MacRumors

Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming iOS 12.1.1 update to developers, one day after the release of iOS 12.1, a major update that brought multiple new features to the operating system that runs on the iPhone and iPad.

Registered developers can download the new iOS 12.1.1 beta from Apple's Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.

As a 12.1.x update, the new software is minor in scale and has been released to address bugs that were not able to be fixed in the iOS 12.1 update. According to Apple's release notes, iOS 12.1.1 "contains bug fixes and improvements."

Given the non-specific information provided by Apple, we may not know exactly what issues are fixed in the beta until more specific release notes are provided, but we'll update this post if we find anything new in the update.

iOS 12.1.1 follows iOS 12.1, which was the first major update to iOS 12. iOS 12.1 introduces Group FaceTime for video chatting with up to 32 people, real-time Depth Control and eSIM support for Apple's newest iPhones, and fixes for several major bugs.

The update fixes a problem that could cause excessive skin-smoothing when using the front-facing camera on the iPhone XS, XS Max, and iPhone XR, and it addresses LTE connectivity issues on those same devices. It's also worth noting that the iOS 12.1 software introduces battery-related performance management features on the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X to prevent unexpected shutdowns.

What's new in iOS 12.1.1: The iOS 12.1.1 update reintroduces the feature that lets you take a Live Photo while on a FaceTime call, and it makes improvements to the FaceTime user interface.

Following the update, FaceTime features a reworked bottom bar that includes quick access buttons for muting a call and flipping the camera. Sliding up on the bottom bar brings up additional options with conversation participants.

Previously, FaceTime users were required to tap on three dots to access a secondary menu with these features.

A new article by Business Insider today takes a look into failed talks that occurred between Apple and startup Leap Motion, which the Cupertino company tried to acquire twice in less than five years. Leap Motion is a company that focuses on making advances in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality, and hand tracking technology.

According to multiple unnamed insiders, the most recent deal was nearing completion in spring 2018 before poor management, "swirling negatives," and "eccentric behavior" of Leap Motion's young co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz halted the talks.

Prior to that, in 2013 the first meeting was held between the two companies and things reportedly went very poorly after Holz -- then 24 years old -- said he had no interest in joining Apple. Sources say Holz was insulting to Apple's staff, told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology "sucked," and discussed the ways that Google's Android was better than iOS. During this time, Apple was said to have been mainly interested in Leap Motion's team to help work on its own AR and gesture-based projects.

Despite this poor first meeting, Apple continued to express interest in acquiring Leap Motion in the ensuing years, particularly as augmented reality and virtual reality technologies began to be more mainstream. Some of Leap Motion's original employees even left the company to work for Apple over the years, and are now helping with Apple's various AR projects, some former Leap Motion employees said.

The latest rumors point towards Apple developing AR smart glasses, which could potentially include a VR component. Apple's interest appears to lean more towards AR, since it has already backed AR as a service with the ARKit developer platform, and CEO Tim Cook often talks excitedly about the potential of AR.

Business Insider says it remains unclear why exactly Apple made this move at the last minute, but one thing appears certain: "the founders ultimately thought [Leap Motion] was more valuable than the offers on the table."

Many people close to the company say that the issues afflicting Leap Motion are a case of poor management: Much of the company's venture capital was spent on sleek office space in San Francisco's pricey SoMa neighborhood, complete with tech industry perks including beanbag chairs and daily lunches, and costly engineering salaries.

That Leap Motion should fall upon dire financial straits when the company's core technology had such great potential was described by many as a failure that could have been easily avoided.

Increasingly, it looks like Leap Motion's technology might end up bought as a hidden gem for a company looking to add its hand-tracking technology to future smartglasses products — but only if it can get the founders on board with the deal.

Now, Leap Motion is said to have new meetings lined up to explore other potential deals outside of Apple's offer, but it may be too late for the startup. According to sources familiar with the company, Apple's latest bid for Leap Motion was the AR/VR company's "last-ditch opportunity" to sell the business, which has faced financial instability for years.

Apple makes acquisitions of smaller companies like Leap Motion all the time, with news coming just in the past month of Apple acquiring Asaii and Spektral. Asaii is a music analytics platform that Apple will likely integrate into Apple Music and iTunes, while Spektral creates real-time green screens that can intelligently separate people and objects from their original backgrounds to overlay a new setting, which could be integrated into a future iPhone.

