Apple's newly announced music streaming service, Apple Music, is upsetting a handful of independent United Kingdom-based music labels who house artists such as Adele and Arctic Monkeys (via The Telegraph). Under the terms being proposed by Apple, labels will receive no compensation during the three-month free trial given to Apple Music users. The labels argue that this trial period will "literally put people out of business," and refuse to support the service, which launches in under two weeks on June 30.
According to Andy Heath, the chairman of industry lobby group UK Music, no British independent labels have agreed to Apple's terms or plan to in the future. Most of the labels claim Apple hasn't thoroughly prepared the labels for the launch, and that the time between its announcement and launch has left little time for contract negotiations.
“If you are running a small label on tight margins you literally can’t afford to do this free trial business," Heath stated. "Their plan is clearly to move people over from downloads, which is fine, but it will mean us losing those revenues for three months.
Apple hasn’t thought this through at all and it’s not like them. They can’t spring a contract like this on us three weeks from release."
Apple has attempted to reassure skeptical labels that once the three-month free trial ends, Apple Music will support a 71.5 percent revenue sharing contribution to labels backing the streaming service. The number will even be slightly higher -- about 73 percent -- outside of the United States to counterbalance the no royalty payment policy during the trial period. It's still not enough for some labels, according to Heath.
“I think the dynamic here is nothing to do with the royalty rates but there are elements of these deals that are just too difficult for smaller labels to do. It will literally put people out of business.
Smaller labels would be completely screwed. Apple just has to move on this.”
Apple Music was officially unveiled last week during WWDC as a three-tiered service with basic music streaming, a live global radio station, and a social media platform that allows fans to follow favorite artists. The long-awaited service will officially launch on June 30 with a three-month trial period that will allow everyone to try it out for the summer. Afterwards, Apple Music will cost $9.99 per month for users who want to stick around.
Apple's fleet of vehicles collecting street-level mapping data has arrived in the United Kingdom as planned, with the first verified sighting in Solihull, England, approximately two hours northwest of London. While camera-equipped fifth-generation Dodge Caravans have been used to collect mapping data in the United States, Apple appears to be using Mercedes-Benz Vito vans marked with "Apple Maps" in Europe.
Apple Maps van driving in Solihull, England in June 2015
Apple confirmed earlier this month that it is driving vehicles around the world to collect data to improve Apple Maps, and the mapping imagery is almost certainly being used to create a Google Maps "Street View" competitor. Apple Maps vehicles are also taking photos of businesses and storefronts in major metropolitan areas to replace current imagery provided by third-party sources such as Yelp.
The cities and regions where Apple Maps vehicles will be driving in England through July:
East of England Essex (Brentwood, Epping Forest), Hertfordshire (Broxbourne, Dacorum, Hertsmere, St Albans, Three Rivers, Watford, Welwyn Hatfield) Greater London Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, City of London, City of Westminster, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth
South East Kent (Dartford, Sevenoaks), Surrey (Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Spelthorne)
West Midlands Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield, Perry Barr, Erdington, Ladywood, Hodge Hill, Yardley, Edgbaston, Hall Green, Selly Oak, Northfield), Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Staffordshire, Walsall, Warwickshire, Worcestershire
Apple has also updated its Apple Maps vehicles website with a new list of locations where it will be collecting data between July 1 to July 14, with notable additions including New Orleans and unmapped areas in Santa Clara County. Apple may also be at least temporarily finished collecting data in multiple states it has canvassed over the past several months, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Hawaii.
A team of six researchers from Indiana University, Georgia Tech and Peking University have published an in-depth report exposing a series of security vulnerabilities that enable sandboxed malicious apps, approved on the App Store, to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data stored in other apps, including iCloud passwords and authentication tokens, Google Chrome saved web passwords and more.
The thirteen-page research paper "Unauthorized Cross-App Resource Access on Mac OS X and iOS" details that inter-app interaction services, ranging from the Keychain and WebSocket on OS X to the URL Scheme on OS X and iOS, can be exploited to steal confidential information and passwords, including those stored in popular password vaults such as 1Password by AgileBits.
