MacRumors

Nanoleaf, known for its line of HomeKit-enabled light panels, bulbs, and strips, today announced the launch of several new Matter-compatible accessories that are set to come out in 2023.

The Nanoleaf Skylight modular ceiling fixture is similar to the Nanoleaf wall-mounted panels, but designed for use on the ceiling. Skylight includes square LED panels that can be set to one of 16 million colors and arranged in multiple designs.

Like all Nanoleaf products, the Skylight connects to a smart home setup via WiFi and offers Rhythm Music integration, screen mirroring, light scenes, and group scenes. It supports Matter (and therefore works with HomeKit), plus it works as a Thread Border Router for improving the connectivity of other Thread devices.

Nanoleaf is also launching a 4D TV Smarter Kit that includes a Matter-compatible Lightstrip that can be attached to a TV and a Screen Mirror Camera that detects what's on your TV to match the lights to the content. The Lightstrip has 50 separate addressable zones and comes in two lengths for 55" to 65" TVs and 70" to 80" TVs. The Lightstrip can mirror the TV, and it can also synchronize all of the Nanoleaf lighting products in the room for a comprehensive entertainment experience.

In the near future, Nanoleaf plans to launch Matter-certified Essential Lightstrips and Bulbs (A19, BR30, GU10, and a Recessed Downlight), which will be able to work with ‌HomeKit‌ and other Matter-capable smart home platforms. Nanoleaf's full line of light panels and bars will be Matter upgradeable later in the year, with Nanoleaf providing a software update to add Matter support.

Along with new lighting products, Nanoleaf is working on a Sense+ Controls line that includes a hardwired Smart Light Switch, Wireless Smart Light Switch, and Nala Learning Bridge. These products all include built-in motion and ambient light sensors for creating automations and schedules that match with daily routines.

Sense+ products, which are Thread and Matter-compatible, work with Nanoleaf's Nala Automations Learning Assistant to learn each user's lighting preferences to create personalized automations. Nanoleaf says that Nala will suggest turning lights on and off, adjusting colors, adjusting brightness, and more, based on usage.

All of Nanoleaf's new products are set to launch later this year. Matter-enabled Essentials Bulbs and Lightstrips will come in the first quarter of 2023, while the 4D Smarter Kit will launch in the second quarter of the year. The Skylight and the Sense+ Controls are coming in the third quarter of 2023. More information is available on the Nanoleaf website.

Nvidia today announced the launch of a new "Ultimate" tier for the GeForce NOW cloud gaming service, providing up to 240 fps gaming with servers powered by the GeForce RTX 4080.

The Ultimate tier is priced at $20 per month (or $100 for six months), the same price as the prior plan that allowed gamers to access the GeForce RTX 3080. Full ray tracing and DLSS 3 frame multiplying technology will be available, and Nvidia is introducing Reflex support for reduced latency for those who have a G Sync display. With Nvidia Reflex, GeForce NOW can provide click-to-pixel latency below 40 milliseconds.

Nvidia says that the GeForce NOW RTX 4080 SuperPODs will provide more than 64 teraflops of graphics horsepower to an individual user, which is 5x more than the Xbox Series X. Nvidia is introducing support for ultrawide resolutions, allowing 4K display owners to play games at up to 120 frames per second. GeForce Now users who subscribed to the RTX 3080 tier will be migrated to the Ultimate tier automatically in the first quarter of 2023.

The GeForce RTX 4080 is one of the most powerful GPUs available for purchase, but the $1,200 price makes it inaccessible for many. The GeForce NOW streaming service will allow those who are willing to pay the monthly access fee to play games using servers equipped with the GPU. GeForce NOW includes more than 1,500 game titles, and it is available on Apple's Macs.

OtterBox today announced the upcoming launch of OtterGrip Symmetry Series cases, which offer both MagSafe compatibility and an included grip that doesn't need to be removed for charging.

The OtterGrip cases have an integrated grip that is designed to sit flush with the back of the case when not in use, which allows the case to work with ‌MagSafe‌ charging accessories. With many grip cases and grip accessories like the PopSocket, the grip component does not work with ‌MagSafe‌ because of the thickness, and it needs to be removed when charging.

