MacRumors

A growing number of MacRumors readers and Twitter users have been experiencing an issue with some Mac App Store apps displaying a "damaged" error when opened since late Wednesday. The issue has affected popular apps such as 1Password, Acorn, Byword, DaisyDisk and Tweetbot.

Mac users are prompted with this error message when opening Mac App Store apps:

“App Name” is damaged and can’t be opened. Delete “App Name” and download it again from the App Store.

Tweetbot developer Paul Haddad tweeted that the issue appears to be related to security certificates that expired on November 11, 2015, and he further speculated that the receipts now using SHA256 encryption may be causing problems with older OS X versions.

The issue, however, also appears to affect some users running OS X El Capitan, leading Haddad to believe that Mac App Store apps contacting Apple's servers simultaneously may be causing a "self inflicted DDOS on Apple’s receipt generation service."

Haddad says that rebooting your Mac on OS X 10.10 or later may resolve the issue, while some users have been forced to reinstall apps from the Mac App Store, disconnect from and reopen the Mac App Store or simply reenter their Apple ID password.

It appears that Apple has since set a new 2035 expiration date for the security certificates, per The Guardian, at least some for apps, but the issues are persisting for some. Apple did not respond to request for comment.

Update: Rene Ritchie at iMore has further explained what's causing Mac apps to report as "damaged" and what can be done about it.

iFixit is in the process of tearing down the iPad Pro, providing a closer look at how Apple organized the internals of the larger iPad. While the majority of the internal layout is similar to the iPad Air 2, there are some significant differences, including the inclusion of a brand new four-speaker audio setup.

Each corner of the iPad Pro has a speaker driver sitting next to a capped resonance chamber. Each speaker is designed identically, as the iPad Pro shifts the speaker's function depending on the orientation of the device. The two speakers on top provide higher frequencies while the bottom speakers provide lower frequencies.

Once it removed the speaker drivers, iFixit uncapped the volume chambers, which Apple says gives the iPad Pro's speakers 61 percent more "back volume" than previous iPads. Underneath the carbon fiber caps are enclosures filled with foam, which are used to amplify the speaker's sound. However, iFixit notes that the speakers take up a significant amount space that could have been used to increase battery capacity by 50 percent. Previous iPads, due to the lack of premium speakers, were able to dedicate a greater proportion of space to battery capacity.

One of the first changes the team at iFixit noticed was that the logic board has moved to the center of the device, unlike previous iPads where it was off to the side. Additionally, the logic board's shielding had to be removed before iFixit was able to remove the logic board itself, unlike previous iPads.

The teardown also found that the iPad Pro uses the DP695 Timing Controller, which may be an iteration of the DP665 LCD timing controller found in the 5K Retina iMac. However, as noted by iFixit, the iPad Pro's timing controller is likely modified to better use the display's refresh rate. Also, the teardown experts found that Apple has added adhesive pull tabs under the iPad's batteries, making them easier to remove.

Finally, iFixit's teardown offers physical confirmation that the iPad Pro includes 4 GB of RAM, which was confirmed by Apple's own Xcode tools in mid-September.

iFixit's teardown is ongoing, and this post will be updated if any other significant discoveries are made.

Update: iFixit has discovered that the iPad Pro has a 10307 mAh battery.

Update 2: iFixit has given the iPad Pro a repairability score of 3 out of 10, noting that the Smart Connector is unlikely to fail given its lack of moving parts and despite it being "virtually impossible to replace." The main issue is that the iPad Pro uses a lot of adhesive to hold everything together, making things difficult to replace.

Apple is in talks with U.S. banks over a potential person-to-person mobile payments service, reports The Wall Street Journal. Such a service would perhaps be positioned as an expansion to Apple Pay, and it would allow people to send each other payments, much like PayPal's Venmo or Square's Square Cash service.

Little is known about the talks at this early date, but The Wall Street Journal says communication between Apple and the banks is ongoing and it's not known if Apple has inked any concrete deals. Apple is said to be speaking to Chase, Capital One, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank, but key details "remain in flux" and the technical details still need to be worked out.

It isn't clear how Apple intends to make money from the service. Indeed, the company may view a person-to-person offering mostly as a way to get more consumers to convert to its phones.

Under the current discussions, Apple wouldn’t charge the banks for participating in its person-to-person payment service, said the person familiar with the talks. That is different from Apple Pay in which the banks pay Apple for each transaction

Person-to-person services like Venmo and Square Cash are used for personal payments and are useful for things like paying back a friend who bought dinner or splitting a rent payment. With Apple's system, iPhone and iPad owners could perhaps use Apple Pay to send secure payments to one another from a checking account.

