Starting today, Twitter users can put images, videos, and GIFs in retweets on mobile apps and mobile browsers, with the feature set to expand to the desktop in the future.
To add a photo, video, or GIF to a retweet or quoted tweet, users can choose the retweet with comment option and then choose a media type from the toolbar.
On the Twitter design account, Twitter said that implementing this small change was difficult because it needed to be added in a way that fit well in the Twitter timeline.
During the first usability test, we found it was challenging for people to quickly understand all the content in a Retweet with media. This was due to the layout; two large Tweets stacked on top of each other.
To improve comprehension, we focused on creating hierarchy, prioritizing the author's voice, and providing more context around the Tweet being Retweeted.
To make quoted tweets and retweets with media make sense, Twitter ultimately decided to make photos, videos, and GIFs full width while showing the original tweet in a condensed, indented box.
Exciting news: Today we are launching the ability to Retweet with GIF, photos, and video!
We find solutions to many challenges as we build for a global, vocal audience. Here is a glimpse into our process as we worked on this feature. https://t.co/PUMr9DRQ0K
— Twitter Engineering (@TwitterEng) May 6, 2019
Tweets with this new formatting are visible solely on mobile devices at the current time, so the layout will look different and not up to date on the desktop.
At the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder conference this weekend, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick, and that interview aired this morning on Squawk Box.
During the discussion, Cook covered topics like Warren Buffett's Apple investments, Apple's company mission, how Apple runs, internal debate topics, privacy, acquisitions, and more.
Cook said that when he heard that Warren Buffett invested in Apple stock, he said he thought to himself "Wow, this is really cool." An investment from "the ultimate long-term investor" is an "honor and a privilege," Cook said. "I mean, wow, it's Warren Buffett is investing the company. And yeah, so, it felt great."
Buffett's decision to invest in Apple meant that he viewed it as a consumer company, not a technology company because Buffett doesn't invest in tech companies he doesn't understand. Cook says that while Apple is in the tech industry, the consumer is the company's focus. "We think technology should be in the background, not the foreground," said Cook. Cook went on to reiterate something that he's said many times before - Apple's goal is to enrich people's lives.
Our mission is to make the best products in the world in those areas which we choose to participate that enrich people's lives. And so, if we can't make the best product, we don't go in. If we can make a great product but it doesn't help anybody, it doesn't enrich their life, then we're not going to go into that either. And so that's a pretty narrow funnel then because you're working on a few things. And we know in order to do them at the quality level we want to do them, we can only do a few.
Apple is a large company, but Cook says that in "some ways," it's "like a big startup." Apple is organized, but teams work together on projects and are "empowered to come up with new things." Apple has a "heavy debate culture" where the best ideas are debated. "And then we choose the best of the best to decide what to spend our time on," said Cook.
Apple employees debate on trends, new technologies, features, and categories to enter or not enter. One "healthy debate" was when Apple entered into the smart watch business.
A very healthy debate. And about what it could eventually do for people. And how much emphasis to place on the health and fitness side of that. You know, where to put the the relative balance. You could imagine, there's an incredible set of features in the watch just to do things like curate when you're interrupted, and people are now taking calls on them. And sort of the- the things that you would think is part and parcel to the iPhone, but in a curated manner. And- or you could, to put the emphasis on fitness and health, and so forth. And we've elected to do some of this, in a great way.
Cook said that he himself has always believed that to enrich someone's life, wellbeing is in the "top two or three," and he went on to speak about the importance of democratizing access to health features like the ECG in the Apple Watch Series 4. "Things like this, these are profound things," said Cook.
Privacy comes up in almost all interviews with Cook, and the CNBC interview was no exception. Cook said that privacy is "foundational" to the way that Apple runs, because Apple "works for the consumer." Cook said that Apple feels a "level of responsibility" to protect everything on your phone because of the depth of information that it contains.
But we don't want to use you as our product. And we just have a fundamental issue with doing that. And we've always thought that the building of a detailed profile about your life could result in tragic things. Whether it's a breach of your own privacy or something where the data itself could be used in a nefarious way. And so, we've never thought it was right to do it, and we've always thought that you owned it.
