MacRumors

Apple will today release iOS 12.1.3, the fifth update to the iOS 12 operating system since its September launch. iOS 12.1.3 is a minor update that follows iOS 12.1.2 (iPhone only), released back in December, and iOS 12.1.1, also released in December.

The iOS 12.1.3 update will be available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the update, go to Settings > General > Software Update. As with all iOS updates, iOS 12.1.3 will be free to download. iPhone owners will be upgrading to iOS 12.1.3 from iOS 12.1.2, while iPad owners will be updating from iOS 12.1.1.

iOS 12.1.3 is a minor update, and during the beta testing period, we found no major new features. According to Apple's release notes, iOS 12.1.3 includes fixes for multiple bugs affecting iPad Pro, HomePod, CarPlay, and more.

On HomePod, the update fixes bugs that could cause restarts or that could cause Siri to stop listening. On the iPad Pro, iOS 12.1.3 fixes an issue that could cause audio distortion when using external input devices, and for CarPlay, issues that could cause disconnects from the 2019 iPhones have been addressed. Apple's full release notes:

This update:

- Fixes an issue in Messages that could impact scrolling through photos in the Details view
- Addresses an issue where photos could have striped artifacts after being sent from the Share Sheet
- Fixes an issue that may cause audio distortion when using external audio input devices on iPad Pro (2018)
- Resolves an issue that could cause certain CarPlay systems to disconnect from iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max

This release also includes bug fixes for HomePod. This update:

- Fixes an issue that could cause HomePod to restart
- Addresses an issue that could cause Siri to stop listening

The prior update, iOS 12.1.2, included a fix for eSIM activation issues and tweaked some iPhone functionality in China to remove features that infringed on Qualcomm patents so Apple could bypass a sales ban on older iPhones.

DxOMark today published the results of its "Selfie scores" test, which gauged the performance of the front-facing cameras for 12 modern smartphones. Apple's iPhone XS Max sits at fourth place on the overall selfie rankings with a score of 82, beaten out by Google Pixel 3, Galaxy Note 9, and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3.

According to DxOMark, the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max produces "some of the best" still images and video quality when it's placed in brightly lit situations, but it lost points because of poor performance in dim lighting. The only other Apple smartphone on the list is the ‌iPhone‌ X, with a score of 71 in 10th place.

DxOMark also broke down its results by providing a specific "selfie photo score" and "selfie video score." The ‌iPhone‌ XS Max received a score of 81 and 82, respectively in each category, again staying in fourth place in both instances.

The company said that Portrait Mode selfies are a major strength of the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max, with very good depth estimation and accurate subject masking. Overall, DxOMark said the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max was "among the best results we've observed for front cameras" thanks to features like HDR and Portrait Mode's bokeh effect.

Overall, DxOMark pointed out that one of the XS Max's big weak spots on its front-facing camera is noise, noting that luminance noise is visible on faces in many of the outdoor images taken during the testing process. The company noted that results remained "acceptable," but things only got worse in low lighting conditions, and even explained that these results are slightly poorer than those found on the ‌iPhone‌ X's front-facing camera.

Achieving a DxOMark front camera score of 82, the Apple iPhone XS Max puts in a solid performance for both still and moving images during our tests, and is a nice improvement over its predecessor, the iPhone X. For still photos, the device boasts some great strengths for selfie shooters, including excellent HDR, bokeh shots, and detail at close range, which are among the best results we’ve observed for front cameras.

There are some areas in which Apple can continue to improve for stills, however, with noise visible in all lighting conditions; and white balance and skin rendering issues, especially in indoor images and occasionally outdoors, too, where color casts and low-contrast faces can look unnatural.

The full ratings breakdown for the ‌iPhone‌ XS Max's front-facing selfie camera can be seen below:

The two phones topping the list -- Pixel 3 and Galaxy Note 9 -- tied for first with a score of 92. DxOMark said that the Pixel 3 edges out the Note 9 in terms of its focus system, but the Note 9 achieves better results for exposure and color in selfie photos. "Images captured with the Google device show slightly stronger contrast and a cooler white balance," DxOMark's Lars Rehm mentioned. "The Samsung is a little better at exposing for faces and applies a little less contrast to faces, making for a slightly more natural look."

You can check out the full ‌iPhone‌ XS Max front camera review by DxOMark right here.

An increasing number of users have experienced backlight issues on 2016 and newer MacBook Pro models, particularly those with the Touch Bar, often resulting in a so-called "stage light effect" along the bottom of the display.

