access option in the Home app. There's also a redesigned TV remote in Control Center, and with tvOS 12.2, you can ask Siri to play specific content on your ‌HomeKit‌ devices like the Apple TV.

The Wallet app's interface has been streamlined and tweaked, there's a new interface for Apple Pay Cash, and the Downtime feature in Screen Time now allows you to customize by day. Apple has also made minor changes to some icons and introduced new Safari features, with a full list available in in our iOS 12.2 tidbits post.

Apple plans to improve Safari privacy in iOS 12.2 through a new Motion & Orientation Access toggle located under Settings --> Safari --> Privacy & Security. The setting needs to be turned on to allow websites to display content that relies on motion data from the accelerometer and gyroscope in the ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌.

iOS 12.2 confirms that Apple is planning to release second-generation AirPods with "Hey ‌Siri‌" support, thanks to a hidden "Hey ‌Siri‌" AirPods setup screen in the beta. The inclusion of the AirPods setup option in the beta indicates that Apple could perhaps be planning to release new AirPods when iOS 12.2 is released.

The update also features hints of an upcoming Apple News subscription service, which could see a Texture-like magazine service added to Apple News.

The iOS 12.2 is likely to see several rounds of beta testing before it launches to the public.

What's new in iOS 12.2 beta 2: The update introduces four new Animoji, which can be used in the Messages and FaceTime apps. It also displays battery percentage on the Lock screen instead of the date, something that's a bug, and on AT&T devices, it shows a new "5G E" icon. AT&T users should not be fooled, though, this is not true 5G and is instead still LTE despite the labeling.

Apple today began selling refurbished iPhone X models for the first time since the device was released in November 2017. Stock will likely deplete quickly, so we recommend using Refurb Tracker to monitor inventory.

The listing can be found under Featured Offers on the main Certified Refurbished page on Apple.com for the time being.

Unlocked models in Space Gray and Silver are available with 64GB and 256GB of storage for $769 and $899 respectively in the United States, down from Apple's original pricing of $999 and $1,149 respectively for the equivalent brand new models. Orders placed today are estimated to arrive later this week.

Apple is also offering refurbished, unlocked iPhone X models in the United Kingdom, with prices starting at £769.

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. The warranty can be extended to up to two years from the original purchase date with AppleCare+ for ‌iPhone‌ X, at a cost of $199 in the United States and £199 in the United Kingdom.

Note that the original prices that Apple lists for the ‌iPhone‌ X appear to be based on the current price of the device at select resellers.

Apple began selling refurbished iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models in November.

Last month, Apple released iOS 12.2 in beta with several new features, including the Apple News app in Canada, a redesigned TV remote in Control Center, support for adding HomeKit-enabled TVs in the Home app, and more.

The upcoming software update also introduces a new Motion & Orientation Access toggle under Settings > Safari > Privacy & Security. Toggled off by default, this new setting must be turned on in order for websites to display features that rely on motion data from the gyroscope and accelerometer in the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

To test this, we loaded the What Web Can Do Today website on an ‌iPhone‌ running the first beta of iOS 12.2. With the Motion & Orientation Access setting toggled on, the page shows real-time accelerometer and gyroscope data from the ‌iPhone‌. With the setting toggled off, no motion data is shown.

Another example is Apple's motion-based iPhone experience site. This page normally allows you to tilt your actual ‌iPhone‌ to swivel the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max on the screen with tech specs. With Motion & Orientation Access toggled off, however, only a static image of the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max is shown without tech specs.

This privacy-focused change could be in response to a WIRED report last year that claimed thousands of websites have unmitigated access to motion, orientation, proximity, and light sensor data on mobile devices. Software engineer Felix Krause also filed a radar and notified Apple's security team about this matter in 2017.

As noted by Digiday, the setting could have implications for AR/VR advertising:

For example, Samsung's "Samsung Within" web-based interactive experience, developed by R/GA to promote the hardware brand's legacy and its Galaxy Note 9 phone, uses the accelerometer to let people explore the night sky.

