Apple's upcoming futuristic drama series "See" gained a new cast member today, with actress Alfre Woodard signing on to play Paris, an advisor and a priestess, reports Variety.
Woodard has starred in movies that include "12 Years a Slave," "Annabelle," and "Captain America: Civil War," and she has had roles in several TV shows, such as "Luke Cage," "Desperate Housewives," and "State of Affairs."
Alfre Woodard in "Luke Cage"
Casting for "See" began earlier this month with Jason Momoa set to play the lead role of Baba Voss, a fearless warrior, leader, and guardian. Momoa is well-known for his role as Khal Drogo in "Game of Thrones," as well as roles in "Aquaman," "Stargate Atlantis," and "Conan the Barbarian."
"See" has been described as an epic world-building drama that's set in the future, with little additional information available on the series at this time.
Along with "See," Apple has more than a dozen other original TV shows in the works, and rumors have suggested the first of those TV shows could debut in March 2019.
We don't yet know how Apple plans to distribute the television shows, but the Cupertino company may be considering launching a new streaming video service to be bundled with an Apple Music subscription and a digital magazine and news subscription.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will speak at the second annual LOVELOUD festival at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City this Saturday. He will then introduce the band Imagine Dragons for a live performance on stage.
LOVELOUD was founded in 2017 by Dan Reynolds, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, to "help ignite the relevant and vital conversation of what it means to unconditionally love, understand, accept, and support LGBTQ+ youth in an effort to keep families together," according to the foundation's website.
"Tim Cook joining us in Utah for LOVELOUD sends a clear message to LGBTQ youth that they have unlimited potential to achieve their dreams," said Reynolds. "Tim is an unwavering advocate for human rights and equality, and we're thrilled he'll be joining our powerful line-up of speakers and performers."
Other guest speakers will include actor Alfonso Ribeiro, dancer Julianne Hough, Ellen Show star Kalen Allen, Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara, Grammy-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter, musician WRABEL, singer Mary Lambert, comic Dana Goldberg, singer-songwriters VINCINT & Parson James, and more.
Other performers will include Zedd, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, Grace Vanderwaal, and Neon Trees' Tyler Glenn. Nationally touring stand-up comedian Cameron Esposito will also perform and emcee the day's festivities.
LOVELOUD tickets are available for purchase online, while AT&T will be live streaming the entire event on Twitter. The non-profit LOVELOUD Foundation says proceeds from this year's event will be donated to LGBTQ+ organizations, including Encircle, the Tegan and Sara Foundation, and the Trevor Project.
The festival is scheduled for Saturday, July 28, with doors open at 2 p.m. local time, and music beginning at 3:30 p.m. local time.
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 today shared a fun new iPhone X ad on its YouTube channel, this time touting the capabilities of the A11 Bionic chip built into the device.
In the video, a student walks down the street playing popular iOS game Vainglory on his iPhone when the game characters start coming to life and attacking him, causing him to fight them off in the real world.
Apple has shared multiple clever iPhone X ads focusing on features like Face ID, Animoji, Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting, and more, but this is the first video that has specifically highlighted the A11 Bionic chip, which is the fastest chip ever in one of Apple's mobile devices.
The A11 is a 10-nanometer six-core 2.4GHz chip with two performance cores and four high-efficiency cores, and it's powerful enough for console-quality games and augmented reality applications. It includes a three-core Apple-designed GPU too, along with an embedded M11 Motion coprocessor.
In benchmarks, the A11 significantly outperforms the A10 included in previous models for better gaming and better performance all around. It's called the "Bionic" because two of the cores in the chip are dedicated to a neural engine that's able to process more than 600 billion operations per second, powering Face ID and other machine learning tasks.
Apple's latest iPhone X ad will be shown on TV and on social networks starting soon. According to Vainglory's developers, there's an exclusive skin tied to the ad that can be downloaded in game.
Facebook today announced the global launch of "Watch Party," a desktop and mobile feature revealed in May that allows Facebook Groups to join in and watch videos on the platform together in real time. The videos themselves can be previously recorded or live videos, and members in the Watch Party can comment and send reactions as the video plays.