OtterBox's pop-out grip is made from a soft touch material that fits over the fingers, allowing for a secure grasp on the phone. The case offers OtterBox's 3x MIL STD drop protection, and the built-in grip is able to rotate 360 degrees.

The OtterGrip Symmetry Series cases will be priced at $60, and can be purchased in February 2023.

With the iPhone 15, which we expect to be announced in September, Apple is seemingly looking to bridge the gap between the standard models of its iPhone series and higher-end models, according to recent rumors.

"Seriously concerned" about how certain models of the ‌iPhone‌ 14 lineup are doing, Apple is reportedly looking to reevaluate how it treats the lower-end and higher-end models of this next ‌iPhone‌ series.

Rumors suggest that several features that currently remain exclusive to just the higher-end "Pro" iPhones will expand to all models, and some other newer features will be made available on all models of the ‌iPhone‌ lineup. Below, we've outlined five features you can expect to find on both the standard and higher-end models of the upcoming ‌iPhone 15‌ series.

Dynamic Island

Dynamic Island is a feature currently on the ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro and ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro Max that incorporates the new pill-shaped cutout with iOS to show different system alerts, notifications, and more. ‌Dynamic Island‌ is a combination of both hardware and software integration, and it's expected to come to all models of the iPhone 15 series later this year.

New 'State-of-the-Art' Image Sensor

A report in November said Apple will use Sony's upcoming "state-of-the-art" image sensor that produces richer, brighter, and sharper images. The new sensor uses semiconductor architecture that puts photodiodes and transistors in separate layers, allowing for more photodiodes. For example, the new sensor could help with portrait photos and ensure a subject doesn't appear washed out, even with strong backlighting. While we do expect improvements from the sensor to be applied across the lineup, Apple could ultimately decide to keep this as a "Pro" feature.

USB-C

All iPhones since the ‌iPhone‌ 5 have featured a Lightning port, whether they're high-end or standard models of any particular ‌iPhone‌ lineup. With the ‌iPhone 15‌, that's set to change as a newly passed law in the EU is going to force Apple to transition the ‌iPhone‌, as well as its other products, to USB-C. The new law will impact all models of the ‌iPhone‌ series, including both the ‌iPhone 15‌ and ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro, but there's a catch.

While all models of the lineup are expected to feature USB-C, only the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro and ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro Max, which could be called "iPhone 15 Ultra," will benefit from faster transfer speeds. While the Pro models of the lineup will have a USB-C port with at least USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3, the standard models of the lineup will only have USB 2.0 speeds like the existing Lightning port.

48MP Camera

The ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro and ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro Max feature a new main camera lens that can take pictures in 48MP quality. With a 48MP sensor, the ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro series takes images with greater detail than photos taken with the standard 12MP resolution. According to a report, the ‌iPhone 15‌ and ‌iPhone 15‌ Plus will be gaining this same advanced, high-end camera feature.

Camera features and hardware capabilities have typically been one of the largest differentiators between high-end and standard models of the ‌iPhone‌ lineup. To help further the separation of the models, we're expecting the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro to feature a periscope lens, something we don't expect to make its way to the entire lineup.

Faster and More Efficient 5G Modem

All models of the upcoming ‌iPhone 15‌ series are expected to feature Qualcomm's X70 modem chip, which will offer several improvements to the 5G experience on ‌iPhone‌. Compared to the X65 chip in the ‌iPhone‌ 14 series, the X70 makes use of artificial intelligence capabilities for faster average speeds, improved coverage, better signal quality, lower latency, and up to 60% improved power.

Intel today announced the launch of its 13th-generation processor lineup, which is headlined by the flagship Intel Core i9-13980HX, a 24-core 5.6GHz laptop chip that Intel says is the "world's fastest mobile processor" in terms of clock speed.

Apple no longer uses Intel chips in its Macs, with the exception of the Mac mini and the yet-to-be-updated Mac Pro with Intel Xeon chips, but Intel is now a direct competitor, supplying processors that compete with Apple's own M-series Apple silicon chips.