A launch date for the service is unclear as of yet, but Apple may be targeting a 2016 debut.

Apple released the iPad Pro on the Apple Online Store and at select Apple Retail Stores and resellers earlier today, and we have rounded up some interesting facts and news announcements surrounding the 12.9-inch tablet.

iPad Pro Delivers Notebook-Level Performance

Geekbench results show that the iPad Pro's A9X processor is a dual-core chip running at about 2.25 GHz, as reported by Ars Technica.

The A9X chip had a 3,233 single-core score and 5,498 multi-score score in browser-based CPU tests, outperforming the iPad Air 2 and other recent iPhones and iPads by a significant margin.

iPad Pro also outperformed the 12-inch Retina MacBook, equipped with an Intel Core M dual-core processor clocked at 1.1 to 1.2 GHz, but the A9X chip's CPU performance falls short of devices like the 2015 MacBook Air and Surface Pro 4 with Intel's latest Broadwell or Skylake U-series processors.

The iPad Pro's GPU performance is much more impressive, with GFXBench OpenGL test results showing the A9X chip outperformed the 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro with Intel Iris 5200 integrated graphics, in addition to the 12-inch MacBook, 2015 MacBook Air, 2015 13" Retina MacBook Pro, Surface Pro 4 and all recent iPads.

We’re looking at MacBook Air-class CPU performance and MacBook Pro-class GPU performance, so the iPad Pro ought to be able to handle more multitasking features with aplomb as Apple sees fit to add them. Professional 3D apps like AutoCAD and the Complete Anatomy app Apple showed off in September all seem to run just fine, too.

Apple Pencil is Weighted

Lauren Goode of The Verge shared an interesting anecdote about the Apple Pencil in her iPad Pro review:

But the Pencil is just plain fun. It is indeed Apple white, and there are Apple-y things about it — for example, the fact that it is weighted, and won’t roll away on a table top, and always stops rolling with the word "Pencil" facing upward on its metal band.

Read our iPad Pro review roundup.

T-Mobile Financing for iPad Pro

T-Mobile has announced the iPad Pro will be available November 18. Eligible customers can finance their iPad Pro purchase through the carrier's JUMP! On Demand program, starting at $199.99 upfront with $34/month payments.

T-Mobile has a sign-up page to receive an email alert when orders can be placed. Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard will also be available on T-Mobile for $99 and $169 respectively starting November 18.

Apple Store Availability

iPad Pro launched today with limited in-store stock at select Apple Retail Stores in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and some other countries. Personal Pickup is available in U.S. stores.

Most Apple Stores have not received stock of the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, while online shipping estimates currently range between 3-4 weeks in the U.S. and many other countries for the accessories.

Tim Cook Calls Microsoft's Surface Book "Diluted"

The Irish Independent has published an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company's plans to expand in Ireland, iPad Pro and more, with his comment about Microsoft's new Surface Book drawing some attention:

Mr Cook had some sharp words for competitors. Despite saying that Apple’s relationship with Microsoft as “really good”, he described the software giant’s new Surface Book laptop as “deluded”.

“It’s a product that tries too hard to do too much,” he said. “It’s trying to be a tablet and a notebook and it really succeeds at being neither. It’s sort of deluded.”

Update: Apple says Cook meant "diluted," not "deluded," in reference to the above comment.

Follow our iPad Pro timeline for the latest news about the 12.9-inch tablet.

Apple released the iPad Pro online and in stores earlier today, and the embargo has now lifted for hands-on reviews of the new 12.9-inch tablet.

The consensus opinion is that the iPad Pro is an excellent device for content creation, with powerful hardware for intensive apps and multitasking, but not quite a PC replacement due to its iOS limitations. The tablet's experience will be better realized once more developers update their apps to take advantage of the larger canvas.

iPad Pro reviews praised its large display, which at 2,732×2,048 pixels has a higher resolution than the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display, and most early adopters claim the tablet meets or exceeds its advertised 10-hour battery life. The new Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard also received positive reviews.

Ars Technica - Andrew Cunningham

It's best to think of the iPad Pro as a starting point, especially for iOS 9. These multitasking features are still brand-new, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick in future iOS 9 revisions and into iOS 10. My biggest gripes with the iPad Pro are with the software rather than the hardware, and that means that most of them can be fixed given enough time and enough feature requests. It took Microsoft three tries to really nail down the Surface Pro concept, and given a couple of iOS updates the iPad Pro has room to grow into a more versatile laptop replacement without necessarily giving up the things that people like about iOS.