"We completely cracked the keychain service - used to store passwords and other credentials for different Apple apps - and sandbox containers on OS X, and also identified new weaknesses within the inter-app communication mechanisms on OS X and iOS which can be used to steal confidential data from Evernote, Facebook and other high-profile apps."
The different cross-app and communication mechanism vulnerabilities discovered on iOS and OS X, identified as XARA weaknesses, include Keychain password stealing, IPC interception, scheme hijacking and container cracking. The affected apps and services include iCloud, Gmail, Google Drive, Facebook, Twitter, Chrome, 1Password, Evernote, Pushbullet, Dropbox, Instagram, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Dashlane, AnyDo, Pocket and several others.
Lead researcher Luyi Xing told The Register that he reported the security flaws to Apple in October 2014 and complied with the iPhone maker's request to withhold publishing the information for six months, but has not heard back from the company since and is now exposing the zero-day vulnerabilities to the public. The flaws affect thousands of OS X apps and hundreds of iOS apps and can now be weaponized by attackers.
We reported this morning that Apple Watch shipments had begun arriving at Apple Stores in the United States ahead of the imminent launch of in-store availability, and it now appears that in-stores sales of the Apple Watch will indeed begin tomorrow, on June 17.
It's now after 10:00 a.m. on June 17 in some parts of Australia, and Apple Stores in the country are now offering the Apple Watch in-store after a reservation is made for an in-store pick-up online. In the Australian online Apple Store, when selecting a watch, there's now an option that says "Interested in buying in-store?" with a link that allows buyers to check reservation availability.
After choosing to select a reservation, there's a drop down menu that shows nearby Apple Stores, letting users see whether a particular Apple Watch is in stock. If a watch is in stock, the site displays a green checkmark and the next available reservation time. Making a reservation requires a phone number to be entered, allowing Apple to text a unique registration code that gives buyers 30 minutes to complete a reservation and schedule an in-store pick-up time.
Apple Watches that are not in stock are listed as unavailable for in-store pick-up, with Apple providing instructions to check stock levels again at 8:00 a.m. each morning, when inventory for the day is updated.
With the Apple Watch now available in-store in Australia, it's likely that all first wave launch countries will be seeing in-store sales starting as June 17 rolls around in each location. The reservation process will be the same as the process that's currently available in Australia, so potential Apple Watch buyers in the United States should check stock levels right at 6:00 a.m. local time. It's 1 a.m. in the U.K. and the online U.K. reservation page is live, suggesting we'll see the U.S. site up and running at around midnight on June 17. The U.K. site says that the first reservations will be available beginning at 6:00 in the morning.
Stock levels of each watch remain unclear, but in Australia many stores appear to have a mix of Sport and Stainless Steel Apple Watches available. Many of the more limited Apple Watches, including those in Space Gray and Space Black, are not currently available, nor are those with limited bands like the Modern Buckle and the Link Bracelet. It's likely that available stock in the United States will be similar.
Since watchOS 2 was released last Monday, several developers have been tinkering with the software and have managed to get games like Canabalt and a Flappy Bird clone to run natively on the Apple Watch using frameworks like UIKit and SpriteKit, which are not available to developers for Apple Watch apps.
One of the main features Apple added to watchOS 2 is the ability for developers to create "native" apps that run on the device itself instead of the iPhone, but as it turns out, developers are restricted to using WatchKit for Apple Watch interfaces and are not able to use more advanced frameworks available on for iPhone apps like UIKit, SpriteKit, and SceneKit.
Last week, developers Steven Troughton-Smith, Adam Bell, and Jay Freeman were able to get apps using UIKit and SceneKit to run on the Apple Watch, and in the video below, endless runner Canabalt is shown running natively on the Apple Watch.
Developer Hamza Sood has also been tinkering with watchOS 2 and today tweeted that he was able to get a Flappy Bird clone to run on the Apple Watch with native SpriteKit rendering. He also took it one step further, adding both touch and Digital Crown input controls.
