Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming watchOS 2.2.1 update to developers, two weeks after seeding the first watchOS 2.2.1 beta and a month after releasing watchOS 2.2, a significant watchOS 2 update that introduced new features like multi-watch support for iPhones and Maps improvements.
The second watchOS 2.2.1 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on an iPhone by going to General --> Software update. To install the update, the Apple Watch must have 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the Apple Watch charger, and it must be in range of the iPhone.
It's not yet clear what is included in watchOS 2.2.1, information provided by Apple in the first beta suggests it focuses on bug fixes and performance improvements, likely to address issues discovered since the release of watchOS 2.2. No obvious outward-facing changes were found in the first watchOS 2.2.1 beta, but we'll update this post should any new features be found in the second beta.
Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after releasing the first OS X 10.11.5 beta and a month after releasing OS X 10.11.4, the fourth update to the OS X 10.11 operating system.
The new OS X 10.11.5 update, build 15F24b, can be downloaded through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Apple Developer Center.
Like prior OS X El Capitan updates, the fifth update is likely to focus on security enhancements, performance improvements, and bug fixes to address issues that have been discovered since the release of OS X 10.11.4. No obvious outward-facing changes were found in the first OS X 10.11.5 beta, but we will update this post with any changes discovered in the second beta.
Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3.2 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after the release of the first iOS 9.3.2 beta. iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 comes nearly a month after the launch of iOS 9.3, a major update that introduced Night Shift mode and other feature improvements, and three weeks after the iOS 9.3.1 bug fix update.
The second iOS 9.3.2 beta is available for download over-the-air or from the Apple Developer Center.
Like iOS 9.3.1, iOS 9.3.2 is a minor update that appears to focus mainly on under-the-hood performance improvements and fixes for bugs that have been discovered since the release of iOS 9.3. According to Apple's release notes, the beta features "bug fixes and improvements," including a possible fix for a major Game Center bug that has plagued iOS users for months. No outward-facing changes were found in the first beta, but we'll update this post with anything new discovered in the second beta.
What's new in iOS 9.3.2 beta 2:
Night Shift and Low Power Mode - iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 brings the return of a much desired feature, re-enabling the ability to use Low Power Mode and Night Shift at the same time. Early iOS 9.3 betas allowed Night Shift and Low Power Mode to work simultaneously, but it was removed in iOS 9.3 beta 4. With iOS 9.3.2 beta 2, you can turn on Low Power Mode when Night Shift is on.
Federico Vittici of MacStories has teamed up with Sam Beckett to create an iOS 10 concept video covering "wishlist" features Vittici hopes to see in the next version of iOS. Most concept videos we see are fanciful and filled with features unlikely to make it into iOS, but Vittici's vision of the future of iOS is logical and well thought out.
Major features covered in the video include a customizable Control Center with icons that can be rearranged and third-party app integration, a Siri API for third-party apps, and a system-wide dark mode.
Smaller tweaks include searchable emoji and rich previews in Messages, a document picker for iCloud Drive, and features to make Split View multitasking more useful on the iPad.
iOS 10 isn't expected to be released until the fall of 2016 alongside new iPhones, but we'll get our first look at it in just two months when Apple debuts the operating system update at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Little detail has leaked out so far, but we may learn more as we grow closer to its official announcement.
Our forum members are also discussing features they would like to see in iOS 10, with a long wishlist thread highlighting desired additions like a revamped UI for iPads, user profiles, lock screen widgets, and more. Join in on the discussion here.
Apple's intention to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack from this year's iPhone 7 has been a well-publicized rumor since last November, with the widespread belief that the company would use a Lightning port to provide both charging and as a source for audio output on 2016's iPhone. Today, however, Chinese company LeEco announced a line of smartphones that will beat Apple's rumored removal of the 3.5mm headphone port, instead opting for a USB-C input (via Engadget).