Cook went on to say that he's frustrated tech is seen as monolithic, lumping Apple in with other companies like Facebook. "We don't traffic in your data," said Cook. "We very much are on your side. We also curate our platform."
Pivoting to acquisitions, Cook said that Apple has purchased 20 to 25 companies over the course of the last six months or so, purchasing a company "every two to three weeks." Some of those acquisitions are known, but many of them go under the radar for months and even years.
Cook's interview, with more detail on privacy and other topics, can be watched in its entirety over at CNBC.
Apple hired Ahrendts in in 2014, after Apple CEO Tim Cook listened to her April 2013 TED talk on "the positive and transformative power of human energy." Cook told her after that moment that he knew she was "supposed to be [at Apple]," which was the "pivotal moment" in her decision to leave her role as Burberry CEO and join Apple's executive team. "He was so calm, and so deep and just the way that he said it..." she said. "I'd never had that in interaction with another person."
Switching careers and leaving fashion for a tech company made her "incredibly insecure," and she says she spent first six months at Apple "fairly silent" because she wanted to listen to get her bearings and gain confidence in her role.
Get in your lane, bring your gifts to the table, right? They don't expect you to learn - you're used to being the CEO in an industry that you grew up in for 30 some odd years. You're used to knowing everything. And now you go in at a senior level and you know nothing but no, wait a minute: You know what you do.
[Apple] was a titanic retail business at that point, with 55,000 employees all over the world. And so, okay, maybe I'm here because I'm a leader and maybe I'm here because I'm a brand builder. I wouldn't go as far as say visionary, but I thrive on looking out two or three years and feeling what's coming and warning everybody and uniting everybody around a strategy to be prepared for that.
According to Ahrendts, she learned three things during her time at Apple: never forget where you came from, move faster than you could ever fathom, and never forget that you have a greater responsibility.
Ahrendts said when she joined Apple and went out to visit retail stores, she'd hear phrases like "Steve said our job was to enrich lives," and "Steve said this and wrote that." While she could have disregarded that, she didn't.
I could have thrown all that out, but [I thought] no let's codify that. Let's protect that. So, my first lesson, what I've learned from them after I hit 140 stores (what that taught me) is never forget where you came from, and use that as your foundation.
On the second lesson, that things move quickly, Ahrendts said that customers expect leadership to change and adapt with the times and the current technology. Apple wanted retail leaders to "move fast, fast." "So we got rid of all the manuals, got rid of everything, started doing three minute YouTube," said Ahrendts. "That's how we united and aligned 70,000 [retail employees] around the world."
Ahrendts' last lesson, on a greater responsibility to humanity, sounds like something that Apple CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives have said many times before.
The third thing was, never forget that you have a greater responsibility. That it is not just about operating stores, it is not just about selling phones, it is not. You have a much greater responsibility. And maybe that's what Steve meant when he talked about enriching lives and, and when he talked about liberal arts and technology and the impact it could have on humanity.
I didn't dare use the word humanity, but I would talk to the teams about the impact they could make in their community. And that's what the Today at Apple experience, which is free of charge, teaches. It's not a coincidence that it's only teaching liberal arts: how to make you a better videographer or photographer or app developer or musician. Because I do believe that that's what you're going to need in the future. But I also believed that maybe liberal arts was a little bit of what was missing in the [Apple] stores.
So, you gotta look back. You have to never forget where you came from. You're just coming in as a steward in a very short period of time. You're going to turn the baton over. I always say I never ask for a title, I never ask for a raise, I've never asked for anything. All I've done is always try to do what's best for the company at that point in time and everything else just falls into place.
So I think my counsel to the next generation would be "be selfless" and you will make an incredible impact.
Ahrendts has now moved on from Apple, but she had a major impact on the way Apple Stores run and many stores around the world have been updated with new store designs that have a community focus.
Deirdre O'Brien, formerly Apple's vice president of people, has taken over Ahrendts' role and will be overseeing Apple's retail initiatives going forward.
