News & Reviews:   Apple

Love it or hate it, the Dynamic Island feature on the iPhone 14 Pro series has been the talk of the tech world recently. However, the current implementation of the interactive island over the device’s pill-shaped display cutout may soon change in iOS 16.1 as Apple recently added a grey border around the Dynamic Island in the latest version of the iOS beta.

The fight between the European Union and Apple on standardising the charging port as USB-C port has come to an end. According to the latest report, the law passes with 602 votes in favour, 13 against and 8 abstentions. It means that Apple would have to switch from the Lightning port to the USB-C port by 2024.

Apple added a new crash detection feature to the iPhone 14 series which will automatically call emergency services if the owner doesn’t respond after it detects a car crash had happened. A real-life example of the feature in action happened yesterday in Nebraska, United States after a passenger’s iPhone 14 series smartphone automatically alerted responders of a car crash that its owner was in. Tragically, all 6 involved in the accident were killed after the car they were in hit a tree.

As more Widgets for the iOS 16 Lockscreen get introduced, Google is the latest player to launch not one, not two but three new ones. At the moment of this post, only the Google Drive widget is available whereas Gmail and Google News are coming soon too.

Apple started using its in-house chip for the Macs in 2020 with the M1 in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and 24-inch iMac. After that, it continued to make enhanced versions of the chip, M1 Pro and M1 Max, for the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, then in 2022 we get the M1 Ultra in the new Mac Studio. A new report has arrived saying that M2 might not stop at Ultra, as the company could introduce an even more powerful variant. 

Ever since the inception of the Face ID on the iPhone X a few years ago, Apple removed the Touch ID in favour of the former. Even now, there are still many users and fans who prefer the Touch ID, and we may probably never see it.

Apple recently refreshed its AirPods Pro lineup with the second-generation version having some notable improvements over the original, including a new “Adaptive Transparency” mode. However, despite the new mode being exclusive to the second-gen Airpods Pro, some users are seeing the option to have it enabled on their first-gen AirPods Pro in iOS 16.1 beta 3.

It seems that the iPhone 14 series is not as popular as Apple has hoped for it to be, whereby it is allegedly lower than the tech giant’s anticipated demand projection. So much so, that Apple has now reportedly abandoned its plans to increase production levels of its new flagship smartphone series.

Logitech has released a range of Mac accessories today, including two keyboards and two mice. One of the keyboards is also the company's first mechanical keyboard for Mac, which is a tweaked version of the MX Mechanical Mini launched earlier this year.

iPadOS 16 was unveiled by Apple during WWDC 2022 but the update itself is not coming to iPads until next month. One of the most stand-out features has got to be Stage Manager and it looks like Apple is making a ‘u-turn’ from its previous decision on the feature and will be bringing it into non-M1-powered iPads.