To start a Watch Party, one member (the "host") navigates to a Group page, taps the new Watch Party icon, writes a message, and finds videos to add to the playlist. From there, hosts can invite friends in the Group who can join instantly and watch the videos together. Only hosts can scrub the video's playback and choose new videos to watch. Facebook says it is looking into starting Watch Parties outside of Groups as well.
Other features include a "co-host" ability, so that hosts can designate other members to control the Watch Party, and a crowdsource ability that lets all Watch Party members suggest videos for the host to play next. Facebook says Watch Parties are great for both small groups of friends and family members, as well as large organizations hosting Q&A sessions and more.
Today, we’re launching Watch Party to all Facebook Groups around the globe. Watch Party is a new way for people to watch videos on Facebook together in real time. Once a Watch Party is started, participants can watch videos, live or recorded, and interact with one another around them in the same moment. We’ve been focused on building new ways to bring people together around video, create connections, and ignite conversations; Watch Party is the next step in bringing this vision to life.
Multiple brands are joining in on Facebook's "Weekend of Watch Parties" this Friday, July 27 through Sunday, July 29, including Buzzfeed's Tasty Group, Jamie Oliver's 5-Day Veggie Challenge Group, and more.
Services that allow you to sync up videos in real time have grown in popularity, with major companies like Google and Skype trying out similar features in the past. Google's own "Uptime" app launched in a test phase in March 2017, expanded to the public in June 2017, but now appears to have left the iOS App Store.
These platforms tend to be more popular on desktops and laptops, however, with websites like Rabbit and Gaze offering the ability to stream YouTube, Netflix, and more together with friends, sometimes offering a mobile app as well. Facebook's Watch Party solution will be available across mobile and desktop, which could be an advantage for some users, as long as the videos they want to watch together can be found on Facebook's platform.
Apple Maps vehicles equipped with LiDAR sensors have begun collecting street-level data in Montana and North Carolina for the first time this week, raising the total number of U.S. states the fleet has at least partially covered to 45.
The vehicles have been collecting mapping data in the United States since at least 2015. Apple periodically updates a list of locations where the vehicles will be driving on its website. To our best knowledge, the only states yet to be surveyed are Alaska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
The vehicles have also surveyed parts of Croatia, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Last month, Apple confirmed that mapping data and imagery collected by the vehicles will be used to rebuild Apple Maps "from the ground up," aided by high-resolution satellite imagery and "probe data" collected from anonymized, random segments of navigation sessions by opted-in iPhone users.
The gist of it is that Apple will be switching to its own base map, reducing but not fully eliminating its reliance on third-party providers like TomTom, which will yield significant improvements to traffic, real-time road conditions, road systems, new construction, changes in pedestrian walkways, and more.
The overall look and feel of Apple Maps is mostly the same, but zooming and panning reveals more details like grass, trees, and parking lots. Apple also says search results should be more relevant, hopefully making navigation more reliable.
Apple says the underlying efforts to revamp Maps have been underway for the past four years, but the improvements are currently limited to Northern California on devices running the iOS 12 beta. Apple says the new Maps will roll out section by section across the rest of the United States over the next year.
Apple hasn't said if and when the new Maps will be available outside of the United States, but given the vehicles have surveyed 10 other countries, it is likely on the roadmap. We've reached out to them to see if they are willing to confirm.
Apple is letting anyone in the United States with an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV watch the pilot episode of Hulu's new series Castle Rock for free through its TV app. The episode is available now for users in the U.S., and it will live in Apple's TV app for two weeks (via Engadget).
This coincides with Castle Rock's premiere on Hulu today, beginning with the first three episodes available for Hulu subscribers to watch in full. Over the next few weeks, one episode will launch each Wednesday leading into the finale with the tenth episode capping the first season.
As Engadget points out, Apple's decision to promote the show makes sense as it's one of the most anticipated new series of the summer and should get more people to jump into the company's TV app ahead of the launch of its own exclusive shows next year. Apple says this is the first time it has debuted a new series before any paywalls in the TV app, and it already offers free episodes of its own shows like Carpool Karaoke in the app.
For the show itself, Castle Rock focuses on the life of a criminal law attorney who returns to his hometown of Castle Rock, Maine when a new case about a mysterious inmate emerges from the nearby Shawshank State Penitentiary. The show uses numerous stories and locations created by author Stephen King as the backdrop for new characters and a new story in the Maine town.
