MacRumors

In an attempt to rival the iPad Pro and iPadOS, Huawei today launched three new tablets as part of its "MatePad" tablet lineup, including a new 10.8-inch and 12.6-inch MatePad Pro and the MatePad 11.

As The Verge reports, all three devices are the first Huawei tablets to run its own "HarmonyOS" operating system, announced earlier in 2019. In addition, the smaller 10.8-inch MatePad Pro and MatePad 11 also feature Huawei's own custom-designed Kirin processor, rather than processors made by Snapdragon.

Due to political tensions, Huawei devices are stripped of privileges usually accustomed to Android devices, such as Google apps for users. HarmonyOS includes Huawei's "AppGallery," the equivalent of Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store for finding, distributing, and downloading apps and games.

In terms of specific end-user features, HarmonyOS borrows many ideas from Apple's iPadOS. Alongside the new tablets, Huawei also offers the "M-Pencil" stylus, drawing stark similarities to the Apple Pencil. HarmonyOS and M-Pencil are integrated software side by a feature called "FreeNote," which automatically translates written text in any text filed across the system into typed text. The feature is identical to Scribble, introduced in iPadOS 14 last year.

Screenshots of HarmonyOS shared on Twitter by leaker Evan Blass also showcase visual similarities to Apple's iPadOS.

Alongside the new tablets, Huawei also updated the M-Pencil stylus with improved and lower latency of 9ms, matching improvements made to the ‌Apple Pencil‌ with iPadOS 13. The new tablets have yet to be given a release date in Europe, but the 12.6-inch MatePad Pro will launch in China on June 10 for around $790.

Apple has regained its third-place position in the annual Fortune 500 rankings of the largest companies in the United States by revenue.

Apple earned $274.5 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year, an increase of 5.5 percent, and made $57.4 billion in profit, a 3.9 percent increase.

Last year, Apple fell to fourth place, but now the company returned to third place, only surpassed by Walmart in first place and Amazon in second place.

The pandemic created challenges and opportunities for Apple. CEO Tim Cook had to close stores and send home engineers. But with Apple customers worldwide working and learning from home, iPad and Macintosh computer sales skyrocketed to their highest levels ever. And fiscal-year revenue hit an all-time record too, of $275 billion. That helped Apple's stock price soar; it gained 80.7% in 2020. As that year wound down, regulators fixed their sights on Apple for potentially abusing its power over the iOS app store. A House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee report in October concluded that Apple "exerts monopoly power" in its app store to harm competition and increase prices for consumers. Meanwhile, testimony in an antitrust lawsuit filed by Fortnite developer Epic Games will likely increase pressure on legislators to limit Apple’s power.

Apple has now ranked in the top five for eight consecutive years. Other notable tech companies in this year's list include Google parent Alphabet in ninth, Microsoft in 15th, and Facebook in 34th.

Leaker Jon Prosser has today made CAD renders purporting to be of the iPhone 13 and ‌iPhone‌ 13 Pro available for download online.

In a new video on YouTube channel FrontPageTech, Prosser said that the ‌iPhone‌ 13 will be slightly thicker to accommodate a larger battery, in line with previous leaks and rumors. He also brought attention to a number of other previously-rumored design changes, including a smaller notch and a new diagonal rear camera layout for the non-Pro models.

Prosser has made the two CAD files available for download in the description of his video so that anyone can closely examine the alleged changes.

For more on what to expect from the ‌iPhone‌ 13 lineup, see our full roundup.

Apple yesterday announced the winners of its Swift Student Challenge, and as promised, winners have started to receive WWDC 2021 swag as a prize.

Here's a photo of the exclusive outerwear shared by the developer behind Chain Reaction Games:

The annual Swift Student Challenge is a coding challenge that tasks students with creating an interactive scene in the Swift Playgrounds app. Apple said winners would receive exclusive WWDC 2021 outerwear, which appears to consist of a beanie and a pullover sweater.

Winners also received a set of WWDC 2021 pins, including the Finder icon on Mac, a "Make it beta" message bubble, and others, plus a one-year Apple Developer Program membership if they have reached the age of majority in their country.

WWDC 2021 begins next Monday, June 7 with a Keynote at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. Apple is expected to unveil major new software updates, including iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, watchOS 8, and tvOS 15. Read our WWDC 2021 roundup for more details.

