MacRumors

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:

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.

Following Apple's surprise announcement yesterday that Jony Ive is leaving the company, fresh details have emerged about the design chief's day-to-day involvement at Apple in recent years that suggest his exit has been a long time in the making.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that after the Apple Watch launched in 2015, Ive had already started relinquishing his responsibilities because of the strain it was putting on him personally.

Around the time, Ive told the New Yorker he'd become "deeply, deeply tired," and said the year leading up to the Apple Watch debut was "the most difficult" since he joined Apple.

To extend his time at the company, Apple subsequently agreed to change his official role to Chief Design Officer, which allowed day-to-day responsibility of the hardware and software design teams to shift to executives Alan Dye and Richard Howarth.

From then onward, Ive began coming to Apple headquarters "as little as twice a week," and many meetings with his design team reportedly took place in San Francisco so Ive could avoid the long commute from his home in the Pacific Heights district to Apple's HQ in Cupertino, California.

Ive sometimes even met with his team at the homes of his employees, at hotels, or other venues, according to people familiar with the matter, while the design executive did much of his work at a San Francisco office and studio, which has now become the base of his new LoveFrom business.

Ive also frequently travelled to London, near to where he was raised, according to Bloomberg's Gurman.

About two years into his new role, at the end of 2017, Apple said Ive had re-assumed some of the leadership responsibilities he had previously given up, and Howarth and Dye were removed from Apple's leadership page. But still Ive only came to the office a couple of days a week.

Some people familiar with Apple are worried about the new design leadership, reports Gurman. With Ive leaving, longtime Apple designer Evans Hankey will run the hardware design group. Hankey, who has more than 300 patents to her name, is described as a "great team leader", yet one person familiar with the design team told Gurman that Apple "now lacks a true design brain on its executive team, which is a concern."

Hankey and Dye will report to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who will likely gain more control over product direction, and some employees are also said to be concerned that the re-organization is another sign that Apple is less design-focused and becoming more of an operations company.

"The design team is made up of the most creative people, but now there is an operations barrier that wasn't there before," one former Apple executive said. "People are scared to be innovative."

Apple has announced that its second Singapore store is set to open at Jewel Changi Airport on Saturday, July 13 at 10.00 a.m.

Linked to three of its passenger terminals, Jewel features more than 280 shops across five stories, and boasts as its centerpiece the world's tallest indoor waterfall – the 40-meter-tall Rain Vortex – cascading from a vaulted glass roof and surrounded by terraced gardens.

No other information, such the size of the Jewel store, has been provided by Apple. However, the company did reveal to Singapore-based The Straits Times that some brand new programming will be developed exclusively for visitors to the new Jewel store, such as The Magic of Jewel Changi Airport Photo Walk.

This photo walk is said to be around 500m and will allow attendees to explore Jewel's attractions, such as its modern architecture, indoor gardens and its 40m waterfall. Attendees will learn how take photos or videos of these attractions using an iPhone or iPad.

Apple opened its first Singapore store in May 2017 at Knightsbridge mall in Orchard Road. Apple Orchard Road was also the first Apple store to open its doors in South-east Asia.

(Thanks, Chris!)

Apple's Macs and iPads include support for a feature called Sidecar, designed to let you use your iPad as a secondary display for your Mac. Sidecar is quick, simple to use, and can either mirror content on your Mac or turn it into a secondary display for extra screen real estate no matter where you are.

This guide covers everything you need to know about Sidecar, from how to use it to compatibility to Apple Pencil integration.

How to Use Sidecar

Using Sidecar requires a compatible Mac running macOS Catalina or later and a compatible ‌iPad‌ running iOS 13 or later. There are multiple ways to activate Sidecar, all of which can be done from Catalina.

The easiest way to get to Sidecar is to use the AirPlay interface on the Mac. When you click the ‌AirPlay‌ icon at the top of the Menu bar (it's the one that looks like a screen with an arrow), if you have an ‌iPad‌ that's compatible with Sidecar, it will show up in the ‌AirPlay‌ list.

