Benjamin Mayo

Belkin is going to sell one of the first official accessories for Apple Vision Pro, a clip attachment for the headset’s battery pack. Via Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the Belkin battery clip will go on sale alongside the Vision Pro launch on February 2, and be available in Apple retail stores.

The clip will let customers attach the Vision Pro battery to their clothing, if they don’t have a handy pocket or bag.

Via Bloomberg, Apple is closing an office in San Diego, which housed part of the Data Operations Annotations group, which evaluates Siri customer responses and helps improve accuracy of the system, among other duties.

The reorganization impacts 121 jobs in San Diego. Apple has offered all affected employees jobs at its Austin, Texas, offices if they are willing to relocate.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro and Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon is now available to stream and watch on Apple TV+.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the movie depicts how members of the wealthy Osage nation were murdered in a plot to take over the land rights to the plentiful Oklahoma oil supplies. The film is based on the book of the same name by David Grann.

The first original of the year for Apple TV+ is a new British police crime drama called Criminal Record, starring Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo. The first two episodes are streaming now, with the remainder of the season rolling out weekly.

Apple seems to have started 2024 with a winner, with Criminal Record receiving strong critical acclaim. The show is currently touting a 100% recommended score on Rotten Tomatoes. If you’ve never had Apple TV+ before, you can get a seven day free trial here.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the launch preparations for Apple Vision Pro are in full swing, across Apple’s retail division and the supply chain.

Gurman writes that the headset is already shipping to distribution warehouses in the US, seemingly in enough quantity to be able to stock Apple retail stores for a February launch.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro and Lily Gladstone. The film hit theaters in October.

The three-and-a-half-hour epic is wrapping up its run across thousands of cinemas worldwide. But when will it be available to stream on Apple TV+?

With iOS 17.2, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users are able to record 3D spatial videos, which will be rendered for playback on the soon-to-be-released Apple Vision Pro headset.

However, on the iPhone 15 Pro, spatial video is limited to 1080p resolution at 30 FPS. However, there are already some tech spec upgrades swirling in the rumor mill that suggest Apple may be able to offer 4K spatial video quality with the iPhone 16.

Although the iPhone 16 is not coming until later this year, the rumor mill doesn’t wait and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today reports that the front camera specifications are one of the upgrades to expect arriving with the iPhone 17 lineup next year.

In a blog post, Kuo said that manufacturer Genius is the primary lens supplier for the iPhone front camera, and it can expect to see a revenue boost from a higher spec iPhone 17 front camera module. This will reportedly include an upgrade in resolution to 24-megapixels, up from 12-megapixels in the current phone models (and the forthcoming iPhone 16 lineup).

Update: Here’s Apple’s statement to 9to5Mac on this decision:

At Apple, we work tirelessly to create products and services that meaningfully impact users’ lives. It’s what drives our teams — Clinical, Design and Engineering — to dedicate years to developing scientifically validated health, fitness and wellness features for Apple Watch, and we are inspired that millions of people around the world have benefited greatly from this product. We strongly disagree with the USITC decision and resulting exclusion order, and are taking all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible.

The December 25 ban on Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales, due to a patent dispute between Apple and Masimo was first reported by us last week. Apple ended watch sales on the online store a few days ago, and now the Apple Watch is also unavailable at Apple retail stores.

The ITC confirmed this morning that the Biden administration chose not to overturn the ban. “After careful consultations, Ambassador Katherine Tai decided not to reverse the ITC’s determination”, the agency said in a statement.

Apple’s streaming service, Apple TV+, continues to rack up awards and garner industry prestige. How popular the service is exactly remains unclear, although Apple shows did appear on the Nielsen charts streaming three times this year.

But exactly how much content did Apple release in total this year? By our count, Apple released 50 original TV shows and movies in 2023, overall. A solid figure, however it is actually down 10% compared to 2022. There are some reasons for the year-over-year slowdown and Apple’s overall commitment to producing original content appears strong …

Apple today announced a new partnership with The Athletic and Wirecutter, which will see their content included in the Apple News app. The Athletic sports coverage is now accessible to News+ subscribers, and Wirecutter product review articles will be coming to the News app for all users early next year.

Notably, these publications are owned by The New York Times, which pulled its content from the News app more than three years ago.

The new Pixelmator Pro update, version 3.5, brings full support for HDR image content. With the new Pixelmator, users can shoot HDR photos on their iPhone, edit with HDR layers inside Pixelmator Pro and then export into a variety of standard HDR image formats.

You can get the new Pixelmator as a free update for existing users, and for new purchases it’s currently on sale at just $25 in the Mac App Store.

Apple has offered to open up the iPhone NFC system that Apple Pay uses, in response to an ongoing EU antitrust investigation, according to a report this morning from Reuters.

In lieu of being served with formal EU antitrust charges, Apple’s offer aims to head off the regulator’s concerns.

With iOS 17, Apple changed the default iPhone notification sound – and many users didn’t like it. Some said it was too quiet; others simply preferred the old sound. But there wasn’t much you could do about it – until now.

With the release of the iOS 17.2 software update for iPhone, iPhone users can now customize their alert tone and choose their own sound for default notifications. Here’s how.

After being leaked earlier, it’s now official. The Apple Podcasts app will be available on Tesla’s in-car entertainment system with the holiday update, rolling out next week.

Podcasts app will be available for Model 3, Model Y, Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck owners. The app is free but the Tesla Premium Connectivity subscription is required to stream shows over the car’s cellular connection. Podcasts joins Music as the second Apple app on the Tesla platform. And it looks set to be a pretty full-featured release.

Siri is rumored to be getting an overhaul next year as part of a wider AI features initiative inside Apple. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today posits that this goal may also be having implications on hardware design, in a post on his Medium blog.

Kuo says that all iPhone 16 models, expected to arrive in fall 2024, will feature significantly upgraded microphone hardware. The new mics will pick up the user’s voice better, helping improve the accuracy of dictation and Siri voice commands.

As first reported in October, Apple will discontinue the standalone iTunes Movies and iTunes TV Shows apps on the Apple TV box, starting with tvOS 17.2 The warning message seen above has started appearing in the release candidate version of tvOS 17.2 beta, released yesterday.

Apple directs users to the TV app instead to manage their purchases, and buy and rent from the store. At least as far as Apple’s video content is concerned, the iTunes brand is on the way out.