MacRumors

Apple today seeded a new public beta of the macOS 12 Monterey beta to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to test the new macOS Monterey software ahead of its public release. The fourth beta comes two weeks after Apple released the third macOS Monterey public beta.

Public beta testers can download the macOS 12 Monterey update from the Software Update section of the System Preferences app after installing the proper profile from Apple's beta software website.

macOS Monterey introduces quite a few major updates for the macOS operating system. Universal Control, for example, lets a single mouse, trackpad, and keyboard be used across multiple Mac or iPad devices, and it's now possible to AirPlay directly to a Mac from an iPhone, ‌iPad‌, or even another Mac.

Safari has an updated tab bar and support for Tab Groups to keep tons of tabs organized, and FaceTime now features support for spatial audio, Portrait Mode (M1 Macs only) and Voice Isolation for cutting out background noise. A SharePlay ‌FaceTime‌ feature lets Apple TV users watch TV, listen to music, and share their screens with one another.

Shared With You, another new feature, keeps track of the music, links, podcasts, news, and photos that people are sent in Messages, highlighting it in the relevant apps. Notes has a new Quick Note feature for jotting down thoughts, and the Shortcuts app is now available on the Mac.

A dedicated Focus mode helps people stay on task by cutting out background distractions based on what's going on, and there's an updated Maps app with a whole slew of new features. With Live Text, Macs can now detect text in photos or provide details on animals, art, landmarks, plants, and more in images. The new beta adds Live Text support for Intel Macs.

Mail Privacy Protection hides IP and prevents tracking through invisible pixels, and iCloud Private Relay keeps Safari browsing protected. There are many other new features in ‌macOS Monterey‌, with a complete overview available in our macOS Monterey roundup.

Apple will likely unveil its next-generation iPhones next month, and ahead of time, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce has outlined its expectations for the devices.

TrendForce said its latest investigations indicate that some of the notable hardware upgrades for the iPhone 13 models will include a faster and more power efficient 5nm+ chip that will presumably be named the A15 Bionic, support for mmWave 5G in additional countries outside the United States, and space-saving internal circuitry that will likely allow for larger batteries inside the devices. All of these features have been rumored previously.

As for pricing, TrendForce believes the iPhone 13 series will be priced similarly as the iPhone 12 series, assuming that Apple is able to effectively control manufacturing costs, due to the lack of many significant hardware upgrades. While the iPhone 12 series was announced in October last year, likely due to pandemic-related delays, the research firm said Apple will return to a September release for the iPhone 13 series this year.

TrendForce said iPhone shipments will likely maintain a growth trajectory in the third quarter of 2021 following the launch of the iPhone 13 series.

Apple has teamed up with singer Billie Eilish on a new short film to promote Apple Music's recently launched Spatial Audio feature.

The 90-second video, created by Apple Music in close collaboration with Eilish, mashes up the songs "Getting Older" and "GOLDWING" from the artist's latest album "Happier Than Ever." Eilish is seen singing in front of a vanity mirror, and as the song transitions, her reflections start to multiply in additional mirrors surrounding her, which Apple said is a metaphor meant to represent what it's like to listen to Spatial Audio.

Apple said Spatial Audio takes the listening experience of the new album to new heights, bringing dimensionality to Eilish's vocal performance.

Based on Dolby Atmos, Spatial Audio provides a surround sound experience, making songs sound like they are coming from all around you. Thousands of Apple Music songs have been made available in Spatial Audio since the feature rolled out in June, including Lady Gaga's "Rain on Me" and Kanye West's "Black Skinhead," and Eilish's new "Happier Than Ever" album can also be listened to in the immersive audio format.

Satechi today announced the launch of a new USB-C Clamp Hub, an add-on accessory designed to be used with the new 24-inch M1 iMac models.

The USB-C Clamp Hub has 3 USB-A ports that support 5Gb/s transfer speeds, a micro/SD card reader, and a USB-C port, and it attaches to the ‌iMac‌ using a single USB-C port at the back of the machine.

A knob at the back of the hub secures it to the ‌iMac‌, and while it is made from an aluminum material that is designed to match with Apple's devices, it is only available in a silver color.

