MacRumors

GeForce NOW, NVIDIA's streaming gaming service, today announced the launch of Safari integration, which will bring Fortnite and other games to Apple's iOS devices through the Safari browser.

The new Safari integration is available in a beta capacity, and NVIDIA says that many games in the GeForce NOW library can be played on iOS devices. Using GeForce NOW on an iOS device requires a gamepad, and keyboard and mouse-only games are not available. NVIDIA has a list of recommended gamepads.

NVIDIA is working alongside Epic Games on a touch-friendly version of Fortnite that will run on iOS devices through Safari, so Fortnite is not launching today, but it will be coming soon.

Rumors earlier this month suggested that Fortnite would return to Apple's devices through a partnership with NVIDIA, and when the game launches on the GeForce NOW service, it will be the first time Fortnite has been accessible on iOS devices since the Apple vs. ‌Epic Games‌ dispute kicked off in August.

With GeForce NOW, users must own a game to play it through an iOS device, and streaming is available at up to 1080p and 60 frames per second. More than 750 PC games are supported, and NVIDIA adds new games regularly.

GeForce NOW can be accessed on iPhone or iPad through Safari by visiting the GeForce NOW website. The service is priced at $4.99 per month for a Founders membership, with a 6-month subscription available for $24.95.

Apple today issued a press release highlighting its partnership with Boys and Girls Clubs, looking in particular at how the Atlantic City club has integrated Apple programs and technologies.

Apple is aiding a new set of technology labs created by the Boys and Girls Club as part of its 21st Century Academic Enrichment Program by providing a large number of iPad and Mac devices. The labs, which focus on science, technology, engineering, art, and math, as well as design and career training, also include Apple's Everyone Can Code, Everyone Can Create, and Develop in Swift programs.

In total, Apple is donating 2,500 devices to club locations in Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, and the Atlantic City club in New Jersey, to support learning.

The company has set out its commitment to work with local clubs to help them explore the full potential of its devices, and show them how they can further integrate Apple coding and creativity programming into their curricula.

Chinese display maker BOE has reportedly failed yet again to secure a supply order from Apple for OLED panels for iPhones.

According to TheElec, OBE is still facing manufacturing issues at its Chengdu plant in Sichuan province, meaning the display maker has failed to secure Apple's validation for the OLED screens for the second time this year.

BOE's plant in Mianyang – in the same province – suffered the same fate in June, due to a low production yield rate of around 20 percent.

Apple's review for Chengdu began in September but only lasted a month and ended in failure in October, according to the report. BOE will now have to wait until the first half of 2021 to reattempt to clinch a supply deal, which means next year's iPhone series will likely use panels made by Samsung and LG Display.

BOE will have to wait until between May and June before it learns the results of its third review. If it does pass, the panels it supplies will be able to be used for refurbished ‌iPhone‌ 12 models.

Apple is expected to ship next year's "‌iPhone‌ 13" in four models and similar sizes to this year's ‌iPhone‌ 12 series, but the OLED panels used for the next-generation ‌iPhone‌ are said to be more technologically sophisticated.

Rumors suggest Apple is planning to adopt 120Hz ProMotion displays for at least two models in next year's ‌iPhone‌ lineup, made possible by a shift to low-power LTPO OLED technology. LTPO offers a more power efficient backplane, which turns the individual pixels on and off on the display, and allows for better battery life.

The two models with LTPO are likely to be the Pro models, which are the ones rumored to adopt ProMotion technology. All four 2021 ‌iPhone‌ models are expected to use on-cell touch screens as well, which allows multitouch functionality to be embedded on top of a thin-film transistor (TFT) rather than as a separate component above the display.

Apple has announced the winners of the second annual Apple Music Awards, which recognize "the best and boldest musicians of 2020 and their enormous impact on global culture."

The awards honor achievements in music across five categories, with winners chosen through a process that reflects both ‌Apple Music‌'s editorial perspective and what customers around the world are loving most.

Apple has named Lil Baby is Artist of the Year, and Megan Thee Stallion is Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Songwriter of the Year goes to Taylor Swift for her album folklore. "The Box" by Roddy Ricch is Top Song of the Year, while Top Album of the Year goes to Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial by Roddy Ricch.

Apple plans to kick off its ‌Apple Music‌ Awards celebration on Monday, December 14, with a week of special performances, fan events, interviews, and more, streaming worldwide on ‌Apple Music‌, ‌Apple Music‌ TV, and the Apple TV app.

