Apple Removes Group FaceTime From iOS 12 and macOS Mojave

Sad FaceTime.

Apple has just removed the greatly anticipated Group FaceTime feature from the latest iOS 12 and macOS Mojave betas,  deciding instead to release it at a undisclosed later date.

Group FaceTime is exactly how it sounds, letting a bunch of people – up to 32 – FaceTime video/audio at the same time.

It’s actually been available on iOS 12 and macOS Mojave since the first betas became available in June, but there was no forthcoming reason to have taken it off today, just that  ‘the feature has been removed from the initial releases of macOS Mojave and iOS 12 and will ship in a future software update later this fall.

Bye 32 people FaceTime party, see you in the Fall sometime.

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New Comedy Show picked up by Apple

Good news for fans of ‘It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia’ and it’s stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day!

Apple has given a straight to series order for a half hour comedy by the duo, which apparently will be set in a video game development studio.

The pair also write for ‘It’s always Sunny’ and will write and executive produce this series, with McElhenney reportedly starring.

The show has no debut date, however whispers suggest spring 2019.

Cyber Monday Deals on Apple products

Happy Cyber Monday!! Here’s some deals for you!

B&H Photo Video is offering pretty great discounts on some 2016 MacBook Pro models. They also have free shipping. Discounts include $1,000 off a high-end 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in Space Gray, and $900 off a mid-range 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in Silver.

eBay is offering $270 off a mid-range 2017 model with a 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD storage, and Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650. The sale price is $1,529.99, down from $1,799 on Apple.com.

Amazon is offering $100 iTunes gift card for $85 using promo code ITUNES15 at checkout

Adorama is offering $250 off a higher-end 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in Space Gray.

Best Buy is offering free shipping on nearly everything, and some pretty good discounts on Apple products. Specials include:

32GB iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: save $150 when purchased and activated with a monthly installment plan

12.9-inch iPad Pro for –
– 64GB Wi-Fi: $699.99, down from $799.99
– 256GB Wi-Fi: $824.99, down from $949.99
– 512GB Wi-Fi: $999.99, down from $1,149.99

There’s a bunch of discounted MacBook Pro models as well.

T-Mobile has an offer for new customers considering a move to its cellular plans. If you buy a 32GB 9.7-inch iPad with a T-Mobile ONE plan, then activate a T-Mobile ONE voice line on a new or existing cell phone (which you can carry over from a different carrier and keep your number), you’ll get a full rebate for the iPad. The rebate will come in the form of a $460 Prepaid MasterCard Card, which will arrive in the mail within six to eight weeks.

At Walmart you can save $200 on iPad mini 4, $30 on 9.7-inch iPad, and $50 on iPad Pro

And finally, get 25 percent off select accessories at OtterBox. 

Enjoy clicking and saving, friends!

Apple Event media Invites go out!

Apple has sent out media invites for it’s upcoming iPhone event! We think that means it’s actually happening!? Here are the most important details:

The event will happen on Tuesday, September 12 at 10:00 a.m. at the Steve Jobs Theater at the company’s new Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

The media invites offer a first look at what we can look forward to ( kinda) and feature the tagline: “Let’s meet at our place.” (via The Loop)

This event is reported to be the biggest Fall event in years, mostly because the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone is expected to bring with it a fairly different redesign of the iPhone we all know and love. Think a glass body with an edge-to-edge display, a vertical rear camera, facial recognition capabilities, a much improved processor, and wireless inductive charging functionality. We can also likely expect two other, more-like-what-we-know iPhones  (4.7 inch and 5.5 inch) to be released as well.

Rumors are also building around a third-generation Apple Watch with an LTE chip that allows it to be decoupled from the iPhone (Yes!), and the possibility of a new 4K Apple TV.

Following the event, we should see the release of iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, tvOS 11, and watchOS 4.

In case you guys want to watch all the fun and Appley -excitement, Apple will be streaming the event live on its website and on the Apple TV.

Bring it on.

Apple to invest $1 Billion dollars in streaming entertainment over next year

Apple is going full force into the TV world over the next year, with a (quite) large amount of  $1 billion being put aside to acquire and produce original television content .

We say (quite) because although it’s a lot of money to, well, most people, but compared to Netflix? Nooooot so much. Late last year Netflix pledged to spend $6 billion dollars on content.

Oh boy.

But back to Apple. We could be looking at maybe as many as 10 Apple show in the next year, with the budget controlled by two ex-Sony guys,  Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg.

Apple’s foray into the TV production world have so far included “Planet of the Apps”, which was launched in June on Apple Music, and “Carpool Karaoke,” which was launched last week.

What do you  think, will Apple have a hit on TV? The next Breaking Bad? Westworld? … Passions?

Did you order a new Apple TV?

You can now place  online orders for the new-look Apple TV set-top box! Wahay! Those who have already ordered are looking to receive their shiny new devices shortly after they ship at the end of this week. The earliest of these deliveries will ship on October 30th.

