New 'Ultra-Thin' MacBooks Launching in Second Half of 2016 May Sport Metal Injection Mold-Made Hinges

Last November it was reported that Apple was working with suppliers to "fully redesign" many of the MacBook's internal components to achieve a slimmer design. Today,DigiTimes reports one of those redesigns is a move to metal injection mold-made hinges. 


Metal injection molding is a metalworking process that's used to create very small metal pieces that are typically used by Apple for the internals of products like iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple is looking to use the technology for its MacBook hinges to save space and achieve an "ultra-thin" design, according to DigiTimes. 

The new hinges will be supplied by Amphenol, who claims to produce some of the thinnest sliding hinges in the world on its website. The company partners with Microsoft to produce the parts for the hinges on the Microsoft Surface 4. 

While DigiTimes has a mixed track record reporting Apple's future plans, the report does corroborate an earlier report that Apple was working toward a slimmer MacBook, likely scheduled for release after WWDC 2016. However, it's unclear which MacBook lineup these reports are referring to. Apple's refreshed MacBook is expected to include faster Skylake processors and Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C.

Jony Ive Designed a One-of-a-Kind Yellow iPad Pro for Charity

Jony Ive's design team has created a one-of-a-kind 12.9-inch iPad Pro, iPad Pro Smart Cover, and Apple Pencil holder that will be auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for the London Design Museum, reports Wallpaper. 

The iPad Pro has been anodized with a bright yellow dye, making it unique among Apple's standard color lineup of Space Gray, Silver, Gold, and Rose Gold. Compared to the Gold iPad Pro, it's a much brighter, more vibrant shade of yellow. 

Unique and exclusive customised design by the Apple Design Team for Time for Design. 

Jony Ive showed a prototype mobile phone at the Design Museum in 1990, long before he started working for Apple. He was winner of the museum's first 'Designer of the Year' award in 2003 for the iMac. To support the museum, he and his team in Cupertino have designed this special iPad Pro in a unique colour numbered Edition 1 of 1.

Accompanying the yellow iPad Pro is Smart Cover made from a blue French leather and an Apple Pencil ensconced in an orange Italian calf leather case. According to the auction listing, the iPad Pro's back and the Smart Cover are etched with the words "Edition 1 of 1." 

The iPad Pro has an estimated value of GBP10,000 - 15,000, the amount it is expected to fetch at auction. It will be available to bid on starting on April 28. 

Apple has donated specially designed items for charity auctions several times in the past, with Jony Ive creating a red Mac Pro and solid gold EarPods, among other items.

More Evidence Hints At OS X Name Change To ‘MacOS’

Late last month a discovery deep within the OS X 10.11.4 file structure led to speculation that Apple was planning to rename the Mac operating system to fall more in line with the naming conventions applied to its other major software platforms. The “FUFlightViewController_macOS.nib” interface buried in the OS’ Library files hints at the potential for Apple to go down the route of renaming OS X in a future version to “MacOS”. There’s no official word from the company on if that’s actually going to happen, but a recent update to the company’s Environment webpage – which has since been edited – has given us yet another indication that a change is on the cards.

Introducing the Apple Watch and the fourth-generation Apple TV last year meant that Apple had two new operating systems to deal with in addition to iOS and OS X. The advent of those two new products came with the build and release of watchOS and tvOS, both of which fall in line with the iOS naming convention that has been in place for the last six years.

It’s likely that we won’t hear any official word about the future of OS X – both in terms of functionality and its name – until this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June, but the recent discovery in the FAQ section at Apple’s Environment webpage, along with the fact that the company has actually changed the wording back to OS X, has certainly raised speculation levels.

The webpage directly referred to ‘MacOS’ when discussing the power consumption levels of Apple’s products. The wording – prior to being changed back to OS X – was as follows:

To model customer use, we measure the power consumed by a product while it is running in a simulated scenario. Daily usage patterns are specific to each product and are a mixture of actual and modeled customer use data. Years of use, which are based on first owners, are assumed to be four years for MacOS and tvOS devices and three years for iOS and watchOS devices. More information on our product energy use is provided in our Product Environmental Reports.

We aren’t sure when the second change was made, but Apple’s web team has since edited the page’s content to reference the platform as “OS X” rather than “MacOS”. Apple may still want to publicly refer to the its desktop OS as OS X, but we’ve seen enough now to believe that a name change could be coming this June during WWDC where Apple could potentially announce OS X 10.12 with Siri support and the return of the Photos app.

Starting from Tomorrow, You Will Be Able to Play PS4 Games on Your Mac

In early March, Sony had announced that its next major firmware update for the PlayStation 4 will its Remote Play feature to Windows and Mac-based PCs. The feature will allow one to stream and play their PS4 games on their PC without being physically present in front of their console.

Well, the Japanese giant today announced that it will start rolling out this firmware update to all PlayStation 4 users from tomorrow. The firmware has been under beta testing for more than a month now, but the ability to stream games to Mac was missing from it.

Once you install the system software v3.50 update on your PS4 tomorrow, you will have to download and install the Remote Play installer on your Mac as well.

