Speck today announced that it has teamed up with Scosche to create a new Presidio Mount iPhone case that is designed to work with Scosche's lineup of MagicMount magnetic mounts.
Scosche's magnetic mounts typically require iPhone users to attach metal mounting plates to their iPhones or iPhone cases using adhesive, but the Presidio Mount includes two steel plates that are embedded between the layers of the case.
Speck says the metal plates are invisible because they're mounted inside the case, and they've been positioned so they won't interfere with wireless charging.
Like Speck's other Presidio cases, the Presidio Mount includes two-layer protection that can keep an iPhone from getting damaged from drops up to 10 feet high. The inner layer is made from an impact absorbing rubber Speck calls Impactium, while the outer layer is made from a polycarbonate designed to disperse shock.
The Presidio Mount is compatible with all cradle-free Scosche MagicMounts and it will be available for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and later, including the iPhone X. Speck plans to make the Presidio Mount available for purchasein February of 2018 and it will be priced starting at $44.95.
Customers who own Wemo home automation products have been eagerly awaiting the debut of the Wemo Bridge, which Belkin first unveiled earlier this year. It was meant to launch in the fall of 2017, a target that was missed, but it will be available for purchase starting tomorrow.
Details about the bridge have already been added into the Wemo app, so some customers may have already noticed its imminent availability.
The Wemo Bridge is designed to connect to any home Wi-Fi router via an Ethernet cable to add HomeKit connectivity to current Wemo Smart Plugs and Light Switches. With the addition of the bridge, selected Wemo accessories can be controlled via the dedicated Home app or through Siri, and they can interact with other HomeKit products using Scenes, Schedules, and Timers.
"We've had an overwhelming positive response from customers when we announced last spring that we would make the Wemo Bridge compatible with HomeKit support, said Kara Alexander, Wemo senior product manager. "We have made it a top priority working with Apple to ensure an incredible experience for both Wemo and HomeKit users. Bringing together two of the most influential Smart Home platforms will enable millions of current and future Wemo users to experience the benefits of HomeKit, including the Apple Home app, Siri integration and interoperability with other HomeKit devices."
The HomeKit-connected Wemo Bridge will be available for purchase starting on Monday, January 8 from Belkin, Amazon, Apple, and Best Buy for $39.99.
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Elgato is adding to its HomeKit accessory lineup with two new Bluetooth HomeKit-enabled devices, which include an upgraded Eve Room and a new Eve Button.
The second-generation Eve Room, a followup to the original released in 2015, uses the latest sensor technology from Sensirion to track air quality, temperature, and humidity. Eve Room has a new aluminum enclosure, an update over the original plastic enclosure.
A new e-ink display allows you to see the Eve Room measurements when a smartphone isn't available, and it now features a built-in battery that can be charged using any USB power source.
Like the original, the updated Eve Room is able to determine indoor air quality by measuring volatile organic compounds (VOC), plus it tracks the humidity and temperature of an indoor room. While the data can be read on the e-ink display, it's also available in the Eve app, Apple's dedicated Home app, and from Siri thanks to HomeKit integration.
Eve Button, Elgato's first remote-style device, is designed to allow users to activate up to three HomeKit scenes without the need for a smartphone. Eve Button fits right in with the Eve lineup, with a sleek aluminum enclosure and a single button.
A single press, a double press, and a long press are each able to trigger a different HomeKit scene. Comparatively, the Eve Button isn't offering as many physical buttons as some other options, but it is a simple, standalone device that's works with all other HomeKit products and is priced affordably at $49.95.
Eve Room will be available in March of 2018 for $99.95, while Eve Button will be available starting later this month from the Elgato website and from Apple Stores.
Elgato is adding to its Thunderbolt 3 dock lineup with a new Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock, which comes equipped with HDMI, DisplayPort, USB 3 and Gigabit Ethernet ports with up to 40Gb/s throughput for full performance for every port.
A built-in Thunderbolt 3 cable powers the Mini Dock, and when not in use, the cable tucks away to make the Mini Dock easy to transport.
"Thunderbolt 3 is the only standard that offers full performance and stability when simultaneously running 4K video and high bandwidth data signals over a single port," said Markus Fest, General Manager, Elgato Systems. "With Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock, building sure-fire setups becomes possible whenever and wherever you work."
