MacRumors

As coronavirus outbreaks spike in some areas of the United States, Apple is planning to close retail stores located in Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and South Carolina, according to Bloomberg.

Apple began reopening stores in the United States in May, and as of this week, 154 of the company's 271 stores had been reopened. Coronavirus cases are climbing in some places in the U.S., however, and Apple is reclosing locations in affected areas.

Apple will be closing eleven of its retail stores, including Southpark and Northlake Mall in North Carolina, Waterside Shops and Coconut Point in Florida, Haywood Mall in South Carolina, and Chandler Fashion Center, Scottsdale Fashion Square, Arrowhead, SanTan Village, Scottsdale Quarter, and La Encantada in Arizona.

Apple had reopened all 18 of its stores in Florida, five in Arizona, three in North Carolina, and one in South Carolina prior to the closures. Apple in a statement said that it is temporarily closing stores in "an abundance of caution" and is closely monitoring the situation. There is no planned date for reopening, and customers who have devices being repaired at these locations can pick them up this weekend.

Apple's retail chief, Deirdre O'Brien in a letter to customers amid of store openings said that Apple will only reopen stores when its confident it can safely serve customers.

Decisions to close or reopen stores are based on data evaluation, such as local cases, near and long-term trends, and guidance from national and local health officials. O'Brien warned that Apple would not hesitate to close stores again if coronavirus cases spiked. "These are not decisions we rush into -- and a store opening in no way means that we won't take the preventative step of closing it again should local conditions warrant," O'Brien said.

In stores that have reopened, Apple is implementing safety measures that include mandatory masks, social distancing, frequent cleaning, temperature checks, and more. In some locations, stores are open only for repairs and curb-side pickup, while others are open but with a limited number of people allowed in at one time.

Apple TV+ today launched the new film "Dads," which is a documentary about fatherhood seen through the lens of six men from around the world. The movie features interviews, home-movie footage, viral videos, and testimonials from celebrities like Patton Oswalt, Judd Apatow, and Will Smith.

"Dads" is directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, and the film also includes interviews with her father Ron Howard, her late grandfather, and her brother. You can find "Dads" on ‌Apple TV‌+ on any device that supports the ‌Apple TV‌ app.

In other ‌Apple TV‌+ film news, Apple today made "The Banker" free for anyone to watch. This means that even if you aren't subscribed to ‌Apple TV‌+, as long as you have access to the TV app you can search for The Banker and watch it for free through June 30 (via Deadline).

"The Banker" premiered on ‌Apple TV‌+ back in March, and it follows the true story of businessmen Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris, "who devise an audacious and risky plan to take on the racist establishment of the 1960s by helping other African Americans pursue the American dream."

Apple has made "The Banker" free to stream in honor of Juneteenth. Additionally, one episode of the documentary series "Dear..." and a few select films like "The Hate U Give" and "Selma" remain free to watch in the ‌Apple TV‌ app or from iTunes.

Pixelmator Photo for iPad was updated today to version 1.3, bringing new shortcut menus, customizable accent colors, and batch photo editing improvements to the app.

The new shortcut menus are activated using the touch and hold gesture, and add several functions that aim to make Pixelmator Photo more powerful.

When touching and holding a photo in the Photos library browser, for example, users can quickly share, favorite, duplicate, revert, or delete photos.

The new shortcut menus also allow users to copy and paste adjustments or apply batch workflows from the ‌Photos‌ or Files browsers.

Meanwhile, there are improvements to color adjustment present management, allowing users to create custom color adjustment preset collections and rearrange and remove them for a more personalized editing experience.

Elsewhere, Pixelmator Photo 1.3 includes a new Accent Color feature that lets users customize the color of buttons and other elements in the app. Batch editing has also been improved with a way to mark workflows as favorites and apply them in the ‌Photos‌ or Files browser.

Pixelmator Photo is available to download from the App Store [Direct Link] as a free update for existing users or for $4.99 for new customers.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman this morning filed a story detailing the internal divisions at Apple that led it to change the course of its AR and VR headset development.

Specifically, the report covers disagreements between former Apple design chief Jony Ive and Mike Rockwell, the executive heading up Apple's secretive 1,000-strong group devoted to VR and AR, regarding fundamental aspects of the headset, codenamed N301.

