MacRumors

Popular smart speaker manufacturer Sonos is planning to introduce a voice assistant service that will compete with Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and other voice-based personal assistants, reports The Verge.

Sonos Voice will allow Sonos users to play and control playback on Sonos speakers. Sonos speakers already support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and Sonos Voice will be able to be used in lieu of these services. Sonos speakers do not support ‌Siri‌, but a limited number of ‌Siri‌ voice commands can be used with Sonos products that support AirPlay 2.

When it comes out, Sonos Voice will be compatible with Apple Music, so Sonos users will be able to ask the voice assistant to play ‌Apple Music‌ content. It will also work with Amazon Music, Pandora, and Deezer, but Spotify and YouTube Music won't be compatible.

As with all voice assistants, Sonos Voice will have a wake word, so users can say "Hey Sonos" to activate the feature for playing music. Activation and voice recognition will be on device for privacy reasons, and audio commands will not be uploaded to the cloud for processing.

The Sonos Voice feature is set to launch on June 1 in the United States, with an international rollout to follow soon after.

Coinciding with the release of his new book titled Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, former Apple executive Tony Fadell went on the Decoder podcast with The Verge's editor-in-chief Nilay Patel to discuss cultural differences between Apple and Google, the early days of the iPhone and iPod, and other topics.

Fadell joined Apple in 2001 and led the teams that created the original iPod and iPhone. In 2010, he left Apple to cofound the company that created the Nest smart thermostat, and he now serves as the principal at an investment firm called Future Shape.

Reflecting on Google's acquisition of Nest for $3.2 billion in 2014, Fadell said that Google was not as passionate as Apple was under Steve Jobs:

They just saw it more as dollars, at least from the finance side. People inside the company were just like, "Oh, it's yet another project we are trying." At Apple, every single thing that was tried — at least under Steve — needed to ship because it was existential. You couldn't not make the iPhone successful because you were cannibalizing the iPod business. It had to be successful, and everyone needed to be on it. If you were on something that was distracting from it, you needed to move to it and work on it.

That was not the culture at Google. Obviously they are successful, with many smart people, and that works for them. It is very different when you live and die each day by your vision, your mission, your dream. You do not want to just run to another project because it is just safe and easy; you are trying to do something hard. At that time, that was not how Google thought.

Fadell dismissed any notion that Apple is no longer innovative and said that the company simply takes its time to advance technologies. For example, after acquiring semiconductor firm P.A. Semi in 2008, Apple spent over a decade creating its own iPhone and iPad chips before announcing the Mac's highly successful transition to Apple silicon in 2020.

People are faulting them because they think there is not enough innovation. Well, you just said it: M1 processors. We didn't start the M1 project, but we did start the Apple processor thing together when we bought P.A. Semi back around 2008. That was getting us on that path.

It takes years to be able to best the processor guys in the business, but they did it. To me, that is innovation. It is a lot of risk to make that switch over. Maybe they could have done it a little bit faster, but no one else did it. Now, everyone is trying to copy them and say, "We are going to make our own processors."

Fadell also recounted the "war" at Apple during the iPhone's creation:

Jon Rubinstein [senior VP of the iPod division at Apple] and Steve Sakoman [hardware engineer and executive at Apple] at the time said, "Mac OS will never work on iPhone because it is too big. So we are going to go off and build a new team to make an embedded Linux version of this next generation thing."

Then Avie Tevanian [chief software technology officer at Apple] said, "Oh, we are going to scale down Mac OS and make it work." I sat there in the middle between Avie and Jon as they were doing their software things. I am here with the team, looking at building the iPhone hardware processor, and these two guys are going to war with each other.

The full episode can be listened to on Apple Podcasts, with a transcript available at The Verge. Fadell's book is available on Amazon and Apple Books.

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T-Mobile today announced the launch of a new internet "Test Drive" program that's designed to allow users to try out 5G T-Mobile internet in their homes. T-Mobile will send users a gateway to try out for a 15 day period at no cost, with users able to keep their existing internet during the testing program.

To encourage customers to switch to T-Mobile Home Internet, T-Mobile is paying up to $500 in termination fees for customers who cancel their existing plans.

According to T-Mobile, subscribers see typical download speeds of 33 to 182Mb/s, which it says is adequate for streaming video, surfing the web, and most types of online gaming. Upload speeds are between 6 and 23Mb/s.

As for costs, T-Mobile Home Internet is priced at $50 per month, and T-Mobile says it comes with a permanent "Price Lock" feature that will not see prices increase over the years with no additional fees.

