MacRumors

Earlier today, Chinese leaker "Kang" shared allegedly accurate information for the products set to be announced at the upcoming Apple event on October 13, including details on the full iPhone 12 lineup.

According to the leaker's information, which was later modified with corrections for product availability timeframes, the 5.4-inch "‌iPhone‌ 12 Mini" will be available to preorder on November 6 or 7, with a launch date of November 13 or 14.

Meanwhile, the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max will allegedly be available to preorder on November 13 or 14, with a launch date of November 20 or 21.

Bloomberg believes that Apple will stagger the ‌iPhone‌ launches in 2020, while DigiTimes has previously suggested the two 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌ 12 models could come out first in October, with the 6.7 and 5.4-inch models to follow. Leaker Jon Prosser today has also claimed ‌DigiTimes‌ was correct earlier in the year.

It's worth noting that Apple traditionally doesn't open ‌iPhone‌ pre-orders or launch products at weekends, and some of the initial dates in the two-day timeframes provided by Kang – November 7, November 14, and November 21 – fall on Saturdays. Depending on the time of day when preorders kick off, a Friday in the U.S. could already be Saturday in some parts of the world, although the actual launches typically occur on Fridays no matter the location.

Assuming therefore that Kang's dates are ballpark accurate, preorders for the "iPhone 12 mini" will commence on Friday, November 6 and the device will launch on Friday, November 13 – the same day that pre-orders for the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ would be expected to commence. Apple's largest ever handset would then launch one week later on Friday, November 20.

With likewise adjustments, pre-orders for the 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌ 12 and ‌iPhone‌ 12 Pro models could begin on October 16, the Friday immediately following Apple's "Hi, Speed" event, and the first ‌iPhone‌ 12 shipments and an official launch could happen on Friday, October 23.

Of course, nothing is certain, but we'll know for sure when the ‌iPhone‌ 12 lineup is announced at Apple's event on Tuesday, October 13 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

A Chinese Weibo account going by the name "Kang" this morning posted allegedly accurate information for every product set to be announced at the upcoming Apple event on October 13, including details and launch dates for the full iPhone 12 lineup, and the rumored HomePod mini.

In addition, the original post also claims that Apple will announce a new magnetic ‌iPhone‌ case with "MagSafe" and two official Apple wireless chargers called "‌MagSafe‌ Charger" and "‌MagSafe‌ Duo Charger," one or both of which will have a 15-Watt power output.

The "‌MagSafe‌" brand name will resonate with readers who remember Apple's magnetically attached ‌MagSafe‌ power connector, which first appeared on MacBook Pro models in 2006 but despite its popularity was eventually discontinued across all Apple product lines between 2016 and 2019 and replaced with USB-C.

Back in August, images shared on Weibo that were said to be from the ‌iPhone‌ 12 depict a circular array of magnets in the body of the device. The leak was met with speculation that the magnets could be for alignment purposes should Apple release its own wireless charger.

EverythingApplePro, who shared the images on Twitter, also posted an image of an alleged iPhone 12 case with a similar array of magnets built in, which he suggested are "likely for perfect alignment with Apple's wireless chargers."

For months ahead of their unveiling, last year's ‌iPhone‌ 11 series was rumored to feature a Qi-based device-to-device charging feature, allowing for an Apple Watch, AirPods, and other accessories to charge on the back of the iPhones. The feature was expected to be similar to Wireless PowerShare on Samsung's Galaxy S10. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, however, the feature was abandoned because the charging efficiency did not meet Apple's requirements.

As it stands, Apple hasn't released any native wireless chargers for ‌iPhone‌. The company canceled its much-anticipated AirPower charging mat last year due to quality concerns. Rumors persist that it continues to work on an AirPower-like charging mat, although faked images have been shared in support of this.

Today's comprehensive leak appeared in Chinese and an image of the original post on Weibo has been tweeted by leaker Ice Universe, who has provided accurate information on unreleased Apple products in the past.

A Chinese Weibo account going by the name "Kang" this morning posted allegedly accurate information for every product set to be announced at the upcoming Apple event on October 13, including the rumored smaller form-factor HomePod speaker.

An image of the original post in Chinese has been tweeted by leaker Ice Universe, who has provided accurate information on unreleased Apple products in the past.

According to the leak, the the official name of the speaker is ‌HomePod‌ Mini, which will be priced at $99. The size of the speaker is said to be 3.3-inches high (the height of the original ‌HomePod‌ is 6.8-inches) and it is allegedly powered by an S5 processor, which is used in the Apple Watch Series 5 and Apple Watch SE.