"Thunderbolt3 delivers unrivaled single-cable docking solutions", said Jason Ziller, General Manager, Client Connectivity Division at Intel(R), "the Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock introduces a whole new category by packing Thunderbolt 3 performance into a sleek, portable design."
Elgato plans to release the Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock in the spring of 2018, and pricing has not yet been announced.
OWC this week is announcing the newest member of its family of "extreme performance drives," the ThunderBlade V4. The ThunderBlade V4 is an external drive targeted at professional users who need the fastest possible speeds, and it packs four M.2 solid state drive blades into a single enclosure that runs over Thunderbolt 3, with total capacities ranging from 1 TB to 8 TB. The result is what OWC says is the "fastest SSD ever made," with read speeds topping out at 2800 MB/s and write speeds up to 2450 MB/s.
We've spent a bit of time with the ThunderBlade V4, and it's definitely an impressive piece of technology, although its pricing that starts at $1200 and rises significantly from there will limit the potential market. This is an accessory for demanding professionals who need to squeeze every bit of performance out of their external drives and is undoubtedly overkill for consumers simply looking to back up their computers.
Design
The ThunderBlade V4 comes in a hefty aluminum enclosure covered in large fins to help with heat dissipation, as this drive can get fairly warm when you're reading and writing a lot of data. There is no active cooling in the drive, which helps with the ThunderBlade V4's ruggedness as there are no moving parts.
The ThunderBlade V4 measures just under 5 inches wide, a little over 7.5 inches deep, and just over an inch high. It weighs a little under two pounds, which gives it a solid feel and good stability on a desk. A separate power adapter also adds some bulk to deal with elsewhere.
The only feature on the front of the ThunderBlade V4 is a thin three-inch long LED that shines white when connected to power (and also when connected to a sleeping computer) and blue when the drive has an active connection to a computer. While the LED appears to be a single thin indicator, it's actually made up of four distinct segments, one for each M.2 drive in the ThunderBlade.
Each segment will blink blue when data is being written to or read from the corresponding drive. With the speed of the drive and the four onboard SSDs, you'll see a sort of flickering ripple effect across the LED as data is moved.
An ambient light sensor on the rear of the ThunderBlade V4 dims the front LED in dark environments.
In addition to the light sensor, the rear of the ThunderBlade includes a port for the power adapter connection and a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports. One Thunderbolt 3 port is used to connect the ThunderBlade to your computer using the included 0.5-meter Thunderbolt 3 cable, while the second is available for daisy chaining a display or other peripherals.
The Thunderbolt 3 ports are capable of supplying 15 watts of power each, but that won't be enough to power a MacBook Pro. This isn't intended as a true docking station, however, so it's not surprising that the power output is limited and primarily intended to drive downstream peripherals rather than host computers.
Speed Tests
We ran some QuickBench disk speed tests on the ThunderBlade V4, and while we didn't quite hit OWC's top numbers, the drive still showed some seriously fast performance. Connecting directly to a 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro, we saw read and write performance in the range of 2400 MB/s in extended testing mode with transfer sizes in the 20–100 MB range.
Similar speed tests using Blackmagic with larger transfer sizes of 5 GB yielded slightly lower speeds of over 1900 MB/s read and 2100 MB/s write, although it is difficult to directly compare the two different methodologies. Even that performance allowed the ThunderBlade to ace Blackmagic's "Will it Work?" rating system that determines whether a drive is fast enough to handle video in various combinations of formats, resolutions, and frame rates.
Results were similar in various configurations even when other peripherals up to and including a pair of LG UltraFine 5K displays were connected to the MacBook Pro's other Thunderbolt 3 ports.
With an LG UltraFine 5K connected to the downstream Thunderbolt 3 port on the ThunderBlade, we obviously saw lower speeds as some of the bandwidth was being dedicated to the display. Write speeds were impacted most significantly, dropping to around 800 MB/s, while read speeds dipped slightly to around 2050 MB/s.
RAID
The four SSDs inside the ThunderBlade V4 come preconfigured in RAID 0 format to offer the full stated capacity of the drive. A license for OWC's SoftRAID XT (formerly SoftRAID Lite) is included with the ThunderBlade, and the software can be used to reformat in RAID 1 to provide mirrored redundancy.
While RAID 0 and 1 give you the option to prioritize storage capacity or data redundancy, it would be nice if some of the higher RAID modes were available on the ThunderBlade to offer more flexibility.
