In tandem with Monday's iOS 11 release, Apple today also launched the first public betas of macOS High Sierra, and tvOS 11 for the Apple TV.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made a surprise appearance at a Cisco event in Las Vegas on Monday, revealing plans to help businesses with discounts on cyber-security insurance if they use products from both companies. Following the event, Cisco announced another outcome of its Apple partnership, the Cisco Security Connector app for iPhone and iPad.

Setapp, the first Mac app-subscription service is launching a personalized AI-based recommendation system dubbed App Advisor tomorrow (June 27). Every time a user launches the service, it will come up with app suggestions from the Setapp collection. 

According to Oleksandr Kosovan, founder and CEO of Setapp, the recommendation models rely mostly on:

• Collaborative filtering, used to determine the users’ preferences from historical usage data. If two customers use largely the same set of applications, their tastes are likely to be similar. 
• Content-based filtering, used to recommend the applications that are similar to those that a user used in the past. 

A single monthly subscription of $9.99 with a free trial month. With a referral program one can get up to six months of free subscription.

Setapp is a flat-fee...

With iOS 11 Public Beta being released today, I could easily sum up my thoughts on the new iOS by saying I think it’s one of the most significant releases ever. Not for any particular whiz-bang feature, but for the attention to detail and all of the small features that people can use every day. […]

[Update: iOS 11 public beta 1 is rolling out now, but tvOS 11 may not be available yet. tvOS 11 public beta is still coming soon.]

Apple has released the first tvOS 11 public beta for non-developers to test on Apple TV. The first tvOS 11 public beta includes new features like Home Screen Syncing, light and dark mode automatic switching, and full AirPods support.

more…

Apple is leasing some vehicles from Hertz Global to use for autonomous testing, according to Bloomberg. Documents on file with the California Department of Motor Vehicles indicate that Apple will use Lexus RX450h sport utility vehicles for the testing.

When Apple received its license to test three autonomous vehicles from the state’s DMV in April, the documents listed Donlen as the lessor and Apple as the lessee. A half-dozen vehicles have been testing Apple’s autonomous technology on public roads in and around the San Francisco Bay area for at least a year, a person familiar with Apple’s project told Bloomberg earlier this year.

The news breaks on the same day that an autonomous vehicle testing partnership between Avis and Google property Waymo was also unveiled.

The Hertz Corp., a subsidiary of Hertz Global...

Focal is a bit of an institution in the audiophile community. Pronounced "fo-cal", this company has long been known for its high-end speakers for home and car audio. Last year, Focal made a splash with two ultra high-end headphones, the $1000 Elear and $4000 Utopia, which some have called the best in the world. Focal now seeks to expand its reach with the Spark, an entry-level IEM. We found them to be consistent with Focal's heritage and, at $69, worthy of a recommendation despite one significant flaw.
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U.S. Supercomputers falling behind, the story of the slow death of FireWire, and some very special hardware in the coming iMac Pro.

Nostalgic gamers rejoice, for Nintendo is bringing back its classic console as the mini Super NES Classic console system. It will come with 21 games like Super Mario World, F-ZERO, Final Fantasy III, Earthbound, Super Mario Kart, and Star Fox 2, which was previously unreleased. Nintendo will launch the mini SNES Classic Edition on September 29th for US$79.99. Just like the NES Classic, it will have an HDMI port so you can hook it up directly to your TV. Hopefully Nintendo learned its lesson when it released the NES Classic, which was hard to come by because of limited stock and was discontinued earlier this year. When September finally comes around, it wouldn’t be surprising if the SNES Classic is quickly sold out.

Apple's in-house self-driving vehicle technology will reportedly hit the road in a partnership with rental car provider Hertz, giving Apple the ability to put its technology to the test in a highly public way.

A battery backup is practically essential for iPhone owners on the go, but what happens if your portable charger is drained? The Powrtabs Disposable Battery Charger aims to fix that problem with, well, disposable battery charger packs. Each pack is rated at 1,000 mAh so you’ll get about a four hour boost off one. They’re made from recycled materials and designed to be thrown away once they’re used. You can pick up a five pack for Lightning connector iPhones for US$19.99 with TMO’s deal—that’s 19% off the recular $24.95 price.

If you have an older iPhone or iPad running iOS 11 Developer Beta 2 there’s a good chance you’re seeing an update today.

It's lucky episode 13 of AWT TV tonight, but we don't expect any disasters... Marty Edwards and Steve Sande will take you through our new show format tonight, which is a bit more structured but still provides adequate time for us to chat and discuss! 

To watch the show, head out to our YouTube channel at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET (or whatever local time it may be wherever you are). 

The first 10 minutes of the show will be a quick overview of some of the more interesting stories of the past week in Apple news, followed by:

• Marty Edwards, doing a detailed dive into Messages, stickers, apps, effects and drawing

• Steve Sande, with a hands-on overview of the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with TouchBar

• Marty again, with a review of...

Jeff Butts and Dave Hamilton join Jeff Gamet sort out exactly what Google’s plan to stop scanning our Gmail accounts really means, plus they take a look at Nike’s new augmented reality shoe promotion scheme.