"The Apple Music Awards is our opportunity to recognize and honor the incredible artists who we feel have deeply impacted and inspired the world and our customers, and helped us feel connected through music this year," said Oliver Schusser, Apple's vice president of Apple Music and Beats. "We have an exciting week of music planned in December and are very much looking forward to celebrating together with these artists and their fans."

Apple's full article has a more complete list of details on all of the artists that are to be honored with a special Apple-designed award.

Quicken has released version 6.0 of its popular finance and budgeting software that's twice as fast on Apple Silicon, according to the press release.

The new version is a universal app that allows it to run natively on Apple's M1-powered machines for a faster and more seamless user experience, while the interface builds on Apple's new UI design signature for macOS Big Sur.

"Quicken made a name for itself as the first personal finance solution to be used and trusted by millions of users," said Quicken CEO Eric Dunn. "As the market leader, we are proud to be on the cutting edge with this announcement of our support for Apple Silicon and Big Sur, featuring an upgraded yet familiar user experience and significantly improved performance. Quicken's reports run twice as fast on Apple Silicon, demonstrating the power of Apple Silicon's new CPU."

This version promises to make it easier for users to manage all of their financial accounts in one place, with new tabs and icons that can be used to display all transactions across accounts with one click.

New features offer a more seamless experience around account settings and payments, according to the company, and in addition to updates in the Bills & Income section, the update also offers deeper analysis in New Worth Drill-Down Reports.

Quicken for Mac is available from the company's website. There are several price plans available for Quicken for Mac starting at $35.99 per year, which includes phone and chat support along with a 30-day risk-free guarantee.

While the A14 Bionic chip in iPhone 12 models was the first chip in the smartphone industry to be manufactured based on a 5nm process, Apple and its chipmaking partner TSMC are reportedly pushing ahead on even smaller nodes.

Taiwanese research firm TrendForce today reported that Apple plans to use TSMC's next-generation 5nm+ process for the A15 chip in 2021 iPhones. TSMC's website says the 5nm+ process, which it refers to as N5P, is the "performance-enhanced version" of its 5nm process that will deliver additional power efficiency and performance improvements.

Looking farther ahead, TrendForce believes it is highly likely that the A16 chip in 2022 iPhones will be manufactured based on TSMC's future 4nm process, paving the way for further improvements to performance, power efficiency, and density.

These continued process advancements should result in future iPhones continuing to provide industry-leading performance among smartphones, while the power efficiency gains could contribute to longer battery life. And considering that TSMC also manufactures Apple Silicon chips, including the 5nm-based M1 chip, these process advancements will likely extend to Apple's chips in future Macs — perhaps an "M1X" or "M2" chip or so forth.

Rumors suggest that future Apple Silicon Macs will include new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with an all-new form factor as early as Q2 2021, in addition to a redesigned 24-inch iMac and a smaller version of the Mac Pro.

Codeweavers posted a blog post and video tonight showing off CrossOver running on an Apple M1 MacBook Air. This video shows Team Fortress 2 running on a new ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌:

CrossOver is software (based on Wine Project) that runs Microsoft Windows apps on the Mac by translating Windows APIs into their Mac equivalents. The Codeweavers team was able to run the current version of CrossOver on the new Apple ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌ under Rosetta 2 to achieve this feat.

That's incredible when you consider that we're on literally the cheapest Apple Silicon device you can buy - one that gets thermally throttled and is missing a GPU core.

I can't tell you how cool that is; there is so much emulation going on under the covers. Imagine - a 32-bit Windows Intel binary, running in a 32-to-64 bridge in Wine / CrossOver on top of macOS, on an ARM CPU that is emulating x86 - and it works! This is just so cool.

Codeweavers maintains a compatibility database so you can see what might work under CrossOver. They were also able to run Quicken, Among Us, and Witcher 3.

Apple promised that its new Fitness+ service would launch before the end of the year, and it appears that the feature will be added to iOS 14.3 and watchOS 7.2.

As noted on the MacRumors forums, the current watchOS 7.2 beta that was released this morning has a splash screen with what's new, and Apple Fitness+ is listed as one of the features.

The first iOS 14.3 beta also had an unfinished mention of Apple Fitness+ in the Analytics portion of the Privacy settings, but it has since been removed.