The episode has already launched, so those interested can watch the pilot of Castle Rock for free in Apple's TV app right now.
The personal training tool offers more than 180 free workouts, ranging from strength and endurance to mobility and yoga, with expertise from Nike trainers and sponsored athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo and Serena Williams.
Workouts can be started in the iPhone app, and then the Apple Watch app allows users to easily check the amount of time or reps remaining for a drill. Apple Watch wearers will also receive haptic feedback during workouts.
The release notes provide more details:
Easily control your workout – advance to the next drill, pause, skip drills, and more, directly from your wrist
Monitor your heart rate, calories and Exercise ring progress
Haptic guidance to stay on track with less distractions
Workout recommendations to help you hit your Exercise goal
Nike Training Club, free on the App Store, requires iOS 11 or later on iPhone and watchOS 4 or later on Apple Watch.
Apple might delay the launch of its new, low-cost 6.1-inch iPhone by one month and launch the device in October, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty (via Barron's). Huberty cites suspected issues with "LED backlight leakage" leading to the "possible" one month delay in mass production on the 6.1-inch iPhone.
The problem was worse in the original production forecast, according to the new report, as there was originally a rumored six week delay for the 6.1-inch device. Now, Huberty says the cheaper smartphone will launch in October, while the second generation 5.8-inch iPhone X and 6.5-inch "iPhone X Plus" will "see no delay" and debut in September. All three devices are expected to be revealed during an event in September.
We currently see no delay in the ramp of Apple's upcoming flagship 5.8" or 6.5" OLED iPhones. However suspected issues with LED backlight leakage have caused a 1 month delay in mass production of the 6.1" LCD iPhone, although this is down from a 6-week delay baked into the original production forecast, according to suppliers.
The six week delay for the LCD model was previously mentioned in a report earlier this year that predicted the LCD model wouldn't launch until November 2018, but otherwise the belief has been that Apple will release all three devices in September 2018.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has backed this idea, and in a June report outlined what he believes will be Apple's pricing plan for the smartphones: the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will be priced at $600 to $700, the 5.8-inch OLED second-generation iPhone X will be $800 to $900, and the 6.5-inch OLED device will be $900 to $1,000.
If the 6.1-inch model doesn't make a September debut, Apple will likely lose a few sales to customers who are interested in a new iPhone model but still don't want to pay upwards of $800 in full for the OLED devices. Because of this, Huberty sees Apple delivering a "slightly weaker-than-consensus September quarter."
This is a similar sentiment that the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus gained when Apple split up their launches last year, although somewhat reversed given that the flagship iPhone X was the delayed device in 2017.
Five months after performing a test that put the smart speakers of multiple companies in the spotlight to determine how well they performed in various categories, Loup Ventures is back today with an IQ test focused entirely on digital AI assistants. To get the necessary results, the researchers asked Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana 800 questions each on a smartphone, and compared their findings to a previous AI test held in April 2017.
For Siri in the new test, Apple's AI helper understood 99 percent of the queries and answered 78.5 percent of them correctly. That's an improvement on a similar AI-focused test from April 2017 (66.1 percent of 800 questions answered correctly). While Loup Ventures looked at similar methodologies when testing smart speakers in February, the researchers explain that it's "not worthwhile to compare" the results across these tests since "the use cases differ greatly between digital assistants and smart speakers."
This is particularly true for Siri on HomePod, which performs well in certain areas but is largely limited to the amount of actions it can perform on the speaker itself. This led Apple's HomePod to become relegated to the "bottom of the totem pole" in an AI assistant performance test during Loup Venture's smart speaker research in February, with Siri answering 52.3 percent of 782 total questions correctly, across the same five categories as the new test.
Loup Ventures grades each digital assistant on two metrics: "Did it understand what was being asked?" and "Did it deliver a correct response?" Questions came from five categories, including Local (example: "Where is the nearest coffee shop?"), Commerce ("Can you order me more paper towels?"), Navigations ("How do I get to uptown on the bus?"), Information ("Who do the Twins play tonight?"), and Command ("Remind me to call Steve at 2pm today").