From there, simply choose the ‌iPad‌ that you want to connect to and it will automatically turn on and be activated as a secondary Mac display.

You can also get to Sidecar by clicking and holding the green window expansion button on any Mac app, and you can access Sidecar in the Sidecar section of System Preferences.

Using Sidecar

Sidecar is designed as a secondary Mac display, so it works like any other secondary display you might use with your Mac. You can drag windows from the Mac to the ‌iPad‌ and vice versa, and interact with both using your Mac's trackpad.

Sidecar is not designed to work with touch gestures, so while you can tap some on-screen control options or scroll through some webpages, you're mostly meant to control things with either the trackpad or mouse of your Mac or with the ‌Apple Pencil‌. That's because Sidecar is not meant to bring touch controls to Mac - it's just a secondary display option.

Apple Pencil Integration

When using Sidecar, the ‌Apple Pencil‌ (first or second generation depending on your ‌iPad‌) serves as a mouse alternative for clicking, selecting, and other on-screen control tasks. Think of the ‌Apple Pencil‌ as a mouse or trackpad when using it with Sidecar.

In apps like Photoshop and Illustrator, the ‌Apple Pencil‌ does even more. You can draw right in Photoshop or other similar Mac apps, which transforms the ‌iPad‌ into a graphics tablet for your Mac, not unlike a Wacom graphics tablet. It's a great way to create art, edit photos, and more with the interactivity of your ‌Apple Pencil‌ but the power of your Mac.

Keyboard Integration

When using a keyboard like Apple's Smart Keyboard with an ‌iPad‌, the keyboard serves as an alternative to the Mac keyboard, letting you type like you would on the Mac in any open window.

Wired or Wireless Connection

Your Mac can be connected to your ‌iPad‌ over a wired or wireless connection. For a wired connection, you'll need an appropriate cable, such as a USB-C to USB-C cable for the newest ‌iPad‌ Pros or a USB-C to Lightning cable for Lightning-equipped ‌iPad‌ models.

Using a wired connection allows your ‌iPad‌ to charge and it should cut down on any latency issues you might see from a poor wireless connection. Using Sidecar over a wireless connection works well, though it might not work quite as well when connection speeds are low.

Using a wireless connection requires your ‌iPad‌ to be within 10 meters of your Mac, which is actually pretty far.

Touch Bar and Controls

Sidecar puts a control sidebar on your ‌iPad‌ for doing things like hiding or showing the dock, bringing up the on-screen keyboard, closing a window, or accessing controls like Shift, Command, Option, and Control.

Sidecar also adds a Touch Bar to the bottom of the ‌iPad‌, which is the same as the Touch Bar on the Touch Bar-compatible MacBook Pro models. Even if your Mac doesn't naturally have a Touch Bar, these Touch Bar controls will show up.

Touch Bar controls will pop up for Apple apps and for third-party apps that have implemented support for the Touch Bar.

Accessing Sidecar Settings

If you click on the ‌AirPlay‌ icon while your Mac is connected to your ‌iPad‌, you can see some quick controls for doing things like hiding the sidebar or hiding the Touch Bar, and there's also an option to swap between using the ‌iPad‌ as a separate display or mirroring the Mac's current display.

Additional Sidecar options can be found by opening up System Preferences and choosing the Sidecar section. In this spot, you can move the sidebar to the left or the right of the screen, move the Touch Bar to the bottom or the top of the screen, or enable double tap on ‌Apple Pencil‌.

Sidecar Compatibility

Sidecar is limited to many newer Macs, and it is compatible with the following machines:

• Late 2015 27" iMac or newer
• Mid 2016 ‌MacBook Pro‌ or newer
• Late 2018 Mac mini or newer
• Late 2018 MacBook Air or newer
• Early 2016 MacBook or newer
• 2019 Mac Pro
• 2017 ‌iMac‌ Pro

Most older machines are blacklisted from taking advantage of Sidecar, but some older Macs can use the feature via a Terminal command provided by developer Steve Troughton-Smith. There are few details on this method, but those interested can check out our original article on compatibility.