"It's definitely going to break things," said Kai Tier, executive technology director at R/GA.

These AR/VR experiences may have to rely on fallback versions that people can navigate with swipe gestures instead, but this largely defeats the purpose of motion-based, interactive campaigns.

It's quite possible Apple could tweak how this feature works in time for the public release of iOS 12.2. Perhaps the setting will be toggled on by default in a subsequent beta, for example, or Safari could prompt users for permission to access motion data when necessary as it does with location data.

Target last month announced that it would begin accepting Apple Pay at all of its stores in the coming weeks. That rollout has now begun.

MacRumors readers have shared photos of NFC-enabled payment terminals at select Target stores in the Northeast and Midwest, including the White Plains, New York location below. The updated interface indicates that Apple Pay is accepted along with Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and contactless credit cards.

The blog Appleosophy also ran a story about the rollout that was picked up on Reddit, where some commenters said that ‌Apple Pay‌ was not yet available at their local Target stores, so this appears to remain a work in progress.

A spokesperson for Target confirmed with MacRumors that REDcards cannot be added to Apple Pay as part of the rollout, although future support is not ruled out. REDcards are Target-branded credit and debit cards, offering an automatic five percent off most purchases at its stores everyday.

Target was one of the largest ‌Apple Pay‌ holdouts in the United States. The retailer was initially committed to the failed CurrentC platform alongside other large chains such as Walmart, Best Buy, CVS, Rite-Aid, Publix, and 7-Eleven.

Mobile accessory maker Anker has opened pre-orders for the first Apple-certified USB-C to Lightning cable under the Made for iPhone (MFi) program, and will start shipping the cables later this month.

Apple late last year began allowing third-party companies to produce MFi certified USB-C to Lightning cables, and as a result, multiple companies have announced the upcoming launch of new USB-C to Lightning cable options.

However, as noted by The Verge, it looks like Anker will be the first to make the accessory available, thanks to its PowerLine II USB-C Cable with Lightning Cable.

The cables will be available in both three and six-foot lengths and in different colors, but pre-orders are currently only for the three-foot White PowerLine II, which costs $15.99. An equivalent one-meter (or three-and-a-quarter foot) USB-C to Lightning cable from Apple costs $19.

All cables support Anker's Power Delivery system (using its separately available USB-C Wall Adaptor), have a 12,000 bend lifespan, and come with a lifetime warranty. The company originally planned to launch the cables in March 2019, but initial pre-orders will now ship around February 20.

Apple is exploring a new keyboard design that could eventually replace its butterfly switch MacBook keyboards and finally solve the problem of "sticky" or inconsistently functioning keys.

Issues that Apple has acknowledged can occur with some current MacBook keyboards are widely believed to be caused by dust or other particulates getting lodged in the butterfly mechanism underneath the keycaps, which are shallower than those on previous-generation MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards with traditional scissor switch mechanisms.

In its 2018 MacBook Pro models, Apple quietly introduced a thin silicone membrane underneath keyboard keys, which is an attempt to solve the issue of dust and crumbs from getting stuck. But a new patent suggests the company is researching a totally new approach to the way keyboards are designed that could eradicate the problem for good.

Published last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and first spotted by AppleInsider, the patent application called "Computer with keyboard" describes a keyboard that replaces movable keys with a glass sheet that includes raised sections to designate the tactile location of individual keys.

When a raised key section is pressed, the keyboard detects the input pressure for that key and processes as a typical key press. The concept differs from the featureless plain of a virtual onscreen keyboard because the raised sections allow the user to feel where their fingers should rest in relation to the individual keys.

The patent describes how an additional level of tactile feedback could be provided by a raised side wall around individual raised keys that could deform with each press, while an underlying layer could serve to "push" the key back into place.

Meanwhile, key symbols could lie on a separate later underneath the glass panel, which would make it easier to change the layout for different regions, languages, or even applications. The patent also proposes using side sections around the keyboard that could double up as a trackpad.