Given that we're expecting iOS 14.3 and watchOS 7.2 to come out right around the beginning of December, it matches up with Apple's late 2020 launch timeline for Fitness+.

Apple first announced Fitness+ alongside the Apple Watch Series 6. Priced at $9.99 per month and included in the highest tier Apple One bundle, Fitness+ is designed to help Apple Watch owners keep fit through a series of guided workouts.

Workouts sync to the Apple TV so you can see your progress on the screen, and there are multiple workout categories to choose from. Check out our Fitness+ guide for more on Apple's upcoming service.

Apple appears to have released a revised version of iOS 14.2 that's available to those who have an iPhone 12 device and who have not previously installed the iOS 14.2 update.

It's not clear why Apple has released a new version of iOS 14.2, but it may include minor bug fixes, perhaps for installation issues. The updated software has a build number of 18B111, while the original release has a build number of 18B92.

The update will show up under General > Software Updates for new ‌iPhone‌ 12 owners who still have iOS 14.1 installed. New ‌iPhone‌ 12 models come with iOS 14.1.

Apple originally released iOS 14.2 on November 5, with the update adding new emoji characters, a Control Center Music Recognition toggle, new wallpapers, Intercom support, and more.

The iPhone 12 Pro Max is Apple's most expensive and most advanced iPhone this year, offering camera technology that's not present in any of the other iPhones in the 2020 lineup. The ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ features a larger sensor for the wide-angle camera, DSLR-like stabilization, and a longer telephoto lens.

Sebastiaan de With, the developer behind camera app Halide who often do detailed looks at new camera features in iPhones, has shared an in-depth account of the updated hardware in the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ and what that means for camera quality.

The blog post shared by de With has a great visualization of the larger sensor in the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌, which is 47 percent larger than the sensor in the prior-generation ‌iPhone‌. The sensor lets in more light, resulting in less noise and sharper results.

As with other camera tests, straight out of the camera comparison shots during the daytime featuring the ‌iPhone‌ 12 and the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ do not show a major difference, and according to Halide's developers, this is because the larger sensor primarily shines in lower lighting conditions.

In lower lighting, such as during sunset, the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ is able to pull out more detail, but Apple's own camera algorithms have enough noise reduction that the difference is tough to see. A comparison of RAW photos, however, shows a more stark difference between the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ and the ‌iPhone‌ 12 because Apple's noise reduction isn't a factor.

de With believes that the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ could stand to have less processing to "show off its higher signal to noise ratio," and when shooting in RAW, the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ demonstrates a "big leap ahead in image quality."

Sensor-shift stabilization, which applies stabilization directly to the sensor, also helps the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ put out significantly better images in lower lighting because it works more quickly. The ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ can manage longer shutter times in a handheld mode than are possible with a DSLR, which de With describes as "very cool stuff."

With a traditional DSLR, nobody would dare take a one-second photos handheld. Yet the iPhone 12 Pro Max can take sharp images at ridiculous exposure times.

In this last comparison, you can see that Night Mode can get this shot, but it sacrifices lots of fine detail and makes the scene look a bit unnatural. The iPhone 12 Pro, with its more basic stabilization, can't get a steady frame. It would be impossible to get a shot like this on the iPhone 12, 11 Pro, or heck, the high-end digital cameras I have lying around the studio.

All in all, de With says that the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ marks a huge leap forward in camera quality, especially for advanced users.

As developers of a camera app, the results mind-blowing. It achieves images previously only seen in dedicated cameras, with sensors four times its size. It allows photographers to get steady and well exposed shots in conditions that weren't imaginable a year ago. It captures low-light shots beyond anything we've seen on an iPhone. By a lot.

The full in-depth article from de With is well worth checking out. It includes a closer look at the telephoto lens, notes on ProRAW, and comparison images that clearly show the differences between the 12 Pro Max and other ‌iPhone‌ 12 models.

Google today announced a total overhaul of its Google Pay apps designed for iOS and Android devices, with a new emphasis on keeping track of finances and managing financial relationships with people and businesses.

The updated Google Pay app will display the friends and businesses you interact with most often rather than a simple list of all transactions. Built-in tools allow for splitting expenses and calculating totals with another person, and the Google Pay app can be used to order food, buy gas, and more.