The ‌HomePod‌ Mini is said to go on sale on November 16-17. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has suggested the new speaker could include two tweeters, rather than the current model's seven, in order to drive down costs.

This morning's leak also includes talk of an upcoming "MagSafe" series of wireless charging accessories as well as alleged details on the full iPhone 12 lineup expected to be announced next week.

A Chinese Weibo account going by the name "Kang" this morning posted allegedly accurate information for every product set to be announced at the upcoming Apple event on October 13, including details on the full iPhone 12 lineup.

An image of the original post in Chinese has been tweeted by leaker Ice Universe, who has provided accurate information on unreleased Apple products in the past. The following details in English rely on a machine translation of the original post:

• iPhone 12 Mini (5.4-inches)
• Price: from $699
• Camera: dual lens (f/1.6)
• Storage: 64GB/128GB/256GB
• Colors: Black, White, Red, Blue, Green
• Preorder date: November 6/7
  

• Launch date: November 13/14

• iPhone 12 (6.1-inches)
• Price: from $799
• Camera: dual lens (f/1.6)
• Storage: 64GB/128GB/256GB
• Colors: Black, White, Red, Blue, Green
• Preorder date: October 16/17
• Launch date: October 23/24

• iPhone 12 Pro (6.1-inches)
• Price: from $999
• Camera: triple lens (LiDAR + wide angle with 7P lens, f/1.6, 52mm focal length telephoto, 4x optical zoom)
• Storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB
• Colors: Gold, Silver, Graphite, Blue
• Preorder date: October 16/17
• Launch date: October 23/24

• iPhone 12 Pro Max (6.7-inches)
• Price: from $1099
• Camera: triple lens (LiDAR + wide angle with 7P lens, f/1.6, 65mm focal length telephoto, 5x optical zoom)
• Storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB
• Colors: Gold, Silver, Graphite, Blue
• Preorder date: November 13/14
• Launch date: November 20/21

According to the leak, all four ‌iPhone‌ 12 models will have OLED Super Retina XDR displays and a new hardened "Ceramic Shield" glass screen, and all are capable of shooting Dolby Vision video, offering higher dynamic range.

In addition, all phones will support 5G, but only the U.S. models of the ‌iPhone‌ 12 lineup will reportedly support the faster mmWave 5G band.

Other notable details in the leak include a "Smart Data Mode" for ‌iPhone‌ 12 models that switches between 4G and 5G depending on bandwidth needs to save power; ‌iPhone‌ 12 photography improvements for Deep Fusion and Night Mode; a "47 percent larger sensor" on the iPhone 12 Pro Max compared to the ‌iPhone‌ 12 Pro; and a special "Expansive" super wide angle capability for the Max model.

The leak also includes pricing and launch date details on the rumored HomePod Mini as well as an alleged "MagSafe" iPhone 12 case and two wireless chargers. Curiously, the leak doesn't mention Apple's rumored Tile-like "AirTags" accessories or "AirPods Studio" headphones, however.

According to AppleTrack, the leak source "Kang" has a reliable track record, and has accurately predicted several of Apple's WWDC and September event announcements this year, including the iPhone SE price, the hand-washing feature for Apple Watch, and the price and features of the new iPad Air.

Apple's dispute with "HEY" wasn't the first time the Cupertino company tried to force an email app into adding in-app purchases, according to ProtonMail CEO Andy Yen.

Yen told The Verge that back in 2018, ProtonMail was forced to add in-app purchases to its app, which had been in the App Store since 2016. ProtonMail at the time had a paid email service but did not offer it in the app, with the ‌App Store‌ version being available for free.

For the first two years we were in the App Store, that was fine, no issues there," he says. (They'd launched on iOS in 2016.) "But a common practice we see ... as you start getting significant uptake in uploads and downloads, they start looking at your situation more carefully, and then as any good Mafia extortion goes, they come to shake you down for some money.

Apple apparently told ProtonMail "out of the blue" that it was required to add an in-app purchase option to stay in the ‌App Store‌. Similar to the situations with HEY and Wordpress earlier this year, ProtonMail had a mention of paid plans in the app, which prompted Apple to ask for the same subscription options to be offered via in-app purchase.

Yen says that ProtonMail complied in order to save its business, complaining that there's no way to get a "fair hearing" with Apple. ProtonMail was unable to update the app for a month-long period, and Apple threatened to remove the app from the store if the company did not comply.

They are judge, jury, and executioner on their platform, and you can take it or leave it. You can't get any sort of fair hearing to determine whether it's justifiable or not justifiable, anything they say goes.

