Follow Benjamin on Twitter to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
Follow @bzamayo on Twitter and follow @bzamayo on Threads.
Apple TV+ is available here at 70% off for a limited time, as part of a new promotion the company is running.
From now until April 24, new and returning subscribers can get Apple TV+ for just $2.99 per month for three months. The special offer is timed to the launch of new Jon Hamm series Your Friends & Neighbors, premiering this Friday.
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All iPhone 16 models feature a USB-C connector, replacing the old Apple Lightning connector. Via this USB-C port, you can connect to a vast number of accessories and peripherals. iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max support faster USB-3 speeds over the USB-C port, enabling up to 10 Gbps data transfer speeds.
USB-C makes it easy to connect displays, external storage, cameras, and charge using the same cable as all your other devices. Here’s what you can do with your new iPhone and its shiny new port …
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The full extent of the U.S. government’s impeding tariffs were revealed by the Trump administration today in a press conference. The hefty tariffs threaten economic trade on a massive scale with implications on almost all big US companies, including Apple.
The Apple supply chain relies on manufacturing and assembly of its devices in countries like China, India, Malaysia and Vietnam. All of these regions are now facing huge tariffs, which ultimately increases the cost of production and undermines Apple’s margins and potential profitability.
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The just-released iPhone software update has a bunch of headline features including Priority Notifications, new emoji, Sketch in Image Playgrounds and more, but iOS 18.4 also has some more under-the-radar changes.
As spotted by Mysk, iOS 18.4 adds a new setting buried in Location Services called ‘Improve Location Accuracy’. For some users, including myself, it was on by default. Here’s what Apple says this toggle does …
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Apple is celebrating the return of baseball with a new documentary, Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series, streaming today on Apple TV+. The service’s Friday Night Baseball double-header games also start again this evening.
Fight for Glory goes behind the scenes of the 2024 World Series, with exclusive access to the Yankees and Dodgers as they revive Major League Baseball’s most iconic playoff rivalry.
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Apple TV+ offers exclusive Apple original TV shows and movies in 4K HDR quality. You can watch across all of your screens and pick up where you left off on any device. Apple TV+ costs $9.99 per month. Here’s every Apple original television show and movie available now on Apple TV+, as well as the latest trailers …
Today, Apple debuts its highly-anticipated hot new comedy series The Studio, streaming now on Apple TV+. The show stars Seth Rogen as a Hollywood exec in control of a studio that is struggling to stay relevant.
The show is a comedic satire of the quirks of the industry, from the relentless pursuit of IP to the ongoing clash of artistry and business incentives. The show also features a laundry list of cameo appearances throughout.
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You may have seen Apple Maps survey cars in your area before. As they drive around, the cars take photos and 3D scans to generate ground truth data that can be used to improve map accuracy and offer features like Look Around, Apple’s equivalent of Google Street View.
But now the data collected from these cars will also have another purpose. In an updated disclosure on the Apple Maps Image Collection website, Apple says that starting this month, imagery from its vehicle surveys will also be used to train generative AI models, like those used for Apple Intelligence features such as Image Playground and Clean Up.
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A strange Apple Maps bug is showing point-of-interest pins for a smattering of airport baggage claim stations across the United States, while the map is zoomed far way enough that otherwise almost no landmarks, let alone airports, are marked.
The random baggage claim pins appear across Apple Maps on iPhone, iPad and Mac. This is obviously a glitch with the data being served by the Apple Maps backend, and should be fixable by Apple with a server update.
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Apple TV+ has officially renewed its hit sci-fi drama series Severance for a third season, on the heels of the second season finale dropping today.
Writing on scripts for season three has already been underway for some time. Executive producer and director Ben Stiller has promised fans that there won’t be a three year wait this time between seasons, although filming on season three has not yet commenced.
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In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple firmly rebuked the EU decision announced today about specific interoperability requirements the company must implement over the coming months.
Apple said “Today’s decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules. It’s bad for our products and for our European users. We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users”.
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Update: Apple has responded to the EU’s announcement with a statement provided to 9to5Mac, that strongly opposes the decision.
The EU has followed up on its Digital Markets Act specification procedures for Apple regarding the iPhone’s interoperability with third-party connected devices like smartwatches and headphones, as announced last fall.
Today’s announcement details exactly what third-party integrations the EU commission expects Apple to implement. This includes giving third-party devices access to iOS notifications, as well as way for companies to make like-for-like competitors to AirDrop file sharing, AirPlay streaming, and much more.
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In collaboration with the GSM Association, Apple today announced it will add support for end-to-end encryption for RCS messages. This brings RCS much closer to iMessage in terms of security standards.