As of today, Apple has failed to add any new games to Apple Arcade for two months. Prior to April 2, the company added new games to ‌Apple Arcade‌ intermittently on Fridays, similar to how Apple TV+ content is released, but since the launch of new categories of games two months ago, the service has seemingly taken a backseat.

On April 2, Apple announced that 30 new games would immediately arrive on the service, bringing the total number of games to over 180. Some of these games came under the new categories of "Timeless Classics" and "App Store Greats," which added existing games to the service. The additions indicated a change in strategy for ‌Apple Arcade‌, which was until then reliant on exclusive "Arcade Originals" only.

Despite the significant news for Apple's mobile gaming subscription service, more than eight weeks have now passed with no new games being added to the platform. Even so, Apple is promoting a number of new games as "coming soon," including the narrative-focused card game "Solitaire Stories," fast-paced puzzler "Frenzic Overtime," and turn-by-turn RPG "Legends of Kingdom Rush."

Starting on Friday, June 4, ‌Apple Arcade‌ is expected to resume weekly additions to the service after this hiatus period.

‌Apple Arcade‌‌ launched in September of 2019 as an ad-free mobile game subscription service with no in-app purchases. ‌‌Apple Arcade‌‌ is available across the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, ‌Apple TV‌, and Mac for $4.99 per month, or as part of the Apple One bundle.

Apple has lost "several" top managers from its internal Apple Car project, codenamed "Project Titan," causing a potential setback to the launch of the self-driving car, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

From the report:

Apple Inc. has lost multiple top managers of its self-driving car team in recent months, a sign of attrition at the division involved in what could become an important future product.

In recent days, Dave Scott, who led teams working on robotics related to the car, left to become the chief executive officer at Hyperfine, a health care company developing next-generation MRI systems. Before Scott’s departure, Jaime Waydo, who led autonomous car safety and regulation teams, departed to become the chief technology officer at Cavnue, a startup focused on the safety of autonomous cars on public roads.

In February, Benjamin Lyon, who helped create Apple’s original car team several years ago and was key in the future project’s development, left to become the chief engineer at Astra, a company developing technology for sending satellites to space.

Over the last few months, a flurry of reports have surfaced detailing potential specifics on an Apple Car. Bloomberg has previously reported that the self-driving vehicle is still in early development and is still at least five years away, while reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the vehicle is unlikely to launch until 2025 at the earliest.

Despite the recent departure of some top-level managers from the project, Apple has added notable executives to "Project Titan." In February, the Cupertino tech giant hired a former Porsche executive with experience in chassis design. You can learn more about the Apple Car and everything we know about it using our guide.

An Apple job listing has mentioned "homeOS," an otherwise never-before heard of Apple operating system, ahead of WWDC next week.

Spotted by developer Javier Lacort, the Apple job listing for a Senior iOS Engineer in Apple Music explicitly mentions "homeOS" on two occasions, alongside Apple's other operating systems including iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

You'll get to work with system engineers across Apple, learning the inner-workings of iOS, watchOS, tvOS and homeOS, and optimizing your code for performance in ways only Apple can. Come join our team and make a real difference for music lovers worldwide.

The Apple Music Frameworks team owns the technology stack that enables the system-integrated Apple Music experience on all of our mobile platforms: iOS, watchOS, and homeOS.

Interestingly, the job listing mentions homeOS as a "mobile platform," seemingly highlighting it as more akin to iOS and watchOS than systems like macOS and tvOS, but it is not clear why that would be the case.

The operating system could simply be a rebranding of Apple's current smart home software, in much the same way iOS for iPad was rebranded iPadOS and OS X was changed to macOS, or potentially an entirely new OS.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman commented that Apple still lacks a "unifying strategy" for the smart home market. It is possible that homeOS could be software designed to spearhead a more centralized smart home strategy, perhaps unifying the HomePod's audioOS and the Apple TV's tvOS. Apple is rumored to be developing a combined Apple TV and HomePod device and a HomePod with a screen. For now, what homeOS will precisely entail remains purely speculative.

Apple's homeOS could feasibly debut as soon as next week at WWDC, where the company is expected to unveil major updates to its various operating systems.