When in-app purchases were implemented on iOS, ProtonMail raised the prices for a subscription through Apple by 26 percent to pay for the extra cost as it was unable to pay for the extra 30 percent margin.

Yen believes Apple's 30 percent fee harms privacy-centric apps because it's difficult for a paid app to compete with free apps like Gmail while also having to pay ‌App Store‌ frees.

Apple in September changed its App Store rules to avoid situations like the dispute with ProtonMail. Apps are now allowed to offer free standalone apps that are companions to paid web-based tools without an in-app purchase requirement, and there's also a new process that lets developers challenge App Store rules and decisions.

Following Apple's ‌App Store‌ rule change, Yen told The Verge that ProtonMail plans to remove its in-app purchase options, but he's wary of Apple's new rules and will test out the changes on another app, ProtonDrive, ahead of time. Apple in a statement to The Verge said that it "doesn't retaliate against developers" and instead "works with them to get their apps on the store."

ProtonMail is one of the participants in the "Coalition for App Fairness," a group advocating for "freedom of choice and fair competition across the app ecosystem." Members include other companies disgruntled with Apple's ‌App Store‌ practices, including Spotify, Epic Games, Tile, and Basecamp (the makers of HEY).

Apple is providing Apple TV+ subscribers with up to three free months of service that will last up to February 2021, according to Rene Ritchie. This free trial period will extend the year-long free trial periods of people who purchased a device beginning in September 2019 and signed up for access when ‌Apple TV‌+ launched on November 1, 2019.

Those first ‌Apple TV‌+ subscribers who had free access were set to have their trial periods expire at the end of October, but Apple is planning to extend that expiration date until February.

Those who signed up for the free year at launch will now be able to access ‌Apple TV‌+ up until the end of February, based on subscription date. If you signed up on November 1, 2019, for example, your subscription will be extended until February 1, 2021. If you signed up on November 15, 2019, your subscription will be extended until February 15, 2021.

Subscribers who paid for an annual plan or a monthly plan will also be credited $4.99 for each month through February. 9to5Mac says that credits received by ‌Apple TV‌+ subscribers who pay can be used on anything from the iTunes Store or App Store.

‌Apple TV‌+ adopters who signed up for their free year of service after a device purchase between November 2019 and January 2020 will benefit from the promotion that Apple is providing, with those subscriptions now expiring later than expected. Those who signed up for a free year after January 31, 2020 will not benefit because their free trials will already extend beyond the promotion limits. All paying subscribers will be receiving the $4.99 monthly credit.

It's not entirely clear why Apple has decided to extend the free trial offer, but it will be a welcome change for those who were expecting their ‌Apple TV‌+ subscriptions to expire on November 1 and a nice bonus for those who pay for ‌Apple TV‌+. The bonus months of subscription service will take some time to roll out and users may not immediately see changes to their plan expiration dates, but credits will be applied automatically with no action required on the part of the user.

Minnesota-based company Hearing Components today announced the release of its second-generation Comply memory foam ear tips for AirPods Pro, promising "all-day comfort" and a "secure in-ear fit" during any activity.

Unlike the original, the Comply 2.0 ear tips are able to snap onto the AirPods Pro just like Apple's standard silicone tips, and they are also said to be engineered with improved foam-core adhesion. The memory foam creates a tight seal in the ear that blocks out more ambient noise for improved Active Noise Cancellation on AirPods Pro.

MacRumors tested the original Comply ear tips for AirPods Pro in May and found them to be more comfortable than Apple's silicone tips for long periods of use. There was also a slight improvement in Active Noise Cancellation as promised.

The ear tips fit into the AirPods Pro case, with no impact on charging, but the black foam does not match with the white case.

The new Comply 2.0 ear tips are available now in a three-pack for $24.99, with small, medium, large, and assorted sizes to choose from. A sizing guide is available on the website based on Apple's silicone tips.

A group of hackers has been awarded nearly $300,000 by Apple for discovering 55 vulnerabilities in the company's systems.

Sam Curry, Brett Buerhaus, Ben Sadeghipour, Samuel Erb, and Tanner Barnes spent three months hacking Apple platforms and services to discover a range of weaknesses. The 55 vulnerabilities the team discovered were of varying severity, with some being critical.

During our engagement, we found a variety of vulnerabilities in core portions of their infrastructure that would've allowed an attacker to fully compromise both customer and employee applications, launch a worm capable of automatically taking over a victim's iCloud account, retrieve source code for internal Apple projects, fully compromise an industrial control warehouse software used by Apple, and take over the sessions of Apple employees with the capability of accessing management tools and sensitive resources.