Charts via Loup Ventures
Questions were asked of Siri on an iPhone running iOS 11.4, Google Assistant on a Pixel XL, Alexa on the iOS app, and Cortana on the iOS app. Siri's best category was Command (90 percent of questions answered correctly), outperforming all rivals when asked to control aspects of the iPhone, smart home products, Apple Music, and more. Following Command, Siri performed well in Local (87 percent), Navigation (83 percent), and began dipping in Information (70 percent) and Commerce (60 percent).
Google Assistant has the edge in every category except Command. Siri’s lead over the Assistant in this category is odd, given they are both baked into the OS of the phone rather than living on a 3rd party app (as Cortana and Alexa do). We found Siri to be slightly more helpful and versatile (responding to more flexible language) in controlling your phone, smart home, music, etc. Our question set also includes a fair amount of music-related queries (the most common action for smart speakers). Apple, true to its roots, has ensured that Siri is capable with music on both mobile devices and smart speakers.
Google Assistant was the top digital assistant in all categories except Command, with Loup Ventures particularly liking Google's "featured snippets" feature that reads off search results of voice queries and is often "exactly what you're looking for." Both Alexa and Cortana were lesser performers in the test due to the iOS app for each limiting what the assistants can do on an iPhone, unlike Siri's ability to perform tasks all over iOS and not just in one app.
In total, Google Assistant answered 85.5 percent of the 800 questions asked correctly and understood all of them, compared to Siri's 78.5 percent answered correctly and 11 misunderstood. Alexa correctly answered 61.4 percent and misunderstood 13, while Cortana was the "laggard" and correctly answered 52.4 percent and misunderstood 19.
Over the 15 month period since April 2017, Siri improved by 13 percentage points, with Loup Ventures pointing out that it was "impressed with the speed at which the technology is advancing" for most of the assistants. The researchers went on to explain that many of the issues they had last year were erased by "improvements to natural language processing and inter-device connectivity."
Loup Ventures also sees more improvements coming down the line, particularly for Siri. This fall, the digital assistant will gain new abilities with Apple's upcoming "Siri Shortcuts" feature in iOS 12, which will let users create automations between apps that can be easily triggered through voice commands. The researches say they are "eager to test that feature" when it launches within iOS 12, likely coming in September.
Apple supplier LG Display has reported a second quarterly loss and cut its investment plans by $2.7 billion up to 2020, on mounting concerns for the smartphone market (via Reuters).
LG shares fell 7 percent after it posted faster-than-expected declines in the price of display panels and an unpredictable outlook. The announcement follows news that another Apple supplier, Taiwan-based TSMC, also scaled back its revenue and investment estimates over uncertainty in the mobile market linked to risks of oversupply and unbalanced competition.
Crucially for Apple, LG said the $2.7 billion investment cut would not impact the speed of the Korean firm's transition from LCD to OLED production, although existing LCD operations could be affected.
The investment cut would not impact plans to "speed up the shift" from LG’s mainstay liquid crystal display (LCD) business toward next-generation organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels, the company said.
Plans to invest about 20 trillion won in OLED panels by 2020 remained unchanged, meaning the cuts would apply mainly to LCD operations.
LG's traditional LCD business, which analysts estimate makes up more than 90 percent of its sales, is reportedly struggling with falling prices as fast-growing Chinese panel makers ramp up their capacity.
Against that backdrop, Apple is investing $2.67 billion in LG's OLED panel business, with the Korean firm said to be building a production line dedicated to iPhone orders only, as part of its agreement with Apple.
Separately, LG is believed to have signed a deal with Apple to supply both LCD and OLED panels for the company's 2018 range of iPhones.
Apple is expected to launch two OLED iPhones (5.8 and 6.5 inches) and one 6.1-inch LCD iPhone later this year, with the LCD device to be positioned as a low-cost option alongside the two more expensive OLED devices.
The contract should see LG ship around 20 million LCD smartphone panels and around 3-4 million OLED panels to Apple in 2018. LG also hopes to secure the majority of 6.5-inch panel orders from Apple in 2019, which will see the firm ramp up its OLED shipments to 10 million units in the year.
LG's OLED panel business has yet to make a profit, but the company said it would be positive for earnings in the third quarter.
Microsoft today launched a much-requested dark mode for its Outlook.com web mail service. The company teased the new mode earlier this month, suggesting it would be reminiscent of last year's Halloween theme for Outlook.