Customers who have a family plan with T-Mobile can get discounted home internet access. Magenta Max family subscribers will pay $30 per month for broadband as part of their family plans.

All customers who subscribe to T-Mobile Home Internet will have access to T-Mobile Tuesday deals. Next week, that will include a free TV streaming device valued at up to $50 (Chromecast, Fire TV, or Roku) and 50 percent off a YouTube TV plan.

Apple recently started selling a 3-meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable through its online store, as spotted by French website MacGeneration. The cable can be used to connect a Mac equipped with Thunderbolt ports to Apple's new Studio Display and other peripherals.

Priced at $159 in the United States, the 3-meter cable provides users with a longer option than the 1-meter Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable that Apple includes with the Studio Display. Apple also sells a 1.8-meter version of the cable for $129.

Featuring a black braided design, the cable supports Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB 4 data transfer at up to 40Gb/s, USB 3.1 Gen 2 data transfer at up to 10Gb/s, DisplayPort video output (HBR3), and USB-C Power Delivery at up to 100W.

The cable can also be used with Apple's Pro Display XDR, USB-C and Thunderbolt docks, external storage drives, and more.

Today we're tracking a few solid discounts on the 10.2-inch iPad from 2021, including both the 64GB and 256GB Wi-Fi models. Both of these deals can be found on Amazon.

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.

Starting with the 64GB Wi-Fi iPad, this tablet is on sale for $309.00, down from $329.00. This sale is available in Silver and Space Gray, but Silver is seeing a slight shipping delay of just over a week.

We've seen this iPad at a cheaper price in the past, but for anyone shopping for the new iPad in May, this is a solid second-best price on the entry-level tablet. It's shipped and sold directly by Amazon as well.

For more storage, the 256GB Wi-Fi iPad is on sale for $429.00, down from $479.00. Again, both colors are on sale, but you'll find a 4-5 day long shipping delay for the tablets.

Compared to past sales, this is an all-time low price on the 256GB Wi-Fi iPad, and only Amazon has this steep of a deal right now.

For even more iPad deals, head to our full Best Deals guide for iPad. In that guide we track the best discounts online for iPad, iPad mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro.

Roughly 24 hours after saying it would ramp up hiring and incentives for new employees, Foxconn, Apple's main iPhone supplier, said today it would abruptly stop hiring new workers for its plant in Zhengzhou, China, after new COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions were imposed on the city of nearly 11 million residents.

Just yesterday, Foxconn was signaling it wanted to hire more workers to meet increased consumer demand, on top of additional demand caused by supply chain constraints for the upcoming ‌iPhone‌ 14 series. Now, South China Morning Post reports that Foxconn has suspended hiring of new workers, saying it could "complicate" production for the ‌iPhone‌ 14 lineup slated to launch in the fall.

The suspension came on the heels of the Taiwanese company's plans earlier this week to boost recruitment by offering higher cash bonuses, the agencies said in posts on Tencent Holdings platform WeChat and ByteDance-owned Douyin, the Chinese version of global hit short video app TikTok.

The move to suspend the hiring of new assembly line workers could complicate the iPhone 14 production schedule of Foxconn, which has run its smartphone and components production in Zhengzhou under a “closed-loop” system that confines employees within its campus.

So far, Apple is not expected to drastically delay the launch of the ‌iPhone‌ 14 series, as it did for the ‌iPhone‌ 12. Unlike the normal timetable, Apple was forced to delay the launch of the ‌iPhone‌ 12 till October 2020, rather than September. DigiTimes has speculated that Apple's supply chain woes could result in a similar scenario this year.

Some parts of Apple's supply chain are on the mend, however. Quanta, Apple's supplier for the MacBook Pro, this week resumed production at its plant in China following some disruptions caused by new lockdowns and restrictions. During its earnings call last week, Apple said it expects supply chain constraints to continue into the next quarter. Tim Cook said that Apple has done a "reasonable job" navigating the supply chain roadblocks.

Intel is considering manufacturing its 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake" CPUs at least partly using TSMC's 5nm process to mirror Apple's M1 series of chips, DigiTimes reports.

Announced last year, Intel's Meteor Lake chips will be its first multi-chiplet design to integrate an application processor, graphics processing unit, and connection chips into a single Intel Foveros advanced package.

Intel initially said that the Meteor Lake CPUs would be manufactured with its own 7nm process, which it calls "Intel 4." At its most recent earnings call, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said that Meteor Lake would be the first Intel product made using Intel 4 and that prototypes had already successfully booted Windows, Chrome, and Linux.