Hacked a Flappy Bird clone onto Apple Watch with native SpriteKit rendering, touch/crown control, SFX through speaker pic.twitter.com/U1cavXb7SN
— Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) June 16, 2015
Developers don't yet have permission from Apple to use these frameworks for Apple Watch apps, but the hacked games give a look at what the device might be capable of in the future. WatchOS 2, set to be released in the fall, will allow developers to create native apps that are powered by the Apple Watch instead of the iPhone, but without the frameworks used in the above examples.
watchOS 2 also gives developers access to the Digital Crown, the microphone, and various sensors on the watch, including the accelerometer and heart rate monitor, which will lead to more full-featured apps later this year.
Apple has suspended audio accessory maker Monster's right to make licensed accessories for Apple devices following a lawsuit Monster filed against Apple-owned Beats Electronics in January, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Monster produces Lightning charging cables and headphones that are certified to work with Apple devices under Apple's Made for iPhone (MFi) certification process, and it has done so since 2005. As of May 5, Apple is ending its agreement with Monster and will no longer allow the company to make MFi certified accessories.
Monster's general counsel David Tognotti said Noreen Krall, Apple's chief litigation counsel, told him that their agreement was being terminated, effective May 5, because the relationship between the two companies is no longer "mutually beneficial" in the wake of Monster's lawsuit. According to Mr. Tognotti, Ms. Krall said the suit would "destroy the working relationship" between Apple and Monster.
Monster's lawsuit accused Beats Electronics, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, and HTC of conspiring to acquire Monster's portion of Beats Electronics through a fraudulent deal. Well before Beats Electronics was bought by Apple, Monster designed and sold Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. That ended in 2011, after Beats sold 51 percent of the company to HTC and invoked a change of ownership clause in the Beats/Monster deal.
Beats Electronics later repurchased HTC's stake in the company and convinced Monster CEO Noel Lee to sell a portion of his 5 percent stake as well. According to Lee, this was a "sham transaction" designed to exclude Monster from profits from Beats by Dre sales and later, profits from the Apple acquisition, which would have been more than $100 million had he retained his stake in the company.
With Apple ending its MFi agreement with Monster, Monster will be required to change its packaging and rework some products that use licensed technology. The headphones in the image above, for example, are described as including Apple ControlTalk® microphone, music, and volume control. Apple is permitting Monster to continue to sell accessories through September, but the company is not allowed to produce new MFi-certified cables and headphones.
According to Monster, 900 of its more than 4,000 products produced since 2008 have been made under the MFi program, and the company has paid out more than $12 million in licensing fees since that date. Monster lawyer David Tognotti says the move is excessive and "shows a side of Apple that consumers don't see very often." "Apple can be a bully," he said.
With exactly two weeks until the launch of Apple Music, details about the revenue sharing model for the streaming music service continue to emerge. Billboard reports that Apple has yet to contact independent music publishers about Apple Music, leading many indie labels to believe that the Cupertino-based company will soon send a bulk email to publishers with an opt-in contract attached.
Apple will reportedly offer indie music publishers a headline rate of 13.5% revenue, higher than the 12% it pays for iTunes Match and 10% it pays for iTunes Radio. Apple will pay indie labels slightly higher rates than the industry standard, contributing to Apple Music's overall 71.5% revenue sharing, in return for making no royalty payments during the three-month free trial it will offer consumers.
"That free trial, with no payments being made to rights holders, precluded Apple from taking advantage of the statutory licenses that most interactive streaming services use. Under that statutory license, Apple must send notices of intent (NOIs) to publishers with a list of the songs they plan to use, and then make payment to publishers using a three-tier formula approved by the Copyright Royalty Board."
The 13.5% headline rate is reportedly part of a larger payment formula that will be used to determine royalties paid to rights holders.
Apple Music was announced last week as an all-in-one streaming music service, live global radio station and social platform for artists to connect with fans. The subscription-based service will be available June 30 for $9.99 per month after a three-month free trial period for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac and PC. Apple TV and Android versions of the service will be available in the fall.
Beyond casing material and band, there are no other obvious customization options for the Apple Watch, but one product is aiming to change that. WatchDots are small, colorful vinyl stickers that change the look of the Apple Watch's Digital Crown and side button.
WatchDots come in six colors and were conceived as a way for Apple Watch Sport owners to match their Digital Crowns to their bands, mimicking the colored Digital Crowns on some of the gold Edition Apple Watches. Colors mainly match the Sport bands, in black, white, blue, pink, and green, but there's also a red option to mimic Tim Cook's own Apple Watch, which has a red Digital Crown.