N301 was initially designed to be an ultra-powerful system, with graphics and processing speeds previously unheard of for a wearable product. The processing capabilities were so advanced—and produced so much heat—that the technology couldn’t be crammed into a sleek headset. Instead, Rockwell’s team planned to sell a stationary hub, which in prototype form resembled a small Mac, that would connect to the headset with a wireless signal. In Rockwell’s early version, the headset would also be able to operate in a less-powerful independent mode.

Ive balked at the prospect of selling a headset that would require a separate, stationary device for full functionality. He encouraged Rockwell and his team to redevelop N301 around the less powerful technology that could be embedded entirely in the device. Rockwell pushed back, arguing that a wireless hub would enable performance so superior that it would blow anything else on the market out of the water. The standoff lasted for months.

According to the report, Apple CEO Tim Cook ultimately sided with Ive, who didn't want Apple promoting technology that would take people out of the real world. As a result, the headset no longer communicates with a separate hub, making graphics unlikely to be as good as they might have been, and download speeds potentially slower.

Although the headset now in development is less technologically ambitious than originally intended, it's pretty advanced. It's designed to feature ultra-high-resolution screens that will make it almost impossible for a user to differentiate the virtual world from the real one. A cinematic speaker system will make the experience even more realistic, people who have used prototypes say.

Prototypes of the N301 are said to look like a smaller Oculus Quest, Facebook's VR headset, with a mostly fabric body but less plastic than the Quest. Apple's engineering teams are reportedly still testing the device on different head shapes to find the ideal fit, and the company hasn't settled on pricing.

Apple wants the headset to have its own App Store "with a focus on gaming and the ability to stream video content, while also serving as a sort of super-high-tech communications device for virtual meetings." Siri will control the headset, although it is also reportedly being tested with a physical remote.

The N301 headset appears to be only one of Apple's ongoing AR/VR projects. The other is said to be a pair of AR glasses codenamed N421, with current prototypes said to resemble high-priced sunglasses with "thick frames that house the battery and chips." Ive, who left Apple last year after almost three decades at the company, is said to have preferred the concept of the N421 glasses.

Apple's augmented reality headset is expected to be released in 2022 followed by the sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses coming in 2023. You can read the full Bloomberg report here, and for everything we know on Apple's AR/VR plans, be sure to check our dedicated roundup.

In a U-turn by the popular videoconferencing platform, Zoom this week announced it will make end-to-end encryption available to all users, both paid and unpaid.

...we have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform. This will enable us to offer E2EE as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users around the globe -- free and paid -- while maintaining the ability to prevent and fight abuse on our platform.

To make this possible, Free/Basic users seeking access to E2EE will participate in a one-time process that will prompt the user for additional pieces of information, such as verifying a phone number via a text message. Many leading companies perform similar steps on account creation to reduce the mass creation of abusive accounts. We are confident that by implementing risk-based authentication, in combination with our current mix of tools -- including our Report a User function -- we can continue to prevent and fight abuse.

End-to-end encryption ensures no one but the participants and their devices can see and hear what is happening in a meeting, although it will exclude people who call in to Zoom meetings from a telephone line.

Zoom has attracted millions of free and paying customers amid the global health crisis, with stay-at-home measures causing a surge in the number of people working remotely.

Zoom originally said its initial decision to offer full encryption to premium users only had been based on "a combination of technological, safety and business factors," however in this case it appears as though public pressure won out and led the company to reconsider.

Apple already uses end-to-end encryption to protect FaceTime users as call data travels between two or more devices. Even Apple can't decrypt the call and listen in to user's conversations.

The Apple Watch, which can be worn while swimming and doing other water-based activities, has a neat feature that's designed to use the speakers to eject water, protecting the internal components.

The Slow Mo Guys, known for science and technology-related videos that take advantage of slow-motion cameras, today took a look at how the Apple Watch water ejecting feature works, featuring it up close and slowed down.

As the video demonstrates, the Apple Watch goes through 10 cycles where the speakers vibrate to push out all of the water inside. In slow motion, the force with which the water is expelled can be seen, and it's an impressive visual.

When planning to use the Apple Watch in the water or when a swimming workout is initiated, users can set a water lock feature that's designed to prevent the display from activating when exposed to water droplets.