Now, sources speaking to DigiTimes claim that Intel is considering placing orders for all of the chip blocks used in the Meteor Lake CPUs with TSMC, Apple's sole chip supplier. Rather than singularly rely on Intel's in-house 7nm process, the Meteor Lake chip blocks would be contracted out to be manufactured with TSMC's 5nm process, just like Apple's ‌M1‌ chips for the Mac. The move would reportedly help avoid delays to the CPU's production and launch schedules.

The A14 Bionic, A15 Bionic, ‌M1‌, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra chips, are manufactured using TSMC's 5nm process, and Intel's decision could help Meteor Lake chips to better rival Apple's competitive custom silicon. TSMC is also said to have now received chips orders for the iPhone 14 lineup using its 5nm process.

The sources added that potential orders for Meteor Lake CPUs would be large enough to encourage TSMC to scale up its fabrication capacity for its 5nm chips by the end of the year. Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs are set to launch in 2023.

Apple has virtually cut Chinese display manufacturer BOE out of the iPhone 13's supply chain after discovering design changes to its OLED panels, The Elec reports.

BOE has been supplying OLED display panels for 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌ models since last year, but the company has only manufactured a "meager amount" of OLED panels for the ‌iPhone‌ since February, according to The Elec. Panel production volume is said to have "plummeted over the past four months."

The initial reason for a dip in production output was a shortage of display driver Integrated Circuits (ICs), since IC supplier LX Semicon prioritized LG Display's orders. More significantly, BOE reportedly changed the design of its OLED panels by expanding the circuit width of thin-film transistors. The Elec claims that when Apple discovered the change, it told BOE to halt production.

Nevertheless, BOE is unlikely to be excluded from Apple's OLED panel supply chain going forward because its presence puts pressure on Samsung Display and LG Display to be more competitive and cut prices. BOE's factory in Sichuan is said to still be operational, and it is possible that BOE is currently working on a workaround to meet Apple's requirements.

BOE has manufactured OLED panels for the ‌iPhone‌ 12 and ‌iPhone‌ 13 at two factories in China, accounting for just 10 percent of all ‌iPhone‌ displays in 2021, but the company has been planning a significant expansion to overtake LG Display as one of Apple's main suppliers of ‌iPhone‌ displays in 2023.

In celebration of Star Wars Day, Apple today shared a "Behind the Mac" film featuring Skywalker Sound, the sound effects division of Lucasfilm known for films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Skywalker Sound uses 130 Mac Pro racks, 50 iMac, 50 MacBook Pro, and 50 Mac mini computers running Pro Tools, all of which remotely connect to a central machine room. The studio also uses a fleet of iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV devices to aid its production process. Staff at the ranch even emphasized the role of older equipment such as the Apple PowerBook.

Ben Burtt, the sound designer of the original Star Wars trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and the Indiana Jones franchise, said that his journey started with a Macintosh SE, and urged young people who want to work with sounds in movies to begin building a sound effects collection using "inexpensive applications that you can have access to now on your ‌iPad‌ or your MacBook, that you can actually do all kinds of cutting and sound-mixing at home."

Sound editor and sound designer Al Nelson said that ‌iPhone‌ recordings are "perfectly useable" in a professional context. Seven-time Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom explained:

You can tell a lot of the story with sound in a way that is less expensive than visuals, usually, and sometimes more emotionally powerful. If you're interested in sound or filmmaking, you can record 4K+ video on your iPhone. There's no excuse. The stuff that's part of our day-to-day lives is the same stuff you need to record sound and make movies. That's the real revolution. Ultimately, it will democratize the whole process.

See Apple's full press release for more information about how Skywalker Sound creates its iconic, cinematic soundscapes.

On Monday, May 9, 2022, Apple will host a unique online Today at Apple session with Skywalker Sound's Leff Lefferts and Apple Music's Eddie Francis, featuring footage from Skywalker Ranch and the opportunity to learn from an Apple Creative Pro how to make vocal effects for a character using their voice, everyday objects, and GarageBand. Participants can sign up at apple.co/skywalker-sound.

AT&T is planning to raise the price of older Unlimited plans in order to encourage customers to upgrade to newer plans, reports Bloomberg. Single line users can expect to pay up to $6 per month more, while family plans are increasing by as much as $12.

The pricing increases apply only to customers who are grandfathered in to older AT&T plans, and will not affect customers who have an up to date plan. AT&T offers three unlimited plans, including the Unlimited Starter Plan, Unlimited Extra Plan, and Unlimited Elite Plan.

Current plans are priced starting at $65 for a single line or $35 for four lines as part of a family plan. AT&T employees have been instructed to offer new plans to customers who call in about the increased charges for older plans, which will start in June.