Integrated coupons and promo codes are included, and these can be activated with a tap. For those who have a bank account or cards connected to Google Pay, the app will now provide periodic spending summaries and show trends and insights over time, similar to how Apple Card works in the Wallet app on iOS devices.

Starting in 2021, Google plans to further enhance Google Pay with a new mobile-first banking experience. Google is partnering with 11 financial institutions for "Plex," a bank account integrated in Google Pay.

Plex accounts are offered by banks and credit unions and include checking and savings accounts with no monthly fees or overdraft charges. Plex accounts through Google Pay will be available to customers when the feature launches. Apple has an integrated credit card that works with Apple Pay, the ‌Apple Card‌, but there is no similar feature for a full bank account.

Google Pay can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Apple's New M1 Macs began arriving to customers earlier this week, and since the ‌M1‌ Apple Silicon is an entirely new chip architecture that's a major departure from the Intel chips that Apple has used for years, there's a lot to learn about the new machines.

We've rounded up some useful Apple ‌M1‌ tidbits below, which apply to the new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro and will be useful for new Mac owners.

Running x86 Apps Homebrew Apps

The developers behind the Notion app for Macs shared a blog post on getting homebrew or other terminal apps that don't have Arm support to run on an ‌Apple Silicon‌ Mac. The steps are as follows:

1. Create a duplicate of the Terminal app in the Utilities folder.
2. Right click on the app and choose Get Info.
3. Rename the other version of the app into something recognizable.
4. Check off the "open using Rosetta" option.

That's all there is to it. Once Open using Rosetta is selected, homebrew apps can be run in the Terminal on ‌Apple Silicon‌ Macs.

Running iOS Apps Using .ipa Files

MacRumors reader Amy tells us that she's able to run iOS apps that are not available on the Mac App Store on ‌Apple Silicon‌ apps using .ipa files.

Legitimate .ipa files that are downloaded from iTunes or something like an iMazing backup can be double-clicked and installed on an ‌Apple Silicon‌ Mac and they run as if they're on an iOS device. Amy says that she's used this method to install Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Spotify, and more, even though those apps are not available through the ‌Mac App Store‌.

Universal and Native Apple Silicon Apps

Looking for apps that are able to run natively on ‌Apple Silicon‌ Macs without the need for Rosetta 2? Our forums has an extensive list of all of the apps that have been updated for the Apple ‌M1‌ chip, and it's worth checking out if you're looking for software that's going to have the best performance.

Apps updated with support include Affinity Photo and Designer, Aviary, HandBrake, coconutBattery, iStat Menus, OmniFocus, Pixelmator Pro, and tons more.

Gaming on Apple Silicon

Wondering how games run on an ‌Apple Silicon‌ Mac? A reddit user took the time to benchmark and test a long list of popular games to see how they run on an ‌M1‌ ‌Mac mini‌ with 8GB RAM. Test games include League of Legends, Cities: Skylines, Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and more.

How to Get to macOS Recovery

On Intel Macs, you hold Command R when turning on the Mac to get to macOS Recovery for reinstalling macOS, accessing Disk Utility, or restoring from a Time Machine backup.

On an ‌Apple Silicon‌ Mac, you can still get to macOS Recovery, but the key presses are different. Turn on the Mac, press and hold the power button until the startup options window comes up, and then click on the gear icon that's labeled "Options."

More Tips

Know of a useful ‌M1‌ Mac tip that we've left out? Let us know in the comments and we'll add it to the list.

Google today updated its Gmail app designed for the iPhone and the iPad, introducing a new widget that can be added to the Today center alongside other widgets or to the Home Screen on an ‌iPhone‌.

After updating, the Gmail widget can be added to the ‌Home Screen‌ by pressing and holding to enter jiggle mode and then tapping the "+" button. From there, scroll down and tap on Gmail to add the widget, using a finger to drag it to the appropriate spot.

The Gmail widget can be used to search within the Gmail app, compose a new email message, or view unread email messages. It provides shortcuts for these tasks only and does not list sensitive email information nor can it be customized with other functionality.

Apple in iOS 14.3 is streamlining the Home Screen customization process by simplifying the way that app shortcuts work. With the launch of iOS 14, users quickly discovered that Shortcuts could be used to replace traditional app icons to create an entirely customized ‌Home Screen‌ look.

