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 Music today launched new Shazam-powered playlists that track what is being played the most across terrestrial broadcast radio stations. The Radio Spins charts are also available on the Shazam website.
Using their music recognition technology, Shazam is now logging what songs are being played on tens of thousands of radio stations worldwide, to help users discover more insights about what music is trending globally.
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Based on the book by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is a new sci-fi drama series that starts streaming today on Apple TV+. It is written by the author of the novel, and stars Joel Edgerton in the lead role as Jason.
Jason, a physicist and teacher, is abducted into an alternate reality in which he gets a glimpse of other ways his life could have gone. Intrigue quickly turns to madness, though, and he must find a way back to save his family from himself.
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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 …
As well as losing an ultra-wide camera, the new iPad Pro has also dropped support for 5G mmWave.
As seen on the iPad Pro specs page, the M4 iPad Pro supports 5G cellular on sub-6 GHz spectrum only, and LTE on 31 bands. The older cellular iPad Pro could do mmWave and supported one additional LTE band.
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While the new iPad Pro with M4 is a major step forward across the board, there a couple gotchas to be aware of. Firstly, with this generation, Apple has removed the ultra-wide camera from the rear camera module altogether.
Also, while Apple touts the performance jump of the 10-core CPU found inside the new M4 chip, that chip variant is exclusive to the 1 TB and 2 TB iPad Pro models. Lower storage iPads get a 9-core CPU. They also have half the RAM …
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Alongside the new iPad Pro announcement, Apple today unveiled next-generation versions of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad. They are designed to be much more sophisticated and much more capable, to take advantage of the M4 chip performance found in the new iPad Pro.
The new Final Cut Pro 2 for iPad includes live multi-cam editing. Up to four iPhones can record different angles of a scene at the same time, and that footage is streamed into the iPad running Final Cut …
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Apple today announced the new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro, as part of its ‘Let Loose’ special event. The new iPad Pro makes the leap to the M4 chip, the next-generation of Apple silicon, for improved performance. Apple touted its new Neural Engine to stress the artificial intelligence capabilities.
The new tablets feature OLED displays, offering richer contrast and brightness, housed in a new thinner industrial design that is significantly smaller and lighter; the 11-inch is 5.3mm thin and the 13-inch is 5.1mm thin, which Apple says makes it the thinnest product they have ever created. The new 11-inch model starts at a higher $999 price point, and the 13-inch model starts at $1299.
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As is tradition, Apple has taken down the Apple Store ahead of its special event, which kicks off at 7 AM PT. The video presentation will see Apple introduce the next-generation iPad Pro, iPad Air, and accompanying new Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories.
The iPad Pro is expected to be the star of the show, touting a new OLED display, M4 chip with AI capabilities, a new thinner industrial design and more.
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Update: Ted Lasso: The Complete Series is now available for preorder on Amazon. The Blu-ray is dated for release on July 30. It will be available in HD Blu-ray and DVD formats.
The hit comedy series Ted Lasso is currently only available to watch via Apple’s streaming service, Apple TV+. Finally, more than four years after its season one premiere, it appears that the exclusivity window is finally going to end and the show will soon be getting a physical disc release.
9to5Mac understands that Warner Bros. is preparing to release Ted Lasso on Blu-ray, with an expected July release date …
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Tomorrow, Apple will hold its first event of the year where it is expected to unveil a new generation of iPad Pro, iPad Air, and accompanying new Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard accessories.
The Apple website may have just given us a bit more insight into what to expect. In the Japanese Apple.com source code, the homepage banner for the event describes the logo’s header image as a creator holding a “Apple Pencil Pro”. The discovery was first spotted by ribu_ap712 on X.
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Apple today announced its commemorative Pride Collection for 2024, featuring new wallpapers for iPhone and iPad, and a new watch face and matching band for the Apple Watch.
The new Pride Edition Braided Solo Loop band will be available to order starting May 22. The new watch face and dynamic iOS wallpapers will also be available ‘soon’, as part of iOS 17.5.
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The Apple.com homepage has been updated with a last-minute teaser to celebrate the upcoming Apple event, which kicks off tomorrow at 7 AM PT. Apple is expected to announce a new lineup of iPad Pro and iPad Air.
The new teaser at the top of the page cycles between the various illustrations of Apple logo, with a twist that you can erase the art with your mouse pointer on Mac, or finger on your iPhone’s touchscreen. When the logo is fully erased, a new variant animates in.