• How to Improvise a Parental Lock For Your Apple Watch

When turned off, the feature, enabled through the Control Center, triggers the function that expels water from the speaker when the Digital Crown of the Apple Watch is turned. The water lock and water ejecting features are available on the Apple Watch Series 2 and later.

Ahead of Monday's WWDC Event, Apple has folded the "Apple Events" app on tvOS into the Apple TV app, which is where the WWDC keynote will be able to be watched.

Searching for the Events app in the tvOS App Store confirms the swap to the TV app, as does attempting to download the Events app for the first time. This appears to be a change that's rolling out at the current time, as opening up the Events app still shows the September 2019 event info.

With Apple sunsetting the Events app, the WWDC keynote and future events will be provided to Apple TV users in the ‌Apple TV‌ app. This also has the benefit of making the event stream available on non-Apple devices that have access to the ‌Apple TV‌ app, such as smart TVs.

Apple's WWDC keynote will kick off on Monday, June 22 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The keynote can be viewed in the ‌Apple TV‌ app, on the Apple Events website, in the Developer app, on the Developer website, or on YouTube.

Apple is not planning to change its App Store rules to accommodate the "Hey" email app that's at the center of a major discussion about Apple's ‌App Store‌ fees and rules, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller told TechCrunch this afternoon.

Schiller says that there are "many things" that Hey's developers could do to make the app work within the existing ‌App Store‌ rules, and Apple would "love for them to do that."

Hey, an email app created by the team that developed Basecamp, is priced at $99 per year. Subscriptions for the service need to be purchased on the Hey website and are not offered in app because Hey's developers don't want to pay a 30 percent cut to Apple.

The current incarnation of the app offers no in-app purchases and no signup options. The app opens straight to a login screen that lets users know that they can't subscribe to the service in the app. Because Apple does not allow for outside links that skirt its in-app purchase options, Hey also offers no link to the website where users can sign up.

Schiller says that this is not an ideal app experience for users.

"You download the app and it doesn't work, that's not what we want on the store," says Schiller. This, he says, is why Apple requires in-app purchases to offer the same purchasing functionality as they would have elsewhere.

Apple does have a rule that requires apps that offer subscriptions and purchase options on the web and elsewhere to also provide in-app purchases so users can sign up right on an iPhone or an iPad, but the company makes an exception for "Reader" apps.

Netflix and Spotify, for example, have apps in the ‌App Store‌ where users can't sign up for their services in the app itself and must already have an existing account. Hey wanted to use the same exception as other "Reader" apps, which Apple views as apps that display external content like music, books, and movies, but Schiller says that Hey does not qualify as a "Reader" app.

"We didn't extend these exceptions to all software," said Schiller. "Email is not and has never been an exception included in this rule." According to Schiller, Apple made an error approving the original version of the Hey app, and it should have been rejected. Apple did actually reject Hey's Mac App Store app, but the iOS app slipped by.

TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino asked Schiller if he expects Apple to get a portion of the revenue of every business that has an app, regardless of whether it was iOS first, but he said "that's not what [Apple's] doing."

Schiller said that Hey's developers have a number of options to comply with Apple's rules to remain in the ‌App Store‌, such as charging different prices in the app and on the web, or offering a free version with additional paid functions that could be purchased through the Hey website.

One way that Hey could have gone, Schiller says, is to offer a free or paid version of the app with basic email reading features on the App Store then separately offered an upgraded email service that worked with the Hey app on iOS on its own website. Schiller gives one more example: an RSS app that reads any feed, but also reads an upgraded feed that could be charged for on a separate site. In both cases, the apps would have functionality when downloaded on the store.

Apple also provided TechCrunch with a copy of the letter that was sent to the Hey team, which outlines the rules that Hey has violated and explains that Apple is happy to provide a platform for the team to distribute apps for free, so long as the rules are followed.

"Thank you for being an iOS app developer. We understand that Basecamp has developed a number of apps and many subsequent versions for the App Store for many years, and that the App Store has distributed millions of these apps to iOS users. These apps do not offer in-app purchase -- and, consequently, have not contributed any revenue to the App Store over the last eight years. We are happy to continue to support you in your app business and offer you the solutions to provide your services for free -- so long as you follow and respect the same App Store Review Guidelines and terms that all developers must follow."

Schiller's full comments on the situation, as well as Apple's complete letter to Hey, can be read over on TechCrunch, and a summary of the rejection and Hey's thoughts on the matter can be found here.