LeEco also has its hands in product categories like smart TVs and electric cars, with offices in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, but the company keeps most of its smartphone business focused locally in China. The new line of smartphones -- dubbed the Le 2, Le 2 Pro, and Le Max 2 -- will run the Android operating system, and users will be able to purchase either in-ear or over-ear USB-C headphones to go with the new phones. No specific plans were divulged, but LeEco noted that it intends to bring "at least one" of the devices stateside in 2016.
Image via Engadget
Similar to other Android devices like the Nexus 6P and the Huawei Mate S, all three of LeEco's new devices have a rear-facing fingerprint scanner to allow access into the smartphone. Each version has a slightly curved backside that flows into chamfered edges and an edge-to-edge, "borderless" display, all housed in a metallic body.
The Le 2 and Le 2 Pro are analogues of the iPhone 6s Plus, featuring 5.5 inch, 1080p displays, but coming in slightly above Apple's 2750 mAh battery at 3000 mAh. Understandably, the Le 2 Pro stacks up better against the Le 2 in a few categories: it has a 21-megapixel rear-facing Sony IMX230 sensor and 4GB of RAM, whereas the Le 2 packs a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera and 3GB of RAM. The Le 2 will cost 1,099 yuan ($170), while the Pro version will run for 1,499 yuan ($230).
The Le Max 2 has a bigger screen than the other two devices at 5.7 inches, and includes Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 820 processor, a more "advanced ultrasonic" fingerprint scanner, and a bigger 3100 mAh battery. That's in addition to optical image stabalization, increased storage capacity options, and a total of 6GB of RAM. A 32GB storage option of the Le Max 2 (with a lesser 4GB of RAM) will cost users 2,099 yuan ($325), while the increased storage of 64GB (and 6GB of RAM) will sell for 2,499 yuan ($390). Pre-orders for all three smartphones began today in China.
Although nothing has been confirmed this far out from the iPhone 7 event, which will most likely take place in September, recent rumors have suggested Apple could ship Lightning-enabled EarPods with the smartphone to ready users for a new shift in headphone inputs. One report suggested recently that the company might even adopt Bluetooth-enabled headphones for the iPhone 7 to free up the Lightning port when listening to music, but still be able to charge the wireless EarPods through the iPhone when they run low on battery.
Samsung is once again set to begin supplying Apple with NAND flash memory chips in 2017, ending a five-year hiatus dating back to the debut of the iPhone 5 in 2012, according to ETNews. The reason for the dissolution of the original supplier relationship is given as Samsung's unwillingness to comply with Apple's electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding requirements via packaging changes or special coatings on the memory packages themselves.
This new claim comes on the heels of an report earlier report, also by ETNews, suggesting Apple was looking to individually shield more parts inside its devices for performance and EMI compliance reasons.
The earlier article claimed the impetus for this change was the use of multiple diverse systems such as 3D Touch along with the presence of various high-speed interfaces, all of which can contribute to and be affected by EMI. Individual shielding would also allow Apple to dispense with discrete metal shielding components, which could ultimately save on logic board space and allow more room for other components inside the devices.
The new report notes that Samsung's use of ball grid array (BGA) packaging places it at a disadvantage to competing products that use land grid array (LGA) package contacts, which allow the package to sit flush with the printed circuit board.
LGA type lead (left) compared to BGA type lead (right)
It appears Samsung's existing sputter coat EMI shielding technologies were insufficient for Apple's performance requirements, given the shielding gaps created by the raised BGA contacts. The emergence of new, cheaper spray techniques for ultra-thin coats of metal shielding seems to be one development that has changed the dynamic of this relationship, as have Samsung's concerns about a weakening flash memory market.
Samsung remains a leader in NAND type memory solutions, with its 3D V-NAND memories offering up to 256 Gb densities on the market currently. While this development seems most likely to affect the memories used in Apple's iPhone and iPad products, there would also be an opportunity for Samsung to show up in the entire line of Mac computers, which have become heavily reliant on flash storage. Along with the recent news that Samsung will supply Apple with OLED panels for future iPhones, it appears Samsung very much remains in play as a supplier for Apple devices.
In the U.S., the models are now available in Bellevue, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Portland, and Washington D.C. In Europe, the new cities include Barcelona, Brussels, Florence, Madrid, and Manchester.