With the downstream Thunderbolt 3 port on the ThunderBlade V4, you can daisy chain multiple units together for even more storage, although you're of course limited by the total bandwidth of the single Thunderbolt 3 connection they're all running over. You can even set up two ThunderBlade V4 units as a single RAID array.
PC Compatibility
While OWC is focused on Macs and the ThunderBlade V4 comes formatted for Mac as a RAID 0 Journaled HFS+ volume, it can also be used with PCs once the drives have been reformatted and reconfigured. Unlike on Mac, however, booting from the ThunderBlade is not supported on Windows.
Pricing and Availability
As should be expected for a product with large storage capacities using the fastest SSD designs and Thunderbolt 3, the ThunderBlade V4 isn't cheap. The 1 TB model is priced at $1199.99, with the 2 TB model at $1799.99, the 4 TB model at $2799.99, and the 8 TB model at $4999.00.
But for professional users who need the absolute fastest external storage, the ThunderBlade V4 looks like a solid option that takes maximum advantage of the bandwidth offered by Thunderbolt 3. All models come with a rugged case, a three-year warranty, and one year of complimentary Level 1 data recovery coverage. All four models will be available from OWC starting January 8.
Note: OWC provided the ThunderBlade V4 to MacRumors for the purposes of this review, and it will be returned to OWC. No other compensation was received. MacRumors is an affiliate partner with OWC and may earn commissions on purchases made through links in this article.
myCharge, known for its range of external battery packs for charging Macs and iOS devices, is introducing a new 20,000 mAh myCharge All Powerful battery pack, which is capable of charging a wide range of Apple products.
The All Powerful isn't as portable as the average battery pack, but it features a USB-A port, a USB-C port, and an AC outlet, which means it can power just about anything. It even comes equipped with Qi-based wireless charging to charge the iPhone X, 8, and iPhone 8 Plus cord-free.
According to myCharge, the 65-watt AC outlet built into the All Powerful can run a 32-inch TV, power most laptops, or operate a camping fan or light. The USB-A and USB-C ports can charge all of your iOS devices, and the Qi charging supports 10W fast charge.
Along with the All Powerful, myCharge also offers several other rugged chargers that are part of its adventure series, including the Adventure Mini (3,350 mAh), Adventure Plus (6,700 mAh), Adventure Max (10,050 mAh), Adventure Ultra (13,400 mAh), Adventure Xtreme (20,000 mAh), and the Adventure Jump Start (6,600 mAh), which can power up a dead vehicle battery.
Several new myCharge battery packs are being introduced at CES, including an updated Razor line with options ranging from 2,000 mAh to 20,100 mAh, the 7,000 mAh for powering portable game systems, the 3,000 mAh Solar Wallet, and the Unplugged series of Qi wireless chargers.
myCharge Unplugged 8K
The All Powerful will be available available for purchase starting in April 2018, and it will be priced at $199.99. The other Adventure series battery packs are available now at prices ranging from $30 to $100, while the rest of myCharge's new products will debut at CES or in the spring.
myCharge Razor Mini
Additional information about all of myCharge's new products can be found on the myCharge website. myCharge will be officially showing off its new hardware at ShowStoppers at CES.
Apple today launched its annual Back to University promotion in Australia and New Zealand, offering the choice of a free pair of Beats Solo3, BeatsX, or Powerbeats3 headphones to qualifying students, teachers, lecturers, and educational staff members who purchase an eligible Mac for a limited time.
Eligible models include any MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro, including custom configurations. As usual, the Mac mini and refurbished Macs are excluded from the promotion.
The promotion also offers free BeatsX wireless headphones with the purchase of any 10.5-inch or 12.9-inch iPad Pro, or students can pay AU$59/NZ$70 extra for Powerbeats3 Wireless or AU$200/NZ$230 extra for Solo3 Wireless headphones. Apple's lower-cost 9.7-inch iPad and iPad mini 4 models do not qualify.
The promotion is available at Apple's retail stores in Australia, and through Apple's online store in both countries, and is in addition to Apple's regular educational discount. Alternatively, customers can call 133-622 in Australia or 0800-692-7753 in New Zealand to take advantage of the deal by phone.
Apple's Back to University promotion starts today and ends March 15, 2018 in Australia and New Zealand. Apple's terms and conditions [AU/NZ] outline the complete eligibility requirements for the promotion in those countries.
