MacRumors

International Women's Day is March 8, but Apple plans to celebrate women throughout the entire month of March with a new Girls Who Code partnership, special Today at Apple sessions at Apple Stores, an Activity Challenge, and more.

First, Apple is partnering with Girls Who Code to support new coding opportunities for girls and young women in the United States. Using Apple's Everyone Can Code curriculum, 90,000 girls and Girls Who Code Club facilitators in all 50 states will have the opportunity to learn Apple's programming language Swift.

Swift training will also be provided for club leaders to help expand the number and reach of coding clubs. Apple supports educational opportunities for students of all ages and backgrounds, and advocates for girls’ right to access the same learning opportunities as their male counterparts through its Developer Academies, Everyone Can Code curriculum and work with the Malala Fund and National Center for Women and Information Technology.

Second, in select Apple Stores around the world, visitors can attend over 60 Today at Apple sessions in a new "Made By Women" series throughout March. Sessions will be held in select stores in Singapore, Kyoto, Hong Kong, London, Milan, Paris, Dubai, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Third, Apple Watch users around the world can earn an exclusive badge and iMessage stickers when they complete a walk, run, or wheelchair workout of a mile or longer on International Women's Day, which is Friday, March 8 this year.

Fourth, every App of the Day featured in the App Store in March in the United States will highlight an app founded, developed, or led by a woman, including Bumble, TheSkimm, and Stitch Fix. Apple will also be promoting women across Apple Music, iTunes, Beats 1, Apple Books, and Apple Podcasts.

Apple's environmental and social initiatives chief Lisa Jackson:

Women have earned the opportunity to have our ideas shape the future. We're excited to support Girls Who Code as they empower girls to be the developers and tech innovators of tomorrow.

Read more about Apple's International Women's Day initiatives on its Newsroom.

Apple today announced that American Airlines, Dexcom, Caviar, Merriam Webster, and Spectre have added Siri Shortcuts support to their apps this week. Airbnb, Drop, ReSound, and Smarter also plan to add ‌Siri‌ Shortcuts integration to their apps over the next few months.

Apple provided us with a summary of how ‌Siri‌ Shortcuts works in each app:

• American Airlines: Get updates on all your flight details ("Hey ‌Siri‌, flight update"). This includes flight status, drive time, a map of the airport with gate location, walking time to gate, boarding time, and more.
  

• Caviar: Set up a shortcut to re-order food and check order status. ("Hey ‌Siri‌, order my usual pizza" or "Hey ‌Siri‌, Caviar order status").
  

• Dexcom: Lets diabetics better track and manage glucose levels through their app ("Hey ‌Siri‌, what's my blood glucose?").
  

• Merriam Webster Dictionary: Ask for the word of the day ("Hey ‌Siri‌, what's the word of the day?")
  

• Spectre: You can use shortcuts to take long exposure photos hands-free ("Hey ‌Siri‌, long exposure") so the phone doesn't move while shooting.

Coming in March-April:

• Airbnb: Get details on your stay, including check in and check out times, address and map, and Wi-Fi password ("Hey ‌Siri‌, my Airbnb stay").
  

• Drop for Bosch: Make your morning coffee before you get out of bed ("Hey ‌Siri‌, make an espresso").
  

• ReSound: Change the setting of your hearing aid based on surroundings ("Hey ‌Siri‌, restaurant mode").
  

• strong>Smarter: Make a pot of coffee using the Smarter Coffee Machine ("Hey ‌Siri‌, make a small pot of coffee").

Apple says thousands of apps now support ‌Siri‌ Shortcuts, which debuted as a key feature of iOS 12 last year.

Apple's examples include Waze, Nike Run Club, Snoww, HomeCourt, AutoSleep, QardioArm, DSLR Camera, Pandora, Tile, Overcast, Evernote, Trello, Omnifocus, Things, Fantastical, Citymapper, Kayak, Hotels.com, British Airways, Lufthansa, Booking.com, VRBO, CARROT, The Weather Channel, Dark Sky, and many others.

‌Siri‌ Shortcuts let you create voice and tap-activated automations that can complete multiple complex tasks in just a few seconds. The feature is available in the Settings app under ‌Siri‌ & Search and through the dedicated Shortcuts app.

Update: Apple has since highlighted several of these ‌Siri‌ Shortcuts apps in a press release.

Apple has registered two unreleased iPad models with the Bureau of Indian Standards, according to MySmartPrice.

The model numbers A2124 and A2133 were already registered with the Eurasian Economic Commission in late January alongside five other ‌iPad‌ models, but the Indian filing suggests that a release is drawing closer.