Apple apparently was swift to address the majority of the vulnerabilities, with some being resolved in as little as a few hours.

Overall, Apple was very responsive to our reports. The turn around for our more critical reports was only four hours between time of submission and time of remediation.

As part of Apple's Security Bounty Program, the group was able to receive considerable payments for some of their work. As of Sunday, October 4, they had received four payments totaling $51,500. This included $5,000 for disclosing the full name of iCloud users, $6,000 for finding IDOR vulnerabilities, $6,500 for access to internal corporate environments, and $34,000 for discovering system memory leaks containing customer data.

Since no-one really knew much about their bug bounty program, we were pretty much going into unchartered territory with such a large time investment. Apple has had an interesting history working with security researchers, but it appears that their vulnerability disclosure program is a massive step in the right direction to working with hackers in securing assets and allowing those interested to find and report vulnerabilities.

Apple has been actively investing in its bug bounty program since last year. Security researchers can now receive up to one million dollars per vulnerability depending on the nature and severity of the security flaw.

With the permission of Apple's security team, the group has published an extensive report which details a range of vulnerabilities and methods of locating and exploiting weaknesses. They also hinted that additional bounties may be on the way.

Update October 9: At the time of publication, the group reported that it had received $51,500 in bounties from Apple for four of the vulnerability reports it submitted. The group now says it has received 32 payments from Apple totaling $288,500.

Adobe today released new versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, the company's affordable photo and video editing software aimed at more casual users who want to improve their photos and videos with easy to use editing tools.

For Photoshop Elements 2021, Adobe is introducing a "Moving Photos" feature that adds a bit of motion to still images, similar to Apple's Live Photos feature. You can use Moving Photos to create animated GIFs with 2D and 3D camera motion, with the feature powered by Adobe Sensei.

Adjust Face Tilt, another new feature, can automatically adjust the position of a person's face to make sure everybody in the shot is looking in the right direction. This feature joins other existing portrait editing features like those that can add a smile or cut down on redeye.

Customizable Quote Graphics can be added to images, with Photoshop Elements offering pre-set templates, animation options, and customization tools.

There are several new Guided Edits, a feature designed to walk users through the steps needed to achieve different photo effects and looks. Duotones lets users apply two colors to an image for a unique effect, while Perfect Landscapes provides the steps for replacing skies, removing haze, and erasing unwanted objects.

For Premiere Elements 2021, Adobe's video editing software, there's a new Select Object feature that can apply a special effect to just one section of a video, with that special effect tracking throughout the video playback.

GPU Accelerated Performance will let visual effects in elements be previewed without the need to render for faster editing, and cropping videos will take less time. Adobe is also adding 21 music tracks that can be added to videos, and there are new tools for backing up albums, keywords, tags, and more.

New Guided Edits include Double Exposure for playing a video within a photo and Animated Matte Overlays for applying different shapes and animation styles to full videos.

For more on what's new in Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, make sure to check out Adobe's website. The updates are available for purchase from Adobe for $99 each starting today, with bundle and upgrade pricing available.

Apple has applied for a trademark on the phrase "iPhone for Life" in Hong Kong, according to a partly-private filing discovered by Patently Apple.

The phrase "‌iPhone‌ for Life" is reportedly associated with telecoms providers and third-party Apple resellers, including U.S. carrier Sprint, to advertise ‌iPhone‌ rental programs. Apple itself has never used the expression.

The application was filed in early September 2020 by legal representatives hired by Apple in Hong Kong. It seeks to cover use of the phrase for "Retail store services and retail store services provided via communications networks" as well as "Financial services; financing services; banking services; financing of loans; extension of retail credit; installment loans; lease-purchase financing."

The trademark application does not specifically reveal how Apple may be intending to use it, but suggests that it could perhaps be used for a new direct-from-Apple ‌iPhone‌ rental program, or simply to block use of the phrase by other companies. Alternately, the trademark may be used to rebrand or rename the existing ‌iPhone‌ Upgrade Program.

Mobile app spending among consumers in the third quarter of 2020 saw a 20 percent year-on-year increase as well as a surge in time spent in apps, according to a new report from App Annie (via TechCrunch).

Smartphone and tablet users downloaded 33 billion new apps globally and spent a record $28 billion in apps, over a period in which consumers' lives were heavily impacted by lockdowns and social distancing measures in response to the ongoing global health crisis.

Users also spent over 180 billion collective hours using apps every month over July, August and September, which is a 25 percent increase year-over-year.