Antitrust regulators are currently investigating competition in digital marketplaces, focusing on Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple.

Microsoft is not involved in the investigation, but Microsoft joined the conversation today when president Brad Smith said at a Politico event (via Bloomberg) that it's time for regulators to take a look at app stores. Smith was careful not to name Apple or Google, but those are the two companies that have major digital software marketplaces and that are the focus of the investigation.

"They impose requirements that increasingly say there is only one way to get on to our platform and that is to go through the gate that we ourselves have created," Smith said. "In some cases they create a very high price per toll - in some cases 30% of your revenue has to go to the toll keeper."

"The time has come - whether we are talking about D.C. or Brussels - for a much more focused conversation about the nature of app stores, the rules that are being put in place, the prices and the tolls that are being extracted and whether there is really a justification in antitrust law for everything that has been created," Smith said.

Microsoft distributes apps through the App Store and Google Play stores and has a vested interest in lowering the fees that app developers must pay. Microsoft pays Apple 15 to 30 percent for any customers who subscribe to Office 365 through Apple's platform.

Some app stores, says Smith, have created "higher walls and far more formidable gates" than what existed 20 years ago when Microsoft itself lost a Windows antitrust case.

Apple is facing an antitrust investigation in the United States, which is nearing completion, as well as a separate investigation in the EU that was just announced earlier this week. Both investigations are looking at ‌App Store‌ fees and the competitive advantages Apple's own apps have on Apple platforms.

Apple's App Store fees are akin to "highway robbery," Representative David Cicilline told The Verge in the latest Vergecast episode.

Cicilline, who is the Chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Antitrust looking into the App Store agreements that Apple has with developers, spoke to The Verge alongside Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, developer of the "Hey" app that Apple rejected for failing to offer in-app subscription options.

According to Cicilline, Apple's market power allows it to charge "exorbitant rents" that crush small developers. The antitrust committee has heard from "many people" afraid of economic retaliation.

"Because of the market power that Apple has, it is charging exorbitant rents -- highway robbery, basically -- bullying people to pay 30 percent or denying access to their market. It's crushing small developers who simply can't survive with those kinds of payments. If there were real competition in this marketplace, this wouldn't happen."

"Many people have come forward to share their experiences, who are terrified of economic retaliation, who are afraid they can't survive the economic retaliation that these large platforms can impose because of the power that they have, and we intend to pursue those allegations very seriously. This is a real problem in the marketplace. This is a direct consequence of enormous market power, the fact that Apple is the gatekeeper for these developers, and we have heard many, many examples."

The antitrust subcommittee began soliciting opinions from developers back in November, speaking with those who had been impacted by some of Apple's ‌App Store‌ decisions. Developers of parental control apps impacted last year by Apple's limitations on the use of Mobile Device Management capabilities were among those contacted, for example. Heinemeier Hansson, whose email app "Hey" is in the news this week, also testified in January.

Heinemeier Hansson has been vocal about Hey's rejection from the ‌App Store‌. After approving the app earlier this week, Apple rejected two updates and told the Hey team that it needs to provide an option to subscribe in the app, which would give Apple a 30 percent cut of the subscription fee.

Hey attempted to skirt Apple's rules around subscriptions by not offering a subscription in the app while also not linking to an outside subscription offering, something that Netflix and Spotify also do. Apple said that Hey isn't classified as a "Reader" app and isn't allowed to operate in that manner, a confusing stance that blindsided the Hey team.

Heinemeier Hansson in the podcast again explains the series of rejections, and shares his opinions on Apple's ‌App Store‌ policies.

So if we had the power, if we have the choice to distribute software to the iPhone without going through the App Store, we would. We would just have a link on our website that said, "Here you go. That's how you download the app for the iPhone," and we'd be fine.

The problem with the iPhone is that Apple sits as a gatekeeper. It blew my mind when the EU announced their investigation because they were literally going through the points that we were having: the only way to get on the iPhone is through Apple. Apple is a gatekeeper. Apple shakes down businesses for these 30 percent, and no one has a choice.

Amid the antitrust investigation, Apple this week highlighted a study that said the ‌App Store‌ ecosystem supported $519 billion in billings and sales worldwide in 2019. Apple often promotes how much developers earn from the ‌App Store‌, a number that has reached over $155 billion.