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On Tuesday, May 7, Apple will hold its first product event of the year, ‘Let Loose’. The company is set to introduce new lineup of iPad Pro and iPad Air. The iPad Pro tablets will get OLED displays, a new thinner chassis, and run on the M4 chip. The iPad Air will be updated with the M2 chip, and be offered in a new larger 12.9-inch display size for the first time.
As reported today by Mark Gurman, Apple is set to announce all of this in a brisk video presentation running about 35 minutes in length. This is similar to the runtime of the October ‘Spooky Fast’ event.
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As the frantic investor hype around streaming dies down, every studio is re-evaluating the way they do business, what shows they are commissioning, and their relationships with creators.
The financially-rich Apple has less pressure to do this than most, but we have seen changes at Apple Studios too, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent compared to other streaming outlets. The Ankler reports today in its Dealmakers column that Apple is talking to producers and agents about a potential new deal structure for their originals going forward.
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In time for Mental Health Awareness Month, Apple Podcasts is shining light on a new category of podcasts to listen to.
The new Wellbeing category collects shows featuring health, fitness and wellness topics. As noted by AdWeek, listenership for shows in this genre has increased 40% in the last five years.
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As about a third of the 2024 Major League Soccer season has now concluded, Apple is dropping the price of the MLS Season Pass package in kind.
The season subscription is now sold for $69, down 30% compared to its $99 price at the start of the season. For Apple TV+ subscribers, the pass is now just $59.
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The last few months have seen Apple rapidly implement technical and policy solutions to comply with the Digital Markets Act. That has seen the rollout of things like alternative app marketplaces, web distribution, alternative browsers, and more as part of iOS 17.4 and iOS 17.5 updates.
So far, those rules have only applied to the iPhone and iOS. But now, the European Commission has expanded the Digital Markets Act’s purview of products to include the iPad (via Bloomberg).
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This morning, Apple announced expanded availability of the HomePod and HomePod mini, with orders starting for the first time in Malaysia and Thailand. The devices will start shipping next week, from May 10. That opens up the reach of HomePod mini and the ‘new’ HomePod (2nd generation) to a brand new market of customers.
Update: Apple will also launch HomePod 2 and HomePod mini in Turkey on May 10. Pre-orders are now available.
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In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman gives us a few more hints about what to expect from iOS 18 in terms of upcoming new software changes for the iPhone.
Gurman writes that alongside the slate of artificial intelligence features, iOS 18 will include updates to most of the popular built-in apps on the iPhone, including overhauls for the Photos, Mail, Notes and Fitness apps. The Calculator app will be updated with new features, and made available on the iPad for the first time.
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Alongside the new iPad Pro and iPad Air lineup, Apple’s May 7 event will also feature updates to the iPad accessories, with new generation of Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports today that the new Pencil will include haptic feedback for the first time. This should help the digital stylus feel more realistic in use.
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In a surprise move, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports today in his Power On newsletter that the upcoming iPad Pro may actually be powered by the M4 chip, skipping the M3 altogether.
The company would tout the AI capabilities of the new iPad range, powered by the upgraded Neural Engine in the M4 chip. The M4 chip is scheduled to arrive in Macs later in the year.
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Setting up a VPN on your Apple TV 4K allows you to avoid geographic region restrictions and access services not normally available to you. With tvOS 17, VPN apps can now be installed on the Apple TV directly.
VPN apps available now for Apple TV include NordVPN, PureVPN, IPVanish, ExpressVPN, and more. Here’s all the best VPN apps for Apple TV available now …
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The Democratic Republic of Congo is accusing Apple of using illegally exploited minerals sourced in the eastern regions, involving violence, child labor and other human rights violations.
This allegation disagrees with Apple’s published Conflict Minerals Report, that states it found no connection between its smelters and refiner partners, and the armed groups of the DRC, as of December 31, 2023.
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Apple launched its range of FineWoven iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands last fall to much fanfare, as an environmentally-friendly alternative to the leather accessories. However, buyers quickly complained the material was prone to attracting dirt, scuffs and other durability issues. FineWoven also simply felt far less premium than the leather lineup it replaced, albeit Apple charging the same prices.
According to Twitter leaker Kosutami, Apple is giving up on the effort and the production lines for FineWoven are being shuttered. The company will probably try again with a different leather alternative option, like Alcantara.
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