Apple is widely expected to refresh its 9.7-inch ‌iPad‌ and iPad mini in the coming weeks, with each tablet rumored to receive a spec bump, including a faster processor. The 9.7-inch ‌iPad‌ is also expected to feature a larger 10.2-inch display. It would be the first update to the ‌iPad mini‌ since September 2015.

It's unclear how and when the new ‌iPad‌ and ‌iPad mini‌ will be revealed. Multiple reports indicate Apple will host a special event on March 25 at Steve Jobs Theater, but the word is that the keynote will be focused on Apple's rumored subscription-based news and video services, possibly ruling out hardware.

Given that the ‌iPad‌ and ‌iPad mini‌ refreshes are shaping up to be rather minor, perhaps a press release will suffice. March has become a common month for updates to Apple's lower-end ‌iPad‌ models, so an announcement could be just weeks away.

Two new iPad Pro models are also expected in late 2019 or early 2020, but few details are known about them yet.

Apple Watch maintained pole position in the smartwatch market over last year's fourth quarter as global smartwatch shipments continued to grow, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics.

Apple shipped 9.2 million Apple Watch units during Q4 2018, according to the report, rising 18 percent from 7.8 million units in Q4 2017. Global smartwatch shipments meanwhile grew 56 percent annually to reach a record 18 million units in the same quarter.

Apple's global smartwatch marketshare actually slipped to 51 percent this quarter, down from 67 percent a year ago, but Apple held on to first position with a 51 percent global smartwatch marketshare, while Samsung jumped to second place, overtaking Fitbit and Garmin.

The research corroborates an earlier report from consumer research firm The NPD Group that Apple Watch is the "clear market leader" in the U.S. smartwatch market, but it also underlines the growing threat of rivals like Samsung, which continues to invest heavily in wearables that are compatible with both Android devices and iPhones.

"Apple's global smartwatch marketshare slipped to 51 percent this quarter, down from 67 percent a year ago," said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics. "Apple Watch is losing marketshare to Samsung and Fitbit, whose rival smartwatch portfolios and retail presence have improved significantly in the past year."

Apple doesn't reveal Apple Watch unit sales from its overall earnings. But in a recent earnings call for the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year, CEO Tim Cook said the company's wearables revenue was being driven by the "amazing popularity" of Apple Watch and AirPods, and that the category was "approaching the size of a Fortune 200 company."

In an NPR piece on the privacy of storing health records on the iPhone, Apple CEO Tim Cook this week said that Apple is a company that people can trust with sensitive information.

As evidence, Cook said that Apple has always avoided selling user data, something that Cook and other executives have repeated time and time again.

In an interview with NPR, Cook says acquiring user data to sell ads is something his company has avoided. "People will look at this and feel that they can trust Apple," he says. "That's a key part of anyone that you're working with on your health."

Apple executives have always pointed out that its customers are not its product, something that distinguishes Apple from other tech companies like Google and Facebook that rely heavily on user data for marketing and monetization purposes. According to Cook, Apple's privacy commitment is serious and not something that the company says just to earn customer trust.

"It's not the way we look it in terms of advantages," he says. "The reality is that I know for me, I want to do business with people that have my health data, people that I deeply trust."

Cook's statement is part of a wider look at the Health Records feature added to the ‌iPhone‌ last year, which is designed to allow ‌iPhone‌ users to see actual medical records from hospitals, clinics, and doctors right in the Health app. Apple has partnered with many different institutions for the Health Records feature, bringing easy access to health data to millions of people.

Sam Cavaliere, a tech worker who uses Health Records and was featured in the NPR article, says Apple has earned his trust. "I don't get fed advertisements for them, so I don't see them trying to monetize it," he said, going on to explain that he's "comfortable" with what Apple's doing.

UC San Diego Health's chief information officer, Dr. Chris Longhurst, also said that Apple's focus on privacy had made hospital officials feel more at ease because patient health privacy is of the utmost importance.

UCSD Health likes the fact that all record data is stored on device only and not uploaded to the cloud, something that helps to protect patients.

NPR pointed out recent news that certain health-related apps like period trackers and heart rate monitoring apps were sharing data with Facebook for targeted advertising, but Apple clarified that those apps don't, of course, connect to Health Records, which is a highly protected and restricted feature. Health app access in general can only be granted with explicit user permission.

Longhurst says that even though the Health app is well protected by Apple, there are "potential risks" and patients that use the feature should stay informed to make sure they're not inadvertently sharing health data with third parties.