In Australia, qualified purchasers are defined as lecturers, teachers, staff members, and full-time or part-time students aged 18 or over, with a current student union card or student identification card, at an accredited Australian university or an other Apple-approved institution within the country.
In New Zealand, qualified purchasers are defined as any employee of a public or private K–12 institution; students, faculty, and staff members of higher education institutions, and parents purchasing on behalf of their children who are attending or accepted into a higher education institution in the country.
As is usually the case, Apple's Back to University promotion in Australia and New Zealand is exactly the same as its Back to School promotion was in the United States, Canada, and across Europe last year.
Not a student or looking for even better deals? Visit our Apple Deals roundup for other discounts on Apple products and accessories.
Ahead of this year's Consumer Electronics Show, which is set to kick off next week, popular accessory maker Belkin has announced several new wireless charging products designed for Apple's latest iPhones.
The Belkin Boost Up Bold Wireless Charging Pad is similar to the existing Belkin Boost Up Charging Pad available from Apple, but it comes in several different colors, like black, white, pink, and navy. It offers up to 10W output for fast charging on all Qi-enabled devices.
The Belkin Boost Up Wireless Charging Stand features the same circular design and the same colors as the Bold, but its charging surface is propped up by a frame that allows the iPhone to be charged while in landscape or portrait mode rather than when laying flat on a table. It works with all Qi-enabled devices and offers 10W output for fast wireless charging.
Belkin's Boost Up Wireless Car Charging Mount is designed to offer in-car wireless charging for Qi-compatible devices like the iPhone X, 8, and 8 Plus. It can be mounted on a dash or window, adjusted to fit different phone sizes, and it features an extra USB port for charging other devices. It offers 10W fast charging for all Qi-enabled devices.
The Boost Up Dual Wireless Charging Pad is designed to charge two Qi-enabled smartphones at once, side by side. Each charging pad offers 10W fast charging, and it works with all Qi-enabled devices.
For commercial applications, Belkin is introducing a Boost Up Wireless Charging System, which will be able to be installed in conference rooms, offices, user desktops, restaurants, retail stores, hotels, and more. Top-mount, flush-mount, and sub-surface mounting options are all available.
All of Belkin's new wireless charging products will be available in the spring or summer of 2018, with pricing unavailable at this time.
Apple has inked a deal for yet another television show, this time a docuseries called "Home," reports Variety.
The series will offer a "never-before-seen look inside the world's most extraordinary homes" while also delving into the imaginations of the visionaries who dreamed them up and built them. Based on the show's description, it sounds a little bit like MTV's "Cribs" but with more of a design and architecture focus.
Apple has ordered 10 one-hour episodes of the "Home" docuseries, which is produced by Matt Tynauer and Corey Reese of Altimeter Films.
"Home" is the first documentary-style series that Apple has ordered thus far under the leadership of Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, two former Sony executives Apple brought on last June to run a new video content division within the company.
Apple is working on several other shows in addition to "Home," including a revival of 1985 Steven Spielberg sci-fi series "Amazing Stories," an untitled space drama developed by Ronald D. Moore, known for "Battlestar Galactica," an untitled "morning show drama" starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, and "Are You Sleeping," a psychological thriller starring Octavia Spencer that focuses on a podcast that reopens a murder case.
It's not yet clear when the first of Apple's original TV shows will premiere, but it's possible at least one series will debut later in 2018.
For this week's giveaway, we've once again teamed up with BlackPods to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a pair of AirPods that have been custom-painted black or space gray to better match darker devices.
We've given away black AirPods in the past, but this time around, BlackPods has an all new BlackPods Aero in a metallic space gray finish that's a nice alternative to the standard white AirPods that Apple offers.
If you haven't seen BlackPods before, the company takes a standard pair of Apple's AirPods and then paints them using a proprietary coating system.
There's a three-phase finishing process for a high-quality coating of paint that's designed not to chip, fade, scuff, or wear off during usage. Each pair of BlackPods is completed by hand and then given a rigorous inspection to make sure the finish is flawless.
BlackPods Classic are priced at $279, while the BlackPods Stealth and the BlackPods Aero Space Gray are priced at $299. That's a $120 to $140 premium over Apple's standard AirPods, but BlackPods is offering one of the only methods to get a unique black or gray finish for your AirPods.
