Benjamin Mayo

Apple has dived into the live sports streaming arena in the last year, striking deals with Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer. Apple also entered advanced negotiations with the NFL for Sunday Ticket, but that deal ultimately went to YouTube.

However, the company does not seem to be slowing its ambitions. The British newspaper Daily Mail reports that Apple is gearing up to bid on a package of English Premier League football soccer streaming rights that is soon coming up for renewal.

Following the surprise departure of Apple Services VP Peter Stern, Apple is reorganizing the expansive Services division by formally splitting the business into three separate units, with a new VP running each group. The VPs will report to Eddy Cue, SVP of services.

Today, Business Insider says that current VP of Apple Music Oliver Schusser has taken responsibility of the business side of Apple TV+, as appointed lead of one of these new units.

Via Business Insider, Apple is currently looking for an ad sales executive focused on TV content. Apple’s involvement in video advertising is already set to expand with the company’s growing live sports deals, like Major League Soccer (beginning next month) and MLB Friday Night Baseball.

Moreover, there’s ongoing speculation that Apple is planning to launch an ads tier of Apple TV+ as soon as this year, which the new ad exec would oversee. The Business Insider report says Apple is looking at candidates similar to Paramount Global’s chief digital advertising officer and Netflix ad sales VP Peter Naylor.

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With Ventura, Apple launches a native Mac Weather app for the first time. It may have taken a while, but they’ve done a great job of it. Apple Weather is a modern Mac weather app with an elegant grid layout of info panels, eye-catching visual backgrounds, and richly detailed charts available to view when you dig in. Here’s everything you can do in Apple Weather for Mac.

Mark Gurman reports that Apple has prioritized development of the operating system for its upcoming AR/VR headset, which is expected to be named “xrOS.” This means Apple has diverted engineering resources away from work on features for iOS 17 and macOS 14, in order to get the headset software over the line in time for a planned product launch later this year.

As a result, Gurman says that iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS 14 may have fewer major new features than originally planned. Separately, work on new augmented reality features for the Apple Store app are apparently almost ready for release.

In today’s edition of the Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman reiterates his reporting that plans for a high-spec Apple Silicon Mac Pro have been canceled.

Moreover, Gurman says the Apple Silicon Mac Pro (featuring merely an M2 Ultra chip) will also look identical to the current Intel Mac Pro, so customers should not expect any major design change. The product will also not support expandable RAM, as the Apple Silicon architecture means all memory is tied to the M2 chip.

In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple intends to announce its long-awaited AR/VR headset product in the spring, before WWDC in June. The device would go on sale later in the fall of 2023, matching analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s timeline.

Gurman says prototype hardware has already been seeded to a small number of developers for testing. However, he says the device is far from finished and Apple still has to work out several “kinks” in the hardware and software.

After years of speculation, it seems like 2023 is finally the time for the official reveal of the first Apple AR/VR headset. But exactly when this year remains unclear.

The latest schedule according to reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reportedly sets the headset up for a late fall release window. Kuo says software development tools and ongoing drop testing issues mean the device is unlikely to be announced until the spring or summer (WWDC?), with a late fall release on the cards.

Apple today announced an expansion to the content offering of its video workout service Apple Fitness+. Beginning from Monday, Fitness+ adds kickboxing as a new workout type.

Kickboxing workouts will be led by Fitness+ trainers Jamie-Ray Hartshorne and new team member Nez Dally. Apple announced a new season of Time to Walk guests, and a new category of meditation sessions – sleep.

Apple Books has launched a new initiative to expand the number of audiobooks available on its store. It is inviting independent writers and larger publishers to opt-in to have their written books converted into audio form using AI voice synthesis models.

Apple announced the scheme towards the end of last year, and — as noted by The Guardian — the first AI-narrated books are now available to download in the Apple Books Store.

Apple has hired veteran Disney executive Ricky Strauss, to take up the role as the new head of marketing for its streaming service Apple TV+. The appointment follows the departure of prior marketing head Chris Van Amburg, in September.

The Information posted its latest roundup of technical details about the upcoming Apple VR/AR headset, a product that the publication has covered extensively across its many years of development. The device is finally expected to make its public debut this year.

One interesting tidbit in today’s story is that the H2 chip inside the latest-gen AirPods Pro secretly supports a low-latency transmission mode, which is designed to work in collaboration with the H2 chip inside the headset. Although the headband will have integrated speakers, The Information says Apple may require AirPods to be used when communicating with others.

If you have an iPhone 13 or earlier device with a degraded battery, this may be the best time to get a battery replacement. On its website, Apple has announced that out-of-warranty battery service for all iPhone models (except iPhone 14) will be rising by $20.

For instance, the iPhone battery service by Apple will increase from $69 to $89 starting in March. The iPhone 14 line is not included in this price adjustment, as it already costs $99 for these models from the outset.

For the holidays, Apple TV+ is running a special promotion for some of their biggest hit series. Until January 3, the first season of Bad Sisters, Ted Lasso, Prehistoric Planet, Trying and The Morning Show are streaming for free for everyone.

That means anyone who can access the Apple TV app can watch, no subscription required. Get the Apple TV app on Apple devices, Roku sticks, Amazon Fire Stick, PlayStation, Xbox, smart TVs and more platforms.

A report from The Information highlights employee retention issues inside Apple’s silicon group, with some employees sourced citing extremely long hours and stressful workloads. Apple is currently embroiled in litigation with at least two startups, Nuvia and Rivos, who have poached dozens of engineers from Apple, and who Apple claims stole proprietary information about its chip designs.

The most interesting anecdote is the claim that Apple was working on a next-generation GPU for the iPhone 14 Pro, but an engineering design mistake was found late in development which meant the plans had to be scrapped …

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Safari in macOS Ventura gains the ability to share groups of tabs with others. This is a great way to keep things organised when planning a trip, working on a group project and more. Here’s how to set up and use Shared Tab Groups.