Intel claims that the 5.6GHz turbo boost clock speed of the new Core i9 chip is the fastest mobile processor as of December 2022, with 11 percent faster single-thread performance and 49 percent faster multitask performance over the prior-generation Intel Core i9-12900HK chip. The Intel Core i9-13980HX features eight performance cores, 16 efficient cores, and 32 threads, along with support for up to 128GB RAM.

The prior-generation chip outperforms everything but the M1 Ultra on multi-core Geekbench benchmarking tests (barely beating out the M1 Max), but it cannot compare when it comes to power efficiency as Apple silicon chips consume much less energy. The new Intel Core i9-13980HX from Intel will likely be faster than current Apple silicon chips, but designed for performance-focused power-hungry laptops that do not directly compete with Apple's Mac lineup.

It is worth noting that Intel has long offered faster turbo boost clock speeds than Apple silicon chips, as the M2 reaches just 3.5GHz. Intel last year made the same "fastest mobile processor" claims for the Intel Core i9-12900HK, comparing it to the ‌M1 Max‌, but it did get beat by the ‌M1 Ultra‌ that Apple debuted later in the year. Apple is working on ‌M2‌ Pro, Max, and Ultra chips that could better compete with the 2022 Intel Core i9-13980HX.

Intel today also announced the launch of a suite of more efficient 13th-generation P-series and U-series chips with up to 14 cores that will be available for thinner, lighter laptops.

Next-generation Qi charging technology will incorporate Apple's MagSafe magnetic charging functionality, the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) announced today. Qi2 is a new unified wireless charging standard that is built on ‌MagSafe‌ charging technology supplied by Apple.

Qi2 incorporates a Magnetic Power Profile, which means that devices that adopt Qi2 in the future will use the same ‌MagSafe‌ magnetic technology that is available in ‌MagSafe‌ devices created for the iPhone 12 and later.

The WPC says that the Magnetic Power Profile in Qi2 will make sure that phones and other battery-powered mobile products are perfectly aligned with chargers for improved energy efficiency and faster charging. Qi2 will allow for new accessories that would not be chargeable using existing flat surface-to-flat surface devices.

Faster charging will be available for some devices, and the updated standard will also "pave the way for significant future increases in wireless charging speeds."

The Qi2 standard will debut later this year, and it will replace the current Qi standard. Qi2 smartphones and chargers are expected to be available starting in the 2023 holiday season.

Apple shares are down around 4% today, resulting in the company's valuation falling below $2 trillion for the first time since 2021. Apple's stock is at its lowest price since June 2021 as concerns mount about iPhone supply constraints in China and weakening demand for its products due to persistently high inflation and a looming recession.

While the stock market has experienced a broader downturn, the Financial Times today reported that Apple has fared better than some of its peers, losing 27% of its value in the past 12 months, versus a 33% loss for the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite as a whole. Apple has reported 14 consecutive quarters of growth, but the company is estimated to report around a 1% drop in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn has faced iPhone production constraints due to COVID-19-related workplace protests and labor shortages over the past few months, leading to shipping delays for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, Foxconn said that its main iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, China was operating at 90% of its peak capacity as of December 30, indicating that the situation is improving.

Nikkei Asia on Monday reported that Apple notified several suppliers to build fewer components for AirPods, the Apple Watch, and MacBooks in the first quarter of 2023 due to weakening demand. Shipments of all of those products and the iPhone are set to decline on a year-over-year basis in 2023, according to research this week from Jeff Pu, an analyst at Hong Kong investment firm Haitong International Securities.

Apple briefly became a $3 trillion company in January 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic fueled strong demand for its products in 2020 and 2021. Apple products were in high demand as more people worked, learned, and connected with others from home.

AAPL was trading at around $124.26 as of writing.

GE Lighting today announced that it will release its first Cync smart home accessories with support for Matter throughout 2023, starting with the Cync Full Color Direct Connect Smart Bulb and the Cync Indoor Smart Plug.

Unfortunately, GE Lighting said there are no plans for previously produced Cync products to receive retroactive Matter support at this time.