The new RCS Universal Profile 3.0 including end-to-encryption was only just released today, so it’s not clear exactly when this support will ship to customers. Apple said it helped lead a cross industry effort to bring end-to-encryption to the RCS Universal Profile …
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Apple TV+ today released the trailer for its buzzy new drama series, called Your Friends & Neighbors. The show stars Jon Hamm in the lead role as a man named Coop, a hedge fund manager who is down on his luck. In an effort to maintain his luxurious lifestyle, he turns to the world of crime, secretly stealing possessions from his affluent neighbors to sell them on.
The show has received early praise and — months ahead of its premiere — Apple renewed the show for a second season as another sign of confidence in the project. Watch the trailer after the break …
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Apple is still reeling from the last-week’s news that the most compelling new Apple Intelligence features for Siri have been indefinitely delayed. Over the weekend, it pulled a YouTube ad showcasing personal context running on the iPhone 16.
Now, it has updated the Apple website with a new disclaimer wherever the unreleased Siri features are mentioned on the iPhone marketing pages.
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Apple SVP Eddy Cue and director Ben Stiller took to the SXSW stage to discuss Severance, Apple’s hit sci-fi thriller. Cue talks about how Severance has become a core of Apple TV+ and an example of how focusing on just a few shows promotes quality.
The in-person stage experience included two clips from the upcoming S2E9, but these are cut out of the recorded version. Otherwise, you can watch the full interview after the break …
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Apple Music has partnered with His Majesty for The King’s Music Room, a special radio playlist set to celebrate this year’s Commonwealth’s Day.
During the show, King Charles will share personal anecdotes amidst his curated playlist of songs ranging from “1930s crooners to Afrobeats stars, as well as disco divas and reggae icons” …
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Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today shared his expectations for the upcoming Apple foldable iPhone, which is set to launch in 2026.
Kuo says the Apple foldable is positioned as a top-tier iPhone, with accompanying eyewatering price tag. It may cost well in excess of $2000. However, customers are expected to get premium hardware specs including a display that does not visibly crease when folded, stainless steel and titanium alloy hinge, in a casing that is just 4.5 mm thick when unfolded. However, the thinness also may come at the price of Face ID, with Kuo predicting that Touch ID will return.
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SwitchBot (makers of my favorite Find My wallet finder) have launched a new option in the smart blinds space, the SwitchBot Roller Shade.
It is one of the cheaper smart blinds options on the market, and it even has an adjustable bar so it can fit many different window sizes. And if you have the SwitchBot Hub 2, you can connect these shades directly to the Apple Home app using the Matter integration. Unfortunately, they cannot act as a standalone Matter accessory — the hub is required.
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Alongside the new iPad Air, Apple also refreshed the base model iPad today. The iPad now comes with an A16 chip, and twice the storage, for the same $349 price.
That means Apple’s cheapest iPad now starts at 128 GB storage, with 256 GB and an all-new 512 GB size as upgrade options. With a faster chip and twice the storage, the new iPad is even better value for money than the prior 10th generation iPad.
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Apple today announced a bevy of new content for baseball fans. This includes the return of Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+, a new Apple Immersive film and the launch of the TV+ documentary covering the 2024 World Series.
On March 28, the new season of Friday Night Baseball games commence, and ‘Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series’ will premiere on Apple TV+. Plus, next month, Apple Vision Pro users can take an exclusive VIP tour around the iconic Yankees Stadium, in the latest Apple Immersive film. More details below …
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The first tests of the iPhone 16e’s cellular performance show promising results. The Chinese review site Geekerwan performed various 5G testing with the iPhone 16e, using a special synthetic cell tower broadcasting inside their lab.
In general, they found the iPhone 16e behaved similarly to the iPhone 16 when it came to cellular connectivity, with comparable speeds and reliability. Meanwhile, Apple’s claims of efficiency also seem to ring true, with Geekerwan measuring significantly less power draw for the C1 modem compared to the Qualcomm modem in the iPhone 16 …
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Apple TV+ today announced a new documentary film called Bono: Stories of Surrender, which streams worldwide on May 30, and will also be available in an immersive 3D format viewable in the Apple Vision Pro headset.
In fact, this will be the first feature-length Apple Immersive film; all previous made-for-Vision-Pro content has been short-form fare. Apple and U2 have always had a close relationship, and this project is the latest example of that.
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One of the longest standing feature requests for Apple Mail on iPhone is for the app to change how it behaves when a user moves a message to a different folder, or sends it to the trash.
Until iOS 18.4, the Mail app would always automatically move on to the next message in the inbox, which would annoyingly cause that unrelated message to be marked as read in the process. What many users have asked for, is for the app to simply return to the inbox list instead. iOS 18.4 finally makes that possible.
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