Amazon Prime Day Concert!

Prime day is coming up, starting at midnight on July 15th and lasting through until July 16th.

BUT on July 10th at 9:00 p.m. ET, if you’re a Prime member, you’ll be able to stream the Prime Day Concert starring Taylor Swift,  Dua Lipa, SZA, and Becky G and hosted by Glee alum Jane Lynch. It’ll also be available to Prime members to stream on-demand for a limited time, with select songs from each performance.

See the trailer for the Amazon Prime Concert below!

Jony Ive is leaving Apple!

Design genius Jony Ive announced today that he is leaving Apple after decades at the company!

Limelight-shy Ive is credited with developing the iPhone, iMac, and iPod, and will leave Apple at the end of this year.  So what’s next?

Well, he’s not going too far, actually. Ive is starting his own design firm called LoveFrom – and Apple will be his very first customer. Apple designer Marc Newsom will also be joining him there.

From Tim Cook:

“Jony is a singular figure in the design world and his role in Apple’s revival cannot be overstated, from 1998’s groundbreaking iMac to the iPhone and the unprecedented ambition of Apple Park, where recently he has been putting so much of his energy and care,”

From the man himself:

“There are some areas that are personal natural passions for me,” he said to the FT. “The work that we’ve been doing with wearable technology — with technology becoming more personal, there is an inevitability that it becomes worn.”

Amazon Prime Days are coming!

That’s right, Prime DAYS. This year, Amazon have decided to bless us with 2 days of deals, instead of 1. Technically last year’s lasted 36 hours, but who knows what kind of extra deals you can get with those extra 12 hours?!

The whole thing will begin at Midnight on July 15th and last through July 16th.

Prime Day  will include deals and discounts on everything from tech products (yay!)  to home products, clothing, toys, and more.

SO beginning at Midnight on the 15th, there’ll be lightning deals on Amazon that start at different times and last for as long as stock lasts.

Here’s the kicker though: Prime membership is required to get the deals.

Amazon currently has previews on some of the deals they’ll be featuring, so go check them out!! 

New ‘Shot on iPhone’ video

A couple of days ago Apple released a new ‘Shot on iPhone XS’ video that’s pretty trippy, so if you need a nice little calming moment away from this Monday Afternoon, here you go!!!

Also – we’ve heard reports out of Silicon Valley today suggest that Apple may be releasing a 16-inch MacBook come September… interesting…

MacBook Pro recall

Apple is doing a voluntary recall and replacement program for their 15-inch MacBook Pro sold between September 2015 and February 2017 because select units may contain a battery that may overheat and pose safety risks.

Yikes.

The unites in question can be identified but their serial number and customers who are affected can have their battery replaced by Apple free of charge.

Want to see if you might be affected by a burning hot MacBook pro battery?

First, find your serial number. Go to ‘About this Mac’ in the Apple menu, and it’ll be there, next to ‘Serial Number’.

The, go to Apple’s support page –> here and enter in your serial number. If your MacBook Pro is affected, and you’re eligible for a replacement, you can choose one of the following service options:

Find an Apple Authorized Service Provider.
Make an appointment at an Apple Retail Store.
Contact Apple Support to arrange mail-in service via the Apple Repair Center.

In every cases, your device will be sent to an Apple Repair Center for service which may take 1-2 weeks.
Remember, if you’re partaking in this, back up your data before doing anything!!

Google won’t release any more tablets

Google apparently won’t release any more tablet devices, preferring to concentrate on their laptop sector.

The company confirmed to ComputerWorld that they have actually canceled two models that were in development, and have reassigned those working on them to other areas.

The last tablet Google released was the Pixel Slate last year, and it’s suggested that they may have found it a little difficult to compete with Apple (responsible for most worldwide tablet shipments) and Samsung, as opposed to the laptop arena where they can compete more comfortably.

Google will continue offering support and updates for the Pixel Slate until June 2024. They are also supposedly planning to release a laptop-oriented Pixelbook product towards the end of the year, as well as still releasing new models of its Pixel line of phones.

Register the kids for Apple Summer Camp!

Apple Camp registration is now open!

As of yesterday, kids from the US, Mexico and Canada can register for the company’s annual summer camp that will run between July 7 and August 3.