Apple Watch Hermès has also expanded to Guangzhou, Macau, and Shenzhen in China, in addition to Melbourne, Australia and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
First making its name as the go-to app for music recognition software, Shazam has expanded into other media content like TV commercials, movie trailers, and radio ads in the past. This week, however, the company is officially announcing its push into brand-specific advertisement with a new initiative called "Shazam for Brands" (via AdAge).
Using data accumulated from how users interact with the app, and a company's integrated brand advertisement, Shazam will attempt to pick out which artists and musical genre each brand should use to attract the widest swath of their particular audience. Before the official launch of Shazam for Brands, some of Shazam's past partners have included Marvel Studios, Nike and Clinique. Those partners provided fans with experiences like Shazamable movie posters and interactive music videos.
"Advertising had always been secondary, but now we are putting it front and center," said Greg Glenday, chief revenue officer at Shazam. "We are taking advertising seriously by adding stock and people. We sold ourselves short with the advertising industry by just selling banner ads and being transactional."
With such data, a brand will be able to purchase the landing page of a specific Shazam, called "clickable listening screens," so that their products can be displayed in conjunction with the a particular artist's song. Glenday said the new ad-push for the company won't bring any noticeable changes on the user side of things, and that all of Shazam's fans "will still receive the results they want without interruption."
Shazam for Brands will also allow the company's partners to incorporate Shazam's technology -- using the same, traditional Shazam app -- into their own marketing materials. For example, earlier in the month Coca-Cola introduced a Shazamable bottle design that prompted users to film a video of themselves lip-syncing to one of a handful of songs displayed on the drink's label.
Furthermore, the company is looking to get into the live-event business, in a festival centered around up-and-coming artists set to open later in the year. Shazam intends to use beacon technology to create an event where each performer will be able to be discovered by the app. Following today's launch, the company hasn't said who its next major advertising and brand partner will be, but it has created a new Shazam for Brands Twitter account so users can follow its progress on the social network.
Shazam is available on the App Store for free [Direct Link]. Users can also download Shazam Encore for $6.99 [Direct Link], negating all of the company's attempted advertisements.
Intel has announced a major corporate restructuring that will see 11 percent of its workforce laid off as the company intensifies its focus on its data center and smart connected computing businesses.
The move is being billed as a profitable and efficient evolution of the company away from its traditional PC sector base toward more high-growth areas, broadly defined as its cloud-powering hardware and Internet of Things businesses. These areas reportedly made Intel $2.2 billion in revenue growth last year, making up 40 percent of its operating profit and offsetting its decline in the PC market.
Combined with its gaming, home gateway, memory and connectivity businesses, the initiative will fuel a "virtuous cycle of growth", said Intel, but the move comes at the cost of up to 12,000 jobs globally. The company said the layoffs will be completed by mid-2017 through a combination of voluntary and involuntary departures as it re-evaluates its programs and consolidates its sites worldwide.
Intel forecasts that the initiative will deliver $750 million in savings in 2016 and annual run rate savings of $1.4 billion by the middle of the following year.
While Intel's press release makes no mention of its latest microprocessor uptake in the PC market, the company did recently confirm the end of its highly successful decade-long "tick-tock" strategy of annually delivering new processors, after chip updates stretched beyond the yearly cycle in recent generations and began affecting Apple's product launch cycles. The launch of Intel's Kaby Lake 14-nm microarchitecture was delayed to the second half of 2016 after Skylake suffered similar setbacks in 2015.
Semiconductor foundries have had increasingly tough times creating smaller process nodes as fabrication of smaller transistors has become increasingly expensive and complex. Intel has said it will now move to a new "Process-Architecture-Optimization" model for its current 14-nm node and next-generation 10-nm node family of chips.
An open letter expressing "deep concerns" about a U.S. draft encryption bill that would force smartphone makers to decrypt data at the behest of the government was published yesterday, signed by four coalitions representing Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and other major tech companies.