A new report out this week by Bloomberg highlights Apple's ongoing efforts to boost adoption of Apple Pay, which is said to be gaining more traction this year thanks to the launch of Apple Pay Cash, as well as a growing number of of retailers supporting the mobile wallet. Although it still struggles to surpass rival mobile wallets, analyst Gene Munster argues that Apple's real advantage lies in the fact that it's the only digital wallet with payment options for mobile apps, desktop, peer-to-peer, and in stores.

According to Munster, Apple Pay Cash's launch in December 2017 "was a big missing piece" to the Apple Pay ecosystem, and has led the company to "make up a lot of ground" with its competition in 2018.

In total, 60 percent of United States merchants will have Apple Pay-ready equipment in their shops by the end of this year, which is an increase from three percent four years ago, when Apple Pay launched. Apple Pay already has made impressive growth in the United Kingdom, because merchants there "already accepted contactless payments and consumers were already using contactless cards," explained Crone Consulting CEO Richard Crone.

Multiple analysts believe that Apple's biggest opportunity in the mobile payments field is to increase acceptance of Apple Pay from e-commerce sites and to beef up the features of Apple Pay Cash. According to data from Crone Consulting, the number of online mobile app transactions using Apple Pay is "growing much faster" than transactions made inside retail stores. In this area, Apple Pay is used by hundreds of thousands of websites and is accepted by 85 of the top 100 global e-commerce apps. Senior managing director for Falcon Point Capital, Michael Mahoney, agreed:

“When it started, you’d tap and physically cause a purchase to be made,” Michael Mahoney said. “The whole world of mobile commerce has so much shifted to everything being done on the phone and shipped to you. My kids don’t even think of going to the store. Apple Pay has morphed along with that change in behavior.”

As of estimates from August, 31 percent of worldwide iPhone users have used Apple Pay in some way in the last year, up from 25 percent one year ago, according to Loup Ventures data. In regards to the total number of active users making at least two transactions per month, Crone Consulting estimates that Apple has 32 million users in the U.S., compared to its total user base of around 252 million global. In terms of U.S. usage, PayPal has the most at 250 million users and Walmart Pay is just below Apple Pay at 31 million users.

Apple Pay Cash was the highest-rated peer-to-peer payments platform on the market, according to a review by Consumer Reports. The service beat out Zelle, Square Cash, Venmo, and Facebook Messenger P2P payments, mainly due to Apple's stronger privacy and security measures. Munster pointed out that the growth of Apple's P2P platform is convincing new people to add their banks into Apple Pay (which is required for P2P iMessage payments), many of which eventually add their credit and debit cards into Wallet as well to enable the main NFC features of Apple Pay.

Apple is also continuously expanding the mobile wallet into new countries, and this week Apple Pay will launch in Belgium. Belgium-based newspaper De Tijd reports that several sources believe Apple Pay will launch in early November -- as soon as tomorrow, November 1 -- with major bank BNP Paribas Fortis supporting the launch. Next, Apple Pay is said to be "coming soon" to Saudi Arabia.

Apple on Tuesday released iOS 12.1 following six weeks of beta testing. As mentioned in the release notes, the software update extends Apple's performance management feature to the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X.

From the release notes:

Adds a performance management feature to prevent the device from unexpectedly shutting down, including the option to disable this feature if an unexpected shutdown occurs, for iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

Apple has reflected this change on its iPhone Battery and Performance website, noting that performance management "may be less noticeable" on those iPhone models due to their "more advanced hardware and software design."

The performance management system was first enabled in iOS 10.2.1, but it was limited to the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus until yesterday's release of iOS 12.1.

Last December, Apple did mention that the design of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X allows for a "different" performance management system that "more precisely" prevents unexpected shutdowns, but prior to iOS 12.1, no performance management feature of this kind had been enabled on the trio of iPhones:

iPhone 8 and later use a more advanced hardware and software design that provides a more accurate estimation of both power needs and the battery's power capability to maximize overall system performance. This allows a different performance management system that more precisely allows iOS to anticipate and avoid an unexpected shutdown. As a result, the impacts of performance management may be less noticeable on iPhone 8 and later. Over time, the rechargeable batteries in all iPhone models will diminish in their capacity and peak performance and will eventually need to be replaced.