For the rest of us, there's still the Mac.

CNET - Scott Stein

I want the iPad to eat the Mac, the way the iPhone ate the iPod. This iPad has already crept up to become as large as a Mac. But iOS needs to fully change with it. I need to connect to my old files and Web tools better, because that's what I need as a pro. I want it to become as flexible as a computer should be. The iPad needs to bridge the gap.

The iPad Pro feels like the top half of a new futuristic superpowered laptop. I want the bottom half, too.

MacStories - Federico Viticci

The iPad Pro is positioned as a more productive take on the iPad for those who need to get work done on it. My recommendation couldn't be more straightforward: if iOS is your main computing platform, or if you plan to turn an iPad into your primary computer, you'll want an iPad Pro. Its powerful hardware, multitasking interface, and extensible nature are superior to every other iPad. I don't see myself using a Mac as my primary computer ever again.

Mashable - Lance Ulanoff

It certainly has some impressive benchmark numbers. Its Geekbench single-core (3,218) and multi-core (5,455) numbers blew away virtually everything else (in the mobile space), including the A9 chip in the iPhone 6S/6S Plus. It even outperforms the new MacBook's Intel Core M processor (2,367 and 4,489 for single-core and multi-core, respectively). What’s more, the iPad Pro’s single-core score rivaled desktop performance on the Microsoft Surface Book (beating the sixth-gen Intel Core i5 and coming close to a sixth-gen Intel Core i7). The multi-core scores lagged behind both systems, but not by the margin you might expect.

TechCrunch - Matthew Panzarino

…iPad Pro absolutely, 100% could be the central computing device for a home. […] But there is a certain (sorry) norm-core computing demographic that could very well end up with an iPad Pro as the ’enhanced’ component to their smartphone, which is their real computer. Somewhere on the same level as other use-case-based devices like wearables and an interconnected home.

TouchArcade - Eli Hodapp

I'm not sure how anyone can walk away with a first impression that's any different from, "Wow, this is comically large." Unboxing my iPad Pro and getting it in my hands for the first time brought all the memories of the original Xbox rushing back, as everything about that console (particularly the launch day unit) from the size of the Xbox itself to how huge the controller is just felt absurdly huge. […]

If you want a good size comparison without leaving the house, look around for a normal sized magazine. For whatever reason I've got an issue of People on my coffee table, and the screen of the iPad Pro is basically the exact same size. Add in a little extra around the edge for the bezel, and there you go.

The Verge - Lauren Goode

But even this split-screen mode isn’t enough for lots of the "laptop" things I need to do on a daily basis. This is still a mobile OS we’re talking about. It’s nice that it’s at least familiar feeling, unlike the foreign hybrid OS that Microsoft introduced with the first Surfaces. But I can’t manipulate more than two app windows at a time on the iPad Pro. I can’t control things with a trackpad. I can’t run Final Cut Pro on the iPad Pro. Entering data into cells in the Google Sheets app on the iPad Pro is still onerous. There’s no way to hand over the iPad to someone else and let them quickly log in as a "guest" user.

The Verge - Walt Mossberg

You can get a lot more done with iPad apps than with the paltry selection of tablet / touch-first apps available for the Surface. But, because Apple hasn’t made a great keyboard, the iPad Pro isn’t a complete replacement for a great laptop like the MacBook Air — even for a tablet guy like me.

The iPad Pro will no doubt make a lot of Apple users happy, especially if they use it for graphics. But I won’t be buying one, and I don’t recommend that average users do so either.

The Wall Street Journal - Joanna Stern

The Pro may seem wedged between iPads and MacBooks, but it will be your main computer in the future. As our phablets push smaller tablets into retirement, the big tablet and its accessories will do the same for our traditional computers. For now, however, it may be easiest to step back and see the Pro as a… really good, really big iPad.

More Reviews: Bloomberg, Daring Fireball, Fast Company, TechRadar, The Telegraph, Wired and Yahoo Tech

Apple is now accepting orders for the iPad Pro, both through its online storefront and through the Apple Store app. The first iPad Pro online orders will arrive on Friday, November 13 when one-day shipping is selected, and Apple's site is also listing the tablet as available for purchase in many retail stores beginning today.

The Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard will not be arriving until late next week and are not available for in-store pickup at the current time.

Logitech's CREATE Backlit Keyboard Case for the iPad Pro is available in stores beginning today, however, for $149.95. Apple is advertising the keyboard right alongside the Apple Pencil and its own Smart Keyboard. Logitech's keyboard was designed with input from Apple and it is the first third-party product to use the device's Smart Connector port.