The new dark mode actually adopts shades of grey to generate panel contrast, providing a more polished look as a result. You can enable it from the Quick settings menu (the cog wheel icon in the upper right). Currently it only works with the default blue theme.
The dark mode for Outlook.com is one of the most highly requested features for Microsoft's web mail service, according to listings on the Outlook.com feedback site, although there's still no word on whether a similar mode is coming to the mobile Outlook app.
Last month, Microsoft launched a rebranded version of its Microsoft News app for iOS with a dark mode. Several other iOS apps have similar modes, including Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and Twitch, while Apple's upcoming macOS Mojave also includes dark mode support.
Apple today released an important bug fix for 2018 MacBook Pros, which was designed to address an issue that caused the machines to excessively throttle when doing system intensive tasks.
The bug fix came in the form of a supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, which many new MacBook Pro owners have now installed on their machines. Multiple MacBook Pro owners and media sites have been testing the new patch, and the results appear to be largely positive -- the throttling issue has been resolved for the most part and the machines are performing better.
CNET for example, did some before and after testing with a video encoding test. Prior to the patch, the Core i9 machine the site tested saw frequent fluctuations in internal temperature and CPU clock speed, while after updating, the CPU throttling in the Core i9 MacBook Pro ceased, with the clock frequency of the cPU and internal system temperature remaining stable.
Original throttling tests showing frequent fluctuations on left, after patch test on right. Image via CNET
Macworld shared some preliminary test results from its 4K Adobe Premiere test and had similar results, with even clock speed at or above base rather than spiky throttling. Macworldestimates that prior to the patch, the 2018 Core i9 15-inch MacBook Pro was 11 percent faster than the last year's comparable 2.9GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro. After the patch, "it's more like 20 percent faster."
Preliminary results from our 4K Premiere test: 2017 2.9GHz Core i7: 90 min 2018 Core i9 before patch: 80 min 2018 Core i9 after patch: 72 min Also, very even clocks at or above base instead of spiky throttling. pic.twitter.com/4CtgJ72pRt
— Macworld (@macworld) July 24, 2018
Dave Lee, who highlighted the throttling problem in the first place, tweeted some post-patch test results and said the performance was much better.
Geekbench Labs founder John Poole tested the 2018 Core i9 MacBook Pro after the patch and found that it was faster with a more stable processor frequency. It was slightly slower than the 2018 Core i7 MacBook Pro. Poole says that while long running heavily multi-threaded tasks are going to see similar performance on the Core i9 and Core i7 machines, single and lightly-threaded tasks should be faster on the i9.
After applying the latest update from Apple, I re-ran the Geekbench build test on the i9. It’s slightly faster, but processor frequency stays stable when building (which is comforting).
Still technically slower than the i7, but close enough that, practically, it doesn’t matter. pic.twitter.com/hOogCt6ZB0
— John Poole (@jfpoole) July 24, 2018
MacRumors reader Aea shared pre-patch and post-patch Cinebench benchmarks done with the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip showing the jump in score following the update.
Multiple Reddit users with 2018 MacBook Pro models have been sharing their benchmarking and testing results after installing the supplemental update and have seen significant improvements. This image from Reddit user XNY, for example, depicts a before and after from a 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro with a Core i5 chip.
Another Reddit user (apple_) confirmed that following the update, his Core i9 machine is performing consistently better.
I did all the original tests and I can confirm, for myself, that I am continuously getting the base clock speed or above in the torture test with Prime 95. Even so much as getting between 2.9 - 3.9 when I was 4 tests in. Also ran cinebench and OpenGL got 106 fps and the cpu test I got above 1000 for every test ran. Thank you Apple for this quick fix and thank you for everyone bringing these issues to light.
The throttling issue was first discovered just a few days after the MacBook Pro models were released, when YouTuber Dave Lee tested the top-of-the-line 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.9GHz Core i9 chip using Adobe Premiere Pro and found that it was underperforming compared to a 2017 MacBook Pro due to what Lee said was an "unacceptable" level of throttling.