I have a stainless steel Apple Watch with a white Sport Band, so I ordered the matching white WatchDots to give them a try (I also ordered pink, but those are backordered). It's hard to wax poetic about a set of nondescript vinyl stickers, but I like the WatchDots. They tie the look of the band to the look of the Apple Watch, and they've also drawn a lot of notice -- not from the general public, but from other Apple Watch owners.
WatchDots cost $9.99, which is a bit expensive given their size in relation to a vinyl sticker you might get for your iPhone or MacBook. For that price, you get three sets of dots in your chosen color (with 3 dots for the Digital Crown and three dots for the side button), along with a bonus set in another color (mine was black).
Twitter today announced that it's bringing autoplay video to the web and to its iOS app, causing native videos, Vines, and GIFs to play automatically in the Twitter stream for an improved video-watching experience.
Today, it's become even easier to enjoy video on Twitter. Now native videos, Vines and GIFs will begin to play back automatically. So you can keep up with the action without missing a Tweet and get a better sense of what's been shared instantly.
Videos will play without sound, but tapping a video will turn the sound on and play the video in an expanded view. Rotating an iPhone or iPad to landscape mode will automatically turn on the sound and expand a video that's in the timeline to fill the screen.
Twitter is including an option that will allow users to continue to use the previous click-to-play video experience, disabling autoplay videos, Vines, and GIFs. There's also a setting to turn autoplay on only when connected to WiFi, preserving bandwidth when connected to cellular.
The video changes are starting to roll out today to Twitter users on iOS and on Twitter.com.
During Square Enix's E3 event that was held this morning, the company announced plans to bring iconic game Final Fantasy VII to iOS "before the end of summer" this year. Little detail was made available on the game aside from an upcoming release date, but it appears it's a port of the original PS1 game and not the Final Fantasy VII remake that was announced by Sony earlier this week.
Square Enix has made the first six Final Fantasy games available on iOS devices, but Final Fantasy VII for iOS will mark the first Final Fantasy port coming from a PlayStation game. Released in 1997, Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the Final Fantasy series created for PlayStation and it quickly became one of the most popular Final Fantasy games.
In 2013, Square Enix producer Takashi Tokita said in an interview that a release of Final Fantasy VII was "years away" from release on iOS because of the space limitations on the platform. "It's that currently, space will be an issue," he said. "Phones won't be able to contain the space it takes. It's over a gigabyte. People are probably going to have to wait for a few years."
Prior to 2015, Apple limited the size of apps to 2GB, but in February, that limit was expanded to 4GB, perhaps making games like Final Fantasy VII more feasible on iOS. A PC port of Final Fantasy VII comes in at over 3GB, so it's possible that the 2GB size restriction was the limiting factor.
A game that's 3GB in size will be a tough sell to customers who have 16GB iPhones and iPads, but upcoming features in iOS 9 could help slim down the install size of Final Fantasy VII and other games that take up a lot of storage space. App Thinning, a feature Apple introduced at WWDC, allows developers to optimize apps for specific devices for the first time. For example, a game being played on the iPhone won't be required to download all the iPad art assets, saving much needed space.
The App Store and operating system optimize the installation of iOS and watchOS apps by tailoring app delivery to the capabilities of the user’s particular device, with minimal footprint. This optimization, called app thinning, lets you create apps that use the most device features, occupy minimum disk space, and accommodate future updates that can be applied by Apple. Faster downloads and more space for other apps and content provides a better user experience.
Square Enix also gave an update on Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, its upcoming smartphone game. Unchained X was previously announced in May, but as of today, Square Enix has confirmed that it will be available worldwide when it launches.
Apple Stores in the United States have begun to receive shipments of the Apple Watch to fulfill in-store reservations through Personal Pickup, according to BGR. The report claims the Apple Watch will be available for in-store pickup starting today or tomorrow, but the exact product mix remains unclear at this point.