Amazon's significant expansion into yet another market -- this time, grocery stores -- dominated many of my conversations last week. Clearly, Amazon warned us. I've been here before -- you see, back in the 1990s, when Amazon was just books, I was running the company's e-commerce unit. I got into an argument with one of the analysts focused on Amazon, who believed the company wouldn't go beyond books. I argued that the model it was using could -- and would -- expand to other things, but even I wasn't thinking broadly enough.

Forget the (still unreleased iPhone 8). That’s yesterday’s news. We need rumors about 2018’s “iPhone 9.”

Oh wait, here’s one: LG Innotek is setting up flexible printed circuit board (PCB) production, with the goal of becoming a primary supplier for next year’s Apple smartphone, according to the Korea Economic Daily.

Quoting unnamed “industry sources,” LG Innotek has almost completed the development of flexible PCBs and is likely to break the ground for related facilities in the latter half of this year. If the rumor is true, does that mean more flexible iPhones?

Most likely. PCBs have the potential to replace multiple rigid boards and/or connectors.

MacSales.com has announced the availability of the new OWC 2.0TB Aura Pro Solid State Drive for mid-2012 to early 2013 Apple MacBook Pros with Retina display. It’s also compatible with 2010-2012 MacBook Air.

The Aura Pro 2.0TB SSD upgrade frees up and boosts capacity on the internal hard drive. It’s also available as a kit with an Envoy Pro enclosure to immediately reuse an Apple internal hard drive, creating a new external USB 3.1 Gen1 portable drive. 

The Aura Pro SSD’s global wear leveling algorithm automatically distributes data evenly and manages program/erase count, maximizing SSD lifespan. Its StaticDataRefresh technology manages free space, gradually refreshing data across the SSD over time. The Hardware BCH ECC corrects errors up to 66-bit/1KB for superior data retention and drive health. The Aura Pro SSD’s advanced security protocols support AES 128/256-bit full-drive encryption.  

The 2.0TB...

LG Innotek is in the process of setting up flexible printed circuit board (PCB) production, with the goal of becoming a primary supplier for the Apple iPhone, according to a report out of LG's home country, South Korea.

Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications. more…

After announcing the global roll out of its Cozmo robots will start in Canada next month, Anki is launching a companion program in its Cozmo app on July 31 to teach kids to code. In a press release, the company laments the current state of coding programs aimed at kids, calling them a “lackluster and disjointed experience.” The company’s Cozmo Code Lab is intended to make for a more intuitive experience, providing a simple visual…

I’m looking to replace my older iPad with a Pro for the reasons Carlson lists in his piece. It really is very close to being a Mac replacement for some photographers.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Apple has said that its public beta program for upcoming software releases including iOS 11 will start in June. That means we can expect the first public betas sometime between now and Friday. Apple’s public beta program this year will allow users to test iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, and tvOS 11 for free, but there are still some things to consider before jumping in…

more…

The company, founded by three former Apple engineers, released the RearVision, its first product, just a year ago.

To commemorate the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, Scott Forstall, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of iOS Software, sat down for an interview with journalist John Markoff at the Computer History Museum. Forstall told stories about the origins of the iPhone and how Steve Jobs saved his life.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Radio Garden uses a Google Earth interface that allows you to roam the planet and click on radio stations around the world.

This is fun to play with, though I wish the collection of stations was larger, more inclusive. But worth a look.

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Yesterday, we embedded a video pulled together by David Pogue on the 4 people Steve Jobs handpicked to review the original iPhone.

David Pogue also wrote a cover story for CBS News with a broader embedded video, which includes bits of the “4 original iPhone reviewers” piece, but goes further, including an interview with Bas Ording, an iPhone engineer who helped pull together the original touch screen mechanics.

...

From June 10 to 21, Apple cut around 58,000 Chinese apps from its App Store, a number six to 10 times larger than usual, People.cn reports. Beijing-based data analysis firm ASO 100 noticed the sudden spike, leading to some grumbling that the move could be seen as retaliation against Tencent, owner of the WeChat app at the center of a debate about Apple’s insistence on taking a 30 percent cut of “tips” sent through social media apps…

Matt Birchler:

Auto updates only happen when you are connected to Wifi, but iOS won’t stop you from updating on cellular if you tap the update button. The fact that someone could blow through 10% of their monthly data plan (2GB) just by updating Snapchat and Messenger once. This could be tough if you do it once, but Facebook updates Messenger all the time. They’ve updated the app 5 times in the past month, which could work out to upwards of 400-500 MB over just a month.

And:

“App thinning” is not a magic bullet that erases this problem though, as Facebook Messenger, which shows as being 154 MB, still downloaded 99MB of data for its update.

And:

So are giant app sizes a problem? Yes. Do delta updates allow these updates to use less data? Yes. Do delta updates make these large apps a non-issue? Hell no!

And from this Washington Post article, titled...

App developers have been having fun with Apple’s ARKit to put together augmented reality apps. We’ve seen a bunch of these already, and two developers have now shown how you can use an iPhone as a tape measure.