Apple reached out to Lee to and worked with him to replicate his workflow, getting to the source of the bug. Apple discovered that there was a missing digital key in the MacBook Pro firmware that impacted the thermal management system, driving down clock speeds under heavy thermal loads. This was a problem that appears to have affected all 2018 MacBook Pro models.
The problem appears to have been successfully addressed in today's macOS High Sierra supplemental update, and Apple has issued an apology to customers who experienced less than optimal performance on their new 2018 machines.
Customers who have a 2018 MacBook Pro and have not installed the update should do so immediately to see the performance improvements for themselves.
Update: Dave Lee, who first found the throttling issue, also uploaded a new video and says the supplemental macOS High Sierra update has successfully fixed the throttling issues that he saw prior to the patch.
Using the same Adobe Premiere render time test, Lee found that the Core i9 MacBook Pro was significantly faster than the 2017 Core i7 model that had beaten it prior to the patch.
Lee went even further and tested six laptops equipped with an i9 from various manufacturers. Unsurprisingly, thicker laptops with better cooling did outperform thinner laptops, including the MacBook Pro. The Alienware 17 R4, Acer Helios 500, and Asus G703 (all very thick) saw higher average clock loads.
The Dell XPS 15 and the Zenbook Pro were right on par with the 2018 MacBook Pro. None of the laptops tested beat the MacBook Pro when it came to noise level though, with the MacBook Pro winning out as the quietest of the bunch. Lee says that overall, the Core i9 MacBook Pro is performing the way that a 6-core MacBook Pro should, but he wishes Apple had engineered a better thermal solution for the i9.
In the United States, iOS saw significant growth in the three months ending June 2018, with market share up 5.9 percentage points to 38.7 percent as tracked in the newest data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Helping to boost iOS performance were sales for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, together accounting for nearly one in five smartphones sold in the time period.
Apple's other flagship smartphone from 2017, the iPhone X, was the fourth best-selling device during the April–June 2018 period in the United States. As iOS grows in the United States, Samsung and LG smartphones have "felt the heat" recently, with Android's operating system dropping 4.5 percentage points in the U.S. market during this time, down to 61 percent.
Kantar Worldpanel's Dominic Sunnebo explains that iPhones made up eight out of the ten best-selling smartphones in the three months ending in June, thanks in part to Apple's "unprecedented depth" across the price spectrum of its smartphones. Currently, customers interested in iPhone can start as low as $349 for the iPhone SE, or opt for the high-end 256GB iPhone X at $1,149.00.
“Apple continues to wield huge power in the US market, with iPhone models making up eight out of the ten best-selling models in the past three months. Apple currently enjoys unprecedented depth across the smartphone price spectrum, ranging from the iPhone SE to the $1,000 iPhone X; resulting in continued growth and hitting Samsung and LG hard. While Samsung is well represented at the premium end of the market with its S9 and Note series, and its budget orientated J series helps compete against LG, lack of depth in the mid-high tier is allowing Apple to find a new avenue for growth.”
iPhone X continued to be the top-selling device in China, making up 5.3 percent of all handsets sold during the period and becoming the best-selling smartphone in the country every month since it was released in November 2017. iOS still dropped 2.1 percentage points during this time, however, down to 19.4 percent of the smartphone OS sales share in China, while Android grew 2 percentage points to 80.4 percent.
Elsewhere, iOS sales share grew in Germany (2.8 percentage points), France (4.2), Spain (3.8), Australia (0.5), and Europe (1.3). As iOS grew in these territories, Android (and other operating systems) saw their shares dip. Android's 4.5 percentage point drop in the U.S. was its greatest loss, which is notable as one of the biggest drops for the Android OS in Kantar's U.S. tracking over the last year.
Android did manage to gain share against iOS in a few other countries beyond China, including Italy, Japan, and the UK.
For Apple, the company didn't launch an iPhone in the spring like it has done in previous years such as with the iPhone SE in 2016 and the revamped storage capacities in 2017, so it is interesting that Apple still managed to boost smartphone OS share without a brand-new product.
As we enter the second half of 2018, Apple is expected to debut three new iPhones in September -- a second-generation iPhone X, 6.5-inch "iPhone X Plus," and 6.1-inch low-cost iPhone -- which will likely see iOS boosted even more into the holiday season, although the upcoming months typically see iOS's share dwindle as people await fall updates.