The letter is addressed to the bill's sponsors, Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, and warns of the legislation's "unintended consequences", calling its requirements of technology companies "well-intentioned but ultimately unworkable" (via The Verge).
Any mandatory decryption requirement, such as that included in the discussion draft of the bill that you authored, will to lead to unintended consequences. The effect of such a requirement will force companies to prioritize government access over other considerations, including digital security. As a result, when designing products or services, technology companies could be forced to make decisions that would create opportunities for exploitation by bad actors seeking to harm our customers and whom we all want to stop. The bill would force those providing digital communication and storage to ensure that digital data can be obtained in "intelligible" form by the government, pursuant to a court order. This mandate would mean that when a company or user has decided to use some encryption technologies, those technologies will have to be built to allow some third party to potentially have access. This access could, in turn, be exploited by bad actors.
It is also important to remember that such a technological mandate fails to account for the global nature of today’s technology. For example, no accessibility requirement can be limited to U.S. law enforcement; once it is required by the U.S., other governments will surely follow. In addition, the U.S. has no monopoly on these security measures. A law passed by Congress trying to restrict the use of data security measures will not prevent their use. It will only serve to push users to non-U.S. companies, in turn undermining the global competitiveness of the technology industry in the U.S. and resulting in more and more data being stored in other countries.
We support making sure that law enforcement has the legal authorities, resources, and training it needs to solve crime, prevent terrorism, and protect the public. However, those things must be carefully balanced to preserve our customers’ security and digital information. We are ready and willing to engage in dialogue about how to strike that balance, but remain concerned about efforts to prioritize one type of security over all others in a way that leads to unintended, negative consequences for the safety of our networks and our customers.
The letter is signed by Reform Government Surveillance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Entertainment Software Association, and the Internet Infrastructure Coalition. Facebook, Netflix, eBay, and Dropbox are among other companies represented by the groups.
The news follows heavy criticism of the bill from security experts after a draft titled "The Compliance with Court Orders Act 2016" was circulated earlier this month following Apple's standoff with the FBI over access to an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. The draft states that all providers of communication services and products must respect the "rule of law" and comply with legal requirements and court orders to provide information stored either on devices or remotely.
Without detailing specific technical demands, the wording of the act itself makes end-to-end encryption impossible. Experts said it was "absurd", "dangerous", and "bad legislation in every way", amounting to a government-mandated back door.
The White House remains deeply divided on the issue and has so far decided not to offer public support for the legislation. Language in the draft bill is subject to changes based on input from stakeholders, although an official draft was released one week ago with few changes from the earlier version. Senators Burr and Feinstein have yet to respond to the letter.
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 has begun rolling out iTunes web previews for Apple TV apps, allowing Apple TV users and developers alike to easily share links to Apple TV apps on the web. The change was first spotted by Slide to Play's Jeff Scott (viaMacStories).
Previously, Apple only had iTunes web previews enabled for iOS and Mac OS X apps, making it very difficult for users of the fourth-generation Apple TV to share their favorite apps on the web as well as for developers to promote their apps on their websites and social media accounts.
Although the feature is still rolling out, it appears it's limited to tvOS-only apps thus far. Kevin MacLeod of AfterPad told MacStories "that while the iTunes API is now returning screenshot metadata for tvOS-only apps, that metadata is absent for iOS apps with tvOS support."
Two of the first apps to feature web previews are currently Disney Infinity 3.0 and Beergeek.com TV. While these previews offer users and developers a way to see what an Apple TV app looks like or what features it has, they do not include any way for users to take any action.
Apple today settled a long-running lawsuit with Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute over accusations Apple's Siri voice-based personal assistant violated a 2007 patent owned by Rensselaer and licensed exclusively to Dallas company Dynamic Advances, reports the Albany Business Review.
Apple will pay a total of $24.9 million to Dynamic Advances' parent company Marathon Patent Group. $5 million will be paid after the lawsuit is dropped with the rest of the money to follow later. Apple will be granted a patent license to use the technology and under the terms of the settlement, will not be sued again for a three-year period.