It might sound like a boring application, but just look at how much easier it is to measure things in augmented reality …

more…

Apple is boosting its push into the digital health realm once again, hiring Dr. Sumbul Desai, the former head of Stanford’s Center for Digital Health, Internet Health Management reports. The center, created this January to connect the university’s researchers with technology companies to further their health goals, has close ties to Apple. Stanford was an early adopter of Apple’s HealthKit platform, using it as early as 2014 in studies…

In yet another likely reason that external graphics card support for Mac will not exit beta until 2018, there are not any external monitors currently on the market, compatible with macOS High Sierra's eGPU feature, that match the pixel density of Apple's own Retina displays.

Celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the iPhone continue, with former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell and Greg Christie discussing the early iPhone development process in a new interview.

In today’s iLounge Deal, it’s your last change to get a lifetime subscription to Instaread for only $49.99 — that’s 90% off the regular price. This service lets you read books in minutes, with key takeaways and summaries of more than 560 New York Times Nonfiction Bestsellers right on your iPhone, with twenty new books added every month. You get get insights and key points from each book in 15 minutes or less, and read on your iPhone…

For many casual Mac users, the default Apple Mail app is adequate. For those who are power users sending and receiving hundreds of emails each day, Mail just doesn’t cut it. Postbox (US$40) is a powerful and flexible desktop email application for power users that begins where Mail’s limited feature set ends.

Available for both macOS and Windows, Postbox has more available features than we’d be able to cover in a week’s worth of articles. Let’s look at some of the key features that can help power users become more efficient and effective in handling the daily flood of email:

Account Groups - Do you find that your unified Mail inbox is an unorganized mess of work and personal emails? With Postbox’s Account Groups, you can create groups for work and personal accounts that work to separate your work and personal lives.

A look at the Postbox Focus Pane

Focus Pane - With...

The lights are beginning to come on and employees are beginning to move in at the new Steve Jobs Theater over at the new Apple Park.

Drone videographer Duncan Sinfield has posted a new video on his YouTube channel today, giving viewers a fresh look at Apple Park as a small number of employees begin settling into the campus and more buildings take shape.

Now, Sinfield’s late June 2017 update provides a glimpse into Apple’s ongoing construction progress at Apple Park, including a noticeable progression in the number of trees and other pieces of greenery within the “spaceship” building’s circular courtyard. Early on in the video, viewers can also catch a shot of the main atrium of Apple Park, with its floor-to-ceiling glass doors that originally began to take shape in November 2016.

The new drone footage also offers one of the best looks yet at the Steve Jobs Theater, colette with a 360-degree view of the new Apple Park site. On two sides of the lobby,...

Of all the problems iMessage has, Apple says it plans to solve a persistent one: having access to all your conversations on every device, instead of messages and data lying scattered across all the Macs, iPhones, and iPads you use. But is this the right problem to solve?

Apple’s Craig Federighi explained at the 2017 Worldwide Developers Conference that iMessage will be stored in iCloud with “end-to-end encryption,” but provided no other details. Later, he mentioned that Siri training will sync across iCloud instead of being siloed on each of your Apple devices, and that training and marking faces in Photos’ People album will do the same—and with end-to-end encryption.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Did you know you can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate tabs in the Safari web browser of macOS Sierra? Well, you can.

Just hold down Command + Shift, then tap the Left and Right arrow keys move through through the browser tabs from left to right or right to left. Or you can hold down Command + Shift, then tap the Open or Close Bracket keys to move through the browser tabs from left to right or right to left.

You can find more shortcuts here.

(This how-to is based on my experiences and info on Apple's support pages — where the images sometimes come from.)

SpaceX's technical problems that caused an explosion last September seem well behind it, as it pulled off the rare feat of launching two rockets this weekend. On Friday, the Falcon 9 lofted a Bulgarian communications satellite into orbit from Florida...

The first iPhones assembled in India started reaching retail stores the day after Apple confirmed that production had begun, and are now reportedly showing up in many Indian cities. However, hopes that local production would lead to lower prices have not yet been realized …

more…

It's Monday morning, and we're talking about how tweets are now official presidential statements, the problem with the console wars and Snapchat Specs made for underwater.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone being released to the public. In honor of the anniversary, former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell, and Greg Christie have sat down the The Wall Street Journal to offer some backstory on the device’s inception and the development process…

more…

As it has done in past years, Apple this week celebrated Pride 2017 in a handful of cities around the world, participating in parades in San Francisco, New York City, and Toronto. Tim Cook also commemorated the parades with a tweet….

more…

There's been a lot of speculation around whether Mark Zuckerberg is or is not planning to run for office. From his nationwide tour to his rejection of atheism, there have been quite a few moments that could be interpreted as a lead-up to a presidenti...

Brings several improvements to the app’s appearance, as well as added support for Things 3. ($29 new, free update, 14.1 MB)

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Spectacles have made sharing marginally exciting videos on land via Snapchat easier. It also helps that you no longer need to hunt down a vending machine to snag a pair in the US. But a partnership between the social network and Royal Caribbean cruis...

In the embedded video, look for a (hairless!) yours truly at 2:15.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Canada turns 150 years old next week and this page highlights some great apps made by my fellow Canadians.

∞ Read this on The Loop