Apple is laying off 190 employees who worked in its Santa Clara and Sunnyvale self-driving car division, the company said in a letter to the California Employment Development Department that was shared by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Affected employees include 38 engineering program managers, 33 hardware engineers, 31 product design engineers, and 22 software engineers, with the layoff set to happen on April 16.

Last month, Apple confirmed that it was removing more than 200 employees from its autonomous car team, with some to be laid off and some to be relocated to other areas in the company.

At the time, an Apple spokesperson said that it was part of a restructuring where the team was focusing on its work for "key areas for 2019."

"We have an incredibly talented team working on autonomous systems and associated technologies at Apple. As the team focuses their work on several key areas for 2019, some groups are being moved to projects in other parts of the company, where they will support machine learning and other initiatives, across all of Apple."

"We continue to believe there is a huge opportunity with autonomous systems, that Apple has unique capabilities to contribute, and that this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever."

Some rumors have suggested that the layoffs were because of a reorganization under former Tesla engineer Doug Field, who joined the company back in August 2018 to lead the car project alongside Bob Mansfield.

Apple started work on self-driving vehicles back in 2014, with rumors at the time suggesting Apple was working to develop a full electric vehicle at a secret location near its Cupertino headquarters.

Leadership issues, internal strife, and other problems impacted the development of the car, and in 2016, new information suggested Apple had shelved its plans for a car to instead focus on an autonomous driving system.

The hiring of Field, who was once Apple's VP of Mac hardware before he went to Tesla, has, however, been seen as a sign that Apple is again developing a full autonomous vehicle, which could perhaps explain another major employee shakeup.

Despite the layoffs, Apple says it still sees a huge opportunity in autonomous systems in the future.

Apple is partnering up with the National Hockey League for its latest "Shot on iPhone" campaign, which has seen billboards featuring hockey players put up at various hockey arenas in the U.S. and Canada.

As noted by Adweek, the billboards started going up this week and feature eight NHL teams: Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, St. Louis Blues, Edmonton Oilers, Carolina Hurricanes, Arizona Coyotes, Ottawa Senators, and Philadelphia Flyers.

Each billboard features a candid photo of an NHL player captured on ‌iPhone‌ by a teammate.

Additional NHL Shot on ‌iPhone‌ images will be popping up on social media. On Instagram Stories, for example, Apple will offer a "day-in-the-life" look at NHL players' routines and pre-game prep.

Apple's "Shot on ‌iPhone‌" partnership with the NHL comes just after the NHL promoted a new iPad Pro app that's designed to offer coaches real-time individual and team statistics like face-offs, time on ice, shot attempts, shootout success rates, and more.

Last year, Apple also did a "Selfies on ‌iPhone‌ X" campaign that featured Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos.

Apple today launched a new article series in its Newsroom highlighting teachers and students who use innovative technology in the classroom.

The first article focuses on the Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts (APA) in California, which hosts an annual student-created show called "Playlist."

Students at Huntington Beach APA use Apple hardware and software to prepare for the show, such as Final Cut Pro to edit music videos and Logic Pro X to for audio production. Students get hands-on training in theater tech, audio recording, video production, and more as part of their curriculum.

An iPad Pro in the theater powers a Yamaha CL5 digital mixer for controlling sound levels, and students have access to a recording studio and other music creation spaces.

Many of the students are in the Music, Media, and Entertainment Technology program, designed to prepare them to succeed in the music industry. Jamie Knight, who runs the program, says it's imperative to focus on both technology and art, a philosophy Apple has always agreed with.

"We don't just focus on the technology," Knight says. "It's that performing arts experience that gives them leadership skills, confidence, team work, all of those soft skills that businesses want. You have to perform to get that, and then when you marry that with the technology and you give the kids the ability to have a real recording studio to work with, they're going to be the next Steven Spielberg, or the next Paul McCartney."

The school uses Apple products because they are "equipped with tools to teach," such as GarageBand and iMovie.

Apple's full dive into the Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts and its annual "Playlist" production can be read in the Apple Newsroom.

Apple Music's brief appearance in the Google Home app earlier this week was due to a software bug, a Google spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg.

Specifically, we've been told that the Google Assistant and Google Home apps share various settings for music services. Due to a bug, Google opened up the ‌Apple Music‌ setting more broadly than it intended, including to Google Home app users.

In an earlier statement, a Google spokesperson said "‌Apple Music‌ is currently only available for Google Assistant users on mobile phones. We have nothing to announce regarding updates to Google Home."

Back in December, ‌Apple Music‌ became available on Amazon's range of Echo speakers, so there was hope that the service would be expanding to Google Home speakers too. Many other music services are available on Google Home, including Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, Google Play Music, and YouTube Music.

Of course, ‌Apple Music‌ could launch on Google Home eventually, and the two companies could be simply hiding their tracks.