Dynamic Advances will pay approximately 50 percent of the money received from Apple to Rensselaer, but Rensselaer has not agreed to the royalty rate proposed in the settlement.
Dynamic Advances expects to pay 50 percent of that money to Rensselaer, legal counsel and the predecessor exclusive licensee of the patents in suit, according to regulatory filings.
Rensselaer has not, however, agreed to the royalty rate proposed in the settlement, according to a document filed by Marathon Patent Group
Had the case not been settled out of court, it would have gone to trial next month. The lawsuit dates back to 2012 and covers U.S. patent No. 7177798 B2, "Natural language interface using constrained intermediate dictionary of results."
Breaking into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook yielded no new leads in the FBI's investigation, but it did help answer remaining questions about the attack, reports CNN.
According to anonymous U.S. law enforcement officials, the iPhone did not contain encrypted messages or evidence of communications with other unknown ISIS supporters, but it did confirm the shooters did not have outside help as there was no evidence Farook made contact with a third-party during an 18-minute timeline gap.
The FBI has also concluded there was data on the phone it did not have access to previously, an unsurprising find because the iPhone was in use for several weeks after the last iCloud backup. Apple was able to provide data from iCloud backups to the FBI, but the FBI pursued the iPhone unlocking because there was no way to know if there was additional information on the phone without breaching it.
Investigators are now more confident that terrorist Syed Farook didn't make contact with another plotter during an 18-minute gap that the FBI said was missing from their time line of the attackers' whereabouts after the mass shooting, the officials said. The phone has helped investigators address lingering concern that the two may have help, perhaps from friends and family, the officials said.
The phone didn't contain evidence of contacts with other ISIS supporters or the use of encrypted communications during the period the FBI was concerned about. The FBI views that information as valuable to the probe, possibilities it couldn't discount without getting into the phone, the officials said.
CNN's report is in line with information shared last week by CBS News, which said "nothing of real significance" had been discovered on the device. As The Verge points out, the lack of useful contacts or messages on the phone has brought an anticlimactic end to the vicious public encryption battle Apple and the FBI fought over the San Bernardino iPhone.
Apple and the FBI are continuing their encryption dispute over a case in New York. The FBI has asked that a judge order Apple to unlock the iPhone 5s pertinent to a Brooklyn drug case, which Apple has refused to do. While the order was initially denied, the FBI has filed an appeal and the case has yet to be decided.
Apple legal chief Bruce Sewell and Amy Hess, executive assistant director for science and technology at the FBI, are also testifying before congress this afternoon over encryption matters.
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.
Following up on its rumor of a major AMD design win reported last October, WCCFtech has confirmed via multiple sources that the customer in question is indeed Apple. The latest design win follows Apple's use of AMD 200/300 series GPUs in the top-end 27-inch Retina iMac and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and is a boon for the chipmaker that has seen its share of the graphics market dwindle over the past several years.
The design wins make mention of two graphics processor families, Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. The former carries a code name "Ellesmere" and is believed to be in the power range that would make it suitable for an upgrade to the iMac. Polaris 11 has the code name "Baffin" and it is believed to be in the power range suitable for an upgrade to the Retina MacBook Pro.
While Apple has limited discrete graphics chips to the top of its MacBook Pro and iMac lines, there would be suitable chips for all but the smallest form factors of Apple notebooks, should the company choose to embrace discrete graphics on a broader array of models.
As we previously noted, the switch to the new Polaris line of GPUs is set to be a significant performance upgrade over the previous 28nm GPUs. Announced by AMD at Computex, the lower-power AMD GPUs are set to be built on Global Foundries' 14nm process. Through an agreement between multiple foundries, the process is equivalent to Samsung's own second-generation 14nm FinFET process, which is the successor of the process used for the A9 and A9X featured in the latest iPhones and iPads.
