🔍 Traces of unknown 'Apple Invites' app found

📰 9to5Mac reports that traces of an unknown “Apple Invites” app have been found in the code of iOS 18.3 beta 2, which is designed to help organize meetings and personal events and also has iCloud integration

🤝 Inside this app, there's a GroupKit element that's been in the system since iOS 18.0 and hasn't been used anywhere before – it's designed to manage databases of groups of people, contacts and their data.

📆 Similar functionality already exists in Calendar app, but a new standalone app could have more advanced and convenient functionality, as happened with the Passwords app.

@iPhone

#iOS #apps

😤 Mark Zuckerberg criticized Apple for its lack of innovation and strict third-party developer rules

They haven’t invented anything great in a while. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone, and now they’re just kind of sitting on it 20 years later,

– said the founder, chairman and CEO of Meta.

📺 In a nearly three-hour-long episode of the Joe Rogan Podcast on Friday that covered a wide range of topics, Zuckerberg also praised Apple, saying, “The iPhone is probably one of the most important inventions of all time.”

📉 But he noted Apple’s decline in iPhone sales as people wait to upgrade their phones. (After a recent slump, iPhone sales jumped 6% year over year in its fiscal fourth quarter.)

😫 In an effort to offset the company’s lack of product innovation, he said that Apple is “squeezing people” for money and pointed to the 30% commission Apple charges on app developers using its payment systems. Additionally, Zuckerberg claimed the company makes it difficult for third-party plug-ins to have success on iPhone devices:

They build stuff like Airpods which are cool, but they’ve thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way,

– he said.

😁 Zuckerberg recalled frustrations surrounding his desire to have the Ray-Ban Meta Advanced Smart Glasses easily connect to the iPhone. He went on to say that Apple allows its products to connect seamlessly to any Apple device, while leaving competitors in the dark about its connection protocol.

I mean the good news about the tech industry is it’s like it’s just super dynamic and things are constantly getting invented. I think companies, if you just don’t do a good job for like 10 years, eventually you’re just going to get beat by someone.

– Zuckerberg said.

💬 Do you agree with Mark or not?

@iPhone

#AppleInc #criticism

📰 Apple's 2025 plans from Bloomberg's tech reporter

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman shared a fresh article on Apple's upcoming updates.

🔉 About HomePad

According to the insider, Apple plans to unveil a new home center “HomePad” in March, but sales could start much later. That's because the device's system (codenamed Pebble) is closely tied to Apple Intelligence's App Intents features, which will only appear in iOS 18.4, meaning the device itself won't be available for sale until the system's release, which is April at the earliest.

More features for the “HomePad” with Apple Intelligence and for other devices in the ecosystem will launch with the “LLM Siri” under development, which will launch in iOS 19, with full access in iOS 19.4 (spring 2026).

🥽 About Apple Vision Pro 2

The device will be released in 2026, but could be announced later this year. Meanwhile, active production of a new spatial computer with an M5 chip inside could also begin later this year. And at the moment, the more important goal for the company is to release a cheaper version of the Vision Pro.

🎧 Apple's smart glasses with cameras and AirPods with cameras

These are in the early stages of design, they will NOT be released in the next year.

📲 About iPad

The basic 11th generation iPad may have a simplified A17 Pro chip with 5 GPU cores and 8GB of RAM – just like the iPad mini (A17 Pro) already has. This way, the company will be able to provide the basic tablet with Apple Intelligence support. The iPad 11 is expected to be released in the spring, along with the iPhone SE4 (aka iPhone 16E).

@iPhone

#HomePad #iOS #VisionPro #iPad

💻 Dell shamelessly copies Apple in major PC rebrand

📰 The new approach of Dell is branding its computers as “Dell,” “Dell Pro” and “Dell Pro Max,” depending on their configurations.

😁 It doesn’t take a marketing expert to see this as a page from Apple’s playbook. During Dell’s briefing with reporters on the change, the company said it made the move because of a positive consumer response to the terminology. That’s no surprise given the popularity of the iPhone and how long Apple has been using this naming strategy.

💻 To be fair to Dell — no matter how shameless the move may be — Apple doesn’t own those terms. And the tech industry is rife with similar nomenclature. Both Apple and Samsung use the Plus or + suffix on their larger phone offerings, and plenty of companies use “Pro” in their names. (It’s worth noting that Apple adopted the “Ultra” designation for its high-end chips and watches years after Samsung started using it.)

@iPhone

#Macbook #market

📱 Free Apple TV+ at New York's Grand Central

📍 Apple placed a temporary glass structure at New York Grand Central Terminal as part of the marketing campaign for the second season of the TV series “Severance”. Inside it there are the main actors of the series in the roles of their characters.

🎥 In addition to the actors, Ben Stiller (“Meet the Fockers”), who is the director of the series, also visited the installation. However, he did not get on the video.

🍿 The plot follows Mark Scout, an employee of Lumon Industries who agrees to a "severance" program in which his non-work memories are separated from his work memories.