Matter is a connectivity standard that enables smart home accessories to work together seamlessly across multiple platforms, including Apple's HomeKit, Amazon's Alexa, Google's Home, and others. Apple added support for Matter on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16, and tvOS 16.1 last year, with a HomePod or Apple TV required to control Matter accessories in the Home app or with Siri.

As part of CES 2023 this week, GE Lighting introduced several new Cync products, including the Cync Dynamic Effects Smart Hexagon Panels, Cync Dynamic Effects Smart Neon-Shape Lights, and Cync Dynamic Effects Smart Bulbs. Pricing and availability information is outlined below, with additional details available in GE Lighting's press release.

Cync Dynamic Effects Indoor and Outdoor light strips are available today at Best Buy and Lowe's stores, and bestbuy.com and lowes.com, starting at $89.99. Extensions are also available for purchase. The roll out of the four new Cync Dynamic Effects products will begin March 2023 and prices range from $19.99-199.99.

Cync was previously known as C by GE. The rebrand occurred after GE Lighting was acquired by Savant Systems in 2020.

Dark Sky was one of the most popular weather apps for iPhone, but after being bought by Apple, the app has officially shut down. With Dark Sky now no longer working, it has left many of its loyal users wondering what weather app they should now use.

Users loved Dark Sky thanks to its UI, rich and insightful weather information, and real-time alerts and notifications. Apple bought Dark Sky in 2020 and ported over many of its features into the stock weather app on ‌iPhone‌. Below, we've listed five popular weather apps for ‌iPhone‌, according to the App Store. All of the apps are free, but some of them have subscriptions to unlock additional in-app features.

1. Apple Weather

The Apple Weather app comes pre-installed on every ‌iPhone‌. The app uses data from multiple sources and has seen a major facelift in the last year with richer weather information, thanks to Apple's purchase of Dark Sky. Apple Weather includes real-time alerts, notifications, and warnings for heavy rain, hurricanes, and more in select areas. Apple Weather is entirely free to use. [Direct Link]

2. CARROT Weather

CARROT Weather is one of the most popular weather apps on ‌iPhone‌, thanks to its unique design and personality. Unlike most weather apps, CARROT Weather has a sense of personality with snarky and sometimes "overkill" comments and commentary about the weather. On top of its unique character, the app has insightful and rich weather information, with an in-app subscription unlocking additional features such as notifications, widgets, and more. [Direct Link]

3. AccuWeather

AccuWeather is one of the oldest weather apps on ‌iPhone‌, built on the data provided by AccuWeather. AccuWeather has rich and advanced weather data, supported by satellite imagery and its trademarked "Superior Accuracy" approach to weather. AccuWeather is free on the ‌App Store‌ but does have an in-app subscription that unlocks additional features. [Direct Link]

4. Weather Channel

The #1 ‌App Store‌ weather app for ‌iPhone‌, the Weather Channel is one of the most common and mainstream weather apps people use. With all the typical weather features, Weather Channel provides a free, ad-supported experience on ‌iPhone‌, with a subscription to enable an ad-free experience, up to 15-minute forecasts, 72-hour future-looking radar predictions, and more. [Direct Link]

5. NOAA Radar & Weather Forecast

For users in the United States, an appealing app may be NOAA Radar & Weather Forecast. The app uses rich weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which helps the app provide timely and real-time information on storms, wildfires, hurricanes, drought, and more. The free app comes with a subscription that unlocks more detailed forecasts, an ad-free experience, customization features, and more. [Direct Link]

There is a wide assortment of Beats headphones on sale today on Amazon, including best-ever prices on the Beats Solo3, Beats Fit Pro, Powerbeats Pro, and more. All of the discounts below are available on Amazon and in stock today.

Starting with earbuds, Amazon has the Beats Studio Buds in nearly all colors for $99.95, down from $149.95. In total, you can get this sale in Red, Black, White, and Ocean Blue.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

The Powerbeats Pro Wireless Earphones are on sale for $149.95, down from $249.95. This sale is available in Navy, Black, and Ivory, with all three in stock and ready to ship today.

