Editor’s desk: MacBook Pro devolution, Apple Watch and Research, Vaping nannying

Peter Cohen ∙ November 17, 2019
16-inch MacBook Pro

This week's was dominated by a few headlines that caught my attention. The first, of course, was Apple's long-awaited introduction of the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. The next came when Apple announced the release of its Research app and announced three studies designed to work with it, all on the same day as Stanford researchers offered up the full results of their 2017 Apple Watch heart study. The final thing was Apple's controversial decision to nix the availability of vaping apps on the App Store - which isn't sitting right with medical marijuana advocates, especially. Let's dive right in.

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The Mandalorian iPhone wallpapers

Jim Gresham ∙ November 17, 2019

On Tuesday, November 12, Disney launched its official streaming service, Disney+. Coming on the heels of Apple TV+, Disney's service hit 10M subscribers by the end of week one. We are celebrating the few original flagship show with Star Wars The Mandalorian iPhone wallpapers. This wallpaper pack is comprised of original fan art.

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Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Noctis Neo, Siliqua Pro, Sunflower, and more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 17, 2019

It's been one heck of a week given everything that's been going on with the checkra1n team's new jailbreak tool, but jailbreak developers continue to bang out new new and exciting jailbreak tweaks that make tinkering with a pwned handset a lot more fun.

In this roundup, we'll discuss all the latest jailbreak tweaks that were launched from Monday, November 11th to Sunday, November 17th. As always, we'll kick things off by discussing our favorites and then wrap things up with an outline of the rest afterward.

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Apple Watch Noise app helps autistic man with social issues

Peter Cohen ∙ November 16, 2019
Noise app on Apple Watch

Apple introduced the Noise app with watchOS 6 this year. The feature – available on Apple Watch Series 4 and later - measures ambient noise, and is aimed at helping Apple Watch wearers to protect their hearing. Now People magazine has a story about how the Noise app is helping an autistic man to manage an issue that could cause social discomfort.

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Cortana to be discontinued as iOS and Android app

Peter Cohen ∙ November 16, 2019
Cortana

Microsoft will be discontinuing its Cortana app for iOS and Android in January, at least in select countries. The Verge reports that a new support article has appeared on Microsoft's UK, Canada, and Australia's web site instances notifying users of the pending change.

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Trouble jailbreaking with checkra1n? Try this…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 15, 2019

If you’re anything like me, then you’re ecstatic about the release of the checkra1n jailbreak. It’s an exciting development that utilizes @axi0mX’s checkm8 bootrom exploit to facilitate software liberation on handsets ranging from the iPhone 5s to the iPhone X. Moreover, it’s the first public jailbreak to support iOS 13.

But it’s difficult to ignore the elephant in the room here, and that’s the sheer number of public beta testers that have reported challenges getting into DFU mode and jailbreaking, citing common issues such as Error-20 and failure to boot jailbroken.

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How to upgrade the RAM on your 13-inch MacBook Pro

Peter Cohen ∙ Updated December 6, 2019
13-inch MacBook Pro RAM

Rather than budget for a new computer, sometimes you can put together a deal that will keep you going with what you already have - or what you can get your hands on cheap - that turns out to be a better value. That's what I discovered recently with a 13-inch MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) that I got my hands on. Here's what I did.

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