Apple created the hardware and the platform that allows developers to distribute apps, but Cicilline doesn't believe that entitles the company to collect such high fees. "You cannot simply allow someone merely because they invented a system or a product to continue to enjoy that kind of monopoly power," Cicilline said. "It's contrary to our laws. It's unfair to new developers, new startups, and it hurts consumers."

Cicilline says that the antitrust investigation is "nearing completion" and that a final hearing will take place in July. The committee has been aiming to get major tech CEOs, including Tim Cook, to testify. Cook has so far declined, but Cicilline says that he expects when the hearing happens, "all four CEOs" will be there. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have agreed to participate.

At the end of the investigation, the group will generate a report on the status of competition in the digital market, which will feature "recommendations with respect to legislative action." Cicilline believes a solution to the ‌App Store‌ problems will require "regulatory action and statutory changes" and that it's something that "Congress has a responsibility to fix."

The full Vergecast interview with Rep. David Cicilline and David Heinemeier Hansson can be accessed on The Verge's website.

Apple's 31st Worldwide Developers Conference will be a digital-only event in 2020, with no physical gathering planned due to the ongoing global health crisis.

The virtual event starts a little later in the month than usual, on June 22, and is free for anyone. As with previous years, Apple is kicking off WWDC with a keynote on the first day, offering a look at some upcoming products and providing the first details on new operating systems.

Rumors have suggested we could potentially see a new redesigned iMac and an announcement about Apple's planned shift to Arm-based Macs. We're also expecting a first-look at next-generation versions of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS.

You can watch Apple's WWDC 2020 Keynote live as it happens using one of the methods described below. The stream for the event starts at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time from Apple Park in Cupertino, California. For reference, here's when the event will begin based on other time zones in the United States and around the world:

• Honolulu, Hawaii — 7:00 a.m. HAST
  

• Anchorage, Alaska — 9:00 a.m. AKDT
  

• Cupertino, California — 10:00 a.m. PDT
  

• Phoenix, Arizona — 10:00 a.m. MST
  

• Vancouver, Canada — 10:00 a.m. PDT
  

• Denver, Colorado — 11:00 a.m. MDT
  

• Dallas, Texas — 12:00 noon CDT
  

• New York, New York — 1:00 p.m. EDT
  

• Toronto, Canada — 1:00 p.m. EDT
  

• Halifax, Canada — 2:00 p.m. ADT
  

• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — 2:00 p.m. BRT
  

• London, United Kingdom — 6:00 p.m. BST
  

• Berlin, Germany — 7:00 p.m. CEST
  

• Paris, France — 7:00 p.m. CEST
  

• Cape Town, South Africa — 7:00 p.m. SAST
  

• Moscow, Russia — 8:00 p.m. MSK
  

• Helsinki, Finland — 8:00 p.m. EEST
  

• Istanbul, Turkey — 8:00 p.m. TRT
  

• Dubai, United Arab Emirates — 9:00 p.m. GST
  

• Delhi, India — 10:30 p.m. IST
  

• Jakarta, Indonesia — 12:00 a.m. WIB next day
  

• Shanghai, China — 1:00 a.m. CST next day
  

• Singapore — 1:00 a.m. SGT next day
  

• Perth, Australia — 1:00 a.m. AWST next day
  

• Hong Kong — 1:00 a.m. HKT next day
  

• Seoul, South Korea — 2:00 a.m. KST next day
  

• Tokyo, Japan — 2:00 a.m. JST next day
  

• Adelaide, Australia — 2:30 a.m. ACST next day
  

• Sydney, Australia — 3:00 a.m. AEST next day
  

• Auckland, New Zealand — 5:00 a.m. NZST next day

MacRumors will also provide a live blog both here on MacRumors.com and on our MacRumorsLive Twitter account, along with detailed coverage of everything Apple announces during the week.

Watch the Keynote on Mac, iPhone or iPad

You can watch the WWDC keynote on any Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using Apple's native Safari browser. Bear in mind, to meet the stream's requirements, iOS devices must be running iOS 10 or later, while Macs need to be running macOS Sierra 10.12 or later.

Launch Safari from your chosen device and follow this link to the WWDC 2020 Keynote.