Why is Apple slowing down some iPhone models if necessary?

From our January 2018 article What to Know About Apple Slowing Down iPhones to Prevent Unexpected Shutdowns:

iPhones, like many other consumer electronics, are powered by lithium-ion batteries, which have a limited lifespan. As the battery in your iPhone ages, its ability to hold a charge slowly diminishes.

A chemically aging battery can also have increased impedance, reducing its ability to provide a sudden burst of power when demanded by other components in an iPhone, such as the CPU and GPU. A battery's impedance will also temporarily increase when it has a low charge and/or in cold temperatures.

A battery with a high enough impedance may be unable to provide power quickly enough to the iPhone when needed, and Apple safeguards components against the drop in voltage by shutting down the device.

Apple recognized that iPhones unexpectedly shutting down on users is not a good experience, and starting with iOS 10.2.1, it quietly implemented a power management feature to prevent these shutdowns. The update was released in January 2017, and a month later, Apple said it saw a major reduction in shutdowns.

The performance management feature can be disabled if desired in the Settings app, under the Battery Health menu. At this time, the feature does not appear to extend to the new iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, or iPhone XR.

Apple held a second hardware-centric fall event this morning in New York City, where the company launched updated iPad Pro models, a refreshed version of the MacBook Air, and a new Mac mini.

Prior to the event, though, there were rumors suggesting we'd also see some other products that didn't end up making an appearance.

iMac

Rumors suggested Apple was working on updated iMac models with new processors, but it doesn't look like the iMac lineup is going to get a 2018 refresh at this point.

There wasn't a lot of detail on what to expect from a new iMac, but Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo did say Apple was working on a version with an upgraded processor and a "significant display performance upgrade."

With no new iMac making an appearance at today's event, we don't know when we'll see an updated version.

MacBook

Prior to today's event, there was a lot of confusion over a rumored lower-cost notebook, which turned out to be a MacBook Air. It wasn't clear if the device would be in the MacBook Air or the MacBook family for good reason - it was rumored to be a 13-inch machine with a MacBook Air style design, a lower price tag, and a Retina display.

Those options turned out to be true, and the new MacBook Air is slimmer with thinner bezels, a faster processor, built-in Touch ID, and a Retina display, the feature previously differentiating the MacBook Air from the 12-inch MacBook.

Now that this new $1,199 MacBook Air with 8th-Gen Intel processors, Touch ID, T2 chip, and a slimmer chassis exists, it's not entirely clear what Apple plans to do with the 12-inch MacBook lineup, which starts at just $100 more.

There were rumors the 12-inch MacBook lineup would also be updated at today's event, but it wasn't refreshed.

Is this the end of the MacBook? It's not clear what Apple has in store for its thinnest, lightest machine, nor when it might see an update. With faster 8th-Gen processors and a Retina display in the new MacBook Air, the only real distinguishing feature between the MacBook and the MacBook Air is the MacBook's smaller size.

iPad mini

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said just ahead of Apple's event that a new iPad mini is in the works, but he wasn't sure if it would be included in the October 30th product unveilings. As it turns out, it wasn't, and if a new iPad mini is in development, there's no word on when we'll see it launch.

AirPower and AirPods

There was some speculation that Apple could still debut the AirPower charging mat and compatible AirPods at its October event, but that didn't happen.

We have no idea when we might expect to see the AirPower launch, if it is indeed still in the works, nor when Apple will launch updated AirPods. At this point, it looks like we may not see these products until sometime in 2019.

Mac Pro

We were hoping to get a little peek at Apple's work on its promised high-end high-throughput modular Mac Pro that Apple is developing for release in 2019, but it looks like we're going to have a longer wait to get our first glimpse at Apple's pro-focused machine.

Missing iPhone XR Cases and iPad Smart Covers

It's still not clear why Apple hasn't introduced cases for the iPhone XR, especially after mentioning special clear cases for the device in the iPhone XR press release in some countries, but following today's event, there's still no sign of Apple-designed iPhone XR cases.

Apple also did not introduce new Smart Covers for its updated 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models, but there are new Smart Folio options and the new Smart Keyboard Folio.

Apple today held a special October event in Brooklyn, New York, which saw the debut of revamped 11 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models, an updated MacBook Air, and a refreshed Mac mini.