Kids aged 8-12 can explore music, coding, moviemaking, or art and design by taking part in a bunch of free 90-minute hands-on sessions at local Apple Stores. ( N.B: all kids must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian for the duration of their visits.)

In the past, kids who have attended Apple Camp have received a free t-shirt.

Space is limited so get on your internet bike and sign up -> here! 

New Macbooks?

News today that Apple has registered seven as-of-yet unreleased ‘portable’ Mac models in the Eurasian Economic Commission database –   A2141, A2147, A2158, A2159, A2179, A2182, and A2251.These filings are legally required for any encrypted devices sold in Russia and some other countries, and have previously been a good indicator of new device models coming our way.

People are surmising that we can shortly expect a new 12-inch MacBook and perhaps an updated MacBook Air and 16-inch MacBook pro.

We can possibly expect some announcements regarding this come October.

Deal of the day!

Drumroll please……

Our deal of the day is from Amazon – IF you’re a prime member, you can get a certified refurbished Ring Wi-Fi-Enabled Video Doorbell for $53.99 with free shipping.

This device is usually $89.99 so get on it if you want it!! Go here to see the deal. 

Happy Tuesday (and National Cheese day of course)!

WWDC Keynote rundown

Welcome to our 2019 WWDC keynote round up! We have quite a bit to unpack here, so let’s gooo!

We start with a black-and-white video showing developers working from home, coding and designing. “While the world sleeps, you dream. Welcome to WWDC” Thanks guys!

Oh Hi Tim Cook! *waves*.

Mr Cook talks about all of the fancy fandangled services Apple launched earlier this year – Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple Card, and  lastly Apple TV Plus, which brings us to the trailer for an Apple original show which will premiere on AppleTV+ later this year, ‘For All Mankind’. The show is being produced by Ronald Moore, an executive producer of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, and looks intense and captivating.

Next up? tvOS 13 of course!

The new operating system for Apple TV has a redesigned home screen with multi-user support and personalized recommendations, new underwater 4K HDR screen savers that were filmed in collaboration with the BBC Natural History Units, updates to Apple Music, and will work with Apple Arcade and support the XBox 1S and the Playstation Dual-shock 4 game controllers.

tvOS 13 is available for Apple Developer Program members starting today, with the public beta of the software launching later in June.  tvOS 13 will be available for everyone in the fall for free.

WatchOS 6

Kevin Lynch comes out on stage to speak about watchOS, which will feature – you guessed it – more watch faces, but also a new App Store dedicated to Apple Watch, including independent apps, (!) as well as an Audio books app, a voice memo app and a calculator app. ( Yay calculator watches are back! )

There are also new health & fitness capabilities including a decibel meter app, ‘Noise App’ and a period tracking app, ‘Cycle tracking’.

iOS 13

Craig Federighi wants to talk to us about iOS 13. The updated operating system will launch twice as fast as iOS 12, and Face ID will unlock your phone 30% faster.

There’s now a dark mode, which sounds spooky, but really it’s just that now all your apps will now be available in black to make looking at your phone easier on your eyes in the dark.

There’s a complete redesign of the Reminders app with the ability to associate your to do list with reminders, as well as the option of tagging people.

Apple Music gets lyrics, and Notes has a brand-new gallery view and the ability to support shared folders. Apple Maps got some shiny new updates, with nicer detail, and Google Street View–style views of certain cities.

Privacy has very much come to the forefront of everyone’s  concerns when it comes to technology, and Apple are saying that that makes them concerned. So much concern! So now, Apple’s made it so that you can have the option to grant an app one-time access to your location instead of constantly, and the system will also prevent apps from using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth data to figure your location out.

Additionally, there’s a new ‘Sign In With Apple’ feature that lets you to sign in with websites and apps via Apple rather than through Google and Facebook, etc. You can also use your Apple ID to authenticate your login, and you can even keep your email address hidden by using a randomized email address generated by Apple. Logins can all be authenticated using Face ID or Touch ID.

There’s  also a new ‘Find My’ app for finding your iPhone or Mac even when there’s no WiFi or Cellular collection.