Satechi's USB-C Clamp Hub is available from the Satechi website for $54.99. Customers can get a 15 percent pre-order discount using the promo code IMAC15 at checkout.

Foxconn, one of Apple's largest suppliers, has said it will begin construction of all-electric vehicle plants in the United States and Thailand this year, with hopes of them being operational by 2023, according to a report from Nikkei Asia.

From the report:

Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics producer, on Thursday said it will build electric vehicle manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Thailand next year, as the key iPhone assembler accelerates efforts to catch the rising EV wave to offset the slowing smartphone industry.

Foxconn has already ruled out Mexico as a location but is in negotiations with three states in the U.S. to build its first EV manufacturing plant in North America, Nikkei Asia has learned. Those include Wisconsin, which just agreed with Foxconn to amend its former plan of investing $10 billion in the state -- a promise Foxconn made in 2017.

At first, Foxconn will use the U.S. plant to build vehicles for its client Fisker, although there could be a potential expansion to serve Apple in the future.

Apple is widely reported to be working on its own vehicle and is thought to be looking for third-party companies to help it launch the Apple Car. One report vaguely referenced Foxconn as a potential candidate for the Apple Car's production, but Apple is also looking at other possible suppliers. Apple is reportedly committed to ensuring that the battery used in the Apple Car is produced in the United States, but Foxconn does not produce batteries.

Apple researchers have discovered that wearable devices like AirPods can be used to estimate a user's respiratory rate, opening up another potential avenue in biometric health sensor smarts.

Respiratory rate (RR) is a clinical metric used to assess overall health and physical fitness. In a paper highlighted on the Apple Machine Learning Research website and spotted by MyHealthyApple, researchers found that "wearable headphones" are able to pick up audible inhalations and exhalations during exertion using the device's on-board microphones.

According to the paper, the appeal of remote estimation of RR is that it offers a cost-effective method of tracking disease progression and cardio-respiratory fitness over time using "accessible, aesthetically acceptable," non-invasive wearable devices.

Data was collected from 21 individuals using microphone-enabled, near-field headphones before, during, and after strenuous exercise. RR was manually annotated by counting audibly perceived inhalations and exhalations.

A multi-level convolutional neural network was used to achieve signal clarity among other things and the results observed show that RR can be estimated with a concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) of 0.76 and a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.2, demonstrating that audio can be a viable signal for passively estimating RR.

[...]

Results presented validate that RR can be estimated from audio captured using wearable microphones, enabling the detection of heavy breathing conditions and the monitoring of RR changes, a measure of cardio-respiratory fitness, over time. The findings show promise for further development of a respiratory health tool with a larger study cohort.

While the paper doesn't name AirPods as such, Apple is known to have explored the potential of adding health monitoring features to the truly wireless earphones. For example, one Apple patent describes an earbud-based fitness monitoring system which integrates an advanced biometric sensor that can detect physiological metrics including temperature, heart rate, perspiration levels and more, through skin contact and via built-in motion sensors.

Meanwhile, DigiTimes has suggested that health sensors could be included in AirPods in one to two years, and Apple's vice president of technology Kevin Lynch in June 2021 said that Apple may one day build health features into the AirPods to provide users with additional health data.

Apple is already expected to add support for respiratory rate tracking via a user's Apple Watch in iOS 15. Code seen by MacRumors suggests that the Health app will be able to display respiratory rate data after a workout or upon waking up, along with blood glucose highlights and heart rate.

The debut of new health monitoring features in ‌iOS 15‌ cannot be taken as concrete evidence that Apple is planning to bring them to the Apple Watch Series 7, but we'll find out soon for sure. The Apple Watch Series 7 is expected to be announced in September, alongside third-generation AirPods that ape the AirPods Pro design.

Zoom has introduced a new feature called Focus Mode that's designed to prevent students from distracting each other during virtual classrooms.

When enabled, Focus Mode allows the teacher or lecturer taking the class to see all the students, while each student can only see the teacher.

The setting can be activated at any time by the teleconferencing host, so for example it could be turned on for lecture periods to reduce distractions from students' video feeds and then turned off for group discussion.

Focus Mode is available on the free desktop Zoom client, therefore lending itself to other uses, like business meetings, family gatherings and so on.