🔜 The second season of “Severance” starts as early as this Friday, January 17. The series got 8.7 on 📱 and the highest score got the ninth episode of the first season – 9.7.

@iPhone

#AppleTV #ApplePromo

🫙 It turned out there is Apple jam that is not for sale

📱 Tim Cook in his interview revealed that Apple collects the fruit from the trees that are around the Apple Park campus, using it to make jam. He shared spiced apple jam created from ‌Apple Park‌ trees with the podcast hosts. Apple primarily has apple trees because the land where the ‌Apple Park‌ campus is located used to be an orchard, but there are also cherry trees.

🫡 Tim said that his upbringing was "centered on work." He had a newspaper route at age 11, and at age 14, he "flipped burgers" at a fast food place called Tastee-Freez. His parents "instilled hard work," and the value of it has stayed with him "for a lifetime." That's why he doesn't see himself retired and "being at home doing nothing".

🤩 Apple has a hybrid working schedule where employees are allowed to work from home up to two days a week. So, Tim said he works from home only on Fridays because "nobody's in the office and it's depressing when there's nobody there."

🔎 Some other tidbits:

・Cook loves white wine, specifically Chardonnay. His favorite is Kistler.
・For breakfast, he eats a protein rich cashew cereal from Whole Foods with unsweetened almond milk.
・Cook doesn't cook, and eats most of his meals during the week at Caffé Macs. He takes dinner home.
・Ethel's Fancy in Palo Alto is one of his preferred restaurants, where he likes to get the octopus.
・He eats a lot of fish.
・Cook loves chocolate, especially dark chocolate.
・Table Manners has a tradition of asking guests about their last meal. Cook said his would be an appetizer of hamachi crudo with jalapeno, a branzino for a main dish, broccolini as a side, and anything chocolate for dessert.
・When not working, Cook likes to hike, and he likes to go to national parks for vacation.
・Cook recently went caving in Slovenia.

As usual,

We have so many things coming up,

said Apple's CEO.

@iPhone

#AppleInc #interviews

📱 Apple continues promoting “Severance“ season 2 with its premiere today

🎈 Apple has launched a special site for the premiere of the second season of the Apple TV+ series “Severance” where you can have your photo printed onto a blue balloon!

📺 The first episode of the second season is already available to watch, and the second episode will be released exactly one week later on Friday, January 24!

P.S. Remember that with the purchase of iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs or Macs, you can get 3 months of Apple TV+ for free. All you have to do to claim your subscription is set up your device and open the Apple TV app. You should be presented with the offer right away, but if not, you'll see it on the Apple TV+ tab. Just remember to redeem the Apple TV+ offer within 90 days of setting up or you'll miss out on your free trial.

@iPhone

#AppleTV #ApplePromo #free

🇺🇸 Apple CEO to attend Trump's inauguration

🔔 Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with other technology industry leaders, plans to attend Donald Trump's presidential inauguration tomorrow, on January 20.

👥 If Tim Cook decides to attend the event, he will join other prominent Silicon Valley figures, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta Platforms' Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk.

💰 Earlier it became known that Cook personally sent $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund, as did the rest of the industry.

😁 Was this the payment for an inauguration ticket?!

@iPhone

#AppleInc

📱 18.3 leak gives a clue аbout spring launch timing

👂 Coming iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and iPad Air 7 are rumoured to have preinstalled iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3. It suggests that Apple will announce them by March or April, before the release of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models with the M4 chip will be announced earlier than those other devices, so the new MacBook Air models could end up being Apple's first product announcement of 2025.

The account on 𝕏, which has a proven track record for iOS information, leaked the build numbers for iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 versions of coming dеvices and wished to remain anonymous. The leaked builds:

・iOS 18.3 for iPhone SE (4th generation) (22D8062)
・iPadOS 18.3 for iPad 11 and iPad Air (2025) (22D2060)
・iPadOS 18.3 for iPad 11 and iPad Air (2025) (22D2062)

The most important changes in iOS 18.3 will remain invisible to the eye as the update aims to optimize and fix previous bugs. Nevertheless, there are innovations, and some of them appeared in iOS 18.3 Release Candidate:

・Apple disabled the notification summary in Apple Intelligence for apps in the News & Entertainment category due to the neural network heavily altering their content, often turning them into fakes.
・There is now an option to disable summaries for some notifications.
・In Camera Control they renamed some toggles for easier access.
・In the sidebar of iMessage there is a Genmoji button that takes you to the emoji creation section. Tim Cook himself uses them!
・PDF editing warnings will appear. They will point out that cropping the document won’t actually remove any data, and some PDF viewers may still be able to see what you cut out.
・❗️ Apple Intelligence will now be enabled by default.
・Visual Intelligence will be able to add events to the Calendar directly when recognized. It also shows real-time information about animals and plants.

🔜 The final iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 betas were seeded this week, and the software updates are expected to be released next week for existing iPhone and iPad models.

@iPhone

#iOS #iPadOS #Macbook #rumors