Both versions of the Beats Fit Pro are discounted on Amazon right now: the regular Beats Fit Pro are $159.95 ($40 off) and the Beats Fit Pro x Kim Kardashian are $179.95 ($20 off). In both cases you'll find all colors available at these discounted prices.

Moving to on-ear Beats headphones, you can get the Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones for $99.00 on Amazon, down from $199.95. This sale is available in Black and Rose Gold.

Next is the over-ear Beats Studio3 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones for $199.99, down from $349.95. This one is available in four colors: Matte Black, Blue, Midnight Black, and Shadow Gray.

Be sure to visit our full Deals Roundup to shop for even more Apple-related products and accessories.

Apple has asked suppliers to make fewer components for the AirPods, MacBook, and Apple Watch families in the first quarter of this year due to low demand, according to a report from Nikkei Asia.

From the report:

In a sign of the gloomy outlook for consumer electronics, Apple has notified several suppliers to build fewer components for AirPods, the Apple Watch and MacBooks for the first quarter, citing weakening demand, according to Nikkei Asia’s supply chain checks with several component suppliers.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Apple reported Mac revenue of $11.51 billion, an increase of nearly 26% year-over-year. Wearable revenue, which includes the Apple Watch, was $41 billion, while iPad revenue dropped by 13% year-over-year to $7.17 billion.

Talking to Nikkei Asia, one anonymous manager at an Apple supplier is quoted as saying "Apple has alerted us to lower orders for almost all product lines actually since the quarter ending December, partly because the demand is not that strong." Another executive at a supplier for both Apple and Samsung described the current situation as "very chaotic," citing ongoing disruptions and complications.

Apple has been facing challenging supply chain hurdles in the last few months, mainly impacting iPhone 14 Pro production. Apple's main ‌iPhone‌ plant in China has resumed production at near-peak capacity, a sign ‌iPhone‌ production has resumed normality.

Apple's mixed-reality headset will feature a physical dial for switching to a view of the real-world, a waist-mounted battery pack, small motors to automatically adjust its lenses, and much more, according to The Information.

The paywalled report purports to reveal a broad range of previously unheard-of specific features for the headset, including:

• A waist-mounted battery, connected via a magnetic, MagSafe-like power cable to the headset's headband. One battery charge lasts no longer than two hours, but users can swap the battery out for longer sessions.
• A design that uses aluminum, glass, and carbon fiber to reduce its size and weight. Cameras are largely concealed for aesthetic reasons.
• A small, Digital Crown-like dial on its right side that enables users to quickly transition between the virtual and physical world. Unlike the Apple Watch, it will not offer haptic feedback.
• Apple has developed different headbands, including one for consumers made of a similar material to Apple Watch sport bands with built-in speakers, and one targeted at developers.
• Magnetically attachable custom prescription lenses for glasses-wearers.
• Small motors to automatically adjust its internal lenses to match the wearer's interpupillary distance, providing the largest field of view possible for each individual.
• A 120-degree field of view, like the Valve Index – more than the Meta Quest Pro's 106-degree field of view.
• The H2 chip for ultra-low latency connection with the second-generation AirPods Pro and future AirPods models.
• Two chips, including a main SoC, including a CPU, GPU, and memory, and a dedicated image signal processor. Both are fabricated with a 5nm process, meaning that the headset misses out on advancements expected to come to other Apple chips later this year. The chips communicate via a custom streaming codec that Apple was forced to develop due to unacceptable latency.
• The dedicated ISP translates the distorted images captured by the external cameras into a faithful video representation of the user's surroundings with low latency. The chip contains custom high-bandwidth memory made by SK Hynix.
• The ability to run existing iOS apps in 2D.

Third-party Bluetooth headphones apparently do not work well with the headset and suffer from too much lag, and there is no 3.5mm headphone jack on the device. Apple has focused on making recent and future AirPods models work with low-latency when paired with the headset. Both the second-generation ‌AirPods Pro‌ and the headset contain the H2 chip, which is said to offer an "ultra-low-latency" mode when paired together. Apple has also purpotedly debated whether AirPods should be mandatory for communication activities on the headset to better protect privacy.