In addition to selling completed sets of painted AirPods, BlackPods also has a service that allows customers to send in their previously purchased AirPods for customization at a lower price. The process costs between $99 and $119 and it takes approximately 10 days to complete. The service includes the painting of both AirPods and the AirPods charging case.
Since BlackPods are simply re-painted AirPods, the full AirPods functionality remains intact, with a W1 chip for simple paring with all of your devices, a long battery life, an accelerometer for ear detection, and gesture support.
We have a set of BlackPods to give away to a MacRumors reader, with the winner able to choose a Stealth, Classic, or Aero finish. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter 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, 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 (January 5) at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time on January 12. The winners will be chosen randomly on January 12 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.
Apple now faces over two dozen lawsuits around the world that either accuse the company of intentionally slowing down older iPhones, or at least of failing to disclose power management changes it made starting in iOS 10.2.1.
The lawsuits include 24 class action complaints in the United States, with the latest two filed on Thursday by Marc Honigman and Lauri Sullivan-Stefanou in New York and Ohio respectively, according to electronic court records reviewed by MacRumors. Apple is also being sued in Israel and France.
An excerpt from Sullivan-Stefanou's complaint:
Unbeknownst to iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6s owners, Apple inserted code into iOS 10.2.1 that deliberately slowed down the processing performance of these phones by linking each phone's processing performance with its battery health. Absent the code inserted by Apple, the reduced battery capacity of these phones would not have negatively affected processing performance.
Many of the lawsuits demand Apple compensate all iPhone users who have experienced slowdowns, offer free battery replacements, refund customers who purchased brand new iPhones to regain maximum performance, and add info to iOS explaining how replacing an iPhone's battery can prevent slowdowns.
The legal action comes after Apple's revelation it may at times dynamically manage the maximum performance of some older iPhone models with chemically aged batteries in order to prevent the devices from unexpectedly shutting down, an issue that can be made worse by cold temperatures or a low charge.
Apple never mentioned the power management changes, which it calls a feature, when it released iOS 10.2.1 nearly a year ago. A month after the software update became available, Apple still only vaguely mentioned that it made "improvements" that resulted in a significant reduction in unexpected shutdowns.
Apple only revealed exactly what the so-called "improvements" were after Primate Labs founder John Poole visualized that some iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 devices suddenly had lower benchmark scores starting with iOS 10.2.1 and iOS 11.2 respectively despite operating at maximum performance on previous versions.
Poole's analysis was in response to a Reddit user who claimed his iPhone 6s was significantly faster after replacing the device's battery. The discussion generated over 1,000 comments, and reinforced an opinion held by some that Apple purposefully slows down older iPhones so customers buy newer ones.
Honigman's complaint, edited very slightly for clarity, echoes this opinion:
Apple's intentional degradation of the iPhone's performance through the release of iOS impacted the usability of the device. Effectively, Apple has forced the obsolescence of iPhones by secretly diminishing their performance. Thus, Apple's admission has confirmed what iPhone users have long suspected – i.e., that Apple deliberately degrades the performance of older iPhone models through iOS updates to encourage users to buy new iPhones.
Keep in mind that Apple is not permanently or persistently slowing down older iPhones. Even if your iPhone is affected, the performance limitations only happen intermittently, and only when the device is completing demanding tasks.
Following authentication processes like thumbprint scanning, facial recognition, and QR code entry, a company in Japan this week has shown off a smartphone-based payment system that uses your unique palm print to confirm transactions (via Nikkei). Japanese credit card company JCB created the system in conjunction with Tokyo company Universal Robots, with a trial run aimed at company employees beginning next month.
This isn't the first time palm scanning technology has been used for mobile payments, with U.S. companies Biyo and Keyo each launching their own versions of similar systems recently, although on a small scale. Those technologies require merchants to purchase special terminals that include palm-scanning cameras so that customers can pay with a hand wave at their stores, but JCB's system only needs a smartphone camera and requires no specialized equipment.
Customers would be able to leave wallets and phones in their pockets with a palm-based payment system, developed by credit card company JCB, that merchants could use with just an everyday smartphone camera.
After users register by snapping a picture of their palm from a smartphone camera, merchants or stores could scan customers' palms by smartphone to match them against registered data. With no specialized equipment needed, it would be easier for stores to incorporate the system, unlike a previous dalliance by JCB into palm-based payment that required a special terminal.