AT&T says that it is encouraging customers to switch over to a newer plan because the newer plans offer "many additional features, more flexibility for each line on their account and, in many cases, a lower monthly cost."

Customers who will see price increases are going to be receiving an email from AT&T about the change, but AT&T has not provided specific details on which older plans will see the price hikes.

Warped Kart Racers, a kart racing game that supports up to eight players, is set to launch on Apple Arcade later this month. Warped Kart Racers features popular characters from 20th Television animated shows, including Peter Griffin from "Family Guy," Hank Hill from "King of the Hill," Stan Smith from "American Dad" and Terry from "Solar Opposites."

There are 20 TV characters to play in total in solo battles or races with friends. Races will take place in iconic locations, with 16 maps drawn from fan-favorite episodes. The game is set to launch on May 20.

Apple is also introducing Badland Party, which is a follow up to popular games Badland and Badland 2. Badland Party features physics-based 3D gameplay, and levels are designed to be played in online and local multiplayer modes. There are dozens of new characters to play and multiple new worlds to conquer, with the game launching on May 6.

Along with these two new games, ‌Apple Arcade‌ is gaining updated classic games that include Goat Simulator+ and Pro Darts 2022+ under the App Store Greats umbrella. Goat Simulator+ is coming on May 13, and Pro Darts 2022+ will launch on May 27.

‌Apple Arcade‌ is priced at $4.99 per month, and it includes more than 200 new and original gaming titles. All of the games are free to play with no additional in-app purchases or payments required. Up to six family members can share a single ‌Apple Arcade‌ subscription through Apple's Family Sharing features.

Apple Pay competitor PayPal played a role in the EU's decision to target Apple with antitrust complaints about its mobile wallet, reports Bloomberg. PayPal was one of "multiple companies" that filed informal complaints about the way Apple restricts third-party apps from accessing the NFC capabilities of the iPhone, which in turn led to the European Commission issuing a Statement of Objections against Apple.

The European Commission believes that Apple is unfairly limiting access to the NFC chip, preventing PayPal, Venmo, banks, and other payment services from offering features that are equivalent to ‌Apple Pay‌, which in turn limits the mobile payment options that ‌iPhone‌ users have access to in stores.

No third-party apps are able to access NFC on the ‌iPhone‌, so ‌Apple Pay‌ is the only tap to pay payment method available. Apple claims that the restriction is designed to safeguard user privacy and security, but it will now face an EU investigation.

The European Commission has informed Apple of its preliminary view that it abused its dominant position in markets for mobile wallets on iOS devices. By limiting access to a standard technology used for contactless payments with mobile devices in stores ('Near-Field Communication (NFC)' or 'tap and go'), Apple restricts competition in the mobile wallets market on iOS.

PayPal has an Apple Pay-like tap to pay option that's available to Android users, and the company wants to be able to offer a similar feature on the ‌iPhone‌. Such a feature would require PayPal to use the NFC chip in the ‌iPhone‌, but it is not able to do so with Apple's current restrictions.

Apple does have plans to allow third-party apps to use the NFC chip for the upcoming "Tap to Pay on ‌iPhone‌" feature that will allow compatible iPhones to accept payments through ‌Apple Pay‌, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets with no hardware required, but it is not equivalent to the tap to pay ‌Apple Pay‌ equivalent that PayPal is after.

According to Apple, ‌Apple Pay‌ rivals like PayPal are popular on ‌iPhone‌ without a direct tap to pay option, but the company plans to "continue to engage with the commission to ensure European consumers have access to the payment option of their choice in a safe and secure environment."

This is not the first time that Apple has faced criticism for restricting access to NFC on the ‌iPhone‌. Australian banks back in 2017 wanted access to NFC in order to launch an alternative to ‌Apple Pay‌, but they were not successful.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News 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 recently teamed up with YouTuber Jared Polin to offer a "dream studio" to a young, aspiring photographer and videographer named Cam Blumberg. Polin, who runs the photography website Fro Knows Photo, captured the touching moment on video.

Polin invited Blumberg to his studio for a supposed tour, but he ended up surprising him with a variety of equipment provided by Apple, including a Mac Studio, a Studio Display, a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip, an iPhone 13 Pro Max, a HomePod mini, a Magic Keyboard, a Magic Mouse, and a Magic Trackpad. Blumberg also received an Amaran P60C LED light panel and a 24TB G-RAID external storage system.

Blumberg's work can be found on Instagram, where has has pages for both his photography and videography. His latest work has focused on basketball players, such as top recruit Dereck Lively, and he has also started to branch into music videos.

