MacRumors

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has voted to approve a settlement with Facebook that will see the social media giant hit with a roughly $5 billion fine over the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The matter has been moved to the Justice Department’s civil division and it is unclear how long it will take to finalize, the person said. Justice Department reviews are part of the FTC’s procedure but typically don’t change the outcome of an FTC decision.

A settlement is expected to include other government restrictions on how Facebook treats user privacy. The additional terms of the settlement couldn’t immediately be learned.

The scandal revolved around data firm Cambridge Analytica, which improperly collected information on tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent to create targeted political advertisements during the 2016 campaign.

The data collection came through an app called "This Is Your Digital Life," which requested that Facebook users complete a survey for academic use. In reality, the app's permissions allowed it to collect personal information on not just the Facebook users who took the survey but also their friends.

Facebook revamped its privacy practices in the wake of the scandal, but the company still faced investigations by regulators over multiple security lapses and marked a significant moment in efforts to raise awareness about digital privacy.

Apple CEO Tim Cook called the Cambridge Analytica situation "dire" and has on multiple occasions called for increased regulation to protect user privacy.

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's iPad Air, which was resurrected in March as essentially a tweaked version of the previous 10.5-inch iPad Pro, offers a significant amount of utility at a solid $499 price point, but how does it compare to other competitors in the market?

In his latest video, MacRumors videographer Dan compared the ‌iPad Air‌ to Microsoft's Surface Go to determine which one he liked better for on-the-go computing.

For this comparison, Dan decided to focus on using the ‌iPad Air‌ and the Surface Go as somewhat of a laptop replacement. The ‌iPad Air‌ starts at $499 while the Surface Go comes in at a $399 base price, but in an effort to look at these as potential laptop replacements Dan opted to consider the devices equipped with first-party keyboard accessories, which pushes the ‌iPad Air‌ up to $659 and the Surface Go to $529.

In his video, Dan shares his impressions on the design and features of each, including important productivity accessories like respective keyboards and styluses.

As potential laptop replacements, performance is really where the rubber meets the road, and Dan came away somewhat unimpressed with the Surface Go. He wanted to like its relatively full-fledged Windows 10 operating system, and it was fine for basic tasks like emails, web browsing, and document writing, but he found things bogging down a bit when trying to multitask.

With the ‌iPad Air‌, you don't really get a desktop-class operating system, at least for now, but it generally works very well when you need to multitask, switching easily among Safari, Messages, Notes, Mail, iWork and more with no performance issues. And with iPadOS 13 coming later this year, the iPad will become even more powerful.

So where do we come down on the ‌iPad Air‌ versus the Surface Go? It's a challenging comparison considering they have some significant spec differences and everyone's use case is different. Overall, Dan found the ‌iPad Air‌ to offer a more enjoyable user experience, although it's not quite a laptop replacement. But neither is the Surface Go in his experience, and he wonders whether it isn't better to just point someone toward a Chromebook or more traditional Windows notebook if they're looking for a cheap laptop experience.

iFixit has shared a teardown of the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, which was refreshed this week with Intel's latest 8th-generation processors, a True Tone display, Touch Bar, Touch ID, and the Apple T2 security chip.

The teardown reveals a larger battery with a 58.2 Wh capacity, which slightly exceeds the 54.5 Wh battery found in the previous-generation function key model. iFixit guesses this is how the 2019 model manages to power the Touch Bar, ‌Touch ID‌, and T2 chip while keeping the same 10-hour battery life.

To make room for the ‌Touch ID‌ sensor alongside the Touch Bar, iFixit notes that Apple appears to be using a slightly smaller heat sink. The speaker opposite the fan also looks to have been shrunk in size.

While the previous-generation entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro had a modular SSD, storage is soldered down in the 2019 model. However, there are some newly modular components, including the Thunderbolt board and the speakers. This configuration is in line with other modern ‌MacBook Pro‌ designs.

As we confirmed earlier this week, the notebook has the same third-generation butterfly keyboard with updated material as the higher-end 2019 ‌MacBook Pro‌ models introduced in May, with Apple promising improved reliability.

Like most other modern MacBooks, this model earned a low repairability score from iFixit due to the usual concerns, such as Apple's use of proprietary pentalobe screws, a glued-in battery, and soldered-down storage and RAM. One positive is that the trackpad can be replaced without touching the battery.

Apple today began accepting Powerbeats Pro orders in over 20 additional countries, including many in Europe.

The rollout includes Austria, Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

As in other countries, the headphones are only available in black at launch. Ivory, moss, and navy colors will be released later this year.

‌Powerbeats Pro‌ first launched in the United States and Canada in early May, followed by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and China later in the month. The headphones have faced tight availability, with orders placed today estimated for delivery in between 10 and 20 days in many countries.

‌Powerbeats Pro‌ are Apple's first totally wireless Beats earphones, equipped with the same H1 chip as the second-generation AirPods for hands-free "Hey Siri" and faster connection speeds between the iPhone, Apple Watch, and other devices.

Like the Powerbeats3, the ‌Powerbeats Pro‌ feature adjustable, secure-fit ear hooks and earbud tips with four size options. They're essentially sportier AirPods, complete with a durable design and sweat resistance. They'll last up to nine hours per charge, with more battery life via an included charging case.

‌Powerbeats Pro‌ are priced at $249.95 in the United States and at €249.95 in many European countries.

Prominent research firms Gartner and IDC attempt to estimate shipments of computers around the world on a quarterly basis, and both firms today released their estimates for the second calendar quarter.