The full interview with Ahrendts, which includes details on her early life and her time at Burberry, can be listened to on the Podcasts app, on the web, through iTunes, or wherever else podcasts are available.
Until further notice, repairs of 38mm aluminum Apple Watch Series 2 models will be fulfilled with equivalent Series 3 models due to a temporary shortage of unspecified parts, according to an internal document shared with Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers today.
The internal document, obtained by MacRumors, reminds technicians that Series 3 models require an iPhone compatible with watchOS 4 or later. Apple instructs technicians to notify iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c customers of their option to upgrade their iPhone to resolve this incompatibility.
If a customer is unable to accept the substitute Series 3 model, Apple says they can contact Apple support to request a refund.
Apple has offered similar Apple Watch repair substitutions in the past due to parts shortages, providing some lucky customers with an upgrade to a newer generation of the device at a fraction of the brand new price, but we obviously do not recommend abusing this temporary good-will policy.
To initiate a repair, head to the Get Support page on Apple's website and book an appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. We cannot guarantee that all locations will acknowledge existence of this internal policy, especially given it has no firm end date, so your mileage may vary.
In a blog post detailing new features coming to Edge, which is being rebuilt with the same open source Chromium rendering engine as used by Google Chrome, Microsoft provided a sneak peek at how the browser will look on macOS. While only a brief glimpse, the browser looks somewhat similar to Chrome.
Microsoft shipped its first preview builds of its revamped Edge browser for Windows last month, but the browser remains listed as "coming soon" for macOS. The Verge believes the Mac version will be available "very soon," likely including both the Canary and Dev channel builds as on Windows.
At the start of the shareholder meeting, Cook made a cameo appearance in a humorous short film in which Buffett visits a top-secret lab at Apple to try to come up with ideas for an app and other inventions, including a time machine where Buffett tells his childhood self to buy Apple stock, according to CNN.
Cook ultimately suggests a newspaper-tossing iPhone game. Buffett was a childhood newspaper carrier who for years held newspaper-tossing contests during the annual meeting, according to the Omaha World-Herald.
As it turns out, the game is actually real.
Warren Buffett's Paper Wizard, a free download on the App Store, tasks players with flinging newspapers to collect Warren Bucks. The game gradually increases in difficulty as players make their way from Omaha to Apple's hometown of Cupertino, California, including a visit to Apple Park.
Think you can toss a newspaper like the legendary Warren Buffett? Test your paper-flinging skills as you make your way from the streets of Omaha, Nebraska, all the way to Cupertino, California. Avoid vehicles and birds as you deliver papers to buildings near and far. Will anyone collect enough Warren Bucks to dethrone the Paper Wizard? Probably not.
While the game's developer is listed as Wildlife Designs, Inc on the App Store, the app is copyrighted, maintained, and operated by Apple according to its terms and conditions, making this the first game Apple has developed for the iPhone since Texas Hold'em back when the App Store launched in 2008.
In an interview with CNBC, Cook said Buffett has made it clear he does not invest in technology companies, meaning he "obviously views Apple as a consumer company." Cook also said Apple acquires a company every two to three weeks on average, including 20 to 25 companies in the last six months.
If you're shopping for a low-cost iPad, Amazon has quite a few options to choose from with a new sale that began this week. The event is focused on the 9.7-inch iPad from early 2018, and includes a new lowest-ever price for the 128GB Wi-Fi model at $329.00, down from $429.99.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Cellular models are also included in the sale (with lowest-ever prices as well), with prices starting at $249.99 for 32GB models and rising from there. The full collection of iPads on sale can be found below.
Less than a month ahead of Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has outlined his expectations for iOS 13, macOS 10.15, watchOS 6, and more, which we've summarized below.
A new systemwide Sleep Mode that can be toggled in Control Center to turn on Do Not Disturb, darken the Lock Screen, and mute all notifications. This is said to be tied to improvements to the Bedtime tab in the Clocks app.