It took Apple an hour and a half to introduce the new Space Gray Mac mini with updated hardware, the new MacBook Air with Retina display and Touch ID, and the entirely redesigned iPad Pro models with Face ID, but we've recapped the entire event in just six minutes for our readers who want a no-frills overview of all the announcements.

We also got some great new Mac updates, though, including a $1,199 MacBook Air with a Retina display, 8th-Gen Intel chips, faster solid state storage up to 1.5TB, much slimmer bezels, and a thinner, more refined chassis that takes up less volume.

There's also no forgetting the Mac mini, which got its first update in four years. The new model features quad and 6-core 8th-Gen Intel chips, up to 2TB of solid state storage, support for up to 64GB RAM, and a new Space Gray enclosure.

We've rounded up all of our coverage of today's event in the post below, so make sure to check out everything so you don't miss any of the updates.

iPad Pro

• Apple Reveals New 11-Inch and 12.9-Inch iPad Pro Models With Slim Bezels and Face ID
• New 11 and 12.9-Inch iPad Pro Models Have No Headphone Jack
• 2018 iPad Pro Hands-On Impressions: 'Might Be the Truest Embodiment of a Tablet Yet'
• Apple Announces New Magnetic Apple Pencil Featuring Tap Gestures and Wireless Charging
• Apple Launches New USB-C Accessories for USB-C iPad Pro Models
• New Apple Pencil, Smart Keyboard Folio, and Smart Folio Accessories Now Up for Pre-Order
• Apple Pencil 2 Not Compatible With Older iPads and Original Apple Pencil Won't Work With New Models
• Apple's New iPad Pro Models Ship With 18W USB-C Power Adapter
• 2018 iPad Pro With 1TB Storage Has 6GB RAM, Lower Capacities Have 4GB
• AppleCare+ for New iPad Pro Models Priced at $130, Out-of-Warranty Repairs Cost Up to $649
• Apple's New iPad Lineup, from Mini to Pro: $329 to $1,899
• MacRumors Hands-On Photos of Apple's New iPad Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini

MacBook Air

• Apple Announces New MacBook Air With 13-Inch Retina Display and Touch ID
• Apple's New MacBook Air Features Impressive Battery Life That Bests MacBook and MacBook Pro
• 2018 MacBook Air and Mac mini Hands-On: Long-Awaited Updates Don't Disappoint
• Apple Shares T2 Security Chip Guide Detailing Privacy Features 'Never Before Seen on Mac'
• Apple's New MacBook Air Uses MacBook-Class 5W Amber Lake Chips

Mac mini

• Apple Announces New Space Gray Mac mini With 4-Core or 6-Core Intel Processor and Up to 64GB RAM, Starting at $799
• A Maxed Out Mac Mini With Full Upgrades Will Cost You $4,200
• Apple Highlights Mac Mini Use in Live Concerts, Theater, and Data Centers
• Apple's New Mac Lineup, From Mini to iMac Pro: $799 - $13,199

Software Updates

These weren't part of the event, but Apple today released major software updates for iOS devices, the Apple TV, Macs, and the Apple Watch, which you won't want to miss out on.

• Apple Releases iOS 12.1 With eSIM Support, Real-Time Depth Control, Group FaceTime, New Emoji and More
• iOS 12.1 Includes Addresses Two Major iPhone XS/XR Issues: 'BeautyGate' and Cellular Connectivity Problems
• Apple Releases macOS 10.14.1 With Group FaceTime and New Emoji
• Apple Releases tvOS 12.1 Update for Fourth and Fifth-Generation Apple TV
• Apple Releases watchOS 5.1 With New Color Watch Faces and Updated Emoji
• Apple Updates Shortcuts App With New Weather, Alarm, Conversion and Photos Options
• PSA: Group FaceTime's Video Chat Not Available on Older iOS Devices
• watchOS 5.1 Update Bricking Some Apple Watches

Other Announcements

• Apple Online Store Lists Blackmagic eGPU 'Pro', Available Late November for $1,199
• Apple Quietly Announces AMD Radeon Pro Vega Graphics Options Coming to MacBook Pro
• Apple Quietly Eliminates Rose Gold 12-Inch MacBook

You can order the new iPad Pro models, the new Mac mini, and the new MacBook Air starting today from Apple's website, with deliveries set to begin on November 7.