JCB's system works by identifying registrants' hands based on the surface of their palms and the "distribution of veins underneath." Users register by taking a picture of their palm from an app on their smartphone and associating it with any supported payment information. Then, when at an appropriate store the merchant can scan the customer's palm using a smartphone camera and the system will match the received data against registered data. This way, users wouldn't even need to take out their own smartphone during the payment process.
JCB hopes the technology not only evolves into a widely used payment system, but also potentially "eliminates the need for cards and other forms of identification." The employee test is being enacted with the goal of exposing any security problems with the system, "such as fraudulent registrations or uses," as well as ensuring accuracy of the system. It's said to misidentify users "only once in 100 billion times."
While palm scanning technology hasn't been widely adopted, thumbprint and face scanning have become normal interactions for users around the world when paying for items with their smartphones, particularly on iOS devices. Apple's Apple Pay began with Touch ID on iPhone 5s in 2013 and eventually came to MacBook Pro in 2016. With the launch of the iPhone X users are now paying for products with Face ID, which quickly scans their faces to confirm identity and then authenticates the purchase after being tapped to a compatible NFC terminal. Touch ID and Face ID can also both be used within apps.
Amazon could be preparing to bid next month for the rights to stream English Premier League football (soccer) matches, if a report by Bloomberg this morning is anything to go by.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the digital giant sees the English Premier League as a huge opportunity to draw more people to its Prime membership service in the U.K. and convert occasional customers into more loyal shoppers.
Amazon has already bought video streaming rights for live sport including tennis and the National Football League, but the Premier League remains Europe's most prized live sports broadcast asset and with a growing audience in the U.S., fits in perfectly with Amazon's broader strategy to bring more sports content to its global customers.
The e-commerce giant recently tied up a deal to produce a documentary series with Manchester City, the current Premier League leaders, which previously increased speculation that it might next pursue live soccer rights. Currently Sky and BT Sport share the rights to the EPL, following an auction in 2015 that saw the broadcasters splash £5.1 billion ($6.9 billion) between them for three seasons.
The next auction in February will see seven packages being offered by the Premier League, varying from 32 matches to 20 matches each. Amazon could bid for one of the smaller packages for broadcasting in the U.K., according to Bloomberg. Auctions for streaming rights in other markets are usually held separately. Both Amazon and the Premier League declined to comment.
Back in September, Apple revealed its own aspirations for offering more live sports through Apple TV 4K, with a new sports section on the device and in the new TV app offering integration with channels like ESPN. But despite sports generally being seen as a big selling point for any set-top-box device, Apple's offerings in the TV category remain skewed towards American audiences.
However, if Amazon chose to offer sports through its Prime Video app on Apple TV, it's theoretically possible that U.K. owners of Apple's set-top box could one day stream EPL matches to the device.
Camera+ received an update on Friday that brings a handful of welcome UI and workflow improvements, while fixing a number of issues reported by users of the popular long-running photo app for iPhone and iPad.
Although the latest v10.10.12 update of Camera+ focuses on enhancing reliability, there are a couple of notable additions to its feature set that are worth highlighting, the ability to copy and paste edits between images on the Lightbox being one of them.
To transfer complex applied edits to another photo, select the image on the Lightbox, long-tap the edit button, and then select Copy Edits. With your adjustments in the memory, simply select your target photo, long-tap Edit, and then select Paste Edits to apply them.
Compatible edits will be automatically applied to images with no issues, but it's worth noting that things like Portrait mode will only make the jump if the destination photo was originally captured with depth information, which Camera+ has supported since October.
Meanwhile, long-time users of Camera+ may have noticed that the badge indicating the color space of a photo on the Info summary screen was missing for HEIF and TIFF formats. That's no longer the case, with wider color space tags like DCI/P3 now displaying on the relevant images.
Additionally, users who like to shoot in RAW will be happy to learn that Camera+ now correctly honors the preference for saving the DNG representation independently of the JPEG/HEIF asset when exporting to Camera Roll, although bear in mind that the in-app Lightbox always uses the combined representation.
Elsewhere, the editing screen has been improved for iPhone X displays, while a couple of blips when sharing to the Files app or WhatsApp have been ironed out. The update also includes optimized memory usage on iPhone 6 devices, especially when shooting TIFF and macro, while a handful of crashes have also been fixed.