According to the repair website iFixit, which highlighted the issue today, the underlying cause is Apple's use of thin, fragile flex cables that connect the display with the display controller board on 2016 and newer MacBook Pro models, as opposed to the more durable wire cables used in previous generations.

iFixit's Taylor Dixon explains:

When it first debuted, the design seemed fine. But as always, the devil is in the details. Apple opted for thin, fragile flex cables as opposed to the beefier wire cables used in previous designs that could be routed through the hinge instead of wrapped around it, helping mitigate the stress of repeated openings and closings.

In a nutshell, the normal, repeated opening and closing of the display lid can result in the thin flex cables becoming fragile and breaking over time. And since the issue takes time to manifest, the affected ‌MacBook Pro‌ models are often outside of Apple's one-year warranty period when they start exhibiting symptoms.

Many examples of the issue have been documented on the website Flexgate, in the Apple Support Communities, and in the MacRumors discussion forums. It's unclear how many users are affected, but the number continues to increase.

The problem gets worse when affected customers take their ‌MacBook Pro‌ to Apple for repair, as iFixit claims that the flex cables are integrated into the display and cannot be replaced individually. Instead, the entire display assembly needs to be replaced, turning a cheap repair into a costly $600-plus one.

While some customers without AppleCare+ have managed to get a free or reduced-cost repair, it appears many have been required to pay in full.

Apple has not launched a public-facing repair program for this issue, and we're not aware of any internal one either. A petition urging Apple to launch such a program has amassed over 2,200 signatures. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but we'll update this article if we hear back.

Apple today announced that Apple Pay is in the process of rolling out in Target stores across the United States and will be available at all of the retailer's 1,850 locations nationwide in the coming weeks.

While it has accepted ‌Apple Pay‌ in its app for quite some time, Target was one of the biggest Apple Pay holdouts in terms of its stores.

‌Apple Pay‌ is also rolling out to more than 7,000 Taco Bell and 2,200 Jack in the Box locations in the United States in the next few months, and recently became available at more than 245 Hy-Vee grocery stores in the Midwest as well as approximately 3,000 Speedway locations across the country, according to Apple.

With the addition of these national retailers, 74 of the top 100 merchants in the United States and 65 percent of all retail locations across the country support or will soon support ‌Apple Pay‌, according to Apple. This includes last year's major additions of Costco, CVS, and 7-Eleven.

Update: REDcards cannot be added to ‌Apple Pay‌ at this time, according to Target's customer service account on Twitter. We've confirmed with Target's media relations team that this information is accurate.

Despite its recent financial stumble, Apple has topped Fortune's annual ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies for the 12th consecutive year.

Apple finished ahead of Amazon, the runner-up for a third consecutive year, while Warren Buffett's holding company Berkshire Hathaway, The Walt Disney Company, and coffee chain Starbucks rounded off the top five. Apple rivals Microsoft, Google, and Samsung ranked 6th, 7th, and 50th respectively.

Apple topped the list in every category, such as innovation, quality of management, social responsibility, use of corporate assets, financial soundness, quality of products and services, and global competitiveness.

The rankings were determined by "some 3,750 executives, analysts, directors, and experts" who selected the 10 companies they admired most:

As we have in the past, Fortune collaborated with our partner Korn Ferry on this survey of corporate reputations. […]

To select our 50 All-Stars, Korn Ferry asked 3,750 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the 10 companies they admired most. They chose from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in last year’s surveys, plus those that finished in the top 20% of their industry. Anyone could vote for any company in any industry.

Fortune also asked its respondents to weigh in on the reputations of the executives who lead these top companies, with 79 respondents calling Apple CEO Tim Cook "underrated" and 183 calling him "overrated."

Biometric sensor company Valencell has reportedly settled a three-year-old lawsuit against Apple that accused the tech giant of stealing its technology for Apple Watch.

Valencell filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Apple back in January 2016 at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

The lawsuit accused the Cupertino-based company of infringing on four of its patents, all related to heart rate sensing technology, as well as deceptive trade practices and breach of contract, following dealings Apple had with Valencell before the launch of the Apple Watch.

However, citing a Valencell source, well-connected endurance tech blog the5krunner reports that "Valencell's case against Apple has now been settled and neither is able to further comment."

Valencell originally claimed Apple solicited technical information and know-how under the false pretense of a licensing agreement for its PerformTek technology, despite having no real intention of actually licensing it.

The biometric company also accused Apple of deciding it was more financially beneficial to risk infringing on Valencell's patents than to license them, claiming that the practice was "consistent with the statement by Apple CEO Steve Jobs that Apple has 'always been shameless about stealing great ideas.'"

Valencell had requested a preliminary and permanent injunction preventing future acts of infringement, as well as damages and an ongoing royalty rate for licensing purposes should a permanent injunction not be granted.