Early prototypes of the headset used large external batteries designed for power tools strapped to the wearer's waist, before Apple integrated the battery directly into the headband like the Meta Quest Pro. As of 2022, Apple reportedly shifted the power source back to a battery pack intended to be worn on the user's waist, connected via a cable to the headband – a design advocated by Apple's former design chief, Sir Jony Ive.

While it was once rumored that the headband would be interchangeable like Apple Watch bands, that is no longer the case, since engineers faced technical challenges with the headband acting as a conduit for power to the headset.

Apple is said to favor hand-tracking and voice recognition to control the headset, but it has tested a "wand" and a "finger thimble" as alternative control input methods.

The headset is not expected to be accompanied by a dedicated gaming controller, and Apple has seemingly not focused substantially on gaming for the device. That being said, the company does have a plan to allow Unity to be its first partner to offer full VR experiences in the headset via its game engine.

Apple is focused on videoconferencing on the device, with digital avatars that have a high-level of accuracy when mimicking a user's facial expressions and body movements. It has also created software to allow users to perform activities like dragging the Maps app off a Mac screen and using it to display a 3D model of a city on a table top, and has devoted resources to educational resources for the device.

The Information also reaffirmed the presence of several features it previously revealed and independently confirmed others highlighted by sources like Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia, and DigiTimes:

• The headset has a large outward-facing display on its front. This can show the facial expressions of the headset's wearer to people around them, seeking to reduce a sense of isolation when using the device.
• The outward-facing display features an ultra-low refresh rate and reduced power consumption, much like the always-on display of the Apple Watch and iPhone 14 Pro.
• Interior Micro OLED displays for each eye with a 4K resolution, made by Sony, forming an 8K image overall.
• Each eye is tracked by at least one camera, allowing the headset to accurately show the user's gaze on an avatar. Eye-tracking also enables the headset to perform foveated rendering to conserve power by only rendering imagery in full resolution directly where the user is looking.
• More than a dozen cameras and sensors capture both facial expressions and body movements, including the user's legs. Apple apparently removed cameras to capture eyebrow and jaw movements when it developed machine learning to accomplish this.
• Both short- and long-range LiDAR scanners to map surfaces and distances in three dimensions.

The report claims that Apple supplier Pegatron assembled thousands of prototype units of the headset last year at a facility near Shanghai, having passed multiple prototyping stages and entering engineering validation testing. It added that the device was originally supposed to launch in 2022.

In addition, Apple has allegedly discussed pricing the headset at around $3,000 or more depending on its configuration, according to four people with knowledge of the matter speaking to The Information.

The iPhone 16, destined for release in 2024, will feature faster RAM, while the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro will see no change in its type of memory, leaker ShrimpApplePro said today on Twitter.

In a tweet seen by MacRumors, the leaker says the A18 Bionic will be based on TSMC's 3nm process like this year's A17 Bionic, and feature LPDDR5X memory. Currently, the iPhone 14 Pro features LPDDR5, and the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro later this year will also feature LPDDR5 memory, according to the leaker. The A17 Bionic for the ‌iPhone 15‌ Pro will be made using TSMC's N3B chip process, while the A18 Bionic will be based on TSMC's enhanced ‌3nm‌ process.

While the type of memory is not changing, the iPhone 15 Pro could come with 8GB of RAM instead of the 6GB currently offered on the high-end iPhones. With more RAM, users will be able to enjoy improved multitasking on iOS with multiple apps open in the background, and LPDDR5X in 2024 could help improve battery efficiency.

Apple has patented a possible next-generation Apple Pencil that can sample colors from the real world and then input that same color onto an iPad, as well as other features, including the ability to sample textures.

The patent, reported by Patently Apple, describes an ‌Apple Pencil‌ with color sensors built into the tip of the pencil that can sample the surface of real-world objects and detect their color. Images in the patent show the ‌Apple Pencil‌ may come with a built-in light ambient sensor, light emitter, and a light detector that can detect the color and texture of a surface.

Like with all patents, it doesn't reveal when such a feature or product will launch, if ever. Apple filed a patent for a similar feature in June 2020, and three years later, no such update to the ‌Apple Pencil‌ has been made. The second-generation ‌Apple Pencil‌ was announced in 2018, with no clear indication of when a third-generation model could debut.