‌Apple Music‌ is currently available on iOS, Android, Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod, and Amazon Echo and Sonos speakers. ‌Apple Music‌ can also be controlled with the Google Assistant app on iOS devices.

Just one day after exposing a handful of developers spamming the App Store with duplicate VoIP apps, a clear violation of the ‌App Store‌ Review Guidelines, TechCrunch reports that Apple has removed many of the apps from the ‌App Store‌.

However, the report notes that plenty of duplicate apps remain available in other categories, such as photo printing. MailPix Inc., for example, has released three different apps that all offer same-day photo printing at nearby CVS or Walgreens locations. All three apps appear to be virtually identical in functionality.

By releasing duplicate apps on the ‌App Store‌, developers are able to game the search results by using different names, categories, and keywords.

As the report mentions, the primary issue here is that Apple is not consistently enforcing its App Store Review Guidelines, which warn developers that "spamming the store may lead to your removal from the Developer Program." This can lead to an unfair playing field for developers who do abide by the rules.

With millions of apps on the ‌App Store‌, it is likely that quite a few other duplicate apps have slipped through the cracks, but hopefully the increased awareness results in Apple cracking down more on these rule-breaking developers.

The MacBook Air, last updated in 2018, is Apple's most affordable notebook machine, with pricing that starts at $1,199 for the newest hardware. Microsoft also makes a comparable machine, the Surface Laptop 2, which came out right around the same time Apple released its 2018 ‌MacBook Air‌ update.

In our latest video, we decided to pit the ‌MacBook Air‌ against Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2 to determine which machine is the better value and the best buy.

Both the ‌MacBook Air‌ and the Surface Laptop 2 are thin, light machines, with each one weighing in right around 2.75 pounds. The Surface Laptop 2 has a 13.5-inch display with a 2256 x 1504 resolution, while the ‌MacBook Air‌ has a 13.3-inch display with a resolution of 2560 x 1600, so all in all, design wise, these two machines are quite similar, though the Surface Laptop 2 offers a 3:2 display.

The Surface Laptop 2 comes in a matte black color (it's also in burgundy and blue) that we were a fan of because it's a nice deviation from the standard gold, silver, and space gray shades Apple uses for its notebooks. Inside, the ‌MacBook Air‌ is all aluminum, but the Surface Laptop 2 uses an Alcantara fabric design, which has become a key feature of the Surface lineup.

When it comes to key feel, the ‌MacBook Air‌ wins out, though those who are not fans of the butterfly key design might not agree. The ‌MacBook Air‌ also has a better trackpad, which is unsurprising because most PCs can't match the feel of the Force Touch trackpad with its haptic feedback.

Both laptops have a questionable port situation, with the ‌MacBook Air‌ limited to two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports and Surface Laptop 2 featuring a USB-A port, a proprietary charging port, and, inexplicably, a Mini DisplayPort, an odd choice for a modern laptop. It has no USB-C ports, which is disappointing given that USB-C is the standard device and accessory makers alike are transitioning to.

The ‌MacBook Air‌ uses Touch ID in lieu of a password to make logging in faster, while the Surface Laptop 2 uses Windows Hello for facial recognition. Future Macs might adopt Face ID, but for now ‌Touch ID‌ is just as useful. Each of these laptops features a 720p webcam, which are both terrible, and while both have decent sound, the ‌MacBook Air‌'s speakers are crisper and clearer at max volume.

Each of these machines features similar internal specs, and both are designed for simple tasks rather than heavy duty video editing or 3D work. You can do light editing or use Photoshop on these machines, but that's not their primary purpose.

With these thin, light laptops with low-powered processors, battery life is impressive. Both the ‌MacBook Air‌ and the Surface Laptop 2 offer somewhere around 10 to 12 hour battery life for everyday tasks like using email and browsing the web.

Price is the major differentiator between the Surface Laptop 2 and the ‌MacBook Air‌, and could push some to choose the Surface Laptop 2 instead of the ‌MacBook Air‌.

The base model Surface Laptop 2 features a 1.6GHz 8th-Gen dual-core Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage all for $999, while the base 2018 ‌MacBook Air‌, offering similar specifications with less storage -- a 1.6GHz 8th-Gen dual-core Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 128GB SSD -- is priced starting at $1,199.

The Surface Laptop 2 and the ‌MacBook Air‌ are similar enough that choosing one over the other ultimately comes down to ecosystem and operating system preference. Microsoft's machines, of course, run Windows, which an Apple product user might not prefer, while Windows users won't want a machine running macOS.

What do you think of Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2? Let us know in the comments.