Valencell provides the optical heart rate monitoring and other biometric sensors in many third party devices. The company filed a similar lawsuit against Fitbit in January 2016, but that case is said to be still ongoing.

(Thanks, Neil!)

Update: MacRumors has confirmed the lawsuit was settled in September 2018. A copy of the dismissal is embedded below.

Apple could drop LCD displays for its 2020 iPhones in favor of an all-OLED line-up, a new report today claims. From the Wall Street Journal (paywall):

Apple is likely to drop LCD displays altogether in its 2020 iPhone lineup in favor of organic light-emitting diode displays that allow for more flexible handset design, people familiar with the production plans have said.

This isn't the first time we've heard that Apple is considering dropping LCD models from its line-up in order to make a complete shift to OLED displays in 2020.

WSJ suggested the possibility earlier this month, but today's report gives the rumor more clout by claiming that Apple LCD panel supplier Japan Display is seeking investor help that will put it on firmer ground before the switch to OLED-only iPhones takes place.

Japan Display Inc. is in advanced talks with Taiwan's TPK Holdings Co. and Chinese state-owned Silk Road Fund about an investment that would include a stake of about 30% with the possibility of greater control later, people familiar with the matter said.

The bailout is also said to be partly in response to less-than-stellar sales of iPhone XR, which uses the liquid-crystal displays that Japan Display specializes in. More than half of Japan Display's revenue in the year ended March 2018 came from Apple, so the supplier is acutely sensitive to sales that fall short of the tech giant's expectations.

Multiple reports claim Apple has recently asked its partners to cut down on all ‌iPhone‌ production. Apple has also dropped the price of ‌iPhone‌ XR in China to try and spur additional sales.

The price drops and the production cut follow a recent Q1 2019 guidance downgrade, with Apple expecting revenue of $84 billion during the quarter. That's a year-over-year decline and a drop from the $89 to $93 billion revenue guidance Apple provided in November.

A report in May 2018 claimed Apple's transition to a full OLED ‌iPhone‌ line-up would be complete in 2019, but a group of analysts quickly responded to the report and argued that the 2019 timeframe was likely inaccurate.

Apple has been working to bolster its OLED display supply chain for diversification purposes and to cut down its reliance on Samsung, the company that has supplied displays for the ‌iPhone‌ X, ‌iPhone‌ XS, and ‌iPhone‌ XS Max.

Apple has reportedly pushed LG Display to build out its OLED display production facilities, and has even purchased equipment to build an OLED panel research and development site in Taiwan.

Rumors point to a similar ‌iPhone‌ lineup in 2019 as last year, perhaps with a continuation of both the ‌iPhone‌ XS and XR devices, with rumors suggesting we'll see 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED iPhones along with a 6.1-inch LCD ‌iPhone‌.

Apple's long-awaited wireless charging mat AirPower has entered production and will be released later this year, according to DigiTimes:

Glass passivated package (GPP) bridge rectifier orders for Apple's AirPower continue to pull in, according to sources at related suppliers, who expect shipments for the wireless charger to boost further when it becomes available later in 2019.

Apple's AirPower is finally in production, said the sources. The Apple-designed wireless charging device was unveiled in September 2017, with the company originally targeting 2018 for launch.

The supply chain-focused website published a similar article last year claiming the ‌AirPower‌ would be released by the end of March 2018, a release date echoed by at least two other sources at the time. That obviously did not happen, but perhaps the issues that led to the delay are now resolved.

This isn't the first report we've seen that suggests the ‌AirPower‌ is still coming after all.

Earlier this month, Hong Kong website ChargerLAB cited sources within Apple's supply chain who claimed that manufacturers Luxshare Precision and Pegatron have both started production of the AirPower by today.

A few weeks prior, developer Steve Troughton-Smith said he's heard Apple may have overcome technical challenges with the ‌AirPower‌ and could move forward with a release. Those technical challenges included overheating and interference issues, according to Sonny Dickson, an occasional source of Apple leaks.

And back in October, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that Apple may launch the ‌AirPower‌ by early in the first quarter of 2019, according to a research note obtained by MacRumors. The first quarter spans January through March.

‌AirPower‌ is an oval-shaped mat that would be able to wirelessly charge multiple Apple devices at once, including the iPhone 8 and newer, Apple Watch Series 3 and newer, and AirPods when they are placed in an optional wireless charging case that is expected to launch alongside the ‌AirPower‌.

Apple first previewed the ‌AirPower‌ at Steve Jobs Theater in September 2017, shortly after introducing the ‌iPhone‌ X, and indicated that it would be released at some point in 2018 in a press release. Apple failed to deliver on that promise, however, and hasn't commented on the ‌AirPower‌ for many months.

