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Spotify for Mac was updated this morning with support for Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro models, German outlet Giga.de reported. A few handy music-playback controls are now available in Spotify's Mac app directly from the Touch Bar, including common controls such as transport and search, as well as persistent Now Playing buttons like play, pause, shuffle, repeat and the volume slider.
Consumer Reports will not be recommending Apple's latest MacBook Pro models due to inconsistent battery performance, the magazine said Thursday. After conducting a battery of tests, Consumer Reports discovered that battery life across all new Pros varied “dramatically” from one test to another.
On the other hand (as I note in this article), the battery woes might be caused by a software issue in Safari for Mac because Chrome (a notorious battery hog) fared far better in the tests.
Be that as it may, Apple's latest notebooks received low rating and failed to earn Consumer Report’s recommendation “after battery life issues surfaced during testing”. As a result, the new MacBook Pro is the first Apple notebook that did not receive a Consumer Reports recommendation, said the magazine.
Less than a month ago, Ukrainian developer Readdle launched Spark for Mac with Touch Bar support and many advanced features to help you achieve Inbox Zero Nirvana. Last evening, the app received a bunch of new features in the new 1.1 update. You can now assign a different color to each email account so it's easier to distinguish in the account list. Multiple messages can now be marked as spam at once, IMAP folders can be created directly from the sidebar, contacts now sync with your address book and more.
Following comments made by Tim Cook regarding the importance of the Mac, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today issued a far-reaching report that offers insight into Apple's internal struggle with its laptop and desktop lines.
In the scoop, Gurman says that employees he's interviewed feel like the Mac is getting far less attention these days. They also say it's lost clout with Jony Ive's design team, and lacks a clear direction from senior management.
Apple on Tuesday seeded to members of the Apple Developer Program a second beta of iOS 10.2 and a second beta of what would become the third major update to macOS Sierra. iOS 10.2.1 beta 2 (build 14D15) and macOS Sierra 10.12.3 beta 2 (build 16D17a) are now available to install over-the-air via Settings → General → Software Update on iOS devices and under the Mac App Store's Updates tab on the Mac.
LG's UltraFine 5K Display, the external ultra high-resolution display Apple didn't want to make, is now available to order through Apple.com. The display can be ordered with Apple's in-store pickup option (availability of in-store pickup may vary from one store to another). First orders were scheduled to deliver on December 27 or 28, with in-store pickup availability on December 29. However, estimated delivery times quickly slipped to 2-4 weeks.
Duet Display, an app from ex-Apple engineers that turns your iPad into an extra display for your Mac or Windows PC, was updated today on the App Store with an interesting new feature that adds a Touch Bar to your tablet. Simply use Duet Display's free of charge iOS app to connect to Duet Display running on a Mac with Sierra 10.12.2 or later and enable the new feature in Duet's menu bar settings.
Apple has "great desktops" in its roadmap, CEO Tim Cook said in a recent posting to an employee message board. TechCrunch has the transcript, where Cook fields a question regarding whether or not Mac desktops are still strategic for Apple.
The comments come after the company's MacBook Pro event this October, where iMacs and Minis were noticeably absent. It's been over 430 days since Apple updated the former, and nearly 800 days for the latter. The Mac Pro is 3+ years old.
After refreshing Deliveries for iOS with full iOS 10 and watchOS 3 support and other nice-to-haves four days ago, Deliveries for Mac was updated on the Mac App Store with full support for macOS Sierra, Touch Bar shortcuts on the new MacBook Pro and more.
Touch Bar shortcuts can be customized for features like shipping company suggestions when you add a delivery, auto-complete for email addresses, a 1Password button when it's appropriate and more.
Last week's macOS Sierra 10.12.2 software update squashed a number of bugs and patched a few newly discovered vulnerabilities, among them one that allowed an attacker to obtain your FileVault disk encryption password by plugging in a $300 Thunderbolt device into a locked or sleeping Mac.
As detailed by security researcher Ulf Frisk, attackers must have physical access to your Mac in order to exploit the vulnerability. The obtained password may be used to unlock your Mac's disk and access everything on it.
Try these solutions if iCloud Notes are not syncing across your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web.
The macOS Sierra 10.12.2 software update, released three days ago, removes your Mac battery's time remaining indicator but owners of the new MacBook Pro won't see any improvements to their notebook's battery life as a result of the update.
As ArsTechnica noted, the company “told us repeatedly and emphatically that it had taken no specific steps to improve MacBook Pro battery life” with macOS Sierra 10.12.2.
Now, some people have reported seeing improved battery performance after installing the update on their MacBook Pro, but there's a reasonable explanation for that.