The iPad Pro is Apple's new flagship tablet, measuring in at 12.9 inches diagonally. It includes a Retina display, a four speaker audio system, 4GB RAM, and a set of dedicated accessories, the Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard.

Apple's iPad Pro is priced at $799 for the entry-level 32GB Wi-Fi only model, $949 for the 128GB Wi-Fi only model, and $1,079 for the 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular model. The iPad Pro is available for purchase in Gold, Silver, and Space Gray.

The Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard are being sold alongside the iPad Pro. The Apple Pencil is priced at $99, while the Smart Keyboard is priced at $169.

The iPad Pro is available in a long list of countries at launch, including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cayman Islands, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greenland, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, UAE, U.S., U.K., Uruguay, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

InstaAgent, an app that connects to Instagram and promises to track the people that have visited a user's Instagram account, appears to be storing the usernames and passwords of Instagram users, sending them to a suspicious remote server.

An app developer from Peppersoft downloaded InstaAgent -- full name "Who Viewed Your Profile - InstaAgent" -- and discovered it's reading Instagram account usernames and passwords, sending them via clear text to a remote server - instagram.zunamedia.com.

InstaAgent is also using the credentials to log into accounts and post unauthorized images. Instagram does not permit third-party apps to upload photos to user accounts.

While InstaAgent isn't particularly popular in the United States, it is currently the number one free app in both the United Kingdom and Canada, with thousands of downloads that puts a huge number of Instagram users at risk of having their information stolen. In the Google Play store, the app had between 100k and 500k users, and the install numbers could be similar for iOS.

Google has removed the InstaAgent Android app from the Google Play store, but InstaAgent is still available in the iOS App Store for the time being. Anyone who has downloaded InstaAgent should delete the app immediately and change their Instagram password.

Passwords for other sites and accounts that were the same as the Instagram password should also be changed as a precaution. We also highly recommend a password management app like 1Password, which can generate unique complex passwords for each and every site or service. Instagram also advises against installing third-party apps that don't follow its Community Guidelines.

There are dozens if not hundreds of third-party apps that promise to provide Instagram users with followers and other perks, and these kind of apps should be avoided. According to Instagram, these apps are "likely an attempt to use your account in an inappropriate way" as InstaAgent does.

Update 3:20 p.m. Pacific Time: InstaAgent has now been removed from the iOS App Store.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere today hosted an Un-Carrier X event, where he announced T-Mobile's latest offering, free video streaming. Going forward, T-Mobile customers who watch streaming video will not have the video data count towards their monthly data usage.

That means services like Netflix and Hulu will no longer eat up data, making T-Mobile's data plans go further. T-Mobile's lowest-priced plan costs $50 per month and includes just 2GB of data, but T-Mobile is now the only company that excludes video streaming data from data usage. T-Mobile also allows for free streaming music, a perk introduced at an earlier event.

With the new Binge-On free video streaming service, there are 24 current partners, and the program is open to any video streaming product that wants to participate. Binge-On uses a proprietary data compression algorithm to stream 480p "DVD quality" video that uses a smaller amount of data to a T-Mobile device. For those who don't want to use the compression service, it can be toggled off. Binge-On is available to customers with a 3GB plan or higher.

Binge-On partners at launch include Netflix, HBO Now, HBO Go, Hulu, WatchESPN, Showtime, Starz Play, Encore Play, Vevo, MLB.tv, NBC Sports, Movieplex Play, Vessel, Sling TV, Sling Box, T-Mobile TV, Go90, DirecTV, Univision Sports, Crackle, FOX Sports, FOX Sports Go, Vudu, and Ustream.

T-Mobile has also doubled the amount of data available to its Simple Choice customers. Rather than offering data in 1GB, 3GB, and 5GB increments, T-Mobile is now offering 2GB, 6GB, 10GB, and unlimited plans.

Customer plans are being doubled at no cost and a new Family Match promotion doubles the amount of data available to each family member. A family of four can now get 6GB of data each for a total of $120 per month using Family Match. Family Match includes a free fourth line for all customers as part of a limited time promotion.

Over the course of the last two years, T-Mobile has aimed to disrupt traditional mobile service with its 10 "Un-carrier" initiatives. The company began with uncoupling device costs from service costs in 2013, and then went on to offer several additional incentives to encourage customers to switch to the carrier, including paying early termination fees, offering a JUMP! upgrade plan, unlimited texting and 2G data in 100 countries, free streaming music from Spotify, Rdio, iTunes Radio, and Pandora, one week free trials to test the T-Mobile service, Wi-Fi calling, data rollovers, and low-cost plans for businesses.