Update: Apple has now removed "homeOS" from the job listing and replaced it with ‌HomePod‌ and tvOS. "You’ll get to work with system engineers across Apple, learning the inner workings of iOS, watchOS, tvOS and ‌HomePod‌, and optimizing your code for performance in ways only Apple can," reads the replacement text.

Apple chip supplier TSMC is moving ahead with plans for a manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Arizona, according to Bloomberg.

In November of 2020, Phoenix city officials approved financial incentives and government support for the new plant. The city agreed to provide $200 million in support to build infrastructure including roads and sewers, according to a notice from the city's council.

TSMC estimates that its total spending on the project, including capital expenditure, will be approximately $12 billion from 2021 to 2029, with the facility expected to directly create over 1,600 high-tech professional jobs.

Construction of the Arizona plant is now said to be "well under way." The facility will mass-produce chips fabricated with a five-nanometer process by 2024. TSMC has been gradually miniaturizing its process over the years, going from a 16nm A10 chip in iPhone 7 models, to a 7nm A13 chip in ‌iPhone‌ 11 models, and a 5nm process for the ‌iPhone‌ 12's A14 chip. Likely clients for the chips from the Arizona factory include Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Apple.

TSMC already operates a factory in Camas, Washington and design centers in Austin, Texas and San Jose, California, so the Arizona facility will be its second manufacturing site in the United States. The company's main factories are located in Taiwan.

The new Arizona plant will increase the opportunity for Apple's custom silicon chips, such as the A14 or M1 chip, to be feasibly manufactured within the United States.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be one of the speakers at the upcoming "Viva Technology" conference, being held digitally and physically between June 16 and June 19, according to a tweet from the conference's official page (via iMore).

Based out of Paris, France, the conference is an opportunity to break down "traditional barriers between grassroots innovators and global leaders" and is "Europe's biggest startup and tech event." Given the nature of the event, Cook is likely to speak about Apple's overall role in supporting startups and entrepreneurs through its different platforms, such as the App Store.

‌Tim Cook‌ last attended a public forum in March and has previously used public appearances such as these to echo Apple's stance on user privacy and its values. The conference will include more than 3,000 investors from around the world and more than 13,000 startups. More details can be found on its website.

The Apple TV app is now available on the majority of devices, including TVs and streaming sticks/boxes running Android TV OS, according to a tweet by the Apple TV Twitter account.

Google promised in December of last year that the ‌Apple TV‌ app would expand to more devices in the Android TV OS ecosystem in the near future. The ‌Apple TV‌ app, which offers viewers access to ‌Apple TV‌+ content and more, is now available for download through the Google Play Store on Android TV OS devices.

Google also confirmed the availability of the app in the Android TV OS ecosystem to 9to5Google.

Yesterday, the ‌Apple TV‌ app expanded to Nvidia Shield Streaming devices and in November was made avaiable on Xbox gaming consoles.

Apple's global security chief, Thomas Moyer, has been cleared by a California judge of bribery charges following accusations that the security chief participated in a scheme to donate 200 iPads worth $75,000 to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office in exchange for concealed gun permits, Reuters reports.

According to the charges brought forward in November, Moyer agreed to donate 200 iPads to the Sheriff's office in exchange for concealed gun permits for Apple's security team at a 2019 meeting. Furthermore, according to prosecutors, Moyer acted upon the request of Santa Clara County Undersheriff Rick Sung, who allegedly threatened to withhold the permits unless the iPads were donated.

Ultimately, a California judge believed that the iPad donations offered by Moyer came as a misunderstanding. According to the judge, by the time Moyer had offered the iPads, he was under the belief that the permits were already issued, rather than the iPads being a requirement for their issuance.

Judge Eric S. Geffon of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County found on Tuesday that Moyer had been in talks with the Sheriff's Office about permits for more than a year by the time of the 2019 meeting. By then, Geffon wrote, the evidence suggests Moyer believed the permits were already approved and would be issued soon.

Judge Eric S. Geffon also further noted that the argument against Moyer is "pure speculation" and "not supported by the evidence presented to the grand jury." Moyer, in a statement, thanked the court for "giving this case such careful consideration, and for allowing me to move forward with my life."

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.