The Remote Play feature in PS4 will work with all Macs running OS X 10.10 or 10.11. Depending on the configuration of your Mac and your internet connection’s bandwidth, you will be able to stream the games in 360p, 540p and 720p resolution; and at up to 60fps. Your DualShock 4 controller need to be connected to your Mac using a USB cable so that it can act as a game controller.

[Via PlayStation blog]

Pangu Apple TV 4 Jailbreak For tvOS 9.0.1 Released [Download]

As promised, Pangu team has just released jailbreak for Apple TV 4 running tvOS 9.0-9.0.1. This is the first ever public jailbreak released for Apple TV 4 since the debut of the set-top box late last year.

It is important to note here that the jailbreak is compatible only with tvOS 9.0 to 9.0.1, which means if your Apple TV is already updated to tvOS 9.1.x or the latest tvOS 9.2, you won’t be able to take advantage of this jailbreak. Also since tvOS 9.0.x is no longer being signed, you can’t downgrade back to older firmware either from tvOS 9.1.x and 9.2.

You can download Pangu jailbreak for Apple TV 4 from here.

Apple Releases OS X 10.11.4 with Support for Live Photos in Messages, Password Protected Notes and More

Apple has just released OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 for the Mac to the public. Apple had first seeded OS X 10.11.4 to developers and public beta testers in January.

The new software update isn’t stocked with a plethora of new features, but it does bring support for Live Photos within the Messages app. It also supports password protected Notes.

OS X 10.11.4 also makes it possible to import data and notes from Evernote into the stock Notes app. The update also fixes an issue with opening Twitter links, which previously led to only broken paths.

OS X 10.11.4 can be installed through the Mac App Store and the Update tab, or you can manually download and install the combo update using the download link which we will provide as soon as it is available.

What Is the Difference between iPhone SE and iPhone 5s?

At its ‘Let us loop you in’ event today, Apple unveiled the iPhone SE. This new iPhone from the company replaces the iPhone 5s, which was released in 2013. The handset is a huge upgrade over its predecessor in almost every way, and makes buying a 4-inch iPhone in 2016 a viable option once again.

If you are wondering how exactly the iPhone SE is better than the iPhone 5s though, read below to find out the major and minor differences between the two phones.

Display & Dimensions:

• Both phones come with a 4-inch IPS LCD display. However the iPhone SE display is based on a new generation IPS LCD panel that makes it brighter and gives it better viewing angles. It is also laminated that gives the feeling of UI icons floating on the glass surface itself
• The 4-inch display on the iPhone SE comes with the same resolution as the iPhone 5s: 1136 x 640
• The iPhone SE and iPhone 5s have the exact same dimensions and almost weight the same as well; the iPhone SE is heavier than the 5s by just 1g (112g vs. 113g)

Camera:

• The iPhone SE comes with a 12MP f/2.2 shooter, which is the same camera setup found on the iPhone 6s. The iPhone 5s, in comparison, comes with an 8MP shooter
• The iPhone SE is capable of recording videos in 4K resolution Full HD at 60fps, and slo-mo videos at up to 240fps. The iPhone 5s cannot record videos in 4K resolution or at up to 240fps in slo-mo
• The new 4-inch iPhone can take panoramas in up to 63MP resolution, which is significantly higher than what the iPhone 5s can do
• It is possible to shoot Live Photos on the iPhone SE, which the iPhone 5s lacks
• The FaceTime camera resolution on the iPhone SE remains the same as on the iPhone 5s: 1.2MP
• However, the iPhone SE now features Retina Flash, as seen on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus

Chip, Performance, Storage & Battery:

• The iPhone SE is powered by an A9 chip. This is the same chip that powers the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. In comparison, the iPhone 5s features an A7 chip, which was Apple’s first 64-bit chip
• Apple says that the iPhone SE is up to 2x faster than the iPhone 5s in CPU tasks and up to 3x faster in GPU tasks
• The M9 motion co-processor on the A9 chip is vastly superior to the M7 co-processor found on the A7 chip
• The new 4-inch iPhone from Apple comes with 2GB RAM, four times of what the iPhone 5s packs (512MB)
• Apple will be offering the iPhone SE in 16GB and 64GB storage options. In comparison, the iPhone 5s was available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB storage variants
• While not announced by Apple, it is all but given that the iPhone SE also comes with a faster internal storage
• The A9 chipset on the iPhone SE also allows it to offer always-on ‘Hey Siri’ voice recognition
• The iPhone SE offers faster LTE connectivity than iPhone 5s: 150Mbps vs. 100Mbps
• The handset also supports more LTE bands than Apple’s flagship iPhone for 2013
• The iPhone SE also offers slightly better battery life than the iPhone 5s: Up to 13 hours on Wi-Fi and LTE web browsing each compared to 10 hours on the iPhone 5s

Colors

• The iPhone SE will be available in four colors: Silver, Space Gray, Gold and Rose Gold. The iPhone 5s was only available in three colors: Gold, Silver and Space Gray

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While there might be some other minor differences between the iPhone SE and the iPhone 5s, the above are the differences that you should be aware of.