Camera+ costs $2.99 for iPhone and $4.99 for iPad, and can be downloaded from the App Store. [Direct Link]
Apple recently joined the Alliance for Open Media as a founding member, according to an updated member list first noticed by CNET.
The Alliance for Open Media, according to its website, was formed to "define and develop media codecs, media formats, and related technologies to address marketplace demand for an open standard for video compression and delivery over the web."
The Alliance is developing a royalty-free video codec known as AOMedia Video 1 (AV1), which is designed to compress video before it's stored or sent over a network. Apple's move to join the Alliance for Open Media is notable because implementing such technology requires it to be widely supported, and Apple was one of the only major companies not participating.
AV1 continues to be a work in progress, with the Alliance for Open Media planning to release the first version of in the near future. Mozilla supports an early version of AV1 and has said that it reduces file sizes by 25 to 35 percent compared to HEVC, which Apple implemented support for in macOS High Sierra and iOS 11.
Other members of the Alliance for Open Media include Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, ARM, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, Netflix, Hulu, NVIDIA, and more.
Apple today confirmed that it has addressed the recent "Meltdown" vulnerability in previously released iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 updates, with additional fixes coming to Safari in the near future to defend against the "Spectre" vulnerability.
Apple has also confirmed that the two vulnerabilities affect all Mac and iOS devices. The company's full statement, available through a new support document covering Meltdown and Spectre, is below:
Security researchers have recently uncovered security issues known by two names, Meltdown and Spectre. These issues apply to all modern processors and affect nearly all computing devices and operating systems.
All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time. Since exploiting many of these issues requires a malicious app to be loaded on your Mac or iOS device, we recommend downloading software only from trusted sources such as the App Store.
Apple has already released mitigations in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2 to help defend against Meltdown. Apple Watch is not affected by Meltdown. In the coming days we plan to release mitigations in Safari to help defend against Spectre. We continue to develop and test further mitigations for these issues and will release them in upcoming updates of iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
Apple's statement does not make it clear if these vulnerabilities have been addressed in older versions of iOS and Mac, but for Macs, there were security updates for older versions of macOS released alongside macOS 10.13.2, so it's possible fixes are already available for Sierra and El Capitan.
News of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities first came to light this week, but Intel and major operating system vendors like Apple, Linux, and Microsoft have known about the issue for several months and worked to prepare a fix before the security flaws were publicly shared.
Spectre and Meltdown are serious vulnerabilities that take advantage of the speculative execution mechanism of a CPU. As these use hardware-based flaws, operating system manufacturers are required to implement software workarounds. These software workarounds can impact processor performance, but Intel has insisted most users will not see serious slowdowns. Apple also says that no measurable impact has been detected in macOS and iOS.
Apple released mitigations for Meltdown in iOS 11.2, macOS 10.13.2, and tvOS 11.2. watchOS did not require mitigation. Our testing with public benchmarks has shown that the changes in the December 2017 updates resulted in no measurable reduction in the performance of macOS and iOS as measured by the GeekBench 4 benchmark, or in common Web browsing benchmarks such as Speedometer, JetStream, and ARES-6.
The Meltdown vulnerability allows a malicious program to read kernel memory, accessing data like passwords, emails, documents, photos, and more. Meltdown can be exploited to read the entire physical memory of a target machine. The vulnerability is particularly problematic for cloud-based services.
Spectre, which covers two exploitation techniques, breaks the isolation between different applications. Apple says that while the Spectre vulnerability is difficult to exploit, it can be done using JavaScript in a web browser. Apple plans to release Safari updates for macOS and iOS to prevent Spectre-based exploits.
As with the Meltdown vulnerability, Apple says the upcoming Safari mitigations will have "no measurable impact" on Speedometer and ARES-6 tests, and an impact of less than 2.5% on the JetStream benchmark.
Apple says it will continue to test further mitigations for Spectre and will release them in future versions of iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
Update: Apple has updated its Meltdown and Spectre support document to clarify that the Apple Watch is not affected by either vulnerability. Previously, Apple had only confirmed that the Apple Watch was unaffected by Meltdown.
Update 2: Apple has confirmed that fixes have also been released for macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan in an updated security support document.