On the ‌iPad‌, Sidecar is limited to ‌iPad‌ models that work with the ‌Apple Pencil‌, so older models that do not have ‌Apple Pencil‌ support can't be used with Catalina. Compatible iPads include the following:

• iPad Pro: all models
• ‌iPad‌ (6th generation) or later
• iPad mini (5th generation)
• iPad Air (3rd & 4th generation)

Guide Feedback

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

Apple's longtime head of design, Jony Ive, is leaving the company to start his own design firm, Apple announced today. Though Ive is leaving, Apple will be one of Ive's "primary clients," which means Ive will continue to do design work for the Cupertino company.

In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that he is looking forward to working with Ive "long into the future."

"Jony is a singular figure in the design world and his role in Apple's revival cannot be overstated, from 1998's groundbreaking iMac to the iPhone and the unprecedented ambition of Apple Park, where recently he has been putting so much of his energy and care," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects, and through the ongoing work of the brilliant and passionate design team he has built. After so many years working closely together, I'm happy that our relationship continues to evolve and I look forward to working with Jony long into the future."

Design team leaders Evans Hankey and Alan Dye, vice presidents of Industrial Design and Human Interface design, respectively, will now be reporting to Jeff Williams, Apple's Chief Operating Officer.

Williams has overseen the development of the Apple Watch since its inception, and following Ive's departure, will spend more of his time working with the design team.

Ive said in a a statement that over the course of the last 30 years, he has worked to build a strong design team and culture at Apple, which is stronger and more talented today than at any point in Apple's history.

"After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple's history," said Ive. "The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come."

There is no word on exactly when Ive will be departing Apple, as Apple's announcement simply says that he'll be leaving Apple as an employee later this year. In an interview with The Financial Times, Ive said his new company, created in partnership with Marc Newson, is called LoveFrom.

Apple will be LoveFrom's first client, and while Ive is departing, he said he will still be "very involved" for "many, many years to come." "This just seems like a natural and gentle time to make this change," he told The Financial Times.

In a separate announcement, Apple has named 24-year Apple veteran Sabih Khan to the executive team as a senior vice president of operations. He will be in charge of Apple's global supply chain, ensuring product quality and overseeing planning, procurement, manufacturing, logistics and product fulfillment functions, as well as Apple's supplier responsibility programs. He will continue to report to COO Jeff Williams.

In a statement, Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ said "Sabih leads our Ops team with heart. He and his entire worldwide team are committed to delivering unmatched experiences to our customers, treating workers everywhere with dignity and respect, and protecting the environment for future generations."

JCPenney, a popular department store in the United States, this month said that it has reactivated contactless payments options including Apple Pay in all of its retail stores.

The information was shared by a JCPenney support employee on Twitter, who also said that ‌Apple Pay‌ would be accepted in stores starting June 19th. Given that it's now June 27, ‌Apple Pay‌ should be working in JCPenney retail locations once again.

JCPenney earlier this year eliminated support for ‌Apple Pay‌ and other contactless payment options due to an April 13 deadline from Visa for retiring legacy magnetic stripe contactless technology in favor of EMV technology.

A third-party credit card brand made the requirement for all merchants to actively support EMV contactless functionality effective April 13, retiring the legacy MSD contactless technology in place. Given the resources and lead time associated with meeting the new mandate, JCPenney chose to suspend all contactless payment options until a later date. Customers still have the ability to complete their transactions manually by inserting or swiping their physical credit cards at our point-of-sale terminals in stores, an option employed by the vast majority of JCPenney shoppers.

At the time ‌Apple Pay‌ was pulled from retail stores and the JCPenney app, JCPenney did not provide details on if and when it might be reinstated.

Apple today shared a new AirPods ad called "Bounce," which is meant to highlight the AirPods Wireless Charging Case that launched in March alongside the second-generation AirPods.

In the spot, which was shot in black and white, a bored man pulls his AirPods off of their wireless charging pad (an Apple exclusive Belkin model) before he pops outside and begins bouncing over normal street items that are inexplicably bouncy like a trampoline. The song "I Learnt Some Jazz Today" plays while he runs through town.