A spot check of the Apple Online Store reveals that the Personal Pickup option remains unavailable for the Apple Watch at brick-and-mortar Apple Store locations in New York and elsewhere in the United States. A dedicated Reserve and Pickup page for the Apple Watch that was live in early April also continues to redirect to the main Apple Watch product page on the company's website.
Apple Watch orders have been taken exclusively online since pre-orders began on April 10, although Apple is now catching up on the backlog of shipments and is better positioned to sell the wrist-worn device in stores soon. Apple executive Jeff Williams confirmed earlier this month that it would soon begin selling some Apple Watch models in Apple Stores, but he did not provide a specific date.
“The response to Apple Watch has surpassed our expectations in every way, and we are thrilled to bring it to more customers around the world,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “We’re also making great progress with the backlog of Apple Watch orders, and we thank our customers for their patience. All orders placed through May, with the sole exception of Apple Watch 42 mm Space Black Stainless Steel with Space Black Link Bracelet, will ship to customers within two weeks. At that time, we’ll also begin selling some models in our Apple Retail Stores.”
Apple Watch launches in seven additional countries on June 26: Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan. The wrist-worn device will be sold through the Apple Store, Apple Online Store and select authorized resellers in the countries, including 10 Corso Como in Milan, BOONTHESHOP Cheongdam in Seoul and Malmaison by The Hour Glass in Singapore.
In late May, Apple began offering same-day delivery of certain products in its Apple Store app via a partnership with courier service Postmates. Before that agreement was in place, Apple was in talks with Uber about a similar partnership, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In recent months, Uber lost out on the opportunity to make deliveries in some cities for Apple Inc. and Starbucks Corp., which discussed tie-ups with Uber but then made deals with startup courier service Postmates Inc., according to people familiar with the discussions.
The deal with Apple would have been a part of Uber's same-day delivery service, which it launched last year. The transportation company had plans to sign up dozens of retailers for the service but only ended up with 6 partnerships. It's unclear why talks between Apple and Uber fell apart, but a Gilt spokesperson told the WSJ that Uber was unable to insure high-priced items and that it "fell short of expectations".
Delivery with Postmates through the Apple Store app is currently only available within the Bay Area for a $19 delivery charge.
Adobe today announced that all of its Creative Cloud desktop apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and more, will receive updates as part of the company's 2015 Creative Cloud Update.
The updates bring new features and performance enhancements with "Adobe Magic" to all of Adobe's Creative Cloud apps, notably including Linked Assets that will allow assets within Creative Cloud Libraries to be updated whenever a change is made, ensuring the update is available to all team members in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
Photoshop CC is gaining Artboards, letting artists create multiple design surfaces within a single document for a bird's-eye view of all designs at once. There's also a new preview feature called Photoshop Design Space, which lets users create design-focused desktop tool layouts that ignore unnecessary tools. The exporting experience has been improved, and the Spot Healing Brush and Patch tools are now 120x faster than the same tools in Photoshop CS6 thanks to Mercury Graphics Engine enhancements.
Both Photoshop and Lightroom CC are gaining new haze removal features that will allow haze to be added or removed to a photograph with click, and Photoshop now has the option to add noise to Blur Gallery effects.
Illustrator CC has been updated with significant performance improvements, making it 10x faster than CS6. Zoom magnification is now ten times higher, reaching up to 64,000 percent instead of 6,400 percent, and there's a new Chart interface that makes it easier to create custom charts and graphics.
Photos from the winners of the eighth annual iPhone Photography Awards have been posted on the IPPA website, offering a look at some of the best pictures captured with an iPhone over the course of the past year.
As in previous years, the photos feature a range of different subjects, from people to landscapes to animals. This year's first place photo, by Michal Koralewski from Poland, depicts a man playing traditional Polish songs on an accordion.
The second place photo is an impressively clear image of a bird in flight, while the third place winner features a couple on a train. According to the contest, all photos were taken with an iPhone, and photo editing with apps like Instagram and VSCO was permitted.
Along with the top three winners, IPPA also chooses winning photographs from several different categories, including animals, architecture, children, flowers, food, landscapes, nature, panorama, and more. The image below, taken in Cairo, took the top slot in the "Travel" category.