Apple also removed all but a few mentions of the AirPower from its website in September 2018. The mat is, however, still referenced in the latest iPhone user guides and in some recent Apple job listings. We also spotted a since-removed ‌AirPower‌ reference on the iPhone XS Smart Battery Case page in Malaysia.

All in all, the chances of the ‌AirPower‌ launching soon are looking better and better.

Update: The seemingly-never-ending ‌AirPower‌ saga continues. DigiTimes has quietly revised its article, removing any mention that the ‌AirPower‌ has entered production, but the report still mentions availability later in 2019.

Last month, software engineer Naveed Golafshani created an unofficial Apple Music web player that allowed users to sign into their Apple Music accounts and listen to music on a laptop or desktop computer, without needing to open iTunes.

This is an addition to ‌Apple Music‌ that many subscribers have been requesting for years, and now another unofficial ‌Apple Music‌ web player has emerged online. Created by software engineer Brychan Bennett-Odlum and his team, Raphaël Vigée, James Jarvis, and Filip Grebowski, the new web player is called "Musish" [GitHub Link].

Musish has an all-white design that closely mirrors the look and feel of ‌Apple Music‌ on iOS and macOS. Just like the previous player, Musish requires you to sign in to your Apple ID to be able to play music on the web, using Apple's official public APIs to handle authentication. This is handled in a separate window under the Apple.com domain, and Musish says at no point does it ever request, log, or gain access to user information.

Bennett-Odlum told us that he and his team are heavy ‌Apple Music‌ users, and the origins of Musish began at a hackathon event in San Francisco just last month.

We are all heavy users of Apple Music, but found listening at work hard as it drained our phones’ battery lives and we didn’t want to set up our Apple IDs on our work laptops.

We started Musish at a hackathon in San Francisco in early December after noticing the APIs Apple provide for the service and realising that it’d be a pretty nifty solution to the problem!

After logging in, Musish presents you the expected ‌Apple Music‌ tabs: For You, Browse, Radio, and My Library, although some are pared down compared to the full experience. For You has recently played songs, albums in heavy rotation, personalized mixes, the day's playlists and albums, and new releases. ‌Apple Music‌'s social features like friend profiles and "Friends Are Listening To" aren't available.

Browse has top songs, daily top 100 playlists, top playlists, top albums, and a genres tab. Just like Golafshani's web player, Musish is missing Radio features at this time, but the site's developers promise that ‌Apple Music‌ Radio support is coming soon. If you're searching for a specific artist, playlist, or album, you can use the search bar at the top right of Musish, which remains open on every tab.

To play music, you simply click on the album/playlist you want to hear, and then click Play, Shuffle, or select a specific song. The Musish web player then places playback controls at the bottom left of the screen, where you can adjust the volume, turn on repeat, turn on shuffle, check out lyrics, and reorganize up next.

In Musish, you can configure the order of up next to your liking by click and dragging songs, and you can find another song, hover over it, click the ellipsis button, and click "play next" to place it next in your queue, just like the regular ‌Apple Music‌ apps.

According to Bennett-Odlum, the team still has a ways to go until Musish reaches its full potential, including work on mobile compatibility, a dark mode, and a more populated Browse section. The team welcomes feedback and feature suggestions on the GitHub page for Musish, which is open source so anyone can contribute to the project.

It's been seven months since Apple was rumored to be working on its own official web player for Apple Music, but as of now nothing has come out of the company in this regard. You can check out Musish for yourself by following this link.

Apple has shared a new feature on its Newsroom that highlights its workforce's charitable and volunteer efforts.

Apple says that its internal Giving program has raised more than $365 million for non-profit organizations around the world since its inception eight years ago. Under the program, Apple matches every dollar that its employees donate up to $10,000 each, with combined donations totaling more than $125 million in 2018.

The feature highlights thousands of locations where Apple employees volunteer their time, including the Terence MacSwiney School in Cork, Ireland, where more than a dozen employees from Apple's nearby campus volunteer at the school each week to teach coding, drawing, photography, music, and video.

Apple employees also spent nearly 3,000 hours sorting and distributing food at Second Harvest last year, according to Apple, making the food bank one of the largest recipients of Apple volunteer hours in the United States.

Last, the feature highlights Apple employee Liz Byrne, who sits on the board of the transgender support non-profit Point of Pride.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, a federal holiday commemorating the American civil rights movement leader.

Apple today has honored the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a full-page tribute on its website. A photo of Dr. King is accompanied by an iconic quote of his: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Over the weekend, Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted a photo of himself and others volunteering at A.J. Dorsa Elementary School in San Jose, California, reflective of Dr. King's call for people to serve others.

Cook has since commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a follow-up tweet.

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.