A revamped Messages app with a WhatsApp-like feature that enables users to set a profile picture and display name, and choose who sees it, and a dedicated menu for Animoji and Memoji stickers
A revamped Maps app will make it easier to set frequent locations, like home or work addresses, and then navigate there. Improved grouping of frequent locations with ability to add photos.
A revamped Reminders app with four default sections laid out in a grid: tasks to be done today, all tasks, scheduled tasks, and flagged tasks
A revamped Books app with updated progress tracker and new rewards system
A revamped Health app with an improved view of daily activity, more comprehensive menstrual cycle tracking, and more
A revamped Mail app with ability to mute individual threads, block incoming email from certain contacts, and simpler folder management
New default swipe-based keyboard option like SwiftKey
New feature that will let users use their iPad as an external display for a Mac, complete with support for Apple Pencil, notifications, and more, as previously reported by 9to5Mac
A combined Find MyiPhone and Find My Friends app, and possibly a Tile-like tag for tracking devices, as previously reported by 9to5Mac
User interface tweaks, including a new animation when launching the multitasking pane and closing apps and tweaks to the home screen on iPad
iPad is getting some unique features, including an updated interface for multi-tasking, tweaks to the home screen, and the ability to cycle through different versions of the same app
A more comprehensive Accessibility menu on the main page of the Settings app with improved hearing aid support and more
Performance improvements and bug fixes
macOS 10.15
Marzipan: iPhone and iPad apps can be easily ported to the Mac with new SDK that simplifies the cross-platform development process. This is said to be the first step in a plan to merge iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps into a single package that can run on any of those devices by 2021.
Apple Music, Podcasts, and merged Find My iPhone and Find My Friends apps
A dedicated App Store app on the Apple Watch itself
Voice Memos, Calculator, and Books apps
"Dose" and "Cycles" apps for pill reminders and menstrual cycle tracking respectively
Animoji and Memoji sticker support in sync with iPhone
New watch faces, including one with a custom "gradient" design and at least two "X-Large" versions with very large font; new complications for audiobooks, battery life of hearing aids, and more
Apple is also said to be planning to let the HomePod respond to multiple users in a future software update tied to iOS 13.
As usual, Gurman notes that some of Apple's plans could change between now and WWDC, so some features may end up being slightly different than described, kept internal, or axed entirely.
Looking ahead, Apple is said to be already working on iOS 14 with support for 5G and new AR functionality on 2020 iPhones.
British Government services have begun accepting Apple Pay to approve online transactions. The gov.uk website is accepting Apple's mobile payment system for four services initially, but it will roll out more widely as well as to local government, police, and the NHS later this year, ITV reports.
Payments for the Global Entry Service, enabling UK citizens to get expedited entry to the US, can now be made via Apple or Google Pay. The same goes for basic online disclosure and barring service (DBS) checks, the Registered Traveller Service and the Electronic Visa Waiver Service for people in the Middle East coming to the UK.
Till Wirth, lead product manager of gov.uk Pay, said: "Allowing people to pay for Government services through Apple Pay and Google Pay means they won't have to enter their credit or debit card information when making payments.
"This innovation will increase the convenience and security of gov.uk Pay for users and hopefully make their experience online a lot easier."
Apple Pay launched in the United Kingdom in 2015, while the UK government launched its online Pay platform in 2016. The gov.uk Pay service has since been used to make more than 2.9 million transactions using credit and debit cards, according to the report.
Apple is to be formally investigated by the European Commission after Spotify accused the company of using the App Store to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.
According to a report by the Financial Times, EU competition commission has decided to launch a formal antitrust investigation into Apple's conduct "in the next few weeks" after surveying customers, rivals and others in the market.
Spotify in March filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the EU in which it argued that the iPhone maker enforced App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience."
Apple swiftly hit back at the accusation, labeling it as "misleading rhetoric" and arguing that "Spotify wants all the benefits of a free app without being free."
Spotify's complaint focuses on Apple's policy of charging a 30 per cent fee on App Store purchases, which means Spotify has to charge existing subscribers $12.99 per month for its Premium plan via the App Store just to collect its standard $9.99 per month charge.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek claimed that the policy gives Apple an "unfair advantage," since Spotify is unable to fairly compete with Apple Music's standard $9.99 per month price within the App Store.