Watch the Keynote on the TV App

You can watch the WWDC keynote via Apple's TV app on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

1. Open the TV app on your chosen device.
   

2. Scroll down the Watch Now category and select WWDC 2020. Alternatively, type "WWDC" into the Search field and select WWDC 2020 from the results.
3. Click Play.

The app may tell you to tune in at your local time on June 22 to watch the event live. In the meantime, you could always watch the WWDC 2019 keynote while you wait.

Watch the Keynote on a Windows PC

If you don't have an Apple device handy, you can still watch the WWDC 2020 keynote on a PC running Windows 10. Open Microsoft Edge browser and follow this link to the WWDC 2020 Livestream.

While Apple offers no guarantees, other platforms may also be able to access the WWDC 2020 keynote using recent versions of Chrome or Firefox (MSE, H.264, and AAC codecs/extensions must be installed).

Watch on YouTube or in the Apple Developer App

Apple will also stream its keynote event on YouTube. A WWDC Special Event video has been added to its YouTube channel. The video lets you set reminders for the keynote, so you can get an alert ahead of when it starts, so you don't miss a thing.

Lastly, Apple plans to stream the keynote in the Apple Developer app, and on the Apple Developer website, giving Apple fans and developers multiple ways to watch.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that Canada plans to launch a nationwide COVID-19 contract tracing app based on Apple's and Google's Exposure Notification API, as noted by iPhone in Canada. Trudeau said the app is slated for release in early July, with testing set to begin in Ontario soon.

Canada will join a growing list of countries that have committed to using the API, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Latvia, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia, and others. At least three U.S. states are also adopting the solution.

Built into iOS 13.5 on the Apple side, the API allows iPhones and Android smartphones to interface with one another for contact tracing purposes. If and when you happen to be nearby someone who later tests positive for COVID-19, you can receive a notification and take the appropriate steps to self isolate and seek medical help if necessary.

Apple and Google have stressed the privacy of their Bluetooth-based solution, which must be enabled in the Settings app under Privacy > Health > COVID-19 Exposure Logging to function. Read our Exposure Notification guide for more details.

As planned, Apple's redesigned and overhauled Developer Forums launched today ahead of WWDC. The new design is cleaner, streamlined, and simpler to use, with top posts, top tags, and more highlighted.

The Developer Forums allow developers to interact with one another and troubleshoot issues together, but when WWDC kicks off on Monday, developers will also be able to chat with and interact with over 1,000 Apple engineers who will be available on the forums.

With the new forums, anyone can search and view the forum discussions, while Apple Developer Program members can post questions.

Apple announced plans to introduce the revamped Developer Forums when it announced the schedule for its first ever digital WWDC event, which kicks off on Monday, June 22.

Apple is widely expected to release its first 5G iPhones later this year, and multiple sources have indicated that these models will be equipped with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X55 modem, including analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and the Nikkei Asian Review.

To the contrary, a paywalled snippet from DigiTimes today claims that Apple's chipmaking partner TSMC will begin manufacturing A14 chips and Snapdragon X60 modems this month for use in upcoming iPhones slated for launch later in 2020. This is the first time that we have seen this possibility mentioned.

TSMC to start chip production for next-gen iPhones in June
TSMC will start manufacturing Apple's custom-designed A14 SoCs and Qualcomm's X60 5G modem chips, with both set to power the upcoming iPhones slated for launch later in 2020, using 5nm process technology in June, according to industry sources.

Built on a 5nm process, the X60 packs higher power efficiency into a smaller footprint compared to the X55. Smartphones equipped with the X60 will also be able to aggregate data from both mmWave and sub-6GHz bands simultaneously to achieve an optimal combination of high-speed and low-latency network coverage.

When the X60 was introduced in February, it seemed destined for 2021 iPhones rather than 2020 ones, as Apple needs adequate time for testing and production. Qualcomm itself said that 5G smartphones featuring the X60 are expected to begin launching in early 2021, so this rumor should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism for now.

DigiTimes is a Taiwanese publication with sources within Apple's supply chain. The website is often dismissed as being wrong, but it shares correct information from time to time. In January, for example, it claimed that Apple planned to release a backlit keyboard with scissor switch keys for the iPad Pro. Two months later, the Magic Keyboard launched.

Apple typically announces new iPhones in September, but due to the global health crisis, there is a possibility of a slight delay to the launch plans.