Apple's iPhone 6, iPhone 5s, and iPhone 5 continue to rank as the three most popular cameras on photo sharing site Flickr, which is no surprise given the quality of the images that can be captured with the phones. Apple continually improves the picture quality in its iPhones, and rumors have suggested that the upcoming iPhone 6s could include the biggest camera jump yet.
Photos from all of the winners of the 2015 iPhone Photography Awards can be found on the IPPA website. The site is also now accepting entries for the 2016 awards.
Apple today seeded the sixth beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers and public beta testers, approximately one week after releasing the fifth OS X 10.10.4 beta and nearly two months after releasing the first OS X 10.10.4 beta. OS X 10.10.4 has been in testing since mid-April, following the early April release of OS X 10.10.3, which included the new Photos for OS X app.
The new beta, build 14E36b, can downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Mac Developer Center.
OS X 10.10.3 brought several consumer-facing changes including the new Photos for OS X app, a redesigned emoji picker, and diversified emoji, but OS X 10.10.4 appears to be an under-the-hood update that brings performance enhancements and bug fixes.
Thus far, OS X 10.10.4 betas have not included outward facing design changes or feature additions, but the fourth beta introduced a significant behind-the-scenes update that may improve networking performance for users who have experienced issues with OS X Yosemite.
Discoveryd, a somewhat problematic networking process that has been linked to multiple bugs in OS X 10.10, was removed in favor of the older bug-free mDNSresponder.
It is not clear when Apple plans to release OS X 10.10.4 to the public, but the fact that we've now received six betas suggests we may be nearing the end of the beta testing period. It's possible we could see the public release of OS X 10.10.4 on June 30, the same day Apple plans to release iOS 8.4 with the new Music app and Apple Music service.
Apple today updated its "Shot on iPhone 6" microsite to add four new videos to the "World Gallery films" section of the site. While the Shot on iPhone 6 campaign has been running since March, the dedicated video gallery was just added in early June.
Today's videos come from the Netherlands, Australia, the United States, and Norway. Like the existing videos in the gallery, the new videos showcase content shot using the iPhone and its video capturing tools like Slo-Mo and Time Lapse Each of the 15-second videos is accompanied by music and concludes with the tagline "Shot on iPhone 6."
The first video, shown above, is a Time Lapse of clouds passing over a mountain, while the second depicts a caterpillar inching along the grass. The other two videos depict what appears to be a swarm of birds and a Slo-Mo video of the shadows cast by skateboarders.
Apple's Shot on iPhone 6 microsite also includes a range of photographs that were taken with the iPhone 6, some of which have been edited using various apps. The site features photos and videos from more than 70 photographers in 24 countries, with the images being used in print media, transit posters, and billboards across the world.
Taiwanese iOS developer Hiraku Wang has shared further iOS 9 beta code (via Steven Troughton-Smith) that suggests the 12.9-inch "iPad Pro" could have a 2,732×2,048 pixels display at 264 PPI based on Apple's @2x high-resolution modifier. The findings corroborate a DisplaySearch report from last January, in which the research firm said that Apple had a tablet display with a resolution of 2,732×2,048 pixels and 265 PPI under development.
Apple's existing lineup of iPads with Retina displays, ranging from the third-generation iPad to iPad Air 2, each have 9.7-inch screens at 264 PPI, so it would make sense that the larger 12.9-inch "iPad Pro" would have a scaled up resolution with the same pixel density. Specifically, a 2,732×2,048 display with 264 PPI points towards an approximately 12.93" diagonal screen size. As a @2x display, this would represent 1,366x1,024 points as shown in the onscreen dimensions for the keyboard.
Earlier today, iOS developer Steven Troughton-Smith discovered that the new iPad keyboard on iOS 9 beta is capable of scaling to a larger size with rearranged keys, providing further evidence that Apple could be planning to release the much-rumored 12.9-inch "iPad Pro" in the future. The A9-based tablet is rumored to feature a flexible display with increased pressure sensitivity, built-in NFC chip, Force Touch, USB-C port and possibly a pressure-sensitive Bluetooth stylus.
At its Worldwide Developer's Conference last week, Apple introduced OS X 10.11 El Capitan, the newest version of its Mac-based operating system. At the time, Apple provided the software both to registered developers and to members of the media. Media reviews are hitting the web, giving us our first in-depth opinions on OS X El Capitan.