So what will you be getting? Let’s take a little look-see:

The new Apple TV comes equipped with a full App store (including support for 3rd party apps), Siri, a waaaaaay better search feature, an A8 chip with 2GB RAM, allowing for up to 1080p video at 60 frames per second and and a touch-based remote that supports Siri’s good self AND an accelerometer and a gyroscope that allow it to serve a game controller,

The 32 GB Apple TV comes in at $149, or the 64 GB device comes in at a neat $199. Extra Siri remotes sell at $79 and Remote Loop wrist straps are $12.99. 2 year AppleCare coverage is $29.

Did you guys order one? Want to? Get your booty over here then silly!

Salute El Capitan! OS X 10.11

After last year’s OS X Mavericks named after the beach break south of the Bay, Apple introduced us all today to OS X El Capitan, named, of course, after the stunning, big a** rock found in Yosemite.

El Capitan brings with it a few cool things that will probably make your life easier.

* Split view! Work in two apps at the same time on the same screen!

*Less exciting, but still useful – when you lose your curser, shake your finger back and forth on the trackpad or give your mouse a shake, and the cursor gets bigger so it’s easy to spot.
*A new pinned feature in Safari lets users keep websites listed at the top of the window, similar to a bookmarks bar. There will also be a mute feature that will function even with several tabs open.

* The Notes app gets the same updates as in iOS 9, with checklist ability, and ways to add a photo, video, URL, or map location to a note. All your notes are kept up to date across all your devices on the cloud.

* The new Mail app features enhancements to its full-screen mode, tabs in the compose window, the ability to hide in-progress messages and go back to the main Inbox. There are also new gestures built into Mail for archiving and deleting — simply swipe on the trackpad.

* The Photos app will come with support for third-party editing extensions and tools that will be available from the Mac App Store and accessible right in the Photos app.

* Spotlight search goes deeper into our souls with a higher level of understanding, contextually aware search results from a greater number of sources.

* Metal for Mac has arrived, with 50% improvements in rendering with 40% less CPU processing power required for graphics. Metal on OS X El Capitan offers better battery life and improved graphics performance for both games and professional apps. It will also make it up to 1.4 times faster to launch an app, up to 2 times faster to switch in-between apps, up to 2 times faster to display email addresses and up to 4 times faster to open a PDF in preview.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan is available to registered developers today. For the rest of us, it will be available in public beta in July and will publicly launch in the fall. For FREE! Yessir!

Hungry? Tweet some pizza to your door!

Having a party? Got the Friday night Munchies? You know what is awesome for both of these? Uh, PIZZA. Cheesy, saucy, delicious pizza. YO you should probably order some pizza!

Wait, what’s that? You’ve lost your voice? Your computer will only let you type certain keys? UH OH.

That’s ok though, bro! Come May 20th, Dominos will be accepting pizza orders through Twitter. All you have to do is tweet 🍕 @Dominos.

THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO! After you create a pizza profile, and add their Twitter handle and favorite pizza. BUT AFTER THAT THAT’S AL YOU HAVE TO DO! Bro!

So….Pizza party May 20th guys?

More teen survey goodness

Piper Jaffray recently did a survey of American teenagers, seeing what tech and social media they’re into compared to years past. The survey is  published and used by investment analysts and company head honchos to see what they should be doing different to pick up the lead in the all-important youth market.

Recently, we learnt that Instagram is number 1 in American teens eyes, whilst Facebook is falling in importance in their wee little eyes. Now we learn that the Apple Watch? Not so much in their focus.They surveyed 6200 teenagers and only 11% plan on purchasing an Apple Watch. This is down from 16% from a similar survey down last Fall. And mainly? They’re in it for the style, rather than the function.

…Yeah, we could probably have guessed that.

The good news for Apple? The iPhone and the iPad remain the most popular smartphone and tablet among teenagers. 66% of teenagers surveyed owned an iPhone, while 64 percent owned an iPad. 72 percent of teens expect their next smartphone purchase will be an iPhone, while 60 percent expect their next tablet to be an iPad.

21 percent of teens expect their next smartphone purchase to be an Android, and 16 percent plan to buy an Android tablet. Interest in Windows tablets has grown slightly, however, and 20 percent of teens expect their next tablet purchase to be Windows-based.

The next Teen survey will be published in October this year, and it will be interesting to see what we expect to be teen interest in the Apple Watch build quite significantly.

Apple’s environmental projects

If you’ve checked out the Apple website recently, you might have seen something new, and no, we don’t mean the Apple Watch.

Good guy Apple has embarked on a number of new environmental projects, in order to ‘leave the world better than we found it’.  They’re developing a renewable micro-hydro project to power data centers, building solar farms in china to reduce their carbon footprint, and beginning a partnership with The Conservation Fund to protect and create the type of forests they use in their packaging. 

Learn more about it by watching the film here.