Unfortunately, while these Home Screens created with Shortcuts looked fantastic, the experience was less than ideal because launching an app through shortcuts required the Shortcuts app to open briefly, slowing the app opening process. In iOS 14.3 beta 2, that's no longer the case because shortcuts no longer have to route through the Shortcuts app.

As Reddit users discovered after installing yesterday's beta, launching an app through Shortcuts on the ‌Home Screen‌ in iOS 14.3 pops up a banner at the top of the display, but the full Shortcuts app no longer opens, so there's less of a delay when using a custom icon to launch apps.

The simplification of the shortcut opening process from the ‌Home Screen‌ will be a welcome change for those who have opted to customize their Home Screens with a whole set of custom icons, as the experience is much more similar to opening a standard app without Shortcuts.

For those interested in adding custom icons to their ‌Home Screen‌ through the Shortcuts app, make sure to check out our how to.

Apple has seeded two betas of iOS 14.3 at this time, and it's likely that the update will see an official release in December. Those who want to try out the Shortcut feature now can do so through Apple's public beta option.

In an internal document obtained by MacRumors, Apple has acknowledged an issue with some iPhone 12 displays exhibiting flickering, a green or gray glow, or other unintended lighting variations under some conditions.

In the document, shared with Apple Authorized Service Providers this week, Apple says that it is aware of customer reports related to this issue and is investigating. Apple has advised technicians to avoid servicing affected iPhones, at least for now, and instead inform customers that they should keep their iPhone up to date with the latest iOS version. This guidance suggests that Apple may be confident that it can fix the issue in a future software update.

A similar green tinted display issue affected some iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max models, and Apple was able to fix it in iOS 13.6.1.

There have been complaints about this new issue in the MacRumors forums and Apple Support Communities since shortly after iPhone 12 models launched. The issue can affect the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Based on customer reports, the issue appears to occur when the display brightness is set to around 90% or lower. Many users are experiencing the issue on iOS 14.1, iOS 14.2, and seemingly even the first two iOS 14.3 betas. The flickering or glowing is not always persistent, disappearing after a short time for some customers.

If and when the issue is addressed, or we learn more, we'll update this article accordingly.

Earlier this year, several states launched an investigation into Apple's iPhone "throttling" practices, aiming to determine whether Apple's slowing of older iPhones through power management "violated deceptive trade practice laws."

The investigation has now concluded, and Apple has opted to pay $113 million to settle the matter, reports The Washington Post. Apple has also agreed to be more transparent about similar changes to iOS devices in the future, providing more detail about battery health and power management.

In a statement, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said that he's committed to preventing tech companies from manipulating consumers.

"Big Tech must stop manipulating consumers and tell them the whole truth about their practices and products. I'm committed to holding these goliath technology companies to account if they conceal the truth from their users."

The investigation involved 34 states and the District of Columbia, and it concerned the 2017 controversy that Apple was embroiled in after quietly adding a power management feature to iPhones in iOS 10.2.1.

Apple's feature was meant to eliminate unexpected shutdowns that older iPhones were experiencing due to exhausted batteries, but it did so through throttling the maximum performance of devices with chemically aged batteries.

Apple did not disclose the throttling when releasing the updates, and customers were outraged when it was discovered that ‌iPhone‌ performance was being downgraded. While Apple said that it implemented the feature to make sure iPhones lasted as long as possible even as the battery began to fail, customers and regulators saw it as evidence of planned obsolescence.

After the throttling was discovered, Apple apologized and launched a battery replacement program that saw the company offering batteries for older devices for $29. Replacing a failing battery successfully fixes the problem that leads to shutdowns.

Apple offered lower-cost batteries for a year, and also added new battery management features to iOS that encourage customers to replace their battery when needed and allow throttling to be shut off. Apple has also already shelled out $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit over the issue.

Apple todays seeded the first beta of an upcoming macOS Big Sur 11.1 update to public beta testers, with the beta coming a day after the developer release and two weeks after the launch of macOS Big Sur 11.0.1, the release version of the software.

Beta testers who signed up for Apple's beta testing program can download the macOS Big Sur beta through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences after installing the proper profile.

Mac users who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate on the beta website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS betas.

There's no word yet on what's included in macOS Big Sur 11.1, but it likely includes performance improvements, security updates, and fixes for bugs that weren't able to be addressed in the release version of macOS Big Sur. No significant new feature changes were discovered in the first developer beta.