Performance of these new graphics chips from AMD is expected to be double that of their predecessors, measured on a per-watt basis. This is thanks to the large size reduction and performance gains in going from the 28nm node first seen in 2011 for graphics processors to the new 16/14nm FinFET processes. This would certainly be welcome to the Mac lineup due to the increased graphics demands of the high-resolution Retina screens featured in both the iMac and MacBook Pro computers. It is reasonable to expect that Apple would allocate roughly the same power budget as on current models, meaning the 2x performance could be seen by users in some cases.
According to earlier reports, the chips should be ready to ship in consumer products in time for the back-to-school shopping season. It is not unheard of for Apple to receive priority on new chip designs, though WWDC would be the most logical time to expect these new Macs to debut. The future of the Mac Pro is less certain, though there will certainly be suitable high-end chips from AMD manufactured on TSMC's 16nm process this year.
Apple today announced the next-generation 12-inch Retina MacBook with several faster tech specs, one hour longer battery life, and a new Rose Gold color option.
The ultra-thin notebook is available on Apple's online store starting today from $1,299, and from Apple retail stores and authorized resellers beginning tomorrow.
15% to 18% Faster CPU Performance
Christina Warren has shared 64-bit Geekbench results that show the new 12-inch MacBook (1.2GHz configuration) has around 15% to 18% faster CPU performance compared to last year's equivalent model. The notebook earned a single-core score of 2,894 and a multi-core score of 5,845, versus 2,437 single-core and 5,049 multi-core scores for the previous generation 1.2GHz model.
Primate Labs founder John Poole also shared 32-bit Geekbench 3 results for the new 12-inch MacBook (1.2GHz configuration) that confirms around a 15% bump in CPU performance compared to the equivalent 2015 model. The new 12-inch MacBook earned a single-core score of 2,670 and a multi-core score of 5,252, compared to 2,303 and 4,621 for the last-generation model.
Meanwhile, early BlackMagic disk speed tests have seen write speeds that are up to 80 or 90 percent faster than the write speeds in the previous-generation MacBook. Read speeds are also improved.
480p FaceTime Camera, No Thunderbolt 3 or DDR4 RAM
Initial reaction to the MacBook refresh among MacRumors readers has been mixed, with some appreciating the long-awaited arrival of faster Skylake processors and others disappointed that the notebook continues to have only one USB-C port, a 480p FaceTime camera, and no Thunderbolt 3 or DDR4 RAM.
No Thunderbolt 3, no extra USB-C port, and same $1,299 starting price. Ouch. Not what I expected. Let's see what the MacBook Pros will be like.
My guess is Thunderbolt 3 is overkill for the users this Mac is targeted at, but the starting price point is overkill as well.
12-inch MacBook supporters argue that the notebook was never intended to have such capabilities, nor might those additions even be feasible without jeopardizing its size and price point, and promote the MacBook Pro as a more suitable alternative for expanded connectivity and CPU-intensive tasks.
41.4-Watt-Hour Battery
Apple says the new 12-inch MacBook has an additional hour of battery life for up to 10 hours on a full charge. The improvement was made possible by not only more efficient Skylake processors, but also due to a 41.4-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. The original 12-inch MacBook has a slightly shorter-lasting 39.7-watt-hour battery that delivers up to 9 hours of power per charge.
- Up to 10 hours of wireless web browsing - Up to 11 hours of iTunes movie playback - Up to 30 days of standby time
The upgrade can be applied to both standard configurations, which offer 1.1GHz Core m3 and 1.2GHz Core m5 processors for $1,299 and $1,599 respectively.
Refurbished Price Drop
Apple has lowered the price of refurbished early 2015 model 12-inch MacBooks on its online store. The notebooks now range between $929 and $1,319 in the U.S. depending on the configuration selected.
The cheapest $929 model features a 1.1GHz Intel dual-core Core M processor based on previous-generation Broadwell architecture, along with 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 RAM, 256GB PCIe-based flash storage, and Intel HD Graphics 5300.
Apple hired former Tesla Motors Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt last year to join its "special projects" group, possibly to spearhead its much-rumored electric vehicle project, according to Electrek.