Update 3: The support document that confirmed the fixes for Sierra and El Capitan has been updated again to remove references to these two operating systems, so it remains unclear whether or not Meltdown fixes have been released for these two older operating systems.
Apple Music exec Jimmy Iovine, who works alongside Dr. Dre, Eddy Cue, Robert Kondrk, Trent Reznor and other prominent executives is planning to leave Apple in August, reports Billboard.
The rumor about Iovine's alleged departure from Apple first surfaced on music rumor site Hits Daily Double, but Billboard says its sources have confirmed the news. According to Billboard, Iovine's exit will be timed with the vesting of stock he acquired when first joining Apple.
Iovine joined the Apple Music team back in 2014, when Apple acquired Beats Electronics and the Beats Music streaming service, both of which were co-founded by Iovine and Dr. Dre. Iovine has had a long history with the company, though, first pitching a subscription music service to Steve Jobs in 2003.
Iovine does not have an official title at Apple, but he has been heavily involved in with Apple Music since its 2015 launch and has negotiated many of the streaming deals for the service.
Under Iovine's leadership, Apple music has seen strong growth since its debut, with the service now boasting more than 30 million subscribers.
Should Iovine leave Apple, it's not clear if he would be replaced, nor what his plans are after departing the company.
Bloomberg has confirmed that Jimmy Iovine is planning to leave Apple after he receives the final payout from the Beats Electronics acquisition.
Iovine is unlikely to stay on with the company even if he receives a new offer as his vision has "sometimes clashed" with the views of other executives at the company, including Eddy Cue.
Intel today announced that the firmware updates and software patches that are being released for its CPUs render Intel-based computer systems "immune" to both the Spectre and Meltdown exploits that were widely publicized this week.
Intel has developed and is rapidly issuing updates for all types of Intel-based computer systems -- including personal computers and servers -- that render those systems immune from both exploits (referred to as "Spectre" and "Meltdown") reported by Google Project Zero. Intel and its partners have made significant progress in deploying updates as both software patches and firmware updates.
Intel says updates have been issued for the majority of Intel processor products introduced within the past five years, and by the end of next week, more than 90 percent of processor products from the last five years will be patched.
For Mac users, Apple has already addressed some of the vulnerabilities in the macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update, and further updates will come in macOS High Sierra 10.13.3. To make sure you're protected as a Mac user, install all of the latest operating system updates and firmware patches. As always, it's also worth avoiding suspicious programs, websites, and links.
Intel today also reiterated that the updates that are being released for Mac, PC, and Linux machines should not significantly impact day to day usage and should, for the most part, be unnoticeable. That seems to be true of the macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update, as there have been no reports of slowdowns from Mac users.
Intel continues to believe that the performance impact of these updates is highly workload-dependent and, for the average computer user, should not be significant and will be mitigated over time. While on some discrete workloads the performance impact from the software updates may initially be higher, additional post-deployment identification, testing and improvement of the software updates should mitigate that impact.
While hints of an Intel CPU design flaw and security vulnerability surfaced on Tuesday, it wasn't until Wednesday that full details were shared on the Meltdown and Spectre exploits, which take advantage of the speculative execution mechanism of a CPU.
Meltdown impacts Intel CPUs, allowing a malicious program to access data from the memory of running apps, providing passwords, emails, documents, photos, and more. Meltdown can be exploited to read the entire physical memory of a target machine, and it can be done through something as simple as a website. The vulnerability is particularly problematic for cloud-based services.
Spectre, which breaks the isolation between different applications, is a wider hardware-based problem impacting all modern Intel, ARM, and AMD processors. Spectre is harder to exploit than Meltdown, but it is also harder to mitigate.
While patches are going out that appear to prevent the current known Meltdown and Spectre exploits, these speculative execution vulnerabilities will continue to be a problem for years to come, according to security researchers. Similar vulnerabilities will surface, and while performance impacts from software-based workarounds are minor, they're still present.
Paul Kocher, one of the security researchers who helped discover the flaws, told The New York Times that this will be a "festering problem over hardware life cycles." "It's not going to change tomorrow or the day after," he said. "It's going to take awhile."
Apple has inked a deal for yet another television show, this time a docuseries called "Home," reports 
Apple Music exec Jimmy Iovine, who works alongside Dr. Dre, Eddy Cue, Robert Kondrk, Trent Reznor and other prominent executives is planning to leave Apple in August, reports 
Intel today 