Ahead of the beginning of this year's WWDC, Apple has set out another marketing campaign on Twitter by enabling a special Twitter hashflag with the "#WWDC21" hashtag across the social network. This year's hashflag includes an icon resembling the thumbs-up Tapback effect from iMessage.

According to Jane Manchun Wong's Hashflag Browser, the new hashflag will last until June 6, one day short of when the developers conference will begin. While unclear, the new hashflag seems to be a "pre-conference" hashflag rather than the hashflag used throughout the conference. Apple, could, of course, extend this hashflag beyond June 6.

Normally, such as in the past with the latest April 20 "Spring Loaded" event, there is a special animation when liking tweets with the corresponding event hashtag. At the time, the WWDC hashflag includes no such animation. However, given it ends on June 6, Apple may be planning other hashflags that will run throughout the week of the conference.

WWDC officially kicks off on June 7 at 10 a.m PT with a keynote where we're expecting to see iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS 12, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8. Some tenuous rumors also suggest that the announcement of the long-awaited redesigned MacBook Pro will also make an appearance at the conference.

Apple is continuing to prepare for the WWDC keynote thats set to take place on Monday, June 7, and has today updated its Developer app with new features ahead of the event.

The update adds details on all of the pavilions, session videos, 1-on-1 labs, and coding and design challenges available as part of WWDC 2021, plus it introduces sign ups for the WWDC 2021 labs.

There are also a series of new stickers available for developers to use in the Messages app. From Apple's release notes:

- Explore all WWDC21 has to offer, including pavilions, session videos, 1-on-1 labs, Coding & Design Challenges, and more.
- You can sign up for labs at WWDC21 from directly inside the Developer app, as well as receive notifications about your upcoming appointments.
- Check out all-new stickers for WWDC21.
- We've fixed bugs and added various other enhancements.

The Apple Developer app can be downloaded for free from the App Store, and it is the iPhone and iPad hub for all WWDC developer content.

More than 50% of iPhone 13 models set to be shipped later this year will support mmWave, according to a paywalled preview of a DigiTimes report, in line with rumors that mmWave will be supported in more regions.

"Apple will launch its next-generation iPhone series - tentatively dubbed the iPhone 13 - later in 2021, according to industry sources, which believe that more than 50% of the total iPhone 13s set to be shipped this year will be 5G mmWave models," the preview said. The full report should be published by tomorrow with additional details.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and other sources have claimed that iPhone 13 models will support ultra-fast mmWave 5G bands in additional countries, with likely candidates including Canada, Japan, Australia, and some European countries. By comparison, mmWave support on iPhone 12 models is limited to the United States.

mmWave is a set of 5G frequencies that promise ultra-fast speeds at short distances, which is suitable for dense urban areas. By comparison, sub-6GHz 5G is generally slower than mmWave, but the signals travel further, better serving suburban and rural areas.

When we tested Verizon's mmWave network with a Samsung smartphone in Chicago in mid-2019, we were able to hit download speeds of close to 2Gb/s, but speeds vary drastically based on your position and proximity to the nearest 5G tower. For a more detailed comparison of 5G bands, read our mmWave vs. sub-6GHz 5G iPhone Guide.

Mozilla today announced the public release of Firefox 89 for macOS with a redesigned and modernized core browsing experience.

The latest version of the browser features a simplified toolbar with less frequently used items removed, allowing the focus to be on the most important navigation items. Menus and prompts have also been streamlined across Firefox to have cleaner designs and clearer language. The more consistent styling extends to many other elements of the browser.

Firefox 89 also features floating tabs that contain information and other cues when you need them, like visual indicators for audio controls.

For macOS users, Firefox 89 now features the familiar "elastic" scrolling effect utilized in many other applications. A gentle bouncing animation will indicate that you reached the end of the page while scrolling.

Another feature added for macOS users is support for multi-touch "smart zoom." Users can double tap with two fingers on the trackpad, or with a single finger on the Magic Mouse, to zoom the content beneath the cursor into focus. This multi-touch gesture has long been supported by Apple's default Safari browser as well as Google Chrome.

Firefox 89 contextual menus are now native on macOS and support Dark Mode too.

The complete Firefox 89 release notes can be found on the Mozilla website.