Zoom announced the new feature in a blog post offering other back-to-school tips to get children prepared for virtual or hybrid learning. Version 5.7.5 of Zoom for Mac is available to download from the Zoom website.

Apple is reportedly changing up the way it produces camera modules for its iPhone, now opting to individually produce each of the camera lenses separately, rather than procure them together and have them pre-assembled, according to a report from The Elec.

The report notes that up to last year, Apple's ‌iPhone‌ camera lenses were produced by its suppliers LG InnoTek, Sharp, and O'Film. The lenses were "pre-assembled." Now, Apple is consolidating the production of its camera modules to its largest supplier, Foxconn, to save costs.

Up to last year, Apple has procured double and triple camera modules from its suppliers LG InnoTek, Sharp, and O'Film that are pre-assembled.

But it is now procuring these camera modules individually and gave the job of assembly to Foxconn. The measure is being done to save cost.

Foxconn, in preparation for its new camera assembly responsibility, has received new inspection equipment from the South Korean firm Hyvision System. The new system will check whether the wide, Ultra Wide, and Telephoto cameras' lenses, including their optical axis and image sensors, are correctly aligned on higher-end ‌iPhone‌ models. An incorrect alignment could result in drastically reduced image quality.

The new changes are being done to "save costs," but it remains unclear if those savings would be presented to customers. It's also unclear whether the new production methodology and Foxconn's role in camera assembly will be in practice for the upcoming ‌iPhone‌ 13. Given that the new iPhones are already in production, that's unlikely to be the case.

Apple today released a new developer tool that is designed to force devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 to prioritize a 5G connection over a WiFi connection when on an insecure WiFi network or when a WiFi connection is slow.

5G devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 can automatically prioritize connecting via 5G instead of WiFi when the performance of WiFi networks you visit occasionally is slow, or when you are connected to captive or insecure WiFi networks. Install the 5G Preferred Over Wi-Fi profile ("profile") on devices running iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 Beta 4 or greater to greatly increase the likelihood of seeing 5G preferred over Wi-Fi connections and to ensure your networking path logic is optimized for situations where 5G will be preferred. For more information, see https://developer.apple.com/5g/.

Apple says that developers who want to prioritize 5G usage on their devices can do so by running the fourth beta of iOS 15/iPadOS 15 or later and downloading the 5G Preferred Over WiFi Profile.

In iOS and iPadOS 15, Apple has already added a new feature that causes 5G devices to automatically prioritize 5G when it provides an improved connection over WiFi, so this developer tool should boost that capability even further.

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of macOS Monterey, the newest version of the macOS operating system. The fifth beta comes two weeks after Apple released the fourth macOS Monterey beta, and it is available to both developers and public beta testers.

Registered developers can download the beta through the Apple Developer Center and once the appropriate profile is installed, betas will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences. Public beta testers can install the proper profile from Apple's public beta testing website.

As with all new betas, Apple recommends not installing the new macOS update on a primary machine because it is early release software and could have bugs.

macOS Monterey introduces Universal Control, a feature that lets a single mouse, trackpad, and keyboard be used across multiple Mac or iPad devices, plus there's a new AirPlay to Mac feature.

Safari has been redesigned with a new tab bar (with a toggle for two different designs as of the third beta) and support for Tab Groups, and FaceTime has gained spatial audio, a Portrait Mode on M1 Macs, and Voice Isolation for cutting out background noise. There's also a new SharePlay ‌FaceTime‌ feature that lets Apple users watch TV, listen to music, and share their screens with one another.

Shared With You, a separate feature, keeps track of the music, links, podcasts, news, and photos that people are sent in Messages, highlighting it in the relevant apps. Notes has a new Quick Note feature for jotting down thoughts, and collaboration is easier with mentions and an Activity View.

The Shortcuts app from iOS is now available on the Mac, and Focus helps people stay on task by cutting out background distractions. There's an updated Maps app with a whole slew of new features, and with Live Text, Macs can now detect text in photos or provide details on animals, art, landmarks, plants, and more in images.

Mail Privacy Protection hides IP and prevents tracking through invisible pixels, and iCloud Private Relay keeps Safari browsing protected. There are many other new features in macOS Monterey, with a full rundown available in our macOS Monterey roundup.