Alternatively, if Spotify chooses not to collect payments via the App Store, Ek said that Apple "applies a series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions" on the company. Over time, this has also included "locking Spotify and other competitors out of Apple services such as Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch."
The EU can force companies to change business practices they deem unlawful and levy fines of up to 10 per cent of a company's global turnover. However, investigations by the European Commission can take years to resolve unless the companies involved offer to settle the probes by making legally binding agreements to change their behavior.
Apple plans to use modified-PI (MPI) material for most antennas in 2019 iPhones, rather than the liquid crystal polymer (LCP) material used for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR antennas, according to the latest research note from reputable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, obtained by MacRumors.
Kuo believes that LCP limits the RF performance of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR antennas due to current technology limitations and production issues. This puts the RF performance of MPI material at least on par with LCP, despite MPI being easier and cheaper to produce.
While switching to MPI material for 2019 iPhone antennas appears to be a no-brainer decision for Apple, Kuo expects that LCP will still be the primary material for 5G antennas in 2020 iPhones, as he believes that the production issues limiting the RF performance of LCP will be resolved by then.
In today's note, Kuo also said he expects Apple to use LCP material in future iPad models, starting from the late fourth quarter of 2019.
In a separate research note last month, which has only been seen by Taiwanese media so far, Kuo said two new iPad Pro models with the same 11-inch and 12.9-inch screen sizes as the current models will enter mass production between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020.
Kuo said those new iPad Pro models will feature flexible circuit boards using LCP, but we've yet to receive that research note in English, so we cannot confirm any further details at this time.
Apple is set to open a new retail store at the revamped Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, May 11, and ahead of the grand opening, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple retail leader Deirdre O'Brien did an interview with The Washington Post to discuss the new flagship location.
Work on the Carnegie Library Apple Store kicked off two years ago, and Apple has spent an estimated $30 million on the project. $7 million of that went towards facade restoration, $300,000 went to restoring the stair wells, and $2 million was spent on landscaping and site work. Apple is also paying $700,000 per year for the next 10 years to lease the space.
According to Cook, restoring Carnegie Library to its original design standards became the "most historic, ambitious restoration by far, in the world." Apple believes projects like this help showcase "Today at Apple" services and classes, though the company's aim is to get customers to further associate Apple with creativity.
"Our roots are in education and creativity," Cook said. "You think about where the company started from and Steve and the team at the time were very focused on providing people tools that allowed them to do incredible things."
"We've been serving the creative community as a company since the founding of the company, and the truth is everyone should be a part of the creative community," Cook added, "so this is our way to democratize it."
Like other remodeled Apple Stores, Carnegie Library will use the town square design with dedicated sections for the Genius Grove, Today at Apple sessions, and shopping for retail products. Buying something, says Cook is "probably one of the least done things" in an Apple retail location.
People come in to look at new products, and get help with the products that they already own. Apple sees its retail locations as communities rather than standard stores.
"We should probably come up with a name other than 'store,' " he said, "because it's more of a place for the community to use in a much broader way."
The Carnegie Library store will open at 10:00 a.m. local time on May 11, and Apple has six weeks of programs from local artists planned in celebration of the launch.
Apple will be sharing the space with the Historical Society of Washington D.C., which plans to open up a D.C. History Center.
For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Solo New York to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a backpack, sleeve, or briefcase for the MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air.
Solo New York offers a range of different bags, backpacks, and cases, to keep your Apple products safe and secure, and all accessories feature attractive, streamlined designs without super high price tags. We've got a selection of products to provide to MacRumors readers, as outlined below.
The All-Star Backpack Duffel, priced at $86.99, transforms from a backpack into a duffel and can hold your laptop and a ton of other stuff with its 22.6L capacity. There's a padded space for a MacBook, an internal organizer section, front pockets, and a separate compartment for your shoes or laundry to keep everything organized.
