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Teardown of 13″ MacBook Pro with Touch Bar reveals “cosmetic” speaker grilles, other tidbits

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 16, 2016

After disassembling the base 13-inch MacBook Pro model without the Touch Bar, teardown wizards over at iFixit have now taken apart Apple’s Touch Bar-equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro. From the inside, it’s an entirely different computer with a totally different design that has more in common with its 15-inch brethren. Among other things, the teardown analysis has found that the external speaker grilles in the top half of the case exist mostly for “cosmetic” purposes.

That's because the improved sound is being projected from a pair of air vents on the sides of the case. By comparison, the base 13-inch MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar does push sound through the speaker grilles as it lacks the air vents.

Other differences between the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and its cheaper 13-inch variant that lacks the Touch Bar include a differently laid out internal components to make room for the Touch Bar itself which, by the way, is hard to replace.

Watch designers creating prototypes in Apple’s studios

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 16, 2016

Apple yesterday announced a $300 coffee table photo book, titled “Designed by Apple in California”, which chronicles 20 years of iconic product designs. Jony Ive, Apple's Chief Design Officer, discussed the photo book with Wallpaper.com and Japanese design firm Casa Brutus.

The Casa Brutus interview is accompanied by a rare video which offers a unique glimpse into Apple's secretive Industrial Design Studio, showing designers at work creating prototypes of Macs, iPhones and other items.

Want to take a peek at how the sausage is made? This is your chance!

New MacBook Pro with Touch Bar begins trickling in to select Apple stores

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 16, 2016

Just 24 hours after first shipments began arriving to customers, Apple's new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is now available for purchase at select company-run retail stores in the U.S., China and elsewhere.

According to reports on Reddit, MacRumors, AppleInsider and other outlets, a select number of flagship Apple retail locations have received stock and are now offering limited quantities of the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.

How Apple can get users to connect with Apple Music’s Connect

Steffen Reich ∙ Updated May 17, 2018

Apple’s Connect service, the company's own aspiring social component to Apple Music, has visibly taken a back seat in iOS 10. In its original conception, Connect was resourceful and prominently placed in Music. Fast forward one year and you would be forgiven for thinking that Apple’s network for musicians and their followers had been as good as abandoned over night.

While we know that such is not the case just yet, Connect has undergone cosmetic changes with iOS 10 that have arguably ousted the service to a place now pretty much neighbouring on irrelevance. It's the consequence of a succession of ill-advised calls. Name-giving aside, Apple should have also known better when it comes to launching a barren product offer centre stage inside an app as meaningful as Music. Connect was not engaging or relevant in 2015, and as a result it went unsung in 2016. Is it too late or could an Apple still turn the ship around?

How to share Wallet passes

Steffen Reich ∙ Updated July 26, 2022

You volunteered to book event tickets on behalf of a group, and just when your finger is hovering over the eTicket delivery method, you notice you don't have everyone's digits to send the tickets out to their iPhones. Or you do, but a group member has no local number since they're visiting from overseas?

Fret not, because neither of those two scenarios is going to keep you from handing out the passes to your friends' devices. All you need to know for it to come off is a little trick that helps share them conveniently from your own Wallet app.

Apple seeds watchOS 3.1.1 beta 3 to developers

Cody Lee ∙ November 15, 2016

Apple on Tuesday seeded the third beta of watchOS 3.1.1 to developers. The update comes just over a week after beta 2, and it can be installed by registered developers via the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General -> Software Update.

Beloved butt-looking peach emoji is back in iOS 10.2 beta 3, looks even more like a butt

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 15, 2016

The first developer-only beta of the upcoming iOS 10.2 software update for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch brought out more than a hundred new emoji characters, including clown face, selfie, owl, shark, butterfly and pancakes, as well as updated designs for many of the existing, older emojis.

Somewhere through the process of redrawing some of the longstanding emojis, Apple realized its design for the peach emoji didn’t quite look like a butt as the massive discontent among users vehemently insisted.

But don't you panic, emoji lovers and sexting addicts: iOS 10.2 beta 3 packs in a proper butt-looking peach emoji, as noted by The Next Web.

Jony Ive discusses 20 years of iconic Apple designs and that pricey new coffee table book

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 15, 2016

Apple is releasing a pricey book, titled “Designed by Apple in California,” in which it chronicles many iconically designed products it's churned out over the span of past 20 years. Discussing the book's launch, Chief Design Office Jony Ive sat down with Tony Chambers of Wallpaper.com to explain why the iPhone maker set out to publish this book in the first place. Plus, Ive reflects on the nature of objects, the fragility of ideas and much more.

Apple removed nearly 50,000 apps from App Store in October

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 15, 2016

The Great App Store Purge, announced in September, has resulted in the removal of nearly 47,300 outdated, abandoned or non-functioning iPhone, iPad and iPod touch apps from the App Store in October.

That's a 238 percent increase versus the previous month and about 3.4 times more than the average month for the App Store prior to the Great Purge, according to data from research firm Sensor Tower shared by TechCrunch.

KGI details three new iPhones coming in 2017, including 5.5″ OLED model with dual cameras

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 15, 2016

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new report to clients Tuesday, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, that lays out his predictions for Apple's 2017 iPhone refresh. The analyst is calling for a trio of new iPhones next fall, two of which should be upgraded versions of the current models with classic TFT-LCD screens.

As for a third model, it will boast all-new industrial design and utilize power-sipping organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology, according to the analyst's note.

SSD in the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar can’t be upgraded

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated December 27, 2023

After seeing in iFixit's teardown that the base model of the new 2016 MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar had a removable PCIe SSD storage unit, many were excited at the possibility of aftermarket upgrade parts across the new MacBook Pro lineup.

But new images surfacing on the web this week after the first MacBook Pro with Touch Bar units began reaching the hands of buyers are showing that the Touch Bar models don't follow suit and have SSD storage chips soldered into their logic boards instead.