Update: While Apple initially also pushed the update to public beta testers, it appears it was pulled soon after.

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of the upcoming watchOS 8 update to developers for testing purposes, with the update coming two weeks after Apple released the fourth watchOS 8 beta.

To install ‌watchOS 8‌, developers will need to download the configuration profile from the Apple Developer Center. Once installed, ‌watchOS 8‌ can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General > Software update.

To update to new software, an Apple Watch needs to have 50 percent battery life, it must be placed on the charger, and it needs to be in range of the ‌‌iPhone‌‌. It's not recommended to install ‌watchOS 8‌ on a main Apple Watch as the software may be unstable at this early date.

watchOS 8 has several new features that are extensions of new features introduced in iOS 15. There are improvements to Wallet that allow it to hold keys for unlocking hotel, car, and home doors, plus Apple will let U.S. users add their IDs to Wallet later this year.

Apple overhauled the Home app, and for the Workout app, there are new Tai Chi and Pilates workout types, and the Breathe app has been renamed to Mindfulness thanks to a new Reflect session that invites users to get into a positive state of mind. When sleeping, the Apple Watch now measures respiratory rate.

Focus mode from iOS 15 syncs to the watch so users can stay on task, and in the Messages app, Scribble, dictation, and emojis can be combined within the same message, making it easier to communicate. Dictated text can be edited, and GIFs can be sent right from the watch.

There's a new Portrait watch face, and the Photos app has been updated with support for Memories and Featured ‌Photos‌. A new Find My app lets items be located right on the wrist, and there are also new updates for Music, Weather, Timers, and more, along with a new Contacts app.

New bipartisan antitrust legislation that targets Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store was today introduced by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal, Marsha Blackburn, and Amy Klobuchar.

The Open App Markets Act [PDF] is meant to create "fair, clear, and enforceable rules" that will protect competition and strengthen consumer protections. According to the three senators, Apple and Google have "gatekeeper control" of the two main mobile operating systems and their app stores, allowing them to dictate the terms of the app market.

Under the terms of the bill, which applies to companies that own or control an ‌App Store‌ with more than 50,000,000 users, Apple would not be able to require developers to use its own in-app purchase system, and it would be required to allow developers to distribute apps through alternative app stores.

Apple would need to provide "readily accessible means" for iPhone users to install third-party apps or app stores outside of Apple's own ‌App Store‌, and it would need to let customers choose third-party apps and app stores as their defaults while also hiding standard Apple apps.

Other wording in the bill would prevent Apple from retaliating against developers that decided to distribute apps using alternative means, and Apple would also not be allowed to unreasonably preference its own apps. The company would need to provide developers with access to operating system interfaces, development information, and hardware and software features.

In a statement, Blumenthal said that the legislation would break the competitive hold that Apple and Google have over the app market while providing mobile users with more control over their devices.

"This legislation will tear down coercive anticompetitive walls in the app economy, giving consumers more choices and smaller startup tech companies a fighting chance. For years, Apple and Google have squashed competitors and kept consumers in the dark--pocketing hefty windfalls while acting as supposedly benevolent gatekeepers of this multi-billion dollar market. I'm proud to partner with Senators Blackburn and Klobuchar in this breakthrough blow against Big Tech bullying. This bipartisan bill will help break these tech giants' ironclad grip, open the app economy to new competitors, and give mobile users more control over their own devices."

Blackburn said that Apple and Google's refusal to allow for third-party App Stores is a "direct affront to a free and fair marketplace, and Klobuchar said that the legislation levels the playing field and will ensure an "innovative and competitive marketplace."

In an interview with Reuters, Blumenthal said that he found the "predatory abuse" of the two companies "deeply offensive on so many levels." He said that he expects companion legislation in the House of Representatives "very soon."

Earlier this year, U.S. lawmakers introduced sweeping antitrust legislation that would result in major changes to the tech industry if passed, with the measures coming as the culmination of a 16-month antitrust investigation.

Update: In a statement to MacRumors, Apple reiterated its commitment to ensuring that apps are delivered to customers in a way that is safe and trustworthy.