Chris Porritt and the Aston Martin One-77 supercar
Porritt brings decades of experience in the European automotive industry with him to Apple, having worked on vehicle dynamics as a principal engineer at Land Rover between 1987 and 1997 before serving as chief engineer at Aston Martin until 2013.
During his tenure at Aston Martin, Porritt played a significant role in designing the One-77 supercar, while he also led teams that worked on the similarly luxurious DB9 and V12 Vantage. He left the automaker to join Tesla three years ago.
At Tesla, Porritt reportedly worked on the Model S and Model X, in addition to the chassis of the recently-announced Model 3.
Porritt's role at Apple is unsurprisingly secretive, having been assigned the vague title of "Special Projects Group PD Administrator," but his automotive expertise suggests that he could have a senior role within the "Project Titan" team that is widely rumored to be working on the so-called "Apple Car" project.
Following the recent news that alleged "Apple Car" project lead Steve Zadesky would be leaving Apple for personal reasons, Porritt's seniority would make him a strong candidate for a leadership role within the company's secretive automotive team. At least a few Apple engineers are already reporting to him internally, according to the report.
We can confirm that some senior Apple engineers will be reporting directly to Porritt, including Product Development Engineering Director, Albert Golko, who until last year was working for the iPhone group and now on unspecified products. Emery Sanford is also said to report directly to Porritt now. Sanford is a prolific engineer named in dozens of Apple’s patents and who often worked directly with Zadesky, the exec believed to have been in charge of Project Titan until earlier this year.
It is publicly known that Apple and Tesla have been fighting over top employees, and recruiting talent away from each other's respective companies. Tesla CEO Elon Musk once called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard" where fired Tesla employees go to work. Musk has also referred to the "Apple Car" as an "open secret."
Apple's purported automotive team is believed to include hundreds of employees that previously worked at A123 Systems, Autoliv, Concept Systems, Ford, General Motors, General Dynamics, Land Rover, Tesla Motors, Texas Instruments, and elsewhere. Apple Car R&D could be finalized in time for a 2019 or 2020 launch.
A long-requested feature could be coming to the iOS and Android versions of Netflix, letting users download TV shows and movies for offline viewing instead of being stranded in areas without Wi-Fi or a cellular signal when wanting to watch the video streaming service. Netflix has been lagging behind its competitors in this regard, with companies like Amazon and YouTube allowing some form of offline viewing to its paying members.
Answering a question from Re/code yesterday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings admitted that the company would consider the possibility for users to download its videos moving forward, without directly confirming it would implement the feature anytime soon. The wording of Hastings' comment also suggests that if offline viewing ever came, Netflix would angle it as an assistive feature for countries with less reliable internet speeds, rather than a bullet point benefit to its broader subscriber base.
“We should keep an open mind on this. We’ve been so focused on click-and-watch and the beauty and simplicity of streaming. But as we expand around the world, where we see an uneven set of networks, it’s something we should keep an open mind about.”
Netflix's previous stance on offline viewing was a belief that the introduction of such a feature would add too much complexity into a service that prides itself on simplicity of use. Last September, the company's Chief Product Officer, Neil Hunt, said that Netflix believes it's "not a very compelling proposition" moving forward. Undoubtedly content licenses would be a hurdle for the feature as well, but given the steadily growing amount of Netflix-created original content, users would have plenty of TV shows, movies, and documentaries to choose from if offline viewing ever becomes available.
Less than two hours after announcing the new 12-inch MacBook, which has yet to become available for purchase online, Apple has released the first software update for the notebook.
Apple's website says the Bluetooth update for the 12-inch MacBook (Early 2016) improves compatibility with third-party Bluetooth devices, and is recommended for all users.
The software update is a 157.8MB download and requires OS X El Capitan 10.11.4.
Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.5 El Capitan update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after releasing the 
Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3.2 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after the release of the 
Intel has 
Apple today settled a long-running lawsuit with Dynamic Advances and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute over accusations Apple's Siri voice-based personal assistant violated a 2007 patent owned by Rensselaer and licensed exclusively to Dallas company Dynamic Advances, reports the 
Apple today announced the 
Less than two hours after announcing the 
