Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said he feels Apple will do an October Mac event and likely there they will unveil the new 3nm M3 chip
DigiTimes has a 3nm chip from Apple will arrive in the 3rd quarter (they likely mean calendar quarter and not Apple’s 3rd quarter).
As for which Macs? Possibly the iMac, 13-inch MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple could also deliver updates to the M-Series iPad Pros too.
Updates for Macs using higher end chips like the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros and the Mac Studio would likely see M3 updates in 2024.
iPhone 15 could be fashionably late
A BofA analyst said in a research notes that his checks of the supply chain are indicating that Apple might have to “slip” the release date of the iPhone 15s back a couple weeks
So while we’ll likely get an announcement in September the devices might not ship until sometime in early October
A separate piece from “The Information” indates that indicatesthe new displays with thinner bezels are causing issues for LG failing reliability tests during a process where the display is fused to the metal shell.
The lower yields could lead to supply shortages at launch
The iPhone 15 Pro Max, likely the model most early buyers will be clamoring for, seems to be hit the hardest by the supply issues.
There are also reports in the Wall Street Journal of a different delay
This time it’s the new TSMC semiconductor factory in Arizona.
According to the report TSMC is having trouble finding people in the US with expertise in building semiconductor and might need to bring in experienced engineers from Taiwan.
If so this could slow the opening of the facility into 2025.
The plant was originally hoped to be up and running and supplying 4nm chips to Apple in 2024
The iPhone 16 Pro Max next year could feature a “periscope ultra-long telephoto combination.” according to a Weibo leaker
Not totally clear how an “ultra-long” would differ from the rumored periscope lens that will probably come in the iPhone 15 Pro Max
Likely it will just have “more” zoom. This years is expected to be 3x or more (maybe up to 6x), so I’d assume next year maybe 6x or 10x depending.
Has Apple Maps taken a turn?
Both 9to5 Mac and MacRumors cited a recent report in the New YourK Times about Apple Maps
The NYT spoke to random people about their thoughts on Apple Maps and the results were generally positive reactions especially around transit directions (which makes sense in a large city)
Another woman in the piece noted that Apple had better data specifically when it came to listing street names vs Google Maps
It was not an exhaustive research study, but just an anecdotal observation.
Still I think it’s generally true that Apple Maps is much improved.
The biggest place it’s deficient for me in “Look Around”. Google Maps Street View has much more coverage.
Unity brings tools to VisionPro devs
Unity has launched beta versions of their development tools for VisionOS
They showed them off and discussed the partnership with Apple during the WWDC announcements
Now Unity editor and Unity’s PolySpatial technology is available for developers to start using for creating apps and games for Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset
PolySpatial is the big piece that was designed in collaboration with Apple to make it easier for devs already familiar with and using Unity to develop and port their titles to the VisionPro
As an example the Apple Arcade Game "What the Golf?" is currently being ported to run natively on the VisionPro using the new Unity tools.
Apple rolled out an update updates to their software update system that includes the ability to push out firmware updates for the Apple VisionPro
According to Twitter leaker "Aaronp613" the update had references to three different battery model numbers for the VisionPro
The “current” one is Apple Vision Pro battery model is A2781.
But there were also references for model numbers A2988 and A2697
It’s unclear what this means, but might mean they will offer battery packs in different sizes.
Apple working on it’s own AI
According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman
He actually notes that Apple has been working on AI for years but that, in light of technologies like ChatGPT and Google Bard, they’ve stepped up efforts
Internally it sounds like the Apple is calling it “Apple GPT”, but the large language model framework is actually code names “Ajax” and is running on Google cloud and using Google's Jax machine learning framework
The piece also noted that at one point Apple contemplated working with OpenAI, but that deal didn’t happen
To be clear, at least for now, this is an internal tool for Apple employees. Not meant for a public release. You currently need special access to even be able to use it and “Any output from it can’t be used to develop features bound for customers”.
It seems to be there so Apple Employees aren’t using external tools, like ChatGPT, that are controlled by other companies.
Apple has long been working on AI and Machine Learning technologies and incorporated a lot of it already into existing products
Now it appears their driving harder to develop their own generative AI chatbot, but they face challenges their competitors do not.
How to incorporate the technology but still maintain their commitment to users security and privacy.
Apple Pay launched in Morocco
Apple Pay launched in Morocco with CIH Bank and CAM
CIH Bank's customers will be able to add their Mastercard credit cards and bank cards to the Wallet app
UK could lose FaceTime and iMessage
If a new proposed bill moves forward
It appears the UK wants to update their 2016 Investigatory Powers Act (IPA)
That Act currently allows the British Home Office to force technology companies to disable security features like end-to-end encryption without telling the public.
It’s unknown if any companies to-date have been asked to do so
But, at the moment, the current process involves independent oversight via a review process and tech companies can appeal before having to comply.
The proposed changes to the law would require companies to get approval from the Home Office before making security changes to their products and allow the Home Office to demand security features be disabled immediately without a review or appeal and without informing the public.
The proposed changes are in an eight week consultation process which gives professional bodies, interest groups, academia, and the public the ability to review and weigh in on the proposed changes.
Apple obviously is in opposition to the proposed changes and submitted a nine-page document detailing their concerns
In it Apple states that they would not, “…make changes to security features specifically for one country that would weaken a product for all users.”
That would suggest, should the UK government move forward, that Apple would remove access to apps like FaceTime and iMessage for UK customers.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
Making Apple Maps better
Earlier we discussed Apple Maps and how it’s improving
Did you know you can personally help make it better? Ever frustrated when Apple Maps is wrong? You can do something about it and Apple DOES listen.
When you find an error, like a wrong street name or wrong location of a point of interest, you can tell Apple
Then their ground truth team will check and verify the information and make corrections if they need to
I’ve done this several times in my town when points of interest or business information has been wrong.
When you in most places looking at the information card, just scroll to the bottom and there is a “Report an issue” link or button
Press that and you can report the problem
It will prompt you for what kind of issue
Street issue
Place Issue
Route issue
or you can report an issue like a crash, hazard, or speed check
And in my experience they are fairly quick at making corrections and you’ll get a notification when they do
Wireless Time Machine Backups
Kevin wrote in because he used to use a TimeCapsule for backing up over his network
When the Time Capsule died moved to a Linksys Velop MX5300 router
That has the ability to attach a drive via USB and use that as a network drive
But Kevin says that while it shares via SMB and he can see it in the Finder, he is unable to “interact” with it
Once it’s mounted and visible as a network share I would think you could see it from the Time Machine preferences to add it as a volume
Settings > General > Time Machine
Click the “+” to add a new Time Machine volume
Select it to add
Maybe the drive format make a difference? If you’ve formatted it as APFS, maybe try HFS?
Even better… I would recommend finding a NAS drive that support network Time Machine backups
They can be expensive, but for a network time machine you could go with a lower cost 1 or 2-bay drive (I suggest 2-bay). Like the DS233j or DS233 models. They run just under USD 200 and then you’ll need to add drives, but 4TB drives are now under USD $100.
Go with the Seagate Exos or Western Digital Red drives built for NAS
You could also go with the Western Digital My Cloud Home or MyCloud Expert Series EX2 products
Another option could be to use an old Mac and enable a Time Machine shared folder