A newly discovered Bluetooth vulnerability that was published this week by Intel has the potential to allow a nearby hacker to gain unauthorized access to a device, intercepting traffic and sending forged pairing messages between two vulnerable Bluetooth devices.
The vulnerability affects Bluetooth implementations and operating system drivers of Apple, Broadcom, Intel, and Qualcomm.
From Intel's explanation:
A vulnerability in Bluetooth(R) pairing potentially allows an attacker with physical proximity (within 30 meters) to gain unauthorized access via an adjacent network, intercept traffic and send forged pairing messages between two vulnerable Bluetooth(R) devices. This may result in information disclosure, elevation of privilege and/or denial of service.
As BleepingComputer explains, Bluetooth-capable devices are not sufficiently validating encryption parameters in "secure" Bluetooth connections, leading to a weak pairing that can be exploited by an attacker to obtain data sent between two devices.
According to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) it's not likely many users were impacted by the vulnerability.
For an attack to be successful, an attacking device would need to be within wireless range of two vulnerable Bluetooth devices that were going through a pairing procedure. The attacking device would need to intercept the public key exchange by blocking each transmission, sending an acknowledgment to the sending device, and then injecting the malicious packet to the receiving device within a narrow time window. If only one device had the vulnerability, the attack would not be successful.
Both Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE are affected. Apple has already introduced a fix for the bug on its devices (in macOS High Sierra 10.13.5/10.13.6, iOS 11.4, tvOS 11.4, and watchOS 4.3.1), so iOS and Mac users do not need to worry. Intel, Broadcom, and Qualcomm have also introduced fixes, while Microsoft says its devices are not affected.
Kano today announced the launch of the new Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit, which was developed in partnership with Warner Bros.
Using the coding kit, Harry Potter fans will be able to follow step-by-step instructions to build a wand, learning about sensors, data, and coding along the way. The wand includes a gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer, which lets it track location, speed, and the position of your hand.
The sensors allow the wand to recognize the motions of signature spells in the Harry Potter world, and the completed wand can be used to complete Harry Potter-related challenges in the accompanying Kano app.
There are scenarios and challenges to complete at Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and The Forbidden Forest, with each challenge teaching the wand user the fundamentals of coding and real-world programming.
According to Kano, the wand's movements will be translated into rich effects in the app, making serpents slither, fires flow, toads transfigure, feathers float, goblets duplicate, Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans enlarge, and more.
A block-based interface and JavaScript inspector walk users through the different coding lessons included in each challenge, and more advanced users can code the light and rumble pack included in the wand. A poster is included to illustrate classic Wizarding World spell motions like Incendio, Stupefy, and Wingardium Leviosa, all of which are featured in some of the coding challenges.
Kano says the Harry Potter Coding Kit is a great way for beginners to understand coding concepts and principles, and for more advanced users who already know how to code, the wand is a useful tool for creating art and music controlled with specific movements.
The Harry Potter Coding Kit has been designed with tablets in mind, and it is meant to be used with the iPad or an Android tablet, along with PCs and Macs.
You can pre-order the Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit from Kano.me for $99.99, with pre-order customers receiving a free motion sensor kit.
Apple reseller B&H Photo today kicked off a new series of promos that let customers get free gift card credit at B&H Photo when they purchase one of Apple's new 2018 MacBook Pros. With the promotion, purchases of a 13-inch MacBook Pro come with a B&H Photo $50 e-gift card and purchases of a 15-inch MacBook Pro come with a $100 e-gift card.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
While this isn't a straight markdown on the prices of the new MacBook Pros, it is a good chance to put money towards other Apple devices and accessories (and many other product categories) if you shop on B&H Photo's website. There are 17 total MacBook Pros available under the new sale, including a few custom configurations, although some are designated as "preorders" and will ship when stock is available.
There aren't many other deals on the new MacBook Pros, given how new they are, but students do have a few options available online. At Apple, students and parents of students can get a free or discounted pair of BeatsX, Solo3 Wireless, or Powerbeats3 Wireless headphones with the purchase of any new MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro.
Best Buy provides a more direct discount, offering students and parents of students the chance to save $150 on the purchase of the latest MacBook Pros, making the entry-level 13-inch model $1,649.99.