Gartner's and IDC's estimates are just that — estimates – and with Apple no longer reporting unit sales of Macs and other products, we won't know how accurate these estimates end up being. But as revealed in today's releases, they can differ quite a bit.

Gartner says worldwide PC shipments were up 1.5 percent year-over-year, with Lenovo leading the way on strong growth and HP and Dell sitting in second and third places respectively. Apple registered in fourth place with an estimated 3.711 million Macs shipped, a 0.2 percent decline over the previous year, while Acer and Asus rounded out the top vendors on a global basis.

“Worldwide PC shipments growth was driven by demand from the Windows 10 refresh in the business market in the second quarter of 2019. Desktop PC growth was strong, which offset a decline in mobile PC shipments,” said Mikako Kitagawa, senior principal analyst at Gartner.

“Additionally, there are signs that the Intel CPU shortage is easing, which has been an ongoing impact to the market for the past 18 months. The shortage mainly impacted small and midsize vendors as large vendors took advantage and continued to grow, taking market share away from the smaller vendors that struggled to secure CPUs.”

Turning to the U.S., the overall market saw a slight 0.4 percent decline compared to the second quarter of 2018, but Apple's shipments dropped by an estimated 5.6 percent to 1.585 million. Apple maintained its fourth-place ranking in the U.S. behind HP, Dell, and Lenovo, and well ahead of Microsoft and Acer.

If accurate, Gartner's estimates would put Apple with its lowest share of the U.S. PC market since the first quarter of 2014 and the lowest recorded on a global basis since Gartner started including Apple as a top global vendor in the third quarter of 2014.

IDC's estimates paint a much different picture, however, projecting worldwide PC shipment growth of 4.7 percent compared to the second quarter of 2018. IDC pegs Apple as having shipped 4.011 million Macs in the quarter for nearly 10 percent year-over-year growth.

IDC says Apple benefited from increased inventory levels due not only to the launch of new MacBook Pro models but also some proactive shipments into the distribution channels to guard against potential upcoming tariffs.

Apple this week updated its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and Intel's latest 8th-generation Core quad-core processors, and benchmarks for the 2019 model are now beginning to surface.

Geekbench 4 scores indicate the base 2019 model with an 8th-generation 1.4GHz quad-core Core i5 processor has up to a 6.8 percent increase in single-core performance, and up to 83.4 percent faster multi-core performance, compared to the base 2017 model with a 7th-generation 2.3GHz dual-core Core i5 processor.

Specifically, the 2019 model has average single-core and multi-core scores of 4,639 and 16,665 respectively based on eight Geekbench results, while the 2017 model averages 4,341 for single-core and 9,084 for multi-core.

The new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro is powered by Intel's Core i5-8257U processor, which appears to be a custom variation of its Core i5-8250U processor designed for Apple. The 15W chip is part of the Coffee Lake family and has a max Turbo Boost frequency of up to 3.9GHz.

The notebook can also be upgraded to an 8th-generation 1.7GHz quad-core Core i7 processor. This configuration uses Intel's Core i7-8557U, which is likewise believed to be a custom variation of its Core i7-8550U processor, with a TDP of 15W and a max Turbo Boost frequency of up to 4.5GHz.

Only one Geekbench result is available for the 1.7GHz configuration so far with single-core and multi-core scores of 4,835 and 15,515 respectively. There is room for variance here as more results come in, but this would be a performance increase of up to around 60 percent compared to the equivalent 2017 model.

Apple advertises the new entry-level 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ as "two times more powerful" than the previous generation. The benchmarks approach this at up to 83 percent, but performance in real-world usage will vary.

Apple did not update the entry-level 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ in 2018, which is why 2017 models serve as the previous-generation comparisons.

Update: As noted by Jeremy Horwitz, more details are now available on DigiTimes Taiwan, which reports that Apple has "temporarily stopped developing AR/VR headsets." The report claims the team working on them was disbanded in May and reassigned to other product developments. Original story below.

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Apple has reportedly "terminated" development of its widely rumored augmented reality glasses project, according to DigiTimes.

Multiple sources have claimed that Apple plans to release augmented reality glasses as early as 2020, including well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, and CNET, so the DigiTimes report if accurate reflects a cancellation of a major hardware project on Apple's roadmap.

DigiTimes has a mixed track record in relation to reporting on Apple's future plans, but it appears to be citing another report in this case. However, the DigiTimes story is currently paywalled behind its "Before Going to Press" section, so we'll have to wait for specific details to be made public.

Kuo said Apple's glasses would be marketed as an iPhone accessory and primarily take a display role while wirelessly offloading computing, networking, and positioning to the iPhone. He believed mass production could begin at some point between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2020.

In November 2017, Gurman reported that Apple's headset would run a custom iOS-based operating system dubbed "rOS" for "reality operating system." At the time, he said Apple had not finalized how users would control the headset, but possibilities included touchscreens, Siri voice activation, and head gestures.

In April 2018, CNET said Apple was developing an augmented reality headset that features an 8K display for each eye and would be untethered from either a computer or a smartphone. The report claimed the headset would instead connect to a "dedicated box" using high-speed short-range 60GHz WiGig technology.

Gurman and other sources previously reported that Apple was working on several different wearable augmented reality prototypes under the umbrella code name of "T288," so it is still possible that a product of some kind could be released.

Apple has been exploring virtual reality and augmented reality technologies for more than 10 years based on patent filings. The company is also rumored to have a secretive research unit comprising hundreds of employees working on AR and VR, exploring ways the technologies could be used in future Apple products.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has talked up the prospect of augmented reality several times, saying he views AR as "profound" because the technology "amplifies human performance instead of isolating humans."