It's made from a tough nylon fabric that's lightweight and stylish, with shoulder straps and multiple hand straps so it's convenient to hold in any orientation.
Solo's Kilbourn Leather Backpack is one of its highest-end products, and for the $250 price tag, you get a quality bag made from full grain pebble leather that's perfect for when you want something classier than a traditional backpack but still need a lot of storage space.
There's a padded laptop compartment that can accommodate a 15-inch Macbook Pro, a separate internal iPad pocket to keep your iPad safe, an easy-access front pocket with a magnetic closure, and a back panel that slides over a luggage handle. Camouflage lining complements the black leather exterior, and padded back and shoulder straps make sure it's comfortable to carry.
If you prefer briefcase styles, Solo's $65 Voyage Briefcase has plenty of room for all of your essentials. There's a padded laptop compartment that's easy to get to, which is ideal for airline travel, plus a separate pocket for an iPad. At the front, there's an organizer section where you can put all of your cables, power adapters, pens, credit cards, and other accessories, and there's space inside the main compartment for everything else.
The Voyage Briefcase is made from a heathered gray material that looks snappy, and there's a removable shoulder strap along with a hand strap. A back strap at the side allows it to slide over a luggage handle for easy travel.
Solo also has the $55 Duane Hybrid Briefcase Backpack, which, as the name suggests, converts from a briefcase into a backpack depending on how you want to use it. There's a padded laptop compartment that fits a 15-inch MacBook Pro, a separate iPad compartment, a large front pocket that's able to hold all of your accessories, and two separate quick access front pockets.
There's a removable shoulder strap, a main hand strap for using it in briefcase mode, and padded backpack straps that tuck away when it's not being used in backpack mode.
Along with bags, Solo makes sleeves and cases for Apple devices, including the Portal Sleeve for the 13 or 15-inch MacBook Pro, which is priced at $33. The Portal Sleeve is a padded laptop sleeve that can be tucked away in another bag, keeping your MacBook Pro safe from bumps and drops. It has an attractive dark gray exterior with camouflage lining, and it matches well with other Solo products.
We have one of each of the above listed products from Solo to give away to MacRumors readers. The first winner picked will receive the Kilbourn Leather Backpack, the second will get the All-Star Backpack Duffel, the third will get the Voyage Briefcase, the fourth will get the Duane Briefcase, and the fifth will get the Portal Sleeve.
To enter to win our giveaway, use the Gleam.io widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, following us on Instagram, or visiting the MacRumorsFacebook page.
Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.
The contest will run from today (May 3) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on May 10. The winners will be chosen randomly on May 10 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.
The SEC today announced it has charged GT Advanced Technologies and its former CEO Thomas Gutierrez with misleading investors about the company's ability to supply sapphire glass for iPhones. The company is also found to have misclassified more than $300 million in debt to Apple.
In the fall of 2013, Apple agreed to advance $578 million in four installments to GT in exchange for sapphire glass that met certain technical standards, the SEC says. By late April 2014, GT had failed to meet those standards, resulting in Apple withholding its final $139 million installment and demanding repayment.
On earnings calls in the second quarter of 2014, however, Gutierrez falsely stated that GT expected to hit performance targets and receive the fourth installment payment from Apple by October 2014. GT ended up filing for bankruptcy shortly after, which the SEC says resulted in "significant investor harm."
SEC associate director Anita B. Bandy:
GT and its CEO painted a rosy picture of the company's performance and ability to obtain funding that was paramount to GT's survival while they were aware of information that would have catastrophic consequences for the company. We will continue to hold chief executives accountable when they breach their most fundamental duty to make full and truthful disclosures to investors.
GT Advanced Technologies was expected to become a major Apple supplier, as it was supposedly able to manufacture extremely thin sheets of sapphire much more cheaply than current methods. For now, Apple continues to source non-sapphire glass from Corning in Kentucky for use in products like the iPhone.
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 $329.95 in Canada. The earphones will be available at Apple Stores and select resellers like Best Buy on May 10 in those two countries, with other regions listed as "coming soon." Ivory, Moss, and Navy colors will be available later this year.