Apple has added new capabilities to the ‌Apple Pencil‌ with improved ‌iPad‌ hardware and new iPadOS features. For example, the new M2 iPad Pro has a feature called Apple Pencil hover, allowing users to hover the pencil over the ‌iPad‌ to know where exactly the ‌Apple Pencil‌ will touch the display.

Apple has officially marked the third-generation iPad mini as an obsolete product, marking the official end of the road for one of Apple's most popular iPads.

In December, MacRumors reported that Apple would designate the third-generation ‌iPad mini‌ in both Wi-Fi and cellular configurations as an obsolete product in the coming weeks. Today, Apple officially moved the iPad to its list of obsolete devices, meaning it will no longer be eligible for repairs as service providers can not order parts for the device.

The third-generation ‌iPad mini‌ was a popular ‌iPad‌ that launched in 2014 alongside the second-generation iPad Air. The third-generation ‌iPad mini‌ included the A7 chip and a Touch ID home button.

The world's largest iPhone plant is nearly resuming operations at its peak capacity following weeks of limited production that has hit Apple's supply chain, forcing it to have possible difficulties in meeting the demand for the ‌iPhone‌ 14 and ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro during the holidays.

As reported by Bloomberg, Foxconn, Apple's largest supplier, is at 90% of its peak capacity at its main plant in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, according to company representatives. The plant is currently operating with 200,000 staff, according to Foxconn executive Vic Wang.

In the last few months, supply chain disruptions caused by ongoing restrictions caused ‌iPhone‌ 14 and ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro production to be critically hit, with the latter being the most impacted. During the peak of the disruptions, Apple put out a press release in November saying ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro production was operating at "reduced capacity." At the time, the ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro was estimated to ship out in several weeks, even as long as a month.

Supply of the ‌iPhone‌ 14 Pro has started to improve, with wait times on Apple's online store in the United States showing just one to two weeks for most configurations.

India is considering exempting certain products from a proposed law that would force a selection of consumer electronic devices to adopt a USB-C port. Among the devices being possibly exempted, AirPods could be included.

According to a report from Mint, citing a senior Indian official, the government is considering exempting featurephones, wearables, and hearables from a proposed law that would require USB-C on devices. The official cites device makers and stakeholders as having shared concerns that mandating those products to adopt the universal port would result in costs increasing for consumers.

While the specific definition of the exempted devices has yet to be decided, the definition of hearables could include Apple's line of AirPods. The EU has already passed a law that requires devices sold in the region to have a USB-C port by 2024, including AirPods. Under the EU's regulation, Apple would be required to switch the AirPods to USB-C, even if the Indian requirement says differently.

Apple's vice president of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, previously confirmed that Apple would have to switch the iPhone to USB-C. While reports suggest the iPhone 15 later this fall may make the switch away from Lightning, according to the EU's deadline for the USB-C law, Apple could wait until the iPhone 17 in 2025 before moving to the faster and more universal port.

In addition to outlining his expectations for the iPhone 15 lineup today, tech analyst Jeff Pu said Apple will likely release two notable products in 2024, including the first Apple Watch with a micro-LED display and lower-priced AirPods.

In a research note for Hong Kong investment firm Haitong International Securities, Pu said a new high-end Apple Watch will likely adopt a larger 2.1-inch micro-LED display measured diagonally, which would allow for increased brightness compared to current Apple Watch models with OLED displays. This model would presumably be a new version of the Apple Watch Ultra, which launched last September and has a 1.92-inch display.

Pu referred to the lower-priced AirPods as "AirPods Lite," but it's unlikely that Apple would actually use this branding. He said these AirPods would be priced lower to compete with wireless headphones from other companies, but he did not share any further details. Currently, the $129 second-generation AirPods are the cheapest option from Apple.

Pu has a mixed track record in regards to predicting Apple's future plans, and these AirPods and Apple Watch details have not been previously rumored, so this information is far from certain yet. Apple's plans for its 2024 products could also change over time.