"Since our founding, we’ve always put our users at the center of everything we do, and the App Store is the cornerstone of our work to connect developers and customers in a way that is safe and trustworthy. The result has been an unprecedented engine of economic growth and innovation, one that now supports more than 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states. At Apple, our focus is on maintaining an App Store where people can have confidence that every app must meet our rigorous guidelines and their privacy and security is protected."

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 has begun selling a new third-party accessory for its MagSafe ecosystem, a folding stand from OtterBox priced at $39.95. The hinged stand includes a recessed area to house a user-provided ‌MagSafe‌ Charger and a slot for routing the cable through the stand and out the back.

The folding design is convenient for travel and lets you set your desired angle for nightstand viewing, video calls, and more in either portrait or landscape orientation. When folded completely back into a horizontal position, it can serve as a traditional Qi charger for non-MagSafe devices such as AirPods or other smartphones.

At $39.95 for the stand and an additional $39.00 for Apple's ‌MagSafe‌ Charger, it's not an inexpensive charging solution, but the removable charger setup does offer flexibility to only use the stand when needed.

Apple today seeded new betas of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to download and test the new updates ahead of their fall release. The latest public betas come two weeks after Apple released the previous public betas and are equivalent to the fifth developer betas released yesterday.

Public beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program can download the iOS and iPadOS 15 updates over the air after installing the proper certificate from the Public Beta website.

iOS 15 adds new features for FaceTime, tools for reducing distractions, updated notifications, and privacy enhancements. ‌FaceTime‌ supports SharePlay for watching TV, listening to music, or screen sharing with friends, while a Shared with You feature keeps track of the songs, website links, pictures, and more that friends send you.

Focus is designed to help keep you on task by cutting out notifications you don't want while you're busy, and there's a new notifications summary feature that prevents you from being inundated with unimportant notifications throughout the day.

Safari has a redesigned look with a compact tab bar that's located at the bottom of the screen, plus Tab Groups let users save open tabs for later. Maps has a new zoomed out globe view and a new 3D view in select cities, plus there's more road detail and an AR-based walking direction feature.

The Wallet app will support IDs and more kinds of keys in iOS 15, and Photos gains updates to Memories and a new Live Text feature that uses on-device intelligence to recognize the text in an image, making it searchable and copyable. Spotlight is better than ever, and processing for Siri requests is now done directly on device.

Mail Privacy Protection in the Mail app stops senders from seeing your IP address and knowing if you've opened up an email, and an App Privacy Report gives you details on how often apps use permissions like camera and location access.

There are a ton of other new features available in iOS and iPadOS 15, with full details available in our roundup.

Apple has released a new macOS Big Sur 11.5.2 update, delivering unspecified bug fixes for Mac users running the latest major operating system version. The update comes a little over two weeks after Apple released macOS 11.5.1.

The new ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌macOS Big Sur‌‌‌‌‌‌ 11.5.2 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Preferences.

We'll update this article if we learn more about fixes included in macOS 11.5.2.

Popular to-do app Things reached version 3.14 today and gained several additional note-related features: Bullet Lists, Markdown support, Find in Text, and Things Cloud "Fractus."

Things has supported bullet lists before now, but you can now nest lists by inserting spaces in front of a bullet, and character lines now line up with the text of the previous line, thanks to the use of a fixed-width font.

When editing bullet lists, Things will now make the process a little easier by automatically stripping out "double bullets" during copy-paste.

Meanwhile, there's a new Find in Text option that augments the existing search by searching specific notes. The option can be activated using the key shortcut Shift-Command-F, and is aimed at making it easier to narrow down a search in particularly long notes.

In addition, Things now recognizes a wide range of commonly used Markdown syntax, making it easier to structure and style notes.

Lastly, Things Cloud "Fractus" is a new way of syncing text. Until now, each time the user modified a note – say to insert or remove a few words – the entire note would be synced again across all their devices.

With Things Cloud "Fractus", however, only the fragments of text that are modified get synced, which should improve the speed and efficiency of the sync, and allow for smarter resolution of conflicts.

Things 3.14 can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for $49.99 and from the iOS App Store. The iPad version is priced at $19.99 [Direct Link] while the iPhone version (which includes Apple Watch support) is priced at $9.99. [Direct Link] A 15-day trial of Things for Mac is available on the Cultured Code website.