As expected, the glass keyboard could have the effect of making the keyboard thinner and allowing more room for other components to be housed in the notebook chassis.

• How to Get a MacBook or MacBook Pro Keyboard Repaired Free Under Apple's Service Program

Apple has filed patents for keyboards in the past, included one that uses a touchscreen panel similar the Touch Bar, but that extends to the entire keyboard layout, but this is the first patent to emphasize the use of individually raised glass elements that mimic traditional tactile feedback.

On the latest episode of The Talk Show, Daring Fireball's John Gruber discusses Apple TV and HomePod pricing and whether Apple is charging too much for some of its products.

According to Gruber, Apple is actually selling the 2017 ‌Apple TV‌ 4K at cost, suggesting the device costs Apple $180 to make. As for the ‌HomePod‌, Gruber said he believes Apple sells it at a loss.

One thing I've heard from reliable little birdie is Apple effectively sells [the Apple TV] at cost. Like they really are like a $180 box. And you think wow this is amazing, it has an A10 processor which we know is super fast, it has crazy good graphics.

I've heard the same thing about HomePod too. Why is HomePod so much more expensive than these other speakers you can talk to? HomePod I actually have reason to believe, Apple actually sells it at a loss. I can't prove it. I don't think it's a big loss.

Apple sells the 4K ‌Apple TV‌ for $180, and the ‌HomePod‌ for $349, though the ‌HomePod‌ at least is often available at a discount from third-party retailers. When the ‌HomePod‌ was released, estimates suggested it cost $216 to make in raw components, which does not factor into account other costs like research and development, software creation, and more.

Both the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K and the ‌HomePod‌ are priced higher than competing products from other companies like Amazon and Google, and rumors have suggested that Apple is working on lower-cost versions of both devices. For the ‌Apple TV‌, Apple is said to be developing a stick-style ‌Apple TV‌ device, and for the ‌HomePod‌, rumors suggest a smaller, cheaper model is in the works.

Gruber said that he also suspects the AirPods are priced close to cost as well, though he's not sure and can't prove it. And, of course, over time, things become less expensive to manufacture as component costs come down. Something that cost $180 in 2017 might not cost the same in 2019, as an example.

Overall, Gruber says that Apple isn't pricing its products too high, it's developing products that are too good.

"If you think it's a problem that these products are so expensive compared to their competition, that too few people buy them, it's not because Apple is charging too much, it's because Apple engineered and designed too good of a product," said Gruber.

(Thanks, Ryan Jones!)

Bill Stasior, who has been heading up Apple's Siri team since 2012, recently left his role as the leader of the voice assistant group, reports The Information.

Stasior was recruited from Amazon in 2012 to oversee ‌Siri‌ following the departure of Siri co-founders Adam Cheyer and Dag Kittlaus. Cheyer and Kittlaus had joined Apple when the company originally purchased Siri in 2010, but did not stay long.

According to The Information, Stasior has stepped down from his role as leader of ‌Siri‌ but has not left Apple. The change in leadership is part of a restructuring effort by John Giannandrea, Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, who has taken over the ‌Siri‌ team.

Giannandrea, who has been pushing the ‌Siri‌ team to "focus more on long-term research" rather than incremental improvements, will be looking for a replacement for Stasior.

Giannandrea joined Apple in April 2018 as chief of machine learning and AI strategy, and at the time, it was reported that he would be overseeing both the Core ML and ‌Siri‌ teams. Ginnandrea was later promoted to SVP in December 2018.

Prior to joining Apple, Giannandrea spent eight years at Google, and in the time before that, he founded two companies, Tellme Networks and Metaweb Technologies.

Giannandrea's hiring came amid widespread criticism of ‌Siri‌, which has shortcomings in comparison to AI offerings from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Apple made serious strides improving ‌Siri‌ in 2018 under Giannandrea's leadership, building out the capabilities of the AI assistant with features like Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12.