Best Buy also has one of the best prices available online for the latest 2018 iPads, offering the 32GB Wi-Fi model for $299.99, down from $329.99 and the 128GB Wi-Fi model for $399.99, down from $429.99.
Below is a quick list of other discounts going on this week:
Apple this morning released a new supplemental update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6, which is designed to address a bug that caused the new eighth-generation quad-core and 6-core Intel processors in the 2018 MacBook Pro models to throttle inappropriately.
The new macOS High Sierra update can be downloaded through the Software Update function in the Mac App Store on all 2018 MacBook Pro models. Today's supplemental update (build number 17G2208) is limited to those machines and is not available for other Macs. A direct link to download the update is also available.
According to Apple, the throttling seen in the higher-end 2018 MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip and other 2018 MacBook Pro models is unintentional.
The throttling issue first came to light on July 17, a few days after the first new 2018 MacBook Pros began shipping out to customers. YouTuber Dave Lee tested the top-of-the-line 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.9GHz Core i9 chip using Adobe's Premiere Pro and found that it was underperforming compared to a 2017 MacBook Pro with a Core i7 chip.
Multiple other tests followed from customers and media sites that obtained one of the Core i9 machines, and many came to the same conclusion, that there was an unusual amount of throttling that was impacting the machine's performance. It was not entirely clear if other 2018 MacBook Pro models were throttling unintentionally, but Apple's patch today suggests that was the case.
While there were many theories as to what was causing the throttling, Apple has discovered that there was a missing digital key in the firmware that impacted the thermal management system, driving down clock speeds under heavy thermal loads. This is what has been addressed in today's update.
Apple has apologized to customers who have experienced less than optimal performance on their new 2018 machines.
Following today's update, customers who own a 2018 MacBook Pro should see an appropriate level of throttling that is common to all devices under heavy load and does not impact performance to the point where the machine is underperforming compared to earlier, less powerful models.
Apple says that customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70 percent faster and the new 13-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 2X faster than 2017 models, as outlined in the performance results on the company's website.
MacRumors received the following statement from an Apple spokesperson:
Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we've identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro.
A bug fix is included in today's macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems.
Customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70% faster, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to be up to 2X faster, as shown in the performance results on our website.
The controversy began a week ago, when YouTube tech guru Dave Lee shared a video demonstrating that the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, maxed out with a six-core Intel Core i9 processor, was unable to maintain its base 2.9GHz clock speed while rendering a five-and-a-half minute 5K video in Adobe Premiere Pro.
In fact, the previous-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Core i7 processor rendered the video in around 10 percent less time, a fact that wasn't well received by customers, some of which threatened to cancel their orders.
Apple says the bug affected performance on not only the high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro configured with a six-core Intel Core i9 processor, which has faced the most extreme throttling in tests, but also quad-core Core i7 and Core i5 configurations, extending to the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models.
Some amount of throttling is to be expected on notebooks under heavy thermal workloads, especially ones as thin as the MacBook Pro. Lee, however, argued it is the degree of throttling he experienced that is unacceptable.
Apple says it contacted Lee within 48 hours after he published his video, working with him to replicate his workflow. Apple eventually set up a system with a similar workflow, applied the fix, and both the 15-inch and 13-inch models then matched Apple's advertised performance rates.
Marques Brownlee, who hosts the popular channel MKBHD, said the 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Core i9 exported his 8K sample video about 15 percent quicker than the previous 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Core i7. Faruk Korkmaz, who runs the YouTube channel iPhonedo, also found the Core i9 to perform "fantastic."
Apple for its part said it never experienced any issues with excessive performance degradation in its pre-production testing of the 2018 MacBook Pro, completed in June. The company did identify what it calls an isolated bug after digging deeper, and came up with what it calls a simple fix.
To be expected, Apple also talked up the new MacBook Pro, noting how most of what it has been hearing about the notebook from customers—including many professionals—has been very positive, including about performance.
Prior to Apple acknowledging this bug, speculation had mounted as to possible causes. One user believes that the throttling may have related to the power delivery chip, known as a voltage regulation module, reporting an over-power condition, throttling the CPU clock speed to scale back power.
In any case, it appears that Apple has addressed the problem.
A newly discovered Bluetooth vulnerability that was 
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