Orders placed today are currently estimated for delivery by May 14 to May 21.
Best Buy is currently offering Apple Watch Series 4 models for $50 off in a new sale, which also includes special cellular offers for Verizon customers and an ongoing Apple Watch trade-in program offer. The main sale discounts the brand-new aluminum Apple Watch Series 4 in 40mm to $349.00, down from $399.00.
The event includes dozens of Series 4 models with various bands, case finishes, and sizes. You can find some of the Apple Watches on sale in the lists below, and be sure to head to Best Buy to browse the full event and place your order before it ends. As a note, many of the prices are also being matched at Amazon.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
For Verizon customers looking to purchase two cellular Apple Watch models, you can buy one select Apple Watch and save up to 50 percent (up to $190) on the second. This offer includes Series 3 and Series 4 devices and requires at least one new line. You can find more details about the sale right here.
Best Buy shoppers also have a chance to trade in their old Apple Watch toward a new Series 4 model and get as much as $100 for the current device. This offer and many more discounts and bargains in Best Buy's Apple Shopping Event are still live, including a notable sale on the latest MacBook Air.
For even more discounts, head to our full Deals Roundup.
YouTube on Thursday announced a new original TV content strategy that will see the Google-owned video hub make new programs available to users on a free, ad-supported basis (via Deadline).
Nine new programs will be made available on YouTube this year, with a mix of original content, including a documentary about sports tricks outfit Dude Perfect, and an interactive series featuring YouTube star Mark Fischbach that allows viewers to control the storyline.
Other programs include a third season of the Karate Kid-inspired Cobra Kai, an investigation show from media startup Vox, and a set of standalone films from "The School of Life" YouTube channel, which "explores some of the greatest philosophical questions of our age," according to YouTube.
The development represents a shift in strategy since the arrival of YouTube Premium in May 2018 (previously YouTube Red), which offered ad-free viewing and other benefits, including original programming offered behind a $12-a-month paywall. The latter perk apparently hasn't been as popular as YouTube was hoping, so the new direction is about making original content available to as many users as possible on an ad-supported basis.
"For today's viewers, primetime is personal and our content resonates so strongly due to the diversity and richness of our unmatched library and platform capabilities," Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl said in the official announcement. "While every other media company is building a paywall, we are headed in the opposite direction and now have more opportunities than ever to partner with advertisers and share our critically-acclaimed originals with our global audience."
Another reason for the shift is Google's recognition of the growth in viewing YouTube in the living room, where about 250 million hours of YouTube fare are watched every day, on average, according to the company.
YouTube will continue to test original content benefits for subscribers. For example, all episodes from the third season of Cobra Kai will be available to subscribers in one block, while non-subscribers will gain access to one new episode per week. New episodes of some existing programs are also likely to remain subscriber-only because of contractual commitments, YouTube said.
Toyota today announced that CarPlay and Amazon Alexa support will be standard features in its all-new 2020 Prius Prime range in the United States.
Toyota states that CarPlay will come as standard across the full line of 2020 hybrid plug-in Prius models, so customers won't have to pay extra for Apple's in-car infotainment system. As in other Toyota vehicles, CarPlay remains a wired implementation in the 2020 Prius Prime.
Other new features include two additional USB-A ports for rear passengers, an additional fifth seat, black interior accents for a more premium feel, and a new sun visor extender.
Available this summer, the 2020 Prius Prime's suggested retail price for the LE grade will be $27,600, the XLE grade will be $29,500 and the Limited grade will be $33,500.
Other Toyota vehicles equipped with CarPlay include the 2019 Avalon, 2019 Corolla Hatchback, 2019 Sienna, 2019 Camry, 2020 Tacoma, 2020 Tundra, 2020 Sequoia, 2020 Corolla, 2020 Yaris Hatchback, and 2020 Highlander.
Earlier this week, Toyota announced plans to bring CarPlay to 2018 Toyota Camry sedans and 2018 Toyota Sienna minivans through a new retrofitting program that will be available through Toyota dealers.
Former Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts 
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