We've rounded up details from some of the best reviews in order to give MacRumors readers a look at OS X El Capitan from the perspective of people who have used it extensively over the course of the last week. Each of the reviews is worth reading in full to get a feel for how OS X El Capitan builds upon the features introduced with OS X Yosemite.
The most notable I've-seen-this-before feature in OS X El Capitan is Split View: Now, two apps can run in split view on a full screen. Finally! Mail and TweetDeck side by side throughout the day, on a full screen, without having to manually drag windows into place. Of course, Microsoft Windows has had this "snap" feature for years.
I use Mail a lot. Unfortunately, I've had some trouble lately with Mail on Yosemite getting stuck while checking IMAP connections, especially after I wake the computer from sleep. All I ask for in El Capitan is for that to be fixed.
The good news is that it seems much better in this beta version of the operating system. Apple said Mail in El Capitan delivers an improved IMAP engine, so I'm very hopeful. I haven't had Mail stop working yet and I'm a week into using it--that's a damn good sign.
The differences between Apple OS X Yosemite and El Capitan are so subtle that it often feels like one of those puzzles where you have to spot 11 differences between two photos. Considering Yosemite was a lauded OS overhaul, this isn't a bad thing, but the best way to sum up Apple's OS update is this: If you like Yosemite, you'll like El Capitan, too. [...]
Apple tweaked system performance to improve mail load times and application launches, but it was hard for me to tell the difference. Did it seem fast? Yes. Does Yosemite also seem fast? Yes. I did notice one very beta glitch when I unexpected ran out of system memory in El Capitan.
Now, Apple has added a lot of muscle to Notes in 10.11, turning into a much better competitor not only for other text editors, but for things like Evernote, too. You can integrate images, PDFs, videos and other media right into notes via drag-and-drop insertion, for instance, and crate checklists out of line-separated items with a single click.
Formatting ensures that you can create headers, paragraph styles, bold and italicize text and you can attach from your Photos app directly. Open content from other apps directly in Notes, too, using the Share menu across OS X, and even add stuff like Maps locations, spreadsheets and more. Folders keep things more organized, and thumbnails provide easy identification of what's within a Note from the sidebar menu when you're including media.
Why would you choose Apple's solutions in El Capitan? Because they're all so tightly integrated. Maps talks to Notes, Calendar talks to Mail, and all of them talk to Spotlight. All of those interconnections and digital conversations could subtly drive you to opt for Apple apps instead of whatever you might have been using before. Think of it like Continuity, but inside the computer instead of between devices. And all of it works incredibly well.
Some of my favorite updates are in Safari, though many would rightfully argue that these improvements aren't necessarily novel. In fact, some appear to take after features already offered in Chrome, and other competing browsers. For instance, there's now an option to identify which tab is playing sound. From there, you can hit a mute button on the tab itself, or click the speaker icon in the address bar. The latter option comes in handy when you have sound coming from multiple tabs -- say, a song you meant to stream, and an auto-playing video ad in the other. By clicking the sound icon in the URL bar, you can see a list of all the tabs playing sound and selectively mute the one that's bothering you.
Perhaps my favorite new feature is the addition of pinned sites. They sort of form a bookmarks bar, only better: Here, these tabs can't be closed, and because they look like shrunken buttons, they take up much less space than a regular tab.
Thanks to a new CoreSpotlight API, developers can now make the content in their apps, including documents, messages, and more, available to Spotlight as well. That means it'll be even easier to find what we're looking for, no matter where it's contained.
I've tried LaunchBar, Alfred, and Quicksilver, but none of them ever stuck: Spotlight has always been my go-to. Yosemite made it significantly more functional, but natural language and the new results engine promises to make it integral to the Mac experience. I'm really looking forward to using it full-time come the fall.
OS X El Capitan is currently only available to registered developers. Apple has plans to introduce a public beta test of the software in July, following that with a fall public release. For detailed information on all of the new features in OS X El Capitan, make sure to check out our El Capitan roundup.
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In late May, Apple 
Apple today seeded the sixth beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers and public beta testers, approximately one week after releasing 