Apple sells the AirPods 2 for $199 with a Wireless Charging Case included, which is able to charge on any Qi-based wireless charging mat. It's also available on a standalone basis for $79.

Update: Apple has also shared another short ad highlighting the Screen Time feature on iPhone.

Apple Music has 60 million paid subscribers, according to iTunes chief Eddy Cue. Cue confirmed the new subscriber number with French site Numerama earlier today, and Music Business Worldwide shared details on the report.

Cue said that he's happy with ‌Apple Music‌'s subscriber count, and that the company is continually working on perfecting the platform across various devices. He also said that Beats 1, Apple's radio station, has "tens of millions of listeners."

Cue declined to divulge how many subscribers are outside of the Apple ecosystem. "I know the number, but I can't tell you," said Cue. He did, however, tell Numerama that ‌Apple Music‌ is the number one service used by people in the Apple ecosystem.

On the topic of the elimination of iTunes in favor of standalone TV, Music, and Podcast apps, Cue said that he's fond of iTunes, but "‌Apple Music‌ is absolutely the best in all respects. We have something better now and it's useless to look back."

‌Apple Music‌'s new 60 million subscriber milestone comes following a November report suggesting the service was up to 56 million subscribers. 60 million paid subscribers still puts ‌Apple Music‌ below Spotify, which had 100 million premium (aka paid) subscribers worldwide as of April.

Despite the difference in paid subscriber counts, ‌Apple Music‌ in early 2019 surpassed Spotify's paid subscriber total in the United States. ‌Apple Music‌ has somewhere around 28 million U.S. subscribers, compared to Spotify's 26 million.

As part of a promotion for Amazon's upcoming Prime Day, the site is now offering exclusive Prime member access to Mophie's new Juice Pack Air Battery Pack Cases designed for the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max.

The Juice Pack Air battery cases for Apple's newest iPhones are similar to the Juice Pack Air battery case for the ‌iPhone‌ X that Mophie released back in November. Mophie's battery cases are designed to provide extra battery life for Apple's newest iPhones and are offered as an alternative to Apple's own Smart Battery Cases.

Priced at $99.95 for both the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max versions, the new Juice Pack Air cases are able to charge using a Qi-based wireless charger or a Lightning cable, a first for the Mophie battery case line.

Mophie says that the Juice Pack Air was designed to be slim and lightweight, but as it is a battery case, it does add a decent amount of bulk to Apple's thin and light iPhones. An LED light at the back lets you know charge level, as this case is not able to integrate with the ‌iPhone‌ in the same way as the Apple-designed cases.

Both versions of the case come equipped with 1,720mAh batteries inside, which Mophie claims will extend the ‌iPhone‌'s battery life to a total of 34 hours, which is presumably talk time. That's similar to what Apple promises from the Smart Battery Cases.

Amazon is offering up the Juice Pack Air cases in graphite, black, red, and rose gold, and only Amazon Prime members are able to make a purchase at this time.

Last week, Apple launched a worldwide recall and replacement program for select 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro units, sold primarily between September 2015 and February 2017, due to batteries that "may overheat and pose a fire safety risk." Apple will replace affected batteries free of charge.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission or CPSC has since indicated that Apple has received 26 reports of batteries overheating in affected notebooks, including five reports of minor burns and one report of smoke inhalation, as well as 17 reports of minor damage to nearby personal property.

About 432,000 potentially affected MacBook Pro units were sold in the United States, plus 26,000 in Canada, according to a joint recall announcement from the CPSC and Health Canada. As of June 4, 2019, Apple has received one report of a consumer incident and no reports of injuries in Canada.

Apple has asked customers to stop using affected ‌MacBook Pro‌ models and to contact the company to initiate a replacement. Apple's recall program page provides further details and instructions.

Note that only the "Mid 2015" ‌MacBook Pro‌ is part of this recall program. To identify your Mac, click on the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen and click on About This Mac. Look for "Mid 2015" in the window that opens. Other models like the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Air are not part of the program.