Messages now lets you set a name and a profile picture, so if you don’t have a contacts number saved – it doesn’t matter anymore! Youtube stars Patrick Stars and Desi Perkins ( or rather, their Memoji’s) tell us all about how there are further customization options for Memoji – including hair color, piercings, make up, etc. Memoji stickers will now be incorporated into emoji in the system keyboard.

Siri is completely machine built now, so instead  of snippets of an actress saying words looped together, her voice is completely synthetic and actually more natural sounding. You can also use her for messages whilst using AirPods, and a pretty cool AirPod feature? iOS 13 supports audio sharing, so you can share the audio of a movie or a song with another friend with a single tap — as long as they’re wearing AirPods.

There’s new photo and video editing features and a new way to organize the Photos app, which, using machine learning, will now separating your screenshots, duplicates, and receipts from the rest of your photo library.

Apple maps got a shiny new update too, with a new street view feature called “Look Around” that lets you see street-level imagery of a city, and the ability to share favorite restaurants or travel destinations with friends, and a Favorites section for navigating to frequent destinations.

Apple has made the first beta of iOS 13 available to developers for testing purposes today, and the public betas roll out in July.

Introducing iPadOS 
iPads now have their very own software operating system! Happy Operating System Day iPad! It features lots of multitasking capability, column views for digging into file hierarchy, the ability to plug in a USB drive, and iPad-native multitouch gestures. Everything shown on screen looks very intuitive and slick.

Now we get to the very impressive and cool Hardware  section of the keynote! – The new Mac Pro. 

Now hold on to your horses here, because there’s some crazy numbers coming up.  We’re talking up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, up to 1.5TB of ECC RAM, the ability to handle up to 300 watts of power and a “massive” heatsink that can run fully unconstrained at all times.

Two Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack, eight internal PCIe slots, four double-wide slots, three single-wide slots, and one additional half-length slot for an I/O card.

It also has wheels! Wheels!

Here’s some more numbers for you – The new Mac Pro will start at $5,999 with an eight-core Intel Xeon processor, 32GB of ECC RAM, AMD WX 7100 graphics, and 256GB of SSD storage.

To go with that shiny ( kind of cheese grater-y looking) computer? A very pretty new 32-inch 6K display named the Pro Display XDR which features a 6,016 x 3,384 resolution display and 20 million pixels, uses a direct backlighting system with a large array of LEDs, able to produce 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness and 1,600 nits of peak brightness.

The new screen has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and can maintain 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness indefinitely, and also features Thunderbolt 3, which enables two monitors to run off a single power source, and up to four displays to be connected together for more screen real estate.

You can get one of those starting at $4,999, its stand for $999 and a VESA Mount Adapter for $199.

Both the display and the new Mac pro will be available in the Fall.

macOS 10.15 Catalina

iTunes is no longer! Byeeee Old Man iTunes! We will now have three dedicated apps: Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and Apple TV.
iPhone syncing and device storage management will now be located in Finder, which is one of the best things we heard in this whole keynote thing, really.
“Sidecar”is also really cool, and lets you use your iPad as a second display for your Mac.You can also now use voice control for accessibility using Siri, which ALSO is really really cool!

Activation Lock is coming to Macs (those of which have the newer T2 security chips) with iOS 10.15, as is Screen Time, so you can be shocked at ALL YOU DATA AND HOW MUCH TIME YOU SPEND WATCHING CAT VIDEOS

The Catalina OS beta is available today, while public seeds will be available in July. The OS becomes widely available in the fall.

We also saw another privacy/security concern addressed today, with Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering telling us about HomeKit Secure video, which uses your actual iPad, HomePod, or AppleTV, and then encrypts it and and sends it to a secure iCloud. HomeKit Secure Video even works with certain third-party camera providers, and the video storage and analysis doesn’t count toward your iCloud data limit.

So there we have it, some really neat new features across the software board, an amazing new MacPro, and some Memoji stickers. Oh – and some last cool things?

RealityKit, with photorealistic rendering, environment and camera effects, animation, physics and more, Reality Composer, where you can build interactive AR experiences, with a built-in AR content library, Xcode tool and iOS app. ARKit 3 with Motion Capture and People Occlusion and compositing of people in real time, AND New SwiftUI framework which requires much less coding to build UIs.

The future is real!

You can watch the  whole Keynote here, or shorter videos about everything that was announced today on Apple’s YouTube channel here.