The video serves as feel-good marketing for Apple's all-new Mac Studio desktop computer and Studio Display, which were released in March.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk today took to Twitter to once again criticize Apple's App Store fees, calling the cut that Apple takes from developers "definitely not ok" and likening it to a "30% tax on the internet."

He went on to say that the fee is "literally 10 times higher than it should be."

Apple takes a 30 percent cut from app developers who make over $1 million through the ‌App Store‌ on an annual basis, but for small developers who make less, Apple has cut its fees to 15 percent through the Small Business Developer Program.

Musk has criticized the Apple's ‌App Store‌ several times in the past. Back in July, for example, Musk called out Apple for creating a walled garden and said Tesla would never do such a thing. "I think we do want to emphasize that our goal is to support the advent of sustainable energy," Musk said at the time, responding to a question about letting competitors use the Tesla charger network. "It is not to create a walled garden and use that to bludgeon our competitors which is used by some companies."

Tesla and Apple have a long history and have clashed over employee theft as Apple pushes into the electric vehicle market. Back in 2015, Musk famously called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple," he said.

Musk at the current time is in the process of purchasing Twitter for $44 billion. Musk has claimed that he wants to make Twitter "better than ever" with new product features that will defeat spam bots and authenticate all humans. Twitter is set to become a privately held company when the acquisition is complete.

Twitter today announced that it is testing a new Twitter Circle feature, which is designed to allow people to share their tweets with a smaller crowd.

With Twitter Circle, Twitter users can share their tweets with up to 150 people, rather than sharing their content publicly. Each user will be able to create a Twitter Circle that consists of people who will be able to see the user's Twitter Circle tweets.

It is similar to the "Close Friends" story sharing feature on Instagram, which allows users to select a group of people to share stories with in lieu of publicly sharing stories with all followers.

Twitter says that some Twitter users will be able to create a Twitter Circle starting today. Those who have the feature available will be able to choose up to 150 followers to add to the Circle after being prompted with the new Circle interface, and only people selected for the user's Twitter Circle will be able to see and reply to Circle tweets.

Twitter Circle participants can be edited at any time. There is no word yet on when this feature will see a wider rollout.

Apple today released a second beta version of new 15.5 firmware that's coming to the Studio Display, with the software coming one week after the launch of the first beta. The Studio Display firmware is designed to improve the function of the webcam on the device.

All Studio Display models are able to receive over-the-air firmware updates, but this firmware update is limited to Macs that are running the ‌macOS Monterey‌ 12.4 beta at the current time. After installing the macOS 12.4 beta, Studio Display owners can go to System Preferences > Software Update to install the firmware.

Apple in March promised a firmware update for the Studio Display to address an issue with the webcam.

The Studio Display is equipped with a 12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera that supports Center Stage, but Studio Display reviewers and owners have discovered that the camera consistently produces grainy, washed-out images, which Apple has said is the result of the system to not behaving as expected. The firmware brings updated "camera tuning, improved noise reduction, contrast, and framing."

Apple today seeded the fourth betas of upcoming iOS 15.5 and iPadOS 15.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the new software coming one week following the release of the third betas.

Developers can download iOS 15.5 and iPadOS 15.5 through the Apple Developer Center or over the air after the proper profile has been installed on an iPhone or iPad.

iOS 15.5 and iPadOS 15.5 are minor updates compared to prior iOS 15 point releases, and there are a limited number of changes. Apple may be releasing an Apple Classical app at some point in the near future and there are references to it in the beta, but it is not yet available. Apple is using the iOS 15.5 update to lay the groundwork for functionality that will let developers of "reader" apps add a link to an external website for the purpose of signing up for and managing accounts outside of the App Store.

There are also minor changes to Apple Pay Cash, with Apple adding Request and Send options, and Apple is making some changes to the iTunes Pass that used to be available in the Wallet app. We have a complete list of changes in our iOS 15.5 guide.

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS Monterey 12.4 update to developers for testing purposes, with the new update coming a week after the release of the third macOS Monterey 12.4 beta.

Registered developers can download the beta through the Apple Developer Center and after the appropriate profile is installed, betas will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences.

According to Apple's release notes, Universal Control in the new iPadOS 15.5 and macOS Monterey 12.4 updates is not compatible with machines running macOS 12.3 or iPadOS 15.4, so Apple suggests that as a workaround, users should update their ‌Universal Control‌ devices to the new betas.

When paired with a Studio Display, macOS Monterey 12.4 supports new 15.5 Studio Display firmware, which improves the quality of the webcam on the machine.

There are also new betas for macOS Big Sur 11.6.6 and the macOS Catalina 2022-005 security update.