Downloads from the Google Play Store increased 10 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 billion of the total 33 billion new downloads across the quarter. Meanwhile, iOS accounted for nearly 9 billion downloads, an increase of 20 percent year-on-year. Non-gaming apps on Google Play accounted for 55 percent of those downloads, while on iOS it accounted for 70 percent of downloads.

The top two markets by downloads on iOS was the U.S. and China, with India and South Korea also seeing significant growth. Games, Photo and Video, and Entertainment were the top download categories for five straight quarters and the top categories by consumer spend.

On iOS, app spending grew 20 percent year-on-year to $18 billion, while Google Play saw a 35 percent year-on-year increase to over $10 billion. An increase in subscriptions also saw non-gaming apps account for 35 percent of that spend on iOS and 20 percent on Google Play. The U.S. and Japan were the top markets for consumer app spending across both stores.

In terms of monthly active users, Facebook took the No. 1 through No. 4 positions for Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, respectively. The next most used apps were Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, TikTok and then Telegram. Meanwhile highest consumer spend was in Tinder, followed by TikTok, YouTube, and Disney+.

The App Annie report largely mirrors a Sensor Tower report released earlier this month that found Apple's App Store earned twice as much as the Google Play Store over the third quarter.

Apple with iOS 14 introduced major updates that include a revamped Home Screen with support for widgets, updated widget designs, an App Library for organizing apps, a Translate app, changes to Messages, an overhauled version of Safari, and tons more. Many of these features also came to iPadOS 14, the companion update to iOS 14 that's designed for iPads, but several key features were left out.

In addition, there are also some obvious and long-desired iPadOS features that continue to be missing from the iPad even 10 years after the first ‌iPad‌ was released. Read on for a rundown of iOS 14 features that weren't brought to the ‌iPad‌ along with a few features we'd really like to see Apple introduce.

Customizable Widgets on the Home Screen

With iOS 14, Apple overhauled widgets, introducing new designs, functionality, and customization choices. These widgets came to iPadOS too, but there's one major feature missing -- the ability to pull a widget out of the Today View and move it onto the ‌Home Screen‌.

On iPhone, you can grab any widget and add it to the ‌Home Screen‌ right alongside your app icons, but you can't do that on the ‌iPad‌. Since iPadOS 13 the ‌iPad‌ has had an option to display Today View widgets on the ‌Home Screen‌, but only in landscape mode and only on the left side of the display.

There is no option to put widgets wherever you want them, and why that feature wasn't added is a total mystery given the extra screen real estate available on the ‌iPad‌.

App Library

Along with no customizable ‌Home Screen‌, the App Library is missing from the ‌iPad‌. On the ‌iPhone‌, the App Library lets you swipe over to the end of the app pages to get to a screen that has a directory with all of your apps installed for easy access.

That's not available on the ‌iPad‌, which means accompanying features like the ability to hide app icons and pages from the ‌Home Screen‌ are also not available, so ‌iPad‌ owners just don't get the same level of ‌Home Screen‌ customization.

Translate App

The Translate app is a major iOS 14 addition that adds a dedicated translating app that works with text and spoken translations, with nifty features like a conversation mode for speaking with someone that speaks another language.

Translate is clearly an app that Apple envisions being used with travel, but even though the ‌iPad‌ isn't often a go-to quick access travel device, a Translate app still has the potential to be useful even on the bigger screen. We've had quite a few emails from readers confused as to why the Translate app isn't on the ‌iPad‌, and we don't have an answer.

iPadOS 14 does include built-in translation features in Safari, as does iOS 14, but this is distinct from the Translate app.

Extended Displays

With the iPad Pro (and the upcoming iPad Air) you can use the USB-C port to plug into an external display, but the feature seems half-baked. When you plug in, your ‌iPad‌'s screen is mirrored on the target display, but it's not shown full screen. There's also no option to shut off the ‌iPad‌'s display when using an attached monitor, which is distracting.

Apple also didn't add an option for extending the display, which would be a more useful option than mirroring. There are a few apps that can do more with a second screen, such as iMovie, but there's no full native support for extending the desktop.

Multi-User Support

10 years after the first ‌iPad‌ launched, there's still no multi-user support, even though Apple has been pushing the ‌iPad‌ as a PC replacement for a few years now. There's no option to share an ‌iPad‌ with someone but have distinct Apple IDs, presumably because Apple wants everyone in the family to have their own ‌iPad‌ to boost sales.

Apple has added multi-user support for classrooms so kids can share iPads between different classes, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for non-educational situations.

Are there other features you would like to see Apple add to the ‌iPad